Rise Read online

  Author: K.T. Hanna

  Cover Artist: Caitlin Greer

  Typography: Bonnie Price

  Layout & Design: Caitlin Greer

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 Katie Hanna

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook ISBN-13: 978-1-948983-24-2

  Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-948983-23-5

  Hardback ISBN-13: 978-1-948983-25-9

  Last Chance:

  Rise

  Somnia Online:

  Initializing

  Anomaly

  Fragments

  Dissonance

  Distortion

  Fusion

  The Domino Project:

  Chameleon

  Hybrid

  Parasite

  Dedication:

  Andie

  For becoming so much more than I ever imagined

  Electricity doesn’t taste like you think it will. The only thing that stands out about it is the smell of burnt flesh, down through into the bones. It tastes more in line with its scent, like charred chicken without the barbecue sauce.

  It lingers in the back of your throat, pulsing like an electric eel while it strangles the life from your body.

  The drone of the ambulance siren pulled me out of the haze.

  I blinked, my eyes sticky with something, probably blood. Knowing my luck though, it could be something worse. The throbbing in my head wouldn’t abate, and voices leaked through to me like I was floating through some sort of abyss and they were miles away.

  “I’ve got a pulse.” The shock in that voice almost made me laugh, only oxygen didn’t seem to too fond of me right then, and I dragged in a ragged breath, surprising myself with the pain that echoed through my chest.

  Something flickered behind my eyelids. Like when you look at the sun too long only to have that damned circle of blazing light stuck with you no matter where you look, with open eyes or not.

  “That can’t be.” The second voice was deeper, filled with confusion that struggled to remain professional. “I could have sworn they were gone.”

  I got it though. It felt like I should be dead. Brief images flashed through my mind. Pain so searing it took my hard-earned breath away again. So, either I was having a hell of a ride straight up to the not-so-pearly gates, or I was still alive.

  Somehow.

  The light flashed again behind my eyelids, momentarily distracting me from the EMS attendants I’d managed to stump with whatever had happened. It’d come to me eventually; I just couldn’t quite remember at that moment.

  Amidst the prodding at my arms, there was a mild sting as they inserted what I assumed to be an IV, underscored by rash movement as the ambulance sped through crowded streets. They should be crowded unless I’d somehow jumped dimensions in a Tardis.

  This time when the light returned behind my eyelids that still weren’t cooperating with me, it rippled across my lack of vision reminding me of the older computer screens when they booted up, flickering into their 8-bit glory.

  Please wait while the system adjusts to your confinements. This won’t take long.

  I blinked. Literally. Disconcerting as it was, I was as thrown off balance for a few seconds. With the influx of light from the stark white interior, the message I thought I’d seen vanished in a haze of brightness. Whatever it was had to have hit me in the head a lot harder than I realized.

  Or burned me to a crisp as the electrical line collapsed on top of me.

  That explained the taste. Images came rushing back, and I squeezed my eyes shut not eager to relive my near demise. Except there it was again, when I shut my eyes. In silver white letters like it was tattooed on the back of my eyelids in spider silk:

  Core rebooting in… 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,

  Second Chance System enabled.

  Species: Human

  Ability: Electricity

  Designation: Runner

  Rank: Junior

  Skills: To Be Determined

  Data analysis processing…

  And I had no fucking idea what it meant.

  “... your eyes?”

  The deeper, first voice seemed to be waiting for an answer from me, only I wasn’t entirely sure what the question had been. Obviously, it was something like can you open your eyes. In fabulous fashion, I decided to simply force my eyes open again instead of giving an answer. Although in hindsight, the screech of pain that escaped me when the bright light pierced my vision once again was probably enough of one.

  At least the words disappeared for a while. A very short while. Once the brightness faded, they were there again, but subtler. They’d only become obvious if I tried to focus on them, but they lingered at the corner of my vision when I didn’t. Since I didn’t wear contacts, it wasn’t as though someone could play a practical joke on me. There was writing in my eyes and lightning in my veins, apparently. Not a nightmare, but I wasn’t sure I could trust this as reality either.

  This trip to the hospital was going to be super fun. The ambulance rattled over a pothole and made me groan.

  “That’s a yes.” Slowly the deeper voice came into focus. He wore his EMS uniform like an honor badge, sandy brown hair dusted just below his eyebrows, and it swayed in time with the vehicle’s movements. “Don’t sit up yet.”

  He continued marking off several things on a chart, a frown tugging at his lips. His name badge declared to everyone who could read that his name was Shane.

  “Well, in good news, you seem to be alive.”

  “Shouldn’t we check with the doctor first?” was what I tried to say, but my voice wouldn’t work yet. It felt like fire was busy rushing down my throat to burn whatever remained of my body to cinders.

  “No talking. We’re almost there.” Shane’s gaze lingered on me for another moment, a thoughtful gleam in his eyes.

  No talking. No problem. Wasn’t like I could say much. I closed my eyes again and instantly regretted it. Except this time the initial message was relegated to the side. This time it told me something else.

  Calibrating your current location. Assessing your abilities. You, Dare Harvey, have been gifted with the power of electricity and have been raised from the dead. You are hereby conscripted by the system to aid in the war against humanity.

  Stand by.

  My brain reeled even as the vehicle slowed. Maybe I’d hit my head harder than I thought. War against humanity? I was human last time I checked. However, perhaps I was a zombie now. My head hurt thinking about it.

  Hospitals never held a feeling of well-being for me. All they demonstrated was death. My grandfather, my auntie, even a cousin...all of them went to the hospital and didn’t come back out. Granted, my brain realized this was because they were ill and the hospital itself didn’t kill them. But a part of me always wondered, because how can we ever know? Not to mention that I was apparently hallucinating words in front of my eyes.

  I’m sure I could have walked myself inside the death trap, but good old Shane decided it was better for me to remain on my gurney as they pushed me in through the ER entrance and into chaos. Considering they’d thought I was dead, he was probably right to be cautious. My muscles ached in ways that made me question if they’d be able to support my weight right now.

  The cold hit me as soon as we entered the structure. No one else appeared to be shivering. I think the electrocution short circuited my eyes o
r something, because everything not up close and personal seemed blurred and whacky.

  What were the odds there’d be a clown standing in the hall with a blue balloon otherwise?

  I shook my head and tried to get comfortable on the rolling bed, but the mattress section was hard and cold through the sheets. In a way it resembled the hard sidewalk I could barely remember falling on. Guess they didn’t hit the warmer when they thought I was a corpse. How the fuck was I alive? If I was to believe the floating information, I’d been brought back from the dead. A hysterical giggle began to form in the back of my throat and I choked it down lest they think I needed a different hospital.

  They wheeled me into a room. An actual room and not just one partitioned with curtains. The other EMT left after swapping my plugins over to the ones in the room where they picked up an even beat. The bass of the sound hummed through my body, relaxing me.

  Shane stayed, pausing at the door hesitantly. It looked like he wanted to say something, but the words weren’t bypassing the block in his brain. Probably not something I wanted to hear given the circumstances, and yet something I might need. I waited, impatiently, uncomfortably, while I tried to ignore the sterile feeling of death as the underlying scent of antiseptic permeated my senses.

  “Dr. Caroline will be with you shortly.” He paused again and softened the next words preemptively with a smile. “She’s a bit of a character. Don’t let her brusque manner get you down. You’re pretty damned lucky.”

  And with that, before I could even say thank you—or what the fuck do you mean—Shane was gone. The examination room I was in was small and had no windows. Even the soft glow of the X-Ray boxes on one side of the room wasn’t enough to make it comfortable. It was the only light in the room, casting shadows of the equipment against the other walls. If I were still five years old, I might think they were all monsters, but they weren’t. I wasn’t. That period of time felt like another life.

  I snorted a laugh, because in a way, I guess it was. New lease on life? Check. Rid of weird phobias about hospitals and claustrophobia? Big nope there. I went to pull myself up, and gripped the side of my gurney, only to yelp as static shock ran up my arm.

  Visibly. What the hell? Small flashes of blue sparked under my skin, and I just knew I had to be hallucinating.

  There was a clicking noise in the room, and I closed my eyes, blocking out the shadows, blocking out the sound, and tried to convince myself it was nothing. And yet, at the bottom corners of my eyelids were small swirling circles, like my brain was waiting for something to load. Counting down.

  “Dare Harvey?”

  The crisp and cool way the words were spoken made me sit up despite my resolution to stay lying down. This time I didn’t reach for anything, engaging those trusty core muscles, and managed to avoid that display of electrical current I wasn’t ready for.

  Even as I tried to nod, my head spun with the sudden movement, and the doctor who entered swam into vision. It was odd in itself, wasn’t it? That I didn’t have a nurse or PA check me over first? After all, doctors were always the last stop, just to confirm there was nothing wrong. Perhaps the EMTs counted for that. Maybe.

  “Yeah.” I found myself squeezing the word out between clenched teeth as I tried desperately to fight against the vertigo spell that wouldn’t abate. Shocking myself, head spinning, I wasn’t right and I knew it.

  Input. Gathering data. Calculating surroundings. Piping in allocations.

  What the everliving...

  This was going to get annoying if my head had really decided a computer lived in it. Years of therapy, that’s what this accident was going to cause. Years of debt because of the cost of therapy which presumably would continue after my parent’s insurance no longer carried me. Fan-fucking-tastic.

  Finally, the doctor came to stand in front of me. She was tall, a little taller than me, probably around five nine without the heels. Her no-nonsense black hair was pulled back into a tight bun and her eyes hid behind black rimmed spectacles so much that the faint light in the room reflected in the lenses, obscuring her eye color.

  Doctor Leigh Caroline

  Designation: Healer

  Rank: Mentor

  Skills: Mind/Spirit/Water

  Second Chance Affiliate

  Point of Contact. Supervisor.

  I blinked, still trying to figure out what the hell was happening to my mind. Surely it wasn’t just my imagination? Apparently it thought I should just accept the fact that I was obviously going insane.

  “Leigh Caroline.” She nodded and her smile was as tight as her bun. All business, like I’d interrupted something important. “Though I assume you already know this.”

  Maybe this wasn’t crazy after all. Fear bubbled in my throat, trying to make me throw up. But I choked it down before speaking in defiance. “What is this thing in my head?”

  Had the electricity somehow implanted me with…nope, I was drawing a blank. I had no fucking clue. And my voice sounded like my vocal folds were made of sandpaper.

  She cocked her head to one side, like she was trying to figure out if I was kidding or not. Coming down on the latter, she sighed. “Looks like it’s bugging again then. It does that sometimes. You’ve been given a second chance. At life.”

  She spoke the words like I was supposed to just laugh and go, Oh! How silly of me. Except I didn’t, and I’m pretty sure my blank stare at her said exactly that.

  Swiping her finger across the tablet she held in her hand, she bit her lip before speaking. “You were hit by a dislodged electrical cable. In the moment of your death, it was determined that you and your skillset could be of use to the program.” She spoke slowly and deliberately, like I was a five-year-old. Which was ultimately fine by me, because I didn’t understand anything.

  “So, while I was lying there on the pavement dead for all intents and purposes, someone came along, dodged the sparking wires, and injected me with a microchip, using their invisibility cloak so no one standing around would think something was up?” Incredulous though it sounded, I’m quite proud to say I think I delivered the question with a deadpan face. No pun intended. Not really anyway.

  I actually managed to get the good doctor to crack a smile, even if it barely covered her irritation.

  “No. No. Don’t be silly. There’s a failsafe built into the human body. Has been for thousands of years, beginning of the species type thing. If the program needs the power of potential skills gained through the cause of our death, then we receive a second chance.” She continued the smile, and if I could have done so without my head spinning, I would have patted myself on the back.

  “What’s the catch?” Because I’ve always found cutting right to the center of things helped. That whole tiptoeing around shit never got anyone anywhere. There was always a catch.

  She appeared to be relieved by the question, but didn’t look at me. Instead, as she spoke, her fingers flew across the tablet in her hands. “There is a terms of service agreement you’ll be able to access. You have to read through those and accept them. Should you break any of them, your program access will be terminated. Should you—”

  “Wait. Terminated? You mean, my Second Chance thing will be gone, and I’ll be dead?” Like how the hell did she try to gloss over that?

  This time she wouldn’t meet my eyes. I couldn’t blame her; in fact, I felt a bit of pity for her. Who wanted to be the person breaking the news to newbies that if you didn’t abide by the terms of service, your connection would be literally severed? Shivers that felt like minor convulsions shook me for a few moments.

  “Technically, this is borrowed time. You were meant to die. And while bending those terms or not following your assignments as given can result in punishment, breaking the rules jeopardizes the program itself. Since you were meant to be dead anyway...” She shrugged at me, and put her screen down.

  “I get it.” I
did, but I couldn’t help the cold ball of fear in my gut. “What does this program do?”

  She brightened at that question, and the smile dropped years off her age as it reached her eyes. They glinted oddly silver for a moment, but then it was gone. “It helps us prevent the human race from destroying itself.”

  “Don’t suppose we help the world in the process? You know, extinction, murder, and whatnot.” I half joked, but the serious side wouldn’t let me go further than that.

  Dr. Caroline nodded, her seriousness back on like a mask as she fished a device out of her pocket. In a way it reminded me of one of those infant nose suckers I’d seen my eldest sister use on my niece. “In a way. If there’s no world left, there’s nowhere for us to exist.”

  “That’s a relief.” I tried to joke, but the air felt so thick, I couldn’t breathe properly. The monitor behind me seemed to disagree and maintained its monotonous beeping without change.

  “Hold still.” I did as told and she punched in a series of buttons on the device before stepping back to look at me with a frown. “While your body is mostly okay, this will help promote and speed up the healing process.”

  Whatever that thing in her hand was, it was definitely not a nose sucker. Thin tendrils escaped from the front of it, glowing like dull white lasers. Everywhere it touched my body, I felt a breeze of cold rejuvenation blow through, somehow under my skin.

  The doctor frowned as she got to my left shoulder, and paused. “I can’t fix that scar.”

  Though I wasn’t comfortable with the device that reminded me of a tiny space octopus, I glanced down. My left bicep down to the top of my forearm, and for all I knew all the way up my shoulder under my shirt, was covered in what looked like a tree root system.

  “Lichtenberg scar.” Dr Caronline murmured. “Not even this can heal that.”

  “What is that?” I asked softly, still trying to take in the plethora of information that was swimming around in my head.