The Genome Project

by Aaron Hodges

  “What happened?” Sam’s voice was heavy with sleep.

  “Sorry,” Liz murmured, her heart still racing. “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 mumbles came from Sam’s bed, but was quickly followed by snoring.

  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.

  “My throat,” Liz gasped.

  “Water.” Somehow, Chris understood. “Ashley, help me get her to the sink.”

  Sharp pain sliced Liz’s shin where she’d landed as she tried to take her weight. With a silent moan, she collapsed against her friends. To her right, Ashley swore as the shift in weight sent her stumbling into the bed. Then she straightened, getting 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 running water followed, while Chris helped her to sit comfortably.

  “Here,” Ashley whispered. “Open your mouth, Liz. The water will help.”

  Liz obeyed as Ashley fumbled at her face in the pitch-black. She almost lost an eye before Ashley finally found her lips. Cool water dribbled into her mouth, trickling from the palm of the girl’s hands. Swallowing slowly, Liz sighed as the cold spread down her throat.

  Ashley repeated the procedure three more times before Liz’s breathing eased. At last she croaked for them to stop, and they settled 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. She raised an eyebrow at Ashley, sitting beside her, yellow eyes ringed by shadow, scarlet locks 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,” came Chris’s voice 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 touched a finger to her throat, but flinched as the muscles spasmed. She bit her lip, swallowing the pain. “I’ve had worse.”

  She felt Chris shudder, but he said nothing.

  For the next few minutes they sat in silence, listening to the growing crescendo of Sam’s snores. Finally, Ashley stood and crossed 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 said, grinning at the other girl.

  “Hey!” Sam was sitting up now, blinking hard in the fluorescent light. He tossed his pillow 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, basking in the warm bodies to either side of her. They grinned as Sam found his shirt from 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 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,” she said 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.” He spoke the words 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 added.

  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 returned Liz 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 didn’t move, she smiled, only then recalling his comment about the bacon. 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 laughed as the three of them turned to stare at her. Unfortunately, her mirth 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 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 lay 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 poor, dead Joshua for his vicious attack.

  “What do you think that guard meant?” Sam asked after an hour, addressing what they had all been wondering at.

  “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, it’s top secret. My parents weren’t the most connected of individuals in the government, but most things reached the rumor 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, an
d 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 thought their families lived, but there was no such hope for hers.

  “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.

  21

  The screech of iron rollers carried down the corridor as a cell door slid open. Liz and the others jumped from their beds and pressed themselves up against the bars. Head hard against the cold steel, Liz strained for a glimpse of what was happening. The faces of their fellow inmates appeared behind the bars of the other cells.

  At the very limits of her view, Liz could just make out a group of doctors talking quietly around the cell at the end of the corridor. Beside them, guards were shouting at the occupants. They carried steel batons now, instead of the familiar rifles of the past few days.

  The guards disappeared into the cell. The raised voices of the prisoners echoed down 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 gaze roaming the cell.

  Liz returned to the bars as a girl’s cry echoed down the corridor. She watched the doctors gathering around a steel trolley. One 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 followed, which he handed 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 at the others. “It’s some sort of injection. They’ve got syringes and a trolley loaded with God only knows what else.”

  As she finished speaking, a long, drawn-out scream erupted from the cell at the end of the corridor. Liz flinched, pressing her face hard against the bars. Distantly she remembered the faces of the two captives in that cell: a young girl with blonde hair, a boy with dreadlocks.

  The girl’s scream slowly faded, but before it ceased the boy’s voice joined in, carrying the awful notes of agony to 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 a terrible fear.

  Finally the screams died away, leaving only silence.

  The screech of trolley wheels on concrete followed as the doctors made their way to the next cell.

  “What do we do?” Chris asked again.

  “We fight,” came Ashley’s reply.

  Liz turned and stared at the girl, her 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: “Those batons, why do they need them?” Her voice was calm now. “They haven’t needed them until 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. “Because I’m pretty sure they just killed those two.”

  “They’re not using the collars,” Liz croaked as she re-joined them. The realization 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 solidity. She looked at the others, her stomach fluttering. 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 from the walls. As Liz and the others took up station near the door, Ashley crouched between the beds and lifted a piece of railing which lay wedged against the wall. Liz blinked, realizing it was the broken safety railing for her bed.

  Ashley offered Sam the bar. Teeth flashing in a grin, he took it and held it up to the light. The three parts of the rail formed a distorted U-shape, with two short pieces of steel jutting from the longer center piece.

  “Work at the joints, see if you can break them apart,” Ashley said.

  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 their captors’ slow progress through the prison.

  “They’re done with us,” Chris whispered behind them.

  Outside, the screams continued, at times fading, only to resume after the doctors entered 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 grimly. Silently, she reached out and squeezed his arm. He nodded and moved 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 outside. 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 open the door. 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. One pulled down the inmate’s pants, while another prepared the needle. They gave him an injection into his buttocks, 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 stepped between them and the other cell, and there was no more time to consider their neighbor’s plight.

  Clenching her hand hard around her improvised weapon, Liz watched as the guards gathered near the door. The pain in her throat had strangely faded, leaving only a dull ache. Blood pounded in her ears as she tensed, readying herself.

  “Stand back, drop those,” one of the guards ordered, eyeing 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 ta
ke 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. This was it. This was their only chance. If they failed, she knew in her heart they were lost.

  As the first of the guards moved into the cell, movement flickered beside Liz. 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 guard’s blow, and then drove his boot into the side of the man’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 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.

  “Well?” Radly 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 entryway, hefting their batons, then rushed forward.

  Liz tensed as a guard came at her, his baton flashing for her face. She ducked, and the hackles on her neck tingled as it whistled 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. Liz lifted her bar to strike him again, then threw herself to the side as another guard swung at her. The clang of steel rang out as the baton left a dent in the bunk bed behind her.