by Loki Renard
“You and your brother managed to capture her earlier. I don’t believe you realize it, but you very possibly saved my life. That razor blade was intended for me.”
“Why?”
“Miss Electra and I have a… history,” the Head says. “I can’t go into it any deeper than that, but I was impressed with the way you and Ken handled her. She was calm. She was relatively non-aggressive.”
“We didn’t do anything special,” I say. “We just picked her up.”
The Head looks me up and down with a half smile. “I don’t think you understand the effect you have on some women, Doctor Ares.”
“Thank you, ma’am?” I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or what she means, but it sounded vaguely positive.
“You calmed her down. She hasn’t been calm a day she’s been here. If anything, she’s gotten increasingly worse.” The Head looks at me with those determined eyes. “I’m taking you off medical duty. I want you to handle Miss Electra.”
“Handle her how?”
“Train her. Settle her into life in this facility.”
“I’m not a field agent. I couldn’t train anyone to do anything more than dress wounds and…”
The Head waves her hand in a gesture of dismissal.
“You were a soldier. You know enough. Besides, she has all the tactical knowledge she is ever going to need. Your mission, Doctor Ares, is to civilize her. From this moment forward, she’s yours. You own her.”
“Uh…”
I have no idea what any of that means, but I am fairly certain I do not own anybody. Even in this facility where the normal rules of human society are suspended, we don’t own each other.
“She’s in the fourth containment row. You can let her out at your own risk, but I would suggest keeping her contained in the short term. She has a habit of trying to kill her trainers. We have three on medical leave.”
“Uhm…”
“Congratulations,” the Head smiles. “I know you’ll do an excellent job.”
It’s too late to say anything else. The Head is already walking away. I consider my options. I could refuse to take this on. I’m no prisoner here. I don’t have to do what this woman says, even if she does her best to make it sound as if I do. I could walk away right now, but what stops me aren’t the orders the Head just gave me. It’s remembering the look in Electra’s eyes when I was dealing with her. She is badly in need of proper discipline, but more than that, she craves kindness. I don’t know what happened to her to make her this way. I don’t know why she is so full of rage and fear. I don’t know how she came to be here. I’ll find all those things out in due course, I suppose. For now, I look down the rows of bars, knowing that somewhere down there is a very broken girl who desperately needs my help. I just hope it’s not too late to give it to her.
Girl In A Cage
Tom
A guard meets me on my way down. He reaches out a hand to stop me in my tracks. “Do you have clearance, Doctor Ares?”
“I think I just got it. Head asked me to take a look at Electra.”
“Wow,” he says, his brows rising. “So I guess she’s cutting out the middle man. Instead of having casualties sent to you, you can be the next casualty.”
I smirk at the joke. This guard is a nice guy. Most of the people here aren’t so bad. “She’s never been aggressive with me. I’m sure we’ll get along.”
“Not possible. I’ve seen her down here for the past month. Girl can’t help herself. She’s not normal. She attacks everything that moves.”
“If you can find me someone in this place who is normal, I’d love to meet them,” I reply dryly.
The guard’s concern is not entirely misplaced. Instead of worrying about her hurting me, I’m trying to think what comes next. I’m still not entirely sure what the Head expects me to do with Electra. I’m a doctor. I don’t handle the training side of things, though Ken does, and I guess he owes me a few favors. I don’t have any training slots in the facility. I don’t know where she’s supposed to stay. The Head has just basically waved her hand and expected everything to fall into place.
The guard smirks. “Your funeral, Doc. If I were you, I’d be asking for another assignment. She breaks men.”
“Consider me warned. Where is she?”
“Third on the left. I’ll open the outer cell door and give you the key to her shackles. I don’t suggest you use it.”
I thank him for his concern and the guard takes me down to her cell. I stop, shocked at what I see.
They have her trussed up like Hannibal Lecter. A thick black rubber mask covers most of her face. Her golden curls are escaping the rubber ties on all sides. Her hands and feet are shackled to the floor and the wall. She can barely move. I would put money on it being pretty difficult for her to breathe.
This is the most shameful display of abuse of power I have ever seen. This is how they treat a lady? And they expect her to behave in a sane way? Sometimes the way this place runs leaves me shaking my head. Other times, it makes my blood boil. This is one of the latter times.
I go to her and pull the mask off her face. It comes away, leaving a pink line around where it was pressed against her skin. She looks pale and stressed, hardly surprising given her situation. She’s running on adrenaline. I need to calm her down, get her out of flight or fight mode.
“What happened?” I ask the question with a calm sympathy. I know she hurt Tyko. I know she’s dangerous, but the fact remains she’s maybe a hundred pounds of female and I’m more than twice her size. If she gets the better of me, it’s my own damn fault.
“I got angry,” she says, her voice small and incongruous. “Did I kill him?”
“You didn’t kill him.”
She sniffles and nods. “Good,” she says. “He didn’t deserve to die. I just couldn’t help myself. When I get angry…” she trails off and looks away. “They make me so angry.”
“I know,” I say. I can see the rage in her. Even now that she’s subdued and perhaps even sorry, it simmers inside her. I can feel it, a sympathetic ache in my chest.
“Do you?” She looks at me, those blue eyes searching mine. “Do you know what it’s like to want to kill people all the time? Do you know what it’s like to be made…” she chokes up and stops. “Why are you here?”
“I’ve been asked to take care of you,” I explain gently.
“You mean they’re going to have me put down. Not surprised.”
“That is not what I mean at all. I mean, I’m going to be in charge of you.”
“What does that even mean?”
It’s a good question.
“For starters, it means I’m unlocking these cuffs and shackles.”
“You shouldn’t do that. I might hurt you.”
I cock my head to the side. “Do you want to hurt me?”
Electra
I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to hurt anybody. But I do. I can’t help myself. I was angry at Tyko when I attacked him, but the truth is I might have attacked him anyway even if I didn’t have a reason. I do things like that from time to time. It’s like there’s an animal inside me and it wants blood.
I shake my head. “Don’t take the cuffs off. You’re too nice to be hurt.”
He gives me a look which might be sympathy or pity. I can’t really tell the difference between the emotions. Not many people have sympathy for me, but many pity me. Tyko pitied me once. I doubt he does anymore. I eradicated that emotion when I wrapped that chain around his neck and made him face shameful mortality.
“I’m going to unshackle you,” the doctor says. “And then I’m going to take you somewhere nicer than this, and we are going to talk.”
“Are you fucking stupid?” My temper spikes.
His eyes narrow just a fraction, but I don’t pay attention to that.
“I seriously hurt a lot of people today, and you want to talk to me? Somewhere nice? You should be putting me in the deepest dungeon this place has. You should be putt
ing me down.”
“You need to stop talking like that,” he interrupts me bluntly. “I’m in charge. I decide what I do with you. And right now I’m letting you go.”
“I’ll hurt you.”
“Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t.”
That’s not the response I expected. Most men laugh at me. They make me show them what I’m capable of, but Doctor Ares has seen what I’m capable of, and he’s not scared of me. There’s no tremor in his voice. There’s no dilation of his pupils. He’s not strutting in the way men do when they are worried about getting hurt but don’t want to seem weak.
I sit there as he removes the shackles on my ankles. Anyone else, and I’d kick them in the throat. But my feet stay where they are, and he stands up and uncuffs my hands.
I’m free.
I shouldn’t be free. I don’t know what to do with free. It’s something I’m supposed to fight for, but never actually have. My body wants to break into a blind run, but Doctor Ares is in front of me, and I don’t want to push past him.
“Come on,” he says, gesturing to me as he walks away.
“Where are the guards?”
“Wherever they usually are,” he says. “Come on. I don’t like these cells.”
“Can’t say I like them much myself.”
I follow him out of the locked down area. It’s one of the rare times I’ve ever made this journey without having hurt someone, or planning to.
I study the back of him as we walk. I’m usually looking for a weakness. Men have so many. Backs of the knees. Kidneys. Neck. Why was the human body formed with a neck? It seems like a ridiculous design decision, one point of ultimate fleshy weakness located far from the limited defenses of the rest of the body. Attack the neck, and all is lost. The head should just be bolted onto the shoulders. It would make far more sense.
I find my eyes drifting from those points to the whole of him. He is a very well-built man, broad shouldered and powerful even though I’m sure he doesn’t see action, and I find myself doubting him being a gym regular. More of the physical form is determined by genetics than most people are comfortable admitting. They think if they just work out, they’ll be as strong or as fast as they want to be. They’re wrong. We’re all defined and limited by our code.
The doctor leads me out of the secure area and out into a more general open landing where the various parts of the facility can be accessed. He stops, looks around, suddenly aimless now we are out of the confined spaces of the cells.
“You don’t know what to do with me, do you?” I slip up by his side and look at him.
“Well,” he says, scratching his chin. “I wasn’t exactly thoroughly briefed.”
“She just dumped me on you. What a bitch.”
His brows dip for a moment. “That language…”
“Is accurate,” I say, before he starts giving me any kind of misguided lecture.
“I’d prefer you didn’t speak that way.”
“I’d prefer I wasn’t stuck inside this concrete lunch box, but you have to play the cards you’re dealt.”
His lips quirk in a hint of a smile. “You’re a smart girl,” he says. “But language is one of my pet peeves.”
“Is it?” I push my lower lip out. “Does it make you gwumpy when a giwl swears?”
Doctor Ares shakes his head at me, his cheeks dimpling. “You are going to get yourself in trouble.”
“I’m already in trouble.”
“Mhm,” he raises his head. “I’m going to find Ken. He usually knows what’s going on.”
“Ken?” I snort. “Like Barbie’s boyfriend?”
“My brother,” he clarifies.
“Ah.”
“Mhm.”
An hour ago, I was trying to bust out of this place. I knew escape wouldn’t be possible. When they make an enclosure for an animal in the zoo they make it so that the animal can never get out. This place feels like that to me, a stinking concrete bowl in which we’re all pissing our lives away.
When I broke out with my razor, I was going to find the Head and cut her up. I suppose I had some idea she might let me go in exchange for her life, but I didn’t really care. I just wanted to remove the Head from her neck.
Now I find myself traipsing around after the doctor. I guess I’m curious. I don’t often get curious. My world is largely made up of the same people wearing different faces. Meat head assholes, some of them smart enough to keep up with me for five minutes, none of them ever able to understand me. Maybe he will be different.
I push that thought away. It’s always a dangerous one. Nobody understands me, and nobody ever will. I am a world of one.
“Come on. Ken’s probably heading out. Maybe we can catch him.”
Just like that, he starts heading toward the front doors. There are security stations between us and those doors, but we just walk through them. The people manning them wave to Doctor Ares and he passes through with me walking behind him. There are no questions. There’s not even a wand passed over our bodies. We walk through one set of detectors which do not trigger as I pass through them.
I can’t believe this. I have been trying to escape this place for as long as I have been here and he’s just… walking me out. The people on the scanners don’t know me, apparently. They just wave at the nice doctor and the girl with him. Some small, stupid part of me wants to tell him I’m not allowed outside, but I keep my mouth shut. Jesus. This is a fuck up of incredible proportions. Didn’t they tell him who I am?
There are more guards at the front. They don’t know who I am either. My classification is so top level that only a few people here do. To most of the rank and file, I’m some random female. They don’t even try to stop us as we walk out and into the sunshine.
Oh. My. God. Fresh air. It has been so long since I experienced anything like it.
I tilt my face up to the sky and draw in a deep breath. My feet are planted on the concrete, my lungs are full of fresh air, my skin thrills to the sensation of being warmed by real sunlight. I have had this experience only a handful of times in my life. This is an exquisite pleasure, and I drink it in knowing it will be limited.
Tom
I turn around to see where Electra has gotten to. She’s standing just behind me, beaming with such intense happiness I can’t help but smile in response, even though I’m not sure why she’s smiling, or even why I am.
WEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOWEEOOOOOOOOOWEEOOOOOO
Sirens blast for the second time in a day. All hell breaks loose. The doors we just walked out of fly open. Two columns of furious men come pouring out, full face guards, complete body armor, and riot shields at the ready. Something must have happened on the perimeter. They must be expecting an…
“GET HER!”
It is a shock to realize that they are coming for Electra. She doesn’t move. Not a hair seems to stir on her head as armed guards come pouring out of the interior, guns drawn on her slender blue jumpsuit clad frame. Her arms are extended, palms open and up, sunlight falling on her pale skin for a few precious fractions of a second before they grab her wrists, yank them behind her back, and she is consumed by the wave of men, a scrum of body armor and aggressive cursing. She disappears, her small frame completely enveloped.
It happens so quickly I can’t move fast enough to help her. I take one step and she is gone, rushed back into the building so roughly one slip-on shoe is left in her wake. I pick it up, my teeth gritted in anger. The way they treat her is beyond abusive. It is vicious, cruel, and ruthless. It does not surprise me that she acts like a wild beast when she grasps moments of freedom.
“Stop!” I shout in their wake. “She’s mine! She’s bloody mine!”
They're not listening to me. They bundle her back into the building, down to god knows where. I grit my teeth and curse. One hand doesn't know what the other is doing in this place. It is utterly ridiculous.
I have had mixed feelings about working here for a long time. Being able to look after Mary and Ken was a huge dr
aw, but now I wonder precisely what I am acting in service of. I stride after the armed guards, intent on reclaiming her.
There are more inside the door, waiting for me.
“Come with us, doctor.”
I find myself swept up by more jackbooted thugs, men who follow orders at the cost of sense. I could fight them, but there’s no point. This won't be sorted down here on the floor. It will be made right in an office, with a woman who has a lot of answering to do.
Lecture
“What the HELL was that?”
I’m not yelling, but I am exclaiming rather loudly. I have been escorted up the elevator to the Head’s office and now I am standing in front of the woman herself.
“I could ask you the same question, Doctor Ares.” She looks at me with an icy stare, the lines around her eyes and mouth drawing into expressions of displeasure. She is not old, this woman, but she is hard.
“You told me to civilize the girl. Less than two minutes later, she’s being set on by thugs.”
“A colorful description for your fellow agents,” the Head observes.
“They are not my fellow anything. The way they handle her is disgusting. It is inhuman. You wonder why she behaves in such a feral manner, you don’t have much further to look than your mirror.”
She is still for a moment. Then her lips quirk at one corner in what might be a smile. “You’re lecturing me, Doctor Ares.”
“I’m telling you what you need to hear,” I say. “I’ve been given no proper briefing. All I know of this girl is what I’ve seen.”
“Then perhaps you should have checked your email before walking her out the front door.”
“… Perhaps,” I admit.
“Let me deliver the bullet points of the matter now,” the Head says. “Electra is never to leave this facility. She is extremely dangerous. I would have thought that would be obvious to you, but apparently you need the obvious explained to you.”
Fair call. I suppose it was a stupid thing to do, but I took the ‘you own her’ part literally. Apparently, that’s just code for ‘we won’t stop you if you want to hurt her’ which is a huge part of the problem in the first place.