The Harvested (The Permutation Archives Book 1)

by Kindra Sowder

  We had no identity. Not in there, and not anymore. Everything that made me who I was had been left outside the building in my apartment where it would remain forever. Even if we did manage to make it out, the person I had been before I’d been taken would still be gone. The experience of the place and the people around me would forever change me into someone else, and there was no way to avoid that. I was already becoming someone else entirely, and I had only been there for what I assumed was a day or two. If that was who I was changing into, then who would I be after an extended stay?

  As I observed the soldiers and captives continue to pass by my doorway, a pair of steel-gray eyes caught my attention. They were just like Julius’ eyes, but there was something else in them. Nero, Julius’ younger brother, watched me from across the way, anger in his stride. There was no trace of fear in him like there had been with Julius, me, or anyone else in the compound that wasn’t armed for that matter. If anything, the ones with the guns looked and walked as if they felt entitled, and that only made anger build up inside of me with more force.

  Nero walked to the cabin across the way from mine, and the blue aura fell into place once he was inside. There was so much blue in the place, it seemed to mirror the sadness and despair that I felt while separated from those on the outside.

  Nero stood on the other side of the corridor and stared at me. I made myself turn away to walk back over to the bed where isolation greeted me. I sat down and stared at the wall. It wasn’t as if there was anything else I could be doing at that moment. I could always take my position in front of the aura back, inspecting everyone as they strode through the hall, but what good would that do me? We were all trapped there, and I discerned we weren’t going to be getting out.

  Chapter 11

  The meal was full of anxiety, and somehow, I managed to choke down the food that they gave to me on a blue plastic tray. I figured they would separate us all, but fortunately for us, we were allowed to mingle. It had to have been so we wouldn’t feel confined and cut off from everyone around us and so they could avoid a riot. What no one told them is that they might get one depending on what they would be doing with all of us. That part remained to be seen. Two pairs of gray eyes found me as Julius and Nero made their way in my direction, taking seats across from me at the large, metal and plastic, communal table. There were quite a few of them spread about the dining hall.

  Guards stood around us like sentinels trying to make sure no physical contact transpired. That explained why I didn’t get a hug from either one of them, which was our usual greeting. I took it with a grain of salt and took inventory of the both of them as their trays remained untouched. Nero, who was normally very well groomed, looked as if he had just rolled out of bed. His hair was disheveled and falling over his eyes, cold steel peeking out at me. Slight stubble littered both of their jaws and the bags under their eyes caused them to look exhausted. I knew I looked the same way. At least they had provided us with the necessities to clean up a little bit before seeing each other outside the confines of our cabins.

  Julius’ hair looked as if someone had run their hands through it, but that was the best anyone could do in these conditions. I had pulled my hair up into a ponytail and changed into the new and clean white clothes they’d delivered by way of a small, air locked compartment inside of my cabin. It was standard issue for prison inmates. Was that where we were? A prison? I hoped not. The feeling of being a caged lab rat crept through my body yet again, and the feeling would never leave me.

  I caught the sight of a lot of muscles out of the corner of my eye and turned to see Cato sitting down next to me, not even caring to turn and look back at me. I could feel the cool metal of the table against my arms as I watched him spoon up what looked like some pasta into his mouth. We all had the same thing, but he made it look as if it was the best thing he had eaten while I could barely eat it. The only reason I was eating it was to keep my strength up. It was bland, nearly tasteless, and I fought hard not to spit it back out onto the tray.

  After taking a bite, I looked over to Cato again. He wouldn’t look up from his plate of food as he chewed furiously, his jaw working a lot harder than it needed to. I reached out and touched his shoulder tentatively, knowing full well I could get in trouble for doing so. I didn’t care. We had been friends all our lives, and I wasn’t about to change anything about our relationship. The only friend we were missing was Cecilia, and a hole in my heart opened just for her.

  “Cato?” I said, making his name more of a question.

  He froze with the fork almost at his open mouth, and then I saw it close and his jaw clench. The stress of getting abducted had gotten to him, and I didn’t blame him. He turned to me and what I saw in his eyes made mine well up with tears that burned and stung as I forced them back.

  There was sheer terror in his honey brown eyes, and all I could do was take my hand away from his shoulder to place it back on the table, looking away from his face and down at it. It looked as if we weren’t going to be doing much talking. I assumed we would all be all right with that. Then he did the unexpected. His hand gripped mine and gave it a reassuring squeeze as if everything would be okay. I wasn’t so sure about that anymore. While looking at his hand grasped around mine, I noticed there were fine scrapes on his knuckles as if he had tried to fight them off when they came for him. I took a glance at him, and he had a small red mark on his neck from where our captors injected him with Paralisix to make him more compliant. I wondered if any of them needed more of it as I had.

  From my observations, only a select few didn’t possess the same small marks on their necks and at the bends of their elbows. They had probably come willingly. I had decided even before those men came through my door asking for my blood, that I wasn’t willingly going to be forced to leave my home to go to an unknown place where no one could find me. A concrete pit formed in my stomach as I realized that no one would know where I was ever again, my sister and mother especially. I sighed and went back to my food, not daring to take my eyes away from the tray. The blue of it matched the mood of the entire room and the pit in my stomach grew even more robust. Silence fell over our table for a few moments, and that silence was deafening.

  “What do you think will happen to us?” Julius asked. His voice was rough and hoarse as if he had been screaming.

  All of us looked up at him in shock. We weren’t expecting conversation. At least I knew I hadn’t. As I sat there and stared at him, I wondered if it was a rhetorical question or if he expected any of us to answer. I went with a reply.

  “I wish I knew,” I whispered, looking back down at the blue tray and the white pasta in front of me. Fear crept back into me, and I felt myself flush, all the blood draining from my face. I couldn’t eat anymore of the tasteless stuff. I pushed the tray away and put my face in my hands, not sure what else to do with them. Then Cato spoke.

  “I guess all we can do is wait and form a plan once we know something. That’s the only thing I know to do.”

  His voice was low, and I could barely hear him though he was sitting next to me. I had to strain my ears once he started to be able to make out the words. My eyes shot up to his face, and he wouldn’t look at me. He was just staring down at his tray, pushing the noodles around with his fork, swirling the thin and watery red sauce.

  Nero looked at him, shock apparent on his face. “Why wait? Why not get out now?”

  “For one, we don’t know the layout of this place. Two, we don’t know anything about their security,” Cato stated.

  Then all I heard from them was a flurry of profound and angry voices, and I ran my hands through my hair and placed them on my ears, forcing a few tendrils to fall out of my hair tie and across my eyes. Fighting wasn’t going to get us anywhere except for in solitary. That was if they even had that there. At that point, I would’ve been okay with being locked away in a cold, dark, and silent room. I would rather have the silence than listen to them argue about something we had no control over. Yes, we need
ed a plan, but Cato was right. We didn’t know anything. We didn’t even know where we were. We needed at least that. I just wanted them to stop arguing first.

  I slammed my fist on the metal table, causing a slight dent in its smooth surface and I felt the eyes of all three of them on me. I didn’t need to look up to know they were staring. I chose that moment to look up at them and meet each one of their eyes, letting them know I was serious. If anyone understood that look, it would be Cato who had worked underneath his father at the family-owned leather shop in town.

  “We don’t even know where we are. We might need to know that before we do anything else.” I paused. “I’m scared too, but fighting amongst ourselves isn’t going to help us. I say we learn all we can here and then do something about it.” Meeting their eyes again, I realized each pair of them were wide with shock at my outburst. I had always been reserved and polite because that was what our society preached, but it wasn’t a time for either one of those things.

  After the surprise wore off they each nodded in agreement, looking down at their perspective trays. Julius pushed his away, and it made a soft clink against mine. The table grew silent again, and it was almost just as bad as the anger they were displaying just a moment ago.

  “How do you think Cecilia is doing?” Cato asked. I honestly had no idea, but at least she wasn’t here. She was the only one out of the group that was normal from the looks of it. I knew that Dictator King would find it suspicious that she was hanging with the likes of us. They would believe she had to know something, and I had no doubt in my mind they were at least interrogating her. I shrugged, not even sure if he saw me do it. I knew it had to be on everyone’s mind, but none of us said a word. We didn’t need to. It was an unspeakable truth that we couldn’t ignore, and I wanted nothing more than to do just that.

  I took a deep breath in and let it out, trying to stifle the nausea that crept up my throat. I will not throw up, I kept repeating that mantra to myself in my thoughts as I sat there, not looking any of them in the eye. I just couldn’t. Fear and panic moved through me and left a chill behind as if I was feverish and the sweat that broke out on my forehead didn’t help. We were in deep and trapped in the middle of nowhere with no idea as to our location. We were flown here, drugged and paralyzed and we couldn’t do anything to stop it.

  All I could do was imagine what they had in store for us. They said research, but what did that entail? They already took my blood. What else could they take from me in the pursuit of knowledge? What would they do with it once they found it? I was too scared of the answer to even ask, but I knew someone would.

  As if he could read my thoughts Nero asked, “What do they want from us?”

  My head shot up, and I found that both Cato and Julius were looking to him as well. I searched the cold steel of his gaze for anything but fear, but that’s all that was there. The same went for Julius and Cato, and I was certain fear was showing plain on my face too. What did they want? None of it had started until they had found the abnormality in our genetics and they had plans for it and wanted to look into it. That was the only reason people looked into anything like that. The only reason was to use it, and that was an absolute truth I could see in all of human history.

  “Power,” I said. All three pairs of eyes were on me. “They want power and we’re the ones who have it.”

  Belief and trepidation crossed their faces, and I could honestly say I felt the same thing. We did have the power. What type of a person in a place of authority didn’t want that? None that I knew of, and we were going to give it to them, or they would take it from us.

  Chapter 12

  It was the next morning and after a breakfast of the worst pancakes I had ever had, Ryder and another soldier I had never seen escorted me through the compound. My shoes squeaked on the tile floors and both men walked along either side of me, hands gripped on the weapons strapped across their chests. I began to wonder how fast I could grab one of the guns in their hip holsters before they had a chance to shoot me. They were faster, and I was willing to place a bet on that any day of the week. Ryder flanked my right. The other soldier was to my left, making me feel trapped even more than I already did.

  When they came to collect me from my cabin, Ryder had done his best to avoid looking me in the eyes as the other soldier led me out by my arm. His grip was firm, and the look in his deep brown eyes was full of absolute terror that he was failing miserably to hide, his face set in a stern expression. No amount of resolve could hide the fear he was feeling. He was even perspiring, a trickle of it running down his neck from his hairline.

  As we walked, we passed room upon room on both sides of the hallway, each with their designated purpose. It looked to me as if there was shatterproof glass that made up each door. They were made just like the ones Doctor Aserov had come through when I had first come to the compound. The thought of receiving more Paralisix sent sheer panic down my spine, but I tried my best to choke it down. That one experience was enough for me. Not even twenty yards ahead, I could see the blue glow of an aura that separated that part of the compound from another, and it looked as if we were going to be going through it. I could feel the anxiety within me making my heart race, and a cold sweat took over causing goose bumps to break out over my flesh, and the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up.

  Once we were only a few feet from the aura, Ryder said, “Stop right here.” Knowing the words were directed toward me I stopped, the newcomer gripping my arm a little too hard now. He moved forward and placed his hand upon it, a glowing white circle forming around his outstretched fingers. It turned as if scanning his hand and trying to determine his identity. The machine seemed more advanced than the ones in the doorway of our cabins. That was great information to have.

  After a few seconds, it stopped spinning and began to glow a bright green, clearing him for access. A sharp female voice came from the aura stating his name as Ryder Jameson and his rank of sergeant. I raised my eyebrows in surprise, staring at his back as he refused to look away from the aura. While the position was impressive, I was surprised he wasn’t higher on the totem pole. He did strike me as the type to pass up a leadership role, but why? It wasn’t my place to ask, so I kept quiet, but it didn’t stop me from questioning it. He came back to my side, and we began to walk again, both of them leading me by my arms, his touch hot and sweaty while the other soldier’s was cold. Ryder’s hand was rough against my skin, a sign of the life he led being an active part of defending all we had left. I heard the electric snap of the aura as it zapped back into place once we crossed the invisible line and I took a glance back, my steps slowing as I watched the aura pulsate with energy. The other officer jerked me forward to drive my eyes back in the direction of our destination.

  The rooms beyond that point were much larger than the one I woke up in when I first arrived, and most likely used for advanced testing. Cool blue lights lined the floor and ceiling, and there wasn’t a single fluorescent light in the room. I sighed a breath of relief. These lights were better on my eyes. Ryder and the other soldier, I never caught his name, directed me to the right, and we stood in front of a sliding glass door. I was waiting for it to slide open on its own, but Ryder stepped forward again, placing his hand on a device on the wall next to the door that identified him much like the aura before it.

  Once the doors glided open, I was steered into the room and directed to sit on the metal examination table placed in the middle of the expansive space. Doctor Aserov was waiting for me and was looking for information on the computer screen exactly like the one she had used before. My photo was displayed, but that was all I could make out. The information on it was so small, I couldn’t decipher any of the words on the screen. All I could do was sit on the table like a good patient and learn as I went. The good doctor looked away from the screen and a smile spread across her face when she spotted me. Her blonde hair was swept back from her face in a loose bun on the back of her head, her bangs falling to frame her face.

/>   “Mila,” she said moving toward me with her hand outstretched in greeting, “It's very nice to see you again. I will be responsible for all of your testing from now on.”

  I shook her hand and couldn’t make myself beam back at her because there wasn’t anything to be happy about. I was taken from my home, and I had no indication as to what was happening to my family or Cecilia, the only friend who was left behind. I nodded in response because I wasn’t even sure what I could say. That was if anything would come out once I opened my mouth to speak.

  Again, the room was stark white, and the blue lights were the only lights in the room. She saw me eyeing the lights and decided to elaborate on them.

  “These lights are for our more sensitive subjects,” she stated matter-of-factly as if that answered all my questions. It didn’t, but I wasn’t going to ask just like I wouldn’t probe the soldiers who had escorted me to the room.

  Medical equipment decorated the space, stored in multiple places. Shelves contained things I had never seen. I rarely ever got sick, so most of a doctor’s tools were unrecognizable. The drawers of the cabinets were labeled, but the print was small. My only guess was that it was intentional to keep us from snooping. We couldn’t know what they were up to because we might try to escape or fight the tests and they couldn’t have that. If we fought too hard, we would have to be exterminated, and they couldn’t risk their precious subjects. Of course, I was only guessing, but a lot of the evidence pointed to me being right.