The Human (The Eden Trilogy) (10 page)

“What did you expect?” I spat back.  “You came in with secrets and lies and guns and just expected us to hand it over to you?”

“I expected you all to see what the right thing to do was,” she said coldly as she took a step closer to me.  “We are growing fewer and fewer each and every day.  You want to know what the estimated percentage of the remaining human population is now?  Less than half a percent!  Ninety-nine point five percent of the population has been infected.  If we don’t do something
now
, we are handing the planet over to the Bane.”

The last statistic I had heard was ninety-eight.  And even though it had only changed by one and a half percent, it was crushing to hear it.

I didn’t have anything to say in response.

“We’re not done with your friends down south,” Margaret said.  She placed her hands on her hips and took another step closer.  “But we have a new subject to learn from first.”

“I’m not telling you anything until I see that West is safe.”  Everything in me screamed to find a way out of this place, to not say a word.  But I couldn’t just leave West here unaware of what these people were really doing.

“And I’m happy to oblige,” she said with that repulsive smile.  I realized then why it was so vile.  Her teeth were a disgusting mix of yellow and brown and the ones on the left side of her mouth were horridly crooked.  “Right this way.”

Alistar came behind me and wheeled me down another tunnel.

“I seriously suggest you don’t say a word, or even breathe,” Margaret said as we slowed at the end of a tunnel.  “He is never to know you are here.”

“I understand,” I said with a dead voice.

We stopped outside a door with a cloudy window.  Alistar wheeled me right up to it.

West was seated inside, talking to a man with a bushy beard that didn’t fit his narrow body.  The man tapped the device in West’s chest, speaking words I couldn’t hear.

“Thank you,” I said quietly and they started wheeling me down another tunnel.  “What is this place?” I asked when we had some distance between us.

“The Underground of Seattle,” Alistar said.  So he did speak for himself after all.  “The majority of the city of Seattle burned in the late 1800’s.  The ground level frequently flooded with the tides and rain though, so instead of rebuilding, they built on top of the remains.  These tunnels are what’s left of the original city.  We’ve extended them into the basements of other buildings, securing them.”

“How many of you are there?”

“That doesn’t concern you,” Margaret said in her cold voice.  We reached another door which she pulled open and Alistar wheeled me into it. 

I was unprepared for this room.

A single light bulb hung from the ceiling.  In the middle of the small room, was a steel table.

It took everything I had in me not to start screaming for my release, not to break my cybernetic bones to get free.

The sound of a drill was echoing in my brain.

“Welcome to your room,” Margaret said.

Alistar wheeled me to one corner and parked me there.

“It’s been a long day,” she said as they walked to the door.  “We’ll be back for you tomorrow morning.  I hope you’re comfortable.”

They stepped outside and the door locked with a solid grinding sound of a metal post sliding into the wall.

And I was left there, chained to the dolly.

ELEVEN

I’d nearly tipped myself over in the struggle to free myself.  The skin covering my ankles was torn and bleeding.  I wore the flesh on my wrists away trying to escape my bonds.  My cybernetic bones clanged against the chains. 

But I’d gained no freedom.

Cyclones of emotions ripped through me.  I’d been buoyed by rage and hatred for hours.  I’d struggled against my bonds, my tiny new world washed in red. 

But slowly uncertainty, bordering on fear, crept in. 

What were they planning to do with me?

Assumptions were easy to make with that steel table in the middle of the room.

“She’s afraid,”
a voice from the past echoed.

The drill screamed and the air was cold.

I closed my eyes, trying to force the dreams and memories out of my head.

“Doesn’t she ever get tired?

“She’s never been this aggressive before.”

There was so much red.  Metal and blood.

My breath caught in my chest and I jerked my arms again, tearing my flesh more.

Subject is again devoid of emotion.

“Sometimes they would let us play together.”

“Damn it, West,” I hissed, my eyes sliding open and rising to the damp looking ceiling.  “What did you do?”

I’d probably only been this room for a few hours, and already I was losing my mind.

But I’d been losing my mind before these people had cyborgnapped me.  Avian had been right, it was only a matter of time before I would have snapped.  And who knows who I would have broken with me.

I knew the answer to that question.  I’d already started doing it.

West.

Despite how beyond angry I was with him in that moment, I hoped wherever he was, he was safe.  As safe as he could be.

I assumed he would be.  He’d left home willingly in order to escape me.

But how safe was everyone in New Eden now?  How much damage had been done before my captors left?

A horrifying thought occurred to me then.  What if they hadn’t all left?  How did I know that they had all returned to Seattle?

How did I know that I was the only hostage?

“Avian.”  His name whispered over my lips with the skip of a heartbeat and ice in my stomach.

No, he’d been fighting when I went down.  I saw that.  I had to tell myself that he was fine, back in New Eden.  These people wanted to study me.  Avian was normal, human.  They would gain nothing by taking him.

But Avian tended to do stupid, irrational things when it came to my safety.  What would he do when he found I was gone?

A low growl worked its way up my chest.

I’d kill every single one of them if anything happened to him.

I counted the seconds eagerly.

Sometime they were going to have to release me.  Sometime these chains were going to loosen.  Sometime someone was going to accidently grant me a tiny window of opportunity and I would exploit it.

I was going to make it out of here. 

And I was going to make it home.

I waited in the pitch black, in the musty dark.  I plotted all the ways I was going to choke Alistar.  The way I would break in all of Margaret’s disgusting teeth.

And finally, the dim bulb above my head flickered back on.

Feet shuffled out in the hall.  Muffled voices tricked in through the cracks around the door.

The knob turned, and the door shrieked as it was pushed open.

A tiny man with thick, black glasses stepped timidly into the room.  His small shoulders were covered with a white lab coat.  His shoes were ragged and worn.  He wouldn’t make eye contact as I stared at him with dark eyes. 

He carried a device with him.  It reminded me of a radio but had something that looked like a tiny computer hooked to it.

“You are holding me prisoner here,” I said through clenched teeth.  “We are both human, we do not treat each other like this.  Not since the world started teetering on the edge of extinction.”

“That’s apparently debatable,” he said.  His voice as small and weak sounding as his physique.

“What?” I questioned, not sure I had even heard what he had said.

“Us both being human.”  He pushed a button on the radio looking portion of the device.  It started making scratchy sounds.

“You don’t know anything about me,” I said, shaking my head, flexing my muscles, straining against my bonds.  If only I could break free.  I could snap this tiny man with little effort.

“You’re emitting a low frequency signal,” he said, turning the device so I could see it.  A screen showed two barely twitching brilliant green lines.  “Two, actually.  One that is similar to the what the Bane emit.  It doesn’t really do anything.  It’s more a side effect of all of their cybernetic components.  But the other, I’m not really sure what it is.  Fascinating.”

“I swear to you, if you don’t let me go I will call a hoard of Bane down here to destroy every living soul in this hovel!” I screamed.  And suddenly the idea, however startling it was, seemed like an option to gain my freedom.

“I don’t suggest it,” he said, his eyes dropping to my feet.  “You see, while you were drugged, we attached a live electrical wire to that lovely thing you’re chained to.  I just have to push this little button if you do anything I don’t like, and a shock strong enough to all but kill you will run through your mechanical body.”

“You son of a—”

“Language, please,” he said, his voice rising just slightly for the first time.

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from spewing more vile things.  My insides were full of them.

“Now,” he said, pulling a stool from beneath the table.  It scraped the concrete floor and the sound echoed off the stone walls.  “I have some questions.  If you don’t mind.”

“Doesn’t seem I have much of a choice,” I said, my voice low.

“Not really,” he said, his eyes meeting mine.  They were dead eyes, gray and hollow.  They reminded me of the eyes of the Bane.  “We’ll get our answers one way or another.”

“I don’t intend to do this the easy way.”

“That’s fine,” he said.  His voice was madly calm and even.  Almost as if he was talking to an animal he didn’t wish to scare away.  “But for your safety, I suggest you change your mind on that.”

He didn’t wait for me to respond and placed another device on the table.  It was an old fashioned tape recorder.  The tape started slowly spinning when he pushed the button with the red circle.

“How long were you at NovaTor Biotics?” he asked, his eyes meeting mine again.

“How do you know I was ever there?” I said, once again trying to gain any wiggle room in my chains.

“Your friend accidently shared quite a few secrets,” he said.

“What did he tell you?”

“Not as much as we would like to know,” he said.  “That is why I am asking you these questions.  Now, how long were you at NovaTor?”

I held his eyes for a long time.  There was something terrifying about this little man.  Like he knew how to twist things into the shape he wanted to see, break you in ways you didn’t know you could be broken.

This little man was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

And maybe, just maybe, if I cooperated, I’d make it out of here alive to get back to Avian and New Eden.

“I was born there,” I said, my voice almost too quiet to hear at first.  “My mother worked at NovaTor.”

“Thank you,” he said with the barest hint of a smile forming on his face.  “And when were you given TorBane?”

“As an infant,” I said, recalling the truths Dr. Beeson had revealed.  “I was underdeveloped, born premature.  I would have died without it.”

“And you were the first?” he asked.  “The first human to be given TorBane.”

“Yes.”

“And how is it that you don’t spread TorBane like all the others?”

“I don’t know,” I said, my voice rising with my frustration. 

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”  For the first time, there was a hint of impatience in his voice.

And I finally knew what they were really after.

“I’m saying that I don’t know why I don’t spread the infection,” I said, my emotional hurricane calming.  It’s easier to form a plan when you know what it is your enemies want.  “I don’t understand everything that was done to me.  I know it has something to do with my young age and controlled dosages.  But it isn’t as if I’ve had notes to study.”

He just looked at me for a moment after that.  Normally with a silence like that, after hearing information like he just had, you can tell they are formulating a theory or a plan, or something.

But his eyes just looked impassive.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” he suddenly said.  He’d been so quiet and still that I nearly jumped when he finally seemed to come back to life.  “We will let you know if we wish to ask you more questions.”  And he stood to leave.

“Wait, that’s it?” I said, my eyes following him as he pulled the door open.  “That was all you wanted to know?”

“For now,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

By my rough calculations, they left me there in that room for another twenty-four hours.

It left me with far too much time to think.

There was that question he had asked.

Why didn’t I infect others?  How did TorBane exist in me, as it was designed to, when it just took everyone else over?

I’d told him the truth when I told him I didn’t really know.

Dr. Beeson had told me once but he didn’t exactly spell it out.  I didn’t understand the science.  I understood that TorBane worked on me the way it was intended to work on the rest of the world.

I wasn’t going to be able to give them the answers they wanted.

My head jerked up when the ground beneath my feet shook and even in my isolated cell, I could hear shouting and gun fire.

I jerked against my bonds once more, my bones clanging against the chains.  The skin around my wounds was swollen and red, attempting to heal. 

The sound of gunfire drew closer, the shouts grew more desperate.  Screams ricochet off the walls.

And suddenly the firing stopped and the voices grew calmer.

I hated this blindness.  I hated being bound.  I hated everything about Seattle.

What was happening?

The door to my cell screamed as it was pushed open and two guards appeared in the doorway.  They didn’t look at me though.  They dragged something behind them, keeping their heads down as they pulled.