by Sybil Nelson
***
The children were in another stainless steel room and guarded by three armed men. They stood in attack positions with their weapons engaged. I took a deep breath and then leapt from my hiding place. One of the guards shot off a couple of rounds before I had a chance to melt their weapons with three quick blasts of fire.
I raised my leg in a side kick that connected with a muscular chest over a pair of ribs. I felt his bones crush under the blow. I didn’t want to think about the pain he was in as I grabbed the arm of the second guard, twisted it, and shoved him into the third. When he rebounded, I did a windmill kick that landed on his head, sending him to La-La Land. Unfortunately, this gave enough time for the third guard to get off the floor and come up behind me. He wrapped his arms around me and held me in a death grip. Hello? Didn’t he get the memo? I can shoot fire out of my finger. I grabbed his arms, burning his flesh. He screamed in pain and then released me. I turned, punched him in the gut until he doubled over, and then kneed him in the head, rendering him unconscious as well.
I stared at the three incapacitated bodies, still in a defensive stance in case one of them revived. When they didn’t move for several seconds, I breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed.
Bruised, bloody, and breathless, I entered the Containment Room. It was completely bare and depressing, with no windows or decorations and only eleven beds lining the walls as furniture. It looked and felt like a prison.
At first, the children didn’t know what to make of me. I actually felt out of place for not wearing the white pajama like outfits they had on.
“Hey, I’m Priss. I’m here to, uh, take you outta here,” I said, breaking the awkward silence. They continued staring at me with these blank expressions. A young set of twins even hugged each other as if they were afraid of me.
Finally, a boy or man … well I don’t really know what he was. I mean, he looked about my age in the face, but even through his clothes I could tell he had the body of a Greek God. Anyway, God Boy with piercing green eyes and thick dark hair gathered in a long ponytail approached me and said, “Do you know Madame Quindolyn?”
I was so distracted by his ridiculously cute French accent that at first I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even recognize the name Madame Quindolyn. It sounded like the name of a circus psychic. Finally, I realized what he was talking about and stuttered, “She … she’s my mother.”
There was an audible collective sigh in the room.
“I am Specimen Mu,” the boy said. “But I call myself Marco.”
I had to withhold the urge to say, “Polo.”
“May I?” he said, nodding toward my arm. I looked down and noticed the holes in my sweater and blood streaming out of them.
Holy hot dogs! I’ve been shot!
Marco took my arm gently and examined the damage.
“You’ve been shot twice in your right arm,” he said.
“Good thing I’m left-handed,” I said trying to lighten the mood.
He didn’t get it or didn’t appreciate the humor and just continued with his examination. “This one is a graze,” he said pointing to my forearm. “But this one is a through and through.” He sat me down on the bed. “We need to stop the bleeding.” Marco kneeled in front of me, ripped up a bed sheet, and started cleaning my wounds with the pieces.
“I’ll get the kids ready,” a Russian accent said. I turned my head to the left and noticed a tall, pretty blond girl suddenly standing next to me.
“Whoa, when did she get there?” I asked as the girl walked away and started barking orders to the other specimens.
“That’s Specimen Kappa. She has a tendency to blend into the background and just appear when you least expect it.”
While he doctored my wounds, the room became a flurry of activity as the kids worked together, moving furniture to block doors and covering security cameras with bed sheets.
I just stared in awe. I had so many questions about these kids I didn’t know where to start. Fortunately, he started explaining.
“I am fourteen. Kappa, or Katya as she prefers to be called, is fifteen. We are the oldest of the specimens who want to escape. There are twelve of us in all,” Marco said while pressing a cloth to the bullet hole in my arm. “Specimens Xi and Omicron are younger, but they do not wish to escape. Xi even refused to accept a proper name.”
“Trust me, I know Specimen Xi,” I said, shaking off the memory of that crazy chick. “So is that why they keep you locked away? Because they’re afraid you’ll escape?” Marco nodded. “How long have you been forced to stay in the Containment Room with those things around your necks?”
“A few years ago, we started making psychic connections with your mother. A few of us have even been able to escape with her help. I was recaptured a few months ago and now they make us wear the inhibitors all the time as a precaution.. Every day they force feed us propaganda and violence as they try to mold us into the killing machines they desire and counteract what your mother has shown us. She’s shown us what a real life can be, and that’s what we want now. All of us except Xi and Omicron.”
“When did you escape?” Marco removed the now blood-soaked cloth he’d been pressing to my arm and applied another.
“Your mother helped me escape from here three years ago this December. I—”
“Wait a minute. Three years ago December? What date exactly?”
“December 17. Why?”
That was the date of my tenth birthday. That’s why my mother wasn’t at my birthday party. She was saving Marco’s life. I guess some things are more important than a stupid game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey.
“No reason. Go on,” I said.
“I remember I had just come back from a mission in Italy where I had to kill someone,” he continued. “I still cannot get those images out of my mind.” He closed his eyes and shook his head, smacking me in the face with his ponytail, but I didn’t mind. His hair smelled like cinnamon and lilacs. “I decided I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t want to be a killer. Your mother came to get me. She moved me to France and then helped me get adopted. I was eleven years old. They were the only family I’d ever known.” He looked sad. I wondered if his adoptive parents were dead or something, but I didn’t want to get too personal. I’d only met this kid a few minutes ago, yet for some reason I felt so connected to him. I immediately wanted to know everything about him.
“What happened?” That seemed like a safe enough question. He could be as descriptive or evasive as he wanted to be. I imagined he was taken the same way I was a week ago, except he didn’t have my awesome parents to come save him.
He sighed. “Once my adoptive parents found out about my … abilities, they became afraid of me. I tried to explain what Colonel Selliwood had done to me and that it wasn’t my fault, but they didn’t want me anymore.”
“Oh no.”
“They actually contacted Colonel Selliwood. He came to get me, and now I’m here again. But because of you, soon I’ll be free again. We’ll all be free,” he said, looking around the room.
“Speaking of being free, shouldn’t we be on the move. I mean, they could be in here any second.”
Marco looked at the wound again. “You’ve lost a lot of blood. You need to be in the best condition possible. If anything happens during the escape, you’re the only one who will be able to defend us.” He touched the collar on his neck. “Just a few more moments.”
I sighed impatiently. I really wanted all of this to be over. But I decided to make the best of it and find out more. “You said you’ve formed telepathic connections with my mother. So you’re a telepath, too?”
“We all are to some extent. Some more than others. We each just have to learn how to access that ability. You might have it as well since you are Madame Quindolyn’s child.”
“Me? No way. I’ve already started training and I haven’t shown any signs of psychic ability. My brother, on the other hand, has had zero training and he can see the future.” I don’t know why I f
elt I could tell Marco this when I hadn’t even told my mother. For some reason, I just felt I could trust him.
“Really? With no training? He must be incredibly powerful.”
“Huh. You try telling him that.”
“There, all done,” he said, tying a piece of cloth around my arm.
“All right, let’s go,” I said, hopping up and waving everyone to the door. Katya picked up two small children and stepped behind me. Everyone else fell into line behind her.
In my impatience to get everyone out, I failed to consult the blueprint in my head. Everything was fine at first. We slithered along the walls super stealth style and avoided guards and sensors. But then I made a wrong turn into a room with no apparent exit. I turned to lead them out the way we came when suddenly the room flooded with armed guards. My chest tightened as I saw the disappointment in the children’s eyes. I thought about fighting, but I counted thirty-seven guards. Even if the pajama-clad kids could help me, we were still way too out-numbered considering the glowing collars around their neck would prevent them from gaining any advantage.
“Josh, if you can hear me, I could really use your help right now.” Whether Josh could hear me or not, I wasn’t going out without a fight. They would have to take me outta here in a body bag. Unfortunately, according to Josh’s vision, that’s exactly what was going to happen.
Katya set down the children she’d been holding, and she and Marco took fighting stances on either side of me. They were willing to fight their way out too.
The guards aimed their guns and Ion Distorters, ready to fire at us. I thought this was the end when suddenly music started playing.
“What is that?” Marco asked.
“Um, it sounds like, Christina Aguilera.”
“What is a Christina Aguilera?” Katya asked, cocking her head to the side like a confused puppy.
The guards dropped their weapons and started doing the choreography to Christina Aguilera’s Dirty. They were shaking and twisting and striking poses that should be illegal for grown men to do.
“Thanks, Josh.”
Tai must have been able to get the collar off, allowing Josh to try the mind control thing again with the guards. I wished he would have chosen a less gross song, though. I felt like I was getting a strip tease from the cast of Rambo.
We easily slipped past the dancing guards and into the corridor.
“I know the way from here,” Marco said once we rounded a corner just past a weapons room. “If we go right, we’ll be out in a few seconds.”
I knew he was right, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of what was to the left. The Central Control Room. In that moment, I knew what I had to do. “You lead everyone out. I’m going in.”
I turned to leave, but Marco grabbed my hand, spun me around, and said, “Let me go with you.”
“No way. No offense, but you won’t be that much of a help with that thing around your neck.” He touched his collar self-consciously and looked down at the ground. I could tell he wasn’t used to being powerless. He probably felt pathetic not being able to help. “If you really want to help, get all of these kids outta here before I take this place down.”
Marco lifted his head and nodded. I started to leave again, but he pulled me back. “I know you feel you have to do this, so I won’t try to stop you,” he said, staring into my eyes. “So, in case I never see you again … I just want to say, thank you.” He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it, sending a chill through me. I didn’t know whether the chill came from the fact that a really cute boy that I’d just met was kissing me or from the fact that he too thought something bad was going to happen to me.
“Marco, it won’t work,” Katya called from behind him. Then she pointed to the inhibitor on her neck.
“I know. But I thought I’d try.” He seemed sad as he turned away and ran toward where Katya and the others were headed.
What was that about? I tried not to dwell on it too much. I had a mission to accomplish.
I entered the Central Control Room and saw monitors, computers and blinking lights everywhere. Recalling the images my mother placed in my head when we were leaving the institute last week, my hands worked without my mind and I pressed the right sequence of buttons. A computer announced the beginning of a self-destruct sequence.
“There. That ought a do it.” I turned to leave and almost fell over. Colonel Selliwood and another fighting machine blocked the only exit.
Chapter 29: Delta Dude
“What do you think you’re doing?” Colonel Selliwood asked calmly.
“I’m stopping you from hurting any more children,” I said with as much conviction as I could. I had to admit, I was pretty scared. And the way he was so freaking calm really freaked me out.
“You’re stopping me?” he said, mocking my tone. “You think you can stop me? You think blowing up this place can stop me? You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”
As he spoke, I inched my way toward the exit. According to the computer, there were only five minutes until the entire place blew up. I wanted to get out of there as quickly as I could and hopefully without fighting Selliwood or the scary thing next to him.
Colonel Selliwood sat down at the computer terminal and pressed some buttons. He didn’t even seem like he was in a hurry.
“I finally figured out the problem,” he said, shaking his head. “The specimens think too much. Your mother has brainwashed you. She’s brainwashed all of them. Good thing I’ve also figured out how to solve the problem. You’re on the wrong side, little girl.” He grabbed a couple of laptop computers and then said, “This has gone on long enough. Specimen Delta, finish her,” before heading toward the door.
Delta looked at me and then back at Colonel Selliwood, his black waist-length dreadlocks swinging in the process. “Sir, she’s a child,” he said. “I think we should be able to place a collar on her like the other children.” Wow, the robot-looking Delta dude sounded kinda human. Maybe he would spare me another fight.
Colonel Selliwood’s head snapped around and he glared at Delta. “Just like I said. Too much thinking. Do what you’re told. She must be destroyed.”
“Yes, sir.” So much for getting spared.
Delta walked toward me slowly, throwing knives that he pulled from every part of his body. I ducked and ran, hoping that eventually he’d run out of the tiny, sharp projectiles, but after forty seconds and about eighty knives, they were still coming. Then I realized that he was actually making the metal to form the two-inch pointed weapons. His body was apparently made of regenerative metal. That’s why he looked so much like a robot.
Waiting him out was not an option, especially since there were less than three minutes left on the self-destruct sequence and portions of the institute were already starting to explode.
I did a series of flips toward him, trying to avoid the knives. I felt one slice into my thigh and another one went into my bullet hole wound that Marco had so diligently doctored. I wanted to cry out in pain, but I kept going. When in close range, I swept out his legs and then turned to smash his face in, but he’d already disappeared. He was as fast as Mom. I turned again and saw him standing behind me. Then he punched me so hard I landed across the room. I think I hit my head in the process because the room was spinning and it looked like there were five or six of him coming at me.
I didn’t know what to do. I’d only had a few hours of training, I was bleeding in several places, and I was completely exhausted. There was no way I could beat him man-to-man, or man-to-girl as it was. It was time to pull out my secret weapon. It was time for a Prissy Fit.
I screamed at the top of my lungs, and then with tears streaming down my face, I yelled, “Oh my God, you hit me! I can’t believe you hit me. I’m just a girl! How could you hit a little girl?”
Caught completely off-guard, Delta hesitated momentarily. Obviously, dealing with a crying girl had not been part of his training. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time as I could already see his cold s
teely stare returning.
But his momentary lapse in judgment gave me just enough time to steady my aim and shoot. I blasted him with so much fire that he flew back against the wall. I kept bringing the fire until his partially metallic body began to melt and meld to the wall.
The computerized voice announced less than a minute until complete destruction. I turned and dashed for the door. I ran at top speed as burning parts of the building started falling around me. My clothing got charred, but the fire never even felt that hot against my skin. A weird feeling of déjà vu washed over me as I reached the outside and watched the institute erupt in flames … again. Didn’t I just do this last week? Would I have to come back next week and do it again? When was it going to end?
I bent over, trying to cough the smoke and ash out of my lungs. Suddenly, I felt a pair of strong arms around my waist. Oh God, not more fighting. I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. I grabbed the man’s hand, twisted his arm around his back, and pinned him face down to the ground. With his other hand, he reached behind him, grabbed my neck, and flipped me over his head so that I landed on the ground on my back. He had to be inhuman to twist his arm to such an angle.
