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“Getting you out of here.”
For a brief moment, I feel a flush of hope. But it soon becomes apparent this is not a rescue so much as it is a commissioning. He’s taking me out of storage, like any weapon that’s been kept away in the dark.
He puts a fresh cuff on my wrist, then another on his, shackling me to his much larger body. That’s a mistake. I’d tell him, but I don’t know if he’s my friend or not.
“Where is Tom? I need to see him.”
“Don’t worry about Tom. Worry about yourself.”
“I’ve never worried about myself. Not going to start now. Where’s Tom?”
“I don’t know,” Ken says. He’s not looking at me as he strides away, forcing me to follow him if I don’t want to be dragged in his massive wake.
“We are going out on a mission,” he says, answering the question I didn’t ask.
They just made the mistake I knew they would. They’re going to send me outside the wall. They’re going to try to make me do their bidding, some violent, desperate thing. But nothing on this planet is as desperate as I am to find Tom.
Ken leads me to the usual place where I am briefed for missions. It’s a sort of airlock. They can stuff me in one side, back a transport crate up to the other, and get me out of here without ever letting me actually see the sun. I have been through this procedure dozens of times in the past. I thought I was done.
Tom’s brother walks me inside the lock, seals the doors, takes the cuff off my wrist and his.
Big mistake. Huge.
“UGH!”
That’s the sound he makes as I drive my knee into his solar plexus. He was expecting that. I know, because his muscles were tense when I made contact. He was already braced. And now I am spinning in his arms, and his big hand is making harsh contact with the seat of my pants.
Before Tom, that slap would never have had any effect on me whatsoever. It would have been a pointless small pain which did nothing. But because it was something Tom had done to me, something that made me feel small, secure, even trusting, I react incredibly. Tears spring to my eyes. My legs curl up like a pathetic little kittens and I go limp in his grasp. He could use the implant to control me, but he decided not to. He doesn’t have to anymore.
“Don’t do that,” I hiss.
“Do what? This?” He smacks my rear again, just as hard as the first time. It sends a bolt of sensation right up my spine, and ignites all those chemical reactions which make it hard to think, let alone resist.
“THAT! YES!” I scream the words. “You have to stop!”
“Why?”
A third time, Ken’s palm lands dead center of my cheeks. He’s doing this hard, cold, mean, harsh.
“Because! It’s what your brother did to me.”
“Doesn’t seem to have done you nearly enough good,” Ken says, landing a fourth wickedly hard slap on my seat.
“He’s missing and you’re hitting me!? What’s wrong with you!?”
“You attacked me,” he reminds me. “I’m just doing what I do to girls in our family when they get out of hand.”
Girls in our family.
Those four words shock me. Ken thinks I’m family? I barely know him. I don’t know him. I met him one time, back when we first went into isolation. But he does feel familiar, even if it is only because he looks like Tom, shares that important DNA by which we are all defined.
“Now, are you going to behave, or I am I going to have to thoroughly piss my lady off by thrashing you senseless?”
“You can let me up.”
Just as he does, the door beeps. And then it opens. The woman I swore I would kill if I ever saw her again just walked in. Every muscle in my body tenses, and I know she has initiated the lock at the back of my neck. She’s cowardly, but she’s smart.
“It has been some time since you’ve been out of your room, Electra,” the Head says. “I hope you understand this is a privilege.”
“Where’s Tom?”
She ignores me, as if I haven’t spoken. I look over at Ken. “Do you realize she has your brother locked up somewhere? Or dead? Or, I don’t know.”
“Doctor Ares is very much alive, and doing the job he was made to do.”
“I don’t believe you.” I look over at Ken. “Have you seen him? Do you believe her?”
Ken says nothing. His expression is inscrutable. Something is wrong. A lot is wrong. I don’t think he knows where Tom is. I can’t move a muscle. I’m surprised I can speak. I think the Head wants me to feel pain and express it. I think she feeds on misery. It is the only thing that makes sense, why she does these awful, twisted things, treating us all like puppets dancing on her strings.
