by Alice Reeds
And sure, my father never cared about me, but I didn’t need him or his approval. I found others who cared in ways I never thought anyone would. While he failed me, would’ve left me to die if he could without people judging him for it, I had my mother, who was willing to risk everything for me, as well as Leon. And I had a new family, a chosen one, friends who cared about me as a person and not my name and money, and a girl who loved me for me and not everything that was attached to me or because Briola made her do so. In the least likely place I found what I always yearned for, and I was willing to do whatever it took to keep it. And that was exactly what I’d done.
If I did it all correctly, we would win.
Leaving the room how we found it, we made our way back to the staircase with a few minutes to spare until the night bell. The hallways were just as empty as before, thankfully, and the staircase quiet. Neither of us said a word, too focused on making it back upstairs unheard and unseen. I didn’t want to risk getting caught on the last few meters just because we talked.
“Hey, you, stop right there!” a voice boomed through the staircase after we’d made it halfway up toward the main floor. I flinched so hard I nearly tripped over my own feet and tumbled down the stairs. I should’ve known that it wouldn’t be this easy.
“Shit,” I said while Ivy looked at me through lightly squinted eyes. She was the FBI kid and should be able to figure out a way to flee. My mind blanked at the sound of two pairs of feet running up the stairs after us and a voice calling out something in Polish, possibly calling backup.
We were so screwed.
“Up,” Ivy said and finally moved, the staircases before us suddenly feeling far longer and harder to climb than they did just moments prior. The footsteps chasing after us grew louder, closer. Two of them against the two of us, neither of us with any kind of skill when it came to combat—besides the few things Fiona had taught me—and a staircase just waiting for us to fall down and break all our bones.
The tablet!
Back at the servers I had just enough time to sneak into their security system, and if I’d done everything right, at the press of a button, we’d eventually be okay—or at least get the chance to be. I hoped I wouldn’t have to use this, potentially put all our hopes on it should our mothers fail, but now I had no other choice.
I stopped on the next landing—the minus one floor, how ironic—and pulled out the tablet. Quickly I opened the small command app I’d set up and hit the only function it had, red turning gray. Just to be sure that Briola wouldn’t get their hands on the tablet, I swiftly turned to the metal banister, raised the tablet, and smashed it right in half across the metal. Pieces of the screen rained onto the floor before me and down however far the staircase went. I hit it again and again until the device was so far bent in half, pieces shattered and broken, that no matter how hard they tried, they wouldn’t be able to recover a single thing.
With a plastic clatter it hit the bottom of the staircase, the sound quickly drowning in the thunder of footsteps and the door opening that led back into the Villa.
“No, no, no,” Ivy repeated, again and again, until it sounded more like a panicked whine, her back against the wall while I stood in the middle of the landing. Some IT guys rushed onto the landing, and then, from upstairs, the two security guys from yesterday appeared as well, our escape route effectively cut off, our time reaching zero. “We’re dead.”
Part of me was glad I told Fiona to stay behind, while another part worried what this would mean for her, what she’d think when I didn’t return, Ivy and I vanishing the way Leon had. If they hurt her…
“What do we have here?” the meaner of the two said, a menacing smile on his face. He exchanged a look with his partner as they came closer, the expressions in their eyes reminding me of predatory animals getting ready to strike.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Ivy just as the dude’s massive hands took ahold of my arms. Before I even knew what was happening—I didn’t even have a chance to react—he spun me around and twisted my arm up on my back so far that it felt only a breath away from breaking.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The Villa
“I wonder what your girl would say if she knew you got caught sneaking around with another girl,” the man said as they led us up the stairs toward the ground floor.
“This one’s even worse, her girl is gone for a day and she’s on to the next best thing,” the other guy said, his voice amused. Maybe he was a little nicer, but he was almost as much of an asshole.
“Stupid teenagers.”
If our plan worked, we’d see who the stupid ones were.
The Villa was eerily quiet as we stepped back inside, the hallway deserted. How odd. Usually it took a while after the night bell for everyone to file back into their rooms, and yet everyone seemed to be gone already. That much time couldn’t have passed since the night bell, could it? Did they clear everyone out so they wouldn’t see us being escorted away?
Pamela waited in the entrance hall, her hands folded behind her back, her smile gone.
“I really expected better from you,” she said flatly, looking at Ivy before turning her eyes on me. They were cold, disappointed or disapproving, perhaps both, the friendliness she usually exuded missing. “What a waste.”
If anything was a waste, it was our lives in Briola’s hands, and I was beyond done with everything. Their behavior, their treatment of us, their lies and games, of playing nice and hoping they wouldn’t harm us. Clearly, I’d fucked up so badly this time that continuing to pretend wouldn’t make a difference. I wasn’t what they wanted me to be, I didn’t want to be, and I was sick of pretending otherwise. It was time to switch tactics.
Pamela led the way down to the medical bunker. Would Doc Bowie now give us a lecture before handing us over to whoever was responsible for selling rejects like us? My stomach turned at the thought, strangers just waiting to throw money at Briola to acquire us. I’d played nice and where had it gotten me? It was what we wanted so our mothers could buy us, but not this soon. They wouldn’t have time.
But, if I was screwed anyway, what held me back, what made me go along with Briola’s rules? Nothing—Fiona, but she should be safe, wasn’t involved. All I truly needed right now was to play for time. And, if our mothers’ plan failed, hopefully plan B wouldn’t.
The sterile smell in the medical bunker was exceptionally strong as we entered, the light even brighter and whiter. The security dude—Awful One, the man who almost broke my arm—pushed me to make me walk quicker. If he weren’t so much stronger and taller than me, I would’ve gladly tested what would happen if I punched him. Not that I was particularly good at fights, despite Fiona’s efforts at teaching me, but it would’ve been worth it.
At the end of the hallway, three other staff members, two nurses judging by their scrubs, and a guard with a gun out and pointed, led someone between them.
No, not just someone. Leon.
He turned his head, our eyes meeting across the hallway, and in that moment, I longed to have him by my side, to save me, more than ever before. But the times for him to save me were over.
He was still alive, still inside the building, or at least the bunkers, so maybe there was enough time left to save him somehow.
Pamela opened the door, and we went into Doc Bowie’s office. I expected him to be sitting behind his desk like he always did, but he wasn’t. Instead he was standing, his eyes hard and his face set in a neutral expression, giving nothing away. On the other side of his chair stood Agent McCarty dressed in black pants and a white dress shirt, her hair down and perfectly styled, straight and without a single hair out of place. And between them sat none other than Gail, as alive and well as Leon claimed, looking exactly the way she had back on the yacht—her platinum blond hair up in a bun and wearing a pristine white dress shirt.
Is she the one in charge of this entire thing?
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br /> Although they were the ones I saw first, they weren’t alone, the realization sitting heavy on my chest; another part of our plan had failed, like perhaps the entire mission would if I hadn’t completed it as flawlessly as I hoped I did. Off to the side stood Fiona, held in place by two more security members, a man and a woman, both looking like they could beat her in a fight without breaking a sweat. There was worry in her eyes, but neither of us said a thing.
We’d known the risks, and now we had to deal with the consequences.
If they brought her here before we arrived, did that mean we’d failed the simulation? Or had they simply been quicker, and it had nothing to do with that? Then again, the outcome was the same in either case, making it irrelevant.
“We meet again,” Gail said, her eyes wandering between Fiona, Ivy, and me, her tone calculated. “Based on Dr. Bowie’s observations, our meeting was inevitable, though I hoped it wouldn’t be so late at night.”
“I’d say I’m sorry, but really I’m not,” I said, trying my best to conjure up the persona I’d embodied for the better part of my life—the unbothered rich boy who wasn’t afraid of anything, at least on the outside.
“I see you haven’t lost your attitude, Miles. It’s more entertaining than the cold shoulder Fiona here has been giving us. I expected better of you. The task you were given, Nautica, wasn’t that hard, but I suppose whether you passed or failed is no longer relevant.” Gail paused for a moment. With every word she said, my hate for this very moment grew exponentially. The way she spoke and carried herself was appalling. At the same time, I couldn’t help but wonder if her dismissal of our passing or failure lay in the fact that their simulation hadn’t worked the way it was meant to. Judging by all of Doc Bowie’s questions, we were supposed to remember Berlin and some kind of freighter. Yet we didn’t. Guess pushing the fault our way was easier for them to accept than acknowledging their own failure. “You broke the rules again, and with this being your third transgression, you are eliminated…effective immediately.”
“Not to, like, disagree, but honestly, if anyone failed it was you, not us,” Fiona said. “Your system is awfully flawed considering we remember none of the things we’re meant to.”
“What even was the point of Nautica?” I said. This was probably the only chance we’d ever get for answers. It was as good a topic as any to keep her going, giving our mothers more time. “It had something to do with a freighter, we figured as much, but why choose us? Neither of us knows anything about the sea or marine biology.”
I was pretty sure this would be one of the few things we could believe from her, and part of me really was curious about their tests. I did and didn’t want to know what the point of this whole thing was, the Villa and simulations, all the teens before and after us and the tortures we all had to endure one way or another. What purpose did she think was grand enough to justify the means they decided to use? Leon said it was for the military, but I still couldn’t understand why they’d go this far. Weren’t there other options?
“Nautica, although set at sea, has nothing directly to do with the sea or biology,” she said, a certain sense of pride in her words, and condescension. “It was merely a test in an extraordinary setting, the limited space making things a little easier for all parties involved. We gave you the knowledge and wanted to see if you had the courage to use it, apply the skills you already had and those you received, but everything points toward the two of you cowardly choosing the easy way out.”
In the corner of my eye I could see Fiona tense at that word—coward—the implications it carried, her hands turning into fists. I was used to that word, even if I hated it just as much as she did. Gail knew that, and it angered me only more how easily she used it against us, put her fingers on a sore spot with skill.
“I’d speculated that Miles would choose this option, but I thought Fiona’s carefully crafted design would be strong enough to balance it out. Perhaps you’re not the perfect match we expected. Disappointing.”
“Is torturing the other teens in this Villa also part of that design of yours?”
“Torture?” She raised a brow questioningly before nodding. “You saw Kamila.”
Was that the name of the girl we’d seen screaming and begging for mercy? Was she even still alive? “What was the point of that? What kind of test? What was it supposed to show? That a human body can withstand only so much pain and trauma before it breaks? I’m pretty sure others have already made this discovery.”
“Sacrifices need to be made on the road to greatness, which is why only a few ever reach it. Not everyone is willing to do what is necessary.”
“You’re insane,” Fiona spat, her words saturated with as much disgust as I felt. “Like the military or anyone would approve any of this or want whatever it is you’re developing. It’s inhumane!”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Gail said calmly, “thinking in far too simple terms. You do not exist outside of these walls, you are merely my property with which I can do as I deem fit. I’m not insane, I’m a visionary.”
“A visionary of what? What is the point of any of this? Boredom? Some kind of inferiority complex you feel the need to cover up and thus use us to make yourself feel like you’re in control, have power?”
The door behind us opened. My stomach dropped even further at the sight of the two IT guys and the smashed tablet one of them was carrying. I hadn’t planned for them to go after it, even less that they would investigate what it was.
“We found this,” one of them said and handed the tablet to Gail.
“You may leave,” she said. The two IT guys scurried away like they were just as afraid of her as I was. She inspected the tablet, her eyes curiously wandering over it, small pieces of glass, plastic, or hardware falling onto her desk as she turned it around. Without moving her head, she looked at me, annoyed, like she hadn’t expected this and now it was just one more thing about me she had to deal with. “Would you like to tell me what this is?”
We stared at each other, barely blinking, like two dogs fighting for dominance, neither willing to submit. I knew something she didn’t, and if she killed me, she wouldn’t get any answers at all.
“The silent treatment, really, Miles?” Gail asked, still staring at me. “How old are you, five?”
I shrugged. “I’m pretty sure you know enough about me to know that isn’t true. Calculating wouldn’t even be required, would it, since your files already state my age.”
“A very typical response from you, resorting to humor when under pressure. I don’t need a file to tell me that.” She smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to make all of this a little easier for everyone and just confess?”
“Not particularly, no.”
“Come on, Miles, there’s no reason for you to act this way,” Gail said, trying her best to sound friendly or kind. “You’re making this so much worse for yourself and everyone connected to you.”
“How could any of this get worse than it already is?” I asked, honestly curious. “And I don’t have the answer you’re looking for.”
“You’re disappointing me.”
“See, I don’t really care.”
“I know you’re lying. I watched your expression when you saw this tablet handed over to me, and eyes don’t lie. You were afraid, so now why don’t you tell me why? This is the last chance I’m giving you before you leave me no other choice but to turn this ugly. What is this and what did you use it for?”
Despite her words, I turned silent again. I didn’t want this to get out of hand, but realistically I also knew that it would anyway. Now or later, and I preferred later.
“Since Miles isn’t willing to talk”—Gail turned to Fiona—“ maybe you have the answers.” She held up the broken tablet, eyeing Fiona like a snake sizing up its next meal. “What is this?”
“Fuck you,” Fiona spat, her words razor sharp.
“It’s game over for the both of you. I couldn’t care less which one of you tells me what I want to know, but this is the end. Or would you like seeing me hurt one of you, make the other pay for your refusal?”
“You wouldn’t harm your own investments,” I argued.
“Are you so sure about that?” There was a clear challenge in her voice. Awful One moved one of his hands from my upper arm down to my wrist, twisted it up my back once more, and this time I thought for sure he might actually break it, or dislocate my shoulder just to prove a point for Gail. He moved his other hand up my arm that little bit more to reach my still healing gunshot wound. While it didn’t hurt as bad now as it had a few days ago, having him squeeze it sent stars dancing before my eyes.
I remained silent through the building ache and pressure, tried to lean forward to relieve some of it, but he followed, allowed me none of it. Turning my head, I looked over at Fiona, the desperation in her eyes, her clenched jaw. Seeing her this way scared me only more.
I was so sure that I’d done my job well, yet the longer this conversation continued, the more doubt infested my mind. What if I’d made a mistake, some kind of typo in my message, an error in the coding? What if the IT guys checked the servers, found the loophole, and closed it before our mothers could infect their system like a deadly virus? What if they found the security alteration I’d made? What if this was only the beginning of the end of our lives, the appetizer for what was to come?
“Selling Ivy wasn’t part of our original plan, but it will certainly make her more useful to us now that we don’t need her anymore. With some luck she’ll end up with the same buyer as her little girlfriend. Perhaps we’ll offer them as a package deal, wouldn’t that be nice?” Did she even know what the word nice meant? “Are you okay with knowing that it was entirely your fault, Miles? Even if you were to tell me now, I don’t care anymore.”
She threw the tablet over her shoulder, and it landed with a loud clatter on the floor.