The Defiant (13 page)

I walk cautiously up to the glass box. The figure inside slowly pivots toward us. It raises an arm, and places one hand on the inside of the glass, fingers splayed. As I move closer, the figure coalesces into view.

It only takes me a second to realize that it's some sort of mutant.

The mutant's skin is dark, almost purple, and the mutant is massive—about seven feet tall. Its eyes burn red beneath hooded brows. They look oddly human and I can see the intelligence behind them, but I'm not certain this creature is sane. It's rippled with muscles and covered in a light dusting of fur. I see strange gills on its neck. I'm not sure what it is—a person or an animal. Or maybe some demented hybrid between the two.

“How can it breathe?” I ask, swallowing my horror. There are no airholes in the glass.

“They don't breathe. Not like you and me.” Minister Hiram presses his gloved hand against the glass, matching his fingers to those of the mutant. “The perfect warrior. He can survive for hundreds of years. Fight thousands of battles. We found a way to turn off the aging sequences in his DNA, so he will live forever and never get a day older.”

I lean in closer. The figure's red eyes are watching Minister Hiram. It doesn't even notice me.

“Would you trade your soul for eternal life?” Hiram asks me, his voice barely above a whisper now.

I'm silent.
How did this mutant get created? Government drugs?

“Tell me your thoughts,” Minister Hiram prompts. “I want to know.”

“No,” I finally say. Then add, “I don't think I'd trade my soul for anything. Eternal life means nothing without freedom, or love, or a million other things.”

Minister Hiram chuckles again. “Yes. True. What does a teenager care for eternal life?” He turns away from the trapped mutant, breaking the spell for a moment. “Most teenagers feel like life is eternal. I did too, when I was young.”

“I don't. I saw too many friends die on Island Alpha.”

The mutant takes its hand off the glass and retreats to the other side of the box, curling up away from us. The soldiers wheel it back to the wall.

The red curtain starts moving again, slowly shrouding the giant glass box from view.

“Why did you show me the mutant? Why are you telling me all this?”

He pauses for a beat. “Because I am proud of our work,” he finally says. “And I want you to see what you are up against. Any weapons you muster will be no use against these mutants.” He pauses for a moment. “These mutants are what broke Dr. Barrett.”

I'm surprised at the mention of his name. “What do you mean?”

“Meira showed videos of them to him. She explained that there was no way he could win against them. That he would always be many steps behind us. He was already in so much pain that seeing the mutants took his last shred of hope away. That, along with all the beatings and drugs that he received. Meira picked his brains for us and left him shattered.”

“You're evil,” I spit at him.

In response, Minister Hiram places a black-gloved hand on my shoulder. I instantly feel a weird sensation. A mild electric shock. Like he's pinching one of my nerves. The feeling shivers and trickles down my arm. I squirm away from his painful grasp.

“Now we must talk about other things, Alenna. Much less pleasant things than eternal life, the future of warfare, and Dr. Barrett's destruction.”

He strides back over to the table and chairs. I follow, aware of all the soldiers watching us. I'm nervous again, afraid of what's coming next. I sit down across from him.

“You broke the rules that the UNA lives by,” he tells me calmly.

“I know,” I reply.

“And you survived. You even managed to make it off Island Alpha, and back to our soil.”

I nod, unrepentant. He keeps looking at me with his piercing eyes. “I showed you my secret captive. My mutant inside the glass. But now you must share some secrets of your own.”

“I don't have any secrets to share.”

“None?”

I shrug. “Not today.”

Hiram smiles, but his eyes remain cold and glassy. “So you had no plans, then. No plans to exhort the rebel cells hiding in the UNA to rise up? No plans to move around from cell to cell? No plans to take down our government?” He takes a piece of electronic paper out of his pocket, as I struggle to stay calm. I can't believe what I'm hearing.

How can he know about all our plans?

He holds the paper up, making sure I get a good look at it.

A series of geographic coordinates and names scroll across the paper endlessly.

“I don't know what that is,” I tell him. But it's a lie. I have seen these coordinates before. They represent the rebel cells scattered throughout the UNA.

Minister Hiram smiles at me. “I can read it on your face. This is a list of every rebel cell in the UNA, isn't it?” He pushes the piece of electronic paper across the table to me. “I've already committed all the numbers to memory.” He sighs. “The rebels are such hapless souls. Disorganized and paranoid.”

I pick up the sheet of electronic paper. My fingers are trembling slightly. I try to conceal it from Minister Hiram, but I'm sure he can tell. I stuff it into my pocket. I can't tell yet if he knows about David's plans, or that I got captured on purpose.

“Why do you think the UNA has laws?” Minister Hiram continues, sounding almost philosophical.

“To make our lives hell.”

“No. It's to uphold a system of belief. A perfect circle. Life as it should be. There doesn't need to be so many countries on this planet. Only one.”

“That's fascism. The UNA has destroyed too many lives and way too many countries.”

Hiram ignores me. “Tell me what I should do with you,” he continues, his unblinking eyes fixed on mine. “You are a rebel. And a killer. And you've destroyed millions of dollars of government property. You should be put to death.”

“Then kill me,” I tell him. “Just do it already.” I feel defiant.

Then something completely unexpected starts to occur. At first I think I'm imagining things. But then I realize that it's actually happening.

Minister Hiram is crying.

His eyes well up, and a tear breaks free. It rolls down his oddly smooth cheek. It's followed by another. He doesn't try to conceal the tears. He just stares at me through them, as they run from the corners of his eyes, down his face, and drip onto the marble floor.

I don't know what to do. If the tears are genuine, then he is insane.

Minister Hiram reaches out with his gloved hand and takes hold of my forearm. Again, I get a weird, prickling electrical feeling from him. I try to pull away, but he won't let me go. His fingers encircle my arm.

“You need to understand the pain that you've caused me,” Hiram says. A few more tears spatter onto the marble tabletop like raindrops and run down the ridges of the mutated UNA logo. He dabs at his eyes with his free hand. “Do you understand it?”

Before I can answer, his hand suddenly tightens with a pressure unlike anything I've felt before.

It's like a bench vise—so tight that I'm afraid he is going to break a bone in my arm. I cry out in pain and tumble off the chair, falling onto my knees on the marble floor. “Stop!” I gasp.

“There is no escape from the UNA. Don't you know that by now?”

I try to pull away from his grasp, but the pain is incredible. I'm gasping for air. Afraid I'm going to pass out.

“We were aware of your plans. We will dismantle you rebels before you even begin to pose a threat to us.”

“Please . . . let me go . . . ,” I say, fighting against the pain.

He releases me abruptly and I slip, stumbling backward and knocking my head against the marble floor. My ears ring for a moment. I scramble away from him, trying to keep my distance. Even if I tried to fight him, I know that the armed soldiers surrounding his chamber would intervene. And besides, I have no idea of his strength. I get back up to my feet, rubbing my skin where he grabbed me.

Minister Hiram walks over. The friendly man who showed me the mutant in the giant glass box is gone. He's been replaced by someone terrifying.

“I see everything here. I know everything,” he intones. “And I wish I could have you put to death for your crimes. I wanted to meet you so I could stare into the face of an unrepentant rebel and a scourge to our great nation. Now I know what it looks like. And what I have in store for you is far more fascinating and useful than death. You're going to become part of a scientific study.” He turns his gaze from me and toward the soldiers lining the walls. “It's time now!” he declares, clapping his hands. “Come and get her!”

“Where are you taking me?” I ask. “What kind of scientific study?”

This must be the part where I get sent to the Hellgrounds.

“We have big plans for you, Alenna,” Minister Hiram continues. “The other ministers think you will be useful to us if we keep
you alive. Not to torture you, but to help you see things our way. To help you work on our side. You have strength, courage, and perseverance. Those are traits we need to cultivate in such difficult times. We want you to work with us, and fight on our side.”

“I'll never fight on your side!” I hiss at him. “What makes you think I would? My dad is dead because of the UNA, and my mom lives in exile. You ruined my family, and my life. I'd rather die than help you.”

“Dying takes free will. What if we take free will away from you, Alenna? What if you have no choice in the matter?”

“I don't understand what you mean.”

He smiles again. “You will soon enough.”

Soldiers begin walking forward from the walls, heading over to surround me. Minister Hiram steps backward, out of the way.

There are so many soldiers that I'm instantly overrun. They start hitting and kicking at me. There's no way to evade all their blows. I curl up into a ball. The beating doesn't cease, even though I don't fight back.

“Your pain is my pain!” I hear Minister Hiram call out over the noise. “I feel every blow, Alenna. I will bear every scar. Soldiers, take her to the white chamber! And then onward, to the Hellgrounds!”

Hands start lifting me up, even as they pinch and smack me. I struggle, yelling for help, as I'm borne out of the chamber and through a secret passageway behind a curtain, and into a dark tunnel.

We finally reach a door, and one of the guards shoves it open. I'm dragged into a cavernous space gleaming with sunlight. The roof is made of glass. It's the antithesis of Minister Hiram's dark lair. This must be the white chamber, whatever that is.

Its walls and floor gleam with fresh white paint. A gallery of plastic chairs, all white, sits on both sides. They are empty, except for a few clusters of old women in nurses' outfits.

The soldiers force me down onto an empty gurney, and then they buckle leather straps across my chest, hands, and feet, restraining me completely. I try to kick and fight back, to lash and bite them. But they dodge my blows. Their faces are completely blank, like the drones on the island after Meira took control.

I stop struggling, trying to conserve my strength. I refuse to do anything for these soldiers but stare at them angrily, trying to burn my fury into their souls. But they seem unfazed by my glare. Maybe they've seen such looks from kids like me before.

Two old women step forward as the guards move out of the way. I have no idea who they are, or what they're doing here. Each one clutches a side of my gurney. They begin wheeling my body along a narrow hall, the gurney painfully jouncing my body.

“Who are you?” I ask them.

“Attendants of Minister Hiram,” one says.

“Servants of the UNA,” another adds.

“Where am I going?” I ask them.

“Isolation,” one of them says cryptically.

I remember the sensory deprivation tank back on the wheel.
Is this what that training was for?
Did the scientists know that this would happen to me? I feel like a pawn in some larger game, and I hate it.

“How long will I be in isolation for?” I ask, hoping against the odds that these women will give me information. I need to find out everything I can while I have the chance.

“Hush now, Alenna,” one of them says.

“Please. You have to tell me.”

“No one knows, child,” the other woman says. She speaks with a dazed, drugged voice, like she's only partly there. “It's up to the minister. It could be for a month, or it could be for a year or two. Or longer than that.”

I start struggling against my restraints. “A year? You have to help me! Let me out of here!”

Instead of a response, I see the flash of a white handkerchief in the corner of my eye. One of the old women has taken the handkerchief out of an old brown satchel, along with a black medical flask. I try to turn my head to find out what she's doing, but leather straps bite hard into my neck.

“What's going on?” I ask, as I see her pouring the contents of the bottle into the handkerchief. “What is that?”

“It's time to sleep now,” the other old woman says. “Don't struggle anymore. You have a long journey ahead of you, and you need to be well rested for it.”

Before I know what's happening, the first woman presses the soaked handkerchief tightly against my nose and mouth.

I instantly feel like I'm suffocating. I start trying to get her hand off my face, clawing and kicking. But the straps prevent me from escaping. I scream, but the sound is muffled.

A sweet, rotten scent fills my nostrils. My hearing begins to get muffled, like I'm about pass out. I feel woozy.

“No!” I try to yell, but the word comes out as a whisper. My arms and legs are growing heavy. My vision starts constricting into a tunnel. I fight against the restraints, but it feels like I'm partially underwater. About to drown.