Bone Dust & Beginnings (Alexa's Travels Book 1) (14 page)

January, 2016 AW

1

“Now kill him!”

Unable to reach the one commanding her through the intercom, the woman did as she was told.

The soldier, like the countless others they’d forced her to hurt, wanted only for the days-long hell to be over. He squeezed his bruised eyes shut and the fire flashed out.

As the flames hit, her tormented words led him into the light. “I’m sorry!”

There were no tears, she had few left to give away now, but the woman watched him burn with horror. How many did that make? She’d stopped counting when the number went beyond fifty.

“Excellent. Return to your room...”

And take your meds
, the woman mentally finished the order. Now that she’d performed for them, her captors wanted her under control again, and drugs were the only way to accomplish that.

“And take your meds.”

Her eyes went over the huddling child they’d been using to force her co-operation. Maybe not the only way… In those shell-shocked blue depths, the woman could see his future… death no matter how well she pleased those in charge. This boy had the Marker, too. They would never let him go.

Alexa waited for the door to slide open, trying not to be crushed by what she’d done. The soldier’s life had protected the boy’s. After the War, it was more than a fair trade, and yet, there was a sense of doomed resignation she carried back to her small cell. Willing or not, it had happened by her hand… mind. She was no less guilty than those who played with her powers at the harm of others. If she just gave up…

Alexa flinched away from the thought, face becoming a mask of hatred. Never! They would make a mistake, and she would be freed! And with her, the others they were holding, using, experimenting on.

The woman went to the waiting tray, picking up the small cup with an eager hand. The pills went down fast, and she settled on the floor next to her cot. Eyes closing, her mind began replaying the past; bringing her relief from this newest chain they’d forced her to wear. She may one day be away from this place, but she’d never lose the ghosts.

After a long moment, the drugs began working, and her hands rose as she dozed. They moved in graceful, precise movements that few of the scientists watching recognized. In that moment of drug-induced trance, she was a fighters cleaning her guns… preparing for battle.

2

It was a month before they woke her again. She only knew because of a leaf someone had dragged in on their shoe and left outside her cell.

It was spring now, more than three years after the War of 2012. She’d never felt more alone, realizing the passage of time while she’d been held here.

Alexa had been in Hawaii when the War came. After the bombs and the tidal waves, the rioting had devastated the island state and with the ocean so angry, there had been no leaving at first. Even when the mental calls came, smashing through the old-lava tunnels like
thunder,
she’d been unable to answer. By then, she had charges… sheep to care for.

She’d still tried to answer though, to tell him she couldn’t leave the kids, and that had drawn the attention of Corbin.

The woman shuddered. The Commander had been out trolling for survivors and found what he’d least expected. She had also been caught off guard and it hadn’t been hard for the government to surround them and force her surrender to keep those with her from being killed.

She’d found them abandoned in a school two days after the Bombs and tried to return them to their families. After only a short time, she’d understood those people were dead. Why else wouldn’t they have come for their babies themselves? Still, she’d kept searching, their cries demanding it. Three mothers and one blinded uncle had gratefully accepted the gift she’d given, but the rest?

“Come to the lab.”

The voice from the wall speaker sent heat into her gut. The rest of those hurting kids, she began to love…

Alexa slowly pushed to her feet as the door opened. They were all dead now, and the horror was staggering.

The halls she walked through were sterile, devoid of life, but flooded with offensive colors meant to keep the captives in mental chaos. There was no relaxing here, no adapting or thinking time. You survived if you could. That was it.

The narrow steps twisted downward, shiny metal grates with cameras that measured weight, pulse rate, and balance in a single step. At the bottom of these prying stairs, a gateway to scan while being walked under, spitting out brain and organ conditions. Quick lights and sounds drew hearing and sight results, and for all of this, the woman was grateful. Handled another way, it would have taken an hour and all of her strength to get through it.

The sight of the test room never failed to give Alexa pause. Above was a balcony-like viewing area.
That’s where the voice comes from, the one that forces me to kill
. One day soon, she would get up there… or she would be dead.

“Sit behind the glass wall.”

Alexa did as she was told, listening to the soft hiss of the door sliding closed behind her. She always did. They’d held her, forcing her to explore the dangerous powers inside so they could see what the others here would be capable of when they grew up. Then, they could breed them into a perfect weapon.

Her kids, her warm, human kids, were long gone. She didn’t remember the attack, thanks to the dart that took her out of the fight before it began.

“Burn his arm, nothing else.”

The soldier waiting fearfully was young, already in pain from what looked like multiple burns from other sessions, and Alexa closed her eyes. They would kill one of the kids. She had to protect the kids from this room.

Flames shot out in a narrowed band of burning ribbon that seared off a layer of skin and sent screams down the halls. The glass room was bulletproof, fireproof, and few others, but sounds were a tool the soldiers used.

Every child hearing the level of agony in those hoarse pleas knew who was in the dreaded room,
who
was causing it, and of course, why. Alexa was keeping them from being hurt, and the guilt of it bonded them to her, as their captors had known it would. Many of these children were incredibly talented despite not being old enough to have the true powers of the Descendants yet.

The government used them against each other to prevent rebellion. If one complex broke free, two were destroyed in retaliation and the Marker was so strong between these related kids, that to cause the death of one of their own was something to die over. It was an awful snare. Had it been used for peace, it could have brought the world together and created light in the apocalyptic darkness.

Determined to regain the world of lavish power, those in charge of the remaining government had chosen to continue the old ways and keep blending the DNA. Like those who’d come before them, they were trying to make themselves as strong as the Descendants, attempting to steal their gifts through experiments that included the embryos from human and Descendant specimens. In short, they were still playing God.

3

One of the guards, a redhead with a cruel sneer, enjoyed his job so much he’d been promoted to watching over the bottom floor. Only the important specimens were held there, and Regan loved the daily sessions he was now a witness to. He also looked forward to helping, to drawing blood.

Regan was a killer long before the War. The trail of bodies he’d buried across the United States was so large that even he didn’t remember them all. Most were enjoyed through a haze of drugs and music. Now, he had Descendants to play with, and for whatever reason, he liked Alexa’s sessions the best.

He wasn’t sure why. The others were bloodier, some went as far as rape - a highlight for the guards, for sure, but the woman in cell #17 was special, even compared to the others being held here.

Regan watched her step back into her room, body tight. He’d almost had her twice over the months he’d been stationed down here, and the killer was determined she would be the victim he hadn’t had since the War. When you were living in a compound, murders were noticed and often caught on camera. He’d had to content himself with beatings and torture on other floors before they’d brought him down here and made him happier than he’d ever been. Down here, the pain and blood stayed on the ground so much he didn’t have to do it himself to feel it… except… he missed it.

Seeing Alexa first brought in, naked and bloody, had given Regan a flash of his past, and he’d been scheming on a way to get her ever since. He thought those heading up this little torture palace might want her gone soon. Even asleep, her brain charts were flying. She was dangerous, should be eliminated soon.

And that narrowed his chances to catch her at the right time, but it also said if he killed her, they wouldn’t be so mad. Regan had no intentions of being tossed out into that apocalyptic nightmare they sometimes watched on the screens, but he sensed this woman might be worth the risk.

“Lights out in five… four… three... two… one.”

Darkness flooded the quiet halls of the bottom floor, and Regan slipped from his post. Nothing ever happened on the third shift, and the guards often snuck off to amuse themselves. He wouldn’t be missed.

4

Alexa swallowed her pills as usual, but as soon as the lights went out, she shoved her finger down her throat and brought them back up. The sense of time running out had been too heavy to ignore as she’d stepped over the soldier’s charred body.

The eyes of the child they’d once again had to use also warned her, but she had no hope to offer. There was no way for her to get them all out, and she couldn’t leave them to this life. They were all better off dead.

Alexa listened to the walls around her creak and groan with the aftermath of the day’s misery. If she didn’t get out before they broke her like that again, she would be. This session had been brutal, going far beyond the normal exploration. It was as if they were trying to figure out if she could be used as a weapon now that they knew her weakness.

That was what made her remove the sheet from her cot, and one of its wooden legs. Through the children, they would make her attack other survivors next, and it would drive her insane to do it. Did they know that? She was almost sure of the answer. They didn’t need her anymore now that they had other specimens, younger, more controllable experiments that could be used for offense, defense, and everything between as soon as they came of age. Many of the hundreds of kids being held here were teenagers, on the brink of inheriting their full gifts.

How long had this been going on? How many people had known of the hive of soldiers and scientists hiding beneath the Utah proving ground? How many kids had seen these halls, died in them? With so many available, these scientists weren’t careful about preserving life.

Alexa moved toward the door, staying low and quiet. These cells had infrared capability, but they hadn’t used it on her for more than six months, bored with watching her sleep.

Using slivers of the cot-leg, she forced the bolt back on the door and heard it give under her talented hand. It was one of the first things she’d learned from her father, and it was his lessons she would depend on now.

5

Commander Corbin was in charge of the Utah complex. He’d held the post for more than ten years. In that time, he’d seen the special ones come and go. Most were killed when they ran out of tests to put them through, but a rare few were kept alive for the purpose of creating the perfect human weapon. During Corbin’s reign, there had only been three of those - two children… and one adult female.

They’d found Alexa by accident as she sent out mental waves. Searching for her father, it wasn’t hard to lead her into a trap with the abandoned kids. The data they’d gathered from her was invaluable. Until her, no adult female had ever been held for more than a month before escaping or starting to go insane. As a result of that, Corbin had been careful to keep her drugged between sessions to prevent a repeat. The power inside was one that resisted being used for any purpose other than light. To make them kill was to drive them crazy from the inside, where the guilt tore them apart.

The government wanted to know how to stop it from happening so these gifted beings could be used at their whims. It was only one of several similar projects still going on across the country, but this was the most important. In this bunker, they were also trying to cross-breed the two DNA strands and produce a genuine species of evolution… one free of Rage Walkers disease, the newest threat to human survival…to male control.