Adrenaline Rush

by Cindy M. Hogan

  “I almost forgot,” I said. “Where was that bonfire?”

  “Oh, that’s the induction section. You get there by going to the green hall with fire on the walls.”

  “Not hard to remember.”

  “Nope. Listen Misha, it’s super important that you are on time to all your classes and you work hard. Don’t be sloppy doing anything. Sterling only accepts your best work. If you shine, he gives you special favors.”

  I intended to get those special favors. I saw the doors to the mess hall close and heard a click, like someone had locked them. She nodded at me. “It’s best just to be early wherever you go here. Now you can go eat. Sit where you’d like. I have to sit with the Blackies.” She looked down at her black outfit and swept her hands from her shoulders to her hips, emphasizing the black color of her jumpsuit. “You can sit wherever you want, though, except at the Blackies’ tables.” Had everyone at the Blackies’ tables botched their missions?

  She headed off. I looked around. The mess hall provided a relaxed, fun atmosphere to eat in. Odd. Were we in jail or not? Music blared from a jukebox in one corner, and several kids were playing some shoot’em up video game. Kids laughed and joked around. Every shade of the rainbow, including white and black filled the space. Those who wore the same colors seemed to clump together. That’s when I spotted my group’s shade of yellow.

  Frankie and Duncan sat alone at a table in the middle of the room. I looked for Houston. He shone like a star in the middle of a group of Whities. He was a bit too excited about this assassin thing. He obviously knew Whities were the successful assassins. It seemed he wanted to be just like them. He talked animatedly using his arms and hands.

  I hurried through the line of gourmet foods. Zoey hadn’t been kidding. I could eat anything I wanted here, and it all looked fantastic. I filled my plate, my stomach grumbling like an upset child. The broth they’d fed me over the last few days had been used up a long time ago. It shocked me that we would be so well fed. I had assumed that madmen starved their victims.

  I sat next to Frankie. Her eyes went big, and then she threw her arms around me. “Misha! I thought you were dead. Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. This place is crazy.” I hugged her back. It took her a whole minute to let me go. “Where’ve you been?”

  “I was really sick with an infection,” I said. “But the doc thinks I’m safe now.”

  “Good,” she said. “Houston has gone totally military on us. He is completely enamored with this place and Sterling. It creeps me out. I’ve got to get out of here.”

  I moved my finger up to my lips, exaggerating the movement so that she would recognize it for what it was.

  “You think—”

  “I think we ought to eat up before our food gets cold,” I said.

  “Oh,” she said, holding onto the ‘O’ for much too long. But at least she’d gotten the hint. “What’s your schedule?”

  I rattled it off to her.

  “It’s the same as mine,” she said. “Yay! I hated being alone.”

  “Don’t Houston and Duncan have the same schedule as you?” I looked at Duncan.

  “Yes,” she said, “but I meant I hated being the only girl. Duncan’s been great!” She looked at him and smiled and then whispered in my ear that he hadn’t spoken a word since that first night. I guessed she didn’t want him to hear. Now I looked at him. He’d come around. He’d have to.

  “How’s it going Duncan?”

  He didn’t even acknowledge me.

  “Do you like your guide?”

  Nothing.

  “He’s a jerk, is he?”

  He didn’t even move; he was totally catatonic.

  “What’s he doing that’s so jerky?” I hoped I could trick him into talking, but he said nothing and just continued to eat.

  This must be a truly traumatizing experience for him on so many levels. First off, he’d watched his friends die. Second, he had almost died several times himself, and third, he’d had to kill someone. On top of all of that, he had always gotten what he wanted at home, and no one was ever around to tell him what to do. Now he was being monitored 24-7, and he was told exactly what to do and when to do it.

  I scanned the room for signs of cameras. I knew they were there, but where? I couldn’t find any. Some kids turned the jukebox up loud, which made the kids playing video games turn up the sound system. Was this a free zone where Sterling didn’t listen in?

  I needed to get info about this place, so I would ask Frankie and Duncan about what had been happening the last four days. I wasn’t going to let Duncan off the hook. This had been traumatizing for us all, and I needed their help.

  “What’s been going on, you guys?” I addressed them both, speaking just loud enough for the two of them to hear.

  “I started classes on Wednesday with Duncan. We had to wait until the doc cleared us. Whatever the stuff is the doc and our nurses used on us, it makes us heal quickly.”

  “Duncan, what’s going on with your legs?”

  Nothing.

  “Do you still feel a lot of pain?” I asked.

  Again, nothing.

  “What are classes like?”

  “Really serious,” Frankie said. “Everyone works really hard. They do really hard stuff. I don’t know if I can do it.”

  I turned to Duncan. He didn’t say anything.

  “Look Duncan, if we’re going to have a chance at getting us all out of here, I need you on board. You were the leader of the Avengers. You are the one that made the group work. I need you to lead us out of here. For you to do that, you need to talk to us.”

  “There’s no way out,” he whispered. “We’re going to die here.”

  “That’s no way for a leader to talk,” I said. “Especially you, Duncan. You are the most optimistic and creative person I know. It’s time to step up. We are going to find a way.”

  “Look, Misha,” Duncan spat. “I’ve been looking the past two days. There are no holes in the security of this place that I’ve been able to find.” He grabbed the wire around his neck. “This, as well as other things, makes it impossible.”

  “Tell me everything, Duncan, and Frankie, as he talks, think about other things you’ve noticed. Like, have you seen anything you might steal that would give us an advantage?”

  Frankie nodded, and Duncan gave me the rundown of what he’d seen and experienced. He’d noticed a hierarchy. It appeared that the Whities were at the top of the food chain. I’m sure he’d been wondering how he could get into that group. Born leaders are always looking for a way to lead.

  The way he told it, this place was more secure than a military base. There had to be weaknesses. I would find them.

  We had two hours of poisons class today. We followed the frog-painted walls in one of the lime-smelling, green halls to a huge lab. It was the most amazing lab I’d ever seen. There were probably one hundred stations surrounded by long tables, and the walls were lined with machines and cabinets. Many kids were already busy at their lab stations. I stuck with Frankie and Duncan and went to their station. Houston soon followed. I raised my eyebrows at him, and he rolled his eyes at me.

  “Let’s get busy,” he said. “I need to hurry through all the experiments so I can move on. Besides, I can’t wait to see what happens to the frogs.” He laughed an evil laugh. I had a flashback to my very first day at Roseburg High—Houston had seemed eager to injure small creatures even back then.

  That’s when I saw them, the frogs, jumping around in a container on the table. Were we dissecting frogs? I had hated doing it in Mr. Edmondson’s class, and I would hate it here, too. I guessed Houston was being forced to stay with us. He’d rather be in a different group.

  Duncan brought some vials marked Poison #490. Frankie got out the equipment we needed.

  “I’m glad you found your group,” a man said.

  I turned to see who spoke.

  “I’m Mr. Kine,” he said, taking my arm with his hand and pulling me away from the lab station
so he could talk to me alone. “I’m the poisons instructor. Since everyone has different levels of knowledge, we do a lot of general lessons together, but most are done as group study, and I supervise and help when needed. Don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions. Your group is starting with basic natural poisons.

  “Here is your computer tablet. It contains all the information you need about your classes. As you finish a lesson satisfactorily, it will automatically take you to the next one. If you’d like to get caught up, feel free. Otherwise, you can sit back and watch what effect the poisons the students made yesterday have on your subjects, the frogs.” He wore a smile on his lips and his eyes smiled, too. I smiled back. Could he be trusted, or was he in league with Sterling?

  “Am I allowed to go as fast as I’d like, or must I remain with my group?” I asked.

  “It is advised that you stay with your group, but if we see that you are more advanced than they, we would consider moving you to another group during poisons class.”

  “It’s just that I’m great with chemistry, and I’m a pretty fast reader. I’d rather not be bored.” I wanted him to think I was advanced, but I wanted to keep my photographic memory to myself.

  “Understood,” he said. “But you also need to remember what you’ve learned. You will be given comprehensive tests every two weeks. Why don’t you go read up on what we’ve learned so far and catch the end of the experiment?”

  “Okay,” I said. I made my way over to some tables around the outside of the room he’d pointed to, and I turned the tablet on. The information was quite technical and caught my attention right away. I had to hold myself back from rushing through all the pages and then sorting them in my mind. Instead, I took the snapshot and then perused the page for several minutes before going on to the next one. I really learned a lot. Yesterday’s lesson taught about ten different poisonous plants and how to use them. The part that made me sick to my stomach was at the end of the lesson, where it described how several of the poisons had been used to create a poetic ending to several people’s lives. I went back to lesson number one on poisons and quickly passed the lesson for today.

  I couldn’t help myself. I went on to the next lesson that popped up and then the next. There were points where I wanted to quit reading because it was so disturbing, but at the same time, I needed this information to move on, to show Sterling I was special and he should pay attention to me. Before I knew it, class was over and the bell rang for us to move on to our next classes. I realized a bit too late that I’d finished twenty lessons and was ready for the two-week comprehensive test. Had Mr. Kine watched me? Did he have any idea how far I’d gotten? Did I want him to know? Would it give me away? I slipped the tablet in my front jumpsuit pocket.

  I stayed behind to wait for Frankie who was still putting supplies away, while Duncan and Houston hurried out. I thought about Zoey’s advice to get everywhere early. With only ten minutes between classes, I should have left, but I figured Frankie needed me. She looked torn up again. After putting away the last of the supplies, she whispered in my ear, “I don’t know how much longer I can take this. What those poisons did to those frogs…”

  I casually put my finger up to my lips to remind her that someone was most likely listening and watching. I’m glad I didn’t have to see the poisons do their stuff to the frogs. Reading about it was bad enough.

  She looked at her feet. So, with my hand hanging by my side, in what I thought was her sight line, I used sign language, just the letters, to send her a message. Since her dad was deaf, I figured she must know sign language. Courage now. Escape later.

  She jerked her head up and then looked back down. I signed the same message, slowly. She smiled at me. The first time I’d seen her do that here.

  The air was thick with humidity when we walked outside. That ruled out about half of the states in the U.S. as the location for this place. If we even were in the U.S. I took note of the trees, the bushes, the grass, anything that might give me a clue to where we were. We passed the bonfire area and walked a good fifteen minutes before we reached the rifle range. I didn’t panic about being late because a lot of kids were walking a little bit in front of us in no real hurry. I memorized every last detail, analyzing it, looking for a way to escape. Two twenty-foot high cement walls surrounded the whole place, and the wire fence in front of the one closest us was electrified. Big signs were posted on it warning us not to get too close.

  Could those walls surround the entire compound? I couldn’t see the end of the property to know. I thought of the Berlin wall. It was possible. A wide strip of green grass lay before the fence and looked very tempting until I saw the guard towers. Men with machine guns stood at the ready. The set up echoed that of a prison or a concentration camp. The great escapes I’d read and learned about populated my mind, the methods behind their escapes taking center stage.

  We were positioned at the first station. A tan, thin Blackie came and handed each of us a rifle. It felt heavy, awkward in my hands. I’d used a handgun back at Division, but never a high-powered rifle. Its black barrel gleamed in the sun. Sweat dripped down my spine. The humidity was killer.

  I wanted to be a great shooter. Maybe I could become a good enough sniper that I could take out all three guards in the towers surrounding us. Then I’d just climb over the cement walls. Sun glinted off the glass in front of the guards. I’d bet money it was bulletproof glass. I could see intermittent holes in the glass. I’d have to be really good to get the bullet through one of those holes and into the guard.

  The Blackie gave us a short lesson on gun safety, explaining that we should always treat every gun like it’s loaded and that we should always point a weapon down, or down range. We then went over how to load the rifle. After putting on ear protection, we were instructed to lie prone with the gun directly in front of us, our legs spread out a bit wider than shoulder width for stability.

  A man with salt and pepper hair barked out instructions after that. We all had beanbags to support the stock of the gun. We pressed the butt of the gun between our shoulder blade and neck groove.

  We practiced squeezing the beanbag and flattening it to get the target in the crosshairs.

  Once we had the target in the crosshairs, with constant even pressure, we were to pull on the trigger. I pressed the butt hard into my shoulder, hoping the kick wouldn’t be too bad. I practiced with my finger away from the trigger first a few times and then tried to imitate the movement on the actual trigger. Bang. It shocked me how loud it was. The kick hurt but only a little bit. We were a good hundred yards from the target, so I couldn’t tell where I’d hit it.

  Frankie had never shot any kind of gun, and the kick really hurt her shoulder. From then on, she also pushed it hard into her shoulder.

  Even though it was really difficult to hit the targets, shaped like cutouts of people, it turned out to be kinda fun. For about the next ten shots, I jerked the gun, missing the target completely.

  “Roberts,” the man with salt and pepper hair said. “You’re anticipating the shot. Give the trigger a nice, even, constant pressure, and you’ll get your shot back. You want to be surprised by the shot, not anticipate it.”

  I was not a natural marksman, however, and had to really concentrate not to force the shot. The instructor shot for us multiple times and physically helped each of us several times. Frankie was pretty good at it and was a fast learner. The boys seemed to be having fun, especially Houston. It was nice to continue to hear sounds come from Duncan’s mouth.

  I also took everything in about the area and the instructors. There were three that I could make out, each taking care of a third of the range. They never left their posts and were either helping someone in their group with something or watching individuals in their group fire. The same grassy strip, electrified fence, and cement walls were in the distance. I couldn’t see the end of them. Forest filled the area that hadn’t been cleared for the shooting range.

  The bell rang for us to clean our
guns. The Blackie instructor once again came and demonstrated for us. Frankie and I were the last ones to leave once again.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get just as fast as they are with some practice,” our instructor said. The man with the salt and pepper hair sent a message to our chemicals instructor that we would be late. I noticed the guards in the towers had turned their bodies out toward the perimeter of the area instead of on us.

  Frankie and I got to the chemicals class as fast as we could. We opened the doors to an enormous lab and found about one hundred kids already hard at work at one of about fifty lab stations. A man, who I figured must be the teacher, roamed about the room. I pulled up the class syllabus on my tablet. This was advanced chemistry wrapped in wickedness. Everything we worked on had to do with delivering nasty chemicals in the most effective ways. I thought about a man I’d targeted on a test mission a while back who’d used animals as his delivery method. I wondered if that would come up. I wondered if Sterling knew Dr. Ramirez. Wouldn’t that be a coincidence?

  We focused on airborne delivery for the lesson today and used different methods to put the chemicals in the air, killing off many frogs in glass containers and sealed rooms. It was horrible to watch them die. The really bad ones were when they bubbled and burst, but it was all bad. I didn’t know if I could take this violence and cruelty day after day.

  Lunch was just as good as breakfast had been. There were tons of choices, and everything tasted delicious. It was nice to have a full hour to relax and eat. I ran into Zoey in the line for food.

  “After our next class, we get free time until ten p.m. on Sunday.” Her eyes lit up like this was the time she loved.

  Our last class was on fighting. We walked to the large gym. The hall leading there had silhouettes of men and women in fighting stances stenciled on the walls. We were working on different techniques to kill using our bare hands. Basically, it all required a huge amount of strength. The temple, the summit of the nose, which I’d had experience with, the area between the upper lip and the bottom of the nose, the Adam’s apple, and testicles all required maximum force to cause death.