The Phoenix Project

by M. R. Pritchard

  He doesn’t stop punching, I brace my arms in front of my face but it does nothing to stop him. I don’t give them the satisfaction of tears or pleading. I take Baillie’s pounding like a man, quietly. Not that my lungs ever have a chance to refill with fresh air, that I could get a second to say something, instead, I hold my breath. I'm sure I hear my nose break, my ribs crack and just before I'm ready to pass out the door opens.

  “Enough!” Crane yells to Baillie. He must be satisfied, the show must be over.

  They leave me alone on the floor, blood pouring out of my nose, barely able to inhale from the pain in my ribs. The metallic smell from all the blood is too much, it clogs in the back of my throat and I spit out a few clots onto the pale floor. I watch them ooze across the unleveled linoleum, creating sticky gleaming paths, bouncing off each other as they drift to a divot in the flooring. It’s not long after the globs of blood stop moving that I close my eyes.

  Too soon I hear the door creak open. Using my arms I pull my body across the room to the farthest corner and try to curl into a ball, hoping I can make myself small enough that he won’t see me in the dark corner. But he stands, waiting, with his arms crossed across his chest. Please leave please leave please leave.

  But he doesn’t. He stomps to my corner and reaches for my foot. I try and kick him away but it doesn’t work, he waits until the right moment, snapping out with viper reflexes, grabbing both my feet as I kick. He pulls me across the floor, back to the middle of the room and waits, crossing his arms and staring at me. I don’t know what he wants I can only assume that he’s giving me a chance to defend myself, which is a joke. I push myself up on my knees, bending over on my elbows so I can get a few deep breaths in. I push my feet under myself then slowly, steadying myself, I stand.

  There is nothing to hold onto once I am up, and it’s not long before the room starts spinning around me. I close my eyes, hoping that when I open them Baillie will be gone and I will be back somewhere safe with my family. But when I open them Baillie remains. He reaches forward and pushes my right shoulder with his index finger. I wobble backwards, barely able to steady myself. He reaches out to push on my left shoulder, this time I slap his hand away. I realize that I should have just stood there, not reacting to his taunts, because he kicks his long leg out, sweeping my feet out from under me. I fall hard on the ground, no longer containing the reflexes to catch myself, to soften the blow of the fall. With one swift stride he pulls me up by the collar of my shirt and throws me back against the musty cement wall. My body slides down to the floor and it’s only an instant before he is pulling me up to my feet again by the collar of my shirt. This time I lean my head forward and bite him on his arm, as hard as I can, trying to pierce his dark flesh with my teeth. My feeble attempt to fight back brings a deep rumble of laughter from Baillie’s chest and more pain.

  Baillie continues with his work. It seems like every hour he enters the room, but it must be once or twice a day. The rest of the time I am unconscious from the pain, from the inability to breath, from the realization that I may die without ever getting to say goodbye to Lina or Ian or Adam. I want to scream or cry, I’m not sure which, but I won’t give Crane or Baillie the satisfaction. The only thing that gives me the spark to drag my carcass off the floor, each time the door opens, is the hope that I might be able to get out and find my daughter. But it’s so hard, Baillie is so strong and unrelenting. Just once, it crosses my mind, is this how Adam must have felt in the Middle East, ready to give up, ready to say something that will force them to kill you and end the pain.

  On what I think could be the fourth day, I make no attempt to move when the door opens. I tell myself that if I feign death then he might stop and leave me alone. I have nothing left, Crane has only allowed me a few bottles of water, but no food. My heart rate is much too high, not from fear but from the lack of blood running through my body. I’ve lost too much, the pale floor, now streaked with varying shades of red and brown.

  Baillie stands over me tapping a baseball bat in his palm. I watch him from the slit of my swollen eye, through the thick crusting of blood across my lashes. I'm not sure if it is tears or blood I feel trickling down the side of my face. But I am almost certain that there is not enough moisture left in my body to produce either. Baillie kicks my feet a few times, then my arms, taunting me. But it’s no use. I see him lift the bat high in the air. I close my eyes, I have no way to brace myself for the impact, my body is a jellied mess of bruises, oozing and bleeding wounds. I'm sure there is more than one broken bone. I haven't been able to move my left arm for at least two days and there are sharp pains that shoot through my chest during the few shallow breaths I can take.

  I wait, unmoving. I try to open my eyes, looking into his, hoping there might be some compassion, but his eyes are crazed, they don’t see me.

  Goodbye Lina, I love you, I tell myself.

  I had hoped I might be able to find my way out of this hell, but I know I most certainly will not, I will not survive the baseball bat in Baillie’s hands. Just as I expect him to hit me, as I expect to feel the bat squish into my tissues, busting them apart like a rotten melon, I hear the faint sound of the door opening and a voice, not Crane’s voice, this time it’s someone older with the hint of an accent. I crack my eye open again to see a short Asian man enter the room carrying a pistol. He aims it at Baillie yelling something to him, Baillie gives a scoffing laugh and then starts to bring his arms down directing the bat at my limp body that lies on the floor, the gun fires and a small trickle of blood dribbles out of a wound in the middle of Baillie’s forehead, just before he flops over onto the ground.

  For a moment, during the few seconds of consciousness that I can muster, I think that I just saw Morris shoot Baillie dead.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Men in grey uniform flood the room, Volker. One bends down to scoop my body off the ground. I make no attempt to move or struggle. It feels as though I have no bones left just floppy cartilage holding my vital organs together. The Volker carries me out of the building and to a waiting car. He sits with me on his lap, and I wonder if it’s Adam, but when I try and breathe in, between the sharp pains in my ribs, it’s not his familiar scent that I smell.

  I drift in and out of consciousness. I feel the pain of the Volker laying me down, a bright light being shined into my eyes. I’m not sure if my pupils react, or if they could even see my eyes at all, since they are mostly swollen shut and crusted with blood. Someone tries to move my broken arm and it takes all the strength I have to muster a groan, warning them that the bone is snapped in half just not yet poking through the thin layer of skin on my bruised arm.

  This time, when the doctor cuts my clothes off, I don’t care who is in the room. I make no attempt to cover myself or have him ask people to leave. I almost hope that he will let me waste away and die, because death would most certainly feel much better than the pain I am feeling right now.

  There is a pinch in my arm from an IV being placed. A woman’s voice whispers that she is sorry as she pushes the needle deeper into my arm. I want to laugh at her. I can barely feel it, everything else overriding her tiny pinch. There is pressure from medical tape and the cool rush of fluid pouring into my vein. Just as I’m thinking they will never give me pain medication I feel the warm tingle of morphine enter my vein, but it’s only enough to dull the pain, and I can feel everything the doctor is doing.

  He starts cleaning wounds, stitching, palpating. If I could talk, I would tell him to order an x-ray already, but he must see the bruises on my ribs because not long after that I hear the clicks and hums of a portable x-ray machine. The warmth from the morphine is starting to dissipate just as I feel someone touch my broken arm. I want to tell them I need more, but my jaw won’t work, I can’t make the sound come out. And I know what’s coming; they must have seen the break in the x-ray. I have no muscle tone left to brace myself, for the pulling and straightening that comes with setting the break, getting it ready for casting. The pa
in is sharp and strong, almost worse than when Baillie snapped it with the punch of his heavy fist. Thankfully it’s just enough to send me back into unconsciousness.

  --

  I wake more than once from the pain, not knowing what day it is or what time it is. I push the button in my hand to release more pain medication, my limbs feeling heavy and sore. The room is empty except for the rhythmic beeping of the cardiac monitor. If anyone enters the room I wouldn’t know or care right now. But there is a nagging feeling in the back of my mind, it hovers over me as a heavy cloud when I wake to push the button, there is something or someone that I am missing.

  --

  There is a sharp pain in my left arm and it wakes me, slowly at first. I pat the bed looking for the button, for more pain medication, but I can’t find it. The pain gets stronger and I reach over to hold my broken arm to my chest, trying to relieve the pain but instead of soft skin my hand meets a hard heavily textured cast. I open my eyes, able to see through both of them for the first time in days, I think days is the right word. There is no crusted blood to look through. Someone must have washed it off. I squint at the bright light coming in the window. It takes a few minutes for my eyes to adjust and inspect the room, a typical hospital room. White walls, white floor, a small bathroom near the door and sink with large mirror facing the bed. For some reason someone thought it would be a good idea to place a teal and peach border of wallpaper across the middle of each wall. I stare at the border and count the feathered pattern across the wall in front of me. When I get to the corner of the wall I am done counting and there is an odd number of colored blobs on the wallpaper, this discovery infuriates me and I want to get up and tear the wallpaper off the wall, maybe it’s a reaction from the morphine.

  My legs are restless from days of inactivity. I throw the knitted white blanket off me only to be greeted with dark bruises covering my pale legs. I scoot to the end of the bed and roll my legs so they dangle off the edge of the bed, monitor leads tug on my skin. I pull them off and throw them on the floor. The sensations from the bruises to my legs and ribs mask the pain I was just feeling from my broken arm. I stare at the cast on my left arm. It extends from my fingers, halfway to my shoulder. I take a few deep breaths and push myself to stand. I hobble over to the large mirror that’s attached to the wall over the sink. At first I am shocked by the person looking back at me, there’s a thick camouflage of bruises covering my face, my eyes, nose, and jaw. There’s the gleam from medical glue on my eyebrow and lip, and a new bump on my nose from where Baillie broke it.

  As I stand looking at myself in the mirror the door to the room opens. I half expect to see Baillie waltz in, but thankfully it is just a Volker guard. He swings the door wide and looks around the room before he notices me standing at the sink, he nods, then closes the door. I stand at the sink for a while, then I pace the room, trying to get the blood flowing in my legs. It’s not long before I’m exhausted and return to the hospital bed. Just as I get myself covered there’s a knock at the door and not a moment after it opens and Morris is escorted into the room.

  “Andromeda, you are awake. We’ve been waiting.” Morris walks to the bedside. Usually he greets me kindly in the committee meetings, shaking my hand, with a smile that wrinkles all the way to his eyes. This time he greets me with a warm hug, and sits close to me on the edge of the hospital bed. I stare at him for a moment, shocked from his emotional greeting, and from remembering that he is responsible for saving my life.

  “Thank you, Morris,” I whisper to him. He reaches out and squeezes my hand, just the way my grandfather would do when I was a child.

  “How do you feel?”

  I shrug. Anyone who looked at me right now could see that I don’t feel well. “Where’s Lina?” I look behind him, hoping that she will walk into the room.

  “She has been staying with Ms. Black and the boys. We wanted to bring her here; we thought she might be able to help you.” He pauses, clearing his throat. “We thought she might be able to help you wake up.”

  “Why? How long has it been?”

  Morris eyes me apprehensively. “Almost a week,” he tells me.

  I’m shocked by his revelation. I thought maybe a few days had passed since Morris’ rescue, but not a full week.

  “So why didn’t you bring her?” He looks down at our hands and smiles, wrinkling his cheeks all the way to his eyes. He pauses for a while, and I wonder if he’s trying to figure out what to say to me.

  “Because of your screams,” He pauses again, letting it soak in, “even with the sedation, the hospital staff had to move the other patients off the floor, do you remember dreaming, Andromeda?”

  I shake my head no. I remember nothing, just the pain and the numbing morphine.

  “It’s ok. You’re safe.” He pats my hand. I’ve heard another person concerned for my safety say something similar. Crane.

  “Is Baillie dead this time?”

  “Yes. I assure you.”

  “And Crane?”

  “Andromeda,” he pauses again trying to assemble the words, “Crane has been dealt with.”

  “But how did you find me? How did you know where he had taken me?”

  “I was assigned to keep a close eye on Crane. The Funding Entities didn’t quite trust him. But they never expected this. That he would do something like this to you. I never expected it either. He’s a brilliant man, Andromeda, but something changed in him when we set foot in Phoenix. The Funding Entities were so impressed with the Japanese District that they didn’t want to risk pulling him out of the organization before the Phoenix District was complete. They’re giving him a second chance. They can’t risk this going wrong. They can’t risk failure. We have no choice, his involvement is imperative.”

  “What are you trying to say, Morris?”

  “We can’t get rid of Crane just yet. We can only try and control him.”

  This time I pause. Letting the realization soak in, that Crane will be free to continue as he did before, he will barely face any punishment for almost killing me.

  “And what happens to me?” I ask. I hope that he will let us go. Send us to a new life beyond the gates, back to the real world. But I know the rules of the District. Crane made sure to beat them into me.

  “You will be relocated.”

  “Where?”

  “Beyond the cement wall, to the Pasture, a farm in the northern county where only a few will know of your exact location, it will be heavily guarded, as before, and well hidden.”

  “And Lina?”

  “She will go with you. We will be relocating the entire Sovereign children’s training program to the farm. The Funding Entities don’t want Crane near the children. They don’t want his negative influences impacting their training.”

  “Ian?” I ask, hopeful.

  “I am sorry. But we need him at the nuclear power plant. We can’t replace him and his current state remains.”

  I want to ask about Adam. But I don’t want Morris to know our relationship may be stronger than just Sovereign committee members. “What about the Committee meetings? Will they continue?”

  “Yes.” My stomach drops. I will have to see Crane again. “We will do our best to make sure your participation is only by video conference.” I close my eyes and sigh in relief. “Andromeda?” Morris waits for me to open my eyes. His brown eyes penetrate mine. “You do not realize how important you are, to all of us, this is much bigger than you realize.”

  I get the sense he is referring to something more than just the District.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Morris informs me we will be leaving in the morning. I spend the rest of the evening tossing and turning, unable to get comfortable. Morris’ words keep ringing in my ears. Then there is the anticipation of reuniting with Lina in the morning, and getting beyond the cement wall, away from Crane, where we will only have the electric fence to worry about.

  A nurse brings me a bowl of rice and some pain tablets. I stare at the rice and rea
lize that the reserves of the District must be low if this is all they can give me. I eat the rice and take the medication. Before long I am fast asleep.

  If I dream I don’t remember it and no one wakes me up to relieve me of them. I wake alone just before the sun rises. There is a folded pile of clothes in the chair next to the bed. I get up and try my best to stretch my sore damaged muscles. My next feat is the shower. I hang my cast outside the shower curtain and try to wash myself with my one hand. It’s almost impossible but I leave the shower feeling a refreshed. I stare in the mirror. The bruising has lessened to a dull yellow hue. I do my best to dry myself and get dressed. Whoever brought the clothes got them from the loft. I recognize the familiar undergarments, black khaki pants and white blouse. They even brought my favorite leather sandals. But when I pull on my clothes they are at least a size too big. I pull the shirt up and look at my bruised abdomen. For the first time ever I can see a rib bone sticking out at me. I let the shirt fall back into place and run my fingers through my hair, trying to de-tangle it. It has remained uncut for over a year, and my once short hair has now grown down past my shoulder blades. Since I have no hair ties I pull one of the cardiac leads off the floor and rip the ends off it, then use it to twist my hair up in a loose bun.

  Just as I finish there is a knock and the door opens.

  “Mommy!” Lina bounds into the room, throwing her arms around me. I want to pick her up, but it’s impossible with the cast. Instead I sit on the end of the bed and pull her to me. I hold her for a long time, afraid to let go, afraid that I may never see her again.

  The Volker motions for us to go. He escorts us outside of the hospital where there is a caravan of black SUV’s waiting. He opens the door to one of the middle vehicles for us to get in. Stevie jumps out, she sniffs and licks at me and then jumps back in, waiting for us to follow her.