It was empty.
"Damn."
"There's only one way to go, why don't we just keep going until we find something?"
I nodded at Sarah and started down the hall. I hadn't noticed it at first due to the darkness, but she was right. This hallway ran behind the library but there were no doors on either side. The only two exits were where we had come from, and a single door at the end. I pressed my ear against the door, and opened it when I was sure it was safe. It opened onto a set of stairs leading down into darkness. There were no windows here to let in even the smallest amount of moonlight.
I turned to Sarah. "If you don't want to come you don't have to."
"Let's just get this over with."
I nodded and made my way down the stairs. After Sarah let go of the door it closed behind us. The darkness was disorienting at first, but I reached out and placed my hands on the walls. Once Sarah had a hand on my shoulder we starting making my way down the stairs. We followed them down for a few minutes. We must have been deep underground now—well below the foundation of the building. After another minute I stepped for another step, but there was none. The shock rattled my teeth, but I was able to turn and warn Sarah before she did the same.
We turned a corner and I could see a small amount of light spilling into the room. We were standing before a door. A quick feel around and I found the handle, turning it and peeking out into the area beyond.
The light was dim, but felt bright to my dilated eyes. Once they adjusted I slipped out onto the metal grate of a floor. Sarah stepped out from behind me and looked around the room, or should I saw cavern. It was like standing in a huge warehouse, so large that it would take a good ten minutes to jog the length of it. It was supported by large steel beams that stood every twenty feet or so. We were standing in one corner of a series of floating walkways that ran across the top of the room. About ten feet under us were the roofs to a multitude of smaller structures. They didn't look large enough to hold more than a few rooms each and didn't have any windows. The only thing of note were the individual air conditioning units on top of each.
Sarah took her hand from my shoulder. "What is this place?"
I shrugged and shook my head. "It's huge. Looks pretty modern compared to the mansion."
"Yeah it's definitely an addition, but what is it for?"
The two of us frowned and kept looking over for any signs of life. The walkway that we stood on led to two different doors. The one we came in through, and another at the end. From my position here I could see about six other doors. Did they all lead into the mansion, or did they come out somewhere else? The place was much larger than the mansion, so the other doors could lead anywhere.
I turned to Sarah and pointed to a set of stairs that led down the the rooms below us. "Might as well check it out."
She nodded, and the two of us made our way down. I was careful to keep an ear out for any signs of life, but we made it to ground level with no trouble. A quick scan of one of the rooms revealed it to only have the one door in or out. It was locked. As we explored we discovered that each room was a little different. Some had more than one door, and some had small dark windows that were impossible to see into. Each room stood at least twelve feet tall.
Sarah sighed. "Where did they go?"
I frowned. "They must be in one of these rooms."
Sarah threw her hands in the air. "But which one?"
"I don't know, but I'm not leaving until we find out."
Sarah sighed, and with a shake of her head started down one of the rows. "We'll cover more ground if we split up."
After a twenty minutes of walking through the maze of buildings I was starting to think it was a lost cause. I turned to look for my friend, but as I did a strange noise made me freeze in my tracks. I could hear an odd kind of ripping sound coming from the room that I was next to. I frowned and pressed by ear against the brick, but that didn't help at all. I circled the room, but the only point of entry was the doorway which I didn't want to risk.
As I completed my third lap of the building, a thought crossed my mind. I climbed the nearest set of stairs as fast as I could and made my way above the building where I had heard the noise. As I looked over the edge I realized it was a little too far to fall without making any sound. I needed Sarah. A few minutes of searching later, made easier by the fact I was twenty feet in the air, and I found her. It took an almost shout to get her attention, but she was soon looking up at me in confusion. I motioned for her to join me, and she made her way to a set of stairs to meet me on the walkway.
"What's going on?"
I smiled at her. "I found something."
She grimaced. "Where?"
"Over this way."
I led Sarah back to the room that I had found earlier.
"The problem is that it's too far for me to drop," I said, pointing to the room. "It will make a lot of noise. I need you to help me."
"How?"
"I need you to lower me down so I don't fall as far. When I'm down there I can catch you when you jump.
Sarah raised an eyebrow at me. "You're going to catch me."
I frowned at her. "I'm strong enough."
Sarah smirked at me. "It's not your strength I'm worried about. You like a pocket sized person. I'll squash you, even with my lovely figure."
"Feeling a bit full of yourself are we?"
"Whatever you say, munchkin."
I stuck my tongue out at her, and slid myself over the edge. My hands gripped onto the frame of the walkway, and I lowered myself down as far as I could go. When I was at full extension Sarah gripped onto my wrists, and I let them go. A year ago I would never have put myself in this kind of position with someone. It was amazing how much things had changed now that I had someone that I could trust.
Sarah lowered me down until I was only six feet or so from the rooftop. At my nod, she dropped me. My training put itself to work and I landed into a roll. Sarah start to lower herself over the edge and I positioned myself underneath her. She let herself fall and leaned backward to make herself easier to catch. Her weight made my knees buckle, but I stayed upright and held her in my arms.
"Where to now, sweetheart?"
She rolled her eyes. "Put me down, dork."
I sighed. "One day you'll realize I'm your one true love."
A noise from below us tore me out of the conversation and reminded me where we were. I put Sarah down and the two of us pressed ourselves flat to the roof.
"What are you doing out there?" came the voice of the doctor from inside the building.
I could hear footsteps circle around the building. When they got back to the door, the voice of Gus spoke up. "I thought I heard something."
"There is no-one here. Get inside and close that damn door."
The door closed, and clicked with the sound of a lock engaging.
"That was a close one."
I turned to Sarah and noticed her face was white as a sheet. "We need to be more careful." She nodded and we crawled our way over to the air unit.
The large white box had a grate on one side. A quick tug confirmed that it would pop out. I pressed my hands up against the edges to muffle the sound, and pulled out each corner of the square one at a time. When the grate was off I placed it to the side and looked down into the unit. It had a large spinning blade set vertical that was used to pull out the stale air. If we slid down the side there was no danger of getting hurt. The vent itself went down three feet or so before jetting off to the side. It looked big enough to fit the two of us. Maybe.
"I'm going in. You coming?"
Sarah looked over the edge into the vent. "Will it be strong enough to hold us both?"
"Look at these places," I said, gesturing to the buildings around us. "They're built strong. We'll be fine."
She frowned, but nodded. I lowered myself down, careful to avoid the blades, and helped her in after me. It was a bit of a squeeze with the two of us in there, but manageable. I'd thought it would be dark,
but the light from behind us was plenty to see by. Up ahead I could make out a small flickering light. I crawled on my hands and knees down to it with Sarah close behind me. When I got close enough I could see that it was a ventilation unit that opened up onto one of the rooms below us. There was another fan spinning in front of it that was causing the flickering. I made my way up to the vent and peered through it into the room below. What I saw made my blood run cold.
There was a boy sitting in a chair in the center of the room. His arms were tied to the chair with cable ties, and he had a hood over his head. The only thing he wore was a pair of black cargo pants. I swallowed hard. What the hell was going on here? I looked over to Sarah, but she looked to be in as much shock as I was. A noise from below made me focus back on the room.
A door that I hadn't noticed earlier behind the boy opened and a man walked through. I clamped my hand over my mouth to strangle the scream that threatened to spill out. Walking into the room was the same black, expressionless mask that I met on my first day of BOX training.
It was the torturer. The man from my nightmares. The man from all our nightmares. He wasn't just a device used in the BOX. He was real.
I jumped when a loudspeaker came to life from inside the room. The crackled voice of Doctor Vorboyov sent another shudder through me.
"Subject 54-A is ready for testing. Let experiment number 112 begin."
THIRTY-TWO
The man in the mask reached for the boy's hood and pulled it off. The boy squinted into the light of the room and blinked while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness. My hand flew to my mouth when I realized who was down there. I looked over to Sarah, and the look on her face told me that she recognized him too.
Sitting in the chair below us was Justin, the recruit I had talked to in the car after I had been attacked. He had been nervous. I had reassured him. Told him everything would be fine. I felt like throwing up. Justin looked like hell. He had no physical wounds that I could see, but he had a dejected look in his eyes, and the way his body slumped in the chair said it all. I had never seen him after that first day. How did he end up here?
The man in the mask stepped out of view and Justin's eyes tracked his movements. I saw his eyes widen in fear for a moment, but just as fast the slack expression replaced it again. The masked man returned holding a large kitchen knife.
I looked to Sarah, but she just closed her eyes and turned away. I couldn't do that. I watched. I had to see what they were doing. I couldn't look away.
I soon realized the noises I had heard before were his screams. They were muted, like he had spent so long screaming that he didn't have the energy required to scream any louder than he was now. I felt detached as I watched the masked man work. It felt like I had taken a step outside my body and was watching from afar. It couldn't touch me here. It couldn't hurt me.
I was brought back to my body by a touch on my arm. I jumped and swatted at the contact before realizing it was Sarah. I took a few deep breaths to slow my heart rate, and noticed that she was pointing out of the vent, her eyes wide. I looked down and noticed that the masked man had stopped cutting Justin, and was now standing behind him near the door with his arms folded. My eyes turned back to the bleeding form of Justin in the chair.
My eyes widened when I felt it. It was like the feeling I got when my Pulse rushed out of me, but much smaller and it passed through me from the outside. It came in waves, over and over again, and I realized it was coming from Justin himself. His ability was activating. I watched as the wounds that littered his face, chest, and arms began to close. It was a slow process at first, but after a few seconds I could see them stitching themselves from the edges toward the middle. The whole process took about a minute, but by the time it was done there was not a scratch on him.
The blood remained though, and I could see Justin shaking hard in the chair. The pain was still with him. That wasn't something that could be as easily healed. When it was done the masked man set about his task of cleaning the blood off of Justin's body, just as he had in the simulations. When he was complete I was worried he was going to start cutting him again, but he replaced the hood and stepped back to replace the tools on the bench outside of our view. When he walked back into view he had rolled up his sleeves to reveal his arms. On his left arm there was a small band of black that encircled halfway up his forearm. It was tattooed onto his skin. I made a mental note of that, and watched as he left the room. The door clicked with the sound of a locking mechanism engaging from the outside.
"We have to get him out."
I looked up at Sarah, and was shocked when I saw her face. Gone was the fear and trepidation of being caught, and in it's place was a furious anger. Her hands clenched and unclenched as if clutching at an invisible rope. Her jaw was tense, and she couldn't stop looking at Justin through the vent.
I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, and she jumped and looked up at me. "We will."
She gave me a small smile that didn't quite touch her eyes, and I pointed toward the exit. She nodded and began to turn, but the door in the room below us was unlocked and it swung open once more. I looked down and saw Doctor Vorboyov enter, followed by Gus.
The doctor walked up behind Justin and put his hands on either shoulder. "Outstanding, no?"
Gus nodded and crossed his arms. "Okay, color me impressed. Can we use it though?"
"I've just broken his DNA code today. His skills are as good as ours. Now I just have to work out how to synthesize it."
I frowned down at them. They were using his DNA to manufacture his ability? How did that even work? Why did they need to torture him if they had already unlocked his ability? I didn't understand.
"Why is he still alive then?" Gus said, bringing my attention back to the three below.
The doctor just shook his head. "No reason. I just wanted you to see it, since you've been out so long you hadn't seen the process we'd made. When you first brought him to us he was weak, but he is much stronger now. Perfect for our purposes."
"So we don't need him anymore?"
"No."
Gus rubbed his chin with his hand. "So how do we neutralize him."
"Ah I worked that out today! The Pulse only takes care of surface scratches—things that would heal given enough time. The good part is that it heals them before his system goes into shock, so there is no danger of cardiac arrest."
"All well and good, Doc, but what about the rest?"
"Any major tissue damage to the brain, heart, or spinal column should do the trick."
Gus frowned and nodded. "I see." He stepped forward and in one motion pulled a pistol that was concealed in his waistband and put three bullets into the back of Justin's head. I jumped in shock from the act, and watched as Justin's body slumped forward in the chair, his restraints keeping him from falling to the floor.
"Did you have to do that while I was in the room?" Doctor Vorboyov said.
Gus nodded. "Kid had been through a lot, and we didn't need him anymore. He's better off now. I think you forget sometimes, doc, that you're dealing with humans."
The doctor shrugged turned from the body to make his way out the door. "Whatever you say, Gus."
Gus shook his head at the retreating form of the doctor, and stepped forward to unlock the restraints holding Justin up. With a click they came free, and the body fell to the floor with a thud. Gus sighed and stepped forward to pick him up, and then threw the boy over his shoulder like he weighed nothing.
I turned to look at Sarah and she had tears streaming down her face. I wondered why I wasn't crying. Perhaps it just hadn't hit me yet. I didn't think too hard about it at that moment.
I reached out to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "There was nothing we could do."
Sarah nodded and turned away from the vent to begin crawling back to the exit. I followed on her heels, and a minute later we were crawling out of the hole and back onto the roof. I went to the edge and chanced a glance over, but it didn't lo
ok like anyone had left the building yet. As I looked up and took in the sight of the rest of the buildings I shuddered. Was each one of these filled with someone? Was there more 'experiments' going on even right now. I resolved to find out.
I turned back to Sarah who was replacing the cover on the unit, and made my way over to the edge farthest from the door. The drop was about twelve feet, which was fine for landing, but not so good for noise. It was going to be loud.
Sarah cringed as she looked over the edge. "Do I have to?"
I gave her a small smile. "Yes, but at least we know I can catch you now. We're going to have to be fast though. It's going to attract attention, and we can't stay here until they leave. We'll be sitting ducks the moment someone enters the room."
Sarah nodded and watched as I slid my way off the edge. I let myself fall, kicking out against the wall at the last second to angle myself away and reduce some momentum. I curled into a roll, but as I expected the solid concrete ground didn't absorb any of the sound. The slap of my feet against the ground echoed around the room.
I jumped up and rushed back to the wall to catch Sarah. Just as she was about to jump I heard the door on the other side of the building slam open and the sound of Gus's voice rang out clear.
"Who's there?"
THIRTY-THREE
Sarah jumped forward and I caught her, but in her haste I wasn't able to get in position in time and the two of us fell to the floor with a crash. I jumped up and pulled Sarah up with me, and started running as fast as I could with Sarah's hand in mine away from the room.
I chanced a glance behind me and saw Gus come around the corner of the building. I pulled us into one of the other alleyways and out of his site.
"You there! Stop!"
Sarah and I continued to run as fast as we would could and hit a set of stairs at full speed. As I reached the top I stumbled and fell, grazing my knees on the steel floor. Sarah pulled me up and we began running again. As we approached the nearest door I turned back to see Gus start to make his way up the stairs after us. I prayed that it was too dark for him to make us out, and slammed through the doorway.
The Pulse Series (Book 1): Pulse Page 20