"It's getting harder to control the pain," she says finally. Judging by her expression, I feel that's probably an understatement.
Mira possesses the ability to suppress pain, or at least she did before the grenade. Recently, something is malfunctioning, and her ability to disconnect her pain receptors seems to be waning.
"Don't look at me like that," she says, noticing my concerned gaze.
"Like what?"
"Like I'm broken," she says. She attempts a weak smile, but it doesn't make it all of the way to her eyes. Still, I can see the strength of her spirit bubbling beneath the surface and remember that though her body is battered, she is still the same indomitable Mira whose inner power far outweighs anything on the surface.
"Not broken," I say, feeling a pang of guilt for having offended her, “just hurt."
But she blows off any offense and giggles with a playful twinkle in her eyes.
"Yeah, well, if you don't stop fighting in those stupid games, you're gonna end up just like me."
We make our way lazily back through the dome. I'm careful not to move too fast, to give Mira the time she needs to not aggravate her body. In times like these I feel an overwhelming need to protect her; it’s so strong that it’s almost a physical sensation. I can't believe how much I care for her after only months.
As we pass some of the lingering locals, several nod or wave at me with admiration. I throw up a hand in greeting.
I catch Mira rolling her eyes and stifle a chuckle.
"Are you proud of yourself, Rambo?"
I puff my chest out in mock pride and stroke my stubbly chin like a celebrity deep in thought.
"I'm merely appealing to my public," I say.
“Good grief,” she says, “if your ego gets any bigger your head will explode.”
We walk a little farther, but before we reach the tunnel leading to our assigned quarters, we cross paths with Graelin, his arm in a sling and looking a good bit worse for the wear.
He steps in front of us, stopping our progress, and claps a massive hand on my shoulder. I tense in reaction, expecting a blow, but instead he offers me a huge smile made crooked by the fact that the left side of his face is swollen. For a moment he reminds me of Frankenstein.
"Sorry about the limb,” he says. “I got carried away in the moment. No hard feelings?" he says.
I'm tempted to ask if he's crazy. He definitely took the bigger beating.
"No hard feelings," Mira volunteers for me before I can answer. "Are you okay?"
Is he okay? Whose side are you on?
He holds his injured arm up like it's a trophy.
"Me? Oh, yeah. This'll heal up in a couple of days."
A slim, auburn-haired woman walks up beside him, a sprinkling of freckles lightly peppering her face. She's tall, at least as tall as me, and she has the appearance of a sprinter with long, slender muscles and a strong gait.
"He's just glad he lasted as long as he did with you," she says to me. Her name is Elizabeth, Beth for short. She's Graelin's significant other, or however that works here.
"We may be far removed from society,” she says, “but your dad has kept track of you all these years.” She speaks with a smooth, controlled tone, belying an intelligent mind. “The way he's described you, your fighting skills are legendary."
I'm unsure how to respond. Coming from anyone else, the praise might seem trite and condescending, but from these two, there’s genuine respect. It reminds me of the way the other Sweepers treated me before I fell off the face of the earth.
"So, dad's kept up with me, huh?" I choke on the word dad, but say it for their sakes. That's how they see my relationship to Damian, whether I do or not. No matter how much I wish it wasn't true.
Beth glances at Mira then drops her gaze. I get the feeling she thinks she's said too much, and it only takes a second before she confirms it.
"Sorry," she says. "I think Damian would prefer to tell you those kinds of things himself."
One of the most disarming things about this place is how nice the clones are. As I said before, the guards can't seem to stand us. It's probably just distrust. The clones, on the other hand, treat us like family, with the exception of lining up to take me on in a fist fight, and even that in its own freakish way is endearing.
After a minute, people begin filing out of the dome in different directions and we hear a faint sloshing sound high overhead. Every other night, a sprinkler system incorporated into the latticework of the dome comes on at ten o'clock and runs for an hour, drenching the little oasis of trees and plant life they've created here in the middle of reindeer land. The manpower and wealth it took to create this place must have been staggering. I'd love to know how it was done. Maybe I'll beat it out of dad one night if I'm feeling sprightly.
Graelin and Beth say a brief goodnight, and Mira and I head into the tunnel that leads to our "apartment". After taking the elevator to the second floor, we move down the hall a couple of doors. Like the lab on the island, the computer registers our presence and the door unlocks automatically at our approach.
After Damian threatened to have the system attack me, I tried to see if it would respond to my commands as well. No such luck.
Mira heads to the closet and retrieves some pajamas, but I make a bee line for the shower. I'm covered in grime and sweat, and the steaming water soothes my sore muscles.
Mira wasn't the only one who sustained injuries in our encounter with Archer and the events leading up to it. Though my injuries were not as severe as hers, I had been put through the ringer. As I step out of the shower, I wrap the towel around my waist and turn slightly to see my back in the small patch of the mirror not fogged over by the steam. Ignoring the multitude of older scars, I focus on the long, raking scars snaking down across my back from my shoulder. They were the result of the claws of a powerful aberration of an animal that was more or less a giant tiger on steroids. Though healed now, the scars are still dark in comparison to the others that have lightened over time.
Every now and then I'll get a cramp in my right lat, a none-too-gentle reminder of the rip the muscles took from the beast. It’s just one of many aches and pains I’ve collected over the years from the abuse I’ve sustained in countless battles.
I throw on some flannel pajama pants and a t-shirt I had left on the bathroom floor that morning, and slip back into the bedroom, careful to douse the light before opening the door in case Mira is already asleep. A couple of candles burn in wall sconces, and I can distinguish her sleeping form wrapped heavily in blankets on the bed. Leaning over, I kiss her temple, savoring her smell and the luxurious warmth of her skin on my lips. I run a hand gingerly down her side, willing the pain away, wishing I could carry it for her.
I stand there for several minutes watching her. Her breathing is steady, and I savor how blessed I am to have her in the midst of such chaos and uncertainty. After a while, once I'm confident that she's sleeping well, I move back into the great room and retrieve an ice pack from the elaborately outfitted kitchen. Striding to the small balcony overlooking the dome, I plop into one of the posh leather armchairs and gaze out over the rain-soaked vegetation, the ice pack pressed to my pounding face.
The apartment we've been given is just as high class as my old one in the Trump Soho, if a bit smaller. Rich furniture, extravagant tapestries, and posh, multicolored rugs complete an ensemble that would seem like a dream vacation getaway except for its bizarre locale.
I consider Damian, my would-be father. He's done nothing to harm us here, other than his initial threat to have his computer shoot me. In fact, he's been overwhelmingly hospitable since then, if still as silent as the grave regarding any additional details of his work. But I don't trust him in the least. I’ll never trust him.
I lean my head back and watch the ice storm rage against the clear dome top. I sit there long into the night turning things over and over in my head and savoring my hatred for my father.
Chapter 3
Mira
I wake with a jolt, pain screaming through my body, a red hot spear sticking into my lower back. Years of waking up in strange places puts me immediately on guard. I try to roll away from my attacker, the sadist who's trying to skewer me like a pig, but my body won't cooperate. God help me! I have to get away. Something moves beside me and I try to slide away from it, my eyes tracing the shape in the darkness, looming close to me like a demon threatening to suck my life away. I feel hazy, smothered, until my mind begins to clear and I come fully awake. The shape next to me is Cray, snoring gently, peaceful and at rest. I belatedly realize my attacker doesn't exist; I'm being tortured by my own body.
I bite my lip, push slowly to a half sitting position and slide off the side of the bed. My feet hitting the floor causes a fresh wave of fire to slice through my back, arcing into my extremities, and I stifle a whimper. I stagger awkwardly across the thick carpet into the bathroom and ease the door closed before sinking into a heap on the cold tile. I force myself to breathe and concentrate on the coolness of the floor pushing through my thin pajama pants, the darkness around me.
Closing my eyes, I will myself to ignore the agony until I slowly regain some semblance of control. The pain begins to ebb from me like a brook, dreadfully slow, infuriatingly slow. But with each passing second, it becomes more and more bearable. It takes several minutes, but I'm finally able to control it to the point where it is just a dull ache. For the first time, I realize my face is wet from the tears that have squeezed themselves from my eyes, and I wipe at them angrily, feeling weak that they're even there.
I told Cray the truth. The pain is getting harder to control. But even he doesn't know just how hard it's become. There are times when it threatens to break through my best efforts, like water bursting from a dam, trying to drown me, to pull me under. After that night in the tower, I've been on a downward spiral, and I'm scared to think of where I will be a year from now. What if I get to the point that I lose all control? I balk at the thought of being a cripple.
The doctor that patched me up after the explosion did okay with what he had to work with, but the damage was extensive. I can't be sure, but I suspect the source of my current pain is related to a piece of shrapnel lodged in my spine that he said was too dangerous to remove. I think my ability to control pain is somehow related to my central nervous system, and this shrapnel is blocking the signals.
After a while, I rise deliberately, careful not to re-aggravate the injury by moving too fast. I've found I can control it better when I'm still. But right now, I'm wide awake, I want some fresh air, and since I'm not going back to sleep for a while, I'm going to take the opportunity to spy this place out some more.
Damian has put up a good façade, but it's obvious he's full of secrets. I can't imagine what bizarre atrocities he may have hidden around here if what we found on the island is any indication.
One thing I haven't seen yet and would love to find out more about is the place where the clones are bred and formed. Especially since it hits so close to home for me.
After sneaking through the apartment and out the door, I plod down the darkened hallway, the slab flooring cold on my bare feet, my steps silent as I limp along awkwardly.
I try my best not to think much about what I once was. I have no regrets about how I got my injuries. I cared for Cray then, but since, I have grown to love him more than anything. I would gladly sacrifice my body and even my life for him. Still, it hurts to remember the things I was able to do – the speed and the strength. I still have them, but just walking down the hallway is difficult now. If I tried to draw on my body’s reserves too often, I don’t know what would happen, but I fear eventually tearing myself apart.
It all happened so fast, the grenade in the air, the look of terror and realization on Cray’s face. I knew in a heartbeat what would happen, and I was diving to cover him before a split second had passed. There was no doubt about the effect. I didn’t expect to survive, but I did. Cray had the same idea, to shield my body with his own, but I was faster. He’s never said it out loud, but I can tell he struggles with the fact that it was me that got hurt and not him. Kind of like survivor’s guilt, I guess. I wish it weren’t so, and I try to show him I’m glad it was me, but I don’t think that feeling is something I’ll ever be able to take away from him. It's something he's going to have to come to terms with.
At the end of the hallway, I take the small, functional elevator down to the ground level, and move through the Geo-dome. The ground is still wet from the faux rain, and the smells of the trees and plants remind me of the Island, the place I was “conceived”, the place where Cray and I found out how totally screwed up our world is. I think of Ilana, alone there, living among the nightmarish creatures Damian created, and I wonder how she’s surviving.
Of this much I'm sure, none of our movements here go unnoticed. This place is just as state-of-the-art as the lab on the island was, probably more so, and even though I can't see them, I'm sure there are cameras and sensors everywhere. Heck, the computer can open our apartment based on our proximity and recognizing our DNA signature. Heaven only knows what this system can do. But I also know that we haven't been forbidden to move around the facility, or even given instructions to avoid certain areas. I guess if Damian has something he's hiding, he's confident he can keep it that way.
I still can't figure him out. I know the atrocities he's responsible for, the terrible things he's done, but in person, he comes across as amiable. I'm not an idiot, and I know this could be a total ruse, but I guess a part of me expected him to be completely deranged and dripping with crazy. But so far, he's gone out of his way to treat me and Cray with apparent kindness.
Cray has a hard time talking to him. It's frustrating for him. He wants info as bad as I do, but he can't be around Damian without wanting to kill him. Cray's only loved one who never betrayed him was his adoptive mom. She was taken by The Virus. The logical progression is that Cray blames Damian. In his shoes, I would probably do the same, as indirect as it may have been.
I've been methodically exploring this place over the several weeks we've been here, gradually working my way deeper and deeper into its bowels. I only do this at night when everyone's mostly asleep. I haven't told Cray. There's no real reason to keep it a secret, but I guess in a way, it makes me feel like my old self, sneaking around, avoiding guards, and trying to uncover Damian's deepest, darkest secrets.
The mass of the building on the surface is just the beginning. I've already mapped out two floors beneath the dome level, though I've found nothing out of the ordinary there. The first floor is mostly relegated to barracks for the security staff and storage, at least for the rooms I've been able to get into.
The floor beneath that, however, starts to get a little more interesting, and when I say interesting, I mean impenetrable. Mazes of hallways and doors line the expanse, none of which are unlocked, and several have bio hazard warnings on the doors.
I make my way slowly through the first floor and down to the second, checking every door again, hoping to find one open this time.
I've explored the entire second floor three times now, and so far, I don't see that there's anything beyond this level. If there is, I can't find a way down to it. Still, I have the itching feeling that I'm missing something, and I'm determined to find out what it is.
As every time before, I find no open doors, but I decide to push my luck tonight. I run a very good chance of setting off an alarm, but like I said before, I'm pretty certain I'm being watched anyway, and since nobody has tried to stop me yet, I decide to take a slightly more decisive action.
I move to one of the nearest doors, one that is not marked bio-hazard, and place both hands against the cold steel. Like all the others, it's easy to tell it is thick and sturdy from the feel alone. Bracing my feet to keep from slipping – and my mind for the upcoming torment – I begin to push against the door with both hands, about a quarter of my strength at first, then building until I'm putting everything I ha
ve behind it. Pain rages up and down my back and legs from the effort, and I struggle not to let my feet slide, my toes digging into the concrete floor.
Suddenly there's a loud popping sound, and the door bulges in slightly near the lock, but it holds fast, despite my best efforts, and I relax, huffing in frustration. I sink to my knees and fight my way through the pain until I can get it under control again. I curse under my breath. This place is like Fort Knox.
I sit there for several minutes, straining for any sound that may indicate I've drawn an audience, but I hear nothing, and slowly rise to my feet again. I perhaps pushed myself too hard and decide not to keep going tonight. I turn and make my way back the way I came.
Maybe it's time to bring Cray into my explorations. Maybe there's something I'm missing that he can put together, or perhaps he can figure a way to get beyond those doors to see what's lurking inside.
Moving through the labyrinth, I pass a junction of hallways, when I hear a faint hissing sound to my right. I stop, alert, and prepare for anything, but what I see surprises me. One of the large doors has slid open to reveal an elevator I didn't know was there. I'm instantly filled with equal portions of caution and excitement.
The door remains open, beckoning, waiting. It seems obvious to me that this is not an accident. Whoever has been monitoring the surveillance equipment has just given me an opportunity. The question is whether or not I should take it. It could be an invitation to learn more, or it could be a trap.
Common sense says I should proceed with caution and go get Cray for backup. But at the same time, I'm terrified the chance will pass and I'll miss out on something important. I finally step to the elevator and move inside. If someone were trying to trap or hurt me, it would have likely come long before now. Time to put my money where my mouth is.
As soon as I enter the elevator, the door slides closed with another hiss, and almost immediately, the floor drops and I begin to descend. There are no buttons for floors to be pushed. I'm at the mercy of the elevator, or whoever is controlling it. I don't have to wait long, only a couple of seconds, before the descent stops and the door opens again.
The Night Sweeper: Assassin: A Zombie Conspiracy Novel (The Sweeper Chronicles Book 2) Page 3
