To Be A Champion

Chapter 30: Dear Alice

It's a dart.

"God knows what drug they put in them," Frances murmurs fearfully. "Head to the door. Run!"

Casper takes the lead, running towards the stairwell. He swings open the heavy metal door so hard it slams into the rock wall. The clang it emanates rattles my bones. However, he pays it no mind as he starts for the stairs that lead us down, down, down. Janine is breathing heavily, heavier than the rest of us, even when she tries to hide it. It would do us no good to ask if she were alright. It's clear she isn't.

The whirring of the drones buzz in my ears. They still have those taser rods, but it seems they think the darts will be more effective. Maybe it's from disuse since Frances said she never saw them do this, and she's been here since the apocalypse, but their aim is terrible. Darts impale themselves into the rock wall, some of them clinking and falling onto the stairs. We all are sure to skip those steps, cautious since even a simple poke could cause us to be poisoned with who knows what. Van Ark never skipped out on cruelty. I learned that first hand.

It's sickening to know I was created here and that this place was bought by him. I understand my project was started before he bought it out, but we know he was working on the Wakened Land for a long time. He could have bought this place before Cassandra figured out that cloning girls with older bodies wouldn't work and that they needed to be born. Even if he didn't, I'm sure he bought this place before the year I was born, before my... embryo was created for the project.

Seeing that that is most likely the case, it means there was a part of me tethered to him before I was even born, before the apocalypse, before he scorched himself into me by testing on me when I was sixteen.

My chest burns. Will I ever be free of those who hurt me? Due to this, I'm forever tethered to Van Ark. There is a version of Moonchild inside of me (even though we still have a symbiotic relationship now, she is still a version of the real Moonchild). Nicole is going to write a report about this and send it back to the Torrencers and, more terrifyingly, Rux.

And I'll never be able to escape Cassandra because she made me in the exact image of her own daughter. She may be dead, but that will never erase the fact that I know I was created for the sole reason of being a replacement.

We reach the bottom of the stairs, and after running through rock caverns with air that smells of dampness and tastes of salt, we reach the high-security labs.

The transition is almost instant as we go through the door at the cavern's end. Deep gray rock turns to pristine white walls untouched by red. The air smells sterile, like a hospital, and as we thread into the hallways, there are carts with beakers. Each door has a sign of 'Keep Out. Authorized Personnel Only.'

"Keep going through those labs until you find a workbench marked 43," Frances instructs, and Casper grimaces.

"Dr. Leeland's favorite number. He always said the research assistants were too stupid to appreciate his work."

"The scientists said that about all their lab assistants. And me."

Sam scowls deeply. "Well, they sound like horrible bullies. I'm guessing Pro. Feive was like that too?"

Casper barks out a laugh. "You could barely get more than two words out of her. The only person she ever talked to was Catherine. I would say she talked to the other scientists, but all they ever did was argue. She didn't approve of their work, and they didn't approve of hers, mostly because they could never get their hands on it. I think the only time she ever snapped at us was when certain lab assistants became a bit too interested in Catherine. Although considering how she looked almost exactly like her daughter, it makes more sense."