I stepped down from the chair and got to work, helping a small child wash her face with a washcloth and dish of water. There was blood caked in her hair, I doubted it was fresh, most likely it had been there for days.
The best way to pass the time was to stay busy. I could only think about Reece and worry when my mind was idle. Helping everyone was the only way I knew how to be useful.
When I was finished with the child, I looked around and saw that there were not two groups now. The humans had listened to me, they had stepped forward to help and were now actively mingling with the clones.
It was a small triumph.
But I took pride in it anyway.
The dirty faces of those I helped all started to blur into one. The clones had been hurt pretty badly when the troopers stormed the village. They had taken them completely unawares at a time when they should have been scrounging around for food. Not only were they tired and hurt, but they were hungry too.
Of course they were hungry, they were Defective Clones.
Hungry was a permanent state of being.
After I finished with another particularly nasty cut on a boy, I went to the kitchens and spoke with the members of the Resistance there. They were already preparing for the midday meal but I asked them to bring it forward as early as possible. They agreed with no arguments.
There was little I could do to help them so I returned to the hub. Sunny was in the corner, bouncing Twig on her lap. I joined them, eager to hear how they were doing.
“I hope he hasn’t suffered too much from his ordeal,” I said as I took the spare seat next to them.
Sunny smiled, the warm and kind grin that always made me feel better. “He’s doing well, all thanks to you. I’m not going to lie, Wren, I thought we were all goners up there. If it wasn’t for you and your friends, we would all be in the laboratories by now.”
“I wish we could have got to more.”
Her warm hand covered mine on my lap. “Hush, child, don’t talk like that. Look around, we’re all here because of you. Tell me what you’ve been doing since you left the village.”
There was so much to tell her, but I knew if I started it would be impossible to stop. It would rush out of me in a hailstorm of tears and now wasn’t the time for that. Being captured by Stone was a nightmare I struggled to keep locked away and I wasn’t ready to unlock that door yet.
Instead, I turned the tables. “There’s lots to tell you about, but really it ends with me seeking refuge with the Resistance. They’re fighting for us, trying to make the city better and safer for us. They really care.”
Sunny chuckled. “Clearly they care, look at us, alive and all. I never thought I’d see humans helping us.”
“Aria is going to be different one day.”
She cupped one of my cheeks with her hand, her stump of an arm wrangling Twig as he squirmed in her lap. “We need to believe that, child. A better Aria, let’s all hope and pray that it can be possible.”
We shared a silent prayer that might one day be heard by someone much more important than us. “Tell me about the village, what’s happened since I left?”
“Ah, you know how it is, babies arrive, some people leave.” She shrugged, dismissing the comment as something small. I knew how deeply everyone that ‘left’ cut. They didn’t come back for a reason. “We had five babies arrive on the same day a week ago. Couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw them all on the pathway, naked and crying their little hearts out.”
“Five in one day?” That was unheard of. Maybe we’d get a delivery once a month, maybe. The laboratories must have been working overtime with that level of production.
“Five.” She held up her hand so I could see all five of her fingers. “It’s been chaotic making sure they’re all settled. I’ve seen them all here so your people managed to get them all out.”
“The troopers didn’t want them.”
“No, child, they didn’t.”
Silence settled between us, as loud as any of the conversations going on around us. Twig flapped his arms, keen to get away even though he couldn’t walk yet. He was a lively child, it would do him good when he got a bit older. He’d be able to run faster than the troopers.
“Stone captured you, didn’t she?” Sunny asked quietly. I wanted to deny the truth and make up a lie but there was no time and I couldn’t do it anyway.
“She did, but I got away,” I replied. “How did you know?”
Sunny pursed her lips together like she might keep the words inside instead of letting them out. She finally made a decision to set them free. “The troopers stopped coming around the village.”
I nodded, blinking away the tears pricking my eyes. It was silly to cry, it didn’t change anything. I always knew my presence in the village was one of the main reasons the troopers did raids and patrols of the area so often. I just didn’t realize I was the sole reason they came around.
Leaving the village had been the right decision for me to make. I helped the others stay safe for a while longer. Even if it did cost Rocky his freedom, and perhaps his life.
Something else occurred to me.
Something I wished I had never thought of.
“I have to go, Sunny,” I said, standing and trying to stop the world around me spinning. “Take care, I’ll talk to you again later. Lunch should be ready soon.”
My feet scuffed on the floor as I hurried down a corridor. It didn’t matter which one, I just needed a few moments alone. After a few steps I realized I was in the one where our room was located and rushed toward it.
Slamming the door behind me, I leaned against the cold wood and gasped in deep breaths. This was all my fault. The attack on the Defectives’ village was all my fault.
The troopers stopped coming when I was captured.
The troopers burned down the village when I escaped.
They were looking for me.
Every one of the Defectives’ deaths was more blood on my hands. If I was still in Stone’s cell, if Doctor Wagstaff had killed me like he was supposed to, if I Served My Purpose, none of them would be gone now. The village would still be untouched, left alone to continue on as if nothing had happened. As if I had never been created.
When people worked it out, they were going to hate me. It wouldn’t take much for them to figure out the truth. Anybody could put two and two together like I had. They would all know why they were attacked and their fingers were going to point firmly at me.
They would want me dead too.
They would have to get in line.
There was no way for me to make it up to them except to fight as hard as I could with the Resistance. If I could change things for clones forever, maybe it would be enough to make up for my selfishness.
Perhaps.
Perhaps nothing would.
A loud explosion made everything in the room shake and rumble. I had to grab onto the desk to stop myself falling to the ground. It wasn’t just my defective foot making me stumble, but the entire place was moving.
The eardrum-shattering noise was followed up with the sound of screams down the corridor. Something was going on in the bunker and it chilled me down to the bone.
I raced outside and headed toward the hub. My own guilt would have to be added to the pile and dealt with later. It would be so large soon I wouldn’t be able to run from it much longer.
Another explosion echoed down the hallway, making me grip both sides of the walls. It was like the earth was being swallowed up, eating us whole as the ground shook below our feet. I couldn’t tell where the noise was coming from, it seemed to be emanating from everywhere.
The floor.
The ceiling.
The walls.
They all groaned, complaining about having to withstand the explosions when all they wanted to do was collapse and give in. I knew how they felt but the fear pulsing through my chest spurred me forwards.
I reached the hub only to see people scrambling everywhere. They were all running for safety
but no-one knew where that was. It was bedlam as everyone ran blindly, screaming out their fear and confusion.
Autumn was on the other side of the hub, returning from a corridor of her own. I dodged around the people as I made my way to her. She was one of the few humans I trusted and chances were she knew more than I did about the noise.
Halfway along, there was another loud bang. It sounded like a train had collided with the walls and was repeatedly banging on the other side to get in.
A large chunk of the ceiling rained down where I was about to step. I jumped out of the way, twisting my ankle in the process, and clinging to the wall like it might be able to save me.
The screams only intensified with the new explosion. Defective Clones huddled together, more accustomed to the terror than the humans. They whimpered to themselves between blasts.
I darted to reach Autumn, tapping on her arm to get her attention. “What’s going on?”
She looked around before pulling me further into the corridor she had just come from. We were largely alone before she spoke again. “Troopers are trying to break through the door. They are using bombs and guns I haven’t even seen before. I don’t think it’s going to hold.”
Cold numbness ran down my spine.
Reece said the door would hold, he said we would all be safe here. If he was wrong about that, what else had he been wrong about?
“Is there a way out?” I asked, my mind running through all the options lying before us. If we waited there, we would be inviting them down to kill us all. We wouldn’t be able to run anywhere, especially with our swollen numbers.
The only other option was to flee, if that was even possible. All I could think of was how we hadn’t entered the bunker through that door, surely that meant there was another way in and out?
“There’s a tunnel,” Autumn replied.
“Where does it lead?”
“I don’t know.”
That wasn’t exactly helpful. The tunnel could lead right into the middle of the troopers’ base, knowing my luck. “When Reece and I were brought here, it was in a vehicle. We drove into a garage type room. What about that exit?”
Autumn shook her head, her eyes wide open with panic. “The troopers found that entrance too. They’re setting up for an assault. That’s the only other exit beside the tunnel.”
“We can’t ask everyone to run down a tunnel if we don’t know where it goes. Does anyone else know more? What about Joseph?”
“He left with the others. Nobody left here knows any more than I do. Joseph left me in charge, I have to make a decision and I have to make it quickly. What do I do, Wren?”
She was asking me?
Nobody ever asked a Def what to do.
Unless they were being sarcastic and snide.
Another explosion tore the bunker apart, pieces of concrete and brick crashed toward the floor to land in piles of debris. The structure wasn’t going to hold, as strong as it was built. When it was first constructed they probably didn’t even know about the types of weapons the troopers now had.
We couldn’t stay here.
Not unless we wanted to be buried alive.
“We have to go,” I said, my voice somehow remaining calm even though I felt anything but. “If the tunnel is the only way, then we have to go down it.”
Autumn chewed on her bottom lip, grazing her teeth over the skin until it was red raw. “Okay, we’ll do it. We’d better hurry. I’ll gather a team for supplies, can you get the people ready?” I nodded. “Take everyone to the meeting room. The tunnel leads out from there.”
I nodded again in case all my courage decided to escape when I opened my mouth. Autumn hurried off and quickly disappeared into the mass of bodies. It was up to me now. If I didn’t get them to listen to me and follow my instructions, we might all die down here.
The chair I had used earlier to stand on was now pushed up against the wall. I climbed on it again, clapping my hands until most of the voices settled down to listen. Another explosion made the chair wobble and my knees to shake.
Now was my moment.
I only had one shot.
“We need to leave the bunker, the troopers are trying to get in. There is a tunnel that they don’t know about yet, we can use this to get out,” I said, one decibel lower than yelling. I needed them to listen, not panic over what they were hearing. “We need to go calmly. If we all help those having trouble walking, we will all be able to make it out together. Members of the Resistance, the tunnel leaves from the meeting room, please help us get there.”
I paused, waiting for the barrage of questions that didn’t come. Everyone wanted to move, they wanted to be away from the loud explosions. Whatever it took, I knew they would do it.
“Let’s go,” I finished, crawling down from the seat. Those closest to me moved immediately. The humans led the way down the corridor, most taking a group of Defective Clones with them. Some from the village were so badly injured they could only hobble along slowly when leaning against someone.
I waited by the edge of the hallway, making sure everyone made their way toward the tunnel. Every time there was a new explosion, their feet moved that much quicker. Nobody was under the illusion we were still safe here. Just like nobody asked me to guarantee their freedom.
Relief washed over me when Sunny and Twig walked past, offering me a kind smile as they did. At least they were doing well, my world couldn’t be too mixed up when Sunny was still smiling and giving me reassurance.
The hub started to empty as everyone started the long walk. It only made the noises from outside even louder without all the ears to absorb the sounds. The damage to the building was more apparent, now I could get a good view of the large open area. Large chunks of the ceiling and walls were lying on the floor, pieces of metal twisted at all different angles.
I hoped we didn’t end up like the metal.
A group of humans emerged from the kitchen, each one tugging along a trolley full of supplies. Large barrels of water and packages of dried food filled their haul. Autumn followed them out.
“They’ve all gone?” she asked. I took one of the boxes from her arms to share her load and we started walking down the hallway, bringing up the rear of the group.
“Yes, I didn’t see anyone go down any of the other hallways,” I said, going through my memory to make sure I wasn’t telling a lie. As far as I could tell, we weren’t leaving anyone behind.
“Good. Now all we have to worry about is where the tunnel leads. Nobody can get even a hint of the fact we don’t know, otherwise we’ll have chaos on our hands.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” I promised.
A couple of hundred people would incite panic if they knew the truth. Sometimes it was okay to lie. This was definitely one of those times.
Staying was not an option.
Leaving was a necessity.
As my feet marched a steady beat on the concrete floor, my mind wandered to Reece. If he did somehow manage to make it back, he wouldn’t know where we’d gone. I wished there was a way of letting him know, but communication was impossible. We didn’t have the fancy technology like the troopers did.
I hoped he was staying safe, wherever he was. Rescuing the Defective Clones was a priority but I had an irrational need to keep Reece safe too. I wanted him to come back alive, I needed him to return to me.
If he didn’t…
I couldn’t think of what I would do, how I would feel. All I knew was that everything would be black if he didn’t. My world would darken into something impossible, like the world had switched its lights off and I would never have the ability to turn them back on again.
To have thoughts and feelings like those about a human were completely ridiculous. They were only going to lead to impossible heartbreak but they weren’t going to leave me anytime soon.
I was setting myself up for a fall.
But I had already fallen.
Chapter 17: Reece
Lab Alfa looked exac
tly like it always did – an imposing building too tall for its surroundings. It was like Stone had built them to stand out, to show how powerful she was because she could control life and death.
I’d always hated them.
All fourteen of them.
There was no telling which of the labs the troopers had brought the Defective Clones to. We had a one in fourteen shot at being right and I didn’t like those odds. They were foolish odds, making a mockery of our poor choice.
We were crouched down behind a bank of fences, an abandoned strip mall behind us. It provided good cover but it had a creepy vibe. A building without a purpose was like a human without a soul. Judging by the poor condition of this one, I would guess it hadn’t had a purpose for many years.
I knew from trooper protocol that the Defective Clones had to be transported to the labs as soon as they were captured. We didn’t have a prison facility to hold masses of them while they waited for transport. They were always delivered quickly and efficiently, handed over so they were the lab’s problem and not ours.
We should have seen many trooper trucks coming back and forth with the deliveries. They had taken about a hundred, which would have been enough to fill five trucks.
Lab Alfa had been our first choice because that was the largest. With a huge influx of clones, they needed a lot of cells to keep them under control. They would sort out which lab the Defective Clones belonged to in due course and then transport them again. Alfa was the obvious choice to start with.
A few scouts had been sent to cover the others, their instructions were to look for signs of activity and report back before moving onto the next one. Joseph had members of the Resistance crawling all over Aria.
Even with the help of the binoculars, I couldn’t see a damn thing happening between the high electric fences of Lab Alfa. The whole place looked like they’d all gone to bed for the day and shut up shop.
We were wasting precious time.
And my arm was aching like a bitch.
If the scouts didn’t report back with some good news soon, I was going to move onto Lab Bravo no matter what Joseph said. We couldn’t waste daylight when there were so many people relying on us.
Hundred Stolen Breaths Page 18
