Fallen Angels (Dystopian Child Prodigy SciFi) (The Unmaker Series Book 2)

by Casey Herzog

  “Stop,” he breathed. It was not just an angry hiss that escaped his lips, not simply a release of the frustration he’d been feeling for the past hours. It was an order.

  And it worked.

  It took Russell a few moments to realize the prisoners standing behind and around him had stopped moving. The silence was deafening, and he slowly rose to his feet to look at the broken men who filled the cavern.

  “Enough.”

  His words echoed. Everybody listened. Deep down, past their brutally imposed submission and their lack of fight, the prisoners wanted hope. Needed hope. They stood and listened, for there was something in the man’s voice that promised them an alternative to the chains the Coalition used to hold their minds captive.

  “Enough of this,” Russell said again. “Enough of our lives being worthlessly thrown away like garbage. Enough of our bodies being used up until there’s nothing left. Enough of keeping our heads down and saying ‘yes, sir’ to these green upstarts who call themselves soldiers. Enough!”

  Expressions changed within the crowd. His words were reaching them, getting into their thoughts and making them think differently about their current situation. Ah, didn’t take them long, Russell thought as he saw guards approaching. They were coming, but he wasn’t done.

  “Now they come, to silence me. To shut me down and make me disappear. Why? Because I can wake you up from this sleep and make you realize just how fucked up this is.” He paused, catching sight of the female guard from earlier and a squad of other guards, all shouting orders at him. “Are you ready to return to scraping metal off walls tomorrow? Or are you going to stand up and change this? Is this why we defeated the Outsiders? Is this what humanity is now?!”

  The lashes came flying straight at him, but Russell was done sitting back and taking abuse. He caught the carbon fiber whip in his metal hand and looked dead into the eyes of the guard who had attacked him.

  “Prisoner, this is your last warning,” the woman yelled through the helmet’s speakers. “Stand down!”

  Russell tightened his grip and lowered his voice to a whisper.

  “The beaten dog has just woken up.” He pulled her forward with a ferocity that lifted her off her feet, and rapidly swiveled on his hips to deliver a bone-crunching metal fist into her face. The helmet cracked inward, and he heard a satisfying groan as the guard fell to the ground in pain.

  “Fight them!” a man with a high-pitched voice cried, and the cheers mixed with roars as scores of exhausted, but suddenly vengeful, prisoners picked up pickaxes and threw themselves at their captors with renewed fury.

  Russell pounced forward into the melee and laughed as he struck, shrugging attacks off his resilient form with arrogance he hadn’t felt in months. As he caught batons and threw his bionic arm forward to stop the lashes from reaching his face, a sudden moment of certainty passed over him.

  This prison — from the cellblocks to the mines and everything surrounding it — it is all going to be my new Ayia.

  And nobody is going to stop me.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Fridges

  Alex looked up at the sound of the door being unlocked and lifted a hand to calm the children.

  “It’s alright, kids,” he managed to say before two men burst inside with boxes in their hands; a third figure walked in behind them.

  “Hello, kindergarten,” the black-eyed child mocked. There was a pistol in his hand, which he tapped against his leg lazily as he watched his thugs kick the boxes towards Alex and the kids.

  “What’s this?” Alex asked. He opened the cardboard packages and pulled out yellow garments made of plastic. Coats, he realized. There were also gloves, most kid-sized, but other larger ones for him and the older kids. “Oh, how thoughtful of you,” he said sarcastically as he lifted the smallest gloves for all to see.

  One of the thugs laughed, while Nathan himself simply stared.

  “Put them on; you’re starting work today.”

  The kids glanced at each other uneasily, and Alex looked at Nathan for a long time.

  “It’s been a week here without a word from any of you, simply scraps of food thrown into the room as if we were dogs. What exactly is this work we’re doing?”

  Nathan continued to tap the gun on his thigh. Alex wondered how none of them had realized the child was a fucking psychopath before. He was sick, a twisted little being who deserved nothing less than a slow, painful death. And he’s the leader’s son, Alex remembered.

  “You’ll be working at the fridges, with the meat and other food products. We need you to sort the exports we’ll handle here, and of course get involved in the kitchens, helping the cooks with the food they’ll require for meals.”

  There was a short silence. Alex’s pain surfaced once more.

  “Maria was a cook; did you know that?” He wanted to barge past the two men and tackle the boy to the ground before beating him to death; his anger was so strong. “She made amazing meals, she…she was amazing…Why did you kill her?”

  Nathan rolled his eyes.

  “Children, put the gear on and get ready. Alex here can’t seem to get over the fact that people die in our new world. It’s a fact. Now deal with it. All of you. I don’t want to have to teach any of you a lesson.” His firearm was no longer at his side, Alex noted. He gestured with it as he spoke, waving it as if it were nothing.

  “It’s okay, everybody. I’m okay. Please, don’t point it at us. We’ll do what you’re asking.” Alex was the first to place the gloves onto his hands before putting the jacket on. Soon, he was helping the smaller kids do the same, while the older ones managed on their own. The thugs watched with curious smiles as it unfolded, and Alex finally looked up. “What?”

  The broader man, who hadn’t talked until then, shook his head and chuckled.

  “It’s just, we’ve never had such a nice group here. They always want to lash out, rebel against us. You’re all taking it like champs. We might not even have to kill any of you to prove our point. Now that would be a first.” He said it as a joke, but Alex knew that the man wasn’t bluffing.

  If we can keep ourselves on their good side, I’m sure we’ll earn their trust within just a few weeks. I’m still going to lash out and rebel, but I’m waiting for the right moment.

  “Done? Finally. Come on; let’s take you to your new workplace.” Nathan led the way, and Alex grew anxious as they headed towards the warehouse door and finally took their first steps out into the corridor beyond.

  It was a long, narrow expanse with a tall wall on one side to conceal what lay beyond from whoever was kept in the warehouses. Warehouses, plural, Alex noted. There were a dozen of them, all lined up one after the other. These bastards have many more prisoners like us.

  “Big operation you have here,” Alex remarked, but his bait wasn’t taken. He glanced back at his followers, every single one of them looking back at him with doubt or fear in their eyes. I need to be strong for them, he reminded himself, and simply winked in a weak attempt at raising their spirits. It worked for some, but most seemed too caught up in the shock of the recent news to even register his gesture. Maria and the other half of the kids are dead, and nobody is bringing them back. Even the worst possible vengeance against these bastards would never be enough.

  They finally stepped past the wall, and Alex’s thoughts were interrupted by the scene they witnessed next. Wow, he thought, his raised eyebrows betraying him for an instant before he summoned a neutral expression back onto his face. The ceiling of the structure that held them had always been tall and wide, but he had never imagined the entire warehouse that contained them was so massive. Lines of pallet racks stretched for as far as the eye could see, and forklift robots worked in the distance, looking more like ants than seven-foot-tall machines.

  Some of the children were amazed, though the older kids soon wisely silenced their companions. Alex looked at Nathan in a different light now. He was not just a thug; he was the heir to an empire[Ed 1].
<
br />   “Our treasure trove,” the thin kidnapper said, spreading his arms. “Our home.”

  Nathan paused and said over his shoulder, “And your home too, now, Alex.” A smirk spread across his lips, and the boy soon guided them through a set of plastic strip-curtains dark enough to conceal the insides of the room it opened into. Nathan stopped at one side and grabbed a jacket from a rack, putting on a pair of gloves; his escorts did the same. “Welcome,” he began, as the entire group of captives stepped inside the large space, “to the fridges.”

  The section was certainly colder and dirtier than the one before, Alex noted. Old bloodstains marked the floor in several places, and the smell of meat hung in the air. Long metal tables stretched for many feet, where dozens of workers cut, split and organized piles of meat and other food products. The actual cold-rooms were huge structures built into the walls, and Alex spotted a woman exiting one with her breath frosting into the air.

  “Are the workers just performing their tasks unwatched?” Alex asked. He didn’t want to talk, but he couldn’t help it. There were so many of them, yet none seemed distracted or angry about their situation.

  “No, you fool,” Nathan chuckled. He pointed above, and only then did the group see the armed captors standing perched on a concealed walkway, their rifles ready to fire down on anyone who moved. The black-eyed boy cleared his throat. “Your job will be easy, kids. Follow all instructions given you by the chief,” he said, pointing at a fat man who was keeping an eye on the meat packing. “And we won’t need to hurt you. No stealing food, or you lose a hand. Run away, you lose a foot. Eat something, anything, and you lose your tongue. If you try to rebel, well…I’ll let you find that out yourself.” He tapped his gun against his thigh one last time and prepared to leave with his thugs.

  Alex wasn’t done yet.

  “So that’s it? Not even an explanation? Not even a good luck?” He knew he was pushing it, but his rage was taking hold. He looked at a nearby table where they were probably going to work. There was a butcher’s cleaver just a few feet away from him. If I aim to kill just Nathan, he’ll be dead before I am. Alex felt guilty at being capable of killing a child and leaving his own kids behind, but his heart burned with vengeful fury. “We just become mindless drones working for you and that’s that?”

  Nathan didn’t say a word, but one of the thugs began to nod slowly.

  “He wants to see it, Nath.”

  The fat man agreed, watching the black-eyed child’s reaction.

  “I agree. Our Alex here is feeling brave. We don’t want that, do we?”

  Alex looked at each of them in turn, his confidence draining. Nathan was tapping his gun to his thigh with increasing intensity now, and some of the children were trembling in fear.

  “Look, it’s okay…I guess we can find out later,” Alex began, but Nathan lifted a hand and shook his head.

  “No, you asked for it.”

  The fat thug moved faster than Alex could realize, wrapping his arms around the young man’s body in a bear hug impossible to escape. Alex struggled, throwing his head back and hitting the man full in the face, but the grip only tightened and began to hurt. The men in the walkways above pointed their rifles down at the children, and a girl, most likely Susie, started to cry.

  “Don’t hurt him,” she begged, but Nathan walked away, handing his gun over to the remaining thug and taking the fat man — and Alex — back through the curtains. They stepped back into the storage space, but turned into a different corridor this time, one that led into a darker, uglier area of the warehouse.

  “You want to know what the other choice is, besides working? Okay, let’s see it.” The pale boy seemed to discard his semi-pleasant facade and turned cruel again. Alex kicked and thrashed in the fat man’s arms, but it was useless. The lights turned from dim yellow to bloody red, and the walls shifted from neat, stainless steel to rusty iron sheets. “Let’s show you what your other option is,” Nathan hissed.

  Alex yelled for help, but the man holding him simply laughed it off and pushed him forward, further down the corridor and past dark rooms stinking of piss and shit and death.

  “No!” he screamed, suddenly aware of where he was going, “Take me back! I’ve had enough! Take me back!”

  But it wasn’t going to end. Not yet.

  The corridor continued, but Nathan stopped. They’d reached their destination. A rusted door stood to one side, a choking heat emanating from the room within. Alex whimpered and breathed frantically, begging for him not to open the door.

  “Please…”

  But the boy ignored him. He turned the knob and pushed it open.

  There were no lamps inside, but they weren’t necessary. The flames were enough.

  The flames…and the bodies they burned.

  Alex closed his eyes, but the fat man used a rough hand to pull them open. The young man resisted, but suddenly curiosity took hold of him and he lowered his glance just a few inches…

  …And then he screamed.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Things You Should Know

  Even before the tall man began to talk, Dante was beyond amazed. There was an aura of greatness to him that could have been described as being otherworldly, but Dante preferred not to. The Outsiders are otherworldly, he thought, but Shermont is something entirely of this planet, just different. Special.

  He emanated power from his body without even consciously doing so, and along with his strange, wizardly robes and old, weathered hat, he gave the impression of a godlike figure attempting to blend in with simple mortals. Dante knew the wasteland tribes and the less-educated communities out there could easily be tricked into worshiping a man like Shermont if he so much as revealed what he was capable of.

  “What keeps you here at the University?” Dante asked curiously as they walked along the corridor that ended at the examination room. “What keeps any of the most powerful beings on Earth here as teachers?”

  The tall fellow smirked.

  “Because only here can we truly perfect ourselves.”

  Dante was left with more questions than answers, but he kept his silence. They continued to walk along the passage, eventually passing through a wooden doorway before they reached the examination room. Shermont’s name was engraved on its surface, and the Healer felt the walls seemed to hold back a massive amount of power within the chamber.

  “Something here is off,” he blurted out immediately. The walls gave an illusion of shifting outward for brief intervals, and the floor seemed to stretch on for miles, despite Dante being fully aware that the far wall was literally just ten feet away. He took a few steps forward and looked up. The ceiling curved in an almost impossible way.

  “Don’t try to control your perception of this place or the air within it,” Shermont warned, gesturing for Dante to take a seat, “You will probably go insane.”

  “Why?” Dante asked. The tall professor sat on the edge of his desk and lifted a finger in reply. Indeed, the air began to behave strangely around it. No, not the air, Dante realized as he sat down. “You’re manipulating the light in this room, aren’t you?”

  “Not just light, my boy. My gifts are based on physics.” He nodded at a chair resting against one wall, and Dante watched it begin to levitate slowly. With a further nod, the chair began to tremble and sink once more. A third nod crushed it in on itself with a crunch, and Dante jumped. Shermont laughed loudly. “Gravity, space, and in some cases…” He picked up an apple and threw it at Dante before the child could react, but it began to spin slower and slower, decaying as it flew.

  What landed at Dante’s feet was the black, rotten core of an apple that had been picture-perfect moments before. His eyes widened in shock, and he looked up at the exalted professor in amazement.

  “This is incredible.” He shook his head slowly and frowned. I can’t forget why I’ve been brought here. The University wants me to be controlled. “Why would you want to have someone tell you where and when to use this?”
/>   Shermont stared at Dante intently.

  “It’s not about what we want, Dante, it’s never been about that. Even when we were just a group of cavemen and cavewomen with spears and rocks, there were rules. We don’t carry around weapons in our hands just because we have them. We put them away and use them only when the situation forces us to.”

  “My abilities are not just weapons, sir. Neither are yours. How can I be forced to control my healing if someone may need it? Even my destructive abilities could be of use, I would not use them freely anyhow!”

  “Power corrupts, Dante. We were never supposed to have these gifts, or curses,” he said, staring at Dante meaningfully. The Healer often called his destructive ability a curse, and it was as if the member of the Chosen knew. “Yet they were given to us — through some yet-unknown means — and we should be responsible with them.”