Redemption Lost

by Cindy M. Hogan

  As they walked into the bright kitchen, they were met by five girls and one tall, sturdy woman all sitting at a table eating, all in the same white linen she was in.

  “I have dishes today,” the button-nosed girl said, popping up.

  A redhead with large freckles and polished white skin smirked. “Lucky devil.”

  Then they saw Christy and stared.

  “I know you’re all about done,” Winifred said, “but I think we should introduce ourselves to our new girl, Ryann. Take a seat please, Lyssa. Ryann, this is Matron Mara. She’s in charge of keeping order in the house. You come to me if you need any physical help, to Mara if you need anything else. Girls, go ahead and introduce yourselves.”

  “I’m Melissa but everyone calls me Lyssa. This is my third cycle. Love it here. This program changed my life. I finally have money in an account that’s all mine that’s going to help me create my future.”

  The matron’s eyes fell on the next girl. Her stick straight, dark hair fell over her pretty oriental face as she lowered her eyes. “I’m Teresa,” she whispered. “This is my first cycle. I’m nervous, but glad to finally be in the numbered houses.”

  The next girl spoke up without having to be prompted. “I’m Cindy. I’m on my first cycle. I’m excited that someone finally picked me. I hope I do a really great job so that people will continue to pick me. I want to become a pediatric nurse.” She flipped her tightly curled hair back from her face, her deep brown eyes begging anyone to challenge her.

  “I’m Tammy,” the redhead said next. “And I’m glad I’m off drugs. But I don’t know that I’m excited about being here, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to follow through.” Her face contorted and a tear rushed down her cheek. She stared at the matron, who actually looked at her lovingly and nodded as she spoke.

  “Yes. It can be a very hard and scary thing. Don’t worry. We’ll help you through this happy and hard time.”

  She spoke up again, wiping her hand over her tears. “But I am glad I’m in here and not out there with those who haven’t been chosen.”

  All eyes fell on Christy. She didn’t know what to say. Why were they all here? She got that they were going to earn money, but money for what? And what was a cycle? The matron, Mara, prompted, “Ryann, could you tell us about yourself?”

  Her lip curled involuntarily, and she furrowed her brow. She was about to say she had no idea why she was here. This was surreal. What if she said the wrong thing? She decided to err on the safe side and stay vague, “I need… I’m not sure what to think.”

  Lyssa said, “Don’t worry. Most of the girls here are in their first cycle like you. If you don’t like it after this first one, you can always go home.”

  Matron Mara showed a bit of her hand when she spoke next. “Ryann is in pretty unique situation. She only arrived yesterday and was chosen last night.” Christy nearly choked on her tongue. Yesterday? Nurse Lanora told her she’d been recovering for weeks. Her head swam with the contradictions. Winifred eyed her, but kept talking. “She’s going to need a little extra love, because she hasn’t been able to go through all the classes and through the houses at the other end of the compound.” Behind her loving and calm exterior, behind those eyes Christy could see an iron fist. It was a test. She could feel it in her bones.

  Four faces suddenly screwed up in concern and ohs and ahs tumbled out of their mouths. One of the girls blurted, “I was pretty homesick for like, I don’t know, months. But this place is so great, and I get everything I want.”

  “My first year was terrible,” Tammy said. “I’d been strung out on meth for so long that they weren’t sure they were going to be able to save me.” All Christy could think about were the words years and months.

  “I guess what they’re trying to say,” the matron said. “Is that they’re here for you. They understand.” She smiled at Christy. A simpering smile. “All right, everyone. Let’s let her finish her breakfast. See to your chores and go have a good day.” Each girl cleaned their own dishes and put them in the dishwasher. They all left the room except for Lyssa, who started on the remaining dishes while she hummed some country song.

  Christy ate slowly, trying to digest what was happening. She took note of the tiny sensors and cameras sprinkled about the kitchen. When she’d finished, she rinsed her bowl and put it in the dishwasher. Lyssa was already gone.

  In this new house, no one was watching her, at least not overtly. The girls all wandered off to various places after the meal was over, and she assumed she was free to do the same. Time to figure out what was going on here. Or at least, get the lay of the land. She headed outside.

  She raised her hand to shade her eyes from the sun and looked around. A humid, tropical heatwave ran into her like a freight train. Immediately, she found the guard towers spaced evenly around the walled compound, the glint of glass and metal striking her eyes as she perused the area. The tops of tall palm trees just past the wall could be seen. An open courtyard with meandering trails, large grassy areas, and tall palm trees lay before her. No one was outside. No one except the guards standing on the ground along the wall’s interior. On the other side of the courtyard were more houses, but most looked empty. At the end of the courtyard to her right was a large building with a sign that read, “General Store.” Next to it were the offices and then came an infirmary.

  She took a step onto the sidewalk, unsure if she was allowed to do so. Immediately, she began to sweat, but when no one stopped her, she continued to explore and assess any weaknesses she came upon. She kept an eye out for Carrie. She was Christy’s first priority. The two sides of the courtyard were almost exact in their layout, except the houses on the opposite side were larger. However, each side had seven full-sized houses on it. It spoke to the vastness of the compound. It was like its own little gated community. Once she reached the final house that stood alone, unlike the other six that were in rows of three, she could see a massive building jutting above the wall. It had to be a business of some sort.

  That was the first weakness she saw. If it was a business, then real people worked in it. People who she could somehow alert to what was going on the other side of the wall. Madness.

  A bell sounded, and young women began meandering out of the houses. They all wore the same uniform Christy did: white, flowing linen top and drawstring pants. On some it was loose, but on others it stretched across rounded bellies. As more and more entered the courtyard, her mind finally registered what she was seeing—at least half of these girls were pregnant.

  * * *

  MARYBETH

  “Are we a go?” Jeremy asked into his com.

  “Yes. Fourth window.” Marybeth and Jeremy slipped on their facemasks, and Marybeth removed her go bag so she could set it inside the window before crawling in herself. She’d been in the Senate building so many times, but never like this. The thought thrilled and terrified her at the same time.

  Marybeth kept her eye on the area around them. No one was there, but every second it took for them to get in took away from the time they had inside. The building’s guards did their hourly check on all the floors. Alvarez’s offices were on the third floor. Unfortunately, Ace did not have remote access to the two other alarms they would have to disable once inside. That alone would cut out fifteen of the sixty minutes they had before the guards returned.

  They found the window and quickly used it to climb into the silent and very dark building. They made their way to the third floor using the stairs and, after disarming the second alarm, they slid into the expansive office area of Alvarez’s think tanks. They then had to disarm yet another alarm that disabled all the various rooms on that floor. Most of it was open with cubicles, but there were about five closed off rooms, too. Jeremy let Marybeth give the alarm a try and walked her through it.

  It surprised her that she had absorbed so much in such a little amount of time. Sure, he still had to guide her, but she did a lot of it on her own. As soon as she took care of the third alarm,
they entered the think tank floor. They didn’t turn on any lights. They used their flashlights and the dim light coming from the strings of rope lighting around the room.

  Marybeth led the way through the cubicles and around large desks and small meeting rooms to a large room in the very center as if it was the brain of the entire operation. It had a key lock as well as an electronic lock. Disarming the alarm system had taken care of the electronic lock, but Jeremy had to use lock picks to open the door. Marybeth tried not to let her jaw fall to the floor when he opened it so quickly. If they hadn’t been in such a hurry, she would have asked him to teach her.

  Inside the room was a small table with a lamp and rows and rows of filing cabinets along the walls. The large room appeared small, packed as it was. They both removed their masks and left them to hang loosely on the back of their blacks.

  “You start here,” Jeremy said. “I’ll start over there.” He pointed to the opposite side of the room. They began going through the files one by one, looking at each page in each file, looking for any information they could find on Alvarez and Miller’s shipping company. This was going to take a very long time. She took a deep breath and dug in. After what seemed a very long time, Jeremy said,

  “Marybeth.” She looked up at Jeremy. He had the third cabinet top drawer open and was looking down at her. “When you scan documents, you need to scan for particular words like manifest, shipping, crate, container, goods, and nothing else, otherwise we’ll be here until next week.” He managed a smile. “I didn’t think to tell you what things to scan for. I apologize. As you can see,” he pointed to the fact that he was on his third file cabinet while she was still on her first. “If you don’t focus on only a few things, you end up reading every last word.”

  “Yeah. I got it.” Now she picked up the pace. She was so immersed in what she was doing, she almost missed the voices that drifted into the room. Voices that didn’t belong to her or Jeremy. They’d stayed too long.

  Both she and Jeremy ducked, instinct kicking in. The voices belonged to two men in tan guard uniforms who entered the one and only door into the think tank offices. The guards stood next to the door, fiddling with the alarm panel and were a good fifty yards from them. It was hard to see any detail about their appearance other than the fact one was taller than the other. Her body filled with sharp needle pains.

  “No. None of the three are set.”

  “Somebody’s head’s gonna roll,” the shorter of the two said, his voice whiny.

  Jeremy dropped down further to the floor. Marybeth looked down at the flashlight in her hand—it was still on. Her eyes widened in panic and she moved her eyes from the flashlight to Jeremy a couple of times. He shook his head. She wasn’t to turn her light out now. She didn’t miss the fact that his was already out. He must have pressed the off button the second he heard voices. She could only pray that the guards wouldn’t notice it. They seemed pretty busy arguing.

  “What? Are you blaming this on me?” The slightly taller guard said. His voice was deep and gravelly. As he turned his head, Marybeth noticed his hair was pulled tight to the nape of his neck in a ponytail. “I wasn’t the last one out last round. You were.”

  “Wait a minute,” the other guard said, lowering his voice. “I never forget to re-arm. Maybe someone’s in here. Be quiet.”

  Jeremy and Marybeth army-crawled their way out of the room, leaving her flashlight behind and using the shadows and lack of overhead lighting to cloak them. Jeremy shut the door very carefully as he exited. Had they stayed in there, they would have been trapped for sure. They moved into the main area to the left of the room and under a large desk with twelve chairs around it.

  “Look,” the tall guard said, “They even left the light on in that room.”

  “If they’re still here, we’ll find them,” said the guard who called it in. “We need to do a full sweep.”

  “What’s a full sweep?” the other guard asked.

  So one of the guards was new? Was that good or bad? She looked over at Jeremy for some indication, but there was none. He lay still, listening. Rent-a-cops. She assumed this was a good thing. She heard people mock the abilities of such guards all the time.

  “We have to go over every inch of the space, looking behind things and under things.”

  Jeremy shifted, pulling out his phone. Marybeth watched as he texted Division that the two of them could use a distraction. She let an inaudible sigh of relief. If Division was on its way, then they had nothing to worry about. The return text came.

  No one in the area. Getting in position. Ten minutes.

  Marybeth’s heart crashed into her ribs. Certainly the guards could hear it. They were going to be caught. There was nowhere to go. With only one door onto the floor and windows that didn’t open, they had no options.

  “Okay. Should I get the lights?” The tall guard’s rough voice asked.

  Marybeth suddenly realized how comforted she’d been in the dark. She held herself even more still than she was before. If they turned on the lights, they would most surely see the two of them sooner rather than later.

  “Only the ones in this section. We’ll turn them on as we go,” he said, and Marybeth relaxed slightly only to remember they had no plan of escape. When the first section of lights popped on, she guessed they had three sections to go before they’d get to Jeremy and her.

  “I’ll start over here,” the guard said. “And you start over there. We’ll meet in the middle.” She could hear their feet moving across the thin carpet.

  Jeremy pulled his face mask over his face. Maybe he did have a plan. Marybeth followed suit. He whispered into her ear.

  “They’re going to find us, so we need to take them out first. I’ll get the one on the left. You get the one coming straight for us.”

  “Wait,” she whispered, a terrible realization gripping her. “I don’t know how.”

  “You were trained to do this. Remember? You went through a course on takedowns. You’ll do a sweep kick that makes him fall. Then you’ll grab his radio and his gun. You can’t let him get to either of those. And then your knee is going into his back between the shoulders to keep him down until I get there.”

  Had he been able to see her eyes, he would’ve seen huge, round orbs full of fright. Her takedown class came into her mind and she recalled the move he described. She practiced it only once with success, but under totally controlled circumstances. No real gun. Her whole body shook. He grabbed her hands and whispered, “You can and will do this.” His voice was full of determination and comfort.

  “I’ve only done it once,” she whispered, the horror of what she had to do lessening.

  “Was it a success?”

  “Yes,” she said, but that had been in a controlled environment. In a class.

  “Then this will be the second time you’re successful at it.”

  He sounded so sure. Who was she not to believe him?

  “Run through it in your mind a few times while I get into position. When you feel your phone vibrate, count to three and then do the sweep.”

  “Okay.”

  Marybeth watched as he moved silently, like a spider into position. She looked at a desk only a few feet from her. It seemed a better place to mount such an attack from. She crawled over to it, rolling the chair from under the desk and climbing under it. A bit of moonlight through a high window cast shadows all around until the lights in her section turned on. She could hear the rustle of fabric and the squeak of newer leather gun belts moving between the desks.

  Marybeth couldn’t think through the move. Each time she started, her mind filled with her blunders and failures of her past. She pushed the thoughts away, trying to do as Jeremy told her to, but each time, her hopeful thoughts were overtaken by fear and belief that she was unfit for this.

  She waited for the signal, fighting against her thoughts as she did. Finally, and too soon, her phone vibrated. She was to count to three and move, but she couldn’t. She heard the short guard bre
athing. The tip of his shoe passed the edge of the desk. In less than a moment, he would lean down to clear under the desk, but would find her instead and alert his superiors. The tips of his ponytail fell below the top of the desk and into view.

  Crystal clear realization came to her mind at that moment. If she didn’t take care of this guy, there was a good chance they would never find Christy and she would be lost forever—simply because she was afraid. She heard the skirmish between Jeremy and the other guard and somehow she found the courage to act. Her opportunity to do the move Jeremy had suggested had passed. She would have to improvise.

  She shoved the edge of the rolling chair, and it slammed into the guard’s head, making him fall into the desk across the way. His body clunked against the metal of it. Her mind was set on getting her hands on his radio. As she scrambled out from under the desk, she shoved the chair again. The guard curled up in a ball as he saw it roll toward him. He called out in pain as the heavy legs collided with his shins. She was standing now and kicked him in the head, the bottom of her shoe hitting hard and pushing his head back into the neighboring desk.

  As she reached for his radio, though, he lunged for the device as well. His hand would reach it first. He only needed to hit the emergency button. He could do that with one touch. She couldn’t allow it. She slammed the palm of her hand into his nose instead. He yelped in pain, his hand flying to his nose. She kneed him once again in the head, his hands leaving his nose and grabbing his head. She leaned in for the radio.

  His elbow hit her square in the back of the head. Her vision blurred as she yanked on the radio. It slipped out of her hands and to the floor. He rolled her over, his hands bracing her upper arms against the hard floor, and he moved to dig his knee into her thigh. She knew if she allowed that, he would have her and they wouldn’t get the information they needed. At the last second, she twisted her body and lifted her legs and wrapped them around his neck. She squeezed, his arms left hers and grabbed at his neck.

  In a split second, Jeremy was there, pulling him off her, breathing hard, almost panting from his haste. He plastic cuffed the guard to the desk and relieved him of his gun. Marybeth picked up his radio.