The Labs (The GEOs Book 2)

by Ramona Finn

  All good.

  Next, I looked at the machine I was plugged into. There were several buttons on the top. I began to turn each one down. I felt no bad effects. No alarms went off. No one came charging into the room. It must’ve been late at night, but I couldn’t tell. It seemed to always be dark in here.

  When I flipped off the final switch on the machine, it made a funny gurgling sound, like a rodent dying a slow, painful death. The tube that connected me to the machine was still full of blood, which made me pause. If I pulled out this last needle in my skin, would blood gush out like a burst pipe?

  Very slowly, I looked around for anything that could serve as a bandage. I was lucky. In a drawer next to my bed, there was a huge supply of bandages, syringes, and other mysterious medical objects. I grabbed the largest bandage and prepared to wrap it tightly around my hand. I took one last look at the tube that went from the back of my hand to the machine. It was still full of my blood. Bile from my stomach rose into my mouth. I’d never seen this much blood up close before coming to the Greens. I pushed the nausea back down with a hard swallow.

  Carefully, I pulled the needle and tube out of my hand. A small drop of blood formed on my skin and more blood spilled from the needle. I squeezed the tube shut right behind the needle, and the spill stopped. Grabbing my water cup, I emptied the needle and tube into it. I watched as half a cup of my blood swirled into the water. A few drops fell onto the floor, but I didn’t care. As long as no one barged into my room before I was ready to go, everything was good.

  I wrapped the bandage tightly around my hand, even though I really wasn’t bleeding all that much. I rummaged through every other drawer and checked every spare surface for signs of my necklace, but I couldn’t find it. And there was no time to mourn its loss anymore.

  Gingerly, I walked toward the door. My plan was working so far, even though I had no idea what I was going to do once I left this room. All I knew was I had to find Kev. I had to figure out what R.L. Farrow and his medics wanted from me.

  As I headed for the door, I felt a cool breeze wafting over my back. I clutched the gown I was wearing, only to realize that it was super-thin and open in the back. Cursing under my breath, I wasted precious minutes scouring the room for something to put over it. I found extra gowns and just layered another one, back to front, over mine. And then I layered a third one on top of that, just for good measure. Nowhere in the room were there any socks or slippers. My escape would be done barefooted.

  I pressed my body against the door, preparing to open it and run. My head felt fuzzy, and my mouth went bone dry.

  “Breathe, Ty,” I reminded myself. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  I tried not to think of the answer to that question as I pushed open the door.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said as I stepped out into the corridor.

  Chapter Six

  The corridor was brightly lit, making the white walls, white ceiling, and white floors gleam so bright, I might as well have been standing in the middle of the sun. I checked to my left and right—the coast was clear. In the distance, someone laughed, and another person said something in return, but no one was in sight. Which way should I go? One way was sure to lead right to the people who were talking, but the other might lead to a way out. I chose right.

  Staying as close to the wall as I could, I snuck past several doors. The panels next to the doors mostly read Unoccupied, and one read Supply Closet. The voices sounded more distant, so I must have guessed right. I picked up my pace, searching for an exit. The corridor came to an end ahead. I had to choose again—left or right. Left. It just felt right. Hopefully, not all of the corridors did this, because I might end up going in circles and ending up back in my own room if they did.

  “I need some help with tomorrow’s script.” A man’s voice floated toward me. Steady footsteps suggested that someone was coming, and that someone would then see me trying to escape. I froze for the length of a panicked breath. Searching for somewhere to hide, I dashed back along my path and found another supply closet. More footsteps echoed in my head. There was more than one person coming. I’d be caught, for sure, and then who knew what they’d do to me? I couldn’t bear the idea of being trapped in that bed with tubes running all over me again. Not for even one more night. My hands shook as I pushed against the door. Thankfully, it was unlocked.

  “It’s fine as it is,” a second voice replied, this one a woman’s. As I slipped into the closet, I caught sight of two people walking toward me. I held my breath, hoping they wouldn’t see me.

  “Will you please take a look?” the man asked.

  Just my luck, they stopped right in front of my door. I clung to the doorknob, trying not to faint from all this sudden exertion.

  The woman sighed and silence descended for a few seconds. I imagined she was looking at whatever it was the man had asked her to look at. I let out my breath and inhaled slowly, so as not to make too much noise.

  “It’s fine,” she repeated. “You’ve got the Farrows and their lab assistants doing their work.” She snorted at the last word. “The fight over getting Ben’s attention, blah, blah, blah—yeah, you’ve got some great lines here. Lots of romantic tension going. I think it’ll work.”

  “But,” the man’s voice rose in a whine, “it’s the same thing we’ve done every day this week. Shouldn’t we at least have some kind of breakthrough in the research, maybe have a moment of high tension? I mean, the show is called The Cure. Shouldn’t we have something happen that has to do with science?”

  “Look, Lou, you’re new here,” the woman said with a sigh. “We have to space out these so-called scientific breakthrough moments; otherwise, the viewers are going to expect actual results.”

  Actual results? My heart slowed to a death march. Of course, we expected actual results. This was what we, as an entire population of underground dwellers, were relying upon.

  The tiny closet I hid in grew smaller with each word. Beads of sweat appeared at my temples, dripping down into my eyes. I swiped them away with my sleeve, pressed my ear to the door, and held my breath.

  “Lou, this is a very long-running show. We need to stretch out the soap opera parts of the show to maintain interest,” the woman continued. “Keep the viewers focused on the romance aspects. The rest will come later. Farrow says he’s got some new ideas, something he’s learned from the new patients; he’ll share them with the writers when he’s ready. We can’t push him.”

  Something from the new patients. She meant me and Kev. So, they had been experimenting on me this whole time. A shiver ran through my body and I pushed down the terror rising in my chest.

  “You’re the boss, I guess,” the man said.

  “You’d better believe it, Lou.” She laughed, and the two walked on past my door.

  I counted to ten before opening it again. And, in those seconds, I tried to make sense of what I’d just heard. These two were writers for the show, The Cure. If they had writers, it meant that we hadn’t been watching the real goings-on inside the Labs. My father had been right. He’d used to complain about how us young people were always so caught up in the dramatics that we forgot about the need for a Cure. Was it possible that this was the reason the Farrows had writers? To get us off the scent of expecting a Cure at all?

  I supposed I’d never really believed we were watching the daily lives of the Farrows and their lab assistants as they were actually being lived. I mean, the Farrows stopped to talk to us through the cameras, so they knew they were being filmed. But I’d always thought that we were entering into a moment in their day every time the cameras came on, and that R.L. Farrow was giving us a glimpse into what they were doing up here in the Labs. But apparently that wasn’t true. These shows were scripted for entertainment.

  Did that mean none of it was real? That the search for the Cure was fake? My stomach twisted so violently that I thought I was going to throw up. But this was not the time to panic. I had to get out of there, away from
whatever it was these medics had done to me.

  One way or another, it had been lies. Everything I’d been raised to believe, all lies. If there never was going to be a Cure, though, I had two questions: One, what was R.L. Farrow doing experimenting on people like me? And, two, what was going to be the fate of my people in the Geos?

  The twist in my stomach roiled, making me very uncomfortable. I wanted to run away and hide, to stay somewhere away from all people for the rest of my life. Shivers ran through me. My limbs felt weak. I didn’t know how long I’d stayed stuck to the inside of the closet door, my face pressed against its cool surface. I wanted this all to be a terrible nightmare that I could wake up from. I wished I had never hacked into the Acceptance, never gone Above, and never met Wallace or Skylar Two. I wanted my little hovel of a home in the Geos, where my parents would be waiting for me. As meagre as that life was, at least I knew what was real and what wasn’t.

  But…did I really? My parents had worked their whole lives because they believed that the Farrows would one day find a Cure, and that future generations would be able to live above ground again. What if that dream was nothing more than an illusion created by the Farrows? What if we were being deceived into working for the Elites, all the while dying in our underground world? No, I couldn’t hide—for the sake of my parents and my friends, I couldn’t simply run away from this. I was the only one who knew the truth. I was the only one who could do anything about it.

  The burning in my stomach turned into a fire. For the first time in a long while, I felt a kind of strength rise within me. I pushed off from the door, knowing what I had to do. If the Farrows had been experimenting on me, and it had nothing to do with the Cure, I needed to find out what was really going on. I needed to let the thousands of people in the Geos know the truth.

  Would they believe me? Even when I’d lived there, I hadn’t exactly been popular. I’d kept to myself a lot, and it had only been because of friends like Viv and Bree, and maybe Rana, that I’d even gone out occasionally.

  I would need proof.

  I peeked out the doorway. The coast was clear once more. I would head in the same direction those two writers had gone. They had to be heading to their studios, and I could follow them and somehow get the evidence I needed. If everyone in the Geos knew what I knew, maybe they’d be more inclined to stop believing the Farrows’ lies and start thinking of the Rejs as allies.

  I snuck out in silence, keeping a good distance behind myself and the writers, so as not to be seen.

  Down this way, I crept past more doors that looked just like mine. But these had names pasted on the side panels—Biologist, Chemist, Farmer.

  I froze. Farmer. Was this where they had Kev?

  I hadn’t seen any clones come for Kev after Max and Dax escorted me off the transport, but what if they had? What if this Farmer was Kev? I had to see.

  When I opened up the panel to the side of the door, a green light told me that it was unlocked. It seemed as if none of the medical wing rooms locked—lucky for me. I pressed the “Open” button and the door slid to one side. Just as had been the case in my room, this one was dimly lit. And, I recognized Kev immediately. Even with him lying flat on the bed with tubes protruding from his every limb, I couldn’t mistake that shock of dark hair that stood straight up from his head under any circumstances, and those high cheekbones.

  “Kev?” I whispered. “Are you awake?”

  “Hmmm?” he groaned.

  I shook his arm. His heart monitor beeped faster. He was awake.

  “Kev, it’s me, Ty. I’m here to get you out.”

  One eye opened to look at me. “Tylia?” He sounded like he was waking from a deep sleep. “What are you doing here?”

  He was clearly out of it—a lot like I’d been less than an hour before. I checked all of the machines he was hooked up to; they were mostly bio-sign monitors. He didn’t have one of those blood machine things that I’d been plugged into. That was a relief. Less risk of making my friend bleed out altogether. The drip machine with the bright red numbers and bags of liquid, I could handle. I switched it off, like I had mine, and held my breath and silently counted to thirty. No alarm. No medics came running. I carefully removed the needles from his hand. Next, I pulled off the electrodes that had been attached to his chest. The monitor beeped loudly in protest.

  “What?” Kev asked a little too loudly. I covered his mouth with one hand and, with the other, hit the power button on the heart monitor to turn it off. Then I held my breath and stared at the door. Twenty more of the longest seconds passed by, but no one appeared at the door. Curious. Maybe they didn’t monitor us as closely as I’d assumed. Or maybe the drugs they were giving us ensured no patient could escape. Their mistake.

  I exhaled and released my hold on Kev. His eyes were wide now, his face as pale as he’d been when we were about to crash-land on that emergency platform. That seemed like such a long time ago.

  “Hi there, Tylia.” Kev turned to me with a big smile. “Whatcha doin’ here?”

  Clearly, he was still under the influence of some drugs.

  He took my hand in both of his and stroked the back of my fingers. “I’ve always liked you…” His words slurred together, so it took me a moment to understand what he’d said. “I used to dream about what would happen if…”

  “Okay, that’s quite enough of that,” I said quickly. I put my hands on both sides of his face, forcing him to look at me. “Kev, you and I need to get out of here. The Cure is a scripted show. It’s all fake.” I told him what I’d heard outside the supply closet. “R.L. Farrow has been experimenting on us. He’s going to use us for something, and it doesn’t feel right to me. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Kev’s silly smile slowly turned into a frown. He blinked several times, and his frown deepened. “You can let go of my cheeks,” he said.

  I removed my hands, feeling the heat rise in my face. Kev pushed himself into a seated position and I gave him a moment. I knew he’d be feeling dizzy.

  “How long have we been here?” He scratched at his tall hair. I caught him up on everything I knew. With each sentence, his eyes grew wider. “I don’t know, Ty. Are you sure? It doesn’t make sense that the Farrows would spend all these years doing nothing. Maybe the drugs are messing with your perception.”

  “I know what I heard, Kev!” The heat in my face turned red hot. “You and I are in danger, maybe like the other winners we watched get shot. Remember them? And if there is no search for the Cure, what about our families and friends in the Geos? What have they been working so hard for? Does any of this tell you that the Farrows are watching out for us in the Geos? Even the Rejs have figured this out. That’s why they’ve been upping their attacks on the Labs.”

  Kev’s brows knitted together. “Who cares about the Rejs? They’re the real enemies. The Farrows protect us, and the Rejs hate us because of it. You know that.”

  I bit my lip. I’d said too much. How much of this conversation would Kev remember later? Maybe when he came out of his ‘haze’ completely, this would all seem like a dream.

  “That time in the farm sector,” Kev continued, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts. “When I let you take that meat…you said you were giving it to your mom. Was that true?”

  “What?” Why would he bring up that moment now? We didn’t have time for this.

  “Of…course it was true,” I lied. I’d taken it for Wallace, to trade for meds for my mom. So, technically it was true. “You know my mother was and still is sick.”

  Kev frowned, sticking out his lower lip. He looked so young right then, too much like when we’d played as young children. My heart ached a little for those simpler times.

  “I heard rumors that you were helping a fugitive,” he said. “Who was he? Was he a Rej? Is that how you know so much about them?”

  “What rumors?” No one had seen me, had they? “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I don’t know,” Kev mumbled, his head lo
lling from one side to the other. The drugs were beginning to wear off, but it would take a while for him to be back to normal. They’d sedated us pretty good. “People said it was that old man, Wally or something.”

  “Wallace,” I whispered. I hadn’t thought of him in a while. It hurt to think of my old mentor as dead, or injured or sick somewhere with no one to help him. But he’d survived all these years on his own. I liked to think he was hiding somewhere, surviving and making trouble wherever he could. If it hadn’t been for him, I couldn’t have survived the Above or the Acceptance.

  “Wallace was one of us, Kev. He just lived his life a little differently. He rejected the notion of the Farrows as our benevolent leaders and protectors. He wanted more for us in the Geos, but we didn’t listen to him. We treated him like he was out of his mind. After what I heard just now, I’m beginning to think he might have been right.”

  Kev’s mouth had been in an ‘O’ as he’d listened. Slowly, he began to nod. “Okay then, if that’s what you think,” he said. “We should find a way to get this information out to the Geos.”

  “Yes,” I said, glad to see he was on board. Even as kids, he’d gone along with anything I’d suggested. I felt bad that I’d been kind of mean to him back then. He’d always trusted my judgement. I hoped I’d live up to that trust. “No one will believe us just because we say it’s so. We need to find where they film the show and see if there’s anything we can use to prove what we know.” I didn’t tell him I had no idea where they filmed the show. I’d stopped following the writers to rescue him, and now we’d have to figure that out from scratch.

  Kev kept nodding. I knew it was partly because of the drugs. He was still fighting them, trying to surface to full consciousness. Just like I’d had to.

  I grabbed some more gowns and covered him up in the same fashion I was covered, and then helped him to his feet and on toward the door. Just as I was about to open it, he pulled me back.