An unfamiliar sea of voices and beeping gadgets engulfed Rachel and there was also the soft buzzing of an idle engine.
Wheels scraped against metal and she was pushed up an incline. She pictured a ramp, and panic seeped into every fiber of her being.
They were bringing her onto an aircraft.
A capital aircraft.
The prospect of flying made her stomach clench and palms sweat.
In Rachel's world flying was something meant for birds not people.
Not her.
Bright lights seeped through the black fabric of her blindfold with no other purpose or need to be anywhere except to torture her with the promise of things she couldn't see.
Something pinched at her arm, a needle, and she jumped as another presence emerged besides her, poking and prodding at her arm.
"Where am I?" Rachel demanded.
The other person continued to work over her silently.
They slipped sticky squares onto her chest, side and over her legs and ankles. Something cool and soft slipped over her forefinger which resulted in a steady beeping sound that mirrored a heartbeat.
Her fingers probed the cool, metal surface she was strapped down to, nails digging into the unforgiving iron.
"The least you could do is answer me," She reproached.
She remembered the knife she'd hidden in her pant pocket right before the poachers had captured her.
Her hands, trapped as they were, would not allow her to reach up and strike her captor but there was enough wiggle room to slip her hand into the pocket of her overly-baggy pants and search carefully for the weapon.
With a groan, she realized they were empty and desolate.
Of course they had searched her and taken all of her weapons.
Of course.
"Where are my friends?" Silence was the only reply and after a few minutes the other presence disappear from the room and she was left alone once more with only her raging thoughts for company.
What was going to happen to them now that they had been captured?
She tried to picture herself as a marked one. Not the fake mark that decorated her forehead but the real one, the one that would strip away her humanity and make everything about her that was good disappear.
With a pang, she wondered if she would very soon be reunited with her brother. But would the eyes that stared back at her be cold and flat and nothing like the kind, green gaze that she was so used to? And how long before her own blue gaze was transformed into the cold indifference of a poacher.
Not for the first time that night, Ruth flitted through her mind, too. The last thing she had said to her mother had been so cruel ...so maybe it was just fitting that she should get marked.
After all, each day that went by, Rachel could feel the threads of compassion slip away more and more, like leaves lost to the wind. Pretty soon, all that would be left of her would be something similar to the evil people surrounding her.
A slow, painful moan drew Rachel out of her thoughts.
"Who's there?" She tried craning her neck before the leather of a strap forced her back down.
"Maaaaan....that's some hard-core shiz...stupid...old...fart...."
"Juan? Juan, is that you!?"
She could hear Juan's groans and curses floating down to her from a place somewhere above her.
"Juan, are you okay? Are Simone and Hector with you?"
"What?" Juan garbled. "Why would they be with me-what the?" Metal rattled above her and she could picture Juan thrashing in his retrains, making the metal slab he lay on shudder.
"What the hell? Where are we? Why can't I see anything?"
"Oh Juan," Rachel said, and her voice cracked. "They've got us. Charles told them where we were and they've got us."
Juan's metal slab went silent.
For a while, he was so silent that Rachel wondered if he had knocked out again.
Finally, he whispered. "This is bad isn't it? We're gonna die..."
"I know..." Fresh tears slid down the sides of her cheeks and pooled in the crevices in her ears. Rachel lifted her hand and felt the cool, metal surface above her. She drew her hand around the side, toward where she supposed Juan's arm would be and found his skin under her fingertips, still warm from the fever Charles had induced on him.
Juan was quick to grab her hand back and they wove their fingers together, both squeezing so hard as though to try to find comfort in the presence of the other.
"I never liked that pinche bag of bones," He said and Rachel detected the sound of a lump in his throat. It didn't matter. She was crying too and there was no need to pretend to be brave in a situation like this.
Their whole lives they'd fought to stay human and now it would all be ripped away in mere minutes and there was nothing they could do about it.
"I'm scared, Juan..." She whispered.
"Me too, Ray. Yo tambien."
The aircraft stopped abruptly with a jolt.
A fresh wave of fear rushed through her when she heard a whizzing sound and a rush of air blew strands of her hair against her face, gluing them onto her wet cheeks. Boots thumped against the floor, making hollow noises and the metal around them creaked as if it would break apart any second.
"Come on boys, let's get them inside. Abby wants them in the lab before noon and I need some breakfast"
"Let me out of here, you fuckers!" Juan roared.
Once more his metal slab shuddered and Rachel worried it would topple down on top of her. Her own slab was jerked up and she was carried away, her fingers and Juans being ripped apart.
Her hands searched wildly, frantically for Juan's but all they grasped was empty air.
"Take the boy with the others. Abby wants the females first to check them for pregnancy."
"Who would get knocked up out there in the wild, anyway?" Another male voice chortled.
Her breathing was coming fast and hard and she could feel her own hot pants, blowing across her chest. The sticky squares around her body were pulling the little hairs on her arms and legs and the needle in her arm poked her every time the poachers jostled her.
When they set her down, it didn't take long for the strong smell of chemicals to make her dizzy.
Everything was black except for a tiny line of light at the bottom of her blindfold. Longing to be able to rip away the sodden fabric made wet by her tears, Rachel dug her nails into the fleshy part of her palm, fighting for self-control.
"No! Stop! No! No!"
It only took a moment to recognize the screeching cries as Simone's voice.
"Simone! It's okay, it's okay!" Rachel shouted.
But everything was not okay and Rachel's chest ached as Simone's voice became muffled and distant.
A pair of hands began to unbutton Rachel's pants and she jerked away.
The hands were covered in something rubbery and a soft voice murmured to her, "It's quite okay, now. I just need to check you."
"Check me for what?" She snapped. "Where is my friend?"
It was becoming surprisingly easy to control her voice in situations where she had no right to sound calm in.
But somehow Rachel managed it.
"Just protocol, darling." The woman replied.
"Why are we here, Abby? What are you going to do with us?"
The woman gave a slight whoop of surprise at Rachel's casual way of addressing her by name.
"You are full of questions. Most of you are quiet or screaming their brains out like your friend."
"Where is my friend?" Rachel asked again.
"You needn't worry about that just about know. All in good time, Rachel."
Rachel grimaced.
"Have you had sex in the past thirty days?" Abby asked.
"I'm not going to answer any of your questions. Might as well get that out of the way."
"Then I am not going to answer any of yours, either," Abby replied, unaffected.
"I've got all day, darling but I'd really like to be done here before my kids get out of school."
That shocked her into silence for a few moments. Out of all the things she'd pictured poachers as, she'd never once thought of them as parents.
It went against all the laws of nature. Mothers were supposed to be loving and nurturing creatures and all poachers knew was violence.
But then again, why wouldn't they have children? E-91 had killed a third of the world population but had not affected fertility.
"No? Okay then, you leave me no choice. Open up." Abby tapped Rachel's now bare legs, trying to prod them open with her rubbery hands.
Horrified, Rachel blurted. "I've never had sex!"
"Good girl. No need to be bringing children into this world, anyhow."
"Then why do you have them?"
The woman's heels clacked away as she came around on Rachel's other side, fumbling with the needle in Rachel's arm, clicking something onto it that began to seep a cool liquid into her veins.
Rachel kicked her legs, trying to dislodge the needle.
She was trying to drug her again.
She had to be.
"What is that? What are you doing!?
"Stay calm," Abby ordered.
With her arm pressed against Rachel's chest to steady her, Abby pinched her with another needle this time on the neck.
"Just stay calm, sweetheart...." Abby's voice grew more and more distant as Rachel's thoughts mushed together and her body began to drift into unconsciousness. Right before she blacked out, she thought she felt the woman stroke her forehead, almost like Ruth had done once upon a time when she had been a child.
..........................................................................................................
Rachel was shoved into a room with stark, white lighting.
The paper gown on her body crinkled when she moved and her feet were bare.
She spun and scanned the room which was long with stark white walls that stretched on for miles. Rachel spun and slammed her fists against the single door where she could now see the back of a retreating poacher through a small, oval window.
Wrapping her arms around her body, her gaze shot across the room but there wasn't anything to be seen. Suddenly, a bright flash of light cut through her eyes.
She swung and arm up to her face, heard the sound of a door opening, followed by footsteps.
When the spots finally faded from her vision, an uncanny sight greeted her.
Before her stood Hector, chest bare like the last time she had seen him with hair that looked freshly cut and curled at the tips around his neck.
Behind him was a crowd of people Rachel didn't recognize- fifteen or twenty strangers that all shared on thing in common: they were unmarked.
"Hector!" Rachel began, but was interrupted by a whooshing sound. On either side of the room the the wall split open for a few short seconds to let in two poachers, their foreheads gleaming with their wretched mark and their eyes full of menace.
"Rachel, run!" Hector shouted.
He slammed his cuffed fists into the first poacher's face before the other came up behind him, striking him in the back of the knees.
The second poacher, with a bloodied nose and a cruel sneer to match, wound a metal collar around Hector's neck.
The light flashed, and with a buzz his face transformed with pain, his body convulsing as his knees crashed into the ground.
One poacher lifted Hector's face up while the other pressed the barrel of a black gun to his temple.
Out of now where, a woman with graying hair and a lab coat brushed by Rachel but she had not even heard her come in.
"It's a mean, mean world out there, Rachel." It was Abby's voice, easy to recognize through the roaring in her ears.
Abby approached her and pressed a small gun into Rachel's palm.
The metal was cold and harsh and bit deep into her bones.
The woman pointed at the crowd of stranger and said, "Kill them all to save your friend."