The Pulse Series (Book 1): Pulse (26 page)

A noise from below us tore me out of the conversation and reminded me where we were. I put Sarah down and the two of us pressed ourselves flat to the roof.

"What are you doing out there?" came the voice of the doctor from inside the building.

I could hear footsteps circle around the building. When they got back to the door, the voice of Gus spoke up. "I thought I heard something."

"There is no-one here. Get inside and close that damn door."

The door closed, and clicked with the sound of a lock engaging.

"That was a close one."

I turned to Sarah and noticed her face was white as a sheet. "We need to be more careful." She nodded and we crawled our way over to the air unit.

The large white box had a grate on one side. A quick tug confirmed that it would pop out. I pressed my hands up against the edges to muffle the sound, and pulled out each corner of the square one at a time. When the grate was off I placed it to the side and looked down into the unit. It had a large spinning blade set vertical that was used to pull out the stale air. If we slid down the side there was no danger of getting hurt. The vent itself went down three feet or so before jetting off to the side. It looked big enough to fit the two of us. Maybe.

"I'm going in. You coming?"

Sarah looked over the edge into the vent. "Will it be strong enough to hold us both?"

"Look at these places," I said, gesturing to the buildings around us. "They're built strong. We'll be fine."

She frowned, but nodded. I lowered myself down, careful to avoid the blades, and helped her in after me. It was a bit of a squeeze with the two of us in there, but manageable. I'd thought it would be dark, but the light from behind us was plenty to see by. Up ahead I could make out a small flickering light. I crawled on my hands and knees down to it with Sarah close behind me. When I got close enough I could see that it was a ventilation unit that opened up onto one of the rooms below us. There was another fan spinning in front of it that was causing the flickering. I made my way up to the vent and peered through it into the room below. What I saw made my blood run cold.

There was a boy sitting in a chair in the center of the room. His arms were tied to the chair with cable ties, and he had a hood over his head. The only thing he wore was a pair of black cargo pants. I swallowed hard. What the hell was going on here? I looked over to Sarah, but she looked to be in as much shock as I was. A noise from below made me focus back on the room.

A door that I hadn't noticed earlier behind the boy opened and a man walked through. I clamped my hand over my mouth to strangle the scream that threatened to spill out. Walking into the room was the same black, expressionless mask that I met on my first day of BOX training.

It was the torturer. The man from my nightmares. The man from all our nightmares. He wasn't just a device used in the BOX. He was real.

I jumped when a loudspeaker came to life from inside the room. The crackled voice of Doctor Vorboyov sent another shudder through me.

"Subject 54-A is ready for testing. Let experiment number 112 begin."

THIRTY-TWO

The man in the mask reached for the boy's hood and pulled it off. The boy squinted into the light of the room and blinked while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the sudden brightness. My hand flew to my mouth when I realized who was down there. I looked over to Sarah, and the look on her face told me that she recognized him too.

Sitting in the chair below us was Justin, the recruit I had talked to in the car after I had been attacked. He had been nervous. I had reassured him. Told him everything would be fine. I felt like throwing up. Justin looked like hell. He had no physical wounds that I could see, but he had a dejected look in his eyes, and the way his body slumped in the chair said it all. I had never seen him after that first day. How did he end up here?

The man in the mask stepped out of view and Justin's eyes tracked his movements. I saw his eyes widen in fear for a moment, but just as fast the slack expression replaced it again. The masked man returned holding a large kitchen knife.

I looked to Sarah, but she just closed her eyes and turned away. I couldn't do that. I watched. I had to see what they were doing. I couldn't look away.

I soon realized the noises I had heard before were his screams. They were muted, like he had spent so long screaming that he didn't have the energy required to scream any louder than he was now. I felt detached as I watched the masked man work. It felt like I had taken a step outside my body and was watching from afar. It couldn't touch me here. It couldn't hurt me.

I was brought back to my body by a touch on my arm. I jumped and swatted at the contact before realizing it was Sarah. I took a few deep breaths to slow my heart rate, and noticed that she was pointing out of the vent, her eyes wide. I looked down and noticed that the masked man had stopped cutting Justin, and was now standing behind him near the door with his arms folded. My eyes turned back to the bleeding form of Justin in the chair.

My eyes widened when I felt it. It was like the feeling I got when my Pulse rushed out of me, but much smaller and it passed through me from the outside. It came in waves, over and over again, and I realized it was coming from Justin himself. His ability was activating. I watched as the wounds that littered his face, chest, and arms began to close. It was a slow process at first, but after a few seconds I could see them stitching themselves from the edges toward the middle. The whole process took about a minute, but by the time it was done there was not a scratch on him.

The blood remained though, and I could see Justin shaking hard in the chair. The pain was still with him. That wasn't something that could be as easily healed. When it was done the masked man set about his task of cleaning the blood off of Justin's body, just as he had in the simulations. When he was complete I was worried he was going to start cutting him again, but he replaced the hood and stepped back to replace the tools on the bench outside of our view. When he walked back into view he had rolled up his sleeves to reveal his arms. On his left arm there was a small band of black that encircled halfway up his forearm. It was tattooed onto his skin. I made a mental note of that, and watched as he left the room. The door clicked with the sound of a locking mechanism engaging from the outside.

"We have to get him out."

I looked up at Sarah, and was shocked when I saw her face. Gone was the fear and trepidation of being caught, and in it's place was a furious anger. Her hands clenched and unclenched as if clutching at an invisible rope. Her jaw was tense, and she couldn't stop looking at Justin through the vent.

I reached out and put a hand on her shoulder, and she jumped and looked up at me. "We will."

She gave me a small smile that didn't quite touch her eyes, and I pointed toward the exit. She nodded and began to turn, but the door in the room below us was unlocked and it swung open once more. I looked down and saw Doctor Vorboyov enter, followed by Gus.

The doctor walked up behind Justin and put his hands on either shoulder. "Outstanding, no?"

Gus nodded and crossed his arms. "Okay, color me impressed. Can we use it though?"

"I've just broken his DNA code today. His skills are as good as ours. Now I just have to work out how to synthesize it."

I frowned down at them. They were using his DNA to manufacture his ability? How did that even work? Why did they need to torture him if they had already unlocked his ability? I didn't understand.

"Why is he still alive then?" Gus said, bringing my attention back to the three below.

The doctor just shook his head. "No reason. I just wanted you to see it, since you've been out so long you hadn't seen the process we'd made. When you first brought him to us he was weak, but he is much stronger now. Perfect for our purposes."

"So we don't need him anymore?"

"No."

Gus rubbed his chin with his hand. "So how do we neutralize him."

"Ah I worked that out today! The Pulse only takes care of surface scratches—things that would heal given enough time. The good part is that it heals them before his system goes into shock, so there is no danger of cardiac arrest."

"All well and good, Doc, but what about the rest?"

"Any major tissue damage to the brain, heart, or spinal column should do the trick."

Gus frowned and nodded. "I see." He stepped forward and in one motion pulled a pistol that was concealed in his waistband and put three bullets into the back of Justin's head. I jumped in shock from the act, and watched as Justin's body slumped forward in the chair, his restraints keeping him from falling to the floor.

"Did you have to do that while I was in the room?" Doctor Vorboyov said.

Gus nodded. "Kid had been through a lot, and we didn't need him anymore. He's better off now. I think you forget sometimes, doc, that you're dealing with humans."

The doctor shrugged turned from the body to make his way out the door. "Whatever you say, Gus."

Gus shook his head at the retreating form of the doctor, and stepped forward to unlock the restraints holding Justin up. With a click they came free, and the body fell to the floor with a thud. Gus sighed and stepped forward to pick him up, and then threw the boy over his shoulder like he weighed nothing.

I turned to look at Sarah and she had tears streaming down her face. I wondered why I wasn't crying. Perhaps it just hadn't hit me yet. I didn't think too hard about it at that moment.

I reached out to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "There was nothing we could do."

Sarah nodded and turned away from the vent to begin crawling back to the exit. I followed on her heels, and a minute later we were crawling out of the hole and back onto the roof. I went to the edge and chanced a glance over, but it didn't look like anyone had left the building yet. As I looked up and took in the sight of the rest of the buildings I shuddered. Was each one of these filled with someone? Was there more 'experiments' going on even right now. I resolved to find out.

I turned back to Sarah who was replacing the cover on the unit, and made my way over to the edge farthest from the door. The drop was about twelve feet, which was fine for landing, but not so good for noise. It was going to be loud.

Sarah cringed as she looked over the edge. "Do I have to?"

I gave her a small smile. "Yes, but at least we know I can catch you now. We're going to have to be fast though. It's going to attract attention, and we can't stay here until they leave. We'll be sitting ducks the moment someone enters the room."

Sarah nodded and watched as I slid my way off the edge. I let myself fall, kicking out against the wall at the last second to angle myself away and reduce some momentum. I curled into a roll, but as I expected the solid concrete ground didn't absorb any of the sound. The slap of my feet against the ground echoed around the room.

I jumped up and rushed back to the wall to catch Sarah. Just as she was about to jump I heard the door on the other side of the building slam open and the sound of Gus's voice rang out clear.

"Who's there?"

THIRTY-THREE

Sarah jumped forward and I caught her, but in her haste I wasn't able to get in position in time and the two of us fell to the floor with a crash. I jumped up and pulled Sarah up with me, and started running as fast as I could with Sarah's hand in mine away from the room.

I chanced a glance behind me and saw Gus come around the corner of the building. I pulled us into one of the other alleyways and out of his site.

"You there! Stop!"

Sarah and I continued to run as fast as we would could and hit a set of stairs at full speed. As I reached the top I stumbled and fell, grazing my knees on the steel floor. Sarah pulled me up and we began running again. As we approached the nearest door I turned back to see Gus start to make his way up the stairs after us. I prayed that it was too dark for him to make us out, and slammed through the doorway.

I had expected stairs like the place we had entered, but instead was faced with a winding, dim lit tunnel. It seemed to branch off at random intervals in various directions. Sarah and I run as fast as we could, taking random turns to try to lose our tail. After about five minutes of running Sarah was starting to slow, so I motioned for her to stop. We waited and listened, but when there was no sound of pursuit we collapsed against the wall.

"That was close."

Sarah turned to me, out of breath, and nodded. While we sat I had a chance to look around the tunnel we were in. It wasn't man made like the rooms we had just left, and was more a set of maze-like caves. I stood from the damp floor and offered Sarah a hand up which she took.

"We need to get out of here."

Sarah raised an eyebrow at me. "Any idea which way?"

I shook my head and pointed, starting down a random tunnel. For all I knew we were heading back in the direction we came, or would run into Gus around the next corner, but it felt better to be moving than standing still.

After two hours of wandering we came across a door that had been built into the cave wall. I pushed it open to reveal a set of stairs that led up into the darkness.

Sarah shivered. "After you."

I made my way inside, and once Sarah was in after me shut the door. The darkness was total, but I grabbed Sarah's hand in one of mine and used the other to guide me against the wall to the stairs. We walked up what felt like a hundred stairs before I slammed headfirst into a wall.

I shook my head to get rid of the stars and felt around on the wall in front of me. I found a seam of what felt like a door, and followed it around until I found a handle. A quick turn and it opened inward, revealing the back wall of the supply shed in the building where Sarah and I did our training. I had been in this room many times and had never noticed a door. When I shut it behind me I realized why. It was another blank section of wall. There was nothing to indicate that there was anything there at all. I shuddered at the thought of how many of those were out there.