All Light Will Fall (5 page)

The officers lifted me from the ground. “Let go of me!” I
screamed. “You can’t do this! Let me go!”

Suddenly, there was a sound in the air, like a whistle. All
was quiet, until that quiet turned to chaos. A burst of fire shook the ground,
then another and another. Gunshots whizzed all around. “Hurry and get the
kids,” a voice shouted. The guards returned fire. I could hardly see. There
were only shadows, people shooting and shouting through the smoke.

I took the moment to escape. I jerked free from one of the
guards, but the other kept his grip. I drove an elbow into his side and slipped
free.

I ran blindly through the fog, searching for Ellis. Where
had he gone? Where could he be? Ellis, where are you? “The gate’s closing.
Let’s go, let’s go!” someone shouted.

I crashed into something and hit the ground. I looked up. It
was a man—a Defiant. I couldn’t help but stare at him. I had never seen one of
his kind before. He was terrifying. His eyes looked like they were on fire,
like someone had lit them with the forbidden flame of knowledge. As I stared, I
saw that he was carrying something. It was a person. “Run,” he said. Then he
took off into the fog.

I ran as he said. I screamed for Ellis over and over. All I
could hear was the gunfire. All I could see was the fog, and body after body
overturned in the dirt.

“Corrine! Corrine!”

It was Ellis. “Where are you?” I screamed. “Ellis!”

Suddenly there were arms around me, lifting me from the ground.
“Quickly, get her inside.” I fought, kicking and scratching as the guards
forced me to one of the trucks. The back door opened and they drug me inside. I
tried to escape, but they held me firm against the floor. Something sharp
pierced my neck, and my vision began to blur. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t
speak. The darkness was closing in.

“Don’t let them escape! Hurry up and close the gate!”

In the final flicker of light, I saw a familiar face. It was
the captain who spared Ellis and I that night on Marx Avenue. I reached out for
him. I was calling for help, begging for mercy, but he simply stood there. His
eyes were guiltless. I warned you, they said. I warned you. I struggled, trying
anything to escape. I was trapped. The door slammed shut, and the darkness took
me, all the way back to the grave.

Where was I? How did I get here? I was trapped in an
all-white room, and for hours it seemed. There was nothing here. Nothing but a
steel door and a bare mattress standing in the corner of the room. The air was
cold and carried a sterilized odor. It was nauseating. An eerie hum echoed in
the walls. It sounded like voices, like screaming.

I rose from the bed, shivering in the cold. My clothes were
gone. For some reason they had taken them. I was bare except for a band of
elastic straps that wound the length of my body. My wound had healed too, like
it was never there, like the attack on Norris Tower was but a dream. What was
all of this? Where was Ellis? What was happening?

I lifted my face to the door window. The glass was fogged. I
couldn’t see, but someone was coming. I could hear their footsteps approaching
the door. “Hey!” I screamed. “Let me out of here! Let me out!”

Suddenly, the latch clicked free and the door opened. I
stepped back as a league of strangers crowded the room. A male and female stood
in the lead, professionally dressed and stern-faced. The others were armed
guards, seeming to swarm around them, or me, rather.

The woman spoke first. She smiled. It wasn’t reassuring at
all, but a cunning kind of smile, a smile of habit. “Hello, my name is Dr.
Hailey. And this here, is Dr. Gerald,” she said. “How are you, Corrine?”

For some reason I couldn’t speak. It wasn’t my dry throat or
the frigid air. It was something else that caused my palms to sweat and my head
to spin. “You’re doctors?” I finally managed to ask.

“Yes, and we are certainly sorry for giving you such a
scare. You see, we have been informed that you were subjected to toxic
substances from outside the city. You do understand why it is illegal to cross
into the Z-Zone, don’t you? It is a danger to you and to those who reside in
Helix City.”

I nodded. “Yes, I know.”

Suddenly, Dr. Gerald spoke. He looked plastic in a way. His
anti-aged face had an unnatural shine, like it was made of glass. “Then you
understand, Corrine, we must analyze your blood work to be sure you are of good
health. That is why you are here.”

“Then I can go home. If everything is fine, you’ll let me go
home?” I asked.

Dr. Hailey smiled. “I assure you, Corrine. If you pass the
test, it will be a very good sign.” After she spoke, they turned and left me in
the room. I pressed my forehead against the door and sighed. I wanted to cry,
but I wouldn’t. After all, I was to blame for this. I had become too reckless,
too curious. Without even knowing, I had become a Defiant.

Ellis and I, we should have left the truth alone. I should
have known what the dark would bring if I opened my eyes to it. I thought there
would be freedom. Instead, there was a trap inside a trap, and I had fallen for
them both.

Hours passed after the doctors had gone. I stayed huddled on
the bed mat for the time being. I couldn’t sleep. I thought about Ellis. Was he
alive? Did he escape?

I thought about Fern too. Whenever I closed my eyes, I could
hear her singing. She was a lovely singer, a gift she had inherited from
Mother. I missed her, and Mother too, but I would see them soon. At least, I
prayed to God I would.

When the door opened again, Dr. Hailey entered with her
guards. Dr. Gerald was absent. Instead, a young looking woman assisted her. She
looked fragile. Her fingers shook and her eyes fluttered like she was anxious
about something.

Dr. Hailey came and stood before me. I noticed then how
elegant she looked. She moved with grace and spoke just the same. Everything
about her was attractive and powerful. “Corrine,” she said with a smile, “you
passed the test.”

I closed my eyes in relief. I was safe. I could go home.
Mother and Fern were probably terrified by now. “When will I leave?” I asked
timidly.

Dr. Hailey tilted her head. “Leave?” she questioned. “I’m
afraid you will not be leaving us so soon, Corrine.”

My legs shook. I took a step back. “But you said if I passed
the test then...”

“Yes,” she interrupted. “I said that if you passed then it
would be a good sign, and it is a good sign ... for us.”

I quivered. Her words were cold, and she was a cold-blooded
snake of a woman. Still, I looked up at her. Dr. Hailey stepped forward. She
smiled. She placed a hand on my shoulder. My eyes screamed mercy at her. “Don’t
be afraid, Corrine. We are going to take good care of you.” She waved a hand at
her subordinates.

Suddenly, their hands were on me, pulling at my arms and
legs. “Let go!” I snapped.

“Ms. Sandra, please give our Corrine something to ease her
mind.”

“No please!” I cried. “Let me go home! I want to go home!”

I screamed. I fought. I cried. To them, it didn’t matter.

It was all the same. Deception. Once again, I had fallen for
it. Once again, the darkness came.

I woke to a wild sound. It was a deep and unsteady sound,
like a beating heart. I couldn’t move. The world was a blur. A blinding light
blazed from above. The smell of iron was in the air. I looked down at myself,
my body strapped down inside some glass-like tube. I wasn’t alone. There were
voices. I could hear them whispering.

“How is the analysis?”

“All positive. She is very healthy,” a voice responded.

I tried moving again, struggling against the metal straps
holding me down, and as my vison finally cleared, I screamed.

“Dear God, she’s awake! Stop the procedure!”

My arms and legs were sawed open, the skin peeled back over
bone and flesh. So was my chest. I could see my heart. I could see it pulsing
between my lungs. The surrounding tendons were stripped back, and the reddish
muscle kept beating, and pounding, and beating.

“What is this!?” I screamed. “Let me out of here! Let me
out!”

“Issue Proloxy 7 now!”

“Not with this one. Dr. Gerald has decided to test Gene-Nome
1 on this subject.”

This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. “Let me out!” I
cried.

“But eighty percent of our recruits have been exterminated
due to the effects of Gene-Nome 1. The other twenty percent are unsustainable.”

“This one is different. Issue Gene-Nome 1 or I will relieve
you from your position.”

The smell, the smell was sickening. I couldn’t take the
smell.

“Yes, sir. Now issuing Gene-Nome 1.”

From the bottom of the tube, several wires hooked my arms
and legs. They continued upwards, and with one quick strike, they dug into my
flesh, drilling to the bone.

There was pain, there was misery, and there was blood,
spraying everywhere against the glass.

“Issue Blue 15 now!”

Suddenly, the cylinder flipped upright. Blue liquid rushed
into the container, filling the capsule to the ridge. I panicked as it leveled
over my head. “She’ll suffocate. We need to halt the procedure.”

“We have other test subjects if this one dies.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“Yes, but shouldn’t we at least...”

What is this?

“Ms. Sandra, end your sympathy if you wish to continue
working in this lab.”

This wasn’t real.

“Yes, Dr. Gerald.”

I was drowning. The pain twisted low in my chest. Then came
the fire. It ripped straight through me. My body jerked and turned.

Everything was fading. I was numb. I couldn’t feel. I
couldn’t see. The numbness took me. It whisked me to the dark recesses of my
mind until the person I was became someone I would never be again.

The journey was dark. My memories gathered there in the
blackest of space. They flashed before me, each one vanishing into a realm of
forgetfulness.

Mother was there, singing me to sleep. Fern was there too,
laughing and decorating my hair with braids. I watched the blurred memory of my
father slip away as well. I reached out for him, but the dark battled against
me. It lured me into the unknown, where the past became a dream and that dream
became reality.

Our home possessed a ghostly silence, the flicker of an oil
lamp casting crooked shadows over the walls. “Corrine,” someone spoke. It was
Mother. She sat in a steel chair, an open Bible sprawled in her hands. I
approached her slowly. The pages of the book littered the floor one by one,
like a flood of leaves. “Corrine,” Mother called, “it’s time to forget.”

She looked up at me. Her eyes were gone. Blood dripped and
pooled between the cracks of her lips. I jumped back in horror. The lamp fell
to the floor and lit the room aflame. “It’s time to forget,” Mother demanded.
Her mouth split open, the jaw bone breaking and cracking her face in half.

Suddenly, I was thrown from the room and into another.
Nothing existed here but a black sea, with all of Helio Tellus submerged
beneath the waters. I could see myself. My reflection stretched tall over the
city.

“You must forget,” it whispered. A hand came through the
water and snatched me by the throat. “You will forget!” It pulled me in, deep
into the darkness.

Within seconds, I was in the living room again. Mother was
preparing dinner. Fern was singing of stars. I saw myself catching snow. Then
all of us were sitting on the floor in prayer. Ellis smiling, chasing me
through the streets. Mother reading. Fern braiding my hair. I saw Marx Avenue.
My father leaving. The days came and went. One by one, the memories faded until
all I could hear and see and feel was the silence.

When time finally ended, the world died with it. I knew of
nothing, yet of everything. There was a familiar sound around me, a very
familiar vibe... of course... the hum of the earth. I knew of Earth, and life
and death. But I knew not myself. I knew everything, but not myself. I have no
name. I have no desires. I have no purpose. I am no one.

From the darkness, there came light. I knew of light. I knew it
well as it touched my eyes and woke me. Then came the sounds. They came in
small vibrations, in all different volumes and tones. It sounded familiar. It sounded
like words.

“She’s coming through, Dr. Gerald,” a voice said. “Brain
frequencies are active and stable.”

“Tell me the DNA readings of Gene-Nome 1.”

“It appears Gene-Nome 1 has completely overridden the
subject’s humanoid genetics. The levels of Gene-Nome 1 are dangerously high.
The subject will need major cerebral therapy before we can proceed.”

I opened my eyes. There were humans there, staring at me. I
could smell them, hear their bodies pulsing. I wanted to move. I couldn’t. I
was trapped by some sort of glass wall. Then I knew—this was a cage.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have truly outdone ourselves.” The
human came close to the glass. He looked at me. I looked at him. Something
moved against his throat. I watched it pulse over and over. My body felt hot.
That beating in his neck, it looked soft.

“I present to you,” the man paused, “Arsenal 2102!”

The humans cheered. I watched them. They looked so frail,
ripe and full of warmth. They looked like prey, my prey.

The man behind the glass smiled. His eyes gleamed with
pride. It would not last. Once I was free, I would devour that pride. There
would be no more smiles. There would be screams. “Your creation will lead us
into a new world,” the man said. “I have created the perfect being. Even the
heavens above seethe with envy.”

The heat was rising. Hunger was a vicious thing. “It looks
like she wants out. I suppose I would too if I were stuck in there for two
years,” the man chuckled. The humans laughed.

“Alright! Let’s get this recruit to the humanization facility.”
The man turned away.