Miranda Marshall
Chapter 3: The Initiative
A migraine split through Della’s skull with a fury. She placed her palms on her temples and pushed, hard, desperately trying to stabilize the spinning room. Her surroundings were a blur, expanding and contracting each time she blinked but never coming into focus. She breathed slowly, deeply, but each time her lungs filled with air it felt like they were pushing against an anvil in her chest. Her heartbeat lagged to the rhythm of a steady ballad. She closed her eyes and imagined that she was in bed at home and that this was just another nightmare like the ones she had every night, but when she opened them again she found that she was propped up on the wall of a desolate hallway. At least she could see it now.
To her left was another solid block of concrete, roughly twenty feet high and an identical twin to the one that closed off the other end of the alley. A series of deadbolted doors lined either end of the buildings on each side, labeled with a letter followed by an unorganized number combination. Above her the sky bled crimson and peach as the outdoor air dropped to a chill.
With her vision recovered for the most part, Della lifted the weight of her pounding head and felt it peel off of the concrete. She reached a hand back to sift through her hair, weeding through the caked-on blood that had glued her there, but she found no injury and she had never felt more alert.
A low groan bubbled up from Kayden’s mouth as he woke up, and Della snapped her head in his direction to find that the others were alive as well and just beginning to awaken. Their eyelids fluttered one by one as they fell into the same pain that she had experienced only moments before. She sympathized with them, all except for Fletcher, whose gritted teeth and contorted face supplied her with a sadistic sense of satisfaction.
He growled explicitly under his breath, cursing and carrying on. “You,” Fletcher’s index finger placed an accusation on her shoulders. “What the hell is going on? What did you get us into?”
“Me? You think this is my fault?” And here Della had thought that it would be impossible to loathe him any more than she already did. “I’m sitting here with four well-known rebel bounty hunters on a mission to shut down a backwoods drug research operation, and you’re blaming me for this? You can’t be serious.”
“Well, she’s got a point,” Carver laughed. His face looked strangely full, his skin plump and pink with the elasticity it had lacked the last time she sat eyes upon him. His appearance was still tainted by dirt, soot, blood, and tattered clothing just like the rest of them, but his health appeared to be somewhat restored.
“I’m done with your games. You can shut up and sit back or you can help me look for a way out of here. I’m not waiting for them to come back.” Della stood up and began tediously scanning the walls around her. She habitually reached down for a tool from her belt and was shocked to find that all of her belongings remained on her person. She looked to the four of them. “Do you still have your guns?” she asked.
They sifted through their pockets and came up with all kinds of tools, trinkets, and weapons in hand. Tucker looked between his friends and then back at her. “What kind of kidnapper leaves their victims armed?”
For the first time in a very long time, she didn’t have an answer to give. It was difficult to image a group of people who didn’t fear her. “These walls are solid,” she changed the subject. “I’m assuming none of you happen to know how to scale the side of a concrete building?”
“Ladies first,” Fletcher responded, his tone as cold as the oceanic expanse of his stare. “Better hope I’m not your leg up, though.”
“That’s enough. Can we at least get out of the goddamn garbage chute before you kill each other?” Kayden reprimanded him. “I don’t mean to play Captain Obvious here, but how bout we start by trying the doors?”
Della wasn’t about to humor his proposition, she knew better than to waste time trying to get in those buildings when she wanted nothing more than to get out of the situation. The corridors were likely crawling with those people. Whoever they were. She continued pacing around the perimeter, kicking and pushing against the walls in search of any weakened areas that could potentially be chiseled away at.
“Hey you guys,” Tucker called. He was fidgeting with the lock on a door, his expression confused. “Come take a look at this.”
She frowned, annoyed that she was trapped with four other people and none of them were being rational. Nonetheless she headed over with the others, hoping that if she could shut down Kayden’s plan that they would focus their energy on devising a more realistic escape route. Tucker was holding out his arm, palm up, staring at the vein in his wrist like it didn’t belong to him. Then she realized, he was staring at a small black tattoo. One that hadn’t been there before.
Tucker grabbed her arm with an unexpected urgency and turned it over, releasing his fulfilled expectations with a sigh when he noticed that her wrist, too, was branded with an encryption. Della ripped herself out of his grasp in protest, but knew that she had bigger things to concern herself with than the unwanted touch of her kidnapping companion. She kept her mouth shut and her eyes fixed on her newly-acquired ink.
Carver, Fletcher, and Kayden were similarly marked and similarly confused to find out about it. “Where the hell did this come from?” Fletcher spoke to himself, lips barely moving as they formed words.
“I don’t know,” Tucker shrugged uneasily. “But watch.” He held up his arm up to the door, and that was when they noticed that the engraving on the label was identical to the markings on his skin. T-0218. “That’s my birthday at the end. February eighteenth.” His eyes were wide in horror, his bronze skin paled by the revelation. “I don’t…how do they…there’s no way they could know that, is there?”
The rest of them looked down in examination, searching for a corresponding door, and saw immediately that they were being lined up, branded, and led to containment units like pigs on their way to the slaughterhouse. D-0325. C-0929. K-0806. F-1113. Della hadn’t celebrated her birthday, or even kept track of the days at all in roughly two years, but it was still a fresh idea in her mind. And it was still March twenty fifth. They came to the consensus silently and unanimously. Whoever had taken them knew them far more personally than any of them would like to imagine.
“That idea of yours is looking pretty good right about now, Fletcher.” Della didn’t think she would have to say it.
Fletcher looked equally as shocked by her agreement. “Wait, what idea?”
“The wall,” she clarified. “I’m gonna need a leg up to get over that wall.”
“Bullshit. Like you could make it over that thing.” He lifted an eyebrow. Della knew upfront that the amiability was fleeting. “Besides, even if you did manage to get to the other side without breaking your neck, the rest of us would still be stuck here. Why should we help?”
“Because I have a rope and a plan. That’s two points for me, zero points for you, in case you weren’t keeping track.” Della unhooked the rope from the back of her tool belt. It was thin, but strong enough to serve its purpose. “I advise you to pick the winning team.”
She could tell by Fletcher’s contemplation that he was unconvinced but at a loss. He conceded with a slight nod of his head. “Fine.”
Tucker stepped forward, along with Kayden and Carver. His expression was earnest, shaken by the knowledge these strangers possessed. They all were. “I’m down. This place gives me the creeps. What do you need us to do?”
Della began fastening the rope around her waist, tying it securely with a knot and tugging on the end to make sure it wouldn’t slip. “Which two of you are strongest?”
The question sparked a small debate as their egos were summoned to the surface. Kayden reached behind his head and discretely flexed, only to be called out by Carver for having the build of a lamppost. In turn, Carver was eliminated on account of his illness by Tucker, who stood three inches shorter and twenty pounds thinner than the rest of them. Fletcher stood quietly outside of the trio, arms-crossed, as if she would forget that he was an option.
“Nevermind, I don’t know why I expected ya’ll to settle this on your own. Fletcher, Kayden, come here,” she ordered. “Now I need you guys to crouch down and clasp your hands together. I’m going to step in your palms and on the count of three you’ll push up and I’ll jump and try to grab onto the ledge.”
“And if you fall?” Fletcher prompted.
Della’s face was flat. “I die. Probably.”
“Ah, now I’m in. Let’s do this.”
She ignored him, placing one foot in Kayden’s grasp like it was a stirrup and then stepped down deliberately on Fletcher’s fingers before they were locked in place. He looked up at her with a scowl that told her he understood that he asked for it but still resented her for it. “I told you I wouldn’t leave you here to die. Not that I wouldn’t kill you myself on the other side.” One final look promised him that she would carry through with her threat and finish what she started the night before. With that she counted firmly and felt herself lifted. Using the upward momentum to her advantage, Della threw herself onto the ledge of the wall, draping her body over the edge like she was hanging it out to dry. She held herself firmly in place for a moment, catching her breath as the adrenaline in her body winded down to a whir in the background, and then propped herself up and swung one leg around so she was straddling the top. She squeezed the sides with her quivering knees in an attempt to keep her balance.
“I didn’t know you had tattoos,” Carver admonished from below. Even in the fading light of dusk he was still observing her. It was clear that she was a mental project to him every bit as much as he was a medical marvel to her.
Della looked down and realized that the leg of her pant was scrunched up. She quickly brushed it back down. “You’ve known me for roughly twenty-four hours,” she incredulously replied.
He shrugged. “That’s longer than I know most women.”
Della wished he could have watched her roll her eyes as she tossed the end of the rope to Kayden. She shouted down to him, “Hold on to this. Tight. It’s not going to reach all the way, so when I give you the word, let go.”
Kayden appeared apprehensive, but he nodded anyways and did as she told him. Della took a deep breath and checked the rope one last time before she slid down to the other side. The rope cinched around her waist, digging painfully into her spine and constricting her breathing as she leaned back on it to prevent it from sliding up. She took a moment to gather her composure and find a position that would work, placing her feet flat against the wall and gripping the rope with a force that caused the veins in her hands to strain under her skin.
“Alright,” she breathed heavily, her voice tense with discomfort. She told herself that it would only last for a few more moments, but then again, she had been telling herself that almost constantly over the past couple of years. “Give it some more. Slowly.”
Kayden did as he was told, and she inched her way down. Step by step. “Are you alright?” he asked.
“I’m fine, just keep going.” Della winced as her foot lost traction and the entirety of her body weight slammed against the rope. Memories sprang into her mind of men who had come into the emergency room after accidentally amputating their own fingers when a piece of fishing line had looped around them too tightly. It was more far more common than she had thought.
“I can’t,” he replied. “We’re out of rope.”
Della looked down and her heart sank. She had only made it a couple of steps down and was looking directly at a slab of broken asphalt. She knew she would be able to survive the jump, but she doubted her ability to make it out unscathed. Finding her way back home was going to be a terrible inconvenience with a broken leg.
“Okay,” she sighed, bracing herself for the impact. “Let me go.”
The rope remained taut for another thirty seconds with Kayden’s hesitation. She knew he was trying to think of a way to spare her the fall but she wished he would spare her the bitter anticipation. And then he let go. She felt the pit of her stomach sink as she plummeted, and then lurch back up on a rebound when she hit the ground on her side. A solid crack resounded, overpowering the sound of her heart pounding in her ears, and Della cringed at the thought of what it could be. She felt a sharp jolt of pain, and then nothing but numbness.
“Della?” Kayden’s voice came from the flip side of the wall, frantic.
Tucker joined him as well. “Are you okay?”
She mouthed a reply but couldn’t bring herself to concentrate on their concern. She squeezed her eyes shut tightly as she placed one hand on the ground and pushed herself to a seated position. From there she staggered to her feet, taking it slowly so as not to further aggravate any bones she had compromised. Still, she felt nothing.
“Della say something,” Tucker repeated.
“Stop,” Della snapped. “I’m fine.” She didn’t believe herself at first, she didn’t believe her eyes. In exactly the place that her body had been lying, a large split ran along the ground, reducing the surrounding asphalt to crumbles.
“Sorry we just thought that–”
“Stop,” she repeated more forcefully. She gave her body a once over, took a few steps forward, a few steps back, and bent over to examine the break more closely. “Holy shit,” she muttered under her breath. Della wasn’t used to being surprised, but she got the feeling that it was far from over when footsteps sounded on either side of her, filing in from the twin buildings.
She turned to face the wall, as if she could see the faces of the men that it enclosed, and then turned to face the open field in front of her. Hills rolled infinitely in all directions, littered with weeds and dandelions. There was nowhere to hide, but she was perfectly content to run. The apologetic guilt in her gut subsided as the figures began to close in just as they did last time. Della looked back one final time. On the other side there was yelling, angry and desperate. Let down by her unspoken promise. Soon their voices were behind her and the breeze was smacking her in the face as she pumped her legs harder and faster. She felt a wave of freedom, at least for a moment, before she was dragged back down by the rope that was still tied around her waist. They had caught up to her before she could even release the breath she had been holding.
“What a daring little stunt,” a familiar voice chimed. Della didn’t need to see him to recognize him as the one who had led to her capture. “I must say, you’re every bit as impressive as we’ve imagined.” He pulled her up by the rope, and she once again felt stupid for not taking the extra three seconds to cut loose the leash that she was now being escorted with. The man brought her face dangerously close to his and she met his eyes with unwarranted confidence. His pupils dilated and contracted with a predatory vivacity, spreading over the icy rings of gunmetal blue. “Time to go.”
Della dug her heels into the ground and lunged forward to connect her fist to his nose. The man intercepted her, plucking her hand out of mid-strike with a practiced leisure and simultaneously incapacitating the other one as well. “Cuffs?” he looked behind him and another, younger man brought forth a pair that were immediately tightened around her wrists. Della never thought she would be envious of conventional prisoners.
“You have a lot of potential,” the man remarked, addressing her directly once more. “But you also have a lot to learn. Save the fighting for your enemies, Della Maguire.”
“That’s exactly what I was doing,” she bit back.
He smiled, an inexplicable playfulness dancing around in his eyes. “We aren’t here to hurt you.”
“No? So you’re just here to break into my house, drug me, lay me out in an alley, and hold me hostage?”
“We have a plan for you,” he assured her.
“No thanks,” she elbowed him in the gut as he maintained his uncomfortably close proximity. “I have plans of my own.”
“Perhaps you’ll have a change of heart.”
Della gritted her teeth, knowing very well that she would not, but she kept quiet anyways, mentally biding her time until another opportunity arose for escape. She allowed him to lead her into the building, where she was reunited with Kayden, who had been too intelligent to fight back, Carver, who had been passive to fight back, and Tucker, who had been too scared to fight back. Their arms swung freely and their expressions sparked an internal monologue of betrayal, conflicted by the immediate forgiveness they showed her when they understood that she was racing time against their seemingly indestructible captors.
Fletcher was brought in last, handcuffed and escorted by two walking hunks of muscle that dwarfed his six-foot stature. He was still thrashing violently in an attempt to release himself from their hold on his arms, but his body only bounced between the two of them like a pinball between two pegs. When he finally laid eyes on her, he regarded her with no such mercy.
The hallway was narrow and poorly lit, about two and a half shoulder lengths across and lined with flickering fluorescent lights. Faded mint green paint peeled off the walls from the baseboards in saucer size flakes. The tile flooring resembled that of a public school, and it was every bit as dirty. Della could make out her footprints in the light dusting of mud. It seemed to stretch on forever, but perhaps that was just because she was being pushed and prodded whenever she noticeably delayed. They made a left turn, a right turn, another right turn, climbed two flights of stairs and then Della lost her way. From the outside, it had appeared that the buildings were small and separated, but she was realizing now how incorrect that assumption was.
They continued on until they reached a set of double doors with push bars on the outside. “Here we are,” the man behind Della announced. “Go on in.”
She gave him a backwards glance, but pushed the door open with her hip and stepped in. The last thing she was expecting was a round dinner table arranged with china plates, crystal glasses, napkins in marble rings, and twenty other guests. Normal guests. Wearing normal clothing. “What is this?”
“This is for all of you, please, take a seat,” he gestured towards a chair with a placeholder card reading her name. “We have a lot of groundwork to lay tonight.”
Della just stared, wide-eyed, waiting for the steel to hit her throat, waiting for the bullet to pierce her skull, waiting for the stab in the back. He wasn’t kidding. He was just crazy. Knowing better than to underestimate the insane, she did as he said and took her place at the table next to another woman.
“Hello,” the woman smiled and extended a hand. A row of bangle bracelets in varying sizes and materials clattered down her arm. “I’m Jamiyah Wayland.”
Della blinked.
“Oh I’m sorry,” Jamiyah amended. “I didn’t realize…” she trailed off as her earnest obsidian eyes looked down at the handcuffs. “No bother.”
Della blinked again. The woman had a stunning exotic face, strong features that bordered on being masculine but were outlined desirably by an artistic makeup palette and a long, thick set of eyelashes. Her skin was a flawless ebony, her hair a faded turquoise gathered into a braided knot on top of her head.
“What’s your name?” she continued on amicably. One of those people who would never get the point that they were being ignored. When Della refused to answer again, she rattled off the name tag. “Della Maguire? Well, welcome Della. I think you and I will get along really well.”
“I think not,” Della dismissed immediately. She rolled her head side to side, trying to release the tension in her neck.
Jamiyah was visibly unfazed. Della could hand her one thing. If they did have anything in common, it was going to be stubbornness. “Allow me to introduce myself further, I’m from Village Waiya.”
Della recognized the name. It was the largest and most well-supplied of the Sun Villages, stationed in what was once the Las Vegas area. If she wasn’t mistaken, it was their doctor that had been taken down by her travel companions.
“I’m the tattoo artist there,” she supplied, again filling the silence. Della couldn’t appreciate her personality but she could appreciate her talent. The Sun Villages were separated visually by full body artwork, differing in style and pattern. Waiya was known for their intricate and colorful designs. Jamiyah herself was covered in white ink swirls that complimented the womanly figure she flaunted in a bustier top that was crafted from rope and glass beads.
“Mac next to me is Ahowi,” she gestured to the tall, tanned man seated next to her. He was quiet, uninterested, as many of the Ahowi were. They were renowned as the most militant of the tribes, and bore markings that resembled animalistic scratches and prints. Della liked him better already.
“And then the others.” Jamiyah introduced them down the line. “Sera from Village Sawili, Ama from Village Inoda, and Lamon from Village Wohali.”
Sera smiled a tight, closed-lipped smile at the mention of her name. Sawilians wore designs that formed masks around their eyes, formed gloves that extended from their hands to their elbows, and formed shoes that covered their toes to their knees. They were usually inspired by a natural element and flowed as such. Sera’s green eyes were shaded by a willow tree, whose roots wrapped underneath them and travelled down her cheeks, and whose branches rained leaves down her eyelids and temples. Her light brown hair seemed to glisten in minimal light down to the small of her back.
Inoda, on the other hand, was built upon a bible of guilty pleasures. They crafted their own drugs, their own booze, and their own parties. Their fires remained lit till the break of dawn and their tattoos depicted the finer fantasies in life; scantily clad people and supernatural elements that clung to the existence of magic in a literal world.
Ama took no notice of Jamiyah’s side conversation or Della’s arrival. She could care less, as she was preoccupied with chatting up Lamon. His resistance was apparent, yet futile. If an Inodan man or woman had their eyes on someone it was already game over for the object of affection. They had an irresistible charm and a way with words that weakened the knees of even the most practical and prudish soldier. Lamon surely knew this, as he struggled to avert his eyes and concentrate on something, anything else. But not only was Ama persuasive by nature, she was also unattainably beautiful and dangerously aware of it. She twirled a lock of thick mahogany hair around a French manicured finger and bit her plump cherry red lips with a knowing sparkle in her deceptively innocent eyes.
The Wohali preferred to keep to themselves and practice conflict avoidance, identifying themselves with a large olive branch emblem that adorned their arms and an invisible target that they wore obliviously on their backs. As a rule, it never paid to be peaceful in the current age, but tonight it seemed that the submissive approach would be serving Lamon well.
“If this is some kind of Sun Village gathering, there must’ve been a mistake,” Della finally spoke up. She couldn’t help feeling hopeful, even though the fifteen other guests appeared to have absolutely no association with the tribal community.
“Of course it isn’t. You think all of these other people are from our parts?” Jamiyah laughed and then thought twice on the severity of Della’s tone. “Wait, they haven’t told you yet?”
“Told me what?” Before Della could hear her answer, the man who had been running the operation so far cleared his throat loudly. She faced him head on, as he was seated directly opposite of her. She wanted to scream, to lash out again, but she knew that the information she so desperately desired was about to be presented to her.
“Good evening, my name is Novak Valenciano,” he introduced, pulling back the hood of his cloak. His head of thick, stringy chestnut hair gave him a more human appearance. “I know most of you are well aware of who I am by now, but we have now acquired our last sector of guests. Please, kindly welcome Della Maguire, Kayden Bachner, Tucker Flynn, Carver Witten, and Fletcher Caye.”
The other people greeted them with nods, some inviting, some curt. Della looked to her left, trying to find solace in whatever small bit of familiarity she had developed with the men beside her. Fletcher met her glance with a burning intensity. He had never been more of a stranger.
“First thing’s first,” Novak clapped his hands, summoning every man that lurked in the shadows behind them. There was a server for every person in attendance, and they arranged themselves in a silent, orderly fashion. “Place your orders for dinner, anything your hearts’ desire. I understand that you all must be utterly famished.” He spoke to the crowd but his eyes never left Della’s.
“Anything?” Della repeated for clarification, raising a curious eyebrow.
“Anything,” he confirmed.
She turned over her shoulder to face the attentive man who was waiting on her. “Alcohol.”
“Any particular kind, ma’am?”
Della shrugged. “I could use a good beer.” The man turned on his heel, prepared to fill her request, but she stopped him again. “Make that two.”
“Of course, ma’am,” he nodded. “As you wish.”
He returned without fanfare and placed the bottles in front of her, freshly opened and foaming up at the top. She made no move to put them to her lips.
“I would prefer for them to be closed,” she specified. Novak shot her a sideways smirk.
“Yes, ma’am,” the man reclaimed the bottles and made another movement towards what she assumed was the kitchen.
“Wait, bring em’ on over here,” Fletcher called, his glare pointed on her once again. “I don’t really care if I die. And I’d hate to waste two perfectly good beers.”
Two more were brought to Della, caps on tightly. She glanced down at them, and then stared at Novak until he remembered why she wouldn’t drink. “My apologies. Please remove Mr. Caye’s and Ms. Maguire’s cuffs,” he ordered.
Della couldn’t have been more relieved when the steel left her wrists, but the frustration returned as she felt her ankles clamped to the legs of the chair. She looked down, and grew increasingly satisfied with her dinner order as she looked at the bolts that attached her chair securely to the ground. With an inaudible sigh, she reached forward and took one bottle in each hand, popping the caps off with her teeth and downing them both one at a time.
Kayden, Tucker, and Carver gave her a once over of admonishment, and Carver let out a slow whistle. Her drinking expertise had even managed to distract him momentarily from the piles of food that were being placed in front of him. She had no clue how well their supplies were stocked, but Carver must have put a dent in the pantry.
Before him were trays upon trays of the classic American comfort foods that most of them hadn’t seen in over a year. Mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and lasagna had never smelled so delicious or been presented as such a delicacy. Della’s mouth watered at the idea, but she was not about to accept food from these people.
“I have explained before, in part, our reasoning for hosting you,” Novak resumed his speech. All attention was focused on what he had to say. Della wondered if he was even going to say anything important. It was doubtful he would say anything she wanted to hear, at least. “You should all feel honored to have been selected for our cause.”
Della didn’t feel honored at all. She felt pissed.
“So many brilliant minds have been involved in bringing this initiative to fruition. So much time has gone into planning, making sure every detail has been meticulously accounted for. Now, with your help, we are finally ready to take action,” Novak lifted a glass of red wine to his lips, sipping it with a leisure that tested Della’s patience. He watched her as he swallowed, playing with his fleeting control over her. “It’s no secret that this world has spiraled into chaos, oh so quickly. That is why we’re here – to make amends for the suffering. This will be a new world. A new age, if you will. We’re calling it The Reformation.”
She shot him a look of criticism. “What does that have to do with me? With us?”
“We’ve decided to take a minimal impact approach.” Della was beginning to despise that collectivist pronoun. Judging by the way the others were ordered around by the flick of his wrist, it didn’t appear that decisions were being made with team participation. Nevertheless, she slumped back in her chair while she listened. “You are all the most influential, most skilled people across all five regions, and as such we have selected you all as liaisons for the movement. You will play a vital role in executing and enforcing the direction of the new world.”
“This is ridiculous,” Della crossed her arms over her chest. It had been a long time since she had tasted alcohol, but she knew that she wasn’t enough of a lightweight to have crafted this conversation in her head after two drinks. Her disdain was very quickly being replaced by beguilement.
“I’m afraid not,” he snapped, reprimanding her with a frown and then covering it up with a grin. “My apologies. I only meant to correct your narrow viewpoint. Respectfully, of course. This is not ridiculous. Living in a country without law, without order, is ridiculous.”
“Somehow I find it difficult to believe that you will be the one to achieve peace,” Della challenged.
“Who said anything about peace?” Novak’s eyes were hooded by a blanket of darkness that didn’t quite shroud his other features.
Della reached back and grabbed the handle of her knife, but the darkness followed her every move. She loosened her grip, knowing that it wasn’t a smart move. He would have her disarmed and incapacitated before she had a chance to find out how.
“We have keeping tabs on all of you for quite some time now. Doing research to ensure that each of our branches will have compatible talents and a strong overall sense of chemistry,” Novak continued, and then gestured to Della and her comrades down the line.
Della could hand it to her partners that they possessed talents of considerable value, but the chemistry he was referring to was foreign to the identically named subject that she was familiar with.
Novak smiled at her again and her fist balled in her lap as a reflex. “You will all be a force to be reckoned with in the South, I’m sure of it. Although your training is already behind. We will have to begin tomorrow. Immediately.”
Della wanted to kill him, and she wanted it with a conviction that she had never experienced before. It was enough to knock her speechless. Enough to light her entire body on fire. She wanted to kill him so badly that she didn’t dare take another breath, didn’t dare move a muscle. She wanted her next movement to be his last, and in turn it was killing her to know that she wouldn’t stand a chance.
“So, you’re locking us in here because you need poster children for your world domination scheme?” Carver laughed hysterically, holding a hand on his chest. Bits of mashed potato sputtered out of his mouth as he failed to contain his ridicule. “Oh my god, you can’t make that shit up,” he shook his head.
“Silence,” Novak zeroed in on Carver, leaning forward over the table. His grip clenched around the stem of his glass, so tightly that it shattered and showered the ground beneath him with wine. He balled his hand into a fist and slammed it down on the table with one deafening bang and countless little crunches as the shards in his palm rubbed together.
Della’s heartbeat accelerated as the severity of the situation was cemented into perspective. She maneuvered her feet, trying to find an angle that would allow her to slip out of the cuffs, but she was unsuccessful again.
“We are all that is left of humanity, and we will repair it. This is our responsibility. And it is your responsibility to serve your part. We have the tools, we have the resources. We have the means to create a system of government so strong that it will never be able to be broken again.” Novak sighed and rubbed the creases in his forehead. “I know it may seem shocking right now. But I expect that you will come to terms with the gravity of this situation. The Reformation begins with you. It begins with you accepting your new role and stepping up to receive it with open arms. Serve our cause faithfully and no harm will come to you.”
“And if I don’t want to serve your cause?” Della tested. Her jaw clinched as the heat of anger rose to her cheeks.
“Then you will cease to serve this world.” The threat in his eyes was tangible, and it pricked her skin as it blew in her direction.
“Kill me then,” she requested, allowing an indifferent expression to shroud her second guesses. Novak looked at her and frowned, and that was when Della knew that her gamble had paid off. She smiled slowly, relishing the reward of reclaiming the upper hand. “Ah, I knew you wouldn’t.”
“You, all of you,” he quickly corrected. “Are very valuable, yes. But that doesn’t mean that consequences won’t be enforced. You will come around.”
Della questioned his façade of assurance. She mocked it, walking up to it and leaning her power against its unsteady boundaries. “I have questions. If you expect me to come around.”
“I’m an open book,” he claimed. She was already flipping through the pages.
“Here’s a question for you then,” Fletcher interrupted. He nursed his drink with a casual fearlessness. At any other time, Della might have been annoyed with him, but it was too gratifying that they could find common ground only on the one person they hated more than each other. “Why are you still alive you psychotic bastard? Last time I checked I was sending a bullet through that sick brain of yours.”
Novak ran his tongue over his teeth and sucked back. “Really, you should be thanking me.”
“That’s the last thing I feel like doing.”
“N-11, that’s the name of the vaccine.” Novak explained. “Like I said earlier, we have a highly skilled team. Our researchers have slaved over new developments to further The Reformation, and that includes the physical component as well.”
“So you’ve been genetically altering humans with this vaccine? This N-11?” Della leaned forward on her elbows, interest piqued. She could care less about the political garbage that had been spewing out of Novak’s mouth for the past half hour, but human research was right up her alley. This was innovative. It was crazy. It was dangerous. “What is it? How does it work?”
Novak smiled at her sudden curiosity. She assumed that he already knew of her profession in the medical field and her prior inclination to specialize in genetics since, apparently, he knew everything else. “N-11 is a synthetic drug that harnesses and redirects the effects of radiation poisoning on the human body. It toughens skin, strengthens bones, and preserves organs, much like an antidote to mortality, if you will,” he chuckled to himself. “Of course, we’ve chemically altered the substance, but essentially we’ve combined several synthetic elements with blood compounds originally derived from victims of nuclear radiation after the war.”
“How on earth did you find a way to do that though? I’ve never heard of doing anything like that, I mean, altering the function of the human body is near impossible as it is. The formula would have to be so specific, the dosage so precise for each patient…” Della lost herself in thought. She had worked heavily in stem cell research during graduate school and had seen some pretty incredible scientific findings take place, but nothing could compare to this concept. It was drowning her in an intoxicating sensation of confusion and intrigue.
“Human testing,” Novak answered without shame or regret.
Della knew that she should be disgusted by the notion, but she wasn’t. Fletcher, on the other hand, was. “You did what?” he seethed. “You subjected innocent people to this experimental drug for the sake of saving your own ass, and you think we should trust you?”
“I said human testing. Not innocent human testing.” At that note, Novak rolled up his sleeves and showed them his bare skin. His arms looked like minefields, sweltered into irritated red tumors. He wiped a patch of charcoal away from his eyes and revealed a flaky, bubbled rash.
Della looked around her at the rest of the cloaked men and imagined what they looked like behind the black. She decided that it was a good time to change the subject. “You injected us with N-11 too.” A statement, not a question, but one that demanded an answer nonetheless.
“Yes,” Novak confirmed. “We did.”
“I broke your parking lot,” she stated, trying to grasp the idea.
He smiled. “Yes, you did.”
“With my body.”
“Yes, with your body.”
Della paused for consideration, looking up at the ceiling and back down again. “Well in that case, there’s something I’ve been dying to do.” She rose from her chair, summoning the attention of the previously bored attendees, who had likely heard the same speech from Novak several times before. The men to her left regarded her with facial inquisition. And then she pulled out the gun and shot a round at Fletcher. The bullet knocked him directly in the middle of his forehead and bounced off as if it were made of rubber. The shell rolled down her leg and landed on the floor with a clink. She picked it up, blew on it with a proud grin, and stuffed it in her pocket as a souvenir.
A second shot was fired, and Della chuckled as it hit her chest with no more intensity than a timid poke. “You and me both,” Fletcher retorted tartly.
The table erupted with a buzz of shock and outrage. Della had barely sat back down when the chatter rose, climbing in volume and in hostility. Novak looked between her and Fletcher, disgust settling on his face. He stood up, and the mere magnitude of his presence proved to be enough of a diversion to quell the backlash. “Please escort everyone back to their rooms for the evening. I’m afraid we’ll be cutting our little dinner short for tonight.”
“I wasn’t hungry anyways,” Della held her head high. One guard reached forward to assist her in standing, but she wrenched her arms from his grasp and waited impatiently for another one to unlock her ankle restraints.
She was tempted to ask why she couldn’t break out of the cuffs or through the locked doors in the alley, but knew that the answer was self-explanatory. Of course they wouldn’t overlook something so important. They wouldn’t create such a supplement without finding a method of restraining it.
“I’m feeling perfectly satiated as well,” Fletcher announced, stretching his arms behind his head.
Carver released an exasperated sigh and turned his head both ways to make eye contact with the two of them. “Well I’m sure as hell not.” He stuffed his mouth with a frustrated determination, cleaning up his plate at an alarming pace. As a guard came to gather him and show him on his way, he fenagled a final, heaping bite of pasta before he was taken to his room.
Della could tell that everyone hated her for ending their night early, but she felt far too satisfied with herself to care. She might not have gotten to know them yet, nor did she intend to, but she already hated them too.