The Test

Twenty-nine

Aria
A few seconds after waking up
"What is Eden?" I ask.
The guard snorts. "It's where..." He sizes me up-"pretty girls like you come to breed." He snickers at the fear on my face. "And for you, we've got something special." He smirks. "You know, since your parents gave you to us and all."
My heart stops. What? They handed me over to this place? The second betrayal kicks me in the gut. I don't if is if it's worse than them letting me believe they were dead, or that they took me back and sold me to a breeding centre.
The guard steps forward and shoves a black band on my wrist. Instantly, the dingy, dank room I was being kept in changes to a white one, a single door at the end. Open.
With Luc in the doorframe.
I don't understand. Where am I? It must be a simulation. Like in the holograph at home. (It shocks me a little that I still think of the compound as my home, not my parents' house.) But when I try to will weapons into my hands, I can't. Nor can I get the black band off. That must be what it does. Produces the simulation and kills off my ability to produce weapons out of thin air. Damn. I suppose they think they might be real.
Luc steps toward me, smiling my favourite smile. "My love," he breathes, taking my face in his hands and running his fingers over my cheeks, my lips; then he kisses them, full and soft and deep. This doesn't seem so bad. If this is all I'll have, not some horrific torture that I'd expected from the dank room, I think-
Then he changes.
A post materialises out of nowhere, to which he is strapped. A guard with a white protective suit enters with a whip.
"No!" I scream, as Luc is whipped again and again. The pain on his face is so real...but when I try to get to him, it's like there's an invisible wall in front of me. "Please." I say, not even caring that I'm begging. "Don't hurt him. I'll do anything."
"No." Luc rasps. "Anya-don't-" his face tightens with pain as the guard whips him again, and a scream rips from his throat. My heart breaks, my chest constricts. I batter the walk with my fists, but it only breaks when the guard lowers the whip for the final time. I run to Luc and gather him into my arms, sobbing and pulling his head onto my shoulder. He grunts in pain and looks up at me, pain in his eyes and written in every line of his face. His hands reach up to grasp my face, and he sighs as he kisses me. "I love you," he whispers, his knuckles grazing my cheeks again as they retreat towards his sides. "I love you too," I say through my tears. His face contorts with sadness as he looks at me. "Don't hurt him." I tell the room, even as the guard looks gleeful and something twists inside me and breaks. I close my eyes against the wave of pain that overwhelms me; fear and indignation at seeing Luc treated that way, and pain, echoes of his own that feels as real to me as if it were mine.
They start to drag him away. He runs to me, sadness and pain lacing his movements. "Don't do this-" I tell them. "Please-don't do this to him!" I scream, and his anguish is echoed in my voice. "Please!" My scream echoes around the room. The empty room. He's gone. All that's left to prove that he even existed us the blood staining the otherwise perfect floor.
~
I'm still in the room. I don't know how long I've been in here, staring at the blood on the floor. I've tried walking through the doorframe, but it's a dead end. You just slam right back onto the floor. In my case, right into the pool of Luc's blood.
He hasn't been here since, and I'm starting to wonder whether this is the real torture. Not knowing whether it's day or night outside the simulation, or if this is even real. But convinced it must be because for the last however long-minutes? Hours? Days?-you've been staring at the pool of blood and wondering what's happening to him and where he is and where I am and who I am and anything. My mind is blank now. Almost as blank as the walls of this room.
Maybe this represents me. This room. Blank, nothing. Empty. Devoid of life, like me, except for the blood staining my soul.
I'm going crazy, I swear. I can't take it anymore.
I can't do this-
The blood-
The room dissolves. I blink, adjusting my eyes to the sudden darkness of my cell.
That's right. My cell.
"How-how long was I in there?" I croak, as if my voice hasn't been used in ten years.
"Ten minutes," the guard says smugly. "I bet it felt like years, right? Yeah. It's a new method of torture we use for the ones we put in the middle-the ones we'll use for breeding. It's definitely long enough to think about what you've done, and who you are." He spits on the ground and kicks my chair hard enough that I think it will rip. I stifle a scream. "Genetic scum." He spits again and smirks.
"Ready for some more?"
~
Lucas
I have to find her, he thinks as they patrol the hallways. They've found the warehouse. Now they have to find her.
"Lucas." Frex whispers.
"Yeah?"
"Got a plan?"
He laughs bitterly. "I thought that was Knox's job."
"Knox said his job was to find the warehouse and smuggle the gas in, and our job is how to use it and how to find them."
Luc sighs. "Great." He looks sideways at Frex. "Got anything?"
"I've got something," a new voice chimes in softly.
"Callum." Luc is surprised. "What are you doing in here?"
"I've done some pretty bad things in my time, and especially to Aria." Luc's face darkens as he nods. "So I wanted to atone for them by helping you find her."
"Ok. So...what's your plan?" Luc asks.
"Ok, so, we knock out three guards and steal their uniforms, then slip into the room where they're holding her and get her out."
"Problem..." Frex says.
"What?" Callum replies.
"We're here right now. In the hallway. Without a guard's uniform."
"And?" He retorts.
"And they'll recognise us." Frex says. "I'm surprised they haven't recognised us already. We're sitting ducks."
"And," Luc says as a new thought occurs to him. "If Knox is right and this is a breeding centre, three guys who aren't guards will seem like Christmas. They might try to rope us in." He looks at Frex. "On the other hand...Have you got a better plan?"
He shakes his head. "No."
"Ok." Luc says. "Let's go."