Cyber's Escape

by Jamie Davis

  “Under the right circumstances, stimulating the pleasure centers can eventually become almost as painful as some of the other alternatives I have at my command. Like this one.”

  Simon reached out again, holding the box next to her implant and thumbing the switch once more. This time, it felt like every nerve in her body had been set on fire. Every inch of Cass’s skin and bones burned with the most intense agony she’d ever felt. She couldn’t even scream because the muscles in her abdomen that controlled her breathing were frozen in pain. It seemed to go on forever.

  Simon released the button again and pulled his arm away. Just as quickly as it had appeared, the pain left her. She remembered it, though. She’d never forget what that burning pain felt like.

  Cass gasped for air, as she tried to catch her breath after her respiratory muscles had been frozen for so long.

  As she did, she glared up at Simon. “I don’t care what you do to me, you bastard. I’m not going to tell you where Shelby is. I can’t, because I don’t know. Like you said, we talked and then she went dark. I haven’t talked to her since.”

  “Maybe, and then again, maybe not. Let’s play a little game, Cassidy. I’ll ask you a question. If you get it right, you get a little jolt of pleasure. If you get it wrong… Well, I’ll give you more than just a jolt of the alternative. Choose carefully because there are no take backs.”

  Cass gripped the arms of the chair and stared deep into Simon’s eyes. She thought maybe if she held onto something like the anger and desire to cause him the kind of pain he created in her, it would help get her through what happened next. Cass soon discovered she was wrong, but she kept trying anyway. No matter what, she wouldn’t willingly give up anything she knew about Shelby.

  Chapter 22

  Cass groaned as she rolled over in bed. She didn’t know what to do and whether she should cry or scream or what. Simon had been very thorough in his questioning of her. It felt like it had lasted for hours, though she’d lost track of everything around her after the tenth time he’d pressed the button on his infernal machine. The man always knew just how to work at it until she finally gave up and answered him.

  Cass hugged her arms to her chest and sobbed, “Shelby, I hope you forgive me.”

  She’d eventually given up what she knew of Shelby’s planned destination at her cousin’s house. Cass didn’t know the cousin’s name, but apparently, that was enough information for Simon. He’d asked a few more questions after she’d given up Shelby’s location, but it seemed as if he was just enjoying the torture at that point. When he’d let her go, he’d ordered her to stand up and leave the office, telling her to go to her room. He’d told her he’d planned on coming back and asking her more questions later. She’d wanted to run away, but instead had followed his commands to the letter and started up to her room.

  As soon as Cass had left her father’s office and turned toward the stairs, she’d noticed two men she’d never seen before standing by the front door in the hallway. The one on the right had glared at her as she’d come around the corner, nudging the other to draw his partner’s attention to her presence. Cass had realized they must be with Simon. They had been part of his Sapiens First security team or something like it. It had been evident to her they’d been there to guard against her escape, and possibly her family’s, too.

  She hadn’t said anything, keeping her eyes down as she’d shuffled past them. Every part of her body had ached or burned or something. She hadn’t known if she’d ever feel right again.

  Cass had climbed the stairs, taking each step one at a time until she’d been able to make it to the top and had been able to get into her room where she’d collapsed onto her bed. Now, all she could think about was where Shelby was and if Simon had been able to obtain enough information to track her down or not.

  Shelby was street-wise and smart, Cass knew, but that didn’t mean she was up to evading someone with the resources Simon had at his disposal. She had to get a warning to Shelby, somehow, but it had been days since she’d talked to her. As she ticked the days off in her mind, Cass realized it had been almost a week since the two of them had last spoken. Shelby could be anywhere at this point and that was a good thing. All Cass could hope as exhaustion overwhelmed her, was that Shelby wasn’t with her cousin.

  A tap at Cass’s door woke her later that afternoon. It was already getting dark in Cass’s room. She hadn’t turned on the light before she’d fallen asleep. She didn’t bother to get up and turn it on now, even though the sun was starting to go down.

  “Cassie,” her mother said from outside the door. “It’s dinner time. You need to come down and eat something. Once you do that, you can come back up here to rest.”

  Those were the same words her mother had said to her three times a day since she’d found out about Cass’s implants. She’d said nearly the same thing every time and that was the extent of their interaction.

  Cass got up. She felt a little better after some sleep and her muscles didn’t ache quite so much. She wouldn’t be running any marathons anytime soon though. She went out the door and was nearly bowled over by Elena, running past her in the hallway.

  Her little sister stopped and stared at her for a few seconds. She’d also refused to say anything extra to her big sister. She sneered at Cass, laughed, and ran down the stairs. The two guards still stood by the front door, each of them wearing black trousers and a light windbreaker jacket over top a buttondown shirt. She was sure they were armed in some way. They didn’t really need it, though, since both of them were huge and could easily overpower her if she tried to force her way past them.

  Cass shuffled into the dining room and sat down at the table. The one good thing about her situation, if she could find a silver lining at all, was that she didn’t have to help with dinner or do any of the dishes. She guessed they figured the condemned didn’t have to do chores.

  Cass sat down and dished up some food from the bowl in front of her onto the plate. She didn’t care what it was. She needed the calories after the way her implant had worked overtime during Simon’s interrogation. It was some sort of pasta and meat. Cass mechanically shoveled it into her mouth so that she could make sure she didn’t run out of energy. It was essential to keep her strength up in case an opportunity to get away presented itself.

  After eating her fill, Cass excused herself, stood up, and went back to her bedroom. As she started up the stairs, she overheard her mother start a conversation with Simon back in the dining room. Nobody had said a word while Cass was there. They waited until she left the room before resuming whatever it was they were talking about. Cass didn’t care, she turned up her auditory implant and listened in to the entire discussion.

  “Simon, I feel like I should feed something to your men.”

  “That’s all right, Faye, they’re fine. When their shift relief comes in a few hours, they can go into town and get something to eat on the way back to the motel.”

  “Well, at least let me get them some coffee or something. They’ve been standing there all day without moving and I feel like they should be offered some sort of hospitality in my home.”

  “I’m sure coffee would be appreciated. Thank you, Faye.”

  Cass stopped listening at that point. Her mother disgusted her. Cass was about to be turned into a vegetable or maybe worse, killed, if the planned procedure was performed. And all her mother could worry about was whether she was a good hostess to the guards who were keeping her trapped here.

  Cass got to her room and laid down on the bed. She’d had enough and couldn’t bring herself to think about the betrayal by her family anymore. After the questioning from Simon, her body was all too ready to fall into another deep, yet fitful sleep. Cass gave in as the darkness folded over her.

  Chapter 23

  Two days later during breakfast, Cass’s father looked up from his phone and said, “I just got some good news. Doctor Sanders messaged me. He’s assembled his team a little quicker than he expected. They’
re available to do the procedure tomorrow.”

  Cass slumped in her seat. She’d given up trying to fight back anymore. Simon Cantwell had left the morning after he had questioned her but he’d promised to return soon.

  Her mom looked up at her husband, seeming to be a little shocked. “So quickly?”

  Her father nodded as he glanced at Cass then back to his wife. “I think sooner is better. It's not fair to keep her waiting for a prolonged period. Besides which, I think if we leave her the way she is, Simon is going to want to come back and talk to her again. If we remove her implant, he won’t have any reason to visit again.”

  Cass turned and glared at her father. “I’m surprised you don’t just ask him to come back and question me every single day, Daddy. Now that you’ve let him torture me once, what’s to keep you from letting him do it anytime he feels like it?”

  “Cassidy, you brought that on yourself. All you had to do was answer his questions. You’ve carried your betrayal too far. Besides, despite what you may think, I am protecting you. Once the procedure is done, I don’t think there’ll be any need for Simon to question you.”

  “Of course, there won’t,” Cass blurted out. “I’ll be a drooling moron missing half my brain. God, how can the two of you sit there and even consider letting that quack do surgery on me? He hasn’t seen the inside of a real hospital in years. He’s got no business doing brain surgery on a dog, let alone me.”

  Her father banged his fist on the table. “That’s quite enough Cass. If you’re finished with your breakfast, go back up to your room and stay there. I’m going to make the arrangements and that’s that. We will all say some prayers and hope the procedure is successful. We’ll have you back to your normal self before you know it.”

  Cass bit back a reply. She pushed the chair back, got up, and left the room. A murmur of voices followed her into the hallway as her parents continued their conversation behind her, but she didn’t bother to listen in. She was done listening to anything those people had to say. Right now, she knew she had to figure a way out of here before tomorrow morning or she was going to be as good as dead. Cass passed the two Sapiens First thugs Simon had left stationed at the front door. They stood there, close to the bottom of the stairs to guard against Cass’s escape.

  She considered the two of them as she started up the steps. Almost every scenario she’d come up with so far ended as soon as the guards caught her sneaking out and returned her to her bedroom. No matter what she came up with, Cass couldn’t think of a way to get past them without some kind of alert sounding.

  Her father had changed the code on the home’s alarm system. He activated it every night now, even though there was very little crime inside the enclave itself. The alarm was set so that Cass couldn’t get out through her window or via the back door. Its purpose now was to keep her in, not burglars out.

  As she thought about her chances to get away, the first part of any plan was to find a way to get past the guards. Secondly, she had to get past the alarm. The third thing involved finding a way out of the enclave without any of the cameras spotting her or tripping the firewall and security wards on the perimeter. Only once she made it outside, could Cass tackle the nearly impossible task of finding Shelby before Simon did.

  Cass looked up and down the list she’d created in her head and realized she was going to have to make a decision about what she was willing to do to get past the two men guarding her. They were the first part of the process of gaining her freedom. If there were only one of them, perhaps Cass could have lured him away from his post somehow. There was no way that would work with both men, though.

  If only she had a way to re-access the Mantle. She’d tried several times a day to find an access point outside of the firewall but had no luck. Her parents hadn’t told Mr. Benson about her directly, but they did get him to shut further access points through the firewall which pretty much removed any chance of her making a connection outside of the enclave.

  It was a shame she couldn’t download anything from the AI system to help her escape. She’d heard once that some implants could learn muscle memory sequences that enabled the user to do certain extraordinary things. It sounded more like something out of a holovid than real life, but it would’ve been helpful.

  Cass snorted a derisive laugh at herself. She’d sunk pretty far if she’d started thinking she was going to be able to get some sort of superpowers from the Mantle like they did on the shows she liked to watch at school. If she wanted to get away, Cass was going to have to do it on her own, using only the things she had available to her right now.

  Cass monitored the guards' activities as best she could once Simon left. Two shifts came to the house over the course of a 24-hour span. She realized that at some point, the guards took a break in the middle of the night. One of them always went to get coffee or some food from the kitchen while the other one remained in position. If she waited until that moment, she’d only have to deal with one of them at a time. It still didn’t give her much of a chance fighting her way past even one fully-grown adult male but it was better than taking on two of them.

  Cass lay down in bed and stared at the ceiling as she began to put the pieces of her plan together in her head. As she did, she was fully aware of how easy it would be for any step along the way to end in total failure. There was only going to be one chance to get this right, slim as it was. She had to be ready to take it.

  Cass had all day to work on refining her plans. Nothing could be done until the middle of the night when everyone else but the guards were asleep. She decided to check over the plans a few more times, then try to get some extra sleep. She’d need it since it was likely she’d be up all night trying to get away if her plan worked.

  Chapter 24

  It was nearly two in the morning when her internal auditory implant alerted her to the sound of one of the guards leaving the area by the front door. She heard him walking through the house over the hardwood floors to the kitchen. His boots made a distinctive clumping sound on the wood. Cass had set her auditory system and implant to listen for movement downstairs by the guards after the house had settled down.

  Cass sat up. It was time to put her cobbled-together plan into action.

  She rolled out of bed fully dressed. Even her shoes were on. It was just a question of when to make her move. Cass went over to her desk and picked up one of her soccer trophies. The trophy was pretty heavy and the base was made of simulated marble. She figured if she held it by the figurine at the top, she could swing it like a club. It was also small enough that she could conceal it behind her as she went down the stairs. It wasn’t much, but it was all she had.

  Cass left her room and tiptoed down the hallway until she reached the top of the stairs. Peeking around the corner, Cass saw the single guard standing by the door. He was checking something on his phone and he leaned up against the front door with his back to the bottom of the stairs. The other one clattered around in the kitchen. It sounded like he was getting something out of the refrigerator.

  Cass decided to walk quickly and confidently down the stairs as if she was planning on going somewhere in the house as part of her regular routine. She kept her left hand at her side to conceal the makeshift trophy-club. Her right hand slid down the banister, tapping her fingers as she went down the steps to try and draw the man’s attention away from her other arm.

  Because he was turned partially away from her, he didn’t spot her until she was halfway down the stairs. Her presence startled him as he looked up from checking messages on his phone.

  “Miss, you need to go back to your room. We have orders and you’re not to be up roaming the house at night.”

  Cass kept moving as she answered. She was almost to the bottom. “I’m hungry and I need to get something to eat. My blood sugar is too low. I didn’t finish my dinner.”

  “That’s not my problem, miss. I’m serious, you need to go back upstairs, now.”

  The man started forward as Cass reached th
e bottom step. He pointed up the steps and shook his head, still trying to tell her to turn around. With the ferocity of a week of imprisonment and humiliation behind it, she swung her left arm up as hard as she could, aiming the base of the trophy at the side of the guard’s head.

  Cass didn’t know who was more surprised by the success of her attack, the guard or her. His brief shocked expression changed over to a blank stare as his eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the floor.

  She stepped over the body at the bottom of the steps. Cass hoped he was just unconscious and not dead. She couldn’t stand having another death on her hands. She stopped for a brief moment and leaned down over the collapsed man. A wave of relief washed over her as she realized he was still breathing.

  Cass clutched the trophy tighter in her left hand and started towards the kitchen. One down, one to go. As Cass made her way down the hallway towards the kitchen, she couldn’t figure out what the guard in there was doing. She realized, as she got closer, that he was eating something else while he was preparing whatever other food he’d found in the fridge. He had not heard anything of her scuffle with his companion. That gave her a fighting chance when she got to the kitchen.

  Cass held the trophy at her left side again, ready to strike. She angled her body a little bit to keep the makeshift club hidden as she walked into the kitchen from the hallway. The second guard stood at the island counter in the center of the room, making two sandwiches using lunch meat and cheese from the fridge, along with some club rolls he must have found in the cabinet by the toaster.

  “Hey, Charlie, do you want mustard on this…” The guard looked up and stopped as he realized it wasn’t his partner coming into the kitchen. “Hey, kid, what are you doing down here. Why didn’t Charlie put you back up in your room?”