Skin Trials

by S Y Humphrey

  “Boom! Brrrrrrrr….” A blast shook the entire box, and what seemed like the whole world around her.

  Numerous loud voices invaded the quiet lab. Seren tried to make out the words in the tumult. A shrill scream cut through the chaos. Her mother.

  “Don’t you touch her! Don’t you go near her!”

  Then, silence. Next was her father’s roar. “Stay away from her!”

  “Stand down! On your knees!”

  “One more step and I’ll pull it. I’ll blow everything. We will all die!”

  “You will stand down! Right now!”

  Multiple voices screamed over one another. Boots stomped in the distance.

  “Daa-?” Seren tried to cry out, but the anesthesia made her tongue drag.

  The lid to the box lifted. Seren awaited the face of one of her parents. Instead, she barely saw all-white suits surrounding her, illuminated only by neon lab lights inside the now dark room. A person dressed in a white suit pulled the needles from inside her. She had never seen Dr. Placer’s assistants wear the suits.

  “Who arrr—” she slurred.

  Seren tried to move and fight off the white suit, but her softened limbs wouldn’t respond. Arms lifted her from the box.

  Where were her parents? The lab had become a war zone. She saw laser points of two colors, red and green, pointed throughout the room in what looked to be an armed standoff.

  She saw her mother’s fallen body in a slump on the ground.

  “Mmmoo-!” Seren attempted to yell.

  Seren managed to see a pinpoint light, aimed at Lyndon’s bloodied face against the wall, a gun to his head. “Lyyy—”

  Finally, she saw her father, at gun point, bloodied. “I will find you. I will come and get you. Don’t worry. I will find you and they will pay.”

  “Daaad...”

  Armed men in the white lab suits carried her through the maze of the facility, enshrouded in blackness. “You will die! I will find you and you will die!” Seren heard her father’s desperate yelling. It grew more distant.

  Seren’s body shifted and tossed in the tight grip of a suited invader. They ran with sure speed, not fumbling for direction or not stopping at any corners. They turned swiftly, as if they had studied every corner, hallway and door.

  Finally, she heard one of the suited rebels speak. “Quick, only two minutes remaining before they commit system reboot. We must be out of here.”

  Suddenly, they approached the final exit of the building, and held Seren up one last time to have her face enter the VScan. The door slid back, and they entered cool Wyoming night air.

  “You nevvv—“ Seren tried to speak and threaten them. But she couldn’t.

  More yelling, guns, and incoming contracted militia.

  “It’s over. Put the victim down. Come forward. Get to the ground!” One of her father’s ABI military agents yelled, as Seren fought to stay awake.

  Seren’s head fell against her captor’s shoulder and his arm shoved outward. His hand held an old-fashioned hand grenade.

  His male, disguised robotic voice resembled that on the loudspeaker at the party. “If I die, she dies! Are you ready?”

  She felt his body push from the ground, as if they were propelling up. His suit rumbled. He must have worn a jetpack. The night air hit her bare feet and legs. Opening her eyes a final time, she saw the dusky sky. She seemed to push further from Earth. Her space ship, school, her parents, Lyndon, her life— all shrank so tiny until it no longer existed.

  The loudspeaker voice declared, “Princess is now secured.”

  Seren blacked out.

  6

  I Know You

  Raucous clamoring awakened Seren. Rough music blared so loud it almost deafened her.

  Rattling and shaking tossed her from side to side. She could hear laughter and howling, mixed with the heavy rhythmic beats. Her eyes opened, but she saw only darkness. A cloth was tied around her head, covering her eyes. Something else heavy covered her mouth, preventing her from moving her jaw. Constant motion threw her. She rode in a rumbling vehicle, likely a truck, on a cold, metal floor. Her wrists and feet were clamped together in thick metal. She tried to move them, but they somehow connected to her neck.

  She recalled the last moments she was awake — the facility at her school, her parents, her mother on the ground, armed men in white flight suits.

  Shaking the stiff metal grips restraining her, she assessed that her fingers and feet were free. Warm, long clothing now covered her limbs. Bumps in the ride threw her from the floor. Still groggy, she tried to feel around her. Sweeping her bare foot, she investigated her immediate area. Boxes. Inside them, she heard clinking, as if they contained bottles. How could she break free? Maybe get hold of one, shattering and make it some form of weapon? Her mind kept turning, as she tried to think of anything except defeat. There had to be an object here that she could use. She continued to feel, scooting against the bed of the trailer. But her range of movement was simply too small and tight. Whoever secured her had known what he or she was doing.

  Anything could be made a weapon, always, she remembered her father telling her years before, during the kidnappings when he’d trained her [put this in earlier chapter]. She wondered if he and her mother had been kidnapped too, or even if they were….

  She dismissed the thought. Seren had to escape. She continued to scoot, and inch her butt against the trailer bed, feeling around for some tiny nail or pin. Nothing.

  Meanwhile, blaring rap music and happy chatter attacked her ears. Hard and unforgiving, she heard a male and female recite the song’s lyrics loudly, of burying enemies, murdering children, raping women and bragging about vigilante justice. Seren hated rap, even when Lyndon listened to it sometimes. Her father had said it was nothing more than grown men throwing tantrums. Right now, as the truck threw Seren from side to side, she listened to them rant for what must’ve been hours. Finally, they rumbled over rocks and gravel for a few minutes before slowing to a stop.

  Her ears strained for every sound. She heard the front doors slam and boots come around to the back. She heard the door to the trailer slide open. Another vehicle approached and doors slammed as more shoes crunched against the rocks.

  “She’s awake,” she heard a female voice.

  “Offer her something to eat and then we’ve got to go,” a male voice replied.

  She heard feet jump onto the bed of the trailer and approach her. Hands unlocked the heavy metal around her mouth and head. She smelled food. The person said nothing, only holding food to her lips. Biscuits, still warm and buttery. Just like the ones her servants had made a few days ago.

  “Here. Food. Eat,” a female voice said.

  Seren did not open her mouth or respond. Not knowing what to make of this fake kindness, she refused to let down her guard. These were the same people who’d laid out her mother, and bloodied up her future husband and father.

  “We got a long trip ahead, Princess. Put something in your stomach. Stop trying to be prideful,” she heard a young male voice call from further away. Still, Seren’s muscles did not move.

  “Fine then. She can starve. Let’s go,” another male called.

  The heavy metal strapped back over her mouth, and she heard boots step off the trailer, before the door slid shut. Bouncing around and riding for many more hours, falling in and out of exhausted sleep, she started to wish for that biscuit.

  Hours later, the blindfold lifted from her eyes. Bright light struck her through the cloth, right before darkness descended on her again. Once again, she was lifted by several hands, carried and then locked into a fixed position. This time, she heard the sound of propellers and a jet engine. She felt small, unstable wheels and then takeoff. A plane, small and rumbling.

  Who had the kind of authorization to fly a plane, even a small one? Perfect Society laws allowed only Tier Ones to fly.

  Again, for this next leg of the journey, she could barely move for hours. But this time, she heard a small, loose obj
ect rolling around on the floor. The sound teased her hopes of escape. She began to try and turn toward it, praying it would roll to her. For some time, she pursued it with her feet. The plane curved and tilted, while her foot clamored, inching in one direction and then the other. Finally, her feet plopped on top of it— a screw— yet it was so tiny it slipped from her toes.

  Cursing, she started back after it again. But she had lost it.

  She lay down, deflated after spending so much time hunting a thing so simple. With an uncertain fate awaiting her, a screw meant everything— maybe life or death. Her parents’ faces crossed her mind as she closed her eyes. She wasn’t dead yet. It had to mean they wanted something from her, and they must have been taking her to where she would find out. That’s where she would demand to know her parents’ status.

  She started to fall asleep, until she heard the screw roll, taunting her again. She heaved herself up. When it rolled to her this time, she slammed her foot down on it. With her hands, neck and feet in a fixed restraint, she could only swivel from side to side. There wasn’t enough movement for her to push the screw into her hair. The plane began to land. Leaning close to the floor, listening carefully for its approach, she let the screw roll toward her head, and against it. She spent the next few minutes trying to slide her matted, messy ponytail against the slender, smooth screw, carefully maneuvering it along her scalp without stabbing herself.

  Moments later, several sets of boots stomped into position around her. She felt smooth metal pressed directly against her forehead. The metal strap came off, and the gag pulled from her mouth. Gratefully, the slender screw stayed in. She felt bread pressed against her lips. Snapping her mouth shut, Seren turned away.

  “Starving isn’t going to help you,” the male voice from before admonished her. “I’m not above force-feeding you.”

  Several sets of hands lifted her from the plane, and onto something else. Thunderous clucking and chirping sounds now battered her ears. Sounds of flapping feathers now surrounded her. Chickens?

  This was Antistemi? A ragtag operation of chicken farmers?

  Once several hands affixed her into a strict position, the door slid closed, and she couldn’t even scoot. A truck engine roared to life, much larger than the previous one. She heard the shaking of cages, and the clucking and wing-beating competed with the engine.

  Moving only her head and hands, she tried to reach the screw. From her stiff location, she attempted moving her head toward her hand. She couldn’t bend far enough. The truck trailer’s constant bouncing threw her body as far as the metal grips allowed, chickens clucking, and cages rattling as she struggled to retrieve the precious screw from the base of her ponytail. If it disappeared among all these cages, she would be devastated. The cages, she thought. She began to feel them, as far as she could reach, yanking for one to come apart.

  Faint now with hunger, she estimated it must’ve been two days since the attack on the science lab. Again, hours went by without stopping, eliminating any opportunities to scream for help, have her identity captured by satellite, or VScanned. She had been riding so long now she had acclimated to the stench of chickens and manure.

  She kept feeling the surrounding cages until she yanked one open, bending and separating a pen that held it closed. She struggled harder to keep her hands steady, gripping her only lifeline in this torment, careful not to let it fall while she maneuvered it inside the keyhole of the shackles.

  Click! The lock came loose! The surprising feel revived her energy. She pulled them from her wrists, neck and ankles. She pulled off the blindfold, but the leather and metal gag locked behind her head. That lock was too difficult to pick open. At least now she could see a little once her eyes adjusted to the dark. Whoever owned it had some money, based on the shiny, clean insides of the trailer and cages. The cages, she thought. Opening as many chicken cages as she could reach, chickens escaped and flapped free inside the truck. They would be a good distraction. The truck rolled to a stop. Seren clinched the long cage pen, getting ready to poke out an eye at least. The door rolled up.

  At the front of the trailer, she heard people removing the cages. Boots moved further into the truck, toward Seren. She hovered in a crouching position at the back, readying herself to spring forward.

  “Whoa! What happened back here?” One of them asked, discovering some of the chickens had been set free. “And where is—”

  Seren leaped, throwing up an open cage with a chicken inside, surprising the person on the other side as they stumbled backward. She swiped it across her captor’s face with all the energy she could muster.

  Chickens flew around them, clucking and flapping out of the truck in front of Seren. Blocking the captors and flooding them all with feathers. Seren immediately tried to ascertain her surroundings as she jumped from the truck. Four men and one woman swatted at chickens. She punched the nearest person in the throat, and kicked another in the groin. Her legs mustered enough energy to take off running, in what seemed like a barn. She saw a door on the other side, maybe twenty yards away. A VScan! Stretching out her arm, she hoped it would capture her hand impression.

  Something hit her in the shoulder blade, but she pressed forward. Another prick entered her side. Only three or four more yards before she reached the door, she fell.

  “Seren,” she heard a voice behind her. It sounded calm and reassuring. A lovely white woman, sleek and professional in her late twenties or early thirties, walked toward Seren.

  “Who are you?” Seren muttered.

  “An old friend.”

  Seren could not recall ever seeing this woman in her life. “I don’t know you.”

  “But I know you. I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time. Eighteen years. But Stephen Jernigan got to you first.”

  “What?” Seren asked, confused at what that could mean. But she didn’t care, because she was more concerned for whether he was alive. “Where is he? My mom?”

  The sleek woman came to stand over her, her eyes illuminated by the track lights. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Your mom and your dad. You have no idea, the lives they’ve destroyed, do you?”

  Already faint from hunger, Seren lay her head against the floor. The pricks she’d felt in her body were tranquilizers. She recalled her mother’s voice. Never explain. We have nothing to be ashamed of. As well as Agnethe’s. If the Twos could trade places with us, and have all this money, they’d do it in a heartbeat.

  She looked at the woman standing over her. “You destroyed yourselves when you defied your country.”

  The woman’s jaw swung, and a raw emotion poured from her eyes that seemed she’d been caging. “Hmph. I want you to know I’ve dreamt of this moment for a long time. The day I could watch your father fall, after what he did to mine. And I’m going to enjoy destroying both of you.”

  Seren glared back, into this woman’s clear hatred, even as she still wondered what her father had done. Whose genes did you put in me? She’d asked him. He’d never answered. She’d wondered what the hackers at the party meant when they said he’d stolen something. They’d said Tier One had stolen their genetic identities. What mental defects did she have? Or was it cancer? His stories hadn’t added up, and she’d suspected he was hiding something else. Still, whatever he’d done, he was her father and he had given her life. There was no way she would sell him out.

  “I don’t know you, or your father. But mine will find you and kill you,” Seren’s drying throat croaked.

  “I certainly look forward to him trying.” The woman turned to the rebels. “Make sure she gets fed, hydrated, and if she doesn’t eat, hook her up. Get a shot of her face, some blood and hair, and run the analysis. I want confirmation asap.”

  Confirmation of what?

  This woman was articulate, intelligent, and did not seem anything at all like the average citizen or criminal thinkers she’d heard about in the lower tiers. The rebels grabbed Seren, collecting her from the ground. Seren quickly perused this woman’s c
lean barn, expensive fabric, and pristine delivery trucks.

  “You’re a One?” Seren asked, stunned.

  “Yes,” she said, turning away, her hair swinging and landing around her shoulders softly. The sleek woman walked to touch her eye to the VScan. The laser verified her status, and the door unlatched. How?

  “You betrayed your class. Your Tier. Traiiii... torrr…” Seren began to slur, and her body started feeling numb as tranquilizer drugs began kicking in. “Trait--”

  Seren watched jealously as her well-heeled captor lingered in the doorway to freedom and the outside world. “To the contrary. You can’t betray what you were never loyal to.”

  “Traaai-tor! You will be sent to the coasts... when my father catches yyou—”

  The woman exuded a steeliness of her own. “The only traitors in this country are those who send their fellow men and women to the coasts. You’ve had a long trip. Get some sleep.”

  7

  To Right the Wrongs

  Seren awakened on a mattress, in an empty barn. Loud music blared around her. She wore comfortable pajamas. An intravenous tube ran into her arm. But no straps connected her to the mattress. Rather, next to her lay flip-flop shoes. A small foldout table held up a silver platter tray. She lifted the lid, to find a simple sandwich on wheat bread, and fresh fruit. Seren set the lid back down.

  Her feet were unshackled. Ahead, she heard the music, and groups of people gathered at tables. When she sat up, they all stopped laughing.

  Seeing primarily Blacks and Latinos, her breath caught in her throat. The only two black people she had ever spent any significant time around throughout her life, were her servants. The music shut off.

  “Seren Jernigan,” a young black man called. “I’m Pike.” He got up from his seat at a dining table and crossed the barn swiftly, wearing army green pants, a black T-shirt and a baseball cap turned backward on his head. “Pleasure to meet you.”