The Condemned (5 page)

   Because she did, and she was.

   This man... She had killed him once before.

   Not only did she know it, but he did too. He fought fiercely against the guards who escorted him, he swore and attempted to lash out. His eyes settled on Alecia with
something close to hatred and she was unable to repress a shudder.

   This was the man she had killed yesterday.

   Impossible?

   She was certain, confused, but certain and then, before she had time to try and draw comprehension over the situation, the man broke free of the guard at his right for a brief second, flung his arm in the air and the motion shifted the ragged prison issued uniform that covered him...

   Shifted it enough for her eyes to catch the scarring.

   The two lines that extended upwards from the centre of his chest to either side of his collarbone. She knew that underneath the clothes he wore, the rest of the scar would show itself to be that of an autopsy carried out sometime in the past.

   Though she had never before encountered a man like this she had seen crude drawings and heard tales that made her shudder at the thought of the suffering these poor souls must go through.

   He was a Clone.

   Some did not believe they existed.

   If a group of Renegades ever managed to disarm and overpower a lone Official, the man would meet his death swearing that people the likes of this man stood before her did not exist. They were rumoured to be the most powerful tool
of the Officials and though there were many tales and stories spread about the Clones, very little was really known about them.

   They were said to be men and women who, like Alecia, had begun life as an ordinary citizen. Forced into a life of poverty before they even knew there was anything else out there other than hardship and suffering.

   For some reason these individuals were targeted by the Officials. It was a weapon used by weary parents to make unruly children behave; ‘sit quietly or the Officials will turn you into a Clone.’

   It was the excuse most often used to explain strange disappearances, people being plucked from their homes in the dead of night and quieted away for who knew what kind of experiments at the hands of the evil and twisted higher authority.

   In reality the majority of these mysteriously vanishing men and women had simply been killed by their own kin during fights over food, land, women, weapons, anything else remotely worth brawling over. Now Alecia suddenly found herself able to believe that perhaps there were more genuine boogeyman abductions than she had previously given credit to.

   After being used for whatever purpose they had been taken, these individuals would, it was told, be submitted to live autopsies in order to determine the quality of the ‘goods’.
Those deemed weak or sick were, mercifully, killed. Those seen as strong or fit enough were fitted with whatever technology it was the Officials had developed for this purpose.

   Alecia knew nothing of this gadgetry, had never even believed it really existed before now, but she knew it was said to be able to copy the genetic makeup of each prisoner fitted with it and, upon his or her death, produce a fully functioning cloned version. Supposedly the only telltale sign these people would bear was any scarring or injuries that had been incurred before the fitting; hence the ugly ‘Y’ section cut into the chest of each Clone.

   Gagging back her revulsion at the realisation of what the future no doubt held for her, Alecia had shed a tear not for the unsalvageable creature before her, but for herself. She knew without question that once they had exhausted their knowledge of what she could do, once she had become worthless to them, she would be subjected to the cloning process. Would become forever imprisoned in her own body, no hope of ever escaping, of ever finding peace.

   For the first time in several weeks, Alecia refused to do their bidding. She protested, argued, swore, almost hurt herself in her attempts to break free. She was rewarded again with the painful electricity being shot through her body until she finally relented and scorched the man whom she would continue to kill every day for the next eight months.
Acceptance of her fate tore from her the ability to care too much about his. The daily pain she gave to the man became inconsequential in light of what she feared would one day soon happen to herself.

Chapter 5

The hatch had been left open.

   She was never sure whether or not it was
intentional
when they did that, or a simple neglectful oversight.

   It did not help her cause, regardless. This wing of the prison was specifically designed for mutants like her and she wasn't the only Firebug they held, they took great precautions to keep her separate and secluded from the rest of the prison, sealed in this specially treated unit. The area was flame resistant throughout and no guard wandered the corridors unprotected.

   Peering out, she could see that the Clone's hatch was open too, and the one to the cell beside him.

   Days like this she verged on being certain it was intentional and that the prisoners were being observed even more closely than usual, the very limited interaction that this enabled them with one another being closely monitored and recorded.

   Stood on her tiptoes with her fingers curled over the rim of the tiny window, she was able to see very little. She was not a tall girl; maybe she could blame a stunted growth on the lack of sunlight or something.

Whatever, like anyone cared.

   The men opposite her had no issues seeing into the cell she had called 'home' for roughly four years now, but she was forced to strain in an effort to extend just another inch so that she could catch some glimpse of something, anything that would tell her she wasn't as alone as she felt.

   Her eyes peered through the opening, her nose lost beneath it. She guessed that from the outside it might be a pretty comical sight. Maybe, if the circumstances weren't just so devoid of anything remotely close to funny.

   Beriael...

   She knew his name only because she had heard one of the guards; one of the less brutal ones, one of the few who could almost be called compassionate, refer to him by it.

   Beriael stood at the door to his cell, his bald head framed in the narrow rectangle, his gaze set unblinkingly on her. She let out a small gasp of surprise and let go of the door, dropping back to the floor. He was a pretty scary looking dude at the best of times but when he was fixing her with the death stare it was doubly disturbing. She could practically feel the animosity radiating from him in waves.

   She understood how he felt.

   She had spent so much time ending his miserable existence only for the process to be repeated day in and day out in an unforgiving cycle of pain and anger that she couldn’t blame
him for hating her. Recently the observers had urged her to become more adventurous in her methods, they would have her set him alight one body part at a time and then they would sit, serene and thoughtful as they nonchalantly recorded his screams, took note of his twitching, measuring the amount of time it would take for him to lose consciousness.

   Sat restrained in her seat she would clench her eyes closed tightly to avoid the sight of the man before her. Both arms ablaze, the fire controlled enough not to spread to the parts she did not wish. She could block out the sight, even the smell, but never the sounds.

   She would have hated her too if things had been the other way around. Would have spent her life plotting a way to hurt the person who caused her so much sorrow. The look in his eyes frightened her though, not because of the desire for her blood that it conveyed, but for the spark of sympathy, however faint, that it also contained.

   He detested her, he wanted to hurt her, but on some base level he understood the things she did, why they were done and that she had no choice in the matter. It scared her to be forced to wonder if she could ever offer forgiveness to a person like herself and to know that the answer to that would probably be no.

   She was not deserving of forgiveness.

   Compassion and sympathy were beyond what she was entitled
to and she doubted very much that she could ever be a big enough person to offer it to her tormentor in a role reversal scenario.

   She knew that piece by piece they were tearing away her humanity. Her dignity had long gone, self-loathing was commonplace. Still, despite however pitiful she may become and whatever she may think of herself, she kept firm hold of the belief that while she could differentiate between right and wrong, while she still knew, deep inside, what it mean to be human, she would always remain so. The people who did this to her, to him; they could not say the same. Their hearts had turned to stone and died in their chests long ago. They did not feel, they merely watched and drew analytical conclusions that would benefit their Masters, whoever they might be.

   Essentially they were little more than corporation conceived robots who would unquestioningly do the bidding of a higher-ranking authority figure. They didn’t see her as a young girl whose life had been stolen from her, granted the life that could have been hers outside of these walls was a wasted one in itself; nothing remained of the civilisation their destroyed planet had purportedly once known, but still, it would have been
her
life to fritter.

   Tentatively she reached upwards again, her fingers clinging to the door hatch and pulling herself upwards once more so that she could peek over the edge. She avoided looking
directly across to the Clone. He would still be stood there, staring, she did not need to see him to confirm this, she could feel his eyes on her as though he was trying, with the burning ferocity of his gaze, to set her aflame as she had so often done to him.

   Instead, she focussed on the cell beside his.

   That hatch had also been left open. She knew nothing at all of the man inside other than that he was a prisoner, and had therefore done something to wind up here. She had only ever seen his face, what was visible as he stood and watched her through the narrow opening. She had no way of knowing if he were a Clone or a real man. She wondered if he had been brought here for her; when they became bored of having her flame the same man over and over was this next prisoner lined up as a subject for her?

   She knew that he knew what she was here for, that he knew what she was. She had seen him watching as she was removed from her cell and later returned; they had stopped bothering to blindfold her a long time ago, though they still cuffed her hands whenever she was removed from the cell. He couldn't have missed the raging tantrums she threw on occasion, hurling herself against the door and walls of her cell and screaming until their captors came to put needles into her arm, needles that made her sleep without dreams but never allowed her to forget for very long.

   Sometimes it was worth the punishment incurred by misbehaving just to be able to sleep like that, without seeing the faces of her victims haunting her.

   She did not know this man but his presence was somehow calming, if she was fraught or particularly aggravated for any reason and the hatch to both their doors was open she could guarantee he would be stood there, silently watching her and somehow it never failed to settle her to look into his reassuring, calm blue eyes. She met his gaze now as he watched her and she smiled.

   A pointless gesture since only her fingers and the top of her head from her eyes upwards were visible through the small window and he could not see her lips, but that didn't matter. The simple act itself helped her, eased her. Whether he could read her sentiment in her eyes or not, his presence alone was comforting and though she couldn’t understand why, she was relieved for it all the same. She had felt so dehumanised for such a long time that she had almost forgotten what it was to smile.

   Everybody here hated her.

   Beriael had good cause.

   The guards hated her because they didn't understand her and were afraid of her, the observers hated her because... well, they just hated her. It wasn't in their nature to be sympathetic with their test subjects, they weren’t being paid
to worry about how she was feeling, just that she was performing up to standard.

   Maybe she was being a little harsh, maybe their feelings didn't extend as far as hatred. Perhaps to them she was nothing more than an interesting blot on the planet, something to be tested, studied, exhausted and disposed of when she had fulfilled her obligation to science.

   But this man did not hate her.

   She sensed nothing from him other than a quiet interest. He was an observer, but not the same kind as the men who ran the tests on her. She knew he was fully aware of his surroundings and situation and that he was as in control of them as it were possible for any of them to be. She also knew that she would get out of here one day and that when she did it would be because of him.