Keary Taylor - The Human

“It’s been a long day,” she said as they walked to the door. “We’ll be back for you tomorrow morning. I hope you’re comfortable.”

They stepped outside and the door locked with a solid grinding sound of a metal post sliding into the wall.

And I was left there, chained to the dolly.

I’d nearly tipped myself over in the struggle to free myself. The skin covering my ankles was torn and bleeding. I wore the flesh on my wrists away trying to escape my bonds. My cybernetic bones clanged against the chains.

But I’d gained no freedom.

Cyclones of emotions ripped through me. I’d been buoyed by rage and hatred for hours. I’d struggled against my bonds, my tiny new world washed in red.

But slowly uncertainty, bordering on fear, crept in.

What were they planning to do with me?

Assumptions were easy to make with that steel table in the middle of the room.

“She’s afraid,” a voice from the past echoed.

The drill screamed and the air was cold.

I closed my eyes, trying to force the dreams and memories out of my head.

“Doesn’t she ever get tired?

“She’s never been this aggressive before.”

There was so much red. Metal and blood.

My breath caught in my chest and I jerked my arms again, tearing my flesh more.

Subject is again devoid of emotion.

“Sometimes they would let us play together.”

“Damn it, West,” I hissed, my eyes sliding open and rising to the damp looking ceiling. “What did you do?”

I’d probably only been this room for a few hours, and already I was losing my mind.

But I’d been losing my mind before these people had cyborgnapped me. Avian had been right, it was only a matter of time before I would have snapped. And who knows who I would have broken with me.

I knew the answer to that question. I’d already started doing it.

West.

Despite how beyond angry I was with him in that moment, I hoped wherever he was, he was safe. As safe as he could be.

I assumed he would be. He’d left home willingly in order to escape me.

But how safe was everyone in New Eden now? How much damage had been done before my captors left?

A horrifying thought occurred to me then. What if they hadn’t all left? How did I know that they had all returned to Seattle?

How did I know that I was the only hostage?

“Avian.” His name whispered over my lips with the skip of a heartbeat and ice in my stomach.

No, he’d been fighting when I went down. I saw that. I had to tell myself that he was fine, back in New Eden. These people wanted to study me. Avian was normal, human. They would gain nothing by taking him.

But Avian tended to do stupid, irrational things when it came to my safety. What would he do when he found I was gone?

A low growl worked its way up my chest.

I’d kill every single one of them if anything happened to him.

I counted the seconds eagerly.

Sometime they were going to have to release me. Sometime these chains were going to loosen. Sometime someone was going to accidently grant me a tiny window of opportunity and I would exploit it.

I was going to make it out of here.

And I was going to make it home.

I waited in the pitch black, in the musty dark. I plotted all the ways I was going to choke Alistar. The way I would break in all of Margaret’s disgusting teeth.

And finally, the dim bulb above my head flickered back on.

Feet shuffled out in the hall. Muffled voices tricked in through the cracks around the door.

The knob turned, and the door shrieked as it was pushed open.

A tiny man with thick, black glasses stepped timidly into the room. His small shoulders were covered with a white lab coat. His shoes were ragged and worn. He wouldn’t make eye contact as I stared at him with dark eyes.

He carried a device with him. It reminded me of a radio but had something that looked like a tiny computer hooked to it.

“You are holding me prisoner here,” I said through clenched teeth. “We are both human, we do not treat each other like this. Not since the world started teetering on the edge of extinction.”

“That’s apparently debatable,” he said. His voice as small and weak sounding as his physique.

“What?” I questioned, not sure I had even heard what he had said.

“Us both being human.” He pushed a button on the radio looking portion of the device. It started making scratchy sounds.

“You don’t know anything about me,” I said, shaking my head, flexing my muscles, straining against my bonds. If only I could break free. I could snap this tiny man with little effort.

“You’re emitting a low frequency signal,” he said, turning the device so I could see it. A screen showed two barely twitching brilliant green lines. “Two, actually. One that is similar to the what the Bane emit. It doesn’t really do anything. It’s more a side effect of all of their cybernetic components. But the other, I’m not really sure what it is. Fascinating.”

“I swear to you, if you don’t let me go I will call a hoard of Bane down here to destroy every living soul in this hovel!” I screamed. And suddenly the idea, however startling it was, seemed like an option to gain my freedom.

“I don’t suggest it,” he said, his eyes dropping to my feet. “You see, while you were drugged, we attached a live electrical wire to that lovely thing you’re chained to. I just have to push this little button if you do anything I don’t like, and a shock strong enough to all but kill you will run through your mechanical body.”

“You son of a—”

“Language, please,” he said, his voice rising just slightly for the first time.

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from spewing more vile things. My insides were full of them.

“Now,” he said, pulling a stool from beneath the table. It scraped the concrete floor and the sound echoed off the stone walls. “I have some questions. If you don’t mind.”

“Doesn’t seem I have much of a choice,” I said, my voice low.

“Not really,” he said, his eyes meeting mine. They were dead eyes, gray and hollow. They reminded me of the eyes of the Bane. “We’ll get our answers one way or another.”

“I don’t intend to do this the easy way.”

“That’s fine,” he said. His voice was madly calm and even. Almost as if he was talking to an animal he didn’t wish to scare away. “But for your safety, I suggest you change your mind on that.”

He didn’t wait for me to respond and placed another device on the table. It was an old fashioned tape recorder. The tape started slowly spinning when he pushed the button with the red circle.

“How long were you at NovaTor Biotics?” he asked, his eyes meeting mine again.

“How do you know I was ever there?” I said, once again trying to gain any wiggle room in my chains.

“Your friend accidently shared quite a few secrets,” he said.

“What did he tell you?”

“Not as much as we would like to know,” he said. “That is why I am asking you these questions. Now, how long were you at NovaTor?”

I held his eyes for a long time. There was something terrifying about this little man. Like he knew how to twist things into the shape he wanted to see, break you in ways you didn’t know you could be broken.

This little man was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

And maybe, just maybe, if I cooperated, I’d make it out of here alive to get back to Avian and New Eden.

“I was born there,” I said, my voice almost too quiet to hear at first. “My mother worked at NovaTor.”

“Thank you,” he said with the barest hint of a smile forming on his face. “And when were you given TorBane?”