Sifters by Shane Scollins

Author:Shane Scollins [Scollins, Shane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Limitless Publishing LLC
Published: 2014-09-01T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Tallon pressed the red button on the intercom box, the buzzer sounded, and he waited for a response. The speaker crackled and he replied, “It’s me.” After a few seconds, the lock clicked open and he yanked the handle. He let Rotus and Dia step past, then locked the door behind him.

The building was only one main room, all beige, with a small office to the rear where Ebo stood by the door near a gurney. Chloe lay there surrounded by machines and other medical equipment. It tugged at his heart to see his baby sister like that. “How’s she doing?”

Ebo placed the stethoscope on a rolling cart near the gurney. “She’s stable.” She looked at Rotus, scrunched her brow, and bobbed her finger at him. “I remember you.”

Rotus nodded. “We’ve met in the past.”

Ebo turned her head and then looked back at him. “I met you at MIT. You were part of the faculty lecture group.”

Rotus nodded. “I never forget a name or a face, especially not yours. You left quite the impression on the medical advisors.”

Ebo smiled. “I try to leave my mark.”

Tallon interrupted, “Small word, good times, could we get on with this?”

Rotus placed his leather bag on the stainless steel table next to the gurney. He pulled out a device with a touch-screen and attached alligator clips to the two steel posts protruding from the top. He looked at Ebo. “I need you to attach an EKG, and an EEG. I’m also going to need the paddles charged.”

Ebo started sticking the adhesive-backed diodes to Chloe’s chest and head. One by one, she put the sticky pads into place, and attached the leads. Once they were all on, she plugged them into the machines.

Ebo looked at Tallon with concern. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

Tallon shrugged. “Has anyone?”

“I have,” Rotus assured them. “It’s a detailed and painstaking procedure, but with a little luck we should be fine. Once I’m able to determine which model it is, it’s no problem.”

“How’s it work?” Tallon asked.

“Each device has a specific RFID signature,” Rotus replied. “I’ll know what it is when I see it.”

Ebo punched some keys on the computer attached to the EKG. “Tell me what you need.”

Rotus slid a USB card from his pocket and stuck it into the tablet computer. “The device is in her bloodstream. It’s injected, and then it splits in two. One of them deploys a spur and adheres itself somewhere near the central cortex. The other one travels around through the system, while it sends out specific signals that force the body to produce different hormones. In this case it’s the same effect as sodium amytal or sodium pentothal, only they can extract the information more directly. There’s really no beating one of these.”

“What’s the catch?” Tallon asked.

“The catch is that when these two devices come back together in the brain, they tend to short out. And they take the patient’s brain with it. It was a defect, which I eventually perfected.

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