The Condemned (8 page)

   The second time, two fully flame resistant suited guards ran by them, barely even registering that there were other people in their way, they barged past the three escapees.

They were in a hurry, seemed panicked.

   ‘They’ve found the guard. Won’t be long before word gets out that his suit is gone and then we’re in trouble. We need to move faster. The exit isn’t too far away but we might have problems once we get outside.’

   She didn’t ask how he knew all of this, questions like that could wait for later, for when they were safe. There was no longer an if, not in her mind, she was certain he would lead her to safety.

   The two of them reached the next door before a voice halted them and they turned to see that the Clone was not with them.

   ‘Wait.’ He had paused at one of the walls and was studying the letters on it.

   ‘We need to go this way.’ He motioned towards a separate hallway that led off from the one they were in and without waiting for them he disappeared down it.

   The man holding her arm cursed quietly and released her, running after Beriael. Alecia followed and when they caught up she stood quietly, her fear of being caught returning with each wasted moment.

   ‘I know the way out, Clone. You need to stick with me if you want out of here.’

   ‘I can’t go yet.’ The Clone shook his head adamantly.

   ‘Why the fuck not? The guards are gonna be on top of us soon. We have to get out of here now.’

   Beriael shook his head again and pointed to the symbols on the wall. Alecia glanced at them uncomprehendingly and shrugged. The other man followed the direction of Beriael’s finger and then looked back at him coolly.

   ‘Clone Enclosure, so what. We don’t have time for you to go say goodbye to your buddies, Pal. We’re out of here, now.’

   ‘My wife is in there.’

   Leci gaped.

   She didn’t mean to and she was sure it was a fairly
unattractive sight but her mouth fell open and she stared at Beriael in disbelief, couldn’t help herself. Marriage was such an archaic notion it was practically unheard of and to think that this Clone, this angry, bald-headed, scary looking man had a wife?

   Unbelievable.

   ‘Wife?’ She asked.

   ‘Wife.’ He confirmed with a slight nod. ‘And I’m not leaving here without her. So the pair of you can either fuck off and leave me to try on my own, or you can help. I know where she is. I can get to her, but I can’t get her out without the key. It’ll be fast.’

   He wasn’t speaking to Alecia. It was fairly clear who was in charge, though Beriael wasn’t asking he was stating that he was going to try regardless of how pointless it would be without a key if they decided not to come along and loan him the use of theirs. Maybe if they walked away he would kill another guard to get what he wanted. He was giving them a choice and though it would be so easy just to leave the man to his personal crusade and to get the hell out of here... she couldn’t do it.

   The torment he had endured at her hands over the last eight months was something she could never even begin to atone for, but she had to at least try and deserting him would, she was fairly certain, be a pretty big step in the wrong direction.

   Fortunately she wasn’t forced to make their leader choose between staying or heading out alone. With a sigh of resignation he nodded to Beriael.

   ‘Fast then. Show me where.’

   The Clone grinned and broke into a run.

   Alecia had trouble keeping up with the men who not only had longer legs than her, but weren’t struggling to keep their pants from bunching around their ankles as they moved. She hated to be a burden, she was fully aware of the urgency of their situation and she didn’t make things worse by complaining. Fortunately Beriael kept pausing to read signs and so she never really fell too far behind. Aswell as that she kept seeing the third prisoner glance back to her and she was confident he wouldn’t allow her to become lost, all alone in what felt like a giant maze of endless corridors.

   She knew by now that he was not a clone; when he had handed her his clothing there had been no scar on his chest. She was none the wiser as to why he had been celled with herself and Beriael, hell, she didn’t even know his name. She was just grateful that he seemed to be concerned with taking care of her. She hadn’t felt as though anyone at all gave a damn since Xavian. It was nice once again not to be completely reliant on herself. If she were being truthful she’d have to admit that spending the last four years of her life as a test subject in a maximum-security Official prison kinda said she wasn’t very
good at looking out for her own interests.

   Finally Beriael halted outside a door. It had writing on it and though she couldn’t read it she assumed it was something to do with the Clones. He held his hand out for the key but the other man shook his head and stepped past, running the card down the metal slot and stepping back as the door swung in. Beriael simply shrugged, unperturbed that neither of them trusted him enough to hand over possession of the card.

   The three of them entered a large enclosure that held perhaps as many as twenty huge cage-type pens. Heavy bars ran from floor to ceiling, allowing prisoners to see out and guards to see in. Each pen looked to hold maybe thirty people inside and they looked cramped and uncomfortable.

   As they entered a man at a desk in the centre of the room glanced up from his paperwork and frowned. Alecia assumed that the only thing stopping him from reaching for the gun at his hip was the suit that the unnamed man still wore. He reached up and pulled off the hood. She took the opportunity to study his face.

   She had only ever really seen his eyes and they had always comforted her. The combination of bad lighting and panic in her cell had meant she hadn’t really been able to get a good look at the rest of him and her attention had been more focused on looking to see if he were a clone.

She found herself pleasantly surprised by his features. He
reminded her a lot of Xavian in that his face had a strong, set quality about it. His jaw was square and looked solid, his nose slightly crooked as though it had been broken at some point in the past. His eyes were a beautiful shade of blue, like she remembered the sky to be when she had last seen it. Dark brown hair stuck to his forehead, matted with sweat from being inside the confining hood. At the back it curled around the nape of his neck in a way that strangely made her want to run her fingers through it.

   When he spoke she found her eyes drawn to his lips. His mouth was surrounded by rough looking stubble.

   ‘Bringing back a Clone.’ He reached out, grabbing hold of Beriael by an arm and pushing him slightly towards the man at the desk who looked uncertain and glanced to Alecia.

   ‘Who’s the girl?’

   ‘Her? She’s nothing to worry about, just a Firebug... Hey, why don’t you show him what you can do?’

   Leci tilted her head to one side in mild puzzlement, not sure she understood his intentions correctly. He grinned and tipped her a wink. It was all the permission she needed and without hesitation she set the man on fire.

   He launched from his seat, his shriek of pain hurting her ears.

   ‘Fast, shut him up. Now.’ He hissed at her impatiently, watching Beriael as the man scanned the cages of watching
Clones. Alecia did as she was told, intensified the flames to scorch the man. He died quickly and his screams were cut off abruptly as he fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.

   ‘Holy Fuck!’

   ‘A Firebug! A fucking Firebug, they’ve sent her in to torch the fucking lot of us!’

   ‘Bastards! You can’t do this to us, treating us like animals!’

   As the Clones one by one found their voices the shouts mingled into a noisy mess. Alecia held her hands over her ears and closed her eyes, trying to block out the commotion.   Beriael was halfway down the room urgently trying to find the woman they were here to retrieve.

   ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP RIGHT NOW BEFORE I HAVE HER BURN THE FUCKING LOT OF YOU.’

   His voice rose above the yelling and almost instantly the clamouring clones fell silent. Some stared at the suited man who seemed to be in charge, some watched Alecia with unmasked wariness and a few seemed morbidly fascinated with the smoking remains on the floor. Most of them ignored Beriael, until one woman called his name.

   ‘Beriael?’

   She sounded confused, uncertain and disbelieving. Alecia and her new friend ran quickly to ‘their’ Clone who was reaching through the bars, a woman on the other side wrapped
in his embrace.

   She was a small redhead, about Leci’s height and build, pretty, with piercing green eyes that seemed even sharper right now than they probably were because they were brightened by unshed tears.

   Scanning the pen that held her, the man with the key card motioned for a tall man to come to him. The man didn’t argue, he approached the bars quietly and listened as instructions were given.

   ‘I need to open this cage. The woman is coming with us. I don’t have time to go through the whole fucking building releasing all the clones.’ He held up the card and moved it from side to side; the tall man’s eyes followed it as though it were some sacred object.

   ‘These babies are fireproof. When I let you out, if you have any interest in freeing your friends that’s entirely up to you. Our dead Official over there will have one nice and intact on him somewhere. Give me 5 minutes to get my people out of here and then start letting yours out. Got it?’

   Tall Man nodded evenly and held a hand through the bars.

   ‘I can do as you say. We owe you our lives, giving us an opportunity; you can have your five minutes. Thank you...’ He tilted his head questioningly and the other man grinned, taking the hand and pumping it once in a solid shake.

   ‘Amato.’

   ‘Thank you, Amato.’

   Leci finally had a name for him, for her saviour. Amato.

She had no idea if it meant anything or not, but all the same it seemed to fit. She felt sort of foolish for not having thought to just ask him herself, it wasn’t as if he would have denied her the information.

   Amato ran the card through the slot; Tall Man kept his side of the bargain and held back his people. They had heard the terms of their freedom and they were willing to wait another five minutes for it after having waited years already.

   The redheaded woman was reluctant to let go of her husband but they parted briefly for her to exit the cell and then she was in his arms, sobbing, her face buried in his chest. He held her and rubbed her back and Leci was torn between wanting to get the hell out of here and wanting to allow them their reunion.

   Amato had no such worries.

   ‘Ok, that’s it? No kids, fucking... aunt, uncle, pet fucking hamster? Can we get the fuck going?’

   Beriael raised his head. His cheeks were wet with tears but he grinned and nodded.

   ‘Fuck yeah, thanks man, come on, let’s blow this shit-hole.’

   Amato tugged off the bulky gloves and didn’t bother putting the hood back on. He pointed to Tall Man.

   ‘Five minutes.’

   Who nodded. ‘It’ll take that long for him to cool down enough for me to find the card anyway.’ He reasoned quietly with a nervous glance towards Alecia who flashed him a bright smile.

   The woman was in no condition to run, she clung to Beriael like a lost child and her tears seemed to be uncontrollable. Normally Leci would have told her, perhaps unsympathetically, to pull it together, but given the circumstances she knew that if she were in the position of the recently reunited Clone woman, she’d be a wreck too. Beriael held her against him and scooped her legs from the ground, carrying her in his arms, cradling her against him like a baby. It must have hurt, both arms were badly burned and one had had the flesh stripped from it but he never so much as winced. She supposed he’d had plenty time to build up a relatively decent threshold to it, or maybe there was just so much nerve damage that he really couldn’t feel anything.

   Amato set off at a run, heading back for the door through which they had entered the Clone room. Alecia followed, hampered at first by the over large trousers until she let go, allowed them to fall to the ground and stepped out of them. She was naked below the baggy prison shirt but it was far too big for her and draped her to mid-thigh length like a short dress. Now was not the time to be concerned with modesty,
speed was suddenly very important. The illusion of a guard escorting prisoners would no longer hold and so there was no need for her to attempt to fit the part anymore.

   Amato halted at the doorway, glanced out and to either side and then turned back to Alecia as she caught up to him.

   ‘Anyone at all tries to stop us, you light them up, got it?’

   ‘Got it.’ She wasn’t going to argue. She’d happily fry as many of these bastards as she could. The fact that now it had become necessary for their escape was irrelevant. She’d probably have done it even if he had not told her to.

   Beriael, carrying his wife, took the rear and Alecia followed Amato as he once again took to leading the way through the prison.

   They came across nobody while they walked in silence, constantly on the lookout for guards, and Alecia was starting to feel fairly confident once again. The woman had calmed down enough to walk on her own and she’d fallen into step behind Leci, Beriael still trailing behind to guard them from the rear as Amato led the way.