by K A Duggsy
Callan and Jonah lift the guard and raise his hand, figuring the index finger is probably the one required. They try first one hand and when that fails they move to the other. A light on the panel turns green and the door clicks to indicate it’s now unlocked.
We have no idea what is behind that door and I feel a pang of guilt at sending my men in without even an inkling. We collect ourselves, arming up with phasers and our pocket knives. No words are spoken. We know what to do. Get in; get out, no casualties and no one gets left behind.
I lead the way easing forward meticulously and pushing open the door. I’m met with a long hallway or corridor and it’s empty, there are no doors just a straight walkway to a metal door at the end. I wave my men forward with me. Our steps are light even with our heavy boots. The one and only light is flickering constantly and gives an eerie feel to the space. I can hear nothing except my heartbeat.
We approach the door at the end and instead of taking time to collect ourselves and our thoughts I decide to go in fast and hard. Shock tactics usually work well; the element of surprise has always been my greatest friend. The door has no recognition panel or handles so I push it slowly then steam through.
Nothing! Another corridor but this one has doors on both sides leading to rooms that we have to clear before we can move on. I signal three of my men to take the doors on the right and another three to tackle the left hand side. Jonah and I stay here ready and waiting to charge in if back up is required.
Three return quite quickly reporting that the rooms were empty, a fourth trots back also cleared. We go to investigate the others when the men don’t return. I enter the first room to find Trask staring at a darkened corner at the end of the room. Before I can question him I hear the distinct sound of sniffling.
“Trask?” I question.
“Sir. It’s girls, a lot of girls. They won’t let me any closer.”
The adjoining door opens and Jonah walks through. “This is weird Kye, that other room is some kind of bedroom but full of monitors and cameras.”
I point to the other end to show him the scared girls. “Why would they house them so close to the exit?” He shrugs and I start to walk to the huddle of females using my comm-rec light to see better.
They shrink back even more as I gain on them so I stop a few feet away and crouch down to their level. The way they look at me jolts me back to when I found Faith. Undeniably scared but showing no signs of having lost her fight. Some of the older girls are comforting the younger ones, determination oozing from them, chins raised in defiance and eyes staring at me like they could cut glass.
“I’m not here to hurt you. We’ve come to get you out.” I try but can see they’ve been fed these lies before just as Faith had and they no longer believe. I decide to try a different tact.
“Do you know Faith?” I ask.
Two of the older girls exchange a fleeting look before resuming their practised uninterested look but I know Faith is my way to get through to them.
“I know Faith. I... love her. She came back to rescue you and has been captured again. I need to save her but I need your help. Please believe me.”
One of the girls, a skinny waif with long blonde hair stands on shaky legs whilst another girl tries to pull her back down. She bats the girls hand away and stops before me.
She regards me for a few seconds then speaks, “I want to believe you. Faith has been gone for a long time, we thought she...”
“Anyway if you really know Faith, you’ll know things about her that Advance won’t, right?”
I nod. Jesus, this girl is going to test me on my knowledge of all things Faith. I almost smirk but as I have her talking I hold it back.
“Ask away, but be quick, we could be found any second.”
“Describe Faith. Not just appearance, character too,” She demands.
Now I do smile. “Hmm where to start? She is the most headstrong, infuriating woman I have ever met. Her strength and compassion for others are what made me fall for her in the first place. To be honest she’s a pain in the arse at times but I wouldn’t have her any other way, she’s wilful, dependent and... resourceful. She’s beautiful.”
The girl smiles at me. “I have no other questions.”
“What? That’s it?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes you passed, and not because of what you said but because of the dreamy way you looked when speaking of her. Your face changed completely. We are used to fakery here but you weren’t putting on an act. I can see the emotion in you just from thinking about her.”
I stare at her completely shocked. She can’t be older than seventeen and she saw all that.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Hope.”
“Hope, I’m Kye. Faith spoke about you and Destiny to me. Can you get the girls out of here?”
“NO! We can’t!” She shouts and then looks around warily.
“It’s okay, we’ll be with you and we won’t let them hurt you.”
“No, you don’t understand. Why do you think our doors weren’t locked? They implanted chips in us, one step out of the entrance and we... we... perish.”
“What the fu...” I stop myself in time. When the hell did they do that? Faith never had a chip. Maybe it’s another lie they were fed to scare them from attempting escape.
As if sensing my thoughts, Hope says, “They started doing it a month ago, then put us in these rooms instead of the site we were on before almost as if they were testing if it would work or not, and believe me... it works.” Her eyes fill with tears and I know that someone did try to escape and they witnessed what happened.
I put my arm out to comfort her and she shrinks back as if I’ll burn her. Just as Faith did.
Touch became something that would cause pain; it was something to be feared. The only people she trusted enough to embrace were the other girls she lived with. I remember my gentle coaxing with Faith, could see she wanted to trust me and let me hold her but was terrified to let herself. When we finally got past it, showing her how good touch could be became my favourite pastime.
“Okay, you’ll stay here. I’ll station one of my men to be with you. Don’t be scared of him okay, he’s big and ugly but he will protect you with his life. What lies beyond those doors at the end?”
“The main lab. It’s a bit of a maze though. Do you have paper?” Hope asks.
I hand it to her and watch in interest as she starts drawing me an outline of the whole building.
Chapter 17
Faith
Why am I so stubborn? I’ve remained mute and Johnson finally gave up but not before slapping me around a bit. I smile, he was none too pleased when I got a crotch shot in and he yelled into his comm-rec as he doubled over.
Now I’m being led back to the lab, but to a room I’ve never been in before. I’m pushed inside and see Fraser as well as Dr Bowers, a load of monitors and wires, another bed and a camera in the ceiling stationed directly above the bed. A cart is next to it with syringes and a metal contraption, bandages and other items I don’t recognise. I swallow and shift nervously.
Fraser looks at me and offers a tight smile, it’s my undoing.
I run at him and start pounding him with my fists, kicking and flailing until he grabs me firmly, holding my hands in his.
“I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!” I scream until my throat is raw and my tears drop to the floor. I struggle against him again until my neck is pricked. I look up to see Dr Bowers smiling smugly.
“That’s quite an outburst.” She smiles. “You really do bring this on yourself.”
Fraser swoops me up and carries me to the bed as if I weigh nothing. “Please, please Fraser, don’t do this. Pleeeassssee?”
His face creases with what looks like a moment of indecision before shaking his head sorrowfully.
What the hell have they injected me with? I’m not dropping to sleep but I can’t talk or move, it’s like I really am suffering from paralysis. Fraser doesn’t strap m
e, just lays me down and starts rubbing a swab over the side of my head. I can barely feel it. I can’t feel anything and I can’t do anything. They’ve rendered me useless. I open my mouth, I think, but no sound comes out.
Fraser looks into my eyes and can see my confusion, he whispers, “You have to be awake for extraction to work. You’ve been numbed as best as we could.”
Yeah that makes me feel fan-fuckin-tastic I want to scream. I’m going to be awake while they do this extraction thing on me. Shit. Crap. Oh My God, this is it, this is how I die? With my brain exposed on a shitty table in a fucked up lab, with pretend scientists and doctors who take their orders from a deranged power trip president. I’m shouting these thoughts in my head but I wish they were being said aloud. If I’m about to die I want these people to know how much I despise, detest and fucking hate them. I want them to acknowledge that what they do here is wrong. It’s not how nature was intended.
They’re trying to change the natural progression of society by treating humans, girls especially like nothing more than a piece of meat. WE HAVE MORE WORTH THAN THAT!! You can’t do this to people and get away with it.
They still can’t hear me. I think I’m crying, not that I can feel tears but my vision has become a bit blurry. I think of Kye and desperation settles deep in my heart. I never believed in destiny. How could it be destiny for me to live here and be subjected to all that I have? How can I keep Kye? We’re from different times, we’ve had every obstacle possible in our way, yet he always fought for us, for me. I can’t say I’ve done the same.
If I’d never been put forward for the Advance invention and travelled to Kye’s time, I never would have realised what I was missing. I knew my life was wrong somehow, I felt it deep down inside but when it’s the only life you’ve ever known it’s easy to accept. Kye showed me different. He showed me how to love, how to trust and how to fight. He saved me from more than just my solitary existence, he saved my soul. He taught me what it felt like to soar when all I’d ever done before was drown. I owe him so much and now I’ll never be able to tell him that he is the light in my life. He took the darkness of my past and made me shine.
Fraser looms in front of me again and I stop feeling sorry for myself. This was inevitable. I belong to them. They always would have found me sooner or later and brought me back in. I try to focus on him and try to spit in his face. It doesn’t work so I scream in my head, you bastard. YOU FUCKING BASTARD! I don’t want to suffer yet I’m not capable of begging. Surely I’ve endured worse than this before, right? Right! I can survive this. I can be brave; in fact, I insist on it. I can’t let Dr Bowers or Fraser have the satisfaction of seeing me crumble.
Then I hear it. A whirring noise close to my ear. I’m pretty sure my heart stops. I’m not breathing. Did my ear just pop? What the hell is that?
“What on earth is that?” I hear Fraser ask as he moves from my vision.
“Shall we abort?” Dr Bowers asks.
“No, the relaxant will wear off soon. You start drilling; I’ll go and check it out,” He replies.
Oh, they’re not talking about the sound I can hear then which I now know is a drill. A fucking drill! They’re going to drill into my head, while I’m awake?
A leather strap is placed in my mouth but I can’t feel my bloody mouth to clamp on to it. Am I dribbling? I’m not sure why that bothers me given the circumstances but I can’t stop thinking about how humiliating that would be.
“Just in case,” Dr Bowers says, smiling.
I hear the door click before the drilling starts up again and then it’s like music to my ears when I hear stomp, stomp and a familiar strained voice shout, “What the fucking hell?” I feel a swoosh of air beside me and the drill clatter to the floor, along with Dr Bowers who whimpers pathetically.
Then I see those eyes. Those gorgeous eyes always filled with concern and love. He’s checking over every inch of me and then running his hands through his hair. He’s radiating fury, his chest heaves repeatedly as he tries to get his breathing under control. He speaks into his comm-rec quickly, “Another one, room A12. Take her to be detained with the others.”
He picks me up carefully as if I’m fragile, removes the strap from my mouth and buries his head in my hair, inhaling deeply. I want to wrap my arms around him but I’m useless. I’m back in my man’s arms, I wish I could feel him. He starts sobbing into my neck and it breaks me. I need to comfort him! My man is not a crier. I can’t bear to hear him breaking down.
“What have they done to you, Sweetheart?” He murmurs.
He strides out of the room, holding his one hand on the side of my face so I’m flush against his chest. I can hear the boom, boom, boom of his heart as he charges on. He walks into another room and I’m placed on another bed. He crouches beside me and strokes my face, “Baby?”
I can do nothing but look at him. “Sweetheart, can you talk?”
I dart my eyes side to side in the hope he will understand I’m trying to shake my head no.
“SHIT!” He shouts, before he disappears from my sight and I hear things being kicked, punched and thrown around the room as he loses it and turns destructive.
“Stay with her! I’ll be right back.” The door slams and I wonder who I’ve been left with, why did he leave? Why would he leave me when I need him? Is he really going to come back or is he done? I can’t blame him for cutting his losses, I’m nothing but trouble. I never listen to him. If I had, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
“Faith?”
Hope? Is that Hope? Oh, please let it be. I feel my hand being picked up and held. I FEEL IT! I try flexing my fingers to see if they move but I can’t tell. I can definitely feel I’m being held though and then I see her.
Chapter 18
Kye
I can’t fucking think straight. I can’t get my head around what I saw when I opened that door. My baby had a fucking drill to her head and the woman inflicting it on her was smiling. I’ve never hit a woman in my life but I took great joy in cracking that one.
I don’t know what they’ve done to my baby but she can’t move or talk. Is it permanent? I’ve left her and hate myself but I can’t cope seeing her that way. So still, too still and quiet, with blood trickling down her head. It wasn’t deep, her head will be fine but that’s not the fucking point. She’s been hit, knocked around by some fucker with a death wish. Her beautiful face marred with cuts and bruises, the back of her head covered in dried blood. Why? Why would they strike her? How dare they raise a hand to my girl!
I storm into the room where we are holding all the employees we’ve captured. They’re all sat on the floor, throwing worried glances at each other. They should be fucking worried, I might use that drill on them, see how they like it! I can’t get the image of Faith mute and immobile from my head.
Callan walks over to me, whispers in my ear and points at a scientist slumped on the floor. I stride over to him, pull him up by his lab coat and drag him through the door to the hallway. I need to calm down; I don’t think straight when I’m this worked up. They’re lucky I haven’t lined them all up and stabbed them for the inhumane acts they condone here.
“What did you do to her?” I throw him up against the wall, his feet not touching the ground and my face is so close to his I can smell what he had for dinner.
“Nothing.”
“Why the fuck can’t she move?”
“We gave her a relaxant. It will wear off soon.”
I exhale a massive sigh of relief.
“So you’re Fraser?”
He nods.
“You’re the scum hurting my girl?”
He shakes his head. “I’ve never hurt her.”
“But you haven’t stopped others doing it?”
I ram my fist into his face, satisfied at the contact. As he slumps down the wall, I kneel over him. “What was that drill for? What was going to happen to her?”
He spits out a mouthful of blood and glares at me. “It was an extraction device; to extrac
t the memories she wouldn’t give up freely.”
I boot him straight between the legs and as he doubles over he speaks in another language; I presume swearing or cursing me so I do it again. I drag him back into the holding room and drop him in front of the other scum sat there.
“Okay, who wants to tell me where Johnson Franks is?” I look around at them, none meeting my gaze, fidgeting and trying to weigh up whose wrath they’d rather face, mine or their president’s.
“No one? How about I pick one of you for extraction? Sound good?” I let my eyes fall on the woman I hit, the woman who was happy to drill into my baby’s head. Her eyes bug out as she realises my meaning and I grin at her. “What? You don’t want to have a go? Seemed to me you enjoyed it!”
She brings her hand up to her mouth and gasps behind it, her eyes filling with tears. She looks expectantly at her colleagues for support. They don’t give it to her. Either they don’t like her or they’re relieved it wasn’t them that I chose.
“I’ll give you a few minutes to decide shall I? Talk or extraction? I know you’ll choose well.”
I talk to Callan and leave him and Trask to watch the captives.
The other men are still loose in the labs and I should really check if they need assistance but I’m desperate to get back to Faith.
She must be beyond scared and I walked away. I need to reassure her and hold her. Jonah is with them keeping watch on the girls and I know her friends will comfort her, but it’s my job.
Memories or not, she’s mine.
Faith
Sensations and feelings are slowly returning but it’s so strange, they’re not all coming back at once. My entire body feels disjointed. I can feel and move my left hand but not my right, I can turn my head but can’t sit up and I can wriggle my toes. It’s unbelievably frustrating, my mouth still won’t work. I can feel my tongue and run it along my lips but I can’t speak. My legs are getting there but feel like lead weights and my chest feels like a boulder is lying across it.