EXPERIMENT

by Cyma Rizwaan Khan

  “Its obvious you miss her,” she said. “Why else would you be thinking about her middle of the night?”

  She had a point. “I guess I do miss her,” Connor said. “But I don’t know how with the kind of life I lead, I can ever maintain a relationship.”

  “Does she know what you really do?”

  “Yeah,” Connor said. “She’s actually the boss’s daughter. She’s a total hard-case. Lot tougher than I am. She’s in this same life, so we have that in common.”

  “You know how hard it is to find someone who understands that?” Samarka said. “She gets this life, she knows you, the real you, and you obviously love her. What’s the problem?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Look,” she said. “When this is over, and you’re back home safe and sound, you give her a call. Whatever it is that you feel for her, just let her know. Talk to her instead of shutting her out.”

  “Can I ask you something?” Connor said.

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “Why are you doing this? I mean why are you going through all that trouble for someone you don’t even know?”

  “We might not know you, but we know Aana’s boss,” she said. “When it comes to that guy, you kind of have to do things unless you want to get into trouble, you understand?”

  “Sadly, I do,” Connor said, remembering Easton.

  “But he’s not that bad,” Samarka said. “He takes care of us. Pays us well. Perhaps you should consider joining him, I could put in a good word.”

  Connor knew Easton would never approve of that. In their region, if you became part of the Mob you stuck with them until they found a reason to end your contract or you found a reason to die. “I don’t know yet,” Connor said, trying to be polite. “Maybe when all this is over.”

  “Can I say something?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “This will never be over,” Samarka said. “You think you’re going to get your brother tomorrow, but when he comes back home you’ll realize it’s not him at all. This place, it changes you in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.”

  Connor remembered Zachary, how lost, how tortured he still was. “How do you know?”

  “My father was in Black Walls all of my childhood,” she said, wiping off a stray tear, obviously trying her best not to let the emotions flow too freely. “He was one of those few people who were released from the prison under the reign of the previous Commander. I think he just wanted to make that gesture for winning the elections or something, but that didn’t happen and Krole came after him. Anyway, after being in and out of hospitals for two years, my father finally became fit enough to survive. But he wasn’t the father we knew or the husband my mom married, he was someone else. A total stranger. With time we began to understand him a little, but it was never the same. A few years later he killed himself. Didn’t even leave a note. Guess he didn’t have much to say, he wasn’t trying to make a point, he just wanted it over with.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “I still miss him you know?” she said. “Not just the father we had before, but even the stranger who came to live with us, I miss him too. He didn’t get too involved with our lives, but it was nice to just have him around. He was a very loving person, he didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

  Connor put an arm around her when he noticed her crying. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “I can imagine what it feels like to have a loved one taken away from you. The hurt, it’s almost unbearable sometimes.”

  “It is isn’t it?” she said. “This is why I keep myself distracted, so I wouldn’t have to think about it. But it still comes up sometimes, in moments like this.”

  “Samarka?”

  “Yes?”

  “I wanted to say thank you,” Connor said. “What you and Job are doing for me and my brother, I can’t tell you how thankful I am for it.”

  “We’re just doing what Aana’s boss told us to do.”

  “Doesn’t matter who’s paying you,” Connor said. “All of this is for me and I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate you two risking your lives for it.”

  “We’re a couple of broke criminals in a planet reigned by Zyres and Khaltars,” she said. “Our lives are always at risk.”

  “Not in this way,” Connor said. “You’re breaking into a high security prison.”

  “It’s true,” Samarka said. “This is different from our usual breaking and entering stride. But you know what, if it wasn’t for these little interludes, life would be boring.”

  “I’d choose a boring life over this any day.”

  “Oh please,” Samarka scoffed. “That’s a lie and you know it! If you really wanted a straight life working at some factory where you worked till your bones could no longer rub against each other anymore, you’d be doing that. People who want safe, they get safe one way or another. You choose this life because somewhere in there, you know it’s more exciting.”

  “That’s a lot of confidence to have in someone you’ve only just met.”

  “Well I have a gift,” she said. “I see people for what they are.”

  “That’s a nice gift to have,” Connor said. “Must make it easier to trust people.”

  “I trust people anyway.”

  “That’s not very smart.”

  “No, it’s not,” she said. “But I don’t know of any other way to do it.”

  For a while there were no words between them and Connor stared into space, his mind still struggling with what was about to down tomorrow. “My brother,” he said. “You think we’ll be able to save him?”

  “I don’t know,” Samarka said. “But I can assure you we’ll get him out of prison.”

  CHAPTER 15

  HOPE AND DESPERATION

  Black Walls Detention Camp,

  Delta-Bay, Zyron Region-Two

  “Do you think we’ll ever get out of here?” Martinez asked.

  Lane stared at him. Martinez was in one of his broody moods again. Not a surprise since they had taken him down to the labs two days ago and he was still messed up from it.

  “I don’t know,” Lane said, thinking about everything Connor had said during the phone call and wondering if it was really even possible. He hadn’t told Martinez of course, the janitor guy had been serious about the whole privacy thing. But the way Martinez looked now, Lane wondered if he could give him some hint that there was hope, give him something to hang on to. It was wrong that they had to suffer like this. Getting tortured was painful enough, but knowing that no one was coming for you, and that you were going to end up spending the rest of your life in this place was somehow even worse. But what if he told Martinez they could get out, only to find out that the plan wasn’t really happening? That would be worse torture and Lane didn’t want to load that on a friend. Martinez would only know when Lane got a second message or some confirmation that help was coming.

  “My family, I miss them so much,” Martinez said. “Ally most of all. God, she must have become a teenager now. It’s been years since I saw them last.”

  “I can’t believe it’s been almost a year since I’ve been here,” Lane said. “It’s always too slow around here, I always feel like the days aren’t passing by fast enough. But the whole year passed and I didn’t even notice.”

  “Life is concentrated in moments around here,” Martinez said. “Everything rushes by too fast for you to ever catch it. That’s what these prisons do, they confine life into the mechanisms of a clock, you’re always trying to figure out where you are in time and it sad really, because essentially you’re just hoping for something to happen, for help to come, or some miracle to happen.”

  The familiar opening and closing of mechanical gates was heard. Soon a guard walked up to their cell, another one in tow. The first one unlocked the cell door and held it open. “Volze,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  The words took all the strength away from Lane. He almost considered not doing what the guard said, but knew how sorry he
would be if he didn’t. He stood up and was out the door and the first guard locked the door and hand-cuffed him.

  “Good luck,” Martinez said.

  The guards led him along the hallways and through the secret entrance in Cell Block A until they got to the basement. That floor had a different feel to it, it didn’t look like a prison floor. No dreadful cement walls here. The walls on this floor were like the ones on the alien ships, made with some kind of precious metal and the furnishings were all from some future that the rest of Zyron wasn’t privy to. They passed several doors, including the supply closet that the janitor had taken him to and when they got to the actual lab, the guards entered the code to get in.

  The guard holding him pushed Lane to the table, strapped him in as usual, but the minute they left, the same janitor who had helped him talk to his brother, came in. He went over to the panels, checking the controls, and then satisfied for some reason, came back to the table. “I’ve replaced the drug vials with saline,” he said in a voice so low even Lane had trouble hearing it. “When they give you the IV or the test drugs you won’t feel a thing. But you’ll act like you do. They can’t know the vials have been switched.”

  Lane said nothing.

  His mind went blank.

  His tongue was afraid to speak the words as though fearful that would get him in trouble.

  Was it really happening?

  Was help coming?

  He was afraid to hope.

  He had waited for a phone call or another message, but it looked like Connor wasn’t wasting time doing that. The expression on the janitor’s face was the same kind of neutral that it was before. “Nod if you understand,” he said, knowing how things worked around here and knowing seeing a person out of his mind wasn’t that much of an anomaly.

  Lane signaled that he did and the man left the room.

  *

  When Dr. Wilkinson came in, Lane remembered what the janitor had told him. He expected Wilkinson to go through the same routine that he had been carrying on the past few times, but when Wilkinson dropped the vials and instead picked up an oxygen mask, Lane knew he was in trouble. Wilkinson drew the mask around Lane’s face, asked him to lie down and pressed a button on one of the panels. A machine in the center of the room came to life. Lane felt a strange smell coming from the mask and knew it wasn’t something he had smelled before. When his eyes started to get heavy he almost wanted to curse Wilkinson, but he didn’t. He had to make a show that nothing was different. Soon, whatever was coming through the mask, forced him to stop thinking and Lane closed his eyes…

  *

  The driver was a girl named Indi. She had a muscled physique and was wearing the same black as the prison guards just like them. She stopped the car when Job asked her to, and turned to look at the three of them in the back seat. “I’ll wait by the exit.”

  Job gave her a nod and got off and Connor and Samarka followed. They were standing in a street that looked deserted. It was the back exit of the prison. Job carried a bag and Connor and Samarka had only their weapons and a limited amount of ammunition. Job walked up to the guard standing outside the locked gate, cocked his rifle, pointed it at the guard and before the guard could say anything, took a shot, blowing up the man’s face. When the guard fell to the floor, Job walked up to the gate and sprayed something on the security panel. He typed in a number, waited and tried a few more combinations and was finally in. Connor and Samarka followed him inside.

  *

  Lane opened his eyes and felt the lights in the hallway dimming. He knew he was being taken somewhere, somewhere away from the labs and he vaguely remembered something was about to happen but he couldn’t remember what it was. This was a part of the labs that he had never seen before, he was sure of it. But whatever they had given to him back in the lab was still messing with his head, making it impossible for him to focus. And then, as the guards were still dragging him he saw the man in the janitor clothes, the one who had helped him talk to Connor the one who helped him switch the vials…

  When the memory finally came to him, Lane also remembered what the man had said…well he hadn’t said much but he had implied that help was coming…and Connor thought he was in the labs…everything over here always worked in a schedule so why were they straying now? The idea that Connor might be there and he wouldn’t…

  “Where are you taking me?” Lane said, but no one answered. “Let me go!” he said, trying to break away from the guards’ hold. He lodged his feet into the ground and put all his weight into his movement and the guards had to stop. He tried to swing at one of them and it worked, but before he could do anything, the other guard used the shock prod and Lane’s legs gave and he was on the floor on his knees. “Are you going to come quietly or do we have to improvise?”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “You’re about to find out.”

  *

  “Change of plans,” Job said, looking at his phone. “They changed Lane’s location last minute.”

  “What? How do you know?”

  “Our friend on the inside just saw them taking your brother in another secure region of the labs.”

  “What now?” Samarka asked. “Do we go back?”

  “No,” Job said. “We killed a few guards already. They’re going to tighten the security around this place even more tomorrow. There’s no way we can come back.”

  “But you said Lane isn’t where we thought he was,” Connor said.

  “Yeah well,” Job said, still texting. “We need to improvise.”

  *

  The prick of the needle must have woken him up. Lane opened his eyes to see someone giving him an injection and this time, it wasn’t one of the doctors, it was the janitor. “Stop!” Lane said, afraid this guy would end up being one of them.

  “I’m here to help,” the man said, taking out the syringe. “You have to trust me.”

  And then the man slipped something in Lane’s hand.

  *

  They were going through the vents. Job went in first and he looked like he was feeling his way, hearing for something. Once when Connor tried to speak Job shut him up so now no one making a sound. After a while, Job stopped. Connor and Samarka waited as Job listened. “I think this is it,” he said.

  *

  Lane felt the sickness hitting him hard, and his insides felt like they were on fire. The doctor who was with him, a female of about forty who Lane had never seen before saw that something was wrong and checked his pulse.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Lane said, hoping he wouldn’t have to throw up. The woman was obviously conflicted, but she didn’t want to take a risk. She pressed a button on the panel and called the guard inside.

  “Take him to the infirmary,” she said. “Ask Hayley to give him something to stabilize him and bring him right back.”

  “Of course,” the guard said, walking up to Lane’s bed helping him up.

  “I mean it,” the woman said. “Bring him right back, don’t let him out of your sight.”

  “I won’t,” the guards and handcuffed Lane. Lane went quietly but halfway down the hallway that led back to the infirmary he felt sick and stopped to throw up. The guard stopped with him, obviously unprepared for this. “Think you can make it to the infirmary?” he said. Lane tried to come back to his senses. The throwing up made him feel a little better but of course the guard had no idea. Lane’s fingers pressed the razor blade the janitor had slipped in his hand before and he closed his eyes for just a moment.

  “I’m talking to you con!” the guard said.

  Lane opened his eyes, got up and swung the blade against the man’s throat. The guard didn’t even scream, he just clutched at his neck while the blood spurted out from his throat endlessly and then he fell to the floor right in front of Lane. About the same time, Lane saw the janitor guy approach.

  “Are you okay?” the man asked, looking at the guards convulsing body.

  “I’m fine,” Lane said. It was a lie of cours
e, but there was no reason explaining that to a stranger.

  “Come on,” the man said. “Your brother’s waiting for us. This way.”

  So Lane followed him…

  *

  “This way,” Job said and turned right through an open gate into another hallway. He was still watching his phone. Connor was about to ask him how much longer still, when Connor saw Lane in the distance, walking towards them with a stranger. Probably Job’s contact in this place.

  “Lane!” Connor said and Lane saw him too, and started walking faster. Lane looked weaker than before, and thin, and his eyes looked like he was barely keeping them open. There were cuts on his face, and bruises and suddenly Connor was filled with concern for his brother. But the minute he got close enough, Connor hugged Lane and Lane hugged him back. “Are you okay?”

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” Lane said. “You don’t know what these people are capable of.”

  “It’s okay,” Connor said, breaking off and noticing Lane’s damp eyes. His own weren’t dry either. “We have a plan.”

  “Let’s not break out the champagne yet,” Samarka said. “We still have to get out of here.”

  “So, what now?” the man standing with Lane asked.

  “Now we use the map to make our way out the back exit,” Job said, looking at his phone. They got to an elevator and went inside, pressed the button for the ground floor. Connor noticed Lane was shivering. He gave Lane his jacket but it didn’t look like it was helping much.

  *

  Right by the door on the ground floor they ran into trouble. There were four guards and they were all heavily armed but they managed to kill them off quietly, without causing alarm. Any minute now the number of casualties was going to set off the alarm and they would be cornered from all sides. Connor was still keeping an eye on Lane but so far he seemed to be managing okay. When a man in a janitor’s uniform walked by them, he stopped and they did too. At first the man looked surprised. “Lane?” the man said. Lane looked worried too. “Alex?”