Inside, Pt. 1

by Kyra Anderson

  We were immediately greeted by an ear-piercing scream that made everyone but Dana jump in surprise. There was such intense agony in the cry that my body went cold.

  “Oh,” Dana said, “I guess they have someone on the table.”

  Everything in my body screamed at me not to look around Dana, but I had to. I craned my neck and saw the room filled with chairs like those in a dentist office, but bigger, laid flat with metal restraints over the ankles, knees, hips, chest, wrists, upper arms, and neck. There were sheets around the room, hanging from the ceiling to divide the room into smaller sections if necessary.

  At the very far side of the room, I saw a group of people in white coats looming over one table.

  “Kyle!” Dana called. One of the men turned around and lowered his surgical masks. He was holding a syringe and my fear of needles caused me to panic from across the room. It didn’t help that his surgical gown was stained red down the front.

  “Oh, good evening, sir,” the man named Kyle greeted.

  “Who do you have on the table?” Dana asked, stepping forward easily. Mrs. Markus also went in and Clark nodded, telling me to follow. I stepped into the lab after my parents, Sean trailing behind everyone.

  “Eyna, sir,” Kyle answered.

  “I wasn’t aware he was scheduled for anything today,” Dana said, moving forward quickly, his voice interested, as though he had walked in half-way through a movie he had been interested in watching.

  “Nothing dramatic, sir.”

  Nothing dramatic? What the hell was the screaming for, then?

  “Sandovers, come and meet my pride and joy,” Dana smiled, stepping up to the side of the table as the men and women in coats parted. I paid careful attention to the needles and other sharp instruments. I moved to the opposite side of the table with my parents while Clark and Mrs. Markus stood at the foot of the modified chair folded flat to create a table.

  There was a young man strapped into the restraints, his eyes rolling around in his sockets as he breathed heavily. His pale skin was dotted with bandages and bruises, and his messy hair was a sandy brown, matching his bright hazel eyes.

  “Meet Eyna,” Dana said tenderly, placing a gentle hand on the young man’s head. “He might be the first success of our little project. I was just going to show you his file but, as luck would have it, you get to see him in the flesh.”

  “…success how?” my father asked. It was obvious that shock had seized my mother’s tongue.

  Dana chuckled, lifting his hand and once again removing his glasses.

  “Dana—” Sean started.

  “Be quiet, Sean,” Dana snarled, his voice dangerous as he placed the glasses in his pocket. Sean obeyed.

  “Eyna is part of the program to create the Machine of Neutralization,” Dana explained. He leaned on his hands on the table, his eyes still extremely powerful, but there was no seduction in the gaze now. There was simply power and radiance that had me hanging off of every noise from his mouth. “The Machine of Neutralization is the main goal of D. Enterprises, a sub-branch of the Commission,” Dana explained with a soft smile. “You see, wars are starting to get more complicated. Killing each other in the traditional manner no longer seems to amuse or persuade people the way it used to. War, as it was, is now unacceptable. We are trying to create a creature that is stronger than any human with the qualities of an animal that can be the ultimate weapon for the new kind of warfare.”

  “How can you do that?” I asked slowly.

  “The first step was deciding which animal to use the DNA from without turning the subjects rabid or mad, or putting them into shock where their body shut down from the confusion and turned them into living vegetables…” Dana explained with a shrug of his shoulders. “So far, we have had the best luck with the DNA for a lion, oddly enough…”

  “Just…infusing DNA?” my father asked.

  “God, no, it’s far more complicated than that. There’s the work to coincide with the immune system, the nerve endings, and then altering the brain function to open up different pathways for command of the new DNA. Believe me, it’s been a nightmare.” Dana rolled his eyes. “We lost at least forty before we got the brain altercation down correctly,” the head of the Commission continued, his voice distant. “We got some interesting subjects from that…”

  “So…Mykail is not one of these…Machines of…”

  “Neutralization. No,” Dana finished my sentence. “He was just for fun. He came out far too human for this particular project.” Dana looked back to Eyna and smiled. “Eyna is the first one who has not been lost after the second part of the procedure. He seems to have retained basic motor skills as the DNA has been linked to his. The only side effect we had is that all of his body hair has fallen off, except for this and some downy, blonde hair…” Dana ran his hand over the young man’s hair. “We’re checking his blood and other DNA factors to see how he differs from the others who were unable to move past this stage.” He turned to the scientists.

  “Is that what you’re doing now?” he asked Kyle.

  “Yes, sir,” the man nodded. “And giving him some proteins for his immune system, which seems to be slightly weakened, but not drastically so.”

  “Beautiful,” Dana smiled.

  “Does…Leader Simon know about all this?” I asked, feeling surprisingly brave. “Do you tell him about all this?”

  “Weekly.”

  “Do you tell him the truth?”

  Dana chuckled.

  “That’s a smart girl you’ve got there,” he said, glancing briefly at my parents. “As a matter of fact, Little Lily, Leader Simon is a regular visitor to this area of the Commission to watch the process himself.” He looked at the others of my family. “Do you have any other questions for me?”

  My mother found her tongue again.

  “No,” she said rapidly. “No, no.”

  “Oh, there is no need to be nervous,” Dana smiled, looking down at Eyna. “He’s harmless right now.”

  “Oh…yes, I’m sure…” my mother nodded, her voice shaking. “Forgive me, Mr. Christe—Dana. I am simply tired.”

  “My apologies,” Dana nodded. “It is rather late. I shall walk you back to the main room. You can make it back to the lobby from there, correct?”

  My mother turned, eager to get out as fast as possible. I followed everyone, being the furthest from the door. Dana came up behind me and his hand gently brushed through my hair, causing me to freeze.

  “I just want to see if it’s as soft as it looks…” he whispered. As we walked through the door out of the lab, he leaned down to my ear. “You are far more beautiful than the pictures I have of you,” he hissed. “It will be a pleasure getting better acquainted with you.”

  There was not only a feeling to his voice that made everything in my body go on alert, but there was a promise in the words that told me he would get to know me better by any means necessary.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The car ride home from the Commission meeting had been silent. None of us spoke, too in shock to form any coherent thought for conversation.

  I got into bed without thinking, not even noticing my actions until I was lying down with the lights off, staring at the ceiling numbly. My brain, overloaded with images and information, had stopped.

  I was unsure if I slept at all, but when the numbers on my clock read ten in the morning, I decided to get up and read the assigned chapters of J.A.N.E. I read slower than normal, having difficulty comprehending everything, needing to move my eyes over each sentence at least three times before I actually read it.

  When I opened my door to go to the kitchen to silence my belly, I immediately heard heated arguing. In a strange way, it eased me, realizing that my parents were just as upset over the previous night.

  I descended the stairs, listening to the argument.

  “What do you want me to do, Karen?” my father snapped. “We signed the damn contract. Leader Simon knows what the Commission does. We have no one w
e can report this to!”

  “Damn it, Thomas, they are taking humans and turning them into…God only knows what!” My mother’s voice was strained.

  “Yeah, and the people the Commission collects are criminals,” my father growled. “The Commission was created to take care of these people, that’s why it exists!”

  “And no one seems to care where they’re taking these people, and what they’re doing to them. The people would start a new war if they heard about last night.”

  “Exactly,” my father said strongly. “So, if keeping quiet and accepting our role is going to keep the peace, so be it.”

  I started to cross the living room toward the kitchen when a heavy silence took over the argument.

  “What?” my father growled.

  “You’re going to go along with this?” my mother hissed.

  “We don’t have a choice, Karen!”

  “Dana gave us a boy with goddamn wings!” my mom snapped. “And you’re going to act as though this is normal?”

  “Apparently, it is normal for the Commission!” my father burst. “We are bound to the Commission by contract and you know we cannot get out. We’re stuck! The first part is accepting that there is no other alternative.”

  I stood at the entrance to the kitchen, my parents caching sight of me. They shared a look, and then turned back to me.

  “Come here, hun,” my father said quietly. I walked over and he hugged me tightly. I needed the hug. I closed my eyes and tightened my grip around him, refusing to let go. “How are you holding up?” he asked, rubbing my back.

  “…okay…” It was still too early to tell how I was doing.

  “I’m going to make some lunch, Lily. Are you hungry?” my mother asked.

  “Yes.”

  I helped my mother make simple, light sandwiches and we sat down around the smaller table to eat. At first, the meal was silent, but half-way through his sandwich—we were all eating slower than usual—my father sighed heavily.

  “I know we’re shaken up…” he started. “But we need to gather ourselves and work to accept the things that happen in the Commission.”

  “That’s going to be tough, Dad…”

  “I know…I know…”

  None of us knew what to say. We wanted out, but we were trapped for life. My father stood up and looked at both of us, tears gathering in his guilt-filled eyes.

  “I’m so sorry about this…” he whispered in a choked voice.

  That was the first time I had ever seen tears in my father’s eyes, and it made me also break down and cry.

  * *** *

  I went to school in a daze on Monday. As Clark had predicted, my friends treated me differently. But none treated me more bizarrely than Becca. When I walked up to Jill’s locker, as I did every morning, Becca stiffened and looked around nervously.

  “What?” Jill asked, seeing the sudden action.

  “I just remembered…I need to go talk to Mr. Peters,” Becca said hurriedly, gathering her backpack. “I’ll see you in class,” she called over her shoulder as she quickly moved down the crowded hallway.

  Jill and I looked at one another, confused. I thought maybe she did need to speak with Mr. Peters, and shook off the behavior. However, she avoided talking to me during class, avoided sitting next to me at lunch, and I understood quickly that she did not want to be anywhere near me. What I didn’t understand was why she seemed so kind and accepting of Clark, another Commish Kid, but not of me.

  In a way, I didn’t care what they thought of me as a Commish Kid—at least for that day. I had seen horrible things that they could never begin to comprehend. I was entitled to a day of numbness.

  What made the day far worse was my inability to stop thinking about him. Dana’s eyes were staring at me whenever I closed my eyes, whenever I blinked. They were always watching me, which made me very distracted and jumpy.

  For that first week after my family’s induction, everything reminded me of the Commission. Pictures of the carnage from the Second Revolution reminded me of the creatures in the bowels of the Commission. The loud, sudden laughter of students in the hall reminded me of the echoing scream from Eyna…

  All of it haunted me.

  That was why, on Wednesday, when I came home and there were strangers in the bedroom next to mine, I jumped and screamed. The construction workers creating Mykail’s cage stared at me in surprise, and then went back to work, trying not to stare in confusion and concern. I put a hand over my pounding heart and went to my room, slamming the door and curling up, crying on my bed, feeling as though I had just walked through a battlefield.

  I was drowning in my own life. All I thought about day and night was what I had seen at the Commission and Dana’s incredibly powerful eyes. They had plagued my dreams since returning from the first meeting. The calm, playful, deep voice of the leader of the Commission was always looming behind me. I was unable to escape.

  I was living in a constant state of fear.

  I had to take a short nap after my breakdown to get rid of my headache. Once I woke, I did my homework and started drawing in an attempt to calm down. My drawings had changed, and I became obsessed with drawing one picture of an angel soaring over the clouds in battered armor, holding a flag high into the air. I needed to see that beautiful creature out of a cage and in all his glory. It gave me hope that, someday, I could get out of my own cage—the Commission of the People.

  The workers left just before dinner and I wandered into the room to see what they had accomplished. They had created holes above the doorways and around the window, where I assumed the bars would go. I shivered and left the empty room quickly.

  For the next few days, I tried not to feel time passing, a constant reminder that we were getting closer to having another member of the family. What worried me most was not the fact that we were getting a human who had been experimented on and made into an angel, but that Dana Christenson would be coming to our house to deliver him in person.

  I was hesitant to go to Archangel that Friday, since my friends had been avoiding me and I had been in such a daze that I was sure the club would be too much to handle.

  Taylor turned to me Friday at lunch and smiled.

  “So, same time to pick you up?” she asked. I blinked, surprised that she brought up the subject at all.

  “Um…yeah, that would be great,” I nodded before I could think of a better answer.

  “Are you going to hang out with us at all?” Jill asked.

  “Um…only until Clark shows up,” I told them honestly. “Then we need to go up to the balcony, I think.”

  “Hey, can I ask you something?” Taylor pressed. I nodded nervously. “This whole funk you’ve been in this week, does it have anything to do with the Commission?”

  I did not know how to answer. I stared at the three sets of inquisitive eyes for several long moments before taking a deep breath.

  “Well, you know I didn’t want this to happen,” I smiled weakly. “I just…I’m just depressed, that’s all.”

  “Is it as horrible as we all think it is?” Jill teased.

  My eyes went wide and I had to take a deep breath to calm down, pushing away the images of the horror I had seen. When my friends saw the look, they all stopped, their eyes worried. Except for Becca. She looked frightened. I was too shaken up to put much thought to her strange reaction, but I did take notice of it.

  The three girls didn’t speak to me for the rest of lunch, probably because I couldn’t hold a conversation, unable to completely push away again the memories of the previous Saturday. The day was monotonous, moving around me, speeding toward the looming night at Archangel.

  When I got home, my mother was there.

  “Mom?” I blinked. “I thought you were working with Dad today.”

  “No, he’s working with Mrs. Davis. They’re pitching their idea in front of Leader today.” She turned to me from washing dishes and sighed, forcing a smile. “How are you?”

  “…it’s be
en a rough week,” I admitted with a tired, weak smile.

  “I can imagine…” my mother nodded. She leaned against the counter and looked at me seriously. “I spoke with some of the others in the Commission about Mykail and their own gifts. They all seem very at ease. They say that the awkwardness passes after a few days.”

  “That’s not much of a comfort.”

  “Maybe your father’s right…” my mother whispered, her eyes turning to the floor distantly. “It’s our only option to accept everything that the Commission does…maybe it really will become normal for us. Why shouldn’t it? Especially if it seems like most everyone felt the same way at first.”

  “We’re not most people, Mom…”

  “We need to adapt, Lily,” my mother said. “I’ve been thinking a lot about everything that happened Saturday…and I think that we might have to make an effort at first, but the Commission is a big deal. Going against it would be suicidal.”

  “I know…”

  “Well, we’ll see how it is living with Mykail in the house and then we can discuss this further,” my mother nodded. She turned back around and dried off the counter. “Are you going to Archangel tonight?”

  “Yeah…”

  “Alright, let me know if you need any help getting ready,” she told me, though her tone was mechanical.

  I nodded and walked upstairs, feeling a little angry with my mother. She wanted to adapt to the Commission, which was terrifying. The thought of pretending to be alright with all the testing and torture that the Commission put their subjects through made me sick.

  I got ready for the club and, as usual, my friends picked me up, though we didn’t exchange many words on the way. Everyone in the car, including me, felt awkward.

  I had only been to Archangel five times and already everything was changing drastically. All I could think about was Mykail, the angel who would be coming to live with us in two short days. The loud music and bright flashing lights of the club disoriented me further, and I was almost eager for Clark to show up so that I could go to the less-crowded balcony. I was too frightened to go alone.