The Yellow Pill

by Chaves, Michelle

  “Wait… you said that no one leaves… Dome… but the ones who were taken out… they might be alive?”

  Li shook his head at her. “No. I’m sorry Frey, but no one is kept alive more than the time it takes them to interrogate them…”

  What interrogation?! Why are they pulling people out of Slum City?! And why the hell are they killing us?! Why is everything I’ve seen so far like the opposite of the Slum City? Why does that Jon person have Jin’s face? Why did they try to kill me?!! Why the hell is there a City built around mine?!! Frey wanted to shout the questions at his face, grab the glass table and hurl it into the damned glass walls and see at it all break into millions of pieces. She wanted to hurt someone, blame someone, get her fingers around someone’s neck and strangle them!

  Suddenly Li was at her side as if he had read her very thought. She hadn’t noticed she’d stood up. Li circled his arms around her.

  She tried to fight it, but suddenly all the energy went out of her. It was all too much. It all seemed like a dream and this was going to be over soon.

  But then the tears came and she knew she wasn’t about to wake up.

  She sobbed and shook, Li all the while holding her tight, not saying a word.

  Frey couldn’t stop her tears, or the raking sobs from escaping in loud wails. It was like all the times she had held back, all the times when she had forced herself not to show sorrow or hurt, swallowing her tears and pretended nothing was wrong, all seemed to have piled up like an enormous mountain of pent up strain, now breaking out from its enclosure and avalanching down on her.

  She had no idea for how long she cried, or how long she was clambering hold of Li’s shoulders, but the sobbing slowly let its grip around her lessen and left a throbbing in her chest and head.

  Frey slowly pushed away from Li, noticing they were sitting on the floor. She wiped her face with her t-shirt. “I… I just feel like being alone for a while. Please,” Frey said, her eyes sore and swollen.

  “Just tell the system if you need me or anyone else.” He stood up and pointed to the food. “And please be a good patient and eat your food. You must be starving.” Li left her alone in the gigantic living room and Frey pulled down the tray to rest in her lap, eating all the food without really tasting it.

  She folded her arms around her legs and let big, hot tears roll down her cheeks. This time she cried in silence.

  Chapter 8

  Her wounds were closing up fast. Injury wasn’t something new to her. You were never free of it in Slum City. When she had asked Li about the abnormal healing speed, he had told her that the fast healing helped the speeding as it was a cell built substance that added to the body’s own. Her body had reacted very well to it since she had never had it before. The more you used it, the more the body depended on it. The one he had given her was purely a chemical creation, he assured her.

  The tight, dark grey singlet had been the darkest top in the pile. She also chose a pair of dark pants with deep-set pockets. The embroidered flames running along the left side of the singlet were so discreet you could only tell when the light hit it in a certain way or if you ran your fingers over it.

  There were strange looking sandals next to the pile, glittering gems sewn into the sides, creating delicate patterns. Next to them were a few other like the first, like something more belonging on a shelf with a big sign saying: “look, but don’t touch”, than on someone’s feet. The pair of shoes farthest to the right were black and low cut, looking a lot like her old sneakers but without the permanent grime. Frey didn’t have to think twice. They fit her feet as if they’d been made for her.

  “Tina picked those out for you,” Li laughed. “I’m afraid the boys downstairs chose the rest.”

  With all the tangles out of her hair, the braid now reached the small of her back. She knew she looked different. Having looked at herself in the mirror she had been a bit shocked herself. Her big green eyes stood out suddenly. Her hair was dark brown, where it before had seemed black, and it didn’t look like a basket of knotted rope anymore.

  Frey fell in behind Li while she rubbed her arm, still having a hard time seeing her skin so clean. The scarring stood out all the more and she was reminded of all the times she and Jin, had ended up bloody and hurt.

  Li led her through his apartment and Frey marveled at how big it was.

  The glass elevator was uncomfortable. Frey had never feared heights, but caught herself holding onto the rail on both side, imagining the floor crack below her feet.

  “It is quite safe,” Li assured her.

  “Why does everything have to be made of bloody glass?”

  “Why…” Li said slowly, as if he hadn’t given it much thought. “That’s how it’s always been, and I’ve been around for some time, mind you.”

  “How old are you?” She asked, having wondered that for some time now.

  They were going down very fast judging from everything speeding past.

  Li looked at her for a while. “Older than I look…” He wouldn’t say more and she didn’t press him.

  It took them another twenty seconds to reach the basement. And yes, basement was finally a word that seemed to fit the description in her eyes. The only exception was that the roof was high.

  It was like a labyrinth with all the tables and walls, screens and boards, glassed in rooms, computers and cords practically everywhere. It was organized chaos.

  To the left was a kitchen area, simple and reminding her of home, although these were clean and with not one scratch visible on the surfaces. Farthest to the right was a couple of slide doors, these ones black and not made out of glass. One for women and one for men.

  “Toilets,” Li said while they snaked their way around tables and shelves, moving towards the wall at the end, where a black screen covered the entire wall. It was showing recordings of different parts inside the Dome building.

  Every face turned to watch her as she walked past and Frey felt herself tense at being the centre of attention. People were whispering and pointing, but Li told them to get back to work and they did.

  She recognized most of the equipment. The computers, the televisions screens, the printers and scanning machines, cameras and film cameras. There was a lot more she had seen before but never known the purpose for. Compared to all the other eclectic equipment so far, this looked old and worn.

  “This equipment cannot be traced or hacked. The basement also cuts off any modern communication device,” Li explained when she asked. They made their way up to the big screens at the end.

  The man Jonas and Tina, Frey recognized. There were three others, sitting at one desk each, two of them with headphones on, only covering one ear.

  “Jon and Tina you have met. Our two hackers are Harry and Lallie. They happen to be twins, even if they do not look it and work with decoding information from whatever line we can tap into. Harry you have actually met as well.

  “Almost broke my finger,” he said holding his hand up.

  Li ignored him. “The big man is Lukas. He is part of our solider Intel together with Jon. They work undercover for the guard force. Tina is our computer technician. She also handles getting us past firewalls and such obstacles.” Li looked at them in turn. “Don’t bury her with questions,” Li said before turning to Frey again. “I am off to maintain my outwards appetence, if there is anything you need, just ask anyone here and they will help you. I will be back tomorrow morning,” the latter he said to the rest of the group as well.

  Frey turned to Tina as she came up to her, Li heading back to the elevators. “He’s the most famous cell developer in Alya. He’s also the only reason we’re able to have come so far. Without his help and his investment, we would be… well, not here. Coffee?”

  “Ah, no.” It was the second time Frey had heard the name Alya and by now she was pretty sure it was the name of this city.

  Tina went off to the kitchen area. Frey glanced up at Jonas and found herself wondering if Jin had really been as tall as
this man was. He wasn’t as big as Lukas, who looked ready to fight a bull, but they still competed in height.

  The man with Jin’s face did a poor job at hiding his surprise as he took her in, but she didn’t blame him. Compared to what they had hauled into the truck she knew it was like night and day.

  Frey stood a little straighter and met his eyes, knowing that was something Jin always hated. It was almost creepy when Jon made the same crooked downward twist of the mouth and looked away.

  “You look good,” Tina said as she came back with two white, tall cups. “Got some water for you. Let’s go into the conference room, it’s quite and private.”

  Lukas pushed off the wall as Harry and Lallie stood up to be replaced by two others. Jon followed right behind Tina and Frey.

  Damn these people are tall… Frey could feel her muscles tense as they did whenever she felt threatened or prepared for a fight. She forced herself to relax with some difficulty.

  They sat down around a very normal looking table, and except for the digital glass screen and the white package of something laying in the middle of the table, she could recognize every object in here.

  Frey already felt more comfortable from the little time she had spend down here than all the time spent in “her” room. This place, she could at least connect to.

  Luke slid the door close behind them, shutting out all the outside noise. He then strode to leaned back against it, arms crossed. Jon sat next to her, Tina to her left and the twins on the other side. She had a feeling they all had at least as many questions as her.

  Their questions might tell her a thing or two about this place and who they were. “Li told me there were things you wanted to know.”

  The others exchanged a few glances, apparently having expected her to start.

  Harry leaned forward, not able to keep the eagerness out of his voice. “Then I’ll start. How did you do it? I mean, the escape part? You made it hard for them to get you out and then they couldn’t use the sleep smoke on you. So how? How did you do it?” This was something all of them wanted to know she guessed, since they all looked at her with eyes that spoke of hunger.

  Sleep smoke… so that’s what they use to get in and out silently. That’s why no one ever saw anything and why the orphanage was still half asleep, the beggars all knocked out…

  Frey told them what had happened, starting from nightfall. She told them everything up until when the shot had pierced her stomach.

  “Did you see any of the layout in Dome when you were escaping?” Lallie asked.

  Frey shook her head, frowning. “Not really.” Not like I had time to go sightseeing…

  “Do you know anyone on the inside, trying to get out? A sort of hidden resistance maybe?” Harry asked.

  Frey couldn’t help but laugh at that. It was a short bark with no merit in it whatsoever. Oh my God. They’ve got no idea. “Whoever stick their necks out too far, or ask one too many questions, disappear. No warning, no trace left behind.” She looked up at Jon first, then over to the rest. “That’s enough to keep people from asking where I come from.”

  “But not you?” Jon asked. She found it hard to look away from his eyes.

  “I was four when my mum was murdered. Someone broke into our apartment, looking for something. She shoved me in a closet. There was a hole at the bottom of it and I could see everything. Over the wail from the street and screams inside the building, no one heard mine. Maybe someone tipped one of the gangs that there were valuables in there, I don’t know. When it was over I cried and wondered why they had killed her.” She shrugged her shoulders a little and crossed her arms.

  “Anyway, after that I lived on the street until I found the orphanage. Two years later, I found the first hidden camera. A year after that, another. Then I stared looking for them. It became a sort of game. I found more, but they were all too far away to reach.” The others sat silent and still around her, waiting for her to continue. “That’s what probably saved me from getting… ‘pulled out’, or whatever you call it. I don’t think anyone could really tell I was trying to get to the cameras.” She shrugged again. “The fact that more of the drop were made the older I got didn’t do much to lessen my urge to question.”

  “Oh, you mean the package?” Harry asked. “We only have a little information about that. Even Chris is unauthorized to access any more from it.”

  “That’s what makes us so interested in it,” Jon said. “If not even Chris can get to it from his position…”

  “Then it has to be something very important,” Tina concluded. “The question is why? Why are they keeping the package a secret?”

  “What I want to know is why they’re throwing it down there in the first place, like dog treats to a pack of starving beasts!” Frey said.

  The others looked at her, Lallie shifted in her chair while Harry scratched his neck, looking away. Lukas just closed his eyes and Tina looked like she wanted to say something but couldn’t.

  “You don’t droppings here, that for sure,” Frey said, leaning over the table pushing her finger hard into the surface as if to make her point. “People kill each others for the droppings. If it ends up near gang territory, then it’s a bloody massacre. You’re saying they don’t share the information with their staff, or whatever they are, at Dome? The packages must have a purpose, right?”

  “Frey,” Tina said softly. “We don’t know.”

  Frey covered her face in her hands, pushing her fingers hard into her temples. What was she doing here? Why had all of this ever happened? Nothing makes sense…

  “One thing’s for sure and that’s that we have been here fighting Dome and the three houses for years and others before us. We won’t be giving up now,” Jon said into the silence.

  Frey looked up. The same features as Jin, the very same stubborn expression he got when pulling his eyebrows together. The same voice.

  To her surprise the giant, Luke, spoke. “We don’t understand, not yet. But we are trying to.”

  Frey stood up, suddenly feeling like the room was too full of people. They didn’t come from where she came from… how could they ever know what her life had been like? Even if she sat down and talked for years, they still wouldn’t get it. “Shit,” she said.

  She felt a heavy hand on her shoulder. “We might seem very alien to you, but we still have a heart like you, and we do name ourselves the resistance for a reason. We want to change things around here, change what the government and Dome is doing. But to do that we need all the help we can get. I don’t think you know how lucky we are to have met you.” Luke waited for Frey to look up at him again. “We need you, but more than anything else, Frey, we need you to trust us.”

  He did make a lot of sense. She hadn’t expected him to tell her the latter, but the rest did make sense.

  “I think we need a break. Jon, why don’t you take Frey up to the roof? She hasn’t been outside since she came, right?” Luka’s asked Jon, releasing his grip on her.

  “Come back down whenever you feel ready, hun.” Tina told her as she filed out with the others, leaving Jon and her alone.

  The words stuck as if her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth. She followed him in silence as he led the way back to the elevators, wondering why she didn’t dare ask the question that was the very loudest within her, yelling and fighting to be heard.

  Chapter 9

  Jon touched the green holographic image above the number fifty.

  “So, who owns the rest of the building?” Frey asked as they were making their way to the top. Jon turned to her. His red-ish blond hair was tied at the nape of his neck with a black string, a few strands having come loose at the front. It hurt to see him even wearing his hair the same way as Jin. Their personalities and expressions were so alike that it was impossible to dismiss as a coincident. They truly could have been one and the same person…

  He leaned back against the side of the elevator, arms crossed. Jin did that when he was troubled or cranky. When he was h
is normal happy go lucky, he would spontaneously rub Frey’s hair, or clasp his hands behind his neck while walking or standing.”

  “Li owns it.”

  “Huh?”

  “Li. He owns the building, all of it.”

  “The whole thing? Sorry, got distracted there for a while,” she said.

  “That’s fine.” He kept his posture.

  The “I’m not totally happy” pose. The words came out before she could stop herself. “What’s troubling you?” She knew what Jon would do before he did it and it made her feel strangely at ease. This was something she knew, a situation she could deal with.

  Jon unfolded his arms to shove them into the front of his light grey pants, shuffling his legs a bit as he looked over her head and to the side before looking back down at her. “Well… I don’t know. It’s just strange, you know. We’ve never been able to make contact with anyone from Hole throughout all this time. We’ve seen a snapshot here and there, or short recordings but that’s it, and now we have a person from Hole right here… a person.” He shrugged. “How can you know what to expect from that? You’re…”

  “Not what you expect?” Frey asked, having taken over the stance with her arms crossed.

  “Well, no… and yes… I don’t know. I guess I’m still confused at the speed of everything.”

  The elevator stopped and the door slid open. Focusing on him had helped her avoid looking down, imagining those cracks spider-webbing from her feet.

  “I just can’t believe how lucky we were. A couple of seconds later and they would have killed you.” He stepped out onto the open platform that was nothing like what Frey had expected. “Well, I guess you must feel the same to say the least.”