by Josiah Upton
And I don’t know where Genny fits, either. Our reconciliation – over her kiss with Dalton and my near-Lusting with Alice – has been brief and shallow. Before I stepped into these walls, she was my light and warmth, my only reason to endure. But now, everything has been disassembled, examined and questioned. I feel like I won’t know who I’m supposed to be until I figure who it is we are.
I hate that my identity relies on another. Yet the fact strangely makes me feel more human.
Genny is now in the control room, with Tran and Krecker. He insisted that he stay safely with her, away from the action until all of the APA’s forces have been neutralized. I know he’s only concerned with staying alive, and getting Genny out safely to earn his money, but I quickly agreed with it.
She didn’t.
Ezra holds up the tablet. I see images of both the Fem-Com and the control room. Genny stands in the back, her face still sour. “Ezra in the Male Common. We’re all set to go here, too.” He pauses, looking at all the expectant faces in the Common. They’re about to experience the closest thing they can to being free. “Kill the Shock Box.”
Thumb grins. I immediately start to doubt this plan.
Walt lets go of Benson. “You might want to run. Like, now.”
As Benson runs out the Common door in complete terror, Krecker speaks on the tablet. “Shock Box is deactivated, collars are cold. All containees are clear to move.”
My fingers grasp at the steel ring around my neck. It still feels the same. Still cold and heavy, despite my body heat and strength. Is it really dead? The containees are wondering the same thing. None of them have crossed the yellow line yet.
The first one to make a move is Daah. He breathes deep, and steps across. He’s still standing. His tight chest deflates with relief. “Let’s leave this place.”
The echoes of our feet resound off the walls, several hundred Hybrids marching down the halls toward both potential death and potential liberation. My heart seems to pump in time with the disorganized footfalls, anxiety wrenching my insides. Part of me is afraid to die, leaving behind Genny and Alice and everyone else that I’ve made connections with in here. But mostly I’m afraid of what I will do once my hands snuff out the life of their first victim. I don’t know how I’ll snap back. I’ll just have to wait and see for that when the doors open.
Krecker appears on the tablet. “Alright, you crazy bastards. Looks like the party’s getting started early. APA agents are entering the facility now. I repeat, now.”
“What?” I ask. I’m not ready for this yet.
Tran’s face squeezes into the frame. “Our tablet comms are on a closed channel, but they can still see everything you’re doing through the surveillance cameras. It’s a preemptive strike. Zaul, they’re coming through the tunnel as we speak. You’ll have some time while they clear out the Lock. But Quinn, your team doesn’t have that buffer. They’ve sent in about one hundred agents and shut the door behind them. Teams of ten are moving to you right now. You’ll intersect with the first one in about ninety seconds.”
“What do I do?” Quinn asks. Alice is partially in view, and I see the worry on her face. My pace slows.
“This will be just like our strategy exercises,” Tran answers calmly. “I’ll let you know what’s coming, and you direct your containees.”
“Got it,” Quinn says. Her expression tightens. “This one’s for Opha.”
As the males and I near the Lock, Quinn and her team engage the agents. I can’t really see what’s going on, I only hear gunshots, screams from both Hybrids and humans, and Quinn shouting out orders. Suddenly, Quinn leaves the frame as the angle drops to the floor. Dark blood tinges the camera lens. My hands threaten to snap my tablet in half.
A moment later, Quinn retrieves her tablet, wiping away the blood. “The first agent team is down. We lost six of our own. Awaiting the next wave. And this time, we’ll have some firepower.” She smiles. “Don’t worry, fellas. Alice and I are fine.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. “What about our end, Tran? Have they cleared the Lock?”
“No,” Tran answers. “In fact, they haven’t even entered the elevator. They’re waiting outside of it by the tunnel. Just a small squad, blocking the way. All the others are gathering at the front of the Facility. The females won’t survive the onslaught when the doors open.”
“What do we do?” I ask frantically.
“You have to draw more of them down to the tunnel. You’ll need to clear the Lock yourself, and take out the agents waiting outside of the elevator.”
“But they’ll kill us as soon as the door opens,” I say. “We’ll be sitting dogs.”
“Ducks,” Ezra corrects. “And yeah. That’s suicide.”
Tran smiles curiously. “I have an idea. But it isn’t exactly… ethical.”
Chapter 50
Zaul
“Zaul,” Walt says, struggling as he, Rich and two other Common containees push a frenzied Perma-Lock containee towards the back of the room. “Two questions.”
“Now isn’t the best time for questions,” I say, as Ezra, Daah, myself and another containee wrestle with our own Hybrid. His face is stained with the blood of an officer. It’s only been twenty minutes since the chaos broke free in this room, and there aren’t any survivors. Most of the bodies have been devoured beyond recognition.
The pharmacy is right next to the Lock. I ordered that everyone take five Mortetine before entering this room, and that anyone caught feeding on the dead officers and agents (or violating any of the female Perma-Lock containees) would join the same fate as this Hybrid who fights desperately against us.
“First, do you believe there’s a God?” Walt asks anyway. “And second, if there is, do you think he’ll forgive us for this?”
“I don’t know,” I answer. The concept of God has always eluded my Hybrid brain, a being as silent, invisible and mythic as my own parents. Right now the only person I worry about forgiving me is Genny. And myself.
Several other Perma-Locks are being dragged closer to the elevator. A male is torn from the bloody corpse of an agent, a naked male and female are separated, the severed limbs they were gnawing on while Lusting are confiscated. They’re not aware what’s happening to them, but they instinctively know it isn’t good. Like a terrified pig being herded to the slaughterhouse.
They’re going to be sacrificed.
“You sure you got all the cameras?” I ask Rich with labored breath. Our wild containee thrashes harder, and Ezra tightens his arm’s grip around his neck. “If the agents can see what we’re doing, this will all be for nothing.”
“Yeah,” Rich answers. “The first thing I did. They’re blind down there.”
After a long silence, filled only by the unintelligible pleas of the doomed Hybrids, I ask, “And did any of you find Caesar?”
“Found Schutzhorne,” Walt says. “Well, pieces of his suit. But no Caesar. There’s a lot of officer bodies here, faces missing. Whichever one is his, he’s gone.”
So that’s the end of that. No more tyranny from him, no more hatred. No more idolization of Staff Sergeant Jorge Francis Ortega, or fantasies of Purging the Sludge. No more Caesar.
I wish I could feel good about it, but I don’t. Mainly because I wasn’t the one to kill him – and his body hasn’t confirmed his death. Though impossible, I fear he somehow escaped, and he’s within these walls somewhere. Or perhaps he is dead, but his presence still lingers, like a ghost. Over thirty years of despising this place, and yet he still can’t leave.
I try to smell for him in this room, but there’s too many Hybrids, and human blood is everywhere. My Prisoner rustles, and Mortetine answers. Caesar is gone, I tell myself. That part is over.
We finally shove our containee into the elevator, and others keep him in with shock batons. The car is half full, rocking up and down by the frantic prisoners. It needs to be packed, if we want to deplete the agents’ ammunition. We make way for another resisting Hybrid getting shoved i
n, and go back to get another.
“Do we really have to do this?” Ezra asks, covering his mouth and nose as he steps over a human corpse. Hunger flashes across his face for a moment, then it winces with nausea. “We’re gonna cut the power anyway. The elevator won’t work, and they’ll be stuck down there. We can just abandon this end and join the girls at the front.”
“You heard Krecker,” Walt says from a few pillar rows over. “We need to break up the agents. If we all go through the front, we get mowed down. I don’t like it either, but it’s us or these sorry Uggers. If someone’s gotta die, I pick them. They made their choice when they gave in.”
“But if you were in the same situation, would you be able to hold back?” Ezra asks. “When you take away our intelligence, self-control and guidance, how different are we from them?” Walt pretends not to hear him. To my guilt, so do I. Ezra grumbles, “There has to be another way.”
“I wish there was,” I say, as we drag another containee to the elevator. We pass the tablet I propped up against a pillar. I hear Quinn continuing her command. I hear the desperation and fatigue in her voice, mingling with the screams and gunshots. Alice is still there. Maybe they can survive the hundred already in the facility, but more agents are gathering outside the front door every second. The thought of her dead body quickens my feet, gives more strength to my muscles as I push this Hybrid. “We don’t have any time.”
The last one is stuffed into the elevator. It’s packed tight, and the line of them closest to the door is constantly getting shocked with batons to keep them all in. Ezra holds up the tablet, pausing for a moment before saying, “We’re all loaded up, Tran. Close the…”
“PLEASE!” one of the containees inside screams. Bits of blood and flesh fly out from his stained mouth. His number reads 461. He’s been here a long time. “Please, don’t want die!”
“You do this!” Thumb yells at them. “You eat man!”
“Sorry!” 461 replies, continuing this exchange of broken English and broken hope. “So sorry! So so so so sorry! I don’t want die!”
The others yell and grunt in agreement. Some of them start pleading with their words as well, breaking out of a verbal haze caused by the recent savage surrender to carnal impulses, and several years spent in isolation. Can I pretend I wouldn’t do what they did, being finally released from that nightmare? What if I had broken out of my basement before Gibbs had taught me how to pretend to be a human?
In this sense, Genny is lucky. She’s never dealt with the confusion. The desperate, relentless teetering on the edge between self-discipline and giving in. At another phase in my undead life, my face could be among these in this elevator.
Ezra keeps staring at them, unable to speak. I take the tablet. “Close the door.”
The steel panels slide together. Hands reach out, but recoil from the shocks. It closes, and I hear the mechanized parts squealing and groaning as it inches them closer to their death. The car jolts to a halt, and the doors on the Lock-side open again, this time to a dark elevator shaft, the top of the car at floor level.
“Pile on as many of you as you can,” Tran says from the tablet. “Don’t worry, these elevators can hold more weight than you can fit in and on it.”
In the background of the Control Room I see Genny. She’s shocked and horrified at what we’re about to do. She turns away. I will never be able to undo this. And if we happen to meet again, she will never look at me the same way again.
Once we’ve filled the top of the car, it begins to descend again. The screams inside, which never ceased, only grow in volume and desperation. The Containees must have stacked on top of one another, because someone starts pushing up on the hatch. Rich grimaces and stomps down on it. Each push makes him flinch.
The elevator stops. The doors open. Gunfire rains into the car below, executing all the containees beneath our feet. Whatever shred of humanity I possessed, the tiny light that Genny believed was inside me, has begun to die with them.
What happens next will surely kill it completely.
Chapter 51
Genny
I can’t look. No matter how violent, how vicious those Hybrids are, I can’t witness their wholesale sacrifice. There had to be a better way. Zaul could have figured something out, instead of executing these sentient beings without trial. But when the flying bullets light up the screen, my eyes dart to it. Like a horrific disaster that demands you bear witness.
The camera’s point of view is from behind the small team of APA agents, unloading all of their firepower into that little steel box. The first line of containees drops automatically. Some of the ones behind them stumble across the bodies and try to charge the shooters, while others claw desperately at the back, pounding against the impervious wall. More bullets spray, more containees drop. The last remaining few hide on either side of the door. Three agents approach, with two taking down the hiders, while the one in the middle eliminates any survivors that didn’t get one in the head. The last one alive, crouching in the corner, slowly raises her hands in the air. One flash later, she’s motionless.
I can’t breathe.
The agents start reloading their rifles. Officer Krecker lifts the tablet to his lips. “Now!” he whisper-shouts.
The elevator’s emergency hatch opens, and blue-and-black striped legs dangle down.
Please don’t be him, please don’t be him. Please please please…
Zaul’s face appears on screen. My shoulders shake. A startled agent at the front fumbles with his rifle, frantically trying to raise it before Zaul jumps on him. But he’s already on the floor, Zaul’s hands gripped around his neck. His eyes wide with Rage. My heart beats faster, anticipating the moment he becomes killer, becomes death. The surrounding agents respond, but other containees have dropped through, charging forward with teeth bared and hands outstretched. A few Hybrids fall, but the APA is quickly overwhelmed. Some faces are smashed in; others have throats torn out.
But my eyes stay fixed on Zaul. He surely could have killed this agent by now, but the man still flails his arms. The deed hasn’t been done yet. Another Hybrid, missing nearly all fingers on one hand, notices his hesitation. He tries to pull him off of the agent. Zaul shakes his head, and jerks his wrists. I can’t hear it, but I imagine the snapping sound. The man goes limp.
Zaul is now a killer.
“It’s such a waste,” Dr. Tran says, observing the carnage on the screens. Right now the agents at the front entrance have discovered what happened at the elevator, and are rerouting half of their forces that direction. “Look at the coordination. Witness the ferocity. A Hybrid army would have been a force to be reckoned with. So many natural-born killers working together would be unstoppable. Especially Zaul. He is just incredible.”
My eyes find him again in the chaos. He’s abandoned the dead agent on the ground to the hungry Hybrids around him, and retreated to an empty portion of the small hallway. He paces back and forth, arms stiff at his sides. Chest heaving up and down. He lets out a silent scream of agony, one of regret. Maybe that boy is still in there somewhere.
“They aren’t just murder machines,” I say. “Every life they take, they’re going to remember it. Whether you believe it or not, the ones you wished to recruit for warfare have souls that will be destroyed by it.”
Tran pivots toward me, his face glowing in the light of the screens. “You don’t know anything about this. I’ve been working with Hybrids for decades. Observing them, studying them, interacting with them. I’ve looked them in their dead-white eyes countless times, and knew that something was missing.” He turns back to the violence. “This was missing. A release from their inner cries for blood and flesh. The ability to unleash their strength and feed what drives them. The Hybrid Reanimate species has no natural habitat, only a natural state. Predator.”
One-by-one, agents now descend the ladder from the street and down into the tunnel, getting into position. On the Facility side, all containees have come through the elevator an
d formed loose ranks, waiting for us to cut the power and open the door. With Quinn’s team, they’ve eliminated all agent teams at the front of the Facility, and have come to their own closed door. Everyone is waiting for the mayhem to begin again.
Zaul reluctantly comes to the front of the line, and Ezra hands him the tablet. His face comes into view in Krecker’s hands. “Genny,” he says. It sounds like he’s just sprinted a marathon. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize, Zaul,” Tran says. “You were doing what you were born…”
“Shut-up!” Zaul growls. “I wasn’t born for this, it isn’t destiny. If you want to talk about what’s meant to happen, I’m meant to be dead. All of us down here are. There’s no point to it, there’s no purpose.”
“Don’t say that,” I retort. “I refuse to believe it. When all of this is done, we’ll find that purpose. And we’ll do it together.”
“Maybe,” he says. “But this isn’t over yet. So I need you to do something for me. When the power comes back after we open the door, look away. Don’t watch what’s about to happen. If I don’t survive, I can’t have you remember me for that. Promise me you won’t watch.”
“I won’t need to remember you,” I say, and the waterworks start. “Because you’ll survive. You can do this. I’ll see you at the transport truck.”
“Zaul,” Krecker interrupts. “That tunnel is filling up fast, and they’re getting into formation. We need to do this now, or you guys will get slaughtered.”
Zaul nods slowly. Is this the last time I will see his face?
“Goodbye, Genny. I…”
