Fitting his goggles over his eyes, he went back to cutting metal.
“Prisoner,” a man’s voice said an hour later.
Michael barely heard him. He had lost himself in his craft and in the beginnings of a plan that felt solid. It involved disappearing guards one by one, using telepathy to hypnotize them into simply walking out of the camp until they vanished into the Eastlands. Eventually, their ranks would be thinned out. Maybe then, Michael could convince the prisoners to make their move.
“Prisoner, on your feet!”
Michael hadn’t even noticed the officers approach his table. Lifting his goggles, he jumped to his feet.
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll come with us,” the officer said. “The warden has asked to see you.”
Michael tossed the goggles onto the table, then took off his gloves. He knew better than to ask why.
“What are you looking at?” the other officer said. He pointed at Donny, who slowly raised his hands and shook his head.
“Leave him alone,” Michael said.
“What did you just say to me?” the meaner-looking guard asked Michael.
He slid a baton out of his belt. But instead of going for Michael, he darted toward Donny, who barely had time to react. The guard managed to swing twice. The first blow clearly broke Donny’s forearm. The second caught him in the side of the head, silencing his agonized howl.
Michael tackled the guard. The scuffle lasted only a few seconds. Together, the guards pinned Michael to the concrete. The one with the baton smiled as he lifted the weapon and swung it back down.
The blow took out Michael’s left knee. The pain was so fierce it robbed him of his ability to breathe. Gasping for air, he let out an abrupt yelp and curled into the fetal position as the guard slammed the baton into his rib cage. He raised it once more, but the other man stopped him.
“The tranquilizer,” he said. “Remember?”
“Oh, spite me. Go ahead. Make it quick.”
The one with the baton looked ready to beat Michael into a pulp. The other guard dug a small black case out of his pocket, then went about prepping a needle.
This was it. They knew Michael was a telepath. But how? Ferrance was long gone by now.
A crowd had begun to gather. They stared on in confusion as the guard stuck Michael with the needle.
The drug didn’t knock Michael out. It only slowed everything down, turning his brain into a flaccid hunk of useless meat. Feeling suddenly exhausted, he lay on the floor, darkness edging into his vision. He could only watch as the officers grabbed his legs and dragged him out of the warehouse…until he finally passed out.
Michael woke up in a cell, shirtless and barefoot, hanging by his arms from the ceiling. The tendons and muscles around his armpits hurt as much as the rest of him. He’d been hanging for a while. It was dark and much cooler than outside, which meant he must be in a basement. A naked lightbulb hung from the ceiling nearby. It emanated a glow as thin and weak as Michael felt.
He blinked at the light, his vision sharpening. How long had he been asleep? Where were the guards? They had restrained his wrists using metal cuffs that bit into his flesh, attached to the ceiling by chains. The last thing he remembered was being dragged across rough ground with the sun burning into his eyes.
There were no bars he could see through, only brick walls and a rusted metal door with a narrow viewing slit. The space darkened as someone peeked in. Michael didn’t hide that he was awake. He wanted the person to come in, so he could have a chance at an attack.
Instead, a plume of mist shot through the viewing slit, its scent faintly chemical in nature.
The drug hit him seconds later. The same heavy weight settled on Michael’s mind, making his telepathy useless.
The drug wasn’t powerful enough to render him useless this time. He also didn’t feel as drowsy. Whatever they had injected into him earlier had also been accompanied by a sleep-inducing element. But this particular drug left him awake but feeling confused and drunk—and completely stripped of his telepathy.
The door clicked. A moment later, it opened.
Michael wasn’t surprised to see Colonel Keagan walk into the tiny room. He came in with his sleeves rolled up, his forehead gleaming under a light sheen of sweat. He was followed by a guard carrying a large, bulky duffel bag.
Michael was surprised—completely stunned and speechless, in fact—when two more guards entered carrying a shirtless, bloody, bruised, and broken man Michael instantly recognized, despite the badly swollen face.
Ferrance Walker.
“What do you…want?” Michael asked between coughs.
The warden pulled a stool from against the wall and sat. “Did I say you could speak?”
The guard carrying the duffel bag dropped it, a metallic clank resounding. Michael and Ferrance both glanced at it. Michael could tell Ferrance had no idea what was inside. It took both guards to hold him upright from how badly he’d been beaten.
“There’s a car battery inside,” Keagan said. “Among other things. Do you know what a picana is?”
Michael winced, a feeling of dread amplifying the pain in his abdomen. He felt a line of drool escape his mouth, then swing from his lips.
“It’s a wand-like device,” Keagan continued. “A prod, I guess you would call it, that one can hook up to a car battery and use to deliver an electric shock. Picanas have been used as a torture device since the early 1930s. Very reliable.”
The guard who had carried the bag unzipped it with a yank. The wand he removed was made from wood polished and treated to a high gloss. A cord connected it to a car battery Michael could see half-hidden inside the bag. At the end of the wand were two metal bits that stuck out to administer the current. They reminded Michael of a snake’s fangs.
“The thing about the picana is, it’s high voltage but low current,” Keagan said. “That means it can deliver a hell of a shock, but it won’t kill the victim.”
“He lied,” Michael said, his voice slurred. “He’ll lie about anything to protect himself.”
Keagan sighed. He sat bent over his knees, his hands joined in front of him. “Ferrance, tell him what you told me. About what happened that night.”
“He…he’s a ment,” Ferrance stuttered. “Me and Errol…we took him to the warehouse, then there were…chickens…”
Ferrance described the encounter in his halting, breathless speech. Blood bubbled from his mouth, dripped off his chin. He was missing teeth that had definitely been there before. His entire mouth was a wreck. A miracle his jaw hadn’t been broken.
When he described the escape and how Michael had used telepathy to free him of the camp, Michael wanted to scream at him to shut his stupid, broken mouth.
“That’s the part I find interesting,” Keagan said. “If you could help him escape, why wouldn’t you help yourself? Why would you still be here?”
“Easy,” Michael said, feeling his mind clear somewhat under a sudden wash of hot anger. “He’s lying. I broke free from the warehouse. I ran. Dean found us, and…and he saved me that night. I knew nothing about an escape.”
Keagan tilted his head this way and that, making a show of how little sense he saw in Michael’s story. The man had put the pieces together admirably. He wouldn’t be swayed.
“Here’s what I think,” Keagan said. “When we interrogated Ferrance, he said zip about you being a ment. And now he’s concocted this amazing story about your incredible power to come and go from this camp as you see fit. Thing is, I don’t believe he’s lying. I believe he knew throughout the interrogation that he could use you. That he could manipulate you into helping him, under the threat he would implicate you if you didn’t.”
“He’s not…” Michael coughed, his head spinning. He felt drunk, but without the euphoria alcohol normally induced. Instead, he felt lost in his own mind, like someone trying to stay afloat in a river with a strong current.
“He’s not what?” Keagan asked.
“He’s not…smart enough,” Michael said.
Keagan smirked. “I would normally agree with you, considering he’s a lousy snitch and a rapist. But Ferrance was a mechanical engineer before he ended up here. I’d say he’s clever enough to dream up such a plan, though clearly not smart enough to avoid the nearest town thirty miles away, where we found him drunk and unconscious in the arms of a whore.”
The warden glanced at Ferrance, who shamefully dropped his gaze.
“Prod him,” Keagan said, gesturing with his chin to indicate Ferrance.
Michael could only watch in horror as the guards systematically—using movements almost clinical in nature, as if they were doctors working on a patient—proceeded to slide and jab the tip of the prod all over Ferrance’s chest and neck.
The man howled. The room filled with the smell of burnt skin. The picana left open wounds that glistened in the light, emitting thick bursts of blood that bubbled as if they were boiling.
Ferrance passed out after only a few minutes that felt like hours. His chest was covered in angry, red lines and sores that oozed blood, making the air smell vaguely metallic. Combined with the nauseating effect of the drug, the stench forced Michael to suppress vomit.
“Tell me,” Keagan said. “Are you a ment? Did you make that illusion? Did you help this man escape?”
Michael shook his head, which suddenly felt as though it weighed a hundred pounds. He watched as the guards let Ferrance drop to the ground. The one with the picana raised it threateningly in Michael’s direction.
“He lied,” Michael said. “If I were, I…I would have escaped this hellhole.”
“But you haven’t,” Keagan said. “Because you’re a spy. The NDR sent you.”
“No. I’ve never even been there.”
Keagan nodded slightly, his eyes taking on a distant look. Was he considering the possibility he was wrong? Didn’t it seem insane to think a kid Michael’s age would willingly subject himself to Camp Brazen if he possessed the ability to simply walk out whenever he chose?
“Prod him,” Keagan said.
“No…wait…”
A moment later, the guard was on him.
The pain was incredible enough to turn Michael’s self-pity into the most violent rage he had ever felt. Electricity crackled, sending jolts throughout his entire body. Clenching his teeth, he moaned in agony.
Could the anger help him? What if his ability kicked in and he cried blood, unleashing his power to its fullest extent?
Having an episode meant risking the lives of every man in the camp. Just like what had happened to his neighbors back home, the innocent people who lived on his street, who’d died because of Michael’s rage. Michael would probably die, too, as Blake had warned many times.
He couldn’t let it happen. As the rage built inside him, pressing against the backs of his eyes, he knew there was only one way to prevent it. One way to turn the anger into another emotion, one he dreaded but knew would save him and the men of this camp from the worst possible fate.
“Yes,” Michael screamed, then he began to sob.
His rage melted away. A few seconds longer, and he would have lost control. Instead, he let fear and sadness overwhelm him. He would never see Arielle again. Harris Kole had won. His anger was nothing compared to the soaring sense of loss rising inside him.
“The truth,” Keagan said. “Out with it.”
“I’m a ment. I’m a…a telepath.”
“Prove it,” Keagan said, rising until his face was level with Michael’s.
“Can’t. The drug…”
Keagan shook his head. “All I need is a confirmation, boy. Just the slightest push. If you’re capable of that chicken incident, that makes you anything but ordinary, even among your kind. The escape—well, that just seals the deal. You’re a Type II, aren’t you? Unless you’re just telling me what I want to hear, in which case…” He tilted his head to indicate the prod. “You’ll be punished severely.”
Michael tried to calm his breathing. “And then what? If—if I’m a ment…what then?”
“You leave that up to me. Now, show me. Prove to me that you’re special, and I’ll stop the pain. Telepaths are valuable to me. If you do as I say, you could have a pain-free life. Better than scavenging. That’s probably how you managed to survive out there all by yourself. Isn’t it?”
Nodding, Michael squeezed his eyes shut. He used every ounce of effort he could muster to push a vision into Keagan’s mind—a simulation of something…anything.
Snow. For some reason, he thought of snow.
It was only a flash. Pain spiked in his skull.
“There,” Keagan said. “Do it again.”
Michael opened his eyes. He was dizzy, nauseated. Snow flickered in his view. A layer of soft white snow covering everything in the cell, clumps of it even sitting on Keagan’s shoulders. Then it went away. Then it came back. Flickering.
The pain…
Keagan brushed snow off his shoulder, expression satisfied.
Michael clenched his teeth. His vision darkened. His stomach lurched.
The last thing he saw was Colonel Keagan darting to get away as a thin stream of vomit poured from Michael’s mouth, then everything went dark.
“Put him to bed,” he heard Keagan say. “Keep him under…”
14
The skyscraper loomed over the ruined city. Half its windows had been broken. From the outside, it appeared to be stricken with some sort of wasting disease.
It was perfect. From the topmost floor, Blake and his crew could see Camp Brazen in the distance, its farms and warehouses like tiny toys, the guards and prisoners just ants among them.
Dominic, Peter, and Ian had checked out the structural integrity of the building—as well as the presence of any occupants—before the others went in. The inspection took half a day, with most of it spent jogging up more than two dozen flights of stairs. They used telepathy to scan each floor for raiders, scavengers, or escapees from the labor camp.
When Dominic signaled the “all clear,” the others grabbed their rucksacks and began the long trudge up twenty-seven flights of stairs.
Compared to the other floors they passed, the top of the skyscraper had fewer traces of scavenger activity. A dozen computers remained in the cubicles—broken, most likely, the monitors covered in dust and cobwebs.
Blake entered carrying a portable LED lantern that illuminated a cluster of dusty cubicles. He wore a cloth surgical mask to protect his lungs from the dust. The climb up twenty-seven flights of stairs had taken its toll on him, and he’d found himself pausing too often to catch his breath, more often than not releasing a barrage of violent coughing spells that scared the others. By the time they arrived, it was already dark outside.
Midas, Arielle, Peter, Eli, and Ian followed, the boys hauling rucksacks filled nearly to bursting. They had come all this way in a cargo truck, which was now parked in a place no one would ever think to scavenge—an old cemetery on the outskirts of the city, only a mile away in case they needed to retrieve it fast.
“Follow me,” Peter said. “We found the perfect spot over here.”
Using his own LED lantern—Midas had found four in his closet, solar-chargeable, from back when Gulch had been without power those first few weeks—Peter led the way toward what had once been a conference room large enough to fit an enormous, oblong table. The boys had already tipped it over and pushed it up against the window, which was a single, floor-to-ceiling sheet of glass that, remarkably, was still intact. The table would protect them from being seen by anyone who might be using binoculars in nearby buildings. It helped that a layer of grime coated the glass on the outside. It would further obscure traces of their operation. Eventually, they would put up sheets, if they could find some.
Still, they had to be careful.
“Kill the lights,” Blake said, “unless you want every raider in a twenty-mile radius coming by for dinner.”
One by one, the LED lanterns wer
e shut off. They lit candles instead, keeping them behind cover so the light couldn’t easily be seen through the window.
Arielle was the last to enter the conference room. This was her first time outside of Gulch since Blake had brought her to the hidden town as an infant. The outside world was a strange and alien place, and it terrified her just as much as it left her breathless with wonder. She had found herself especially fascinated by the cubicles.
“People would just sit in these little boxes and work?” she asked anyone who might have an answer.
Peter replied. “I read about it once. They would sit in front of computers all day and add numbers together, or something like that.”
“But what about farming? Or—or outside chores?”
Ian chimed in. “They obviously had farmers. Someone had to grow food. The people using the computers did other important stuff, and they got paid.”
“So, they would just sit here all day?” Arielle asked.
Dominic entered the conversation—authoritatively, like he always did, as if he knew everything. “The economy and the population were about ten thousand times denser than what we have in Gulch. At that scale, you need computer people working with numbers that represent the city’s money, trading activity, and how many imports and exports the population had to work with. They were like the brains behind the actual farming and manufacturing.”
“More like the worker bees, if you ask me,” Eli said.
“Slaves,” Ian agreed, unslinging his rucksack and dropping to one knee to unpack it.
Arielle shrugged. With one fingertip, she traced a line across the dust coating an ancient whiteboard.
“Doesn’t sound so bad to me,” she said. “Everyone working together. Farming, building—and processing numbers. I would have opened a nice little coffee shop to keep all those worker bees caffeinated.”
“And I,” Peter said, “would have run this city as mayor. You, Eli?”
Eli sighed dreamily. “I would have been a chef, maybe the owner of a restaurant. Famous people would have come in from all around the country to taste my food.”
Bloodcrier: The Complete Two-Book Series Page 49