Top’s eyebrows rose, and he motioned to Matt, who took off, out of the room. Hope sparked inside of me, because it seemed as if they knew what she was talking about.
Morbid curiosity got the best of me. “Do you remember how it felt?” I asked. “Or were you sedated?”
“I was not sedated. There was pain, all day, headaches. I vomited many times.”
Oh, my God. Those complete assholes. Monsters. I clenched my hands into fists.
“We’re going to do our best to get The Helpers out of you,” I promised.
They said nothing. No responses.
A few minutes passed before Matt sprinted back into the room, huffing as he passed the rectangular box to Top.
“Was this it?” Top asked the woman.
“Yes,” she said. “The magnet.”
“Is that what they called it?” I asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
The four of us gathered around as Top turned it over in his hand. Nothing was written on it, but on one side was a switch that could slide right or left. At the moment, it was in the middle.
“Do you think it controls it?” Captain Ward asked.
I nodded. “I think so. Do we have something that can check the magnetic field of it?”
“Yeah,” Matt said. “I’ll need about an hour.”
“We’ll meet at the tech room after dinner,” Top said.
As we were leaving the room, two soldiers were coming up the stairs outside with trays of food for the humans. I really hoped we could figure this out quickly, and I hoped even more that if we could get these things out, the people would be allies.
I barely ate because I was so busy telling Rylen and the others what was going on. Matt wasn’t there. The mess hall was like a cafeteria. Right now it was bustling and loud.
Shavontae and Devon were at the end of the table with Tyree, who ate and ate, not paying any attention to our conversation.
“Up their noses?” J.D. exclaimed with a shiver. “That is disgusting.” He put a hand over his nose.
“It’s cruel that they can remember,” Officer Sean said. “But if they’d been put under, they wouldn’t have been able to give you that information.”
“We’ll make sure they’re under anesthesia when we try to get them out,” I promised.
The front door flew open, and Matt stood there swiveling his head. I jumped to my feet as Captain Ward did the same at his table. Matt caught sight of us both and waved hurriedly.
Before I could step away, Rylen grabbed my hand and I looked into his proud eyes.
“Good luck, Pepper.”
I leaned down and kissed him before running for the doors.
We took the woman who’d given us the information first. Sedating her was easy. Matt explained that the switch controlled the positive and negative magnetisms, and we all believed negative was needed to send a signal to the worm to disengage and exit.
So many things could go wrong, but we had to try.
Captain Ward held the magnet to her forehead and flipped the switch. I stood behind her, holding the sides of her face. It took a full thirty seconds of nervous waiting before her body jolted, and I sucked in a breath, holding her tighter.
Her body began to lightly convulse, sending my heart racing. I looked at the monitor to be sure she wasn’t seizing. Her heart rate was fast, but still in the safe zone. Again, her body jerked, back arching more violently than before, and Captain Ward gaped.
