The Sphinx Project (3 page)

I cracked my eye open, bracing myself against the pain to see him holding Briana's magazine. Her eyes were open. She glared at him, fury blatantly obvious on her face. She watched him tear it in half and then half again before tossing the pieces into the air. The shreds of paper fluttered to the floor.

Three male techs arrived, wheeling a stretcher between the guards and the magazine pieces. They positioned the portable bed directly beside my own before shifting me onto it.

One of them gripped my shoulders and another seized my legs. They lifted me and my head lolled back, my neck no longer strong enough to hold it straight. The sudden movement made me dizzy. They arranged me on the thin padding of the narrow bed and wheeled me from the room.

As they pushed me along the corridor, the lights on the ceiling blurred, their edges no longer solid, outlines seeping onto the whiteness. They were huge stars, so close I could almost touch them. I didn't realize I was actually trying to do so until one of the techs pushed my hands back down onto the stretcher.

When we reached our destination, they lifted me one more time. Again the dizziness attacked. The darkness engulfed me completely, obstructing me from the outside world.

The pain shrouding my body ebbed into nothingness, engulfing me in shadows.

***

When I next awoke, my thoughts were clear, but the pain still throbbed through my body. I opened my eyes, expecting to be staring at the underside of Nicole's mattress, but instead I found myself staring at a ceiling of bright white lights.

Something pressed against my face, over my mouth and nose, but I couldn't see what it was. I tried to reach for it, only to find my hands bound at my sides.

I turned my head slightly, trying to see where I was, but something tugged sharply at the skin of my throat. I panicked, yanking at my arms, trying to free them. Fear bubbled up inside me. I pulled harder, ignoring the aching of my body.

I heard shuffling and scraping somewhere to my left. Something moved, just out of sight, creeping in past the shadows lining the edge of my vision.

"It's all right," the female lab tech murmured. "Shush, it's okay." She rested her palm across my forehead as she had earlier, pushing my hair back from my eyes. The blond hair that hung loosely around her shoulders earlier was now pulled to the back of her head. A pale blue face mask covered her nose and mouth.

"Your body couldn't handle the virus. You've been put in the isolation ward until you're well enough to go back to the others."

Her hands moved out of view as she leaned nearer and pulled at whatever was attached to my throat. I couldn't tell what it was until she stepped back, a thin tube hanging from her hands. I followed the tube with my eyes to where it joined a nearly empty bag of light green fluid.

Free to move my head, I watched her discard it on a little tray beside me before pressing a small white pad to my neck and taping it in place.

"How long have I been here?" My voice was croaky, and the weird pressure still pushed on my face.

"Almost three days. It's just before noon."

I gaped at her. I'd never spent so much time out of action in my entire life.

"You're a lot better now though. You can probably go back to the others at some point tomorrow."

She injected something into a tube that stretched from another bag, hanging from a narrow pole beside me, down to my arm. I was relieved I'd been asleep when they'd done all of this; they must have used dozens of needles.

Once again, the world closed in around me. A groggy cloud dragged me downwards. Her hand slipped into mine, squeezing it gently as I drifted into sleep.

***

The tech was right. I moved back to our room the next morning after the others had been sent to training. When they came back in the evening, the girls gathered 'round, asking if I was okay, before Nicole shooed them to their own beds.

Nicole climbed in behind me, curling her arm around my waist. The closeness relaxed me, but she was particularly warm today. Turning my head, I could see the sleeve of her white shirt was burnt away, the skin charred. A thick blue paste had been slopped on to help it heal, some of which now stained my shirt. I didn't mind, though.

"They wouldn't tell me if you were okay. They wouldn't say anything."

"I'm fine now." My voice was still croaky.

"That's not the point!" Her hand curled into a fist against my stomach, scrunching the edge of my shirt into its grasp. "It shouldn't be this way. We're not lab rats! I don't care if they did have a hand in making us. We don't deserve this. If Mom was still alive, she'd never let this happen!" She paused. After a moment of silent consideration, she said,

"I'm going to get us out of here." Her fist loosened, but her fingers still toyed with the edge of the fabric. "Me, you, the others. We're leaving as soon as I figure out how."

I couldn't respond; there was nothing I could say that would help. If anyone could get us out of here, it was Nicole; I trusted her completely.

Freedom was my dream, a fantasy. It always had been, even though it wasn't something we spoke of often. To be able to choose for myself what to do with my life. Never having to hunt people down like animals ever again. The chance to be me instead of pretending to be someone else, simply to trap my prey.

To eat what I like and cut my hair whenever I decide. To go to school like a normal teenager and maybe meet some boys. Peaceful showers with pretty-smelling soaps like Mom used to have.

To feel safe. To know there wasn't always a loaded gun pointing at my back, waiting for one wrong move to blow me into oblivion. Most of all, I didn't want to be a lab rat anymore.

As we drifted off to sleep, Nicole didn't bother to retreat to her own bed. Even when we were children with our own little rooms, we'd always found a way to creep into each other's beds. Mom had always found it funny in the morning.

Chapter Three

We were in the middle of the room, executing sit-ups side by side, when something strange began to happen. The vibrations alerted me long before any normal human would have noticed them. A guttural groan ground out from far below us, climbing through the layers of earth, reaching ferociously for the surface.

As it angrily emerged, its enraged bellow echoed back and forth between the walls of our cell, bouncing off the bare concrete. Without a word, I sprang to my feet and braced myself in the center of the room, ready to avoid anything that might fly at me. The others, fear clear on their faces, were on their feet too.

The earthquake, which had sent its growls forth in warning, finally reared its head. It struck with a vengeance I'd never experienced before. The entire room shook. It started slowly, but the intensity built rapidly.

The floor rolled beneath our feet. The concrete rippled, slamming one of the beds violently into the wall. Shards of wood rained down across the cell.

Heavy boots pounded on the concrete. They gave no thought to us, caged like animals. People screamed outside, but we remained silent. I concentrated on maintaining my footing. Terror raced through me and adrenaline saturated my body.

A long, cylindrical light crashed to the floor. It shattered, spraying glass around the room. A huge chunk of concrete fell from the ceiling close to me. I dove away from it, barely escaping in time. Dust tumbled down around us and still, no one flinched.

I wasn't watching Nicole, but I saw her move out of the corner of my eye. She ducked, sweeping Mouse's enormous textbook about the Mayans from the ground. She sent it flying at the single camera, mounted high upon the wall, in one smooth movement. She didn't even stagger when a particularly large tremor shook the room. The book connected perfectly, leaving the camera to hang by a single wire, the lens facing the wall.

She'd decided the time was right to put her escape plan into action.

The bed closest to the door crumbled as another lump of concrete fell. The slab smashed, broken rocks ricocheting out directly at Mouse and I. I turned away, lifting my arms to protect myself. A piece hit me on the forehead before I could shield my face properly, others landed harmlessly, if not painlessly, across my body.

The pounding eventually abated, but my heart continued to race.

"Michaela!" Nicole screeched as soon as the shaking diminished enough to move safely. "Kayla! Please, please wake up!" She was yelling for the benefit of the guards, since I was fine.

Briana and Mouse followed her lead, crying, shouting and screaming.

Nicole nudged me, pushing me to a spot by one of the collapsed beds. I arranged myself in a heap. The others piled the fractured wood over my legs.

They must have heard us. The order to take our places didn't come, only screeching static before the door opened.

I kept myself as still as possible, peering out from beneath lowered eyelashes. The others stood on either side of the door, backs pressed against the cracked wall.

The guards saw me as they opened the door. Forgetting protocol, they stepped straight over the threshold without sweeping the cell with their weapons. It took only a fraction of a moment for them to realize they'd been tricked, but that's all we needed.

As the first guard entered the room, the girls struck. Mouse forced the gun high and Nicole delivered a sharp blow to the side of his neck. Mouse finished him with a hard knee below the ribcage. He buckled, dropping to the floor while the girls moved onto the men behind him.

The men could do nothing but wait for their turn. Their weapons were too big and the doorway too narrow. If they'd tried to shoot us, they would have hit the guards in front of them.

Briana hurried to retrieve the fallen man's gun. I surged to my feet, splinters fell from the creases of my pants.

We easily overpowered the five men. They hadn't sent as many guards as usual; whether they were otherwise occupied in the aftermath of the quake or they'd underestimated us, I didn't know, but it didn't matter. One would have assumed, seeing as they'd made us, that they'd have a better understanding of our capabilities, especially after all of their experiments.

We swiftly secured the unconscious men's hands behind their backs using their own flexi-cuffs in case they woke too soon. In our earlier years, the guards were contracted security workers. We'd never had any hint that the scientists were involved with the military until jar-heads with military-grade weapons had begun to appear.

We stripped the men of their weapons, collecting a small arsenal to aid our escape. Three of them carried assault rifles, which the others retrieved. I tucked a folding knife into my pocket and a Beretta handgun into the back of my pants.

I picked up another handgun from guard closest to the door, testing its weight in my hand to re-familiarize myself with it. Nicole and Mouse removed the radios from the two that carried them, plugging the receivers into their own ears.

Last, we removed their watches. After making sure they were synched, we were done.

"Ready?" Nicole stood by the door, gun raised.

I contemplated our small team, taking a deep breath. It was now or never.

"Five minutes, no more. We have to be out of here ASAP," Nicole said.

Glancing at my watch, I took note of the time before I followed her into the corridor.

Nicole took the lead, moving into a run. I was directly behind her, with Mouse and Briana following behind. She led us in the direction of the weapons and ammunition room on the other side of the complex. It had been a long time since we'd been free to explore, but things hadn't changed much.

I could still hear screaming outside and gunfire too. What was going on? A loud rumble sounded. Something crashed into the floor, the impact echoing through the entire building.

Surprisingly, we only ran into one other person en route, a single guard. He didn't hesitate to surrender when he found himself on the wrong side of our guns. Briana bound his hands with another set of cuffs and attached him to the door handle before we continued toward the armory.

Seeing so few people put me on edge. It was like waiting for someone to leap out and surprise us.

The armory was easy enough to find—it had always been in a room behind the supply store. Guy, the guard on duty in the cage, looked up and smiled when we entered. He wasn't at all intimidated by the guns pointing in his direction, nor did he appear shaken by the quake.

Guy was older than us, perhaps in his late thirties or early forties. He'd been here for my whole life. Not many of the old staff remained from before our confinement, but Guy was one of them.

Even though he still worked in the laboratories, he wasn't allowed any contact with us. It had something to do with the staff developing relationships and compassion. The scientists didn't want anyone there to comfort us; we were supposed to be completely reliant on our team mates and ourselves, not anyone else.

Raising his arms above his head, he walked to the door.

"I was wondering when you were going to make a break for it."

Chapter Four

Guy unlocked the door, keeping his hands in sight. From the relatively cheerful expression on his face, he obviously didn't think we'd shoot him, but he wasn't stupid enough to test his theory. As we walked through the door, he tossed the bunch of keys to Nicole before lifting his hands again.

She plucked them deftly from the air and passed them to me, keeping her gun trained steadily on him.

I unlocked the cages and cupboards within the armory and the general supplies area. Briana stood guard at the entrance, while Mouse and I set about collecting the items we'd need for our escape.

"Three minutes, thirty-three seconds," I said, checking the remaining time on my watch.

We pulled four large black packs from the wall and began filling them with supplies. Each of us had an array of weapons, specifically crafted for our use. Thanks to our training sessions, we were well acquainted with using them too. They'd given me my first handgun for my eighth birthday, and I'd had plenty of time to learn how to use it.