EVO Nation Series Trilogy Box Set

by K. J. Chapman

  He hasn’t even finished tightening the pads when a quick shock fires through the spines into my head. I gasp, falling to my knees. Yana, Haydn, and Golding fall beside me. Adam makes a move to catch me, but remains in line with the other TORO, even though I can see he’s struggling to keep his cool.

  “That’s the shock you will experience every time you disobey a direct order,” says Roscoe. “This is Sergeant Major Towley, and you’ll do well to impress him today. You two are up first.” Roscoe points to me and Yana.

  Yana’s TORO drags her to the far end of the room, and Adam pulls me as gently as he can to the opposite wall. Towley watches, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  Roscoe wheels the large vat of water into the middle of the room, and then retreats to a safe distance, dragging his trolley along with him. Both he and Towley observe the monitor from behind a plastic screen, and Roscoe taps at a tablet in his hand. My collar beeps faintly from deactivation.

  Yana’s whole body shakes. “What are we supposed to do?” she asks.

  “Fight,” says Roscoe, not taking his eyes from the monitor. “The water is for your advantage. EVO 6 doesn’t need aids.”

  Adam shifts from one foot to the other in my peripheral.

  “This is important, girls,” says Towley. His voice is just as slimy as his face. “This is your chance to prove yourselves useful.”

  His choice of word jars in my mind like nails on a blackboard. All we are to them are objects that they can use and abuse, objects to be turned into weapons.

  Yana shakes her head, stepping further away from me. Roscoe shocks her, and she yelps out, slumping to the floor in a quivering mess.

  “I won’t fight her. I can’t control my episodes,” I say.

  Roscoe taps his tablet without looking up at me, and another shock brings me to my knees. “You will fight each other,” he insists.

  “I won’t do it,” I say, forcing myself to my feet.

  He fires a second, larger shock through my temples, but I remain standing. Towley’s mouth twitches in annoyance, so Roscoe sends an even longer shock through my device. My cries seem to satisfy them both.

  Adam’s hands clench into fists, and I flash him a warning look. Yana screams at Roscoe from across the room before dropping to the floor as pain rages through her head.

  “Fight each other or I will continue shocking you into unconsciousness,” Roscoe says, his face flaring red. “Now, EVO!”

  Yana’s eyes meet mine and her lip trembles. She looks so small and helpless with horror etched on her face. Pushing herself to standing, she shakes her head in fear.

  I force a smile. “It’s okay,” I say, climbing to my feet. “Yana, it’s okay. Just do it.”

  Towley watches me with narrowed eyes. He whispers to Roscoe, and Roscoe taps on his tablet again. Golding and Haydn both fall to the floor in agony. They writhe at the TORO’s feet. However, their TORO spare them no concerned. The shock is ongoing, and Haydn starts to convulse.

  “You two are stronger than the boys. You fight or they die,” says Roscoe.

  Yana looks physically sick at the sight. I nod to her, and she hangs her head in defeat. She holds out a trembling hand and the vat rolls towards me, sloshing water over the sides as it moves. A shimmering orb of water the size of a globe rises from the vat, encasing my head.

  Haydn and Golding’s screams sound warped through the water. My lips are tightly pursed as my hair floats around my face in swirls of red. My nostrils flood with water and a panic grips at my chest. My hand does nothing more than sink into the orb in my attempt to pop it. I need to take a breath.

  Yana’s whole body shakes uncontrollably. Tears leak down her face and she can’t look at me. I need her to look at me. I need her to know it is alright. I’m fighting for my life, but I feel the strongest I’ve ever felt; courageous for not hurting my new friend, and powerful for not giving Roscoe what he wants.

  Adam steps out of position, but I hold my hand against my back and shake it to tell him to stay away.

  “Fight her back, Telekin,” shouts Roscoe. His voice is distorted through the water, and his body ripples in front of me. “FIGHT HER BACK!” Roscoe howls.

  I need to breathe. I slump to the floor as my lungs scream for air. Don’t cave in, Teddie.

  “Roscoe, EVO 3 is going to kill her,” says Towley. He takes a step toward me. “We need EVO 6 alive.”

  They won’t let me die. They need their grade three.

  Yana’s eyes finally meet mine. I want to smile, but the burn in my chest makes it impossible. She shakes her head in shame and allows her hand to drop. The orb bursts, and the water falls away from me, soaking my scrubs. Lying on my stomach, I greedily gulp in air.

  Roscoe punches his fist against the tablet, sending a stronger shock racing through my brain. Dots spark in front of my eyes, and my body arches and falls from convulsions.

  “If you want this pain to end, you will fight her,” he spits.

  There is no let up from the agony coursing through my temples. I can feel the surge of energy growing in my chest, as if the shock is fuelling it, or perhaps, it’s just my anger being fuelled. I will not give Roscoe what he wants. I won’t be turned into an organic robot.

  The pain stops suddenly, and Roscoe marches over to me, hauling me to my feet. “You will regret this,” he says, through his teeth, so only Adam and I can hear.

  “Well, that was disappointing, Alan,” says Towley. He makes his way toward the door. “I’m not wasting any more time here. We’ll discuss this further this evening.”

  Roscoe nods and watches him leave, his shoulders sagging. “I will get what I want from you, EVO,” he says, right into my face, spit spraying my mouth.

  “You can kill me trying,” I say, right back at him.

  The back of his hand meets my already swollen cheek, knocking me to the floor. “There is no scenario in which you win, Freak, so you best accept that, right now.”

  “You’ve got everything to gain, and I’ve got nothing left to lose. I will die before I give you what you want,” I shout after him. If I’m going to die, I’m going down fighting.

  “TORO, get them out of here,” he snaps, storming out of the door.

  Yana pulls free from her TORO. “I’m so sorry, Teddie. Please, forgive me,” she weeps, helping me to my feet.

  “There is nothing to forgive,” I say. “Don’t let them get between us.”

  The three of them nod their heads in agreement, and Yana watches me over her shoulder as her TORO drags her from the room.

  Adam slides the device off of my wet hair, his finger skimming a stray strand away from my eye. I allow him to be close to me, well, as close as we can be without drawing attention. What I really need is a hug, but I know that is out of the question.

  Taking me under the arm, he walks me back to my cell, allowing me to lean on him to steady my trembling legs. He maintains his TORO presence, but his thumb traces gentle circles on my skin.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Roscoe hasn’t returned to Facility One in four days. I find myself lulling into a false sense of security. Golding chats animatedly to Yana and I about the time he influenced a dealer in his grandmother’s casino to give him five thousand in cash, and how he blew it all hiring, and subsequently crashing, a party yacht to impress some guy he was dating. It makes sense that he comes from a wealthy family. He has a brash sense of entitlement about him, but he has grown on me over the last week.

  Haydn is the last to join us as usual for the past four days. He still has a prominent limp. Our bruises have started to fade, but his knee is messed up, and Dr Simmons has given him a crutch to shuffle about with.

  He sits down, swinging his leg over the bench. “I’ve been asking my TORO to wake me up fifteen minutes earlier seeing as it takes me longer to get here, but he refuses. I should get fifteen minutes from when I arrive, don’t you think?” he says, shoving a spoonful of scrambled eggs in his mouth.

  Yana nods earnestly, and I stem a g
iggle. Haydn is an old man trapped inside a twenty-year-old body. He is an endearing guy, and I’m getting the feeling that Yana strongly agrees.

  I glance in Adam’s direction a couple times, but he is looking straight ahead. He has got the TORO act down, and sometimes, I wonder where the TORO ends and he begins.

  Golding stares at me with an amused look on his face.

  “What?”

  “You’ve got the hots for the dishy TORO,” he jokes. “You’ve been making Bambi eyes at him since you sat down.”

  I almost spit out my drink. “Don’t be stupid,” I say, wishing I could sink under the table and never come out.

  “Aw, look, she’s blushing,” Haydn laughs.

  Golding chuckles into his drink, nudging me with an elbow. My eyes flit to Adam, and although he isn’t looking, a smile pulls at the corner of his mouth.

  “She must like the strong, silent type,” Golding says.

  I punch him in the arm. “Shut up, Golding.”

  “You two are cruel,” says Yana. “Ignore them, Teds.”

  The bell rings, and Golding ruffles my hair. I punch him again, and then get to my feet for Adam to take my arm. I can’t look at him. My eyes feel hot in their sockets. We fall a few paces behind the others to give Haydn space for his crutch.

  “You were blushing,” he whispers, without looking at me.

  I sense the smirk in his voice, causing another violent blush to pink my cheeks. His sense of humour has been making an appearance over the last four days, and I reckon the ratio of TORO to Adam has shifted in his favour.

  Dr Simmons rounds the corner, stopping briefly. “Is everything okay, Teddie? You look flushed,” she says.

  A chorus of snickers erupts from Yana, Golding, and Haydn. I even feel Adam’s chest judder from stifling a laugh.

  “Oh, my god, kill me now,” I mumble, mortified.

  She is about to say something else, but the TORO’s screens light up with writing. Adam’s body tenses, and his eyes catch mine.

  “What are your instructions, TORO,” Dr Simmons asks him.

  “Dr Roscoe has returned to site and he requests that EVO 6 be brought to the medical bay,” he says in his best TORO voice.

  Dr Simmons’ pager beeps and she fumbles to get it off her belt. The mention of Roscoe sucks all the humour out of us, and Golding, Yana, Haydn, and I share a troubled look.

  “That’s you, Teddie?” says Yana, in barely more than a whisper.

  Dr Simmons reads her pager and takes a deep breath. “I must accompany you,” she says to Adam, slipping the pager back onto her belt.

  We turn back down the way we came toward the medical bay. I look over my shoulder, and Golding clenches a fist and shakes it; a silent gesture to give me a confidence boost. I smile on the outside, but inside I’m petrified.

  “What if he makes Adam beat me,” I say to Dr Simmons. I could cry at the thought of it.

  He stops in his tracks. “I will never—”

  “So, you remembered your name,” Dr Simmons interrupts. “Don’t worry, we’re going to the med bay not the therapy suite.”

  I am worried, though. My legs feel detached from my body as we walk, and my throat has gone hard like it does before I throw up. I clench my hands into fists to disguise the shaking. Adam moves closer to me, causing our arms brush together. He is letting me know he is here for me, but half my fear is that whatever is about to go down will expose him and Dr Simmons to Roscoe.

  I can hear Roscoe pacing the tiles before I see him. His pin stripe shirt gapes slightly at the buttons, and the knot in his tie looks like a noose around his fat neck. He removes something from his briefcase, standing it neatly on the desk.

  A large sheet of ply covers half the wall, and as I near the doorway I realise where we are. It’s the room where I woke up the first night Roscoe had brought me in. It’s the room where I could have killed both Adam and Dr Simmons. The ply is covering the hole where the one-sided mirror had been before I shattered it.

  Roscoe looks up and watches us approach. Every fibre in my body wants to turn and run the other way. His usual smug look has vanished, and he seems agitated, hurrying us inside. The room is tidier than I had left it, and a futon type bed replaces the one I had been strapped to. The desk, I hadn’t noticed before, but maybe it has always been in the corner. Most of that first night is a blur of sedatives and sheer terror.

  “Morning, Yvette,” he says to Dr Simmons.

  She mumbles a greeting, but is more interested in the item on the desk. A small, unlabelled spray bottle sits proudly in the middle of the polished wood. He follows her line of sight and picks up the bottle.

  “What is that?” she asks.

  Roscoe is more on edge than usual. Like a wild animal backed into a corner, he looks dangerous. “This,” he says, picking up the bottle, and spraying a blast into my face, “is a hallucinogen. On a mass scale, it can be weaponised as a chemical weapon. In small doses, it will suit our needs perfectly.”

  I rub at my wet face. A taste of furniture polish and pepper stings at my tongue, and I cough against the burn in my throat.

  The room swims in front of me. Adam is being shoved out of the door by Roscoe, and Dr Simmons follows them with a hankie over her nose and mouth. Their bodies seem to melt and sag in front of me. Then, the door shuts, my collar beeps, and I am alone.

  I take a few deep breaths. I know what a hallucinogen is, and I know that I don’t feel right.

  My hand starts to itch, and looking down, I see movement under my skin. Hundreds of tiny bumps wriggle just below the surface. I grasp at them, trying to pinch them between my fingertips, and my skin splits open at the knuckle. A maggot wriggles out of the wound. I scream and swipe it away. Another maggot burrows its way out, and another, and another, until I’m scratching at my hands and drawing blood.

  The movement in my hand stops, and I catch sight of my reflection in a small mirror behind the desk. My cheek looks wrong. The whole left side of my face hangs from my cheek bone like a piece of fabric, and my eyeball protrudes as if it is about to tumble out of the socket at any minute. I attempt to push the skin back into place, but it feels gooey. Bringing my hand down, my finger tips are red with blood and covered in rotted tissue.

  I look to the mirror again. Bits of flesh drip from my face, exposing bloody muscle. I scream at the sight of myself, run towards the door, and bang on it over and over, crying for help.

  “Don’t cry, Sweetheart,” says a voice from behind me. Dad is sat on the futon looking at his feet. “You know I don’t like to see you cry.” His voice sounds odd- warbled. His white shirt is still bloody and wet from the sea.

  I call out his name, but he still doesn’t look at me. Running to him, I drop to my knees at his feet. He lifts his head, and I recoil at the grey, decayed flesh and empty eye sockets.

  “NO!” I scream, clutching my hands to my mouth.

  “It’s me, Teddie bear,” his voice says, but Dad’s mouth doesn’t move. “You let me die. Why did you leave me to rot in the ocean, Teddie Bear?”

  I clasp my hands to my ears to drown out the voice, and closing my eyes, I scream long and hard.

  I dare to open my eyes again, and Dad is gone. I fall forward in relief, sobbing into the futon. Shadows move at the edges of the room, spreading out into the middle until I can hardly see my hand in front of my face. The blackness is alive; I feel it gliding over me. It stops just in front of me and merges into a figure.

  The figure stands shrouded in a hooded cloak and its head jerks around rapidly. The hood falls away. Staggering backwards, I scream at the sight of a half rat, half bird creature. Its beady eyes are inset into a furry brown head, and a jet-black beak sticks out from the centre of its face. Its head snaps in my direction, letting out a deafening screech.

  I crawl backward, until I’m against the wall. The creature edges its way closer. I scream for help. I scream for Adam. There is no running from it. It lets out a screech, lunging forward and pecking at my face.
It dives in again, this time, catching me centimetres from my eye, and pain erupts in my forehead. I don’t know what to do. I can’t escape it.

  Raising my hand, the coursing energy pulsates from my chest, running down my arm and into my palm. I wait for it to attack again, and then thrust my hand into its cloak. There is a sudden, almighty release of energy. The creature soars backward, smashing the desk to smithereens, and hitting the far wall.

  Millions of black fragments bounce off the wall. They stay airborne, and a loud hum fills the room as they regroup into a swarm and fly in my direction. Falling over my own feet, I hit into a filing cabinet, and a potted plant topples on my face and chest. I’m showered in leaves and soil as wasps surround me. I desperately try to swat them away, angering them all the more. The wasps get inside my scrubs, and bury into my hair, stinging me continuously. I’m tearing at the scrubs, ripping out large chunks of material, and then the door opens. I run toward the light, still fighting the wasps.

  Three men step into the room; all of them in TORO uniform, but none with faces. The blank, fleshy canvases have nothing save two slits where a nose should be. Their strong hands grapple at my limbs and lift me off my feet.

  My skin is on fire from the sheer number of stings, yet the TORO don’t seem fazed by the wasps. Their blank faces drift in and out of focus, and Roscoe stands behind them, grinning.

  “Take her to the shower block and douse her under a cold shower to bring her out of the hallucination,” he says.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The faceless TORO’s hands dig hard into my flesh. Roscoe’s face registers in my chaotic mind, grinning at me like a cat that caught the mouse. There is a beep in amongst the noise- the collar is activated, and I fight down the urge to use my telekinesis. It brims just below the surface like a bubbling lava of hatred.