by Jade White
There was something he had wanted to suggest but could not find the time or words to say -- to Lt. Caledon, at least. General Magnus Caledon II was not his direct superior, but Magnus II listened and considered, and that was something Stephen never did. Stephen was a military man; Magnus II was a statesman. Caliban knew the difference, even if he had limited education.
Perhaps, Magnus II would listen. Perhaps. He had seen the missive that Alexia was to be killed for threatening the government, for the possibility of the exposure of a top-secret project. He was part of that; he had been kept from the world at first, and then trained, until he had learned to enjoy his duties. It could happen to Alexia, right? She could be useful for other things. Alexia had to survive. He had to take her in, but perhaps the laboratory could find some other use for her. The government was endlessly innovating, and Alexia was no stupid person…
He recalled those days when she had taught him to read and write, patiently teaching him letter for letter, and then word for word. She had made him laugh in those moments that he had wanted to cry from the pain of what they did to him. He never once saw her cry in front of him, even if she had been subjected to the same torture he had gotten.
In hindsight, he realized, she was stronger than he was in all aspects, even if he had the capability to turn into a werebeing. She’d had that resilience as a child that he himself didn’t have. Caliban knew that resilience still wouldn’t save her. They would catch up to X014 and Alexia. It was why he was trained to be a werebeing soldier in the first place.
*
Alexia blearily opened her eyes, spitting out water as they landed on shore. She looked at Ryker and saw he was unconscious, with visible wounds everywhere. He was bleeding, and although it was not much, she knew he was beaten up quite badly. She looked around her and saw they were heavily surrounded by trees. It was getting dark. The skies were tinged with the last remnants of an orange hue, and a cold wind had picked up. Alexia shook Ryker as he lay on the sand.
“Wake up,” she said in a hoarse voice. “Please, wake up…”
Ryker didn’t move. She bent down, closer to his mouth. She could hear him breathing. Alexia unsteadily stood up, wondering if they were near civilization, or at least near another hermit’s cabin… who was she kidding? Mr. Jensen had been killed because of them. Alexia felt the weight of what their presence had done to someone innocent. She fought back tears and continued to shake Ryker awake.
She would not be able to lift him, not with his frame and her condition.
“Ryker,” she whispered again.
Ryker’s eyes slowly fluttered open. He groaned a little, and he tried to stand up, using his elbows as support. He collapsed back to the ground. His face hit muddy sand. Alexia slipped her hand underneath his chin, and Ryker tried to sit up again. Alexia took a deep breath and tried to support his upper body, leaning him against a boulder.
“How long- how long have I been out?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied. “We have to move…”
He nodded and took a deep breath, groaning once more and clutching his arm.
“Just shift, Ryker,” she told him. “Shift, so you’ll heal faster.”
“No,” he mumbled, trying to get up but collapsing on the ground again.
“They’re tracking us; they know where we are,” she told him, wishing she could lift him.
Ryker closed his eyes and took another breath, standing up unsteadily, wondering how far the government’s pursuit team was from them. His back was still supported by the boulder, and he looked up at the skies, expecting a helicopter or drone to hover above them anytime.
They had to hide.
“That’s the last river we jump in,” he muttered, hobbling forward.
Alexia supported him as best she could, but he shrugged her away.
“I’m fine,” he growled. “Go on ahead; I’ll be behind you.”
Alexia slipped away from him, hesitant to walk first.
He shooed her forward. “Go on. We need shelter. This looks like it’s going to be a cold night.”
Ryker told himself he wouldn’t shift. This was nothing compared to his injuries during the games. Alexia stopped every few feet, waiting for him to catch up to her. She was walking at a snail’s pace, her hip heavily bruised. Ryker had done his best to protect her amid the rush of water and the sharp and thick rocks, something she hadn’t thanked him for, knowing he was just going to brush her off.
An hour later, Ryker told them they needed to rest. They sat under a large tree, its gnarled roots snaking on the ground. The roots were large enough to hide them, and Ryker felt a flood of relief as he lay down.
“He was there,” he suddenly told her. “I could smell him.”
“Who?”
“X013.”
Alexia’s eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything. Caliban was alive. She had thought he had died… but now he was out to kill her. She was an enemy of the state. She felt a pang of sadness, knowing he was just following orders. Perhaps, there was an animal rage in him that could never be eliminated, no matter how close they had been as children.
“You knew him?” Ryker continued, his eyes still closed.
“Once,” she found herself saying. “We were little… we were experimented on together.”
“Only, he grew up as a soldier?”
“They made him into one. He had no choice.”
“What do you mean?”
“His werebeing genes were suppressed, but sector 12 wanted his out. He could have lived the rest of his life as a normal human, but they chose him. Just like they chose me. Just like how they chose you,” her lips trembled. “They didn’t give Mr. Jensen a chance to live.”
“Chances are given only when they see fit.”
“That’s why they want me dead -- because I’m no longer fit,” Alexia said in a quiet voice.
Ryker had nothing to say because it was true. They no longer saw her as usable. Dr. Delaney had said it herself.
“Lately, we’ve had other younger, smaller children who exhibit the same prowess as she does, which is why they want her terminated. She hasn’t done anything significant for them lately. And when there are no remarkable results…” Dr. Delaney’s voice echoed in his head.
What kind of results did they want? Hadn’t she given more than her fair share of suffering and pain? Hadn’t she given enough of her blood to hundreds of werebeings?
“Whatever reasons they have, it doesn’t mean you have to be dead. You decide what happens to your life now that you’re out of that hell hole,” Ryker told her.
“If that was hell, I don’t think I’ve seen enough of it…” Alexia said, remembering the way Mr. Jensen’s head had exploded.
“There’s more to hell than just death,” Ryker told her, opening his eyes. “Hell is life here on earth. Hell is shifting into something that’s hiding deep inside you. Hell is seeing people you love die.”
Alexia closed her eyes and tried hard not to mind the cold. Yes, that was hell, too. Hell was seeing your friends being taken away, never to be seen again. Hell was a sterile room with a crowd watching over you as you lost your senses and your blood. Hell was just being alive.
Why were they here, if only for suffering? Why was she even born, if her use was only for less than half a century? She couldn’t imagine growing old in that facility. She wondered what her life would have been like if she had been born a werebear. At least they were turned into soldiers if they survived the tests. She could have had a larger glimpse of the world…
“Don’t dwell on that laboratory, or on the past,” Ryker suddenly said, cutting off her train of thought. “It won’t do you any good.”
He slowly sat up, feeling his injuries heal little by little. “We have to move.”
“But it’s barely been-” Alexia stopped, not knowing exactly how long they had rested. Then she nodded and slowly stood up. The darkness had engulfed the forest, and she needed to follow Ryker this time to make sure the path
was clear.
There were barely any stars in the sky, which Ryker liked, but it made Alexia feel unsafe.
“We need to find a cave of sorts. No more abandoned houses for now,” he told her. He was hesitant to grab her hand in the gloom, despite knowing she was blind here. He felt her fingers trail up to his sleeve, as if searching for some reassurance that he hadn’t left her alone. He almost found himself rolling his eyes.
“You don’t have to tear the shirt apart,” he told her, “it’s the only change of clothes I have left.”
Her hold on him loosened, but still, she clung onto him as they began their walk in total darkness.
THE FINAL CHAPTER
Stephen shook his head as he ended the call Caliban had made, feeling a surge of irritation rush through him. His hands shook, and he breathed in and out, counting from one to ten. Then he reached for a bottle on his desk and opened it, taking a few pills to calm himself down.
I won’t let it get to me, he told himself. He had been a perfectionist as a child, and it had blossomed into a form of obsessive compulsiveness, one that made him ineffective as a military officer and as the son of the President of the United States.
He felt calmness steal through him after a few minutes, and he took a seat, staring at the ceiling, enjoying the peace that ran inside his nerves. He looked at his diplomas and medals on the wall, knowing it was never enough against his older brother who, at age twenty-eight, had already been a war hero.
Stephen had been to wars, but these wars were within the country’s borders. He hungered for more action, instead of these incessant hot pursuits for experiments that had gone awry, or for civilians who were dissatisfied with the way his father helmed the country. He was, in a way, as ruthless as the men who were under his orders. Werebeings were under his orders, and these numbered a few hundred in the country’s military.
There was a confidence in his Division; they handled things well. His men followed his orders to the T -- even the weresoldiers. The weresoldiers were often volatile, especially when they were recent lab products. Medical measures, as well as military training, had been taken to ensure they would remain loyal to the government.
It was a given that they were all sterile, but the hundreds of tests had turned them into highly evolved soldiers with faster speeds and super human strength, compared to their human counterparts. They were also able to withstand significant drops in temperature if they shifted and could survive on raw food if need be.
Stephen took another deep breath, satisfied with the breather he had gotten -- a mere fifteen minutes was all he needed. He straightened himself and opened his inbox, his eyes fixated on the screen.
Reports, reports, and more reports. His week had been a deluge of Sector 12’s failure, a sector that was under his older brother. He was the muscle of the muscle, anyway. Why was he helping this sector out again? He sighed and read a recent email, sent in by an anonymous mailer. He stopped and had it scanned for suspicious content. Seeing there was none, he opened it. It contained a single file, a video.
Stephen pressed a button, drawing all his blinds down and locking his door. He sat back, relaxing himself, and clicked on the video. A young woman was being strapped down on an operating table; her face was covered by researchers. They moved around, attaching wires. When they stepped back, he saw her face. She was a beautiful young woman, and her eyes were a startling gray, almost like his mother’s.
He thought nothing much of it, wondering why he had to see this. He had begun to raise a finger to close the video, but then he heard a voice.
“Alexia, can you hear me?” a female doctor’s voice began.
The girl on the table nodded, and she looked groggy as the camera panned closer to her face.
“We’re doing a series of tests for your brainwaves.”
She nodded again.
A blue colored fluid ran down a tube and into her wrist. Alexia closed her eyes and spasmed a little. She took a deep breath.
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asked.
“Funny,” she responded in a quiet voice.
“It’ll only be just a little pain,” the doctor assured the girl.
“It’s burning my veins or something,” the girl voiced out. “It’s hurting me.”
“Just a little more.”
“Stop it,” Alexia said in a louder voice. “Stop it!”
Another voice came on screen. “Dr. Delaney, everything’s spiking up.”
“Just a little more,” Dr. Delaney muttered.
Alexia was violently shuddering. Her eyes began to roll up, and her mouth began to salivate first. She was fighting the chemicals in her system. As her mouth foamed, she shouted someone’s name.
“Juliet!”
Stephen’s heart was racing as soon as the video came to an end. Juliet. Juliet. It could mean anything. It could mean a code, Echo, Foxtrot, Juliet -- it was a battalion under him. Juliet could mean that it was someone’s name. Juliet had been his mother’s name… the video had been sent by someone unknown. Was the sender a sympathizer? Was it a warning?
The video unnerved him. There was something else he didn’t know about the facility. He knew pain was part of progress, and human subjects were always damaged one way or another. Female weresoldiers went through that, too. He had no hold on those experiments; he was just handed werebeings to train into soldiers, some as young as fourteen.
Juliet. The test subject’s voice reverberated in his mind. It seemed familiar, although he had never met her before. Stephen shook his head and moved the email to a private folder, his heart still hammering. He knew what he had just seen, but he couldn’t place what he felt. He had asked for whatever existing footage that they could salvage on the day of the subjects’ escape, and he had reviewed these, finding something questionable about Dr. Delaney’s visit to Ryker hours before his escape. He had seen the test subject A129, but he had never heard her speak, until today.
I must be tired, he told himself, rubbing his eyes. He wanted to forget what he had seen. It made him restless; it made him want to take more pills. Stephen stood up, turned off his monitor, and retracted the blinds. He walked to a window and saw some soldiers walking for a hangar; the others loaded army vehicles into planes. The search for A129 and X014 was costly and time-consuming, and it had to stop as soon as possible.
Juliet, he thought. He had faint memories of his mother and was glad he did. She had died when they were young, and his father never spoke of her. There were a few mementos, and she was immortalized in a beautiful mausoleum, with a statue in her likeness. He hadn’t gone there in years, but he was going there tonight.
*
Alexia woke up to find snow covering the grounds outside of the small cave they had slept in the past two nights. Ryker had done his best to bring back whatever edible plants there were. It was Ryker who scouted the area, looking for probable shelter and a path out of the forest which didn’t lead to civilization.
It spelled disaster for her, but not for Ryker.
Ryker saw the look on her face as she looked out, seeing the thin layer of snow on the ground.
“Are you sure you aren’t a werebear?”
Alexia frowned. “If I was, all those years of torture should have made me shift by now.”
There were moments she wished she was a werebear, at least that would make her invulnerable to cold or the need to eat proper human food.
“I’ll find food for you,” Ryker said. “I also need to feed, so stay here.”
Alexia wanted to say something, but she stopped. Stay?
“What?” he asked her.
Alexia shook her head. “Do you know where we are?”
Ryker shrugged. “I have no idea, but we’ll find out soon enough.”
He had said “we.” Perhaps she wasn’t so useless after all. Alexia found herself nodding to get rid of the awkwardness growing in her. Ryker slipped out of the cave, and she heard him break into a run, ready to shift in the cover of the thick tree
s.
Shifting was painful. She had seen it happen so many times; she never forgot the sounds that came from it. She would hear bones break and skin tear apart like cloth at the seams; she would hear their pained cries. It was no wonder Ryker never shifted in front of her. It showed their vulnerability, but she had heard that the weresoldiers didn’t care how painful it was. Adrenalin lessened the pain, along with the drugs they took before they shifted. She had seen that, too. Constant shifting had negative implications, but of these implications, she had no idea. Some died, and that was the most that she knew. They were taken to a different sector once they had been deemed soldier-worthy.
Alexia shifted, feeling the cold creep into her from the ground. She had no idea what time it was; all she knew was that she was hungry and that she had to wait for Ryker. There was something about Ryker’s tone that made her stay put, even if she wanted to explore the area with him. Perhaps it was his icy blue eyes or his no nonsense demeanor. He had gone through unspeakable things, like most of the werebeings. Children were no exception to this.
She had been dreaming of her childhood more and more as of late, whatever her mind could conjure. She kept seeing a woman’s blurred face. She kept hearing a woman’s voice. She heard a man’s voice as well, one that was rather chilling. There were children in that room with her. Were they tortured like she had been? Were those memories? Or was everything just a figment of her imagination?
The moment she started to remember her childhood clearly, everything was already about the laboratory and Dr. Delaney, and the other researchers who came and went. Dr. Wallace had been a terrible paternal figure, and she had known pain as part of daily life. She had thought she was born in the lab, maybe inside those little tubes…
It was the only possible explanation for her fragmented memories and childhood. Alexia felt something run down her nose, and she wiped it away, thinking it was just part of getting colds. When she withdrew her hand, she saw blood. She quickly wiped it away with her sleeve, hoping it wasn’t going to turn into a deluge of blood. She’d had nosebleeds, sometimes near deadly ones in the lab. It was nothing that the ‘vitamins’ couldn’t cure, but Dr. Delaney was no longer here…