Waterproof (19 page)

“Huh?”

Turning to face me again, she smiled. “We just check to make sure that you’re healthy and you are a good candidate for the worker program. Like you don’t have any communicable diseases or anything.”

Shouldn’t they have tested me for that
before
I started my punishment? I began to feel groggy and that’s when I noticed Riley had left.

“Where’d he go?”

“Who?”

“Riley.”

She huffed. “You don’t want to get involved with him. Trust me. You’re just another project.”

“Huh?” I asked again, head spinning with dizziness.

“What?” she asked, looking into my eyes.

“I’m confused,” I mumbled just before laying back on the bed.

“I think you lost enough blood to make you dizzy. Just lay here for a little bit until you feel better.”

With that, she pulled the curtain from one side of the wall, around my bed, and closed it on the other side. Left alone, with nothing but confusion in my mind, I tried to recall our strange conversation.

And where did Riley disappear to? I wasn’t finished asking him questions. I still needed to find Max. For Sasha.

A
nd then I needed to find Zach for me. His face, his blond hair, and his scent were the last things I remembered as I closed my eyes and succumbed to the darkness.

NINETEEN

Zach

Jackson and I hadn’t said a word since
Weller escorted us to the factory. Part of that was because the closer we got, the more I realized this wasn’t like any ordinary factory. As someone who’d spent the last five years of their life hiding in a forest, the sheer size of the building intimidated me. I felt claustrophobic and closed in, and when Weller slammed the door behind us, I jumped.

“So now what?”
Jackson asked.

“He said we’d find them at the end of the hall.” We turned to look away from the door and down the dark corridor.

“This is creepy,” Jackson mumbled and I agreed.

“You’d think they’d have this place full of security.” I started walking down the hallway. “At least it might give us a chance to find everyone.” My body shivered when I thought about what we might discover.

“Yeah,” Jackson whispered.

We heard a muffled shout from somewhere and stopped to listen. A round of laughter followed another yell, then a door hidden in the shadows just ahead
of us, flew open. The noise exploded as a guy stumbled out of the room, bent over, and laughing hysterically. He propped himself up against the wall with one hand while the other held his stomach.

“You’re so busted,” he said between laughs.

“Fuck you,” a voice called from in the room and another round of laughter broke out.

“You wish,” the guy in the hallway said. “What did she say again? Is that it?” He could barely get through his question.

A glass flew out of the room and slammed into the wall, inches away from the antagonist’s head. But the guy had just noticed us and made a move in our direction.

“Who are you?” he asked, suddenly se
rious and pointing a rifle at our heads.

I raised my hands. “W
hoa. We’re here to report to duty. Babysitting.”

The
soldier looked at me then turned his gaze toward Jackson. Scrawnier than the both of us, I saw that moment he decided we weren’t worth the fight.

He lowered the gun. “
Botch a collection like Todd?”

“Fuck you, Sam
.” Todd stepped through the door and smiled at us. Then he punched Sam in the shoulder. “Why don’t you tell them why you’re in here?”

Sam
squared his shoulders, growing several inches. “I
asked
to be assigned here.”

“Oh right, because you’re as crazy as them,” Todd said.

“Who?” I asked and Todd looked at me. “Who’s he crazy like?”

“Oh, the duds.
Some of them get a little weird when their supplies get low.” I swallowed and Jackson shifted beside me. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the rest.”

“How many
of us have to babysit?” Jackson asked as we followed him through the door and into a well-lit command center. Well, command center may have been an exaggeration. This place consisted of three computer monitors with split screens that showed fuzzy grey images of another part of the building. More of the room was taken up by a card table, a small kitchenette, and several mercenaries.

“There are
four or five on duty at a time. We rotate shifts. Brandy was just leaving.”

A
very tall, lean girl with cropped red hair stood up and threw her hand of cards on the table. “That’s right. You all can’t afford to have me play another round.” She looked up at us, her eyes lingering a little too long on me. Now I knew how Jackson felt in the mess hall. Why were we such a commodity around here? If only they knew our true identity, I doubted any of the mercenary females would want anything to do with us.

“Later losers,” Brandy said. She slung a gun over her shoulder and shoved a donut in her mouth. “Peace out,” she mumbled between her teeth.

“Finally,” Sam said loudly, “the estrogen’s gone.” I knew it was for Brandy’s benefit and when she yelled back a nasty retort, I smiled.

“So now what?”
I asked.

“Well, since Todd is the biggest loser of us all, he’s go
ing to show you around,” Sam said. “This is Dean, and I’m Sam. Looks like you already know Todd.” He waited for us to nod. “Dean and I will take the videos while you look around.”

“Do we get guns?” Jackson asked and I almost kissed my friend for it. My hands needed a weapon in them.

Sam eyed him up again before pulling a key from a chain on his waist. “Over here, although we don’t have much. The collectors get the good weapons.” He fumbled with a metal locker that looked like it would topple over and crush him at any minute. Dean didn’t even attempt to move; he just pushed back in his chair and watched.

After three tries with the ke
y, it finally opened and Sam sighed. “Fuckers,” he mumbled.

“Huh?” I asked
, not sure who the comment was directed to.

“Looks like we got rai
ded again. Those shithead third-shifters keep forgetting to put their weapons back. I swear another one disappears every day.” He shook his head and reached inside. “One of these days…” he trailed off, busy picking through the leftovers.

“Been here before?” Dean interrupted the silence.

“In here?” I asked. “No.”

Dean stared some more while he chewed on a pencil. The creep vibe sent me on high alert, so I turned back to
Sam. No point in making any more eye contact.

“Well, I have a pistol and this old thing.” He held out an ancient sword that looked like it came straight from the Calvary circa
the Civil War.

I smiled. “I’ll take that.”

Sam shook his head. “Fine with me. I guess that leaves you with the tiny gun.” He handed Jackson one of the smallest revolvers I’d ever seen. “Must have been a girl gun.”

Sam
took the words right out of my mouth. And when I saw Jackson eyeing up my sword, I shook my head. “No way.” Not only did I like the weapon, it reminded me of Vee. I’d give it to her once we got out of here.

I think Jackson understood this. He nodded and tucked the minuscule revolver against his back.
I did my best to latch the sword through my belt, even though it wasn’t ideal.

“Come on. I’ll show you around,” Todd said from behind us. “It’s a long shift, so there’s plenty of time to give you the full tour.”

“Take your time,” Dean said with a smirk.

As the door closed behind us, Jackson asked Todd, “What’s with that guy?”

“Who? Dean?” We both nodded. “He’s weird. I think he’s been locked in this building for too many years.”

“Did he volunteer like Sam?” I asked.

Todd chuckled. “No. Sam is the only moron to ask for this assignment. Dean has a problem getting along with others. Too much of a hot head for collecting trips and too strange for any of the civil service jobs. So he’s stuck here watching duds all day and all night.”

We shuffled t
o the end of the hallway identified by a set of double doors. Todd looked up into a camera nestled in a dark corner and flipped off whoever was watching back in the command room. Almost a minute later, the doors opened, unlocked by someone else.

“Sam likes to be an ass. Sometimes he’ll make me wait at every entrance when I’m doing rounds.”  Todd shook his head. “I can’t wait to get out of here and back in
to the field.”

Moving through the entrance, Jackson and I entered another world. From the dark, dingy hallway
we stepped into a bright, white corridor that smelled of antiseptics and bandages. The wall across from us had windows that rose from our waists to the ceiling, and inside was a laboratory filled with scientific equipment and several people in lab coats.

“Why is there a lab here?” I asked.

“They’re here to keep the duds alive, I guess.” Todd shrugged. “I don’t know exactly what they do. But I do know that they won’t talk to us.” He rapped on the window and an older man with short, dark hair and thick glasses jumped backward. The scientist, if that’s what he was, looked up and squinted in our direction. He didn’t make eye contact as he scowled.

“He can’t see us,” Todd said.
“One-way mirrored glass.” He knocked again in a different spot. The scientists shook his head and turned away from us. Todd laughed. “That’s about the most fun I get to have in here.”

Jackson and I shared a look.
We couldn’t wait to get back into the field either.

“How long you in for anyway?”
Todd asked.

“A month,”
I said.

“Whew. That sucks.”

“No it doesn’t.” We turned to see Sam by the doorway. He brushed past us and pressed his face against the glass. Kissing it with his mouth wide open, I could only imagine what that must look like from the inside. A female scientist turned, obviously hearing his kisses slime the window, but she couldn’t see it. Sam started making vulgar gestures with his pelvic area as though he were alone.

“That one’s hot,”
he said while twisting his face into grotesque forms. No one should have to see that. “But she’s a bitch. Won’t even give me the time of day.”

“I wonder why,” Jackson said before I could.

Todd and I smiled while Sam pretended to “finish” all over the window. “Whatever. I’m saving myself for the Plaza.”

Todd groaned. “Not going to happen, Sam.”

Funny how Todd shot him down when he hoped for the same thing himself. I was curious about this Plaza status but doubted we’d have a chance to learn more. At least that was the plan.

“So where are they?” I asked.

“Duds are down here.” Sam jumped in front of Todd.

“Don’t you have to help Dean?
” Todd asked with a sigh.

“Nope.
Besides, I don’t think Dean likes me.”

“I wonder why,” Jackson said again, only this time under his breath. Sam didn’t hear, or if he did, it didn’t faze him in the least.

After walking down the end of the hall and turning a corner that delineated the far side of the lab, we finally reached another pair of doors. Only these ones stretched from floor to ceiling and looked like they were made of bank vault material. Thick steel, three large dead bolts, and a camera in each corner. Sam laid his hand on a sensor pad and looked up, presumably at Dean. Unlike before, Dean opened the door for us rather quickly, air rushing out to greet us.

And that air carried the scent of death.

“This is Section C. There are two others, but they’re in another part of the building we don’t patrol,” Sam explained as he escorted us inside.

“I hate this place,” Todd mumbled behind me and I agreed completely.

The building opened up into a large, cavernous room bigger than a football stadium. Where we had a ceiling above us just moments ago, there were now rows and columns of black boxes. But not packing boxes. No, these were the size of…of coffins. My heart sped up and I tried to control my fear.

I really hoped my suspicions were wrong, but when I looked at Jackson’s face, I knew we’d drawn the same conclusion.

“Watch this,” Sam said and slammed his hand against a button on the wall. Instantly, hydraulics began to hiss and the sound of grinding metal echoed all around us. I watched in stunned silence as the rows of boxes above began to move, hanging from a conveyer belt of sorts.

When Sam punched in a code on the same keypad, the rows stopped moving and the column
s rotated instead. Like figuring out a pattern in a Rubik’s Cube. As that one came forward, the movement stopped and a crane-like machine plunked it off the line and set it down on a predetermined spot directly in front of us. Another round of hydraulics wheezed and two metal clamps rose out of the floor to lock the corners of the box in place.

Up close, it looked like a magician’s box.
Just tall enough and wide enough to fit a human being inside. Once locked in place, Sam walked over to the box and opened a small compartment hidden in the center. He pushed several buttons and the top half of the black exterior instantly disappeared and a light turned on inside.

And we discovered the truth
.

“What…what is this?” Jackson asked.

Sam smiled and I got chills. “It’s a dud, what did you expect?”

“Not this,” I whispered.

The human inside was a male, but his head had been shaved and his eyes were closed. I knew he was male because of the size of him. His large muscles seemed out of place for someone who’d been locked in a box for who knows how long. Tubes entered almost every part of his body with a vein or an orifice. His pale skin reminded me of a dead chicken; hairless and bloodless.

“What is this exactly?” Jackson asked again.

Sam turned to face us, smile disappearing. “You should know. You went through the training.”

We hadn’t, but we needed to make sure Sam never knew it. Thankfully, Todd saved us.

“They keep them in a kind of stasis until their punishment is over. This section is reserved for the ones that put up a fight.” He looked around like he still didn’t grasp the enormity of the situation. “I don’t know what the other sections are for.”