Tenderloin

by LD Marr

  This immaculate narrow room was empty except for glass-fronted freezers that stretched dozens of feet along one side. The freezers were filled with evenly stacked rows of something. Beige-colored blobs about the size of cats.

  Against my growing resistance, I buttoned up my coat and stepped inside. The closer I got, the more I knew that I did not want to see. But I walked close to one of the freezers anyway and stared at what was in it.

  Then I doubled over and wretched again. Dry heave after dry heave shook me before my body had finished showing me its own reaction to this sight.

  These wrapped up objects were babies. Small human infants. I didn’t have much experience with babies, but these tiny ones looked like newborns. I stood up straight again.

  I need pictures of this too, I thought. No one will believe this! Did I make a mistake when I gave Chloe my phone?

  All I could do was look around until the images had burned into my memory. Then I rushed out of that room.

  I stopped in the hallway. It was empty.

  All of them must have reached the tubes by now, I thought, remembering the speed of the elevator. I can leave now too.

  I started to walk down the hall when my vision blurred, and I swayed. I felt weak. Tired. Dizzy. Hungry. And thirsty! Terribly thirsty!

  How many hours had it had been since I’d had anything to eat or drink? I didn’t know, but I knew I had to have some water and food now, or I wasn’t going anywhere. And both of those things were here. I hadn’t wanted to drink or eat anything in this place. Now I had to.

  With wavering steps, I lurched back to the double doors to the room Chloe had been in. I typed the code and went in.

  Thankfully, Claude and the two guards were still on the floor—out cold. Holding onto the counter for balance, I walked around their still forms and into the first open cage.

  First, I put my mouth to the spout of the water bottle and drank gulp after gulp of the brackish water.

  Are there drugs in this water or the food? I wondered.

  But I kept drinking. I didn’t have a choice, and I’d seen that Chloe and the others weren’t too drugged to walk out of here.

  I drank about a cup of water and stopped. I felt better, but I was still weak. I looked at the unappetizing pellets in the tray next to the water bottle, and my stomach growled.

  My hand reached out of its own accord, grabbed one, and stuffed it into my mouth. I crunched the dry, hard pellet. It had a bitter chalky taste, but I kept chewing. I was ravenous.

  I ate several more pellets with sips of water in between to wash them down. After a few minutes, my stomach was full, and I stopped eating.

  Will I be able to speed up time again now? I wondered.

  Now I paused before trying. I was scared that it wouldn’t work again.

  Try it! I ordered myself.

  And I tried. But I couldn’t tell if it worked. There was nothing in the room moving.

  Except the guards, if they’re still alive, I realized.

  I walked over to where they lay in a heaped mound on the floor and bent down to get a closer look. But I didn’t see any movement.

  Then I heard something. A noise coming from Claude’s mouth. The beginning of a long, slow ragged breath.

  I stood up, sighed a deep, relieved breath of my own, and walked to the door.

  Chapter 28

  The double doors had shut again, so I keyed in the twelve familiar code numbers. I waited for the slow sound of the door buzzing open. For some reason, it was taking a while to start.

  It never took this long before, I thought. Have I slowed down time too much?

  Time go back to normal! I ordered in my mind.

  Claude let out a complete snore in normal time. Someone else on the floor moaned. But the door buzzer remained silent.

  They must have changed the code! I realized.

  Panicked, I ordered time to slow down again, and the sounds coming from the people on the floor stretched out again.

  I’ll have to figure out the new code number, I thought. I have time—lots of time.

  I began typing in different combinations of twelve numbers in the keypad. Typed and waited for the buzzer. Typed and waited. Hundreds of times. Thousands.

  My time seemed to stretch out forever, but the door still didn’t open. Even the other people’s slowed-down time was passing. Claude had sat up. I kept typing.

  Claude looked over at me, but he didn’t stand. I kept trying, but a hopeless feeling was settling over me like a fog.

  Claude’s hand reached ever so slowly into a jacket pocket and pulled out a small square object.

  Is that a phone? I wondered.

  I stopped what I was doing and rushed over to see what it was. It wasn’t a phone. It was some kind of remote control device.

  In my much faster time, I tugged the device loose from Claude’s grip and tossed it to the far end of the room.

  But I was too late. I smelled something just starting to tinge the air. An acrid, burning smell.

  He’s gassing me! I realized. I really messed up!

  I rushed to the cabinets and riffled through them, but there were no gas masks or anything else I recognized that I could use.

  The gas smell grew slowly stronger. In his slow time, Claude was incrementally lowering himself back down to the floor.

  My eyes and throat burned. I coughed. I grabbed a paper towel from the holder and held it over my mouth, but it didn’t seem to help. I was getting dizzy and weak.

  With blurred vision, I stumbled back to the double doors. I stood there and tried more numbers.

  Open! Open! I mentally willed the door the same way that I commanded time.

  But the buzzer didn’t sound, and even my control of time slipped again. I heard coughs and moans in real time coming from the floor behind me.

  I coughed too, and I felt myself fade in and out of consciousness.

  My typing hand fumbled on the keypad. Then it slipped off as consciousness deserted me, and I dropped into blackness.

  Chapter 29

  When I regained consciousness, my throat and eyes still burned. I was lying on my side. On something slightly cushioned but hard. Everything ached, and I didn’t have the strength to move.

  My eyes felt as if they were glued shut. I struggled to open them. They burned more and watered in the harsh light, but I forced them all the way open.

  At first, I couldn’t tell what I was seeing through watery blurred vision. I blinked again and again to clear the tears.

  What was in front of me came into focus. Black bars. With more black bars showing through those bars. Cages. I was in a cage!

  No! I thought. I have to get out of here!

  I tried to move, tried to turn, but my body wouldn’t obey my commands.

  The room spun in crazy circles around me, and bile rose in my throat. I gagged, and that motion brought more nausea. I gagged again and moaned. Gagged and moaned. Over and over.

  Then another sound joined in with the sounds I was making. Laughter. Somehow that sobered me, and I finally lay quiet and still.

  Heavy thumping footsteps approached my cage and stopped. I couldn’t move or turn my head, but I shifted my vision to look in that direction.

  The room spun again and then steadied. Claude stood at the barred door. His mouth was shaped in a cold smile, but his eyes glared.

  “Awake! You! Awake!” he shouted at me as if he was having difficulty articulating either from having ingested the same drugged air himself or from anger.

  Claude’s mouth and nose bunched up together and released an animal hiss, giving me the answer to that question.

  I was incapacitated, but Claude seemed to be fully recovered. He took a breath and then spoke to me.

  “You low scum of a surface dweller,” he said in a calm voice laced with hostility.

  I looked at him but didn’t—couldn’t answer.

  Time slow down! I tried to mentally control time, but Claude kept talking at the same rate.
<
br />   “You dare to harm your betters!” His voice rose, and his body shook. “You are nothing but the meat for our tables! A body that produces our meat and dairy!”

  I blinked. I tried to squirm, but my body wouldn’t obey my orders. I ordered time to slow down again, but it wouldn’t obey me either.

  “You have dared, and you have harmed. And now you will be punished.”

  A smile shape curled back up on Claude’s face.

  “Instead of being painlessly killed and slaughtered in our normal compassionate way to prepare meat animals, you will suffer first.”

  I have to do something! I have to snap out of this! I told myself.

  But I couldn’t move a muscle without debilitating waves of nausea washing through me. I flexed my toes and fingers anyway. Took deep breaths and breathed through the nausea. Claude was still talking.

  “Death will be your final escape, but first you will suffer for many long months. About nine months to be exact. We also need milk, so you’ll have to bear a child. I will give you that child. We need fresh infants too. No produce is wasted. I’m here to get that child started now. And in case you think otherwise, I’ll enjoy it, but you won’t.”

  “No,” I forced myself to speak. “No,” I mumbled in a weak voice.

  Claude chuckled, and I felt my mood lift too.

  I can speak! I’m starting to recover! I thought.

  “That’s what I like to hear,” he said. “And soon you’ll be yelling that, even though you won’t be able to move your body.”

  He was right about that. I could barely move, and my efforts to slow down time still weren’t working.

  “But first, I’ll have to clean you,” he said. “I don’t rub my body against stinking filth.”

  Claude left. I couldn’t turn my head to watch him, but I heard the sounds of his thumping boots. And the sound of his voice as he kept talking to me.

  “Your dirty surface dweller tricks didn’t work, did they?” he said. “We’ve dealt with you radioactive mutants before. You’re a strong one though, I have to admit, but nothing we can’t handle.”

  Radioactive mutants? What’s he talking about? I wondered.

  Some more sounds I couldn’t identify came from the front of the room.

  “Conditions must be getting worse up there,” Claude said. “It’s a good thing we’re working to clear the planet of you people. Except to be used for our food, of course.”

  Then I heard the thumps of Claude’s boots returning.

  This time, he held the end of the industrial-size hose I’d seen coiled up on the wall at the front of the room. He pointed its metal tip at me.

  “Your pain starts now,” said Claude.

  He pressed down on the hose’s lever, and a hard stream of water sprayed out.

  The water hit me like a punch in the stomach, shoving me back against the bars of the cage behind me. I tried to scream, but I threw up instead.

  Claude pointed the hose away from me and washed my vomit down one of the drains in the center of the floor.

  My moment of relief didn’t last. He turned the powerful blast back on me and moved it up and down my legs, arms, chest, head, everywhere.

  Now a real scream came out of my mouth.

  “Yes!” Claude shouted. “Now you’re clean, and I’m ready for you.”

  He stopped spraying the hose.

  Every inch of my body ached. But I also noticed that I felt more alert. I was able to slightly turn my head without getting dizzy and sick, but I still couldn’t move much more than that.

  Time slow down! I tried again.

  For just a moment, Claude seemed to freeze. Then he sped up again.

  My head throbbed.

  “I’ll be right back for you,” Claude said.

  He walked back to the front of the room, carrying the hose. Now I recognized the soft sounds I heard—he was coiling the hose back up on its hook. And then the sound of his thumping boots coming back my way.

  Time slow down! I ordered time again.

  The pain in my head grew stronger, but the sound of Claude’s boots slowed down, way down. And then sped up again.

  Now the pain in my head was unbearable.

  I screamed just as Claude reached the door of my cage.

  Claude laughed at me again.

  “Yes, scream, surface scum. You’re just a coward after all, aren’t you?” he said.

  He reached up one brawny hand toward the keypad on the door to the cage.

  I could barely think through the pain in my head, but I knew I had to now.

  Time! Slow down! I screamed back against the pain.

  Claude’s hand froze in mid-air and then continued its slow incremental movement toward the keypad.

  Slow down! Slow down! I kept screaming mentally at time.

  I willed time with all the force of the terrible pain I felt.

  It stayed slow. Claude’s hand hadn’t reached the keypad yet. The pain in my head ebbed and faded. Claude’s fingers neared the pad.

  I knew I had to get over there, but my body, now bruised by the hose spray, still wouldn’t move.

  Move! I shouted at myself mentally. Move!

  I shoved myself up a few inches and wanted to scream again. It felt as if every muscle in my body was tearing apart.

  Then I froze. Not because of the pain.

  I can’t let him see me moving, I realized. But what can I do?

  I groped for ideas and thought of something to try, even though it seemed crazy.

  Now I gave mental orders to Claude.

  I’m on the bed. You don’t see me moving. You see me on the bed, I told him mentally.

  Not knowing if that had worked or not, I pushed my body against its tearing pain and stood up. I groaned and stumbled to the door of the cage. When I got there, Claude’s finger was on one of the numbers on the keypad.

  From inside the cage, I couldn’t see what the number was. I reached a hand through the bars and put it on his finger. I felt the pad and the position of the number he was pressing—4.

  I kept my hand on Claude’s typing finger and again went through the slow process of memorizing the entire twelve numbers. He kept typing and didn’t show any sign of noticing that I was there.

  After what seemed like eons later, the door’s lock began to make the sound of a slow click.

  I’m not here. I’m on the bed, I said to Claude mentally again.

  Ever so slowly, he began to pull the door open. When it was wide enough, I slipped through and out.

  Now what? I wondered. I could lock him in the cage, but he knows the code. Could he reach through the bars and open it?

  His hands were big, but he might be able to shove one through.

  I need more time! I told myself.

  I would need time for the elevator and the tube to travel in real time.

  I’ll have to knock him out again, I realized, and the thought sickened me.

  I was so tired of all this hurting people and having them hurt me back.

  As I stood there in my sped-up time, a realization hit me. I hadn’t known some things about myself before. Things I was able to do and willing to do. But hurting people, causing pain, and being violent were things I never wanted to do.

  Now I had to do it again anyway, and there was no time to waste. I ran to the front of the room. Someone had attached the metal towel dispenser to the wall again. I yanked it back off.

  I tried not to think about what I was doing as I ran back to Claude and swung it hard against the back of his head. The last time I’d done this, I had to hit him several times before he went down. But this time, I didn’t want to return time to normal in between hits.

  My second swing of the rectangular box again connected with a sickening thunk. A squirt of blood moved slowly out into the air from the place where the sharp corner broke the skin on the back of Claude’s head.

  How many times did I hit him last time? I asked myself. Was it five? Ten?

  I couldn’t remember, bu
t I knew it was a lot.

  Ten will have to do, I decided.

  I counted and swung the metal holder again and again.

  “Three, four, five,…”

  The start of a slow moan came from Claude’s mouth, and his body began to sink down.

  Nausea gripped me, but I kept going, even though I knew I might kill him.

  At the count of ten, I dropped the metal holder. It began its slow fall to the floor, and I took off running to the double door at the front of the room.

  I typed in the new code and breathed a huge sigh of relief when I heard the start of its buzzer sound. I waited impatiently for the click of the lock opening—several seconds in my time. Then I shoved the door open and ran for the elevator.

  ⌛

  The elevator car was sitting on the floor I was on, but the wait for its doors to open in real time was tortuous.

  Still, I didn’t dare speed time back up again until I was in the car, and I’d pressed the button to start it moving on its way to Transportation Center, New York Subways.

  When I ordered time to speed up again, the elevator seemed to lurch forward. I leaned back against a wall and adjusted to the change in time and motion. I knew the car was moving fast. It took a rising, curving path.

  Finally the elevator car stopped, and its doors opened to a view of the empty tube station. I sped up my time again and ran to find the sign for the Bowery.

  Home! I thought when I saw the sign and the clear tube car waiting next to it.

  But as I sat down in the car and pressed the same button I’d seen Claude press when we’d come here, I realized that even though I was heading toward home, I couldn’t go there now. And nothing would ever be the same for me again.

  I slipped back into real time, and the car slipped into the tube it traveled through.

  I can’t go back to Brooklyn, I told myself. I can’t get Frank and Rita involved in this. I’ll have to go stay with Steve again.

  That thought comforted me. Our relationship was different now, and it was a relief to have somewhere to go.

  Tension slipped away, and I almost fell asleep on the ten-minute ride. Bright lights and the feeling of the car coming to a stop jolted me alert.