X-periment 5

The Picture

Levii came early the next day, making it a point to drag me out of my cot.

"Why did you find that necessary?" I growl as I smack away his open hand.

"You took too long to wake up."
"You didn't even call me!" I harshly whisper at him Jerry turns in her cot towards us, mumbles and pulls her blanket above her ears. Levii and I freeze. Luckily, she didn't wake up. I slowly realized over my course of time here that Jerry was not the type of individual you wanted to wake up early unless it was a life or death situation.

"I guess your condition must make you deaf as well. My apologies." sarcasm dripped from every word as he threw my boots at my feet.

"What? I couldn't hear that last part but I'm so glad that you understand." I smile back at him. Rolling his eyes Levii starts walking off. I quickly tie my boots and follow him into the Lift.

"Are you hungry by any chance?" he asks as the cage door slams down and locks into place.

"No, why do you care?"

"I don't but I just can't have my trainee fainting during my session."

"Okay..." I noted that he was trying to make small talk. I learned from the social classes that it was usually as uncomfortable as it was simple.

As the Lift opened and Levii stepped off to enter the stairwell that led to the roof, he turned to me.

"Why are you here?" he asked as he opened the door.

"I have no choice..."

"Nope, you do. You have so many opportunities to make a run for it. Its not like you can't disable the guards and head back to your...institution. But you don't. I get that Doctor X trying to terminate-I mean shoot you was unfortunate but I'm surprised you didn't accept his reasoning."

"And it's weird that I may feel some resentment for him trying to shoot me?"

"Just let me make my point. Your entire life has been...there. Aren't you supposed to be enduringly loyal?" The look he was giving me told me I didn't need to answer.

He knew. Somehow he did. He had to know or at least suspect that I've been questioning my recent loyalties.That I've been seeing weird visions. He-but how-

"Rye?"

Termination, that's what happened to the bad experiments. The odd ones who would always ask strange questions to professors and skip their training and instead wander where they weren't authorized to. They were given the same rules as us, they were one of us but at the same time they weren't. I never befriended one, but there was this one particularly peculiar girl, Ely, Experiment 58. She seemed so aloof in the classes we shared, always interrupting to ask where she was or scream when Professors spoke about the outside world. But one day she stopped showing up and I had the honor to remember how Sentries rolled her body through my dormitory hallway one night. Her head was faced towards me and even though I briefly saw her, I couldn't forget the sight. She seemed paralyzed and her glossy eyes lost the red ring around her iris. I didn't have to mention it to the professors or Dr. X. They brought her corpse 2 days later to each class to remind us why we had to stay strong and loyal. The weak ones would eventually be rooted out and terminated because they would only slow us down. From what, I didn't know.

"How do you know he was trying to terminate me?", I glanced up at Levii. "How did you know he was going to do it? It was only Jerry and her men there."

"And the person who actually shot him in the shoulder." he muttered as he walked out onto the roof.

I tried not to react. I tried to stare ahead instead of turn to face him. From the roof door, I stared at the early rising sun through the trees and rundown buildings surrounding us trying not to accept it. "70% of the common people population in the outside world today are criminals. Savages and refugees who only look out for themselves. Do not trust them and ignore them at all costs during missions. They are very capable of compromising your position for only a few coins." - Societal Statistics Course.