“Please, don’t do this,” Nine said, struggling against the hands that restrained her. Though she wanted to look away from the terrible scene before her, she couldn’t bring herself to avert her gaze.
The Leader’s face reddened, contorting in livid fury.
“Is this punishment not enough for you, Subject Two?” he snarled. “Do you remain unrepentant? Is this silence your way of showing everyone that you’re too good for the rod? Fine then, let’s show them what happens to deserters who refuse to follow orders!”
He threw the switch down with an enraged growl and reached for his belt.
Two’s face blanched at the metallic click of the buckle being undone. As the Leader pulled the belt from his pant loops, Two’s false smile dissolved into a blank, guarded expression. He tightened his jaw and curled his fingers around the pole, preparing himself for the first blow.
Instead of holding the leather strap by its buckled end, the Leader shifted his grip to its narrow tongue. Glinting in the cruel fluorescence, the buckle—heavy silver, with scalloped edges—looked sharp enough to cut.
“Stop!” she shouted and tried to rush forward, only to be held back by the guards. “Don’t do this. You said you would be lenient. You promised me you wouldn’t hurt him. You promised!”
Two yelped out the moment the belt snapped across his back. On the second blow, he screamed, once, though he tried to restrain the noise behind clenched jaws. The tendons bulged in his throat as harsh gasps hissed through his teeth.
Even before the belt came down again, she heard another cry. It took her a moment to realize that it was her own.
The Leader brought the belt down again and again. She could only see half of the man’s face, and he didn’t look angry now, not anymore. Her intestines knotted at the sight of his ruddy, wild glee, his crazed eyes, his lips that were contorted into something between a smile and a snarl.
As for Two, her position spared her the sight of his tortured back but left her with a devastating view of his own expression. Within moments, tears overflowed from his eyes and coursed down his cheeks. Wrenching sobs tore from his lips, punctuated by shrill screams.
The sounds cut into her ears, flaying her from the inside out. She had never heard a person scream like that before.
On the tenth blow, he broke down entirely. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m so sorry. Leader, forgive me. I’ll never do it again. I’m sorry. Please, stop. Please.”
Fifteen. Twenty. She lost count.
She wrenched at the hands that restrained her, her vision blurring with tears. Her own pleas for mercy dissolved into raw, inarticulate shrieks.
A few feet away, a boy in Subset C puked on the floor. Another teen began to weep.
As Two’s voice broke into breathless gasps, his grip loosened around the pole. A convulsive spasm raked his body. His blue eyes dimmed like extinguished flames and began to close. There was no pain or hatred in his expression now, only surrender.
Blood trickled to the floor, and the edges of Nine’s vision darkened. Her legs liquefied beneath her, trembling like vats of gelatin.
His eyes rolled back in his head and his legs gave out beneath him. Even as he sagged against the pole, held upright only by the handcuffs, the belt continued to fall.
As another wound opened on his raw back, she collapsed in a dead faint.
Case Notes 11: Subject Nine of Subset A
After the doctor examined her, she spent the night in a single bedroom on the second floor of the main building. Instead of a narrow bunkbed, there was a bed with a wooden frame. The rug was so plush her toes sank into it, and even the blankets were luxurious.
Even so, it might as well have been a prison cell. There were no windows. A guard stood just outside the adjoined bathroom as she used the toilet. She was not permitted to close the door.
“I just want to be alone right now,” Nine said, washing her hands. The soap suds released a floral aroma, but it smelled like chemicals to her.
“I’ve been asked to keep an eye on you,” the guard said in a flat monotone. She was a stocky woman whose graying hair was fastened in a tight, authoritarian bun.
“Is Two okay?”
The woman said nothing, just regarded her with cold eyes as colorless as her hair. Even though her cheeks were sketched with expression lines that alluded to years of laughter and smiles, her face remained as lifeless as a death-mask when Nine began crying.
“I want to see Two.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Please, just tell me that he’s still alive.”
With a sigh, the woman unclipped a walkie-talkie from her belt and raised it to her lips. “This is Brewers. Subject Nine is asking about A-02. How would you like me to proceed? Over.”
She shifted from foot to foot, blotting her damp hands on the seat of her pants. Her gaze flickered to the open doorway, where a carpet of light fell across the floor. She thought about running past Brewers and darting into the hall, but she knew she would never reach the stairs, let alone the infirmary on the first floor.
“Understood,” Brewers said, then returned the radio to her belt. Sighing, she crossed her arms. Her red lips rose in a stingy smile. “Well, it seems like you’re in luck. Let’s go.”
She followed the woman into the hall, restlessly rubbing the goose bumps on her arms. As they descended the stairs, her footsteps sounded much too loud to her, accompanied by the pounding war drum that was her heartbeat.
Would she be taken to the sickbay or the room where the Academy’s suicide and accident victims ended up?
Nearing the infirmary, her mouth went dry, and her relief soured into fear. Minutes ago, she would have given anything to look into Two’s eyes, but now she was terrified of what she might see staring back at her.
She hesitated just outside the doorway. Of the interior, all she could see was a white accordion curtain against the pine-green wall. Looking down at her feet, her stomach twisted at the sight of the dried blood droplets smeared on the tiled floor.
After what felt like an hour but was probably no longer than a couple seconds, she stepped into the room. Brewers trailed closely behind her.
A pair of beds shared the small space, divided by a curtain. Only one was occupied.
Against the white sheets, Two was as pale as a corpse. His eyelashes rested like fallen soot against his ashen skin. He lay on his stomach, his head turned to the side. Bandages encased his entire torso. He had an IV tube in the crook of his elbow, and soft restraints tethered his hands and ankles to the mattress.
All the raw, dangerous power she had seen inside him just hours before had been flayed away by the bite of the belt. In the pendant lamp’s beam, he regressed to the slender boy she remembered from her early childhood. Just a ghost of his former self.
“Two,” she murmured, going to his bedside.
Silence. Each time he inhaled, his breath rattled in his chest. His familiar aroma was overshadowed by the harsh, acrid odors of sweat and antiseptic solution.
“Can you hear me?”
“He’s under sedation,” a voice said from the shadows, and she swiveled around to find a beautiful black-haired woman sitting in a rolling chair near the counter.
The woman wore a white lab coat over a gray skirt suit. Her formal outfit and the heels she wore marked her as an outsider, not one of the regular doctors. And yet, her sharp, pale features were vaguely familiar, although Nine couldn’t place when she had seen her last.
“You may wait outside,” the woman said to Brewers. Her voice was low and authoritative, with a musical inflection that Nine would have found pleasant in any other circumstance.
New lines creased the guard’s face. “But—”
“That is an order.”
“Yes, Dr. Miller,” Brewers said and stepped into the hall. The door swung shut behind her.
“You must be A-09,” Dr. Miller said, crossing her legs. “Did you see this happen?”
“Yes.”
; The woman regarded her coolly. “Tell me everything.”
As Nine spoke, she found her gaze drawn to Dr. Miller’s nails, which were colored a light metallic gray like gunmetal. She had never seen nails that color before. Then she remembered a lesson from her American society class, and realized that the pigment was not natural, but paint.
Dr. Miller gave no comment when Nine sat at the edge of Two’s bed and rested her hand over his. For the most part, the woman remained in thoughtful silence. She interrupted only once, to ask if the Leader had ever done this before.
Nine shook her head. If she had known that the Leader would hurt Two, she never would have told him about Two’s escape plan. How could she be so naive?
“He said that he would be lenient,” she said, rubbing the top of Two’s hand with her thumb. His skin was cold and clammy, and fresh scabs blemished his knuckles. A couple of his fingernails were split, another was broken to the quick, and the rest had paint from the pole trapped beneath them. Under the restraints, bandages cuffed his wrists, where the handcuffs must have bitten into him. “It wasn’t supposed to end up like this.”
Dr. Miller sighed and rose to her feet. In the gloom, her eyes had been so dark that they appeared black. But as she went to Two’s bedside, stepping into the glow of the pendant lamp, Nine saw that her irises were actually bright blue.
With a jolt, she realized why the woman’s face had struck her as familiar from the start. The woman’s ethereal beauty possessed a lupine quality, a feral edge she had watched emerge in Two’s own features as he became older.
“Who are you?” Nine blurted out, then winced at her own insolence. She should have known better than to ask such a blunt question. At the very least, she should have included a “pardon me” somewhere in the sentence.
If the question annoyed Dr. Miller, she didn’t show it. She glanced back, a vague smile touching her lips. “Who I am is irrelevant.”
“Pardon my rudeness, it’s just, you look a lot like…”
“He is my prototype,” Dr. Miller said, as if that was the answer to everything. “Let’s leave it at that.”
“What’s going to happen to him?” she asked as the doctor studied the monitor next to his bed. “Will he be okay?”
“He will survive, even if he doesn’t want to. He has no choice in the matter.”
Case Notes 12: Subject Two of Subset A
Two slept for nine hours. When he regained consciousness, he was overcome by confusion like that which followed a sudden, unexpected fall: overwhelming vertigo, his stomach lurching, the feeling of plummeting toward a brutal impact.
He tried to rise off his stomach, only to find his limbs restrained to the mattress with padded cloth straps. He didn’t have the strength to yank at the cuffs. Even the slightest movements sent waves of nauseating pain rolling down his back.
As the memories of his punishment poured back into his head, he squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to think about that ever again. Why couldn’t it all just be a dream?
He pressed his face into the pillow, smothering himself. It would be nice to stop breathing and drift away, but his body’s desire for oxygen outweighed his mind’s desire to die. After half a minute of that, he was forced to twist his head to the side, gasping for breath.
Damn it all. Why couldn’t the Leader have just gotten it over with and killed him?
Maybe they’ll use you for target practice.
Resting his chin on the sweaty pillow, he listened to the air conditioner’s rattle. Water dripped in the sink, slow and monotonous.
I’m dead, he thought, feeling tears prickle his eyes. I’m dead and it’s all over. There’s nothing left.
The sound of water made his throat ache. He licked his dry lips. So thirsty.
He stared at the anatomical poster on the infirmary’s wall. It was the only object of interest within his line of vision, a diagram of the human organ system. The figure’s chest was cut open. Lungs, liver, intestines, all exposed.
He felt the same way. Split apart and unraveled. Devastated.
Floorboards creaked behind him. He tensed at the noise and tried to rise off his stomach. The restraints allowed him an inch or two of mobility, but that was it.
“Don’t move yet,” a woman said.
Two turned his head to the side, pressing his cheek against the pillow.
The woman’s face blurred, then resolved itself. Her features were split through with inky streaks. At first he thought he was hallucinating. Then his vision cleared, and he realized that her hair had fallen over her face.
“Can I have a drink please, ma’am?” he croaked.
“I don’t want you to drink anything just yet, but you may have some ice.” The woman took a paper cup from the dispenser next to the sink and filled it with ice from the small freezer. She searched through drawers until she found a plastic spoon, then returned to his bedside.
She sank down on one knee and fed him ice chips. Though the ice had no taste at all, he relished its coldness and mouthfeel.
“Let it dissolve,” she said, withdrawing the spoon from between his lips.
“More, please.”
She gave him a couple more spoonfuls, then rose to her feet. “You’ve had enough for now.”
“No. Please. I’m so thirsty.”
“I know.”
“It hurts everywhere.”
“Shhh. I know.” She pressed a hand against his cheek, once. “I’ll give you something to help the pain.”
“I want to see Nine.”
“Rest,” she said, examining his IV bag. She went to the cabinet and riffled through it. Plastic crinkled, metal clattered.
Two closed his eyes. Whatever the woman was doing, it didn’t matter. Not really.
Nine. Why had she betrayed him? She was supposed to love him.
I don’t care. I’m not going to trust anyone ever again.
An indeterminable amount of time passed. He felt like he was falling. Sinking. The woman must have done something with his IV bag, because the pain ebbed.
“What were you hoping to accomplish?” the woman asked, just as he began to drift off again.
He struggled to open his eyes and found himself unable to. His eyelids felt like they were dipped in cement, and his head weighed even heavier.
“He needed to be disciplined,” the Leader said coolly.
“This is not discipline. This is a cruel message. I’m curious, who exactly was your intended recipient? The other subjects or myself?”
“The children must realize that there is no room for dissidence in the Project.”
The voices wafted through Two’s mind like fog, hazing it. He wondered if he might be asleep. Sometimes, during sleep, he was aware that he was dreaming. Maybe this was like that.
“Please don’t smoke in here,” the woman said. “You’ve done enough damage to this boy.”
“After all these years, are you becoming sentimental, Francine?” the Leader asked. “I thought he was just DNA to you.”
“Don’t mistake my disapproval for maternal attachment. I have no intention of interfering with his program. I would just like to know, is this your way of telling me that you don’t trust me?”
“What makes you think that?”
“I’ve devoted my entire life’s work to Pandora. I will not have my loyalty be questioned.”
“Oh, I trust you completely, Francine. After all, if not for that brilliant mind of yours, the Project would have never begun in the first place.”
Two’s consciousness started to recede once more. His cot began to feel like the comfiest thing in the world, and even the straps no longer bothered him. Who cared? They were just cloth.
“But even God must punish his children,” the Leader said as the darkness claimed him. “It was simply a demonstration.”
Case Notes 13: Subject Nine of Subset A
The morning after the end of the world arrived like usual—with a hot shower followed by breakfast. Instead of eating in th
e mess hall with the other subjects, a tray was delivered to Nine’s room.
Though a bowl had been inverted over the meal to retain its heat, the scrambled eggs and ham were lukewarm by the time they arrived. Not that she had an appetite for food anyway. Just looking at the pink slices of ham sickened her.
She pushed the meat around her plate before setting her meal aside altogether. She rubbed her eyes, wincing at the ache in her temples. The pills she had been given last night to help her sleep had left her with a headache and a cottony mouth that even the orange juice couldn’t fix.
“If you’re not going to eat, you’re at least going to have to take these,” the guard said, handing her a small paper cup with two pills inside.
Once, she might have asked what the capsules were for. She didn’t care now. She downed them with the rest of her juice and crushed the tiny cup in her hand.
She wanted to believe that what had happened last night was a dream. How could things change so fast? And Two—what would happen to him after she had gone?
She couldn’t bear to think about it.
“You sure you don’t want to eat anything?” the guard asked.
“I’m not hungry.”
The guard sighed. “Come with me.”
Nine followed the woman downstairs. They exited the main building and walked through the rain in silence. She didn’t hurry. The downpour soothed her.
Breakfast was still in session, so Subset A’s barracks was deserted at this hour. Looking at the rows of empty bunkbeds, she was pierced by a sudden yearning. Things had been so much simpler when she and Two were kids. Why couldn’t they just go back to that time?
“You’ll be leaving in less than an hour,” the guard said, handing her a cardboard box. “You can put your things in this. Pack lightly. Don’t bother bringing more than a single change of clothes. You’ll be given new clothes where you’re going.”
For as long as Nine could remember, she had always worn the coarse black uniform. She had two pairs of shorts for the summer months and a jacket for the winter, but that was about it when it came to variety. The thought of owning fancy clothes like the ones she had seen on TV might have excited her once, but it didn’t anymore. She dreaded the thought of leaving.
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