by Shanon Hunt
“This?” It burst from her lips like a locust, first of the plague to come. “This was your vision, Stewart? This is what you saw for me back then? Salvage, to spend the rest of my days locked in a cell?”
“Salvage?” He laughed out loud. “Salvage? Oh, my dear girl, you’re a million miles from salvage. You are… I don’t even know how to say it… You are the single most important product of purification that we’ve created, after all this time.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it himself. “You’re our salvation.”
His eyes softened as he searched her face. “Is that what you thought? That you were salvage?” He winced and spoke under his breath. “How could we have gone so wrong?”
He wasn’t convincing her. “You implanted a monster into me. You forced me to be a slave to that—”
He slapped both palms against his forehead. “A monster? No, no, you misunderstand. Oh, god, what a mess.” He sat up straight and crossed one leg over the other, his no-nonsense posture. “Layla, the fetus you carried has given you a gift. It wasn’t a curse. I know you’ve suffered in the last few weeks, feeling enslaved by the process, feeling unattended to by the doctors. It’s my fault. I should’ve personally taken charge of your progression through your pregnancy. It’s just that James—”
He stopped and turned away from her, as if embarrassed. “I just… Gosh, I really thought he had your best interest at stake. He told me that your pregnancy was going fine. I asked him months ago, after he learned you had the mutation, if you’d shown any praefuro symptoms yet so that—”
“He knew?” Her voice was a squeak. She cleared it and repeated the question. “He knew I had the mutation?”
Stewart’s eyebrows raised. “He didn’t talk to you? He didn’t explain what you’d be going through? Tell you how important this pregnancy was?”
She let out an exasperated sigh. Of course James had known. James knew everything. And of course he hadn’t told her. She’d been right all along: James was keeping her in the dark.
“I should have intervened, I know. I just—well, I thought James was doing right by you.” He gazed at the wall as if lost in thought. “So often over the years, I’ve questioned how he could lie to you so easily. I figured he just didn’t think you were strong enough. Now I see that he didn’t trust you. He didn’t think you could rise to such an important challenge.” He shrugged and dropped his eyes to his lap. “I don’t know. Maybe I should give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he knew you were capable, but he just didn’t want to be outperformed by his beautiful girl. You were like a pet to him. I can’t blame him for that. We all know how special you are. He wanted to keep you to himself.”
Fury spun up inside her. James had met her during her poisoned life and convinced her that she was miserable and worthless so he could emerge as her savior, giving her the gift of a new life at the Colony. He’d said he loved her all that time, but she was only a conquest, something to win and possess. Just like the Colony. Just like every achievement in James’s profoundly accomplished life.
Stewart was leaning into her, his charmer smirk back. “But your special gift, your talent, is where you’ll finally break James’s chokehold. You will rise to your gift, and you’ll propagate purity into the world just as you promised you’d do on that special day when we first met. And you’ll do this as a furo.”
She pulled away. “What are you talking about?”
He chuckled and threw his arms up. “Your extraordinary gift, my dear.”
She pulled herself upright in the bed and addressed him directly. “Stewart, stop beating around the bush. Talk to me like an adult.”
“You’re right.” The smile melted from his face. “The world is filled with poison, Layla. That’s a doctrine we’ve preached here at the Colony since the beginning. The impure world, the poisoned world. It’s an easy way to make colonists understand the difference between us and them. But you’re too smart for such a childish viewpoint. The real difference between us and them is their inferiority. The human species is filled with mistakes, people who are passing on illnesses, viruses, and genetic imperfections through generations, weakening us as a species.”
She knew this, but she let him continue.
“That’s why we’re testing genetic drugs and designing genetically superior offspring, to improve the gene pool by adding dominant positive genes. That’s my vision, what I’ve dedicated my life to achieving.”
She nodded.
“That part is not new to you, but this part is: My vision was inadequate.” He bowed his head.
It was the first time she ever heard the man admit to a mistake.
“See, those imperfections must stop. Now. They must stop being reproduced and passed down, or else we’re fighting a war that can never be won. This is where my original vision failed; I had only half the formula. But now, with you and others like you, we have the whole formula. You, my dear, are the most important part of fulfilling the vision. You’re the real hero.”
She leaned back and crossed her arms as she processed what he was saying. After weeks of suffering, of nearly ending her own life, Stewart marches in and tells her she’s the answer to the whole problem? The salvation?
“James had an image of you, Layla, purity in its purest state. Innocent, demure. Someone who needed to be shielded from the poisonous world and protected from anything even remotely harmful. But purity doesn’t have to wear white linen and be submissive.”
He bent to retrieve something from his bag. A book. The bold red cover featured a woman in tight black leather pants and a sleeveless vest that showed off her curvy body. She instinctively sucked in her stomach.
Black Widow: The Making of a Lethal Assassin
The woman held a long-bladed knife in each hand.
He handed her the book. “I didn’t come here to shower you with compliments. I have a request. I’d like you to participate in a demonstration tomorrow. We have some gentlemen here from an important government office, a branch of the US military that believes the praefuro model—you—are key to saving the human race. I want you there. I want to bring out my absolute best for them. You’ll make me so proud.”
So that was it. Stewart wanted to show off his newest genetic creation, his latest Frankenstein’s monster. She held his book back out. “And if I say no?”
He didn’t reach for it, and the sparkle in his eyes flickered. “Why would you say no to such an opportunity, my dear? This is your chance to shine. James will be there, too. After weeks of feeling betrayed by the one man who was supposed to be elevating you to your true potential, wouldn’t it be poetic justice if he were to finally see how strong and talented you really are?”
She could hear the tension in his voice. He wanted her to choose his side, to fall back into her submissive mindset and do what he asked of her.
“I’m not interested.”
His body temperature rose. She could hear his blood pressure increasing as if she were listening to the brachial artery through a stethoscope. Lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub. Stewart wasn’t used to being told no. But this wasn’t arrogance; this response was something else. He needed her to do this.
She had leverage.
“Not without something in return,” she said.
Lub-dub. Lub-dub. His blood pressure dropped somewhat, but his jaw remained tightly locked.
“I want a meeting with the council.” He didn’t respond, and she felt a familiar fire ignite in her belly. “I want to speak on behalf of all the praefuro here and at all the other colonies. I want Eugenesis to realize what they’ve taken from us.” Her voice grew louder to drown out the pounding in her ears. “How their unconscionable greed for power has robbed us of our humanity. Turned us into mindless killing machines. Salvage.” She folded her legs underneath herself so she could lean closer. “I want to understand why they chose to do this.”
And then we will watch them burn.
“And then I want to come back and help the others like me find a way to
live with the monsters we’ve all become.”
She ground her teeth as she waited for an equally enraged response.
He clasped his hands together. “My dear, you are nothing short of brilliant. Yes, Layla, yes—why didn’t I think of that? You’ll be the face of the furos, the embodiment of a concept that so few, even on the council, can even fathom. It’s what we’ve been missing all this time.” His eyes glistened with admiration. “You’ll be our ambassador.”
His reaction was stunning.
“Your request is granted,” he continued, patting her leg. “We have a deal, my dear. You show me your best tomorrow, and I’ll personally call a council meeting and buy your first-class plane ticket. Start thinking about where you want to go. Spain is beautiful this time of year.”
He waggled his eyebrows, kissed her forehead, and strode from the room. “Nurse? Nurse, get in here and get Layla some—”
The door cut off his blathering.
This was no promotion; this was a fall of the deepest order. What could be less human than scrap salvage? A praefuro. And less than a praefuro? A praefuro ambassador, the face of the killing machines. Still, Stewart could spin it however the hell he wanted, as long as she got her moment. As long as she got them all into a small enclosed space.
In a room that would burn.
She opened the book Stewart had left and read the first quote aloud: “ ‘War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.’ George Orwell.”
And for the first time in days, a genuine smile crossed Layla’s face.
57
March 2024, Mexico
“Repeat after me.”
Nick mirrored Brother Zane’s cross-legged posture from his position among the sea of inductees. They were just like him, chosen to stay, chosen to progress to the next step. Whatever that was.
“A poisoned life cannot be purified until it is fully understood,” Brother Zane continued.
Nick joined the response as solemnly as he could. “A poisoned life cannot be purified until it is fully understood.”
“As an impure, I must acknowledge, accept, and despise the poison inside me so I can be free of it.”
Nick repeated it with the others, intrigued by the ritual.
Brother Zane smiled and opened his chiseled arms to the hundred or so young men and women ranged before him.
Eddie elbowed Nick. “When you think they’ll bring out the Kool-Aid?”
He wanted to answer with a clever retort like right after the bikini-line branding, but he kept his focus on Brother Zane. The opulent domed room had no corners in which to hang cameras, but there was no doubt in his mind that they were being carefully observed. He didn’t want his behavior to give anyone the wrong impression of him. He didn’t want anything to prevent him from seeing what came next.
“Welcome, my friends, my brothers and sisters, to stage one, your first step toward purification,” Brother Zane said. “It’s so rewarding to see such a large group of inductees. You’ve chosen the right path. A better life.” He gracefully rolled onto his heels and stood, as if he’d been doing that move for years. “The promises we’ve made to you from the moment you were invited to join us are all very real, but I won’t lie to you. They’re not free or easy. They require long days of physical and mental training. To be successful, to reach a state of purification, you will prove that you have the strength and conviction to be among the elite of the human race. And I mean that literally.”
He removed his shirt and turned his back to the audience.
Nick gasped along with the rest of the crowd. Long scars crisscrossed Brother Zane’s back, from his muscular shoulder blades down to the waistband of his white linen pants.
A prickle crawled down the back of Nick’s neck. There it was right in front of him, proof that these kids were tortured. Savagely whipped.
He still hadn’t shaken the sense of foreboding he’d had since realizing his uncomfortable interview with the shrink had involved a hypnotic trance of some sort, some mental coercion that had him spewing details of his life that not a soul in the world knew. The first step in brainwashing.
And that ragged woman with all those people in that basement hospital haunted his dreams, her scratchy voice etched in his mind. The pray pharaoh will rise like the phoenix.
What the fuck was going on here? It wasn’t just criminal, it was perverse. Evil.
Brother Zane moved to an audio-visual stand and picked up a remote control. The backdrop illuminated with a picture of a pale thin kid stretched across an armchair. Long greasy hair flopped over his dark-circled, drooping eyes as he held his arms in a double-bird salute. The insides of his arms were red and bruised. This was clearly the image of an addict.
“You may not recognize me in the photo.”
No shit. Nick did a double-take and squinted at the image again.
“I don’t need to bore you with my woeful life story,” Brother Zane continued. “You can see my entire poisoned life in that picture. To be honest, I can’t even remember most of my life before I was given a second chance here at the Colony.”
Images flickered across the screen. Zane huddled in a corner, covered in sweat. A group on its knees in front of an instructor holding—a stick? A cane? A series of pictures of Zane, each showing him progressively healthier and stronger and happier, until he was positively glowing with pride and confidence. Nick had to admit that the transformation was remarkable. But then again, every rehab program had its success stories.
Brother Zane adjusted his headset and pulled a small strap under his chin to keep it in place. He placed his hands on the floor and rose into a perfect handstand.
Applause filled the room but petered out as Brother Zane continued, still in a handstand, his voice as smooth and clear as before. “Rehab is easy. Anyone can do it with hard work and dedication and desire.”
He lifted one arm off the ground and held it straight out to the side. The audience cheered.
“But here at the Colony, rehabilitation is not the goal. In fact, rehabilitation is just the starting point.”
He bent his supporting arm slowly and lowered his legs slowly to one side until they were parallel to the floor. The guy’s weight was resting entirely on one arm. Nick leaned forward with the others. There was no applause or cheering this time. Everyone was too awestruck to react.
Impossibly, Brother Zane kept speaking, not a hint of strain in his voice. “This is why we call it purification. Anyone can recover to the point of an average twenty-something adult. But here, we don’t strive for average. We don’t even strive for perfection. We reach beyond that. We strive for extraordinary.”
On that dramatic note, he pushed himself back up into a handstand and bounced back onto his feet. “Welcome to induction.”
The profundity of his words and demonstration was palpable. No one made a sound or so much as twitched a muscle.
Nick stole a glance at Eddie, whose eyes were wet, filled with either tears or stars. Like everyone else in that room (well, except Nick), Eddie had swallowed the whole package hook, line, and sinker. If someone were to pass around a pitcher of Kool-Aid, Eddie would’ve gulped down two glasses.
Then again, even Nick might’ve taken a few sips.
This was how they sucked them in. This was where the brainwashing began.
“In the long-standing tradition of the Colony,” Brother Zane continued, “tonight you will say goodbye to your impure lives in the poisoned world. I want you to enjoy yourselves in the Gallery. You can relive a moment in time before the virus changed the world. But I also want you to remember that that world is long gone. Once you leave the Gallery tonight, it’s time to push the past from your mind and move toward something bigger, a new definition of self-actualization. And I promise you, it will be so much better than you’ve ever imagined.”
A single slow clap started in the back of the room. Nick wanted to roll his eyes; it was so obviously a plant to create a dramatic close to the presentation. But it wasn’t
hard to play along. Once he crossed over into the next phase of the Colony’s brainwashing, he’d be inside the story he’d spent four years looking for. A hidden government facility that recruited people from the dregs wasn’t a Pulitzer Prize story; the real story was the basement filled with people attached to machines through tubes in their spines. All he had to do was get inside. And if he had to suffer through chants and heartfelt, emotional stories and group hugs in the Gallery, whatever that was, he was all in.
The story had to be told.
58
October 2022, Mexico
It was almost time. Layla checked her image in the full-length mirror in the staging room outside the Gallery. She twisted left and right to check out her frumpy figure. It was the first time she could remember wearing black stretch jeans—or black anything, really, any color other than white—and she looked more like a black whale than the Black Widow. She was a long way from regaining her flat stomach, although she couldn’t help a smile at the sight of her exposed cleavage. If James were there, he would’ve said something like Whoa, put those things away! You’re gonna poke someone’s eye out or—
No. She wouldn’t allow James in her thoughts. James was from her past life. She was the new Layla, and she had a job to do. An important job. Her stomach fluttered at the thought. Could she go through with it?
Yes, she could. She had already proven it, years ago, when, as Allison Stevens, she killed a police officer. Long before the Colony turned her into a killing monster.
More importantly, this exhibition, whatever it was, would earn her the moment she’d fantasized about since Stewart waltzed into her infirmary room: trapping the Eugenesis council in a fiery blaze, watching with delight as they writhed in agony from the burning flames before their mouths and lungs filled with smoke and ash. She would savor the taste of sweet vengeance for the rest of her days.
A door slammed behind her, and she stood up straighter. Her jaw dropped at the sight of the tall muscular woman with a shaved head who strode confidently into the dressing area. She didn’t realize she’d spoken the woman’s name aloud until she heard the echo of her voice.
