by Sara King
Afterwards, Colonel Codgson hosted a celebration to commemorate their continued research, but Marie could not stay. She left the restaurant and drove back to the lab, thinking about the look of anguish she’d seen on Twelve-A’s face as Carter and the others had prodded the whimpering telepath back to his cell and re-attached the driplines.
Even though she got chills thinking of it, Marie wanted to see him. Console him.
When she got there, the lab was cold and dark. Marie flicked on the lights and moved to the holding area, swiping her card and pushed one of the thick leaden doors open. Inside, a sixth of the lights remained permanently on, more for the technicians’ comfort than the experiments’—no one wanted to be alone in the dark with the monsters they had created.
Somewhere, near the back of the room, Marie heard crying.
Though she carried no restraining devices, had followed none of the pre-entry monitoring protocol, Marie stepped inside the corridor.
“Hello?” she whispered.
Though she knew her words had not been loud enough to carry beyond her own ears, the sobbing cut off instantly.
Cold prickles crawled across Marie’s arms and back. It was Twelve-A. He hadn’t been drugged. She had seen him get drugged.
Had Lieutenant Carter forgotten to refill the bag? Or had Twelve-A made her forget?
The idea was terrifying. Marie knew right then she should scurry back behind the protective leaden walls and wait for assistance.
And yet, she found herself rooted to the place, unable to leave. Guilt welled in her gut like a moldy sack, weighing on her soul.
They don’t deserve this, she thought, eying the other experiments in their beds. All slept, either naturally or by drugs, splayed out in naked disregard like animals.
The crying had not begun again, and Marie got the eerie impression that Twelve-A waited for her in the darkness. Realizing how blithely she’d stepped into his trap, Marie’s pulse began to race. Fear paralyzed her. Like a farmer standing feet from a tiger hidden in the undergrowth, she had entered his realm, and her continued existence was solely at his discretion. Running was no longer an option, as much as her panicked thoughts screamed at her to do so.
She made herself move deeper into the corridor of cages.
Twelve-A was tucked into a fetal position on his bed, knees to his chest, back against the corner where two walls joined. There was no drip-bag hanging from the stand beside his bed. A wave of goosebumps prickled Marie’s body in a wave, seeing that.
As soon as Twelve-A saw her, he stopped rocking.
I know their fear before I kill them, he said in a whimper.
Self-loathing emanated from Twelve-A in a thick mental wave that made Marie stumble against his cell. Panting, she struggled to keep from bursting into tears at the sheer power of the emotional barrage. Knowing that this was how he felt, that this was him, Marie had to act. Before she could talk herself out of it, she opened the gate to his cell and went to sit down on the thin mattress beside him.
“It’s okay,” she said, touching his knee. “You’ll never have to do that again.”
The touch made Twelve-A jerk, and for the first time, she realized that he had never been allowed to touch another human being before, other than those he meant to kill. Before Marie could correct her mistake, he unfolded and threw himself into her arms like a frightened child.
There, the lab’s most dangerous creation cried into her shoulder.
Marie froze, terrified of his presence, terrified of what she’d done. She felt Twelve-A’s body tremble against her, wracked by an emotional torment whose very residues still left her weak and nauseous. Despite her fears, she felt tears coming to her own eyes and softly began stroking Twelve-A’s shaven head.
“It’s okay,” she whispered.
He shook his head against her chest and sobbed. Pent-up breaths exploded from him in tortured spasms. His grip on her back began to hurt. Marie said nothing more and wrapped her arms around him.
Biologically, Twelve-A was a healthy twenty-two-turn-old man. Mentally, however, he was as vulnerable as a small child. They had kept every stimulation to the barest necessary for survival, sedating him with drugs for most of his life, never speaking within hearing range, never giving him a chance to think.
The reason was simple; undrugged and unhindered—like he was now—he could execute his keepers with a thought. Unrestrained, his cell open, he could cast Marie aside and simply leave the lab. He could walk through the open containment area doors, all the way to the reception area, where it would be a small thing to get past the guard and escape, never to be seen again. Like with Carter and the drip-bag, he could probably even make them all forget he had even existed.
Marie considered all these things as she sat there, holding him, but found she did not care. He needed her, and that was all that mattered.
Thank you, came his mental whisper in her mind. Twelve-A’s body had calmed somewhat, leaving only an underlying shuddering, like someone who’d spent too much time in the cold.
“I’m going to help you,” Marie said, before she realized it was true. “I’m going to help you escape this place.”
Twelve-A looked her in the eyes and said, I could escape any time I want.
“Then why don’t you?” Marie whispered back.
The others, he replied. If I took them with me, they’d all be caught and brought back here.
She watched him closely. “But you wouldn’t.”
He shook his head once, and it gave Marie chills. She wondered just how powerful their experiment was, just how much he’d been hiding from them.
Tentatively, she said, “You know what’s outside the complex, don’t you? Can you actually feel beyond the walls?”
Twelve-A looked away. His silence was answer enough. All of their precautions, all of their procedures, all their efforts to keep him ignorant of his humanity…all had been for naught. Twelve-A had been in contact with the real world since the moment he’d been born.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Marie said. “I promise.”
#
That night, she drafted an anonymous letter to the funding committee, to three separate civil rights groups, to eight government officials, to six leading scientists, and to three different news agencies. She knew it would end her career. She knew she and her colleagues would spend the rest of their lives in prison. But, after everything she’d done, it seemed a fitting demise.
To Marie’s surprise, her letter was not published the next day. Nor the next. Not even a whisper of it came in the weeks that followed. Her only indication that something had happened was the Colonel’s increasingly terse attitude, his shortening temper.
“Get Twelve-A,” he snapped upon entering on the final morning. “He has another demonstration to make.”
“No!” Marie cried, stepping between the iron-faced Lieutenant Carter and the holding area. “You promised, Colonel.”
Codgson’s eyes were chipped obsidian as he said, “Someone betrayed us to Congress. Confirmed their suspicions. Their ships are coming. The committee is here to decide which specimens to use in the fight against the Dhasha commander. They want to see Twelve-A in the Dark Room, to see just how much they can do with him.”
“Let me do it,” Marie said, desperate, now. “Let me retrieve him.”
The Colonel glanced back to frown at her. “Why?”
“He is like a son to me.”
“He is an animal, Doctor.”
It took all of Marie’s willpower to say, “It’s not a crime to be fond of one’s dog, Colonel.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Make sure he’s in the Dark Room in six minutes.”
Marie was shaking as she walked down the corridor. Congress was coming, and Earth would feel its wrath for ages to come. She, and every other scientist who worked on the experiments, would be killed. The experiments themselves would be murdered, the labs destroyed. Their only hope of avoiding the coming apocalypse was if the experiments could do w
hat they were created to do.
Defend them.
Defend them against a power so great it spanned the entire universe.
Marie felt helpless as she approached Twelve-A’s cell. She’d tried to help, but she’d brought the aliens to their doorstep, instead.
It wasn’t you, Twelve-A told her, looking up from his cot to meet her gaze with solemn blue eyes. I never let you send that letter.
Marie clearly remembered sending it. She remembered checking her Sent files and getting Delivery Confirmation on the physical drafts, just to make sure.
Then Marie gasped at what the minder was trying to tell her. She had been in her own home when she drafted and sent those letters, twenty miles from the lab. His influence couldn’t possibly reach that far. But if it had…
What was the limit?
Fearful, Marie began backing away. Twelve-A watched her soberly through the bars.
He was huddled in one corner, his lanky knees tucked under his chin. Once more, she felt like she was caught in the tiger’s stare, but this time the tiger was debating.
After a moment, Twelve-A looked away.
Marie sank down to her knees in front of him, relief washing over her. Softly, she said, “I can help you get out of here. I can help you start new lives on the surface.”
Twelve-A’s blue eyes flickered back toward her. We can’t go now. The aliens will kill us.
Marie felt like she’d been struck. “You know about the aliens?”
I’ve been watching them. They’re destroying the other labs. This is the only one they haven’t found.
Marie blinked at him, once again shocked by how much he had managed to hide from them.
“We need you to fight,” she whispered. “We need you to stop the—”
I’m not killing the aliens.
“But you’ve got to help us defend the—”
No, Twelve-A thought. I don’t.
Coldness settled in the pit of Marie’s stomach. “You’re going to kill us, aren’t you?”
I’m killing everyone who knows about this place, Twelve-A said, his voice cold and final. It’s the only way the People are going to survive.
Marie met the deep blue of his gaze and sweat slid like ice down her back as she began to bargain for her life. “Once we’re dead, then what? Where will you go? What will you do?”
Twelve-A swallowed hard.
“You don’t know anything about the real world,” Marie insisted. “I can help you create new lives for yourselves. I can help you adapt. I’m your friend, Twelve-A. I can help you.”
He didn’t answer her. Looking drained, he got to his feet. Come with me to the Dark Room. I want you to watch something.
Reluctantly, realizing she didn’t really have a choice, Marie did. Once they stood outside the small green door, Twelve-A gave her a gentle nudge down the hall, toward the observation booth. Confused, she went.
Inside, the occupants were milling in obvious agitation. Every face she had ever seen inside the lab was there, checking their watches, grimacing at the blond experiment pacing in the Dark Room. As more staff filtered into the observation booth, Marie anxiously glanced from Twelve-A to the group of observers and back, wondering what he planned for them. Her entire body trembled with fear and adrenaline. She’d heard the mental’s death was painless, like falling asleep. She was terrified she was about to find out.
“So what are we waiting for, Colonel?” one of the generals finally demanded. The group had become more and more aggravated as nothing happened in the room before them.
“We’re waiting for your test subjects,” the Colonel replied briskly.
The general’s face went slack. “What test subjects? We’re here because you told us your famous Twelve-A could do something that would save billions of lives.”
At Colonel Codgson’s frown, a man in a pristine black suit bitterly snapped, “Do not tell us you brought us all together to waste our time, Colonel.”
The Colonel stared back at them in complete confusion. “I never sent for you.”
A thin woman with short-cropped brown hair entered the room and shut the door behind her on the Colonel’s last words. Frowning, she said, “You didn’t? Then who did?”
In the center of the Dark Room, Twelve-A stopped pacing. He turned, his ice-blue eyes cold beyond the leaded glass.
Me.
It was like a mental thunderclap. Several members of the committee screamed and staggered toward the door. Only Colonel Codgson remained where he stood, staring at Twelve-A through the glass with a queer little smile.
Twelve-A looked at them through the glass, meeting each of their eyes, though Marie knew he couldn’t possibly see through the tinted windows.
I want you to know, Twelve-A said in a resounding mental boom, that I killed them because they didn’t want to live, not because you told me to.
Every expert and government in the room screamed and rushed for the door, throwing each other aside as they wrestled for the exit. Marie stayed where she was against the back wall, knowing that there was nowhere to run, nowhere she could hide from the telepath’s mental barrage.
But with you, Twelve-A continued, it’s because you deserve it.
Desperate men and women were making it out into the hallway, and Marie heard their frantic footsteps on the tiles of the corridor outside. Back in the Dark Room, the telepath shut his eyes and inclined his head slightly. As one, the two dozen uniformed men and women occupying the room around her collapsed in a silent, falling wave of flesh.
Except for Marie. She kept breathing, waiting for it to happen, but it never did. Minutes after her companions’ wide eyes began to glaze, she was stunned to find herself still standing amidst the corpses. Alive.
She looked at Twelve-A. Beyond the glass in the center of the Dark Room, his body had slumped to the floor with his victims. He was now lying on his side, half-curled into a fetal position, arms pulled in towards his chest. Heart thundering, Marie went to see if he lived.
Put me back in my cell, Twelve-A whimpered, when she entered the room and knelt beside him.
Marie recoiled. “Your cell? Why?”
I want to die.
“No!”
Do it.
It allowed no argument. In a daze, Marie drew him to his feet and helped him back into the containment area. As she settled him onto his bed, Twelve-A said, Please kill me.
The mental whimper was infused with so much emotional agony that it left Marie’s chest afire. Still, her eyes flickered toward the IV rack they used to keep the experiments sedate. “I’ll go get the drugs. They’ll make you feel better.” She turned to go.
Twelve-A caught her hand, his blue gaze intense. You should kill me, Marie.
“No,” she said, finding strength in the words, “I shouldn’t. I should get you and all your friends out of here.” She patted his warm, slender hand and Twelve-A released his hold. She went to the labs, got the drugs, and hooked them to the rack. As she was connecting his IV line to the bag, however, the minder stopped her. His cerulean eyes were angry.
If you’re not going to kill me, leave.
She winced at the force of his words, like hammers that pounded against the aluminum walls of her brain. “What about your friends?”
Don’t worry about us. Leave. Lock the doors and never come back.
Marie met his deep blue stare, saw the danger there, then dropped everything and hurried from his cell. She heard the gate to Twelve-A’s cage slam behind her as she went to the containment doors and wrenched them shut. She used her card to lock them, then rushed through the facility, gaining speed as she realized she was the only one left alive. The only one who knew about the experiments. The only one who could help them create new lives on the surface.
The only one who could keep them alive.
She could rehabilitate them. Find them jobs. Find them friends.
The guard was not at his booth. Buoyed by her new mission, Marie hurried past, pushed through the bullet-pr
oof glass doors, and locked them behind her with another swipe of her card. She followed the corridor, climbed the stairs, and exited through the single door at the top. Facing it, the entrance looked like the door to a decrepit coffee shop, with the Coffee House Express sign hanging askew and the paint peeling on the CLOSED FOR BUSINESS notice.
Under the façade, however, the door was tank-proof, the walls behind it bomb-proof. It would take nukes to get inside.
Marie locked the entrance with her card, sliding it through an inconspicuous crack in the wooden trim.
Thank you, Twelve-A told her. That should keep them out.
“Yes,” Marie said, hurrying toward her car. “But don’t worry—you won’t be in there long. I’ll find somewhere to keep you. The war will make it harder, but once I’ve got living quarters and food, I’ll come back for you.”
You don’t understand, Marie.
She stuck her key into her Ford. “Don’t understand what?”
Once it’s safe, we’re going to get ourselves out.
“But I can—” Terror infused Marie’s soul as she realized why Twelve-A had left her alive. Babbling, Marie said, “Please, Twelve-A. I can help you. I won’t tell anyone. Please—you don’t need to kill me.”
Twelve-A gave a mental shudder, buoyed on a wave of self-loathing. It’s always so hard.
Even as she opened her mouth to scream, a wave of calmness overpowered her. Her eyes drifted shut and she slid to the concrete beside her car, the keys tumbling from her hands to clatter on the cement. Trapped in the darkness of her own body, Marie felt her heart stop.
Somewhere, deep underground, Twelve-A replaced the IV line and closed his eyes. His shoulders began to shake as he waited for oblivion to take him.
-END-
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