by Treyci Kay
“I would think saving someone’s life would at least warrant a handshake,” he says.
I think about his words. When he says this, for some reason I feel safe. I extend my hand out and shake his.
“Nice to see that you were raised right,” he says, as he lets go.
“Where am I?” I ask.
“Technically, none of us really know the full answer to that question,” he says.
“I came here with my mother. Where can I find her?” I ask.
“No... you came here alone. Your mother is either wherever the women’s facility is, or she’s dead,” he says.
I try not to think about the second scenario. “Where’s the women’s facility?”
“Maybe you don’t understand what I’m saying. You’re here. We don’t know where we are. She’s somewhere else, we don’t know where that is.” He picks up the white uniform on my bed and tosses it at me.
“How do you know who I am?” I ask.
“Damn, you ask a lot of questions. I don’t really know who you are. I just heard you and your mother can put up a fight. It’s funny hearing what you two did and looking at you now.” He studies me, waiting for some emotional response that I do not show. Then he continues. “Put on the uniform, before the guards check on you. When they bring the water, drink it. The first night is the hardest, but they put something in the water that’ll help you sleep. Got it?”
I look at the uniform and then back at him. I nod as a courtesy, I have no intention on settling in.
“See you at breakfast,” he says, as he walks out of the cell.
Holding the uniform in my hands, I go over everything I know so far. Unknown facility. Unknown location. I make up my mind that if I’m going to escape, I need to try to blend in while I figure a way out. I change into the white uniform and throw my old clothes in a corner.
I lay back on the hard bed and wait. A few moments pass and then my cell door opens. Inside walks the largest person I have ever seen. He is bald and the blue uniform he’s wearing seems so tight that it’s impossible if it is not his actual skin. In one hand he holds a glass of water. I lay frozen not knowing what to do. He doesn’t even look at me. He sits the glass of water on the ground in the middle of the cell, picks up my old clothes from the corner and exits just as quickly as he came.
After a few moments, I feel safe enough to move. I get up and stand over the glass of water. As much as wish I wasn’t thirsty, the cotton-feeling in my mouth argues otherwise. I wonder if the water is laced with some type of poison, but this thought quickly escapes me as I realize they could forcibly end me at any time. Before I can make up a new reason not to, I pick up the glass and start to drink. I can feel the coolness of the water in every inch of my body as it goes down.
I keep the empty glass in my hand as I sit back on the bed. In my training, my mother taught me that anything could be used as a weapon. I think about hiding the glass for when I might need it for other purposes, but I know that the guards with undoubtedly be back for it. I set it back in the center of the floor and lay on the bed.
The events that led up to me lying in this room, run over and over in my mind. Hours past and I am still replaying everything on a constant loop. I remember Winter, my only friend- gone. I remember my mother and her strength. Me not believing the Volare were coming. I remember the sound of the gun across my mother’s jaw. I don’t know if it’s the shock of everything or whatever Dom said was in the water, but I start to feel drossy. The nightmare of things that have happened, plays over and over and after a great deal of time, my mind simply shuts off.
I wake to a loud pulsing sound. The alarm, I think and I throw myself out of bed. As my feet hit the cold floor, I remember that I’m not in the cottage anymore. My cell is now brightly lit and the pulsing sound appears to be emanating from the walls.
The pulsing stops. My cell door opens and outside of it stands the large guard who dropped off the water earlier.
“Inmate exit your cell and get in line.” His voice is as cold as it is monotone. I can tell that he expects me to obey. Despite this, I get up slowly, wondering what the next move will be.
“Inmate exit your cell and get in line,” he says as he steps in the room.
This time I move faster.
Once I’m out of the door, I can see that the rest of the facility is now well lit. On every level of the prison, I can see rows of inmates standing outside of their cell doors. After every fifth door or so, stands a guard. At first the uniformity of it all takes away from me noticing that every guard is identical from the next. Identical not just in uniform, but in size and stature. In fact, every guard appears to be the same person. I realize the only way this could be possible is if they are androids. Droids were outlawed many years ago, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the council was using them to do their dirty work.
I look down the row next to me. A few inmates back, I notice Dom. He is staring straight forward, appearing to await the next instructions. I follow his lead, as to not draw attention. It’s almost as if on my first day here I’m expected to know what to do. I don’t want to take the chance and see what will happen if it appears that I don’t.
The pulsing sound that woke me goes off again. I look to my right and see the row of inmates starting to pace toward me. I turn to my left and see them walking away from me. Instinctively, I fall in line as we begin to march.
The inmates file into a door down the walkway. Once I enter the door, I see a staircase. The stairs follow the shape of the small square shaped room. I look over the railing and see endless staircases with inmates marching downward at the same pace.
We march downward, and soon after I lose count of how many staircases we pass, we reach the bottom floor. We all file in through a doorway and pass through a narrow corridor. Then we enter a large open room. The inmates disband in no particular manner to various tables throughout the room. In the room the energy is different. The inmates talk to one another. Many of them have food already, or some semblance of what should be food, on silver trays.
I walk toward the center, the major source of light and where the ceiling appears to be missing. After just a few steps closer, I realize that I can see up into the rest of the prison. Floor after floor of cell doors and platforms.
I look over the room and find Dom. He is sitting at a table alone. Without much thought, I walk towards him. It isn’t until I am standing right next to him, that I wonder if the other inmates are not near him for a reason.
“So you decided to be more friendly today?” He flashes a tired looking, half smile.
I ignore his remark and sit next to him. I know that if last night wasn’t some scheme to get something out of me, maybe he can give me more information so I can plan an escape.
“How long have you been here?” I ask.
“A long time,” he says.
I can tell by the way he says it that I won’t get far asking questions about him.
“Ok... do you know why I am here?” I ask.
“Honestly, after what you did, I don’t know why you’re still alive... but if I had to guess, they probably want something from you, or your mother, or both. That’s if she’s still alive.”
“What do you mean, what I did?”
“Well, I mean attacking all those Volare like you did, something like that. Practically killed some of them from what I heard.”
“We didn’t attack them! They came after us!”
He smiles as he sees me get worked up. I calm myself and notice that only a couple of inmates overheard. The guards don’t even bother to look over.
“Well, that doesn’t surprise me,” he says. “It wouldn’t be the first time they lied.”
“Ok, so what if I don’t give them whatever it is they are searching for?” I ask.
“They’ll probably kill you... if you’re lucky,” he says.
“So, you mean they’ll torture me more? I wouldn’t help them even if I understood what was going on,” I say.
“Yeah, sure,” he says.
“Yeah, sure to which part?” I ask.
“Both?” He says.
We stare at each other confused, me about his answers, him about my questions.
He continues. “Don’t worry about all the questions you have. No one here, except the people who bought you here, can answer those. In the meantime, you need to worry about not having people test whether or not you live up to the hype.” He nods to something behind me.
I turn around slowly, as to not make his gesture obvious. The two twins that tried to attack me from the night before are headed our direction. They look even more imposing in proper lighting.
“Oh don’t worry about them,” he says. “They won’t mess with you anymore... but the rest of these animals will try to kill you, first chance they get.” “They can try,” I think, but it comes out as a mumble, just loud enough to hear.
“They will,” he says. “And I don’t care what you and your mom supposedly did, with enough tries and enough guys, they will succeed. It’s too obvious you don’t belong here.”
I nod, wondering if I would have even made it pass the twins last night if he didn’t show up.
“Hello,” Dom says, nodding to someone behind me.
I turn around to see the twins. They both carry trays of food and appear to be walking by our table to the other side of the room, before Dom says anything. They nod in acknowledgment, but Dom waves them over. One stands behind the other, and though I can’t tell them apart the one in the back seems to be more wary.
“Yes Dom,” says the twin closest to us.
“Well, I tried to tell him no, but the new guy says he wants your food.”
The twin looks at me, almost knowing I said no such thing. Even though it is clear between the four of us that Dom makes this up, I stare back at the twin as if it were my idea. I still wonder at this point, why the much larger twins would even listen to Dom in the first place.
The twin steps toward me to hand me the tray. My mind immediately jumps to me punching beneath the tray up through his chin. I know the strike would easily catch him off guard and likely throw him back onto his brother. The thought makes me smile.
“Well,” says the twin, snapping me out of my trance. He extends his tray right in front of me.
Without thinking, I stand up slowly. I notice that other inmates around the room are looking at anxiously.
I see a trashcan nearby and point to it so our audience can see.
“I don’t want to eat it. Go throw it out.”
The twin’s eyes narrow. I can see the fire building within him and I love it. Any compassion I could have had for them died when they stormed in my cell. That little part of me that wants to avoid conflict with these giants was gone when I saw how scared they were of Dom, a person who is basically my size.
“Well?” says Dom.
The twin glares at me a moment longer and slowly turns and walks to the trashcan, his brother walking quiet behind him.
Once they are far enough away, I sit down. I can hear mumbles around the room from what they just saw.
“Perfect,” says Dom. “That’s what you needed. Now the others who saw you will respect you better before they die.”
Respect sounds good to me, but the other part of what he says does not sit so well.
“What do you mean, before they die?” I ask.
“None of them last too long, so you’ll be fine until you die too.”
“But I thought you said that you’ve been here a long time?”
“I have,” he says.
Before I can ask him another question, he waves to a person behind me. I feel my blood starting to run hot. I need answers to these questions, not another test from an inmate.
“Hey Otis, come meet the new guy,” he says.
I turn around and see a short, stocky inmate approaching us. He carries a tray of food and has on glasses- something I haven’t seen since I was little. He smiles at us and appears far too happy to be in a prison.
“Hello,” he says to me, as he sits next to Dom.
I forget to say hello back to him. I don’t mean to be rude; it just puzzles me why a person like him would be in a place like this.
Dom breaks me out of my thoughts. “Hey new guy, you never told me your name.”
“Oh sorry. I’m Adam.”
Otis nods and starts eating. “So this is the Volare destroyer?” He says, as he scoops the slop-like material into his mouth, without looking at me.
Dom smiles. “No, I’m pretty sure his mother did most of the work. I wanna meet her.”
I smile, knowing that Dom is half-joking, but likely trying to see for himself what I’m made of. I will refuse to loose my cool in this place and for now, to survive, I’ll deal with his games.
“You two better go get food. The line will close soon,” says Otis.
Dom gets up. “You coming?”
I shake my head. Even if I could force myself to eat the sloop material, eating was the last thing on my mind.
Dom turns and walks away.
I watch Otis as he eats loudly. He appears to be almost in a trance. The way he eats, makes the sloop seem like a delicacy.
“So ask away,” he says, continuing his meal.
“What?” I say.
“Ask away. I know you have questions. We all did when we first got here.”
I wreck my brain trying to figure where to start. “Where is my mother?”
“I don’t know anything about your mother or why you are here. I know something about you two fighting Volare, but lies spread faster than facts. You don’t seem like you could anyhow.”
When he says this, I don’t feel offended at all. I can tell that to him, he’s just stating facts. Dom may be sly and have an agenda, but this guy could care less about such things.
“What can you tell me about this place?” I ask.
“I can tell you enough. We’re several hundred yards underground. From what I can tell there are only two ways out. The way you came and in a body bag.”
“Why are we here?”
“Again, I don’t know why you are here. But all the rest of us have committed capital crimes against the council. That’s what they say anyway. So we don’t get a trial. They send us here and basically experiment on us at random until our bodies or minds can’t take anymore and give out. Most of us don’t make it a full year.”
The more I learn about the situation, the more hopeless it feels. “How long have you been here?”
“About ten months. I had a treatment this morning and I’m still here, so it’s looking like I might hit the year mark. I’m pretty happy about that. In comparison, those twins have only been here a couple months.”
Hearing the sincerity in his voice, makes me wonder how he can stay optimistic in this place. It may be that the place has simply made him insane.
“What about Dom?”
Otis sits his spoon down for the first time and looks over to Dom. He walks through a food line on the other side of the room.
“Dom is different. He was here before all of us. Some say he was born here.”
I study Dom. I still fail to see what makes him so different.
“I know what you’re thinking,” says Otis. “But he’s not like us. Killing for him is as normal as breathing. And he’s smarter than the rest of them. Well... not me of course.”
“I’m going to guess you’ve actually seen him display these behaviors?”
Otis laughs. “So you’re a smart one too, huh? I knew it. I could tell.”
I stare at him waiting for my answer.
“Dominic 00851, has been here for an undisclosed amount of time, for unknown reasons. The council experiments on him just the same as us, but years ago one of the treatments they gave him allowed for faster regeneration of cells. Every time he gets close to dying, he heals. Every now and then some inmates try to take him out, but when you come close to death so many times, you learn a thing or two about fighting. He bas
ically runs this place.”
Yet he’s in the uniform just like the rest of us, I think.
“Ok, I can tell by the look on your face that you don’t believe any of this- which is fine. I haven’t seen him kill anyone, but I have seen him take out a droid.”
I try to conceal my reaction. The droids in the prison were outlawed by the council because they are virtually indestructible. That is not a good thing in the wrong hands, but it turns out the council just wanted to keep the technology for themselves. I weigh my options. If he’s lying, it’s likely that Dom is just a normal guy fooling everybody, but if he’s telling the truth, maybe there’s a way out.
“How’d he take out the droid?” I ask.
“Behind the right ear is a little switch. Pull down on the switch and it opens the back of the head up, exposing the motherboard. Then all you gotta do is scramble them with an E.M.P. The trick is to get them open, before they open you,” he says and then laughs at his own twisted joke.
An electro-magnetic pulse can scramble many types of tech, so I know so far he’s likely telling the truth. The skull must have some type of material that safeguards the hard drive when closed, that is if the hard drive is even in the skull. This leaves me with only one question.
“How did he get an E.M.P in here?”
“Uh, he skipped that part. Once he opened the skull, he ripped the hard drive out with his bare hands.”
He starts eating his food again, as if he just told me something as mundane as the weather. The hard drive would be nearly impossible to remove without the right tools. Ripped-it-out-with-his-bare-hands. I decide at this point that whatever experiments the council are administering to him have cause him to go crazy.
“You find out anything more about the virus,” says a familiar voice behind me. I turn around to see Dom standing there with a tray of slop in his hand. I wonder how much of the conversation he may have heard.
“Not really, it’s killing more people, no cure in sight,” says Otis.
“Great,” says Dom as he sits down. “Maybe it’ll kill off the council. Give them what they deserve.”