Ground Zero: Prequel to Numbered Series Read Online Free Page A

you can.”
    It was a comfort to her. She remained worried, but
intellectually understood what she was being told. The situation was made
slightly better when Marnee's distinctive tone sounded from Aurelia's screen.
    “I did it,” she said, the moment that Aurelia clicked
the com icon. “The call came this afternoon when I got home, and I had to go
straight back to the hospital. But I did it. I injected.”
    Though Marnee was her best friend, Aurelia hadn't
shared all her thoughts on injecting with her. To think as she did was
tantamount to treason, and she knew that Marnee had not been brought up in the
same way as she had. Marnee's fears had been those shared by most Trainees,
that when the time came they wouldn't be able to do the job. As it turned out
though, the patient chosen for Marnee had been desperately ill, and injecting
had been a mercy.
    “Things were so still, so quiet after,” Marnee said.
“Like something had left the room. It was weird.”
    Aurelia smiled, doing her best to be happy for her
friend. But inside she still had waves of nausea at the thought of taking a
life. And she knew that her time was coming.

 
    The call came late at night, just two days after
Marnee's successful first injection. Aurelia was already undressed and in bed,
but when she saw the alert on her screen she threw back the covers and rapidly
began pulling her uniform back on. She acted quickly because she was trained to
act quickly, it was second nature to her, but also so
that she didn't have time to think about what was to happen. Quietly, she left
her bedroom pod, but her father was still at his desk.
    “It's time,” she said.
    He stood, and came to her. Briefly he held her, then let her go.
    “Be strong,” he said. “And no matter what, I love
you.”
    She swallowed and nodded, but before she could respond
the chime sounded to tell her that her transport pod was at the door.
    The flight to the hospital was a short one, the small
transport pod hovering over the grid like streets of the City, mostly empty of
traffic at this time of night. Within five minutes, the pod was humming and
descending, engine idling as it sank to the ground. Aurelia got out, slammed
the door, and the pod took off again, fading quickly into the night. Looking up
she saw lit windows, small squares of light, each one a patient or two or five.
Which, she wondered, was the room she was going to?
    She stopped at the reception desk and gave her
personal ID number, and a young woman directed her to the room where her
Trainer was waiting. Still not thinking, keeping her
mind on what she was currently doing rather than what she would do, Aurelia got
into the elevator and pressed the appropriate button.
    It wasn't until she was standing outside the door that
she had a flash of real thought. I don't want to do this. I don't want to take
the life that's behind this door. But she had little choice. She kept her
father's words in her head as she reached for the handle and slid the door
open.
    “Ms. Cole,” said the Trainer, who was standing quietly
beside the single bed in the room. “Take your time.”
    The Trainer was one she would come to know well,
though right now she had known him only for the two weeks that she'd been a
Year Five student. But she knew the drill, knew what was expected of her.
Cautiously, she approached the bed.
    Her face was yellowed, but the skin unlined. Dark,
wavy hair spread out on the pillow. She was young, younger than Aurelia had
expected. Maybe a year or two older than she herself was. It was clear from her
pallor that something was very, very wrong here, though the woman's breathing
was deep, drugged and even.
    Aurelia folded back the sheet that covered the
patient, and took a moment to examine the woman's body visually. She could see
nothing obviously wrong. Placing her hand on the woman's chest she felt her
warm, soft skin. Blinking at the vitality of the feeling, Aurelia began to
carefully palpitate the abdomen.
    She