“You are a feisty little Starter,” he said.
I stared back at him. He pulled out a chair and sat.
“I would like to know more about Hyden,” he said.
“As I told the last Ender, I think you should ask him.”
“Wouldn’t you rather we not do it that way?” He squinted, as if contemplating some unsavory task.
“I don’t know much about him.”
“Is it true he invented the chip that you have in your head?”
“He would have to be pretty smart at his age, to do that.”
“He is pretty smart.” He leaned forward on the table and grabbed my wrist. “You, Callie Woodland, were the one we wanted. You’re the only one with an altered chip that allows you to kill. You’re the only one who is an M.A.D.”
I tried to pull away, but he held on.
“Multiple Access Donor. You’re the only one who can have someone in your head without totally transposing you. You are still aware. You can hear them. And that means that you can also have another person inside. This is something no one has been able to re-create in any other Metal.”
His nails were digging into my skin. “You’re hurting me. Do you really want to hurt the only M.A.D. Metal?”
He looked down at my wrist and let go. I put it behind my back. I didn’t want him to see me rubbing it.
I remembered what Hyden had said. So these guys were his father’s competition? Maybe they were going to sell the chip off to some terrorist group or enemy country. Or maybe they were a terrorist group themselves.
“So you’ve been doing all this research about chip technology …”
“Yes,” Dawson said. “We have.”
“With these experts …”
“We have some of the best.”
“But you can’t re-create the chip yourselves.”
“It is the keystone, and it eludes us.”
“We don’t want these chips in our heads anymore,” I said. “You can have them. I believe you have an expert here who can remove them.”
“You know it is very difficult. Very precise work. The skill required is a cross between a demolitions expert and a brain surgeon.”
“Yes. But you have the person to do it, don’t you?”
He stared at me with piercing eyes. I could tell he was considering it, as if it could be the answer to all his problems.
“Remember, you asked for this,” he said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Dawson gathered all of us in the large room where we’d first entered. Hyden, Emma, me, and Michael. The projection now was of the snowy Himalayas.
I rushed over to Michael, wanting to know how he was, what they’d done to him, but Dawson stopped me. He’d brought in an Ender he referred to only as “the Doctor” to talk to us. He had an accent, Swedish or Norwegian.
“Removal of the chip is a risky process,” the Doctor said. “We know from the scans that it is attached with a weblike pattern.”
“It’s quite ingenious. The chip itself creates the web,” Dawson said.
“Due to variations from human to human, it makes it trickier to determine how to unhook it,” the Doctor said. He motioned with his fingers, curling them like hooks. “But finally we have the inventor of the chip here with us to ask.”
Hyden glared at him. “You need to ask my father. I had the concept and the initial designs. He created the physical chip and figured out how it would be implanted.”
The Doctor’s smile melted.
Dawson pulled out a chair and sat. “Have you ever watched an implantation surgery?”
“Lots of times,” Hyden said. “But never a removal.”
“But it can be done?” Dawson asked.
“Theoretically. But practically, I wouldn’t touch it.” Hyden folded his arms. “And neither should you.”
“Why is that?” the Doctor asked.
“Because it’s a big risk.”
“Any surgery is a risk,” the Doctor said. “But we do them.”
People started talking at once, arguing the pros and cons of chip surgery until no one could be heard.
Emma stepped forward. “I want mine out.”
Everyone stopped talking and turned toward her.
“Take it out,” she said. “You can have it.”
With a surprised expression, the Doctor turned to Dawson. “We have a volunteer.”
She held up her hand. “Yes. Use me.”
“Emma, are you sure?” I asked.
“Why, you want to go ahead of me?” she said. “You can’t. I asked first.”
“Do you know the risk you’re taking?” Hyden asked her, shaking his head almost imperceptibly.
“Don’t you try to talk me out of this. I hate this thing in my head. Worst decision ever,” she said. “I don’t want men tracking me, chasing, hunting me down.” She pointed at me. “You know, you all do, that this is what it’s going to be like for the rest of our lives. We will always be hunted for what we can do, for the chip itself. Let’s just get it over with now and go back to living our lives. I want to go back to my grandma. Finish school. Go to parties again. The war is over, but I’m still living it, every day. I’m so sick of it. Take the stupid thing out of my head. Please.”