Raven

by Shelly Pratt

  Aiyana thought she would have appeared more at home on a runway than in a lab coat, but hey - each to their own. Even though she had the good sense to be afraid of the men that accompanied her, Aiyana was in fact more concerned about the woman at this point in time. She looked confident and in charge; and at this point, a bigger threat than the other two. They weren’t without pause though. Each man was dressed in head to toe black attire, with belts equipped with walkie talkies, hand cuffs and spare rounds for the guns that were holstered under each of their Pectorals. Both had buzz cuts as though they had just been released from the army and each one wore a scowl that said they weren’t to be messed with.

  Once they were all fully inside the room, the door closed swiftly behind them leaving no chance of her escape even if she were out of the restraints that bound her. The men hung back and took up sentry at either side of the door, whilst the woman came right up next to Aiyana’s head so that she could look at her without straining her neck. The woman seemed to take in Aiyana and observe her mood for a moment before she finally spoke.

  “My name is Doctor Charice Feldon, I’m a laboratory specialist here at the black ops branch of the APP. Sorry about the restraints, but at this point we feel it is in our best interest to keep you in them until we can determine your position,” she said crisply.

  “My position on what?” she asked.

  Charice imperceptibly peered over her glasses at this question as though she couldn’t quite believe it was being asked in the first place.

  Coming to a decision about something, she nodded and said “How you co-operate here will greatly influence on how you will be treated by the APP. Even though the scientists carry out the work in the laboratories, it is ultimately run by them and funded by the state government. Now whilst you were recovering we have had the chance to run tests and examine you to determine that you are not one of the new race, which brings me back to the fundamental question that needs answering – what is your connection to the new race?”

  “Recovering? Is that what you call it when you drug and kidnap me?” she scoffed.

  “You won’t get too many chances, Aiyana. If I were you I would start talking,” said Charice.

  Aiyana thought for a moment. She obviously wanted to get out of here as soon as she possibly could, but she wondered exactly just how much she should reveal to these people, after all, they had no way of knowing what her connection to the race was.

  “Many years ago my grandmother felt that all the despicable and evil things that were going on along the coast were getting out of control. The crimes were more violent, the murders more frequent. There was no end in sight to the burglaries and crime spree that seemed to be sweeping our city. So she took matters into her own hands and inadvertently created the race of people you are referring to,” she said, hoping that this offered up enough information to get her out of here pronto.

  “That’s a very nice story, but it’s one we’ve heard before. Now let’s try again, shall we?” said Charice sweetly.

  “Well, as I’m sure you already know,” she started rudely, “my grandmother was a witch. She cast a spell, it didn’t work out, and now we have an even bigger problem on our hands than before. Kind of like when the cane toad was introduced in the 1930’s. It’s just replacing one pest with another,” she said with a smirk.

  “I see, so what is your role – how do you fit into all of this?”

  “Who says I fit in anywhere?” she grumbled.

  “Aiyana,” Charice said in a sing song sort of way – kind of like when you want somebody’s undivided attention.

  “Yes?”

  “You’re stalling. You’ve been under surveillance for months now and we have already placed you with persons of interest on more than one occasion. The APP has a highly trained elite team that track their species very effectively. That said, there is a lot we don’t divulge to the public out of human interest and we’d like to keep it that way. Our intention is to try and rid ourselves of the monstrosity that was created and the only way to do that is with co-operation,” she looked at her files she carried with her now as if to run over some notes before continuing.

  “The APP has aerial photographic evidence of you in talks with a known member of this species. What is your connection to him?”

  Aiyana had a sinking feeling she was never going to get out of here again. If they even suspected for a minute that she was involved with one of them then she was sure as day that they’d lock her up and throw away the key forever. At least that was what she thought would be the outcome unless she could make herself useful to them.

  “The person you are talking about approached me because I am a direct bloodline descendant of my mother and grandmother. He heard that I could break the spell of his race because of my lineage,” she offered.

  “Great, now we seem to be getting somewhere, keep going,” she said dryly.

  “He’s not part of the original flock; he’s like me and is a descendant pure in ways and thought. Only the two of us are able to break the curse that has given these individuals more power than what they originally had,” Aiyana said, hoping that she wasn’t giving too much away.

  “You speak of this person with fondness, do you have a personal relationship with him?” she queried.

  “No,” she said almost too hastily.

  “You’re lying, Aiyana. Those little suction caps that are stuck to your head are lighting up like Christmas baubles. I’ll remind you again, it is in your best interest to be truthful,” she said.

  “I don’t know what else you want me to say,” she yelled in frustration.

  “Let’s go back a minute,” Charice said calmly. “Explain this to me. He comes to you and wants to break the curse, because you say he’s not like the others, and you have the ability to do so, and yet you don’t. Now correct me if I’m wrong but I think everybody who is human in this godforsaken city would give their eye teeth to be rid of the new race, and yet you do nothing even though the power is within you to do so. Why is that?” she asked, the cogs of her mind already ticking over and contemplating what her answer would be.

  Aiyana sighed. “I’d have to kill him - only I can do it,” she answered wearily.

  Talk about talking in circles. She was fed up, tired and thirsty. She would have loved a glass of water but wasn’t willing to give Doctor Charice the satisfaction of asking for anything so instead settled for feeling sorry for herself.

  “So what’s stopping you?” Charice wondered out loud.

  “I…” There was nothing left to say without incriminating herself any further than what she already had.

  Charice slapped her hands together so loudly that even the guards at the door jumped slightly where they were standing.

  “Oh I see. I understand now, why would one kill something they love? That’s it isn’t it Aiyana? You love him?”

  She could see that any chance of her leaving had just gone out the window. Her agitation and frustration suddenly boiled over at her helplessness of the situation and she started to struggle and writhe around in an attempt to be rid of herself the shackles that contained her.

  “Let me go! Let me out of here, I’ve done nothing wrong!” she screamed helplessly.

  “Oh you’re not going anywhere, Aiyana. Not until we find you’re a little more compliant with what we’re trying to achieve here,” she smiled.

  “You have no right. No right! Do you hear me,” she sobbed.

  “Actually we do,” said the Doctor as she reached into her lab coat pocket to fish out a syringe filled with a yellow looking substance.

  “Get that away from me, don’t you dare jab me with that thing,” she spat.

  “You’re done in here. You’ll be moved to a different holding cell shortly,” she said with finality, right before pricking the skin of her arm with needle. The pain was worse than the old tetanus shots they used to give and she felt the muscle in her arm go dead. She found she was lost for words. Whilst she wanted to scream and
yell at them, all she could do was lay there immobile whilst silent tears ran down the sides of her face. She began to wonder if there was anybody out there who would come and save her from this nightmare.

  Chapter Eight

  There weren’t any more bright lights or shiny stainless steel tables, that much was certain. The minute she opened her eyes she could see that she had been moved to accommodations more suited to prisoners rather than scientific experiments, which told her in essence that she was no longer a desirable commodity – something they wanted to fawn over and inspect, to dissect and be rewarded with a new discovery that they thought would somehow benefit the human race. No, she was of no use to them just yet and so had just been discarded aside like yesterday’s waste.

  The room was nothing but a solid brick cell, containing little more than a tiny cot with a toilet taking up prime real estate in such confined spaces. The drugs they had injected her with had made her feel groggy and dehydrated and she longed for something cool to drink – water, anything at all for that matter. She could see from her position that there were metal bars across the window that would surely grant her freedom to the outside world, but not only did she have the bars to contend with, there was also double glazed glass on the other side.

  She could glimpse stars and a portion of the moon, but the sight only depressed her. She wanted more than anything to be flying with Eilam across that sky, far away to a freedom she thought she might never taste again. The APP had the right to hold her indefinitely if she was at all suspected of treason to the law and state, and obviously they were taking her association with a known raven seriously; so serious it was to the point of judge and jury minus the trial.

  She sighed as she arose off the cot and made her way to the front of the room, darkness canvassing the walls like it did on the outside world. The bars that separated her from the corridor were such a thick hard steel that it would take a blow torch to get through them. She consoled herself with craning her head between them to try and get a good look at her surroundings. Like her cell, the rest of the corridor and surrounding cells were all made of the same hard concrete that offered no warmth or comfort. The cells seemed to run as far as the eye could see, and as she were unconscious when she had arrived in her new digs, she didn’t see which way she had been brought in, but she guessed that had been their intention in the first place. Wouldn’t do her knowing an escape route now would it?

  The cell across from her was empty, but she could see quite clearly there were others occupied around her with people. They didn’t come to the bars to see who the new-comer was; they stayed back in the shadows and kept their distance. They were quiet too, as though there was some unspoken rule that it was strictly forbidden to utter a single word, and the only sound that touched her ears was the incessant drone of electricity that course through the fluorescent light globes. She wondered for the hundredth time where exactly she was. Was she still on the coast or had she been taken elsewhere? She was dying to talk to somebody to try and find out some answers and the only way she was going to do that was if she convinced her fellow inmates to give her the time of day. Across the hall and two cells down on the left looked like her most promising avenue of idle chitchat. She pressed herself as far as she could into the corner space of the bars in order to allow herself to close the gap a little more with the person she was about to befriend.

  “Hello,” she said in a hushed whisper. Nothing, not a single word or sound uttered back. Come on people!

  “Hello,” she whispered again, although this time raising her voice to the point she may as well have not even bothered to watch the volume at which she was speaking.

  “Hush,” was the angry reply she received from a man evident on keeping quiet.

  “I will not hush until you speak to me,” she snapped, determined to get what she wanted.

  “Be quiet or they will hear you,” he said in hushed tones.

  “Who will hear us? There’s nobody here,” she said in a quieter voice, intent on keeping the man speaking. The man rose from his cot then and made his way to the front of his cell also, allowing her a better look of him. He was not a very tall man, round and chubby with a ratty kind of race with a big wart at the side of his nose. Whilst he wasn’t smiling, his two front teeth protruded from his mouth in an unflattering way and pressed down on his lower lip as they did so. He was balding on top but still had long straggly hair that hung about his shoulders. He certainly was most unattractive. He put his hands to his lips now and waved his hand at the air, indicating he wanted her to keep it down. She nodded, but continued regardless.

  “Who is watching us?” she whispered again.

  “They are, they’re always watching, there’s no escaping them now you know,” he whispered with urgency.

  “Is there any way out of here?” she queried, careful to keep her voice at a very low volume.

  “Many come in here, but few return to the outside world,” he said, his eyes widening to the size of saucers, making her feel like perhaps he didn’t quite have all of his marbles.

  “Yes, but can we get out?” she said, a little louder this time. She was starting to find this merry-go-round of conversation a little tiresome with no food or coffee in her belly. He shushed her angrily before continuing.

  “You’re not listening to me missy. It’s too late now you know, you’re already here now. There’s no hope once you make it here, oh no. You better prey they just leave you be and forget about you,” he said. “Sometimes we hear the screams, seems to be a lot worse a place where they take them than being in here missy, let me tell you,” he whispered again, his behaviour starting to become agitated and more erratic.

  He started rubbing his hands together desperately as though he was washing them but sans the soap and water.

  At that moment there was a loud clang of metal the reverberated down the long corridor, a signal that someone was coming.

  The man heard it too. He seemed to shut down instantly and started a ménage of ramblings to himself.

  “Too late, much too late now missy; I’ve gone and done it now. I told you. There coming they are. Never see me again, nope, never”. He continued on like this as he retreated to the blackness of his cell, his round frame now gone from sight.

  Aiyana stayed put where she was, Waiting to see who it was that was coming. She could tell it was more than one person and they were coming quickly down the hall from the left wing of the building. From the thump of their boots on the floor, she guessed there were at least six of them, all heavy solid men wearing the APP uniform, the spitting image of the guards that had run sentry duty of the laboratory room where she had first been taken. As they closed the gap between them she could quite clearly see she was in fact correct.

  They wore hardened expressions with machine guns slung over their shoulders and displayed a practiced military synchronisation to their march down the hall. It was a little unsettling to think that these men may very well be coming for her. The man across the hall still prattled on, awaiting his fate of the guards that marched for a reason. They stopped now outside his cell, his prediction colliding with reality in that instant.

  One of the police produced a large key and stuck it in to the lock of his cell and turned it until it clicked open. The man wailed now, begging for mercy and to be left alone, his cries falling on deaf ears as they turned to shrieks of terror.

  “No, no, no, please I beg of you. Leave me be, leave me here, please!” he begged.

  It was a hard thing for Aiyana to watch. Whilst wanting to yell out and help the man, to do something – anything! She didn’t want to attract any undue attention towards herself in case they decided to make her their next target. In the interest of self-preservation she kept her mouth shut, all the while hating herself for doing so. Good God, what has the world come to? She thought.

  They had the man out of the cell now and quickly trotted him off down the hall, all the while his shrill voice haunting her as they did so. It wasn’t long be
fore his screams died out, too far gone to be heard anymore.

  It wasn’t long after their party had departed that she heard a funny noise coming back down the hall. It was a strange sound, yet familiar in its action. As the sound neared her cell she could see a frail old man pushing a mop and bucket along with a cleaning cart. He was dressed in head to toe brilliant white overalls and cap. His hunched over frame parked the trolley outside of the cell that had just been vacated and he proceeded inside to strip and clean the area.