The Perfects

  We tried to stop her, but when she pulled open the door, someone darkened the doorway.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “Ian!” I cried and rushed over to him.

  He started toward us then collapsed on the floor. His bow and quiver fell and clattered on the tile.

  “Oh my god,” Ashley said and came to his side.

  He rolled over and bumped up against me.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked.

  “I can’t stay here,” Melanie said then slipped out into the hallway. I didn’t have time to chase her. Something was wrong with Ian.

  “Melanie,” Marcus hissed and followed her out the door.

  “Whatever he shot me with is starting to wear off,” Ian said. “I had a hell of a time getting here. All of my limbs were numb.”

  “Wear off? You just fell!” I said. We needed his smarts and strength. He'd escaped from here before. He had to help us do it again.

  “Believe me, this is better than I felt before. That's why it took me so long.”

  Marcus came back into the room, a little out of breath. “Melanie took off. I think we should leave and find her.”

  “Did you see which direction she went in?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Alright. We should stick together. Strength in numbers will get us out of here,” I said. “We need to be a team, or else we might end up like Karen.”

  We all shared a moment of silence for our friend. I would make it my mission to get out of here and expose this place. Then, we’d get Karen out of that pod and back to her family. This was all so surreal, but I didn’t have time to wade in that moment. We had to get out of there.

  Marcus helped me get Ian to his feet. We pulled his arms over our shoulders. I stroked my hand over his arm and twined my fingers with him to keep him in place.

  His gaze turned to mine, and I found it hard to find my footing with him this close.

  “Ashley, get his bow and arrows,” I said, snapping out of my daze.

  “Don’t tell me what to do,” she said.

  I opened my mouth to say something, but Ian spoke first. “Enough, let’s get out of here, and you can argue later.”

  Ashley stuck her tongue out at me and brushed passed us through the door.

  “Down here,” Marcus said, and we all walked down the left side of the hallway.

  Ian didn’t lean heavily on us, but I didn’t want him to fall again and get hurt.

  Quick footfalls echoed down the hallway adjacent to us. Our little group stopped.

  Ian limped forward and peered around the corner just as Melanie appeared, slamming into him.

  “Melanie,” Marcus said just as she said, “Run!”

  I glanced around the corner and saw several other recruits playing for the Edgewood team, running toward us.

  “They’re after us!” I said.

  We all turned in the other direction and ran.

  “Ashley, give me my bow,” Ian said. She did, and while we were running, he managed to load up the bow and shoot one of the arrows down the hallway. One of the recruits went down, and the others trampled over him to get to us.

  There were at least double the amount of them than us.

  “That didn’t do much,” Ashley said.

  “We need to even out our groups if we’re going to overpower them,” Ian said. “Hurry up guys.”

  We flew down several hallways, running blind through the Institute. We’d only been given a map of the places we were supposed to go, and I started to realize that was the point. Whoever was running this place didn’t want to give anyone a chance to get out if they ever found out what was going on here. It was ingenious and very frightening.

  We found ourselves in a dead end hallway, and I knew it would be a mistake to turn back.

  “Try the rooms,” Marcus said.

  Ian leaned against the wall. He was sweating. He’d managed to keep up with us, but whatever was in the syringe still lingered in his system.

  I wanted to go to his side and see if he needed anything but for one, we didn't have anything to give him and two, we were short on time.

  I tried the door behind me, but it was locked. The others doors were locked as well.

  Ashley was further down the hallway and pushed open a door. “Guys!”

  I helped Ian down the hallway, and he leaned heavily on me. I took his bow and threw it over my shoulder.

  We filtered through the door. Marcus was the last inside, and he closed the door behind us.

  We were in a stairwell. There were stairs going up and down.

  “Where do we go next?” Amy asked.

  Before anyone could answer, footsteps were headed in our direction. I held the door closed. “They’re here.”

  “It’s coming from up there,” Marcus said, pointing to the stairwell above us.

  “Let’s go down then,” Ian said. “We have to stick together. We’ll find a way out.”

  We descended the stairs. For as many footsteps as we heard, there were zero voices echoing around us. All I heard was footsteps from us and them and our ragged breathing. Did these Vessel’s breathe like we did? Did they have unlimited resources to keep them moving? We had no information on them. And I didn’t intend to get close enough again to ask.

  We tried every door on each level, and all of them were locked. I had a sneaking suspicion we were being led somewhere.

  The numbers of the floors started to turn to letters, and I wondered if we were going underground instead of to the main level. Without windows, I was confused about where we were in the institute. My flight instinct had taken over, and I had to work with that until we were safe.

  We reached the bottom of the stairs, and there was nowhere else to go. There was one door left, and I had a bad feeling that this one would be locked too.

  Marcus turned the knob, and the door opened right away. We pushed through it, knowing it was our only way out. Once on the other side, the others started to run again, but I needed to find a way to buy us more time. I propped Ian’s bow against the wall and went back into the stairwell, looking around for something I could use. There was an emergency axe in a glass case on the next flight up. If I could hit the knob on the other side of the door hard enough, then the door would be locked from the inside. Granted, we wouldn’t be able to leave, but it was better than being chased. We’d find another way out.

  I bolted up the stairs, the sound of my breathing filled my ears. The movement of the Vessels came closer and just as I reached the glass case. I saw one of them on the top of the next flight.

  I gasped, and my entire body froze.

  It was Karen.

  No, it was her impostor. I turned and broke the glass and grabbed the ax inside.

  I flew down the stairs two at a time. Once I reached the bottom, I felt something against my shoulder.

  Impostor-Karen had reached me, and she was pulling me away from the door. She looked much different without her glasses but even more so as her flawless skin almost glowed.

  “There’s no use running,” she growled. “You’re all going to be transitioned. Doing this is only delaying the inevitable.”

  “I’m not going to be like you.”

  She grinned, showing straight white teeth. I distinctly remembered that Karen had a crooked front tooth. They were changing the recruits to perfect beings. How had there been no questions about this before? As much as I wanted more information, I was face-to-face with my own fate and I wasn’t going to be one of them.

  “You won’t feel a thing, Abigail. Being an Perfect is freeing. And you can live forever.”

  “What the heck is a Perfect?” I asked her.

  “You’ll find out in due time.”

  I knocked her in the forehead with the butt of the axe and kicked her away from me. She stumbled backward, holding her head.

  I pushed through the door and slammed it shut. Tears blurred my vision. I’d never attacked anyone like that before. It was startling, and with the ad
ded adrenaline of running for my life, tears started to streak down my cheeks. I lifted the ax over my head and brought it down. I missed the first time, but on the second one, I hit the knob. It took two more hits for the knob to be ripped from the door.

  Karen’s face appeared in the small slit of a window in the door. Even if she was able to break it, she’d never be able to fit through or open the door with the knob gone.

  Karen’s face split into a smile, and she slowly backed away from the door.

  I shivered. If we were in a place they didn’t want us, she probably would have tried harder. I had the feeling we’d walked right into a trap.

  Two hands gripped my shoulders, and I turned, bringing up the axe.

  “Whoa, there,” Ian said, holding his hands up in defense.

  “I locked the door,” I said, wiping at my cheeks with the back of my hand.

  “That was quick thinking,” he said with a smile.

  “Yeah,” I said, taking a breath. The first good one I had in some time.

  “Come on,” he said, taking my arm. “The others are down here.”

  The hallway was dim, and it took my eyes a minute to adjust. Melanie and Amy looked terrified, and Marcus was frowning. I supposed Ashley, Ian and I had been desensitized to all of this since we had our encounter with Karen.

  “We should hide in one of the rooms,” Amy suggested. “I can’t keep running. My legs are numb.”

  “We have to keep going,” Ian urged. “They’re not going to stop until they get us all.”

  “On the map, there were exits on either end. I don’t see why this floor would be any different,” Marcus said.

  “Oh, I can see how it’s different,” Ashley spat. “We’re in some underground tunnel, trapped like rats. They’re not going to let us out of here. Ever. We’re going to be locked in one of those boxes for the rest of our lives while some lookalike parades around like us.”

  “We can’t think like that, Ashley,” Ian said. “If we stick together we can do this. All we need to do is get outside. I know a way out of here through the woods.”

  The lights above us flickered then came in full force. I pressed my back against the wall as if I were in the middle of a spotlight.

  “We’ve been caught!” Amy shrieked. She pulled the knob of the door closest to her, and it was locked. Something slammed against the door, and she turned and fled down the hallway, screaming in terror.

  “Amy, no!” I called. Then the lights went out.

  I stopped in my tracks. I reached for someone, anyone and ended up grabbing onto Melanie, I think.

  The lights came back on, and we were all stunned for a moment. A door slammed closed at the end of the hallway, and then we heard Amy’s muffled screams. Me and Ashley bolted down the hall after her. I kept my eyes on the door I saw close when the lights turned back on.

  “She’s in there,” I said to Ashley as the others caught up with us.

  There was a small window looking into the room.

  Amy stood in the middle of the space, staring a little to the left the door.

  “Amy!” Ashley called.

  Amy’s gaze shifted, and she looked at us. Her eyes widened, and someone moved in front of the door. Then the lights in the room turned off, and all we heard was Amy’s terrified screams.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I pulled at the knob of the door. Amy’s screams echoed in my head. The knob didn’t turn, and as quickly as Amy’s screams started, they stopped. I peered through the window in the door. But it was dark.

  I banged my palm on the door. “Amy! Are you okay? Answer me!” I knew my pleas were futile, but I had to try something, anything to feel a glimmer of hope in this mess.

  “We need to go,” Ian said, touching my arm.

  “What about Amy?” Melanie asked.

  “She’s going to become one of them,” Ian said. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  “We can try harder,” Melanie said. She started banging on the door.

  I moved away and sucked in several steadying breaths. “He’s right,” I said, hating the words coming out of my mouth. “We need to find a way out of here so that we can save both Amy and Karen.”

  “Why are you always trying to be the boss of things?” Ashley said to me. “I thought you wanted us all to get out of here.”

  “I do, but there’s nothing we can do for her now. Do you have a better idea?” I asked.

  “I think we should listen to Ian,” she said.

  Melanie stopped banging on the door, and she slid down onto the floor, putting her head in her hands. “This is so messed up,” she said to herself.

  “We’re on the same side, Ashley,” I said, fuming on the inside. Even in this crazy situation, she had to give me grief. I was sick of it.

  Ashley rolled her eyes and Ian lightly touched my arm. His look said, “don’t worry about her.”

  I clenched my jaw. I had a million things to say to her but I chose not to. I had bigger problems than Ashley, and I didn’t want her to see how much she affected me at the moment.

  “We should try the other doors,” Marcus said.

  “If they are anything like the one Amy is in, no thank you,” Ashley said.

  “She’s right,” Ian said. “We need to focus on getting out. So let’s find an exit.”

  “A stairwell might help,” I said, lifting the axe from where I dropped it. Holding the axe and the syringe was proving difficult. I decided to leave the syringe knowing the axe would help me out more than the syringe would. Besides, I wasn’t even sure whatever was in the syringe would deter one of the Vessels. They seemed unyielding and were obviously not all human.

  We reached the end of the hall where two other ones spanned in either direction. They appeared to go on forever. I didn’t see an exit sign in sight. But if my hunch was right and Perfect-Karen had led us down here, I doubted there would be a clear indicator of how to get out. Were there more traps like the one Amy fell for down here?

  “What are we going to do now?” Marcus asked. “We shouldn’t split up, but how do we know which way to go?”

  “We don’t,” I said. I lightly kicked the corner of the wall. The pain in my toe made me realize this was real and not some nightmare. I didn’t have much energy to keep coming up with ideas that failed our group.

  “What do you mean?” Melanie asked.

  I glanced at Ian. “I think we were supposed to end up here.” Karen’s face flashed into my mind. “I didn’t tell you everything…”

  I explained about running into the fake-Karen and the fact that she called herself a Perfect. “I think this is a trap. And I don’t know how we’re going to get out of here when they know we’re unable to escape.”

  “What does that even mean?” Ashley asked.

  “I think they are some version of an A.I.” Marcus said.

  “Can you talk to us like we’re not all geeks?” Ashley said.

  Ian shot her a look, but she dutifully ignored it.

  “A.I. is short for Artificial Intelligence,” Marcus said and sighed, shaking his head. “This is like a science fiction story,” he said more to himself.

  “How would you know that?” I asked.

  “You said there were electronics in their heads?” Marcus asked slowly.

  “Yeah,” Ian replied.

  As Marcus spoke his voice took on a reverent tone. “Edgewood has somehow perfected the ability to clone human bodies in a short amount of time and replaced a brain with an artificial one. Most likely so they can control the Perfects from a distance. I suspect that’s why they ran all of those blood tests during orientation. Once our doubles were created, then they were able to start the transition one by one.”

  “But my brother knew things,” Ian said. “Like stuff from our past. How could a Perfect do that?”

  Marcus took a breath. “Maybe the memories are downloaded into the program? Or, it’s possible that there is a link somehow, sort of like a Wi-Fi connection to our memory base. At the ver
y least so people wouldn’t suspect the change.”

  Ian seemed to be the only one I knew that questioned what happened at Edgewood. Were there others worried for their loved ones? Thinking of them boosted my confidence a little, we needed to get out of here for them too.

  “But why?” I asked. What was the point of all of this? “And why sixteen-year-olds?”

  Marcus shrugged. “I don’t know. But knowing the motivation might not change anything. It doesn’t appear they’re going to stop anytime soon. We’re all rats in a maze to them.”

  “That’s comforting,” Ashley deadpanned.

  “Well we should start moving,” Ian said. “We can figure this all out later.”

  We chose to walk down the right corridor. We walked side by side. Me, Ian and Ashley in the front and Marcus and Melanie directly behind us.

  Ian bumped my arm. “So you finally believe me?”

  “I do,” I said. “I really wish this all wasn’t happening. I want to see my family.”

  “You will,” Ian promised. “I’ll make that happen.”

  I looked over at him. The corners of his mouth that usually had a playful lift to them were straight lines. His eyes were narrowed and darting around the space in concentration. It was nice that he tried to comfort me, but I was smarter than that and understood the real danger we were in. I was one encounter away from never seeing my family again. And they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. It was an awful thing to think, but the people at Edgewood had been fooling people for years, why would my parents be any different. I wouldn’t blame them. I was so excited to leave my comfort zone if the Perfect-Abigail had some differences, I was sure she’d be able to explain them away.

  The lights flickered again, and we formed a tight clump, clinging onto each other. We weren’t stupid, we knew what was coming.

  “No, no, no,” Melanie said, squeezing her eyes shut.

  “Stay together, keep your hands on someone else, so we’ll know if anyone disappears.”

  Then the lights went out.

  Ashley let out a muffled whimper.

  I kept my eyes open even though it was impossible to see anything. I strained to hear any footsteps, but all I heard was our heavy breathing.