Sovereign (Sovereign Series) by E.R. Arroyo

one of the
older ones.  She deposits me into a sterile room with the metal table I
expected.  She hands me a plastic robe and tells me to put it on with the
opening to the back. 
    When
she returns, I’m shivering uncontrollably from cold and apprehension.  She’s
holding a tray of empty tubes that my blood is about to fill.  She sets it down
and opens my chart to the first page. 
    “Number?”
she asks.
    “1206.”
    She
slips a gadget out of her pocket and holds it out for me.  “Confirm,” she
orders.  I press my index finger on the smooth glass surface, and it reads my
print.  A green light tells her I am who I said then she returns it to her
pocket. 
    The
woman wraps a pouch around my arm and presses a sensor on the veins inside my
elbow.  She scribbles down what the machine tells her.
    “What’s
that?” I ask.
    “Routine
vitals.  Everything is normal so far.”
    Nice
of her to explain, I’m sure she didn’t have to.  Her face is quite close to
emotionless, though.  I don’t understand how the adults here, no matter their
age, are like robots.  It’s like they turn eighteen and suddenly mature to the
age of sixty.
    “On
your back,” she says, and I comply.  She presses her hands into my abdomen, and
I wince at the pain.  She’s checking my organs, I guess, but she doesn’t
realize there’s a giant bruise there from someone’s fist.  I don’t bother
asking her to be careful. 
    Next
she checks my reflexes.  Then she puts me on a treadmill like the ones in the
Underage workout room.  She has me hooked to sensors and monitors while she
cranks up the speed gradually until I’m flat out sprinting. 
    “Can
you go any faster?”
    “I
think so,” I exhale.
    She
turns it up a little more and I keep up.  She cranks it up again without
asking, and I have to let go of the bars to keep my balance, swinging my arms
at my sides.  But I’m still on.  She cranks it up one more time and it’s all I
can do to stay on.  I get the impression she’s going to keep turning it up
until I fall off.  Sure enough she pushes the button again, and my legs
falter.  I move toward the end of the pad and feel my feet slipping out from
under me.  Right as I’m falling and catching myself on the ground, she cuts the
machine off. 
    Next,
I’m lifting weights, and I’m sure she wants to find my breaking point here, as
well.  We go through a similar routine as we did with the running.  She piles
on more and more weight until I can’t lift anymore.  I’m not sure what a good number
is or what the numbers even mean. 
    Finally
we get to the needles.  First she takes a stick with cotton on the end and rubs
it all around the inside of my mouth and seals it in a tube.  Then she places a
device in my arm to which she proceeds to attach vial after vial, filling them
with my blood.  At the end, I feel a little woozy.  Another exhausting day
makes me wonder if I’ll ever feel rested again. 
    I
follow her down the hall where she takes x-ray pictures of my bones.  Next she
puts me inside a machine that makes a loud, humming noise all the way around
me.  After that, I’m on a table with sensors on my temples and forehead.  They
pump something into my arm where the blood-drawing device is still attached. 
The fluid is clear and stings a little. 
    Suddenly,
everything around me seems dull.  The lights are dimmer, and the sound of her
voice counting off grows more and more faint.  My vision gets darker and darker
and stops at a shade of gray that matches the clouds.  I hear noise, but it’s
muffled and I can’t understand it.  I feel pulses enter my body through the
sensors.  I think they’ve attached even more of them, because I feel stinging
sensations on my arms, legs and chest, as well as my head.  I feel like I want
to scream, like I’m losing control.  No, I’m already out of control.  I feel
lost and out of place, and so very tired.  I fight hard to open my eyes, and to
make out