by Joe Hart
“You,” the other woman says. Zoey waits, unwilling to drop her gaze. Lightning flashes, bringing a hyper-glow to the room before diminishing. Each of them stands like a statue. Rita’s eyes flick to the hallway, scanning over the others waiting with their rifles. The hardness around her mouth slackens and with a barely perceptible nod, she puts on a pair of shoes beside her bed.
Zoey takes Lily’s hand and points to the door directly across the hall. Tia burns the lock and shoves the door inward.
Sherell sits at her desk, a pen and a piece of paper before her. Her mouth is partially open, and her eyes widen as they step into her room.
“The hell—” she manages before Rita moves into view.
“We’re going,” Rita says, motioning toward the hall. “Get your shoes.” Sherell hesitates but then folds the paper she was working on and tucks it away into a pocket before sliding her shoes on.
In the hallway, Zoey brings them to the last door, and Tia opens it with the cutter. Inside, Penny is at her window, staring out at the storm. She turns, and even in the almost nonexistent light, Zoey can see the dark glint in her eyes. Penny glances to each of their faces, hovering last on Rita.
“Penn, we’re getting out of here. C’mon.” Rita jerks her head toward the hallway. Penny’s lips twist up in an awful smile and she moves forward, brushing past Zoey.
“Okay, two more, right?” Chelsea says a little breathlessly. Zoey moves past her without answering. The group follows close behind, their footsteps sounding much too loud.
“Are you almost out?” Merrill’s voice says in her ear.
“Close,” Chelsea replies, coming even with Zoey as they near the main stairwell again. “We just have to get Terra and Meeka.”
Zoey pulls the headset off before she hears Merrill’s reply. The group comes to a halt at the quiet stairway, and she runs her gaze across everyone.
“Take them down to the laundry. Get them in the boat,” Zoey says, backing away.
“What are you talking about?” Chelsea says.
“Just go.” Zoey continues to retreat.
“Where are you going?” Tia says. But then her eyes glaze, as do Eli’s and Chelsea’s.
Eli places his fingers against his earpiece. “What did you say, Merrill?”
Zoey turns and sprints up the stairs.
Their voices hiss after her, but she doesn’t hear any sounds of pursuit. She turns the corner and bounds up the next flight, stopping short before the fourth-floor hallway junction. She draws her pistol and looks around the corner.
The corridor is clear all the way to the infirmary. She sprints down its length, coming even with the infirmary door, and peeks through the glass set in its frame.
The palm of a man’s hand presses against the small window.
Zoey flings herself to the side, crouching in the shadows as a metallic scrape comes from the lock. The door opens a second later.
“—such a pain in the ass when the power goes out,” the first guard says, stepping past her. “I’ve gotten so used to the electronic scans that using keys is like work.”
“You’re one lazy bastard,” the second guard says, tight on his heels. Both chuckle. “Now what was Richards going on about?”
The door begins to swing shut behind them as they walk down the hall.
Zoey tenses, watching it slowly close.
“He said Perry didn’t come back with his booze from ground level or some shit.”
Almost shut.
“We’re checking on a booze run? We’d better get some this time.”
The guards turn the corner toward the stairs.
Zoey leaps forward, stabbing her fingers into the closing door’s gap.
It shuts on her hand hard enough to spring tears from her eyes. Standing, she drags it open and slips through, letting it swing shut behind her.
A flicker of lightning coats the infirmary in a monochromatic flutter. The doorways of the exam rooms are all closed, operating beds beyond empty and waiting for their next patients. Zoey moves without pause down the center aisle, the gleaming elevator doors appearing out of the gloom.
Alongside them stands a guard she’s never seen before cleaning his fingernails with a small knife. She raises the gun from her side, but the guard doesn’t look up.
“You guys forget something, or was Perry already on his—” He glances up from his cleaning, eyes going wide at the sight of her striding toward him through the semidarkness.
He starts to reach for his sidearm but she speaks, her voice surprising even to her at how level it sounds. “Don’t or I’ll shoot you.”
“Holy shit, what the hell are you doing here? You’re dead.”
“Is that what they told you? Makes sense. They wouldn’t want everyone knowing I got away.”
“What do you want?” She moves closer, and it’s then she can see that he’s terrified. The man trembles, the folded collar of his uniform shaking.
“Call the elevator for me.”
“I can’t. They disabled the bracelets for clearance on it after you got out.” He flashes his bracelet in front of the elevator’s sensor. Nothing happens. Zoey glances around the room, mind whirring.
“Give me your radio.”
“I don’t have one.” She raises the gun even with his forehead. “Okay, okay.” He digs in his pants pocket and draws out a small radio with a blunt antenna on its top. “Here,” he says, extending his arm. Zoey reaches out to take it.
The guard lunges forward.
She fires.
The gunshot is deafening and sends a shrill whining through her eardrums, but she barely notices. She steps forward, pistol aimed at the center of the guard’s chest. He’s sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. Blood pours from between his fingers where he clutches his shoulder.
“Ahh! You bitch, you fucking shot me!” Zoey bends down and retrieves the radio from where he dropped it.
“I told you I would. Now, how do I contact the Director with this?”
“I’m not going to tell you anything.”
Zoey shoots him again in his other shoulder. The report as well as the guard’s cry is drowned out by a blast of thunder that reverberates through the floor.
“How?”
“Turn the switch to seven and press the button,” the guard says through clenched teeth. He holds both wounds now with opposite hands, his arms crossed over his chest. Zoey flips the small dial on the radio’s side to seven and triggers the button.
“Director?” She waits. Lightning slashes the sky outside, and thunder growls its reply.
“Who is this?” The voice is polished and smooth. She would know it anywhere.
“It’s Zoey. I’m in the infirmary, and I’ve come alone, but before you call your guards, know that I have one of your men and I’ll kill him and then myself unless you do what I say.”
There is a long pause, then a low laugh. “You did this, didn’t you? The power outage. Very clever. Our technicians were sure it was the storm.”
“Bring me Terra. If you come with someone other than Terra, I shoot your guard and then you along with anyone else I can kill before I die.”
“Now Zoey, let’s not get hasty. We can all come away from this amicably if we listen to one another.”
Zoey pushes the button and pulls the pistol’s trigger again. The guard’s pant leg jumps just below his knee, and he bellows out a guttural scream until he runs out of breath.
“The next shot you hear will be the one that goes through my head,” Zoey says.
“Okay, all right, Zoey, but you’ll have to give me some time. The elevator won’t work without power, so I’ll have to find another way down.”
“I don’t believe you’d leave yourself stranded up there. I think the elevator runs off of another power source if the main goes down. Maybe your guard here will tell me before he dies of blood loss.” She aims the gun at the panting man again.
“It does,” he moans. “It runs off of its own backup genera
tor that’s not hooked into the system.”
“Hear that?” Zoey says into the radio.
There is another brief pause, then the Director speaks again, and the syrupy smoothness is gone from his voice. “I’ll bring her down.”
Zoey tosses the radio to the floor and strips the guard’s handgun from him. He doesn’t move an inch, only breathes raggedly with his eyes closed. She puts the new gun in her own holster and waits. Every moment she expects the door at the far end of the infirmary to fly open and a dozen Redeyes to rush in, fully armed. It was stupid to come here, stupid to endanger herself, the mission, but she couldn’t leave Terra behind, not when she is so close.
And she couldn’t tell the others about Meeka. Not until they were clear of the ARC. Then they can beat her, kill her, whatever they want. At least then the other women will be safe.
She’s snapped from her thoughts as the soft rumbling of the elevator comes from behind the doors. Zoey raises the pistol, holding its sights on the doors until they slide open.
Terra steps out into the emergency lighting, the Director holding her arm. There is a small pistol in his hand, its barrel pointed at Terra’s temple. Behind him there is more movement. Reaper and the female doctor she’d left locked in the cell with Carter’s corpse move into the room as well.
“I said come alone,” Zoey says, aiming at the small target of the Director’s face over Terra’s shoulder.
“We’re unarmed, Zoey,” the woman says. Vivian, that’s her name. She holds up her hands to reveal their emptiness. “We just want to talk.”
“Then take the gun away from her head.” The Director lowers the pistol but doesn’t release his hold on Terra’s arm.
“Terra, are you okay?” Her friend’s eyes swim in the low light. There is a blankness in her stare, a catatonic glaze that’s like a brick wall between them. “What did you do to her?”
“Zoey, why don’t you put down the gun, and we’ll talk,” Vivian says.
“Why don’t you shut your mouth before I put a bullet in it?”
The scientist looks stunned for a second before she tries to smile. “I know you’re upset, but we can work all this out.”
“Listen to her, Zoey,” the Director says. “You are all precious to us. We don’t want any harm to come to you, so why don’t you put the gun down, and we’ll talk.”
She ignores him, focusing instead on Terra, who still seems unaware of her surroundings. “Terra? Can you hear me?” The other woman’s lips part at the sound of her name. She blinks and looks in Zoey’s direction. “I’m taking you out of here, okay?”
“Zoey, please. Listen to yourself. You’re in the middle of the facility with two handguns and no possible way of escape. I’m not sure how you managed the little trick with the power or how you gained entry, but there’s no way we’re letting you simply walk out of here,” the Director says, his gun rising toward her.
“Zoey, listen to him,” Reaper says. His voice sends a shiver through her, since it’s the first time he’s ever spoken to her in person. The tall soldier brings both his hands up and she points her weapon at him, but he continues moving until his fingers touch the sides of the black mask covering the lower part of his face. He unsnaps the straps, and it falls away.
Zoey draws in a quick breath.
His face is a torn landscape of scars.
Most of the left side of his lips are gone, revealing white teeth and red gums. His cheek is puckered flesh, pale and rippled as if from a great heat. Part of his nose is also missing, the left nostril sunken into a dark hole while the other side is only partially formed.
“I look like this because I defended a woman just like you, Zoey. I would have died for her and almost did. Don’t rush to conclusions so fast that you miss the truth.”
Terra murmurs something, and Zoey glances at her. She is blinking more rapidly, as if she’s coming awake from a deep sleep.
“What did you do to her?” she asks again.
“Only what we had to,” the Director says.
“Why do you wait to do this to us? Why do you wait until we’re twenty-one?” When no one speaks she takes a step forward, thrusting the pistol out before her. “Answer me!”
“At twenty-one years of age, women are most fertile,” Vivian says. “We need every advantage to try and cure what’s happening.”
“Who are the fathers?” Zoey asks. “Random guards? You?” She gestures at the Director with the gun barrel.
“The Clerics’ sons,” Vivian says. “Their fathers were chosen specifically for the purpose that they serve. They are genetically sound, healthy, virile. Their sons carry the same traits. We use their semen and the women’s eggs in the most perfect conditions we can create.”
“All is for the greater good,” the Director says. “Everything you see around you is in an effort to save humanity.”
“Even impregnating us? Using us all as breeding stock? Violating us to see if we can give birth to a girl? There’s a line and you crossed it years ago.”
The Director’s face hardens. “There is nothing more important than the continuation of our species. Anything else is simply selfish.” His eyes narrow. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Zoey. How many died so you could traipse off on your own? How many more since you’ve come back? You accuse us of being monsters, but we work for life, and all you’ve accomplished so far is bringing death to those around you.”
She rages against his words, struggles in them as if they are deep water and she is draped in chains. She grits her teeth and slowly shakes her head.
“No.”
“I’m afraid yes, Zoey,” the Director says. “You know it’s true. We saw it in you during your time in the box. The ‘creature’ that was sent in to test you, that was a man, Zoey. Just a man in a costume, and you killed him.”
She tries to find a lie in the Director’s eyes but can see none. Somewhere deep inside she knew it all along, knew that it wasn’t an animal she’d killed, at least not in the sense it had been presented.
“Now, why don’t we end this before someone else gets hurt because of you?” the Director purrs.
“Blame, walls, locks, shame, it’s all control. All of it. You use our insecurities and fears against us to keep us in place. But no more,” she growls. “No more.”
“Zoey?” Terra says, her eyes the clearest they’ve been.
“Terra, everything’s going to be all right.”
Terra’s chin trembles, and she gazes down at the floor. “It was a boy, Zoey. I was going to have a little boy.”
Zoey watches her friend for a long moment before shifting her eyes to the Director, a burning realization surfacing within her. “You kill them, don’t you? The boys. You kill them and then kill the mothers.”
“You don’t understand, Zoey,” Vivian says.
“You stripped him from inside her! Look at her! That’s why she’s like this!” Zoey screams. She is a millimeter from pulling the trigger, from killing them all. It’s better than they deserve and there’s nothing more she would like to do.
“I never got to carry him,” Terra says in her ghostly voice. Zoey blinks, thinking that her friend is so deep in shock she has made herself believe that she gave birth and was never able to hold her son.
But then the words take on a different meaning.
The black tanks in the room above them. Cords running out and into the central computer.
The image cauterizes all thought for a moment before the reality of it sinks home like a thousand pounds dropped on her shoulders.
“She was never pregnant,” Zoey breathes. “You grow them. You grow the babies in the tanks.” She knows it’s the truth by the way Vivian’s face changes. “You wait to see if they’ll be female, and if they aren’t, you flush them away. You tell us we’re the only hope, that we hold the last chances of life, but you don’t even allow us to carry our own children. We’re pieces in an experiment. That’s the only value you’ve ever given us.”
“Zoe
y, you have to believe us,” Vivian says. “We couldn’t tell you certain things—”
“You told us nothing but lies. There was never a plague. You lied to us all, about everything.”
“You’re right, there was never a plague,” Vivian says. “We couldn’t isolate a single factor for why females weren’t being born anymore. All we know is that for some reason an embryo, that is in all rights supposed to become a female fetus, changes near the one-month stage.”
“What do you mean, ‘changes’?”
Vivian grimaces. “They shift and become male. We’ve never found a reason why.”
Even through the bafflement at the other woman’s statement, Zoey’s seething anger emerges. “So this is what you did? Captured us? Stole us from our parents and raised us to experiment on?”
“We didn’t have a choice.”
“No,” Zoey says, her voice barely above a whisper. “That’s what we never had.”
She’s going to kill them. She knows it a heartbeat before she aims the pistol. Just as she’s centering the sights on the Director’s forehead, the door to the infirmary opens.
Footsteps come down the aisle, and she spins toward the sound.
Lee stands beside the closest bed.
He stares at her, such longing in his eyes that she nearly drops the handgun. Even in the dim light, punctuated by the staccato bursts of lightning, he is handsome beyond measure. All at once she realizes how much she’s missed him, how much she’s held back the feelings she didn’t truly understand until now.
“Zoey,” he says. Out of the darkness behind him, Simon appears. Her heart surges at the sight of him as well. She searches his face for any malice or blame but finds only a gentle relief mingled with sorrow. They move forward and stand beside her. Lee’s fingers trace her cheek.
“Can’t believe it’s you,” he says. She tries to speak but can’t. Instead she shifts her gaze to Simon, who gives her the barest of smiles.
“You see, Zoey. This is your home. We are your family. Put the gun down,” the Director says.