“Your friend accidently shared quite a few secrets,” he said.
“What did he tell you?”
“Not as much as we would like to know,” he said. “That is why I am asking you these questions. Now, how long were you at NovaTor?”
I held his eyes for a long time. There was something terrifying about this little man. Like he knew how to twist things into the shape he wanted to see, break you in ways you didn’t know you could be broken.
This little man was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
And maybe, just maybe, if I cooperated, I’d make it out of here alive to get back to Avian and New Eden.
“I was born there,” I said, my voice almost too quiet to hear at first. “My mother worked at NovaTor.”
“Thank you,” he said with the barest hint of a smile forming on his face. “And when were you given TorBane?”
“As an infant,” I said, recalling the truths Dr. Beeson had revealed. “I was underdeveloped, born premature. I would have died without it.”
“And you were the first?” he asked. “The first human to be given TorBane.”
“Yes.”
“And how is it that you don’t spread TorBane like all the others?”
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice rising with my frustration.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” For the first time, there was a hint of impatience in his voice.
And I finally knew what they were really after.
“I’m saying that I don’t know why I don’t spread the infection,” I said, my emotional hurricane calming. It’s easier to form a plan when you know what it is your enemies want. “I don’t understand everything that was done to me. I know it has something to do with my young age and controlled dosages. But it isn’t as if I’ve had notes to study.”
He just looked at me for a moment after that. Normally with a silence like that, after hearing information like he just had, you can tell they are formulating a theory or a plan, or something.
But his eyes just looked impassive.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” he suddenly said. He’d been so quiet and still that I nearly jumped when he finally seemed to come back to life. “We will let you know if we wish to ask you more questions.” And he stood to leave.
“Wait, that’s it?” I said, my eyes following him as he pulled the door open. “That was all you wanted to know?”
“For now,” he said, and closed the door behind him.
By my rough calculations, they left me there in that room for another twenty-four hours.
It left me with far too much time to think.
There was that question he had asked.
Why didn’t I infect others? How did TorBane exist in me, as it was designed to, when it just took everyone else over?
I’d told him the truth when I told him I didn’t really know.
Dr. Beeson had told me once but he didn’t exactly spell it out. I didn’t understand the science. I understood that TorBane worked on me the way it was intended to work on the rest of the world.
I wasn’t going to be able to give them the answers they wanted.
My head jerked up when the ground beneath my feet shook and even in my isolated cell, I could hear shouting and gun fire.
I jerked against my bonds once more, my bones clanging against the chains. The skin around my wounds was swollen and red, attempting to heal.
The sound of gunfire drew closer, the shouts grew more desperate. Screams ricochet off the walls.
And suddenly the firing stopped and the voices grew calmer.
I hated this blindness. I hated being bound. I hated everything about Seattle.
What was happening?
The door to my cell screamed as it was pushed open and two guards appeared in the doorway. They didn’t look at me though. They dragged something behind them, keeping their heads down as they pulled.
When they cleared the doorway, I saw what it was.
They each grasped a metal hook. The other end sank into the chest of a Bane.
“Did it touch anyone?” I couldn’t help but asking. “How’d it get in?”
But they didn’t answer me. They dragged the bullet riddled carcass into the opposite corner and left the body in a heap. The two of them then turned and left, locking the door behind them.
Great, not only was I locked up, but I now had a rotting mechanical corpse as a cell mate.
I studied its form where it lay on the ground as the noise outside the door died away. It was a female. She looked like she was probably the same age as me. Her stark pale skin was a heavy contrast to the metallic eyes that stared emptily up at the ceiling. Most of the left side of her jaw was a mangled mess of muscle and metal and blood. Her chest was the same way.
I then noticed the simple band that encircled her left ring finger.
She’d been engaged or married at some point. She’d loved someone and committed to spend the rest of her life with them.
But then TorBane got her and she unknowingly made another kind of lifetime commitment.
The sense of helplessness I had once felt back in the mountains of Eden crept back in on me. We’d managed to wipe out millions of Bane in Los Angeles, but there were still billions left out there. The numbers were staggering.
Would we just keep fighting to the very last human? Would we keep running and hiding in our holes in the ground until that last person sat alone in the dark, with the weight of an annihilated race on their shoulders?
I felt sorry for that last person. And I prayed it would never be me.
Eight more hours by my guess. That’s how long I sat alone with that body.
Then the door opened again, the same two guards came back in with their hooks, and dragged the body out. It was just me again.
I could only assume they had been waiting for dark to get rid of the body. They had placed it with the one person who couldn’t be infected until that time came.
With the body gone, my head started to sag, and my eyelids fluttered. Exhaustion was finally overtaking me. I’d made myself stay awake the entire time I’d been in the Underground. I’d had no food or water. I was part Bane, but enough of me was human to be weakened.
There was no doubt in my mind they were depriving me on purpose. I couldn’t fight back if I was too weak to keep my eyelids open.
I had frantic dreams. Dreams of fighting the Bane in the forest surrounding old Eden. Dreams of watching West’s eyes change from human white to metallic Bane. Dreams of Avian being choked to death by a mechanical Margaret.
“Rise and shine.”
My head jerked up, my eyes struggling to focus for a moment.
Speak of the devil.
Margaret stood across the table from me, her hands resting on it, her gaze fixed on me.
“I hope you rested well,” she said, her eyes dancing.
“Best sleep of my life,” I growled.
That disgusting grin of hers spread and she chuckled. “You really should stop struggling you know. That looks like it hurts.” She indicated my wrists and ankles. “But that’s right. You don’t feel pain.”
I just continued to glare at her.
“It is indeed rather convenient your friend doesn’t know you’re here. He’s quite willing to talk to Tara about you when he thinks you’re back home safe with your lover.”
Her words stung. Far more than I wanted them to.
“He explained how you don’t feel things like pain. How you didn’t used to feel much of any emotion,” her eyes darkened in a way I didn’t understand. “He told me how you were the first. That if it wasn’t for your early arrival into this world, and for your fragile state, TorBane might not have ever been developed.”
And I started to understand her hatred and hostility toward me. She was starting to uncover my past and how I helped to bring about the end of the world.