Imperfect Freedom

Five

My feet are cold. That is the first thing I say when Electra walks into the concrete room I'm in, strapped to a chair. I could shout a thousand insults at her, but that is what I say, as plain as day. My feet are cold.

That is followed by the insults. Everything that comes to my mind, I say. And I don't mean every insult. The other stuff too. I say how she was an idiot but I only had her as a friend, and I blurt out how if she ended up letting me go I would probably forgive her and I ramble on like this for minutes, and I end up spilling every little secret in my head. She doesn't say a word as I ramble, just stands there, me completely vulnerable, trapped and strapped to a chair.

I tell her how I'd always loved colour and how I hated the Complex because it felt like a closed box, and how I really wanted to feel the rain on my shoulders one day, and not just hear it banging against the glass dome. I told her how when I grew up I would apply to be a supplier, maybe a farmer or a fisher, one of the people that got to go outside everyday and be able to see the open sky above without the optical-illusion like appeal the dome gave it.

"I want to see the blue. And I want to see the clouds. And I want to be able to touch a tree and see a bird, not just one flying over the dome. I want to feel." I tell her.

I take a deep breath, and find that I don't need to talk anymore.

"The serum has worn off." Electra says, smiling. "Thankfully so, my head was starting to reel from all that talking."

"Wait, what do you mean, the serum?" I ask.

"Equities Renderas. Most commonly known as truth serum, it makes you babble away until you have many, many secrets off your mind. The CD always use it on every new person that comes into the compound. Saves them from spies. Just last week someone was brought in, a supposedly well-meaning friend who wanted to be free of the complex rules, but he went under the serum and spilled his guys about how he was a complex spy and had had an affair with Aril Trey about 6 or 7 years ago. Whatever that means." She shrugs, and my head reels. "You can imagine what the CD did to him." She makes the motion of someone's head being cut off.

I close my eyes, and take a deep breath, thinking of everything I'd just told-no, admitted- to her.

"What's the CD?" I ask her, opening my eyes again.

She smiles.

"Oh right, I forgot how much you don't know. CD stands for the Complex Defiance. They're mainly called CD or the silence above ground. As their name suggests, they defy the complex. That's all I can tell you though, and that's basically all I really know." She leans in to whisper in my ear. "But they're hiding something, I know it." She has a mischievous glint in her eyes, and I can't help but grin her contagious grin.

"So am I allowed to get out of this chair now?" I ask and she nods, blushing, and gets to work on the tight straps tying me down. She does the last strap and I stand up and stretch.

"Gosh, how long was I in that chair for! I'm as stiff as a board!" I exclaim.

She doesn't answer, just grins, a devilish, excited grin. "You want a grand tour?" she asks and I nod eagerly.

She grabs my hand and runs towards the door. "Let's go then!" she calls, laughing. I find myself laughing as well, as she leads me through grey concrete hallways that gradually get less dirty and dusty the farther we go.

"The whole compound is completely underground. It's quite large, come to think of it. The dormitories, the place where people visiting stay, are in the north wing, along with the cafeteria, more commonly called the gag room, because the food always makes you gag and the north wing also contains the break room, awesome place, they have heaps of vintage video games like minecraft, Sims and even a computer run version of Call of Duty. They also have an EXTREMELY old arcade game, something like pac boy or something, and then there's also a whole heap of computers with an old version of the internet on it, along with a huge collection of actual DVD's and books-wait, I'm kind of over explaining myself, so I should probably move on. Anyway visit there when you have time. The north wing is underneath, well, obviously the north side of the complex, the side that has the gate to outside the complex, and the road that delivers the trucks of food and materials from the outside suppliers. It is also the side of the complex where the manufacturing factories are so the ground can sometimes ring with the calls of hard labour and unfairness while your playing video games." She smiles jokingly and I smile back. "Ok, so that's the north wing, the south wing contains some less awesome stuff like training rooms and interrogation rooms, like the one you were just in, and that is directly underneath the Cemetery, and most people who work in the nursery or live in houses around that area on the east side of the dome go in through the entrance we took you in through."