Rebirth - Chapter 5
The steel door to the prison block appeared ahead, the guards already moving to open it...
★★★★★ "Astounding, outstanding and makes the maze runner series in comparison seem like elementary school games."
In 2051, the United States has fallen. The Western Allied States is the new power in North America, and ruthlessly eradicate any threat to the union. Traitors are executed without trial, their children seized for a secret program.
Runaway teenager Liz wants nothing more than a normal life, but the government’s hunters have other plans. Abducted off the streets, she’s spirited away to a facility deep in the Californian mountains. There, Liz wakes in a cage – and she’s not alone.
Beside her, eighteen-year-old Chris stands wrongfully accused of treason. The two are now volunteers in the Genome Project – an experimental program to enhance the human race. Stripped of their rights, they will soon learn the true depths of human cruelty. The two must work together to survive, but even then, their chances are slim. Of course, only the lucky get to die.
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The steel door to the prison block appeared ahead, the guards already moving to open it. In a blink, they were through, marching down the long corridor of the prison block. The cells were almost empty now, only a few faces remaining to press against the bars and watch Chris’s return.
When he first saw their cell, he thought it was empty. But as the guards drew the door open, he glimpsed movement from Liz’s bed, saw her haggard face poke into view. She watched in grim silence as the guards propelled Chris inside.
Steel screeched behind him, followed by the clang of the locking mechanism. Footsteps retreated down the corridor, fading until another clang announced their departure.
Reaching out, Chris gripped the metal bar of his bunk. His legs shook, threating to give way. He closed his eyes, waiting for Liz to speak, to hurl her accusations.
You killed him.
The words whispered in his mind, but Liz remained silent. Only the distant tread of the guard in the corridor could be heard. He took a deep breath, tasting the bleach in the air, the blood from a cut on his lip.
“Are you okay?” He jumped as Liz finally spoke.
He looked up then, finding Liz’s big eyes watching him, and saw his own pain reflected in their sapphire depths. She sat in her bunk, knuckles wide as she gripped the metal sidebar. Her eyes watered and a single tear streaked down her cheek.
“No.” Chris’s shoulders slumped. “You?”
She shook her head, looked away, but he had seen the flash of guilt in her eyes. The truth hung over the room like a blanket, smothering them.
They were alive.
Taking a better grip of his bunk, Chris hauled himself up. Dragging himself across the sagging mattress, he collapsed into his pillow. Then he turned and saw Liz still watching him. Her lips trembled. There was no sign of the proud, defiant girl he’d first seen in the cages. The last few days, last few hours, had broken her.
Broken us both, a voice reminded him.
Pushing himself up, Chris twisted to face Liz. “Did they…” his voice trailed off. He couldn’t finish the question.
Her crystal blue eyes found his, shining in the glow of the overhead lights. “No,” she whispered. “I did.”
A chill went through Chris at her words. He stared at her, noticing now the purple bruise on her cheek, the dried blood on her lip. His eyes travelled lower and found the swollen black skin beneath her collar. He shuddered. Her struggle had been far more real than his. He remembered the boy Joshua, guessed he was the one…
“What happened?” he murmured.
Liz closed her eyes. “I didn’t mean…” She sucked in a breath, and her eyes flashed open. “I didn’t want to,” she finished with a growl.
Chris nodded, leaning back against the concrete wall. “You did what you had to, Liz,” he offered.
“He would have killed me,” she continued as though he had not spoken. “I had to do it. He left me no choice…”
Chris felt a sudden urge to wrap his arms around the girl, to hold her until the pain left her. This was a side of her he had not seen, the vulnerability beneath the armour she’d worn from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. Gone was the hardness, the distant air of superiority. The foulness of this place had eaten the rest, had reduced them both to shadows of their former selves.
He could almost feel his humanity fading away, slipping through his fingers like grains of rice. With each fresh atrocity he witnessed, with every awful thing they forced him to do, he could feel his soul slipping away, feel himself becoming the animal they thought him to be. One way or another, soon he would cease to exist, and nothing would remain of the boy his mother had raised.
“It doesn’t matter.” Liz looked up at that. He continued, his voice breaking. “Whether you killed him or not, only one of you was ever walking out of that room. After my… after William fell, the doctors came. He couldn’t stand, couldn’t defend himself. They executed him.”
A sharp hiss of breath came from Liz, but it was a long time before she replied. “Who are these people?”
Monsters. Chris thought, but did not speak the word.
Across from him, Liz started to cough. A long, drawn out series of wheezes and gasps rattled from her chest, going on and on, until her face was flushed red and her brow creased with pain.
Finally, she leaned back against the wall, panting for breath.
“Are you okay?” Chris whispered
Liz opened her eyes and stared at him. “Of course, city boy. I can take a beating.”
Chris winced. His own anger rose but he bit back a curt reply. There was no point taking offence. He could see her pain, knew where the anger came from. He had not missed the coldness with which she addressed them at times, her hesitation to join their conversations.
Another rattle came from her chest as she laid her head back against the wall.
“We’re not all bad, you know,” he said at last. “Not all rich, either. There are a lot of people who disagree with the government now, even in the cities. There have been protests…”
“Protests?” Liz coughed, her voice wry. “Well, nice to hear you’re getting out.”
Chris sighed. “I understand–”
“I don’t think you do,” Liz cut him off. “You think you do, but you don’t. While you lived in your cosy home in the city, I was forced onto the streets. Not because I wanted to, not because I had a choice, but because everyone I knew was dead. Slaughtered.”
Shivering, Chris opened his mouth to reply, then closed it, unable to find the words.
Liz eyed him for a moment and then continued. “I had nowhere to go, no one left to turn to. I thought the government would help when they arrived, that they would protect me. But when they came, they looked at me like I was nothing, like I was an inconvenience to them. They would have arrested me, thrown me in some place like this if I hadn’t run.”
Chris looked away from the pain in Liz’s eyes. He stared at his hands, the bruises on his knuckles, his stomach clenched with guilt.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered at last, looking up. “You shouldn’t have been treated that way. It’s not right,” he paused. “Was it a Chead?”
Liz flinched at the word. When she did not reply, Chris went on. “Mum always said something needed to be done, that her father would have been ashamed by how things have changed since the war. We should never have let the inequality between the cities and the countryside grow so bad,” he paused for breath, “But that does not change what I said. We’re not all evil, Liz. Some of us want to fix things, want the government to be held to account.”
“So I should just give you all the benefit of the doubt?” Liz snapped.
“No,” Chris replied in a soft tone. “You should judge us by our own actions, not those of others,” he breathed out. “A long time ago, I might have hated you too, Liz. Feared you for being different, for speaking with a rural accent.”
“But not now?”
He shook his head. “No,” he trailed off, remembering a time long ago. “When I was younger, I was running late getting home from class. It was getting dark, and we don’t live in a good neighbourhood. When I was nearly home, a man stepped from the shadows. He had a knife.”
“Let me guess, he was from the country too?”
Chris laughed softly. “No, he spoke like a normal person.” He couldn’t help but tease her for the assumption. Shaking his head, he continued, “But I think he was an addict of some sort – his eyes were wild and his hands shook. Before I had a chance to reach for my bag, he swung the knife at me, and caught me in the shoulder. I still have the scar…”
Liz nodded. “I saw.”
Chris glanced across at her, his cheeks warming. He remembered his embarrassment when they had been forced to remove their clothes. Apparently, Liz had allowed her eyes to roam more than his own.
“What does this have to do with anything, Chris?”
With a shrug, Chris continued. “I think he would have killed me if someone else hadn’t come along.” He paused, looking across at Liz. “I don’t know where he came from, but suddenly there was a man standing between us. He spoke with a rural accent, told the mugger to leave. When the man didn’t listen, my rescuer took his knife away and sent him running.”
“And this suddenly changed your mind about us?”
Chris shrugged. “Not overnight, no. But the man walked me home, right to my front door. He even told mum what to do with my cut. He didn’t have to help me, could have left me to die, dismissed me as some spoiled city boy who deserved it. But he chose to help me instead. Since then, I’ve tried to do the same. To give people a chance, whoever they are.”
Liz let out a long sigh. “And you want the same from me now?” she asked. “Because some man from the country saved you from a mugger?”
Chuckling, Chris nodded his head. “It would be nice to have a clean slate.”
Liz shook her head. “After today, I’m not sure a clean slate exists for us, Chris. Joshua’s blood is on my hands…”
“No,” Chris replied firmly. “It’s on theirs.”
Liz nodded, but they both knew the words meant little. They might not have had a choice, but that did not lessen the burden.
“We’re all in this together now, aren’t we?” Liz repeated Ashley’s words from all those days ago, on the day they had arrived.
Chris’s gut clenched as he realised the two still had not returned.
On the other bed, Liz continued, her voice hesitant. “Okay, Chris,” she whispered. “I’ll give you a chance.”
“Thank you,” he said after a while.
Silence settled around them again then. Chris stared up at the ceiling, struggling to resolve the conflict of emotion battling within him. William’s face drifted through his thoughts, eyes wide and staring, but the guilt felt a little less now. Liz had faced the same question, given the same answer.
Somehow, that made things just a little easier to bear.
Long hours ticked past. Still the others did not return. Chris and Liz waited in the hushed stillness of the cell, listening to the thump of the guard’s boots outside, the whisper of voices from other cells. Liz’s breath grew more ragged.
Finally, the bang of the outer door announced someone’s approach. The soft tread of footsteps followed, moving down the corridor. Metal screeched as cell doors opened, while other footsteps continued on towards them.
Chris sat up as shadows fell across the bars of their cell. Relief touched his chest as he looked out, and saw Ashley and Sam standing outside. Hinges squeaked as the door opened and they stumbled inside. Sad smiles touched their faces as they looked up at Chris and Liz.
“So,” Sam breathed. “You’re alive.”
Without pausing to knock, Angela shoved the door to Halt’s office open and strode inside. She glimpsed surprise on the harsh lines of his face as he looked up, though it had vanished by the time the door slammed shut behind her. Anger replaced it as he half-rose from his chair, fists clenched hard on his desk.
“What–”
“You have no right!” Angela cut him off.
Halt straightened. “I have every right,” his voice was low, dangerous.
Hands trembling, Angela approached his desk. “It’s not ready, Halt,” she hissed. “You can’t start those trials tomorrow. I need more time.”
Rising, Halt walked around his desk, until he stood towering over her. Angela stared back, defiant, anger feeding her strength. She had just learned Halt planned to initiate the next phase of the Praegressus project tomorrow. The same project she had dedicated the last ten years of her life too.
“The directors want results, Doctor Fallow,” Halt bit out the words, “and you’ve been stalling.”
Angela refused to back down. “I’ve been doing my job,” she snapped. “And I’m telling you, the virus is not ready!”
Halt smiled. “I’ve looked over your work, Fallow,” Angela shivered at his tone. “And I say it’s ready. After all, fortune favours the bold.”
The words of the old Latin proverb curled around Angela’s mind as she stepped back. They reminded her of Halt in those first days. The government had sent him after her discovery with the Chead, bringing her their new directive.
The Praegressus Project.
Praegressus – Latin for evolution, the adaptation of species down the countless millennia.
Shivering, Angela drew in a breath to steady herself. “There are still problems with the uptake,” she ground out. “You could kill them all with your recklessness.”
“The alternations will work–”
“Of course they will,” Angela interrupted. “Animal trials have shown us as much. It’s their immune response that concerns me. Their bodies will tear themselves apart fighting the virus.”
Halt waved a hand as he moved back behind his desk. “Should that eventuate, we will administer immunosuppressants until the chromosomal changes have set,” he sat back at his desk, eyebrow raised. “Is that all?”
“Immunosuppressants?” Angela pressed her palms against the desk and leaned in. “We’ll have to move them to the clean room, watch them around the clock. They wouldn’t last a day in the cells.”
“Whatever it takes, Fallow.” Halt stared her down. “We can’t wait any longer. The government wants answers. We’ll be shut down if we don’t provide a solution soon. The attacks are growing worse. The authorities are desperate.”
“What?” Angela questioned.
Halt leaned back in his chair. “The fools underestimated the Chead for too long. They should have given us the funding we needed for this years ago. There was an attack in San Francisco yesterday. They’ve reached the capital, Fallow. The President himself is demanding answers.”
Angela shook her head, doubt gnawing at her chest. “You really think this is the answer?”
“Of course.” Halt’s cold eyes regarded her with a detached curiosity. “Do not lose focus now, Doctor Fallow. Not when we’re so close. The Praegressus project will change everything. When it succeeds, the Western Allied States will herald in a new era of human evolution. The Chead will be hunted down and eradicated, our enemies at home and abroad consigned to the pages of history.”
Looking into her superior’s eyes, Angela shuddered. Naked greed lurked in their grey depths. For the first time, she allowed herself to look around, to take in the grisly display lining the walls of Halt’s office. The sight she had been doing her best to ignore.
All around, animal eyes stared back at her. Halt’s office was lined with shelves, each holding a collection of jars filled with clear fluids. Suspended within hung a silent host of animals of every shape and size. Birds and lizards, cats and snakes and what looked like a platypus stared down at her, their eyes blank and dead. An opossum curled around its ringed tail on the shelf behind Halt’s head, while beside it a baby chimpanzee hugged its chest. With its eyes closed, it could have been sleeping.
Angela looked away, struggling to hide her disgust from Halt.
“Soon they will all be obsolete,” Halt commented, noticing her discomfort.
“Yes,” she almost choked on the word.
But at what cost? She added silently.
Halt eyed her closely and raised one eyebrow. “Was there anything else, Doctor Fallow?”
Angela shook her head. She knew when she was defeated. Turning, she all but ran from the room. She closed the door carefully behind her, her anger spent. Once outside, she placed a hand against the wall, shivering with sudden fear. Events were accelerating now, slipping beyond her control, and it was all she could do to keep up.
In her mind, she saw images of San Francisco, the steep roads teaming with life. She imagined the devastation a Chead would cause in such a place, the mindless slaughter. Bodies would line the streets as police struggled to reach the scene through the traffic-clogged streets. How long might the Chead have run rampant?
Straightening, Angela turned from Halt’s door and moved away. Tomorrow, if they succeeded, the world would change. Humanity’s evolution would take one giant leap forward, and one way or another, there would be no going back.
A sudden doubt rose within her, a fear for what was to come. What if they were wrong? What if they failed, and it was all for nought?
And what if they succeeded? What then?
Her skin tingled as she remembered Halt’s words, heard again his triumphant declaration.
Our enemies, at home and abroad, will be consigned to the pages of history.
A cold breeze blew across Liz’s neck, rustling the branches above her head. Sucking in a breath, she picked up the pace, eying the lengthening shadows beneath the trees. She was close to home now, the path familiar beneath her feet, but it was a steep climb and she had no wish to make it in the dark.
Around her, the forest was eerily silent, the usual evening chorus of birds and insects mute. It put her on edge, eyes flicking over the scraggly trees neighbouring the path. Their dense branches shifted with the wind, but otherwise there was no sign of movement.
She moved on.
Behind her the path wound down through the forest. The mountain on which their homestead perched stood alone amidst the Californian floodplains, looking out across their broad expanse. All around the rock were the lands of the Flores family – or at least the lands they managed. Once they had been theirs, but no longer.
Liz smiled as she approached the final bend in the track. The house was only a short thirty-minute walk up the mountain, but she was still glad to see the end of it. It had been a long journey from San Francisco.
Around her the trees opened out, revealing the homestead sitting at the trail’s end. Glancing around, Liz listened for the first shouts of welcome. Her family employed a dozen labourers on the property, and most were like family to her.
Silence.
A shiver went through Liz as she closed on the homestead. Her eyes flickered around the collection of buildings, searching for movement, for signs of life.
It was only then she saw the bodies.
They lay strewn across the homestead, torn and broken, their faces grey and dead. Blood splattered the walls nearby, streaked across the peeling paint. Her eyes swept over the bodies, lingering on their faces. There was Nancy, the old woman who had helped raise her, who had cooked meals while her mother helped in the fields. And there, Henry, the man her father thought of as a brother.
Standing amidst the carnage, Liz’s eyes drifted up to the building she called home. Without thinking, she found herself moving towards it. Her movements were jerky, her breath coming as desperate sobs. Reaching the old wooden door, she pushed it open.
It swung inwards without resistance, revealing the wreckage within. Swallowing a scream, Liz staggered inside, eyes sweeping the shattered plaster walls, the torn-up floorboards. Dust and rubble lay strewn across the floor, mingling with the blood pooling at the end of the corridor.
Barely daring to breathe, Liz stepped inside the house. With cautious footsteps, she slid down the corridor, eyes fixed on the blood. She winced at each soft tread of her boots, the sound impossibly loud in the silent house.
The corner neared. In a sudden rush, Liz darted forward, eyes wide, desperate to see…
Liz screamed and threw up her arms, tearing herself from the nightmare. Her eyes snapped open, but absolute darkness stretched out around her and she screamed again, thrashing against the tangle of covers wrapped around her. The bed creaked as she rolled. The safety bar creaked as she slammed into it, then gave way. She found herself falling, plummeting through empty air, a final scream tearing from her throat.
Thud.
A bolt of agony lanced through her arms as she struck the concrete. The last tendrils of the dream fell away, plunging her back into reality – and the pain that went with it. She groaned, her throat burning as it pressed against the cold steel of her collar.
“What?” somewhere in the darkness, a voice shouted.
“Who’s there?” someone else yelled.
“Liz?” She recognised Chris’s voice.
Above her, his bunk rattled as he moved. Then hands were reaching for her, grasping her shoulder, pulling her up.
“Are you alright?” Chris’s voice came again.
Half in shock, Liz couldn’t manage more than a nod. Distantly, she was surprised at the tenderness in his words, his sudden concern. A second later, she realised he could not see her nod. Opening her mouth, she managed a croak. “Yes.”
As sanity slowly returned, a wave of embarrassment swept through Liz. She closed her eyes, silently berating herself for her panic. It had been so long since she’d had the dream – months, maybe even a year. Why had it returned now, after all this time?
“What happened?” Sam’s voice was heavy with sleep.
“Sorry,” Liz murmured, heart still racing. “Was just a bad dream.”
“Some bad dream,” Ashley’s hand settled on her shoulder. “Go back to bed, Sam. You need your beauty sleep.”
A string of inaudible mumbling came from Sam’s bed, quickly followed by a soft snore.
Arms shaking, Liz pulled herself up, helped by Chris on one side, Ashley on the other.
“It’s okay,” she murmured and then suppressed a groan.
Her throat was aflame, throbbing with each beat of her heart. She tried to swallow, but it only made the pain worse. The steel collar dug into her swollen throat. Gasping, she fought for breath.
“What’s wrong?” Chris asked in the darkness, taking her weight beneath his shoulder.
“My throat,” Liz gasped.
“Water.” Somehow Chris understood. “Ashley, help me get her to the sink.”
A sharp pain twisted through Liz’s shin where she’d landed as she tried to take her weight. With a silent moan, she collapsed back against them. To her right, Ashley swore as the shift in weight sent her stumbling into the bed. Then she straightened, shifted her body beneath Liz’s shoulder, and helped her the few steps to the sink.
Liz slumped to the ground as Ashley released her. The sound of water followed as Chris helped her to sit comfortably.
“Here,” Ashley whispered. “Open your mouth, Liz. The water will help.”
Liz obeyed as Ashley’s hands fumbled at her face. She almost lost an eye before Ashley finally found her lips. Then cool water dripped into her mouth, trickling from the palm of the girl’s hands. Swallowing slowly, Liz let out a long sigh as the cold spread down her throat.
They repeated the procedure three more times before Liz’s breathing began to ease. At last she croaked for them to stop, and they settled back down together on Ashley’s bed.
“How are you feeling now?” Ashley whispered.
In the other bed, Sam was still snoring. Listening in the darkness, Liz found herself jealous of the boy’s ability to sleep through anything. She desperately needed the release of sleep, to escape the pain of her beaten body. But she knew it would not come now, not after the dream.
“I’m okay,” she breathed. “You should go back to sleep.”
A soft chuckle came from the girl. “My bed’s a little crowded now. It’s okay, I think the lights will turn on soon.”
Her words were met by a distant clang, followed by a low buzzing in the ceiling. Liz blinked as white light flooded the room, then raised an eyebrow at Ashley. She sat beside Liz, her yellow eyes ringed by shadow, the scarlet locks of her tangled with sleep. A smile tugged at her lips.
A groan came from the opposite bed as Sam rolled over and pulled the pillow over his head.
“God,” Chris’s voice came from her other side.
Liz turned to face him. “What?”
He blinked and shook his head. “Your neck, no wonder you couldn’t breathe. It’s a rather attractive shade of purple.”
Liz lifted a hand and touched a finger to her throat, but flinched back as the muscles spasmed. She bit her lip, swallowing the pain. “I’ve had worse.”
Chris shivered, but said nothing.
For the next few minutes they sat in silence, listening to the growing crescendo of Sam’s snores. Finally, Ashley stood and moved across to his bed. Taking a hold of his blanket, she tore it away, exposing his half-naked body to the cold. His curses echoed from the walls as Ashley retreated to her bed, bringing Sam’s cover with her.
Liz chuckled as Ashley spread the cover over them, trying to ignore the burning from her throat. “Thanks, I was getting cold,” she grinned at the other girl.
“Hey!” Sam was sitting up now, blinking hard in the fluorescent light. Lifting his pillow, he tossed it across the room. Chris caught it easily and placed it behind his head.
Liz smiled as a little of the weight lifted from her heart. Wriggling her backside, she snuggled in beneath the blanket, and basked in the warmth from either side of her. Together, they grinned as Sam found the shirt he’d discarded the night before and pulled it over his broad shoulders. Liz watched with a tinge of disappointment as he covered himself.
“Hey, my eyes are up here, ladies,” Sam laughed.
Liz snorted. “Like I’d be interested in a city slugger like you, Sam.”
Ashley giggled and Chris chuckled while Sam rolled his eyes. Then the clang of the outer door echoed down the corridor, plunging the room into silence. The smiles fell from their faces as they shared sad glances, the weight of yesterday’s guilt returning.
“What happens next?” Chris murmured.
Sam’s eyes flickered towards Ashley. “After we… survived, you two showed up,” Sam replied with a shrug. “You know the rest.”
Beside her, Ashley shifted on the bed. “Yesterday, on the training field, the doctors were talking,” the girl spoke in a low voice. “I overheard a bit. They were talking about things moving ahead. So who knows what comes next.”
The bed shifted again as Chris pulled himself up. A pang of sadness touched Liz as his warmth left her side. He moved to the bars and glanced down the corridor. “Well, whatever comes next, at least breakfast is on its way,” his words were spoken with a false lightness, failing to hide the strain beneath, but Liz appreciated his attempt to brighten the gloomy discussion.
Sam groaned. “Don’t suppose it’s something other than that gruel they call oatmeal?”
“Sure, what’s your order? I’ll give them a shout.” Chris laughed.
“I’ll take some eggs with a side of bacon. Maybe some hash browns. Oh, and a burger. You got all that?”
“How about a television while you’re at it, Chris?” Ashley put in.
Shaking his head, Chris returned to the bed and slid in beside Liz. “Ah, bacon. I can’t even remember the last time we had that at home.”
As his warmth touched Liz she found herself sliding closer, until her side pressed up against him. A tingle ran up her arm at the touch, and she held her breath, waiting for him to pull away. When he did not move, she smiled, only then recalling his words. Her grin spread. While the food on the ranch had not technically been theirs to eat, her family had made an art of pilfering extra supplies whenever they were available. Bacon had been just one of the many luxury food items she’d enjoyed.
“Oh, I don’t know, back on the farm we had bacon and eggs for breakfast most days. It gets a little old.”
She chuckled as the three of them turned to stare at her. Unfortunately, the laughter was too much for her throat, and she broke into a coughing fit. It was a few minutes before she found her voice again.
“Country secret,” she croaked at last, and the others groaned.
The screeching wheels of the breakfast cart came to a sudden halt outside their cell. The guard banged his rifle against the bars while the other opened the grate through which they passed the food.
“Come and get it.” The guard with the gun laughed. “Big day for you I hear.”
Chris retrieved the four bowls of oatmeal, much to Sam’s chagrin, and they sat down to their meal.
Afterwards the four of them sat back and waited, listening for the sound of the outer door. Closing her eyes, Liz did her best to ignore the agony that was her neck. Her good mood quickly fell away as the pain beat down on her. Silently, she cursed the doctors, the guards and their guns, even Joshua for his vicious attack.
“What do you think he meant?” Sam asked after an hour, addressing the room at large.
“Nothing good,” Chris offered unhelpfully.
“Well, they need us alive for something,” Ashley put in. She had joined Sam on the other bed now, surrendering her bed to Liz and Chris. “Whatever this place is, its top secret. My parents weren’t the most connected of individuals in the government, but most things reached the rumour mill at some point. I don’t think this place was ever mentioned. As far as the media are concerned, the children of traitors were…” her voice trailed off, and Liz felt a pang of sadness for the girl.
Without speaking, Sam reached up and placed an arm around Ashley, drawing her into a hug. Watching them, Liz’s sadness grew, rising from some lonely chasm inside her. The last two years had been long and hard, and more than once she had found herself craving the touch of another human being. Licking her lips, she glanced at Chris, then gave herself a silent shake. Drawing up her knees, she hugged them to her chest.
Movement came from beside her, but it was just Chris rearranging himself on the bed. He spoke into the uncomfortable silence. “Maybe it’s the same with our families then. Maybe they’ve been taken someplace else,” there was no mistaking the tremor of hope in his voice.
As the others nodded, Liz closed her eyes. The others might still cling to the hope their families were alive, but hers were gone.
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Sam replied with false cheer. “We can all have a reunion someday, share torture stories around the campfire–”
“Shut up, Sam.” Ashley pushed him away and looked at Chris. “We can only hope, Chris. Although my sister…” she bowed her head, eyes shining. “She got in the way. They never gave her a chance.”
Before any of them could respond, a loud clang echoed down the corridor.
The four of them exchanged a long glance.
“Showtime,” Sam whispered.
The soft screech of iron rollers carried down the corridor as the door to a cell slid open. Together, the four of them jumped from their beds and pressed themselves up against the bars. Head hard against the cold steel, Liz peered out into the corridor, straining to see what was happening. The faces of their fellow inmates appeared behind the bars of the other cells, eyes wide and staring.
At the very limits of her viewpoint, Liz could just make a group of doctors clustered around the cell at the end of the corridor, talking quietly amongst themselves. Beside them, guards were shouting at the occupants of the cell. They carried steel batons now, instead of the familiar rifles of the past few days.
As Liz watched, the guards disappeared into the cell. The raised voices of the prisoners carried to them, followed by the muffled thud of steel on flesh.
Retreating from the bars, Liz looked at the others. Sam and Chris stared back, their eyes wide, uncertainty written across their faces. Ashley only pursed her lips, her eyes roaming the cell.
Liz turned back to the bars as a girl’s scream carried down the corridor. Looking along the rows of cells, she watched the doctors gathering around a steel trolley. One of the doctors was leaning over an open drawer on the side of the cart. Reaching inside, he drew out a packet of syringes. Vials of a clear liquid quickly followed, as he handed them out to the other doctors. Together, they turned and followed the guards into the cell. Another shriek echoed down the corridor, a boy’s this time.
“What’s going on?” Chris asked from behind her.
Liz glanced back at the others. “It’s some sort of injection. They’ve got syringes and a trolley loaded with God knows what else.”
As she finished speaking, a long, drawn out screeched erupted from the cell at the end of the corridor. Liz flinched, pressing her face hard against the bars, straining to see. It was the girl again. Distantly she remembered the faces of the two captives: a young girl with blonde hair, a boy with black dreadlocks.
The girl’s scream slowly died away, but before it ceased the boy’s voice joined in, carrying the awful notes of agony to the four of them in their little cell. Liz shuddered, fighting the urge to cover her ears. The shrieks rose and fell, twisting and cracking, almost inhuman in their anguish.
Turning, she saw the blood draining from the other’s faces, felt her own cheeks grow cold with an awful fear.
Slowly the screams died away, leaving only silence.
And the screech of trolley wheels on concrete as the doctors made their way to the next cell.
“What do we do?” Chris repeated his question from earlier.
“We fight,” came Ashley’s reply.
Liz turned and stared at the girl, heart thudding hard in her chest. “What?” from down the corridor came the rattle of another cell opening. “What about the collars–” she broke off as a cough tore at her throat.
Staggering past the others, she fumbled at the sink and turned the faucet. As she drank, Ashley continued to speak.
“Those batons, why do they need them?” her voice sounded calm, as though they were discussing the weather. “They haven’t used them before now.”
“It’s like you said before,” Sam mused. “They don’t want us dead. They’ve been saving us for something. For this.”
“Really?” Chris snapped. He waved a hand. “Because I’m pretty sure they just killed those two.”
“They’re not using the collars,” Liz croaked as she re-joined them. The realisation had come as she pressed her mouth to the faucet, making the collar dig into her neck. “No guns or collars.”
Sam grinned and cracked his knuckles. “In that case, I agree with Ashley.”
Liz leaned against the pole of her bunk bed, drawing reassurance from its icy touch. She looked at the others, fear fluttering in her stomach. Sam looked more alive than she’d ever seen him, his eyes alight with a frightening rage. Chris stood beside him, tense and ready, one eye on the door to the cell.
And Ashley… just looked like Ashley – cool, calm, collected.
She pushed past the boys as another scream rattled the walls. As they took up station near the door, she crouched between the beds, and lifted a piece of railing which lay wedged against the wall. Liz blinked, realising it was the safety railing for her bed, the one that had given way and sent her crashing to the concrete.
Ashley moved across to Sam and offered him the bar. Teeth flashing, he took it and held it up to the light. The three parts of the rail formed a distorted U-shape, with two short piece of steel jutting from the longer centre piece.
“Work at the joints, see if you can break them apart.”
As Sam set to work trying to separate the bars, Ashley moved to the front of the cell and resumed her watch. Liz joined her, and together they followed the doctors slow progress through the prison.
“They’re done with us,” Chris whispered behind them.
Outside the screams continued, at times slowly fading, only to resume as the doctors reached the next cell.
“No,” Ashley whispered. Her eyes took on a haunted look. “I think they’re only just getting started.”
“Here.” Liz turned and Sam offered her one of the smaller bars. He grinned. “Just pretend they’re city sluggers like me.”
Liz smiled back. Silently she reached out and squeezed his arm. He nodded and moved across to Ashley and Chris, offering them the other two bars. Ashley took one, but Chris shook his head. His eyes did not leave the corridor, but he spoke from the side of his mouth.
“I’d prefer to keep my hands free, thanks.”
Outside, the doctors had reached the cell directly across from them. Its only occupant stood at the bars, watching as the doctors drew to a halt. His eyes were bloodshot and tears streamed down his face.
“Please, I never did anything wrong,” his voice was feeble, barely a whisper.
He retreated into his cell as the guards slid the door open. Before he could so much as raise his fists they were on him, batons flashing in the fluorescent lights. A few seconds later they had him pinned to the bed. Without preamble, the doctors entered the cell. As the guards held the boy down, one doctor pulled down his pants, while another prepared the needle. The injection was given, then the doctors and guards retreated from the cell, slamming the door closed behind them.
Liz flinched as the boy screamed and began to writhe. Then the guards moved between them and the other cell, and there was no more time to consider their neighbour's plight.
Gripping the bars of their cell tight in her hands, Liz watched as the guards gathered near the door. The pain in her throat had strangely faded away, leaving only a dull ache. Blood pounded in her ears as she tensed, readying herself.
“Stand back, drop those,” one of the guards ordered, eying their makeshift batons.
When they didn’t move, he turned to look at the doctors.
“What are you waiting for?” Doctor Radly’s voice carried into the cell. “Get in there and take those off them. You know we can’t use the collars. We can’t have any interference with their nervous system.”
The guard nodded and reached out to unlock the door. The others gathered behind him, seven in total, their batons held ready.
A strange calm settled over Liz as the door slid open, the terror of the past few days falling away. Whatever Ashley thought, this was it. This was their only chance. If they failed, she knew in her heart they would be lost.
As the first of the guards moved into the cell, movement came from beside her. She turned in time to see Chris lunge forward. The guard grinned and raised his baton, but Chris was faster still. Leaping lightly from the concrete floor, he twisted in the air to avoid the man’s blow, and drove a kick into the side of the guard’s head.
Liz gaped as the man’s eyes rolled up in his skull and he collapsed to the ground
Chris landed lightly in the doorway and retreated back to re-join them.
“Six to go,” he grinned, his smile infectious.
Shaking her head, Liz gripped the metal bar tighter and tried to hide her shock.
Outside, the remaining guards grabbed their fallen comrade by the feet and dragged his unconscious body out into the corridor. One of the doctors crouched beside him and placed a stethoscope to his chest. Radly glanced down at the man, then back at the guards. Each of them dwarfed even Sam’s large frame, but still they stood hesitating in the hallway. The fate of their comrade had given them pause.
“Well?” he snapped. “What are we paying you for? Get in there!”
The guards shared a glance, then approached together. Pushing the sliding door wide open, they entered as a group this time. They paused for a second in the entrance-way, hefting their batons, then came forward in a sudden rush.
Liz tensed as the first guard came for her, his steel baton flashing for her face. Ducking back, the hackles on her neck tingled as it swept over her head. Then she lifted her own weapon and drove it into the man’s midriff.
The blow caught him as he was moving forward, and his own weight drove the air from his lungs. As he staggered to a halt, Liz lifted her bar to strike him again, then threw herself to the side as another guard swung at her. Steel rang out as the baton left a dent in the bunk bed behind her.
Recovering, she turned and found the first guard already straightening. Now the two of them bore down on her, forcing her away from the others.
Liz gripped her makeshift weapon tight, knowing she was hopelessly outmatched. Snarling, she threw herself forward anyway. They grinned, raised their batons. Then a body stumbled backwards into them, sending them stumbling forward. Seeing her chance, Liz swung her pole into the face of the nearest guard.
As the man staggered sideways, she leapt for the gap he’d left, eager to re-join the others. But as she moved, the other recovered and stepped in to block her, baton already in motion. The blow caught her in the stomach, knocking the breath from her lungs and sending her staggering backwards into the wall.
Groaning, she tried to straighten, but a fist caught her in the side of the face. Her feet crumpled beneath the force of the blow, and she slid sideways into the crook between the wall and the bunk. Coughing up blood, she tried to regain her feet, but a heavy boot crashed into her back, pinning her to the ground.
Head ringing, Liz twisted on the ground, desperate for a glimpse of the others. But the fight was already over, the guards’ weight and numbers making short work of the four prisoners in the narrow confines of the cell. Sam lay immobilised on his own bed, a guard’s knee pressed between his shoulder blades. Ashley was similarly restrained on the floor nearby, while Chris still stood, his arms held by a man on either side of him. The last guard was just getting to his feet, a nasty bruise on his forehead.
“About time,” Radly’s sarcastic voice came from somewhere out of view. “Would you like something easier next time. Maybe some toddlers?”
The guards were silent as the doctors filed in, carrying their assortment of vials and syringes. As the doctors prepared themselves, Radly looked around the room. His eyes settled on Liz. “Get her up.”
Tears stung Liz’s eyes as a rough hand grasped a handful of her hair and pulled. Screaming, she drove a fist into the man’s side, but the blow hardly seemed to faze him. A tearing pain came from her scalp as he pulled again. Kicking and screaming, Liz found herself hauled to her feet.
“This one’s feisty,” the guard commented as he tossed her onto Ashley’s bed.
Before Liz could free herself, the weight of the guard landed on her back. An awful helplessness welled in her as she tried and failed to shift his weight. Pain lanced from her scalp again as the guard yanked her head back, forcing her to look at them.
“Stay still,” the guard growled in her ear.
“Please don’t do this,” Ashley pleaded from the floor.
The thud of a boot striking flesh silenced her desperate words. A low groan followed. Liz twisted again, trying to get a glimpse of her friend, but the white coat of a doctor moved to block her view. Looking up, she saw Doctor Radly staring down at her.
“Enough,” Radly’s tone brooked no argument.
Unlike Halt, Radly did not appear to take any joy in their pain. Rather, he didn’t seem to care about their comfort one way or another. He moved around the cell with a cold efficiency, retrieving the stoppered vial from the hands of another doctor. Lifting a nasty looking syringe, he eyed the thick needle for a second before driving it through the vial’s rubber stopper. Then he drew back the plunger, watching as the liquid disappeared into the syringe.
“Doctor Faulks,” Radly addressed someone standing just outside of Liz’s view. “This is the PERV-A strain?”
“Yes,” a woman’s reply came quickly. “We’ve already finished with the B strain. The rest are marked down for PERV-A.”
Nodding, Radly turned back to Liz. “Hold her,” Liz shuddered as the guard shifted, taking a firmer hold of her shoulders.
From the corner of her eye, she watched Radly approach, his gloved hands holding the syringe in a gentle grip. Then he disappeared from her line of vision. Seconds later firm hands tugged at her pants, and a cold breeze blew across her backside. She tensed, pushing back against her assailant’s relentless strength.
A sigh came from behind her. “This will go easier for you if you relax, Ms Flores.”
Hearing her last name sent a bolt of shock through Liz. For a second she hesitated, then bit off a string a profanity that would have made her father blush.
Another sigh, then a cold cloth pressed against her butt-cheek. A shiver raced up her spine, more shock from the violation than from the cold. A low, guttural growl built in her throat, and the guard’s knee pressed harder into the small of her back. But she no longer cared. A desperate horror was growing within her, an awful fear, a need to break free.
She screamed again, writhing and bucking beneath the guard, straining to shift his weight.
A sudden pinch came from her naked backside, followed by a cool pressure that spread quickly across her cheek. It was gentle at first, a cold numbness that tingled as it went. But it quickly warmed, like a fire gathering heat, until her muscles were aflame from its touch. The tingle raced outwards, spreading the numbing sensation to her legs and arms.
Liz gasped, fighting back against the pain, desperate to fend it off. She gritted her teeth, tensing against its relentless spread. The pressure on her back vanished as the guard released her, but by then she barely noticed. Her attention was elsewhere, her focus fixed on the waves of sensation rippling through her body.
Then as though a switch had been flicked, the muscles down the length of her back locked in a sudden cramp. Pain unlike any she’d experienced closed around her, walling her off from the world, trapping her in the iron arms of its cage. Her eyes snapped open, but all she saw were stars, whirling through her vision, blinding in their brilliance. In the distance she heard a scream, a girl’s voice tearing at the blackness of her mind, but she could do nothing to help her now.
Agony engulfed her body, her mind, her very soul.
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