We’d guessed. We’d theorized and hypothesized for weeks on this very subject - minus the Zerk aspect - but to hear it confirmed so bluntly… I’m having a hard time processing.
“Why?” It’s only a whisper, but he hears me, and understands the underlying question.
“Because he’s a sick fuck who doesn’t care one lick for anyone other than himself and his advanced race.”
He’s hit the nail on the head.
“We’re going to get you out of here,” I swear.
Cade shoots me a look, one I can’t decipher right now, but I don’t think he approves of my blind promise.
“We will do all we can to help you.” He amends, and I almost argue. We will get them out of here — we have to!
Paul doesn’t comment, and I realize with some surprise that he’s fallen asleep sitting up, in the middle of our conversation.
What he must have gone through….
Another prisoner speaks up, a few cages down. She has to raise her voice to be heard over the growing cacophony of the Zerks. If I didn’t think Nyler would be smart enough to ensure their inability to break out, I’d be afraid they’re about to escape and come eat us for lunch.
Poor fuckers.
“Paul’s been here the longest, of those of us here. Other than Drew, Matt and Casey.” The new speaker indicates the three subjects in the cubes. “They’ve been here long as I have, which I’m guessing to be around three weeks. Paul was brought in with them, but Atlas only likes to test three subjects at a time, with their lack of manpower and all.”
Lack of manpower?
“They don’t have enough people to man the place?” Cade queries. He seems flabbergasted by the notion. I know I am.
“They did.” She admits with a hint of cynical humor. “Until last week when a couple of the Zerks broke through their wrist restraints and swapped blood with almost a dozen foot soldiers. Atlas’ boys took them down eventually, but not before a handful of them became infected.” I can hear the smugness in her words — she’s clearly happy some of Nyler’s men died.
Were I in her shoes, I probably would be too.
“What’s your name?”
“Subject A-67.”
I scoff at her. I can’t help it. “Don’t feed me bullshit, lady. You have a name.” I don’t mean to be a bitch, but it’s not the time for games. We only have so long before Cade and I need to get out of here, and now that I’ve seen the place, I’m hoping we can take these prisoners with us.
“George-Ann Wheeler.”
Cade has remained mostly quiet during our interaction, keeping an eye on our biggest threats, but he speaks up now. “You’re Carla’s Aunt.”
Who’s Carla?
The woman leans forward for the first time, pressing her face to the bars. She too is old, but doesn’t look as worse for wear as Paul. “That’s me. How do you know me? I sure don’t know you.”
“Carla likes to chat when she’s making breakfast. I have good ears.” Oh. I really need to learn the cook’s names.
“She’s always had a big mouth, that one,” George-Ann jokes. Fucking jokes. How can she be joking when she’s stuck in a cage, in a room full of Zerks, with humans being fucking tortured mere yards away?
I don’t think I like George-Ann.
Why is she even here if she has family within The Compound?
“So how are you going to get us out of here, just the two of you?” She wants to know.
It’s a good question, and I leave Cade to carry on the conversation as I explore the room. I can feel his intense gaze tracking me, making sure I’m safe. It keeps me grounded when my mind wants to fall back into the past and relive the last moments with my Dad. I know I can’t go there right now.
Walking down the line of cages housing the human prisoners, I try and greet each one. Offer them words of encouragement - though not feeding them lies. I won’t sugar coat things. I will get them out of here. I won’t leave them to rot, but I won’t promise them anything. Cade’s earlier reaction to my words with Paul quickly brought me to the realization I don’t have a means to help them escape at the moment, and I won’t offer them false hope.
Learned that lesson quick. Better hope none of the others heard you blindly giving him your word.
I steer clear of the Zerks on the opposite side of the room, but I can’t avoid the curiosity that’s running through me about Atlas’ current test subjects.
The cubicles must be soundproofed somehow - either that or the first man we’d seen has lost the function in his vocal cords - because no noise escapes the confines he’s in.
Pressing close to the thick plexiglass, I try and make eye contact with him, help calm him somehow… He doesn’t seem to notice. Up close, his condition is even worse than I thought.
Tiny incisions run along his arms, chest and legs, left open and seeping. Pinpricks dot almost every spot with an available productive vein. He’s dripping blood onto the gray concrete floor, and my stomach roils at the realization that they haven’t tended a single one of his wounds. Atlas doesn’t give a shit about the people they’re using as guinea pigs, that much is evident.
It makes me want to rage — throw shit and break all their equipment. But I know that won’t do us any good. We can’t tip our hand.
Soft murmurs reach my ears as Cade continues to gather intel and I turn for a moment to watch him. He’s in his element here, shining brightly in the dank depression of the atmosphere. He knows what he’s doing, and it brings out a confidence in him that’s greater than I’ve witnessed previously. Not that he wasn’t self-assured before, it’s just more somehow.
He notices me watching and gives me a nod, arm still poised to shoot any Zerks if they happen to break free.
How the fuck isn’t his arm hitting muscle fatigue right now?
Moving on, I pass by the second test subject, the one that’s slightly worse for wear beyond the first guy. He’s jerking a little, like he can still feel pain but doesn’t have the energy to truly react. It makes me fucking sick.
If what George-Ann said is accurate, about the time they’ve spent here, this man has been under Atlas’ torture for weeks.
I force myself to move past him, on to the last individual. The woman. Though it’s hard to call her that. She’s a deformed version of a Zerk and human hybrid. Clearly one that hasn’t meshed well. She’s deathly still, and if it weren’t for the visible heartbeat flitting across the monitor they have her attached to, I’d assume she expired from their treatment of her.
I’ve gotten used the cacophony of sound the Zerks have been making since we entered the room, so when a sudden change in their ruckus noise comes a few minutes later, I notice. Immediately.
They’re clicking, groaning and moaning, becomes more rapid — urgent. It puts me even more on edge.
Cade halts his conversation, clearly noticing the same thing and rushes to my side. “Someone’s coming.”
I don’t question how he knows, just follow his lead as he ushers me to the far recesses of the room to a corner behind the human captives that is majorly lacking in light. The person caged by where we hide moves forward in the confines of the metal box, shielding us.
The protective gesture makes my heart hurt as Cade and I turn our attention to the upper deck.
The lights in the lower room make it impossible to see through the viewing glass, but the clang of the door opening at the head of the room has my heart rate jumping into overdrive. The top of the staircase is blocked from our sight by the corner wall, but soon docker-clad feet come into view, then lanky legs, and finally the person’s torso. I recognize the gate of their steps, even from this distance. It’s Mr. Penguin.
I must grunt, or make some small sound of recognition, because Cade’s weapon-free hand comes up to cover my mouth, silencing me.
Mr. Penguin makes his way down the final steps and over to the row of confined Zerks. Their non-verbal sounds raise in pitch and volume so drastically, I want to cover my ears. It’s li
ke they recognize him — but that isn’t possible. Is it?
We’d been taught once a person goes Zerk, there’s no coming back.
What if that was a lie, too?
We observe silently as Mr. Penguin walks over to a cabinet I hadn’t noticed, tucked between sections of Zerk enclosures. He pulls out a metal tray littered with medical tools that shine in the dim overhead lights above the cages, then returns to the first Zerk’s cage.
The Zerk is thrashing about, banging against the bars, punching the bottom of the cage — going fucking berserk. It clearly doesn’t want Mr. Penguin anywhere close to its body.
Too bad for it, Mr. Penguin doesn’t seem to give a shit. Grabbing up a syringe with a long ass needle attached - that thing has to be at least six inches - he quickly jabs it through the bars of the cage and into the closest fleshy part of the Zerk, pushing the plunger home.
The Zerk’s agitation begins to wind down, its crazed demeanor calming until it’s nearly immobile, sedate.
Sedate. He must have given it a sedative — but how could that possibly work?
Zerk bodies don’t react like ours to outside stimulants. That’s why a cure could never be formulated — their altered genetic makeup simply won’t accept anything new into the mix. But the sedative Mr. Penguin used seems to be working perfectly.
Maybe they’ve engineered something new, specifically tailored to Zerks?
“That’s it. Calm down, big guy. This won’t hurt a bit.” Mr. Penguin finally speaks, directing his words to the Zerk before him. They aren’t calming in the least, coming off more snide than anything.
Setting down the syringe, he picks up a scalpel, reaching through the bars to slice delicately into the top layer of the Zerk’s black-webbed flesh. At first I think he’s going to dig around in the Zerk’s arm for a bit - explore it’s muscles or some shit - but instead, he continues to slide the blade across it, forming a rectangular cut and sliding the fillet of skin from its body, leaving the Zerk’s arm raw and bleeding.
Next, he fills several vials with the Zerk’s thick, black blood, completely ignoring the screeches from the other Zerks who look on. Their obvious outrage doesn’t faze him in the least.
When the Zerk he’s manhandling begins to fidget - is the medicine wearing off? - trying to back out of his grasp, Mr. Penguin tells him to shut the fuck up and sit still, following up the command with a quick needle-jab into the Zerk’s eyeball.
I hadn’t even seen him pick it up again, he moved so quickly.
Compressing the plunger, he pressure-fills the squishy orb with air from the empty syringe. The eye pops. Fucking pops, like a balloon — gore and other bits flinging out onto the pristine floor. The Zerk tries to scream, but its vocal cords aren’t functioning correctly, causing only muffled groans and grunts to be heard.
I quickly come to an abhorrent realization…. Mr. Penguin is a cold-hearted sadist.
◆◆◆
We can’t stay here. If Mr. Penguin discovers us, we’re as good as dead. Or worse, we’ll become their next test subjects.
I start to tense, wanting to get the fuck out, but Cade shifts behind me. The hand that was covering my mouth moves down as he wraps his arm around my body, pulling me into his warm embrace. Our vests bumping into each other make it hard to relax into him, but oh how I want to. I need his touch to ground me.
This damned lab is worse than I ever could have fathomed.
I could guess at the experiments. Logically imagine the medical procedures and gene splicing that would need to be performed in order to attain their goal of a genetically modified being — but to see this… this level of atrociousness that conveys, quite clearly, the human race is losing its humanity.
Fuck.
We watch in quiet horror as Mr. Penguin - the nickname is really too kind for him now - walks away from the injured Zerk’s cage and over to the sliding doors of the lab proper. As soon as they swoosh closed behind him, the person who shielded us begins to whisper our way.
“The lab is soundproofed so the scientists can concentrate. You may speak freely without him hearing.”
“Thank you.” Comes Cade’s quick reply, he’s as done with this shit-hole as I am, if the strained note in his voice is anything to go by. “Can we leave without being seen?”
The question makes the woman - man? The person’s features are so unpronounced I can’t even tell - appear disconcerted by his inquiry, but she responds anyway. “No. They have cameras pointed out into the testing quarters.”
Why the fuck had none of them mentioned cameras before?!
“Where?” Cade’s already scanning the room, trying to spot them.
“In the corner there,” he-she points, “and one up at the top edge of the viewing windows.”
We follow her - I’m going with her, not his - finger, and even though she says there are cameras, I can’t seem to spot them. Cade does, if his frustrated ‘shit’ is anything to go by. It’s a testament to how stressed this situation is making him that he’s actually cursing in front of me again. Usually I’m the one with the potty mouth.
“Do they record?”
“Philip said no. He’s a tech guy. Was in IT before the outbreak.” She supplies.
“Which one is Philip?” Cade asks, leaning forward and taking me with him as he tries to peer around the edge of the lady’s cage to look down the line of imprisoned people.
“Died a few weeks ago. They already carted him off.”
Well that’s no help at all.
“But he was sure?” Cade presses, “Sure that the cameras aren’t storing data anywhere?”
The woman shifts in her cage, trying to find a more comfortable position as she speaks to us. “Completely. He said something about them being outdated models that have to be connected by wires, and that they don’t have the capability to record. Only show real-time imaging.”
I contemplate her words for few moments before I finally speak up. “Where are the mon—” My words come to a halt as the Zerks start to freak out again, alerting us - inadvertently - that someone is coming.
My gaze darts to the lab, confirming Asshole - Mr. Penguin’s new moniker - is still in the same place, peering into a microscope.
Not him then.
It strikes me as odd that the Zerks hadn’t reacted the same way upon mine and Cade’s entry into the ‘testing quarters’. They were making some noises, sure, but nothing like this — so frantic and agitated.
Boots sound from above, and Cade quickly pulls me back into the corner. I can tell he wants to place himself in front of me, but our position doesn’t allow it. Instead, he shifts me slightly to the side so he can get a clear shot if things come to that.
Fate is being a fickle bitch today, because the person coming down the stairs is none other than Luca himself.
He looks pissed. Uncomfortable, really, but when he starts whispering something I can’t quite hear, the Zerks begin to quiet their screeching.
The fuck? Is Luca a damn Zerk whisperer or some shit?
Luca’s heavy boots clomp across the concrete floor as he makes his way into the lab with Asshole. Instead of speaking to the scientist-slash-torturer like I assumed he would, Luca strides over to a door along the right wall of the lab - one I hadn’t noticed. I need to be more observant apparently.
Cade’s body doesn’t move, and he doesn’t make a sound, so I’m guessing he knew it was there at least.
Luca disappears into the room beyond, coming back some minutes later pushing a rolling cart weighed down with industrial serving buckets.
What in the world is he doing?
My silent question is quickly answered as Luca once again ignores Asshole, brushing past him and walking back out into the testing quarters with the cart in tow.
“Food.” Our closest caged companion whispers.
Ah.
Luca goes to the Zerks first, which makes me a little pissy — I mean, they’d eat us if they could; why not feed his own kind first? As he reaches the
cages, the Zerks don’t thrash around or bash the sides of their crates. They quietly moan at him, almost gently. When he passes the first one its food, the one that Asshole shredded and mutilated, instead of trying to clobber Luca through the bars, it whines at him… fucking whines! And takes its portion with stuttered movements.
This shit is blowing my mind. Poor verbiage, but accurate.
Once he’s finished passing out raw meat on the far side of the room, Luca circles around to start back at the beginning. This time pulling out trays from the bottom of the cart that look like they have actual cooked food. The human captives are nodding at him, whispering their thanks as he offers each their meal.
I note that some of them don’t move to take the food, and a wash of sadness crosses over Luca’s features.
Had I misjudged him?
He’s about halfway down the row before it occurs to me that Cade and I are in a highly vulnerable hiding place. There’s no way Luca will miss seeing us when he gives our chatty companion her meal.
My eyes widen at the thought, and I tense up, but it’s too late. Quite a few of the subjects had refused their food. Luca’s already stepping up to the last cage before I can formulate an escape plan.
Cade’s arm comes up, barrel of his handgun pointed directly at Luca’s face. Luca catches the movement out of the corner of his eye, abruptly turning our way.
“What the fuck!” He whisper-shouts.
“Don’t. Move.” Cade’s tone is deadly - one I’ve never heard him use before. He fucking means business.
Luca’s hand twitches, like he wants to reach behind his back for something, and Cade cocks the gun.
Shit.
I’m torn. I want so fucking badly to reach up and push Cade’s arm down — remove Luca from his line of fire. But I don’t know if that’s wise.
Can we trust Luca?
It’s a question that’s been tormenting me, and right now isn’t the right time to come up with a definitive answer.
“Why did you bring her here?” Luca’s vehement question is aimed at Cade, but it’s the words that surprise me. Like he knows who Cade is, and expected he’d eventually turn up in the lab, but not with me in tow.
Atlas (Apocalyptic Cries Book 1) Page 17
