Then there is only blackness.
***
“Hey Charlie, I’ve got to go.” Bryne downs her tequila in a single gulp and slams the glass back onto the counter. The techno beat thumps throughout the crowded nightclub.
“Why?” Charlie whines as he grips her arm. “You promised you’d wing man for me tonight.”
“No,” she laughs. “I promised I’d come have a drink with you. That was two. I have to be up early tomorrow.”
“For what?” Charlie turns and raises his arms as his hips gyrate to the pulsing beat. He points around the VIP section and down to the floor packed with bodies dancing below them. There’s no difference between the elites in the balcony and the ones who party downstairs. They all move with vacant eyes and wandering hands searching for a comfort they’ll never grasp. “What is more important than this?”
“It’s my sister’s birthday tomorrow.” Bryne shrugs. “I don’t want to be late.”
***
“Mom, wake up.” Bryne smooths down the pleats of her skirt as she stands at the side of her parents’ bed. “It’s almost time to go.”
“Go where?” Bethany mumbles. She gives her mother a minute to register where she’s at. The bottles of pills on the nightstand the doctor prescribed make her groggy in the mornings.
Bethany forces herself awake and sits up against the mahogany headboard. She fumbles for the eye mask and pushes it up. The elastic band causes her hair to tangle. Bryne clicks the remote allowing the sun to filtrate the room of their high-rise apartment.
“We need to go see your daughter on her birthday.” She rolls her eyes. “Don’t tell me you forgot.”
“Oh honey.” Bethany stifles a yawn with the back of her hand and shuts her eyes against the light. “I thought I told you that we can’t go see her today.”
“What?” Bryne’s smile falters. “Why wouldn’t we go see her? It’s her birthday. They always allow visitors on her birthday.”
“Not this year.” Bethany blinks as her eyes begin to focus. “Dr. Briar is running some sort of test. He had to move her to a different facility temporarily.”
“Are they waking her up?” Bryne shrieks in excitement.
“No, no. Not yet.” Bethany glances toward her sleeping husband. “Your dad had a long night. Keep it down so he can get some rest. We will go next year for her birthday. I promise.”
Bryne begins to protest and Henry groans as he reaches for the pills on his nightstand.
“Shh.” Her mother places a red painted fingernail over her lips and motions for Bryne to leave.
***
“To Red Pine Hospital,” Bryne directs the automated taxi system as she slams the car door behind her.
“Music, Miss?” the automated system asks.
“Yes,” she answers. “Classic rock and please make it loud.”
The taxi whips through the northside streets, winding through the posh neighborhood of elites. The homes owned by the generation of families still fertile and able to have children of their own. Red pine hospital is in this district, but the car rolls close enough to the outskirts where slums sprawl like rivers from the city.
Aging bodies slump against doorways of the red-light district. They pass the club Bryne was in last night with Charlie. It’s supposed to be one of the more reputable establishments. Its back door faces the slums. The front of the building is painted white with gold leaf trim. They want it to look pleasant, not like the rest of the world. It’s supposed to look like it isn’t in the red-light district.
Isn’t every place here red-light? she thinks. Everyone is just sleeping around with one another hoping something will stick. But the building is supposed to not offend children. This whole neighborhood was designed to give children a wonderful childhood.
That might have been true once. There were bigger kids when she was a young girl, kids Emma’s age, but it wasn’t like that when she went to school. She and Charlie were the only ones in her class. Even her fertile mother couldn’t have more than two children. Now the whole world is wasting away, lost in their own personal pity devices just like the expensive pill bottles on Bethany’s nightstand.
The music quiets just as a guitar riff reaches its crescendo. “We are here, Miss. How long should I wait?”
Bryne slides her credit card into the meter and leaves it there. “I’ll be back after I see my sister.”
***
“Good morning, Miss.” The front desk guard looks up from a stack of papers. The muscles of his biceps flex under his steely gray uniform. His size would cause anyone to shrink into themselves, but it doesn’t bother Bryne. He’d always snuck her pieces of candy on every yearly visit.
“Have you forgotten me already Frederick?” She bats her eyelashes. He studies her face for a moment.
“Little Miss Bryne.” Frederick finally smiles. “You’ve grown so much since last year. Where are your mother and father?”
Bryne moves closer to the desk. “My mother said they moved Emma to a different facility for some sort of test. I’d like to know where she is so that I can visit my sister for her birthday.”
“Hmm.” Frederick scratches the top of his head, running his fingers against the salt-colored fade stubble. “I’ve never known them to move anyone. Where else would they go?” He turns his attention to the computer screen.
“Here she is.” He taps the digital file. “Right where she’s always been. I wonder why your mother thought that. Maybe there was a miscommunication somewhere.”
“Probably in her drug riddled brain,” Bryne mumbles under her breath.
“Are we good then?” She smiles brightly. “Can I get my pass?”
“Are you eighteen already?” Fredrick looks up from the screen. “How did I get so old?”
“Not yet.” Bryne’s cheeks flush as she remembers the need for adult supervision in the stasis rooms. “But I will be in a few months,” she hurries to add.
“I am sorry,” Frederick says with genuine concern. “Why don’t you see if your parents can make it down here after all, now that you know she is still here?” Bryne mentally calculates the amount of time it’ll take her mother to get ready.
“Visiting hours will be over before they can come.” Frustrated tears well in her eyes. “Please Frederick, this might be the last time I’ll get to see her before the final test.”
“The tests have been positive for you?” he asks hopefully and then coughs in embarrassment. “I’m sorry, that’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s okay.” She smiles. Everyone gets excited when they hear of more fertile women. “I’ve been acing everything so far. We’ll see what the final test in a few months has to say.” Frederick chews his bottom lip.
“Take it,” he whispers sliding the pass into her hand as easily as he did the peppermint patty when she was five.
“Thank you so much,” she beams as she slips the lanyard around her neck. He presses the release switch on the steel door behind him.
***
The heels of her shoes click down the linoleum floors of the long and empty hallway. Fluorescent lights give an eerie glow to this silent portion of the hospital. When Bryne was younger, she’d clung to her mother’s warm hand as they walked this hall. Now that hand was as cold as the sterile hospital air flowing from the vents.
It was the pills that did it, Bryne thinks bitterly. She couldn’t have another healthy pregnancy and she lost Emma to this place. She’ll lose me too and she can’t cope with this shit world we live in.
The hall turns sharply left and heads deeper into the underbelly of the building. At the end is the basement freezer where they keep the fertile girls in cryogenic sleep until it’s time to be awakened.
Where I’ll be soon, Bryne sighs as she slides the guest pass key against the entrance lock.
Emma’s container number is 22. It’s near the back of the room. Bryne passes the familiar faces of the girls locked tightly in the clear glass tubes, frozen and floating in their blue
liquid sleep of death.
Not death, Bryne reminds herself to calm her anxieties. Just sleep. If Emma is strong enough to do this then so am I.
She passes by the container holding the girl with floating braids who has been there longer than Emma. Then she pauses as she recounts the numbers of the tubes. There is no mistake. Number 22 is empty. Emma isn’t asleep where she should be.
Bryne stands horrified as she stares at the empty stasis tube. There is no clear blue gel, no preservatives keeping her sister afloat as it has been for the past fourteen years. Emma isn’t there waiting for Bryne to sing her happy birthday. Where the hell is she?
The sound of clicking heels echoes from the far corner of the room. Out of instinct, Bryne dives behind tube 21 and curls herself into a ball. The footsteps come closer.
Holding her breath, she peeks out from behind the fluid filled glass to find a young doctor with a wart on her nose running temperature checks on the capsules. Bryne pulls her head back and tries not to make any noise as she holds her legs tightly against her chest.
When the doctor gets to tube 22, she passes without a second glance. Anger clouds Bryne’s vision. Either that clipboard or that doctor knows where Emma is. She inhales deeply, standing upright, but the footsteps suddenly fade from the room as they exit through the back door.
Bryne races across the room to follow the sound. She catches the closing door before it shuts and holds it still in her hands for a moment. The hallway is empty. There’s no sign of the woman doctor that was there moments before. It’s as if she vanished into thin air.
She counts to three to steady herself before opening the door wide and walking down the hall. Her heels echo loudly against the fluorescent lit walkway so she kicks them off and laces them around her wrist. There are no doors and no windows, just white walls of empty space. The hall takes a sharp incline upward and seems to go for a mile until it reaches a set of cement stairs.
The stairs are as empty and abandoned as the hall behind them. The cold cement floor slaps quietly beneath her bare feet as she climbs the steps two at a time until she gets the top.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” a large woman wearing a nurse’s cap barks at Bryne when she reaches the landing. The window shows the entire city beneath them in this uppermost portion of the hospital.
“I’m looking for my sister,” Bryne stammers. “She’s not in her stasis tube.”
The nurse’s eyes bulge in terror as she reaches for the girl. “Who let you in here?” Her breath is fiery hot again Bryne’s face.
“No one.” She stands her ground refusing to be escorted down the steps. “Like I said, I’m looking for my sister.”
“Well she’s not here,” the nurse spits, tugging roughly on Bryne’s arm. “You need to leave now.”
“I don’t think so.” Bryne peels back the woman’s fingers. “I want to see my sister. What’s behind that door?”
“Nothing.” The nurse glares at her. “Turn around and go back the way you came, or I’ll drag you back there myself.”
“No.” Bryne stares in outrage at the woman. “Move out of my way so I can see what’s behind that door.”
The nurse folds her sunburnt arms across her chest. “Get out of here now. I’m not making a suggestion.”
“Neither am I.” Bryne doesn’t budge. “Move out of my way.”
“You have no power here,” the nurse sneers. “All you elites are the same, thinking you are better than us just because you can breed. You’re no better than animals. We should keep you in stalls like pigs.”
Bryne isn’t fazed by the insult. She’s heard much worse in her life. Her family has always been treated differently because her mother had not only one, but two kids. Even the other mothers stopped talking to Bethany when she had Bryne. Everyone wants what they can’t have and no one in this world gets a choice anymore. Her mother didn’t, Emma didn’t, and she won’t either if she passes the final test.
“Move,” she sighs. “I’m going to see what’s behind that door and I’m not playing this game anymore with you.”
The nurse reaches her meaty hand to grab Bryne by her neck, but she dodges it and drops below the woman’s heavy arm. The nurse lunges forward again and manages to grab a handful of Bryne’s hair.
Bryne cries out and tries to twist away, but the woman tightens her grip, pulling her back from the door and toward the steps. Bryne swings her arms blindly. The heel of her shoe connects with the nurse’s back.
The nurse screams and releases her grip from Bryne’s head as she tries to dislodge the pointed tip of the shoe from her skin. Bryne looks up just in time to see the woman trip over the landing and stumble down the top step. She doesn’t hesitate. Bryne rips the lanyard from the nurse’s throat as the large woman crashes down the staircase with a sickening bone crunching thud.
She races to the security door and unlocks it. Her heart beats rapidly in her chest as she eases the heavy door open and looks inside.
Another empty hall. This one is lined with windows overlooking the slums of the city behind the hospital. Bryne quickly closes the door behind her and begins to search the patient rooms on her right. The steady hum of machinery covers the soft steps of her bare feet. Each room is empty, but the sound of machinery grows louder.
The elevator doors at the end of the hall ping, jarring Bryne into a panic. She quickly slips into one of the empty rooms and maneuvers herself quietly behind the door. The click of heels reverberates down the hall. She holds her breath as she peeks through the crack in the door hinge. The young doctor from the stasis room is walking to the security door.
When the heavy door slams behind the doctor, Bryne lets out a ragged breath and anxiously resumes her search. She ignores the open patient rooms and instead focuses on the sound of machinery. It grows louder until she reaches the last room in the hall.
“What is this?” Bryne cries in revulsion as she enters the room.
Emma lays stark naked on a hospital bed as a host of machines pump her legs and arms in various directions. Her knees bend and are pulled straight again. Plastic suction bags compress her extremities. Tubes stick out of her mouth and nose as IV lines push a mixture of fluids into her veins.
The color drains from Bryne’s face. In the center of the contraptions, in the middle of her sister’s body, Emma’s belly is overstretched and purple. The skin ripples as movement comes from inside.
“What the hell did they do to you?” Bryne screams as she races to her sister’s side. Emma lays unresponsive as the machines continue to contort her body.
“Stop it!” Bryne cries while searching for the plug to end this suffering. She yanks the cord from the wall and the machines go blissfully silent.
“Wake up Emma.” Tears streak Bryne’s cheeks as she gently pulls the tubes and needles from her sister’s body. “Please wake up. I need to figure out a way to get you out of here.” She ignores the movement in Emma’s stomach and searches for a sheet to cover her up.
“Please, please wake up.” She brushes the long blond hair away from Emma’s face and kisses her forehead.
Alarms sirens blare through the hospital causing an ear shattering screech in the quiet room.
“Where am I?” Emma croaks in a hoarse voice and instantly begins to cough.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Bryne cries. “Listen to me. We need to get you out of here. I don’t know what they did to you, but we need to leave now.”
Emma runs her hands over her body, her eyes widening in shock. “Who are you? What is happening?”
“It’s me Bryne,” she cries. “You weren’t in the stasis tube and I had to come find you. They did this to you. Now we need to get the hell out of here.”
“Okay.” Emma nods earnestly through the tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Can you stand?” Bryne asks as the sirens continue to blare around them.
“I’m going to try.” Emma forces her weak legs to move and clings to her sister as she pushes herself
up from the bed. Bryne groans under the weight but manages to keep them both upright as they head to the elevator.
“I’m going to be sick,” Emma whispers before vomiting yellow liquid all over the linoleum floor.
“Let’s just get out of here and I’ll find someone who can help us.” Bryne punches the button for the elevator and the doors slide open.
“Wait!” the doctor in heels emerges from the security door and screams at them from the end of the hall. Bryne raises her middle finger as the elevator doors shut.
“Now I’m really going to be sick,” Emma groans as she begins to dry heave.
“Just a few more floors,” Bryne reassures her.
“Miss Bryne!” Fredrick calls out as she exits the elevator and heads across the lobby to the front door, keeping Emma supported and moving forward. “What is going on here? I can’t let anyone leave.”
“Please.” Bryne turns to face him. Tears blur her eyes as she begs, “Look what they did to her. You have to let us go.”
Fredrick stares in amazement at Emma’s protruding belly. His face hardens.
“Don’t let those girls leave the premises!” The female doctor comes bursting through the steel basement entrance door. Old Doctor Briar stumbles breathlessly from the opposite hall.
“My God,” he gasps as rage overtakes his body. He points a shaky finger at Bryne. “What have you done?” Bryne inches backwards toward the exit pulling Emma along with her.
“Don’t let them leave,” the young doctor screams her command to Fredrick. He removes his taser from his guard belt.
“You stupid girl,” Dr. Briar spits. “Those babies do not belong to you. Security guard, I order you to detain them.”
“I don’t know what you did to my sister you sick bastard, but I promise you that you will never touch her again,” Bryne screams at the decrepit old man.
Emma clings to her arm, swaying as she tries to stand tall. Her voice is dry and cracked but it rings loudly through the waiting room, “You promised nothing would happen to me. You promised to take care of all the girls.”
“You spoiled breeding cows don’t know the first thing about science,” the female doctor continues advancing toward them. “Security guard, escort them to Doctor Briar’s office.”
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