~*~ Chapter 1 ~*~
I heard wailing and crying all around me. This place was a place from a kid’s worst nightmare, and the last place you want to find yourself when you’re old enough to know what’s going on. Like me – I’d been here all thirteen years of my life, and it’s scary to find yourself here when you’re two and finally understand.
The lights were off in the storage room, and there was only the light of the Exit sign to see by, but that was more than I needed. I could see some troubled faces looking out past the bars of their cages, some with eyes devoid of life and energy. Some looked at me enviously, probably wishing for my jumpiness and energetic nature. I couldn’t help it, though, and they knew it.
A few of the experiments were doing the terrible wailing and crying as they died from a failed DNA mix. I had seen so many deaths in my life, it’s not even funny. I picked up on a loud noise and jumped, almost braining myself on the bar above my head. I was used to it, though. I was used to everything that went on here, even though I didn’t quite agree with what happened. I took it in stride – nothing would change. Nothing could change. We were prisoners for life.
The storage room door opened and the lights flickered on, illuminating the twelve rows of cages, each with about fifty cages on each side – which made twelve-hundred cages in one storage area. It was pretty cramped, to say the least.
A whitecoat walked forward – I was high enough to be eye-level with her, but I rather wish that weren’t so. C102 and I glanced at each other worriedly – in this row, we were the only ones that were considered successful, the only ones picked on. It was either me or him.
“How about…A1,” the whitecoat said, pointing to my cage. My nose started twitching faster from anxiety. “And C102 – we can use them both,” she added. No one here had real names – just letters and numbers. I understood the code, though. The letter was the year – I was taken the first year out of twenty-six, C102 two years later. The number signified who had been brought in first. In my case, I was the first of the year, and C102 was almost the last.
C102 growled as two Erasers that had followed the whitecoat took our cages, one each, off the shelves. They didn’t even pause. The few other sane experiment’s looks of envy turned to looks of worry, and they also showed the fact that they were glad it wasn’t them being carried away.
We were carried down a hallway, completely white, with the whitecoat in front. We were swung violently when she stopped abruptly, making the Erasers skid to an unnecessary halt. I swore under my breath, using language I had picked up from the whitecoats. The specific whitecoat we were with opened the nearest door, and we were carried inside, before it was shut behind us.
The Erasers opened our cages and cautiously, C102 and I crawled out. Because of the shock collars around our necks, as with every other victim of this hell-hole (another phrase I’ve learned from whitecoats), we followed the Erasers down the hall. Six other kids were standing against the wall, looking sorry for themselves. I recognized two from being in the same storage room as C102 and me, but I didn’t know their numbers.
There were twins standing up front. I managed to see their numbers on their collars – all of us had those so that we could be identified if we escaped: B72 and B73. I was stupid not to look before I said anything. So they were near my age, but younger than C102. Both seemed shorter than me for being older, and they both had scaly tails, yellow eyes, and flicking forked tongues. The next youngest was another girl, and her collar said Y100. It must have been the ‘Y’ group from the last twenty-six years. This girl was covered in fur, like me, but hers was yellow with black spots. I hadn’t seen anything like it before.
After the girl were three boys: W21, T212, and S43. W21 looked a lot like an Eraser, other than the look of fear in his eyes. Erasers didn’t own those looks. T212 (man, there were a lot of kids brought here that year) had gills but seemed to do fine without water. His fingers and toes were webbed. S43 was the youngest and had faint black and white stripes across his skin.
There were nine Erasers there as well, to watch us. Not like we could do anything anyway, with the shock collars on. I rubbed mine, feeling it chaffing my neck and pulling my fur. A door opened, but not the one we came through, the one we were lined up at. A whitecoat (of course) stepped out and motioned at the twins. Two Erasers went with them inside, leaving seven to guard. The twins looked nervous, and I didn’t blame them in the slightest. I could guess what was going on: tests, horrible tests.
After twenty-five minutes, most of the other experiments had entered the room, except for me and C102, and no one had come out yet. I assumed there was another door they were led through in there otherwise they would have had to pass us.
The whitecoat asked for C102 next, leaving me alone in the hallway. This time, unlike the other five, I didn’t hear screaming from inside. Almost thirty seconds later, C102 was actually being led back this way, an Eraser gripping his arm. He looked smug about something (C102, not the Eraser). The Eraser muttered something to his two buddies guarding me, and both stared at C102 warily before he was led away quickly, as if the Eraser guard was scared of him.
“Bring in A1,” the whitecoat said. Despite the fact I was trying to control it, I was really jumpy – that’s what you get for having ferret DNA inside you. One of the Erasers stayed behind in that waiting room as I was brought inside the testing room.
There were scorch marks on the walls, and I gulped. Up high, there was a window where the whitecoats were no doubt watching. Another door was across the room – the only escape, other than the door I had just come through, though both were probably locked.
My guard left hurriedly, leaving me standing in the testing room feeling stupid. I didn’t know what they expected me to do – maybe some more stuff with my super strength that, for some reason, came with my DNA. I didn’t know. Until I saw, off in the wall so small that I missed it at first, a little box light up. A match had been lit inside it, and dropped. There was a teeny opening at the bottom, and the fire spread around the room quickly, probably because of gasoline on the floor.
The fire quickly reached me, licking at my limbs and burning off most of my fur. I yelled and tried to run away from the heat, but it didn’t work – fire filled the entire room. Instead, I made ready to use my strength. Sucking in a pain-filled breath as the fire started to make my skin blister, I ran towards the door across the room, and hit it with a shoulder. It fell inwards and I collapsed on top of the fallen door, still right next to the heat. Strong hands picked me up, most likely belonging to an Eraser.
I didn’t notice anything that short time I was being carried – I lapsed in and out of consciousness, before I finally welcomed the soothing blackness of unconsciousness.
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I woke up in my cage again, and whimpered. I hurt all over, and I winced when slight breezes brushed against my injuries. Opening my eyes, I surveyed the damage. A lot of my fur was burnt off, giving me patches of plain skin. That skin was burnt red, and most of it had blisters or were bleeding. Again I whimpered and closed my eyes again. I felt someone touch my side and looked up wearily.
C102 had ended up next to me. Wait…why was that? We were always across each other, because of the organization thing these whitecoats had going. C didn’t come after A. And 102 didn’t come after 1. I knew that for sure. So…what was going on?
Cautiously, I looked out of the front of my cage. I was right at the end of the row, as usual, and could, also as usual, see the sign on the opposite row, explaining the two aisles on either side. C102 and I were in the ‘Dangerous Experiments’ section. Dangerous? Me? Cool.
“You okay?” C102 asked. I hadn’t heard any other experiment talk before, except me, but that was understandable. It was just odd that another experiment knew how to talk, since most were illiterate. “You have some bad burns.”
“Sore,” I said, not wanting to talk more. My voice was hoarse from not being used, and it also hurt. C102 looked at me sympathetically and placed his hand on one of my injuries. I flinched away, and when I pulled my hand away, the skin was healed, and fur was growing back. “What did you do?” I whispered, not able to keep amazement out of my voice.
“Healed you. It’s one of my powers, like my immunity to fire,” he said simply. I stared at him, dumbstruck. He made to speak again, but an Eraser yelled out, “No talking!” and C102 closed his mouth again.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, before I had to say something that had been nagging me for a little while. “We need to get out of here soon, along with those other six kids,” I said, almost randomly. C102 nodded and looked around quickly, making me jittery all over again. Not that it was rare or anything.
“Start tomorrow?” he reasoned, grinning in a creepy way. I shrugged, trying not to show my excitement all that much, though I got to say, it didn’t work as well as I hoped it would. “Good.” C102 curled up in his cage and pulled out a pair of wings, which he wrapped tightly around himself. That was his only mutation – lucky him. I stayed awake for a while, staring out at the empty cages on the other aisle that I could see, thinking, wondering how we would be able to make our escape. And if we could take the other four with us.
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Morning came quickly, it seemed, and I was woken by the light snapping on and the sound of the dreaded cart. It didn’t come down our way, however, staying near the other side of the room. For now, at least. C102 and I waited until the whitecoats and Erasers left before chancing to speak with each other again.
“What’s the plan?” I asked C102. He was the oldest, and also, I couldn’t think of one last night. He just smirked at first, and I grew impatient while I waited. He mouthed something to himself, as if putting the finishing touches on, and then nodded. “Well? Do you have one or not?” I demanded, harsher than I intended.
“First off, you know your strength power?” I nodded slowly, wringing my hands and wondering where this was going. An experiment suddenly started crying loudly and I looked in that direction, eyes wide. C102 reached through the bars separating us and stroked my fur for a second, calming me. “To start, we’ll need to break these collars and the doors, along with the other four, then…” He said the rest in an undertone, so quiet I could barely catch it. I grinned when he was finished. What’s the plan? Yeah, like I’d tell you – you might be in league with whitecoats.
Ten minutes later, both of us had managed to get our collars off, cages open, and were able to slide to the floor about five shelves below us. I wondered why I hadn’t tried this before, and the answer came to me instantly: I wouldn’t make it ten feet without help, so never tried.
“Where are the others held?” I questioned. C102 shrugged. “Oh, wait, I think I know.” Since I had been here a while, I had started to understand the codes. I remembered that each twenty-six years of kids were held in one room, so our generation was in this room. “B72 and B73 have to be here,” I concluded aloud. C102 stayed quiet and I followed suit – we didn’t want to get found out.
Quickly and quietly, we made our way to the ‘A-C’ section, where we had been housed before going to the ‘Dangerous Experiments’ section. The door opened again and we both paled, looking at each other. We ran down the aisle, hiding behind the shelves, and didn’t seem to have been noticed. At least, for the time being. We waited for about ten minutes after they left, and my heart seemed to be trying to burst out of my chest – I scared easily, but I had never been this frightened before.
Other experiments stared at us as we made our way slowly down the rows, looking for the twin girls. We found them after a couple of tense minutes. They, like everyone else, stared at us curiously, as if wondering what we were doing wandering around and if we could be trusted because of it.
“We’re here to break you out,” I whispered, just so that they could hear. The other experiments watched with growing interest and I pried the door from the crate of B72, then did the same for her sister. Then I tore off their collars. They both mouthed, “Thanks,” not wanting to speak aloud.
“What about us?” one kid, part rat I think, piped up. He motioned to him and the other kids in the aisle. C102 sighed and motioned for me to continue. Groaning, I popped each lock and took off each kid’s shock collar in that row. There were about one hundred out of three hundred kids there around us.
“You guys have to stay silent. When you get out the door, make a run for it,” I ordered, even though I was the youngest there. They nodded enthusiastically and made ready to leave. I quickly led the way to the doors, and held up three fingers, then two, the one, before throwing the door open. The lock from outside died against my strength. “Go!” I told the other experiments, holding B72, B73, and C102 back. “We have to go get the others – they’ll be our distraction.”
I was right about the distraction. I heard shouts from every direction, and as we ran for the next generation’s storage room whitecoats were trying to grab the experiments that were swarming around. One made a grab for me, but C102 and the twins pulled me out of the way at the last second. Cool, I had allies!
“Here!” B72 shouted over the noise. She pointed to a door and even with my cool knowledge of the codes, I couldn’t tell the difference between this door and any other with cages. B73 jiggled the doorknob then kicked the door. I couldn’t even get it open. “It’s voice activated!” B72 pointed out, pointing to a microphone.
“Let me.” B73 grinned evilly, her eyes completing the effect. She turned to the door and in a voice, eerily like one of the head whitecoats, said, “Open.” Surprisingly, that was all that was needed, since it unlocked and C102 opened it. We hurried in and slammed the door behind us. Someone ran into it. Probably a whitecoat that was trying to take us back.
The room was quiet, since it was all little kids. Or, at least, kids younger than me. Most of the kids were staring at the door, if possible, listening to the commotion outside. I told the others to spread out in order to find the other four. They went for the youngest two, and I went for the oldest two.
Talking started quietly as I went to the ‘Z-X’ section at the other end of the room. Y100 was at the very end of one of the rows, so I had to pass a lot of other kids. Some had really weird mutations and looked close to death – some were dead. There were a lot covered in scales, fur, or feathers. There was even a real ferret in one cage that stared at me as I passed. The bars were abnormally thin so that it couldn’t escape. Shuddering, I hurried to the end and Y100’s cage. She looked down at me, seemingly bored.
“Who are you? You’re definitely not a whitecoat,” she said. Her voice even sounded bored, like she was used to fur-covered, jumpy kids coming to her rescue.
“I’m A1, from the 34th batch,” I said. Y100 blinked in recognition. “I saw you waiting outside the fire room the other day.” Y100 nodded.
“So why are you here?” she asked, sounding more curious.
“To break you out,” I answered. She looked at me, wide-eyed with awe and shock. “Just…don’t get in the way of the door.” Y100 backed into the corner and I pulled the door from its frame. She instantly jumped out and I yanked off her collar.
“Ouch! Warn me next time!” she snapped. “Where to now?” She acted like she hadn’t just gotten mad at me. Mood swings, anyone?
“We’re going to get one more kid out, in the next section. Three other experiments are getting two younger kids out.” Y100 nodded and we rounded the corner to the ‘W-U’ section. The others were in the next section over.
“So who’re we looking for?” Y100 whispered. I racked my memory, and the number came to my head.
“W21 – he’ll be up near the front,” I whispered, and we went that direction. W21 seemed to be waiting for us. He was already politely against the back of his cage and motioned for me to help. I pulled the door from its hinges and threw it to the floor.
“Thanks. But you may want to know that this noise will attract attention sooner or later – it quieted down in the hallway. Erasers have good hearing,” W21 said calmly. He jumped to the floor and grinned a wolfy grin. As if on cue, the door managed to open and three angry and flustered whitecoats entered, followed by about twenty-five Erasers.
“Aw, man!” I whined as I broke W21's shock collar. C102, B72, B73, T212, and S43 came from around the corner and ran towards us. S43 looked frightened. “We have to fight to get out of here. Raise your hand if you know how to fight.” I raised my own hand, followed by W21, C102, and S43. The other four looked at each other sheepishly. “Uh…that’s okay. Just stay behind us, so that you won’t get tangled up in this.” The four of them nodded. “I’m going to lead them away first, and you three sneak attack.” C102, W21, and S43 grinned.
Leaving the others behind me, I walked into the open. This was probably the worst thought-through plan ever concocted, but it would work for now. The Erasers had been looking around stupidly, and then spotted me. “There’s another!” one shouted, pointing to me. I put on a “Who, me?” expression, before running. I ran down the ‘T-R’ section, the Erasers following behind me.
One of them caught up enough to snap at my heels. I jumped and made a small squeaking noise before running as fast as possible. It was pretty fast, but only about the Eraser’s speed, which kept that one inches from my fleeing feet. Please hurry, I whimpered in my head. My legs and lungs were starting to hurt, and when I turned the corner at the end of the row I skidded and almost hit the wall. Against my will, I started to slow. Even a ferret couldn’t keep up this pace forever.
Behind me, the Eraser caught up and grabbed my arm in a vice grip. I yelled out as his claws dug into my skin. Suddenly, he turned, dragging me around with him. It was hard, but I managed to hold back my laugh. C102, W21, and a big cat were standing there, with about fifteen of the Erasers down and only ten remaining. The big cat had a shock collar around its neck still. Whoops. One of the Erasers noticed and laughed, shocking it until it turned into S43, who was crying and clawing at his collar. They seemed confused that the rest of us weren’t getting hurt, too. I heard another yell from the section I had left behind. Both that yell and S43's died down as the Eraser let go of the button.
“Doesn’t matter – take those three. We’ll get these ones new collars and bring them back to their cages,” the one holding me snarled, shaking my arm. I growled and kicked him between the legs. His grip loosened and he bent double, snarling. Two more Erasers grabbed me before I could make a run for it. I turned and punched one in the stomach, breaking its ribs and probably breaking a lung. The other one was stronger than me, oddly enough, and I couldn’t break free of him.
The other three were also being held. C102 seemed surprised that I was struggling to get free and that I hadn’t brained the Eraser already. “Come on,” the Eraser holding me snarled and dragged me forward despite the fact that I was trying to dig my heels into the ground. I gouged two faint marks on the tile.
“Let her go,” I heard the voice of the head whitecoat say. The Eraser holding my arm stopped in its tracks and looked around wildly. I did so, too, even though it wasn’t directed a me. “Let all of them go – we can take them from here.”
“Sir?” the Eraser holding me asked, sounding confused.
“Just let the experiments go, or else,” the voice said ominously. The Eraser growled and tightened his grip. I gasped in pain and my other hand shot to my arm, which was starting to bleed a little.
“Who’s saying that?” he snarled angrily. I guess that they have big enough brains that they can think. You learn something new every day, apparently.
“I warned you.” This time, it was B73’s real voice. I looked around cautiously, then flew backwards a couple feet as something raced right in front of me, creating a big wind. The Eraser went the other way. I slid and hit a shelf. Empty crates toppled on my head from each shelf. I saw stars and felt ready to pass out. I didn’t, though, and pushed all, uh, twenty five crates or so away from me. By the time I was completely unburied – with the help of S43 – the other Erasers were down.
“What’d I miss?” I asked, nose twitching nervously. Everyone laughed.
“The Erasers being knocked senseless,” T212 said.
“You could have been knocked senseless,” W21 said. I scowled at him and C102 pulled me to my feet.
“Let’s just get out of here,” I growled. Still smirking, they followed me to the door, which was still open. The other experiments in the room were deathly quiet as they watched. Right outside the door, I stopped. “Wait – T212, S43, come here.” They came towards me and I snapped their collars off in one deft motion. “Now, let’s get out of here.”
Silently, so that we wouldn’t be caught again, we made our way in the direction that we thought the door was in. At one time, we came to an intersection and I made to turn left, but B72 said, “No, right.” Glancing at her briefly, we went right. As she said, the door was only a couple hallways away. Only three yards from the door, an alarm started blaring and the hallway was basked in a red glow. Erasers were already heard running behind us.
“Run!” B73 shouted, and we instantly did so. I went up front, and turned my shoulder to take the impact of the door. I only dented it when I hit it. I heard my shoulder break under the impact and yelped. “One more time,” B73 urged nervously. She glanced over her shoulder, tongue flicking wildly. “You can do it.” I turned to my other shoulder and rammed it, too, against the doors which finally flew open. That shoulder seemed to have been dislocated, but nothing as major.
“Let’s go,” C102 ordered, ushering the other six out of the building. The Erasers turned a corner and started towards us in full morph, saliva running down their chins in anticipation. I gulped and turned, tripping over my feet as I hurried to get away. My shoulders were jarred as I ran and I winced with every step I took.
The eight of us were in a race for our lives, heading towards the trees about a quarter mile away, unfortunately. The Erasers ran out of the lab, slowly gaining ground. Y100 shot forwards in a blur suddenly, and S43 turned into a bird, getting into the air and racing after her. Amber completely disappeared, and T212, who was on her back, disappeared as well. W21 turned and shot ice from his palm, forming a thick wall between us and the advancing Erasers. I heard one run into it, before they all ganged up on it to ram it down.
We were about twenty yards from the trees when the ice sprayed in all directions, completely destroyed. I heard a bodiless whimper from beside me and a gasp – I assumed that it was Y100 and T212. The sounds left my side, and I started to lag. It was the same dang problem as in the lab – ferrets can’t keep up the same pace for long!
I just barely got into the trees by the time five Erasers managed to catch up to us. I ducked around a small tree and wrapped my better arm around it. With a little effort, I pulled it out of the ground, and sent it crashing into three of them. That would hurt in the morning, no doubt about it! For both of us. My shoulders both started hurting at the same time again and I decided it was time to get moving again.
Once I started to move, I realized I didn’t know where I was going. The others had gone out of my sight, and I had a crap load of Erasers on my tail. This just wasn’t my day, now was it?
After a moment of running, I slid under a bush, biting back a scream of pain as I jarred both shoulders. I couldn’t move my right shoulder to pop the left one back in, so they were almost useless. Except to pull trees out by the roots, though that hurt a lot.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” an Eraser taunted. I shuffled back into the bush further, wishing I wasn’t so powerless at the moment. The Eraser made its way towards me, three of his buddies trailing behind him, sniffing me out. One tapped the Eraser on the shoulder and pointed to my bush. I cowered further down. “You can run, but you can’t hide,” he snarled, walking purposefully towards me. Oh, God; oh, God; oh, God, I thought frantically. I wouldn’t be brought back! Not after what I had just gone through! As if on cue, Y100 suddenly zoomed past, tripping the Eraser. I stifled a laugh.
The other three Erasers were looking around stupidly and had stopped in their tracks. One got hit in the head by a floating branch and fell in a heap on the ground. Another turned and ran, tripping over everything from roots to his own feet. The large cat from before jumped from the trees, landing on the last standing one. That one, too, got knocked out. I let out a sigh of relief, though I had forgotten about the lead Eraser.
The Eraser that had fallen on his face in front of me, because of Y100, was getting up slowly. What happened next wasn’t slow. His hand shot out and grabbed the arm with the dislocated shoulder. He pulled me out and I yelled out in pain. The two experiments that I could see froze and looked at me. I was biting my lip hard enough that it was bleeding. I kicked the Eraser in the shins, but nothing happened. I was too weak from the blinding pain.
“A1!” C102 yelled out. I looked around sharply, trying not to get carried off at the same time. Man, is that challenging! “Duck!” I dropped to a sitting position and bit back another scream. Fire erupted over my head and collided with the Eraser, who let go of my arm and left me sitting there stupidly.
“You okay?” T212 asked worriedly, coming out of the trees with B73, W21, and S43. I nodded and managed to get up without using my arms.
“I just broke one shoulder and dislocated another on that dang door,” I spat. I realized that I had blood in my mouth and spit it out sourly. Stupid bleeding lip.
“Here. I’ll help with the dislocated one,” B72 offered. She came and grabbed my arm. “On three.” I nodded. “One.” She popped my shoulder back into place and I yelled out.
“You said on three!” I yelled, rolling my shoulder. B72 smirked.
“You would have tensed and it would have hurt more – that was the only way to do it,” she answered smugly. I glared, and W21 interrupted.
“I don’t mean to interrupt this fun moment,” he started sarcastically, “but we had better get away from here. There should be a place to stay around here somewhere, where there’s water and shelter, otherwise some of the larger animals here couldn’t survive. There ought to be a cave or something in that direction.” He pointed.
“How old are you?” B73 asked incredulously. Yeah, I wanted to know too. I didn’t see how a kid, younger than me, would be able to figure all this out in a second. I was still digesting everything he said! Then again, I am kind of slow…but away from me!
“Nine,” W21 said simply. “Are we going or not?” Shocked, the rest of us agreed and went in the direction he pointed out. Hopefully the night would be a lot better to me than the day.
The lights were off in the storage room, and there was only the light of the Exit sign to see by, but that was more than I needed. I could see some troubled faces looking out past the bars of their cages, some with eyes devoid of life and energy. Some looked at me enviously, probably wishing for my jumpiness and energetic nature. I couldn’t help it, though, and they knew it.
A few of the experiments were doing the terrible wailing and crying as they died from a failed DNA mix. I had seen so many deaths in my life, it’s not even funny. I picked up on a loud noise and jumped, almost braining myself on the bar above my head. I was used to it, though. I was used to everything that went on here, even though I didn’t quite agree with what happened. I took it in stride – nothing would change. Nothing could change. We were prisoners for life.
The storage room door opened and the lights flickered on, illuminating the twelve rows of cages, each with about fifty cages on each side – which made twelve-hundred cages in one storage area. It was pretty cramped, to say the least.
A whitecoat walked forward – I was high enough to be eye-level with her, but I rather wish that weren’t so. C102 and I glanced at each other worriedly – in this row, we were the only ones that were considered successful, the only ones picked on. It was either me or him.
“How about…A1,” the whitecoat said, pointing to my cage. My nose started twitching faster from anxiety. “And C102 – we can use them both,” she added. No one here had real names – just letters and numbers. I understood the code, though. The letter was the year – I was taken the first year out of twenty-six, C102 two years later. The number signified who had been brought in first. In my case, I was the first of the year, and C102 was almost the last.
C102 growled as two Erasers that had followed the whitecoat took our cages, one each, off the shelves. They didn’t even pause. The few other sane experiment’s looks of envy turned to looks of worry, and they also showed the fact that they were glad it wasn’t them being carried away.
We were carried down a hallway, completely white, with the whitecoat in front. We were swung violently when she stopped abruptly, making the Erasers skid to an unnecessary halt. I swore under my breath, using language I had picked up from the whitecoats. The specific whitecoat we were with opened the nearest door, and we were carried inside, before it was shut behind us.
The Erasers opened our cages and cautiously, C102 and I crawled out. Because of the shock collars around our necks, as with every other victim of this hell-hole (another phrase I’ve learned from whitecoats), we followed the Erasers down the hall. Six other kids were standing against the wall, looking sorry for themselves. I recognized two from being in the same storage room as C102 and me, but I didn’t know their numbers.
There were twins standing up front. I managed to see their numbers on their collars – all of us had those so that we could be identified if we escaped: B72 and B73. I was stupid not to look before I said anything. So they were near my age, but younger than C102. Both seemed shorter than me for being older, and they both had scaly tails, yellow eyes, and flicking forked tongues. The next youngest was another girl, and her collar said Y100. It must have been the ‘Y’ group from the last twenty-six years. This girl was covered in fur, like me, but hers was yellow with black spots. I hadn’t seen anything like it before.
After the girl were three boys: W21, T212, and S43. W21 looked a lot like an Eraser, other than the look of fear in his eyes. Erasers didn’t own those looks. T212 (man, there were a lot of kids brought here that year) had gills but seemed to do fine without water. His fingers and toes were webbed. S43 was the youngest and had faint black and white stripes across his skin.
There were nine Erasers there as well, to watch us. Not like we could do anything anyway, with the shock collars on. I rubbed mine, feeling it chaffing my neck and pulling my fur. A door opened, but not the one we came through, the one we were lined up at. A whitecoat (of course) stepped out and motioned at the twins. Two Erasers went with them inside, leaving seven to guard. The twins looked nervous, and I didn’t blame them in the slightest. I could guess what was going on: tests, horrible tests.
After twenty-five minutes, most of the other experiments had entered the room, except for me and C102, and no one had come out yet. I assumed there was another door they were led through in there otherwise they would have had to pass us.
The whitecoat asked for C102 next, leaving me alone in the hallway. This time, unlike the other five, I didn’t hear screaming from inside. Almost thirty seconds later, C102 was actually being led back this way, an Eraser gripping his arm. He looked smug about something (C102, not the Eraser). The Eraser muttered something to his two buddies guarding me, and both stared at C102 warily before he was led away quickly, as if the Eraser guard was scared of him.
“Bring in A1,” the whitecoat said. Despite the fact I was trying to control it, I was really jumpy – that’s what you get for having ferret DNA inside you. One of the Erasers stayed behind in that waiting room as I was brought inside the testing room.
There were scorch marks on the walls, and I gulped. Up high, there was a window where the whitecoats were no doubt watching. Another door was across the room – the only escape, other than the door I had just come through, though both were probably locked.
My guard left hurriedly, leaving me standing in the testing room feeling stupid. I didn’t know what they expected me to do – maybe some more stuff with my super strength that, for some reason, came with my DNA. I didn’t know. Until I saw, off in the wall so small that I missed it at first, a little box light up. A match had been lit inside it, and dropped. There was a teeny opening at the bottom, and the fire spread around the room quickly, probably because of gasoline on the floor.
The fire quickly reached me, licking at my limbs and burning off most of my fur. I yelled and tried to run away from the heat, but it didn’t work – fire filled the entire room. Instead, I made ready to use my strength. Sucking in a pain-filled breath as the fire started to make my skin blister, I ran towards the door across the room, and hit it with a shoulder. It fell inwards and I collapsed on top of the fallen door, still right next to the heat. Strong hands picked me up, most likely belonging to an Eraser.
I didn’t notice anything that short time I was being carried – I lapsed in and out of consciousness, before I finally welcomed the soothing blackness of unconsciousness.
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I woke up in my cage again, and whimpered. I hurt all over, and I winced when slight breezes brushed against my injuries. Opening my eyes, I surveyed the damage. A lot of my fur was burnt off, giving me patches of plain skin. That skin was burnt red, and most of it had blisters or were bleeding. Again I whimpered and closed my eyes again. I felt someone touch my side and looked up wearily.
C102 had ended up next to me. Wait…why was that? We were always across each other, because of the organization thing these whitecoats had going. C didn’t come after A. And 102 didn’t come after 1. I knew that for sure. So…what was going on?
Cautiously, I looked out of the front of my cage. I was right at the end of the row, as usual, and could, also as usual, see the sign on the opposite row, explaining the two aisles on either side. C102 and I were in the ‘Dangerous Experiments’ section. Dangerous? Me? Cool.
“You okay?” C102 asked. I hadn’t heard any other experiment talk before, except me, but that was understandable. It was just odd that another experiment knew how to talk, since most were illiterate. “You have some bad burns.”
“Sore,” I said, not wanting to talk more. My voice was hoarse from not being used, and it also hurt. C102 looked at me sympathetically and placed his hand on one of my injuries. I flinched away, and when I pulled my hand away, the skin was healed, and fur was growing back. “What did you do?” I whispered, not able to keep amazement out of my voice.
“Healed you. It’s one of my powers, like my immunity to fire,” he said simply. I stared at him, dumbstruck. He made to speak again, but an Eraser yelled out, “No talking!” and C102 closed his mouth again.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, before I had to say something that had been nagging me for a little while. “We need to get out of here soon, along with those other six kids,” I said, almost randomly. C102 nodded and looked around quickly, making me jittery all over again. Not that it was rare or anything.
“Start tomorrow?” he reasoned, grinning in a creepy way. I shrugged, trying not to show my excitement all that much, though I got to say, it didn’t work as well as I hoped it would. “Good.” C102 curled up in his cage and pulled out a pair of wings, which he wrapped tightly around himself. That was his only mutation – lucky him. I stayed awake for a while, staring out at the empty cages on the other aisle that I could see, thinking, wondering how we would be able to make our escape. And if we could take the other four with us.
--------------
Morning came quickly, it seemed, and I was woken by the light snapping on and the sound of the dreaded cart. It didn’t come down our way, however, staying near the other side of the room. For now, at least. C102 and I waited until the whitecoats and Erasers left before chancing to speak with each other again.
“What’s the plan?” I asked C102. He was the oldest, and also, I couldn’t think of one last night. He just smirked at first, and I grew impatient while I waited. He mouthed something to himself, as if putting the finishing touches on, and then nodded. “Well? Do you have one or not?” I demanded, harsher than I intended.
“First off, you know your strength power?” I nodded slowly, wringing my hands and wondering where this was going. An experiment suddenly started crying loudly and I looked in that direction, eyes wide. C102 reached through the bars separating us and stroked my fur for a second, calming me. “To start, we’ll need to break these collars and the doors, along with the other four, then…” He said the rest in an undertone, so quiet I could barely catch it. I grinned when he was finished. What’s the plan? Yeah, like I’d tell you – you might be in league with whitecoats.
Ten minutes later, both of us had managed to get our collars off, cages open, and were able to slide to the floor about five shelves below us. I wondered why I hadn’t tried this before, and the answer came to me instantly: I wouldn’t make it ten feet without help, so never tried.
“Where are the others held?” I questioned. C102 shrugged. “Oh, wait, I think I know.” Since I had been here a while, I had started to understand the codes. I remembered that each twenty-six years of kids were held in one room, so our generation was in this room. “B72 and B73 have to be here,” I concluded aloud. C102 stayed quiet and I followed suit – we didn’t want to get found out.
Quickly and quietly, we made our way to the ‘A-C’ section, where we had been housed before going to the ‘Dangerous Experiments’ section. The door opened again and we both paled, looking at each other. We ran down the aisle, hiding behind the shelves, and didn’t seem to have been noticed. At least, for the time being. We waited for about ten minutes after they left, and my heart seemed to be trying to burst out of my chest – I scared easily, but I had never been this frightened before.
Other experiments stared at us as we made our way slowly down the rows, looking for the twin girls. We found them after a couple of tense minutes. They, like everyone else, stared at us curiously, as if wondering what we were doing wandering around and if we could be trusted because of it.
“We’re here to break you out,” I whispered, just so that they could hear. The other experiments watched with growing interest and I pried the door from the crate of B72, then did the same for her sister. Then I tore off their collars. They both mouthed, “Thanks,” not wanting to speak aloud.
“What about us?” one kid, part rat I think, piped up. He motioned to him and the other kids in the aisle. C102 sighed and motioned for me to continue. Groaning, I popped each lock and took off each kid’s shock collar in that row. There were about one hundred out of three hundred kids there around us.
“You guys have to stay silent. When you get out the door, make a run for it,” I ordered, even though I was the youngest there. They nodded enthusiastically and made ready to leave. I quickly led the way to the doors, and held up three fingers, then two, the one, before throwing the door open. The lock from outside died against my strength. “Go!” I told the other experiments, holding B72, B73, and C102 back. “We have to go get the others – they’ll be our distraction.”
I was right about the distraction. I heard shouts from every direction, and as we ran for the next generation’s storage room whitecoats were trying to grab the experiments that were swarming around. One made a grab for me, but C102 and the twins pulled me out of the way at the last second. Cool, I had allies!
“Here!” B72 shouted over the noise. She pointed to a door and even with my cool knowledge of the codes, I couldn’t tell the difference between this door and any other with cages. B73 jiggled the doorknob then kicked the door. I couldn’t even get it open. “It’s voice activated!” B72 pointed out, pointing to a microphone.
“Let me.” B73 grinned evilly, her eyes completing the effect. She turned to the door and in a voice, eerily like one of the head whitecoats, said, “Open.” Surprisingly, that was all that was needed, since it unlocked and C102 opened it. We hurried in and slammed the door behind us. Someone ran into it. Probably a whitecoat that was trying to take us back.
The room was quiet, since it was all little kids. Or, at least, kids younger than me. Most of the kids were staring at the door, if possible, listening to the commotion outside. I told the others to spread out in order to find the other four. They went for the youngest two, and I went for the oldest two.
Talking started quietly as I went to the ‘Z-X’ section at the other end of the room. Y100 was at the very end of one of the rows, so I had to pass a lot of other kids. Some had really weird mutations and looked close to death – some were dead. There were a lot covered in scales, fur, or feathers. There was even a real ferret in one cage that stared at me as I passed. The bars were abnormally thin so that it couldn’t escape. Shuddering, I hurried to the end and Y100’s cage. She looked down at me, seemingly bored.
“Who are you? You’re definitely not a whitecoat,” she said. Her voice even sounded bored, like she was used to fur-covered, jumpy kids coming to her rescue.
“I’m A1, from the 34th batch,” I said. Y100 blinked in recognition. “I saw you waiting outside the fire room the other day.” Y100 nodded.
“So why are you here?” she asked, sounding more curious.
“To break you out,” I answered. She looked at me, wide-eyed with awe and shock. “Just…don’t get in the way of the door.” Y100 backed into the corner and I pulled the door from its frame. She instantly jumped out and I yanked off her collar.
“Ouch! Warn me next time!” she snapped. “Where to now?” She acted like she hadn’t just gotten mad at me. Mood swings, anyone?
“We’re going to get one more kid out, in the next section. Three other experiments are getting two younger kids out.” Y100 nodded and we rounded the corner to the ‘W-U’ section. The others were in the next section over.
“So who’re we looking for?” Y100 whispered. I racked my memory, and the number came to my head.
“W21 – he’ll be up near the front,” I whispered, and we went that direction. W21 seemed to be waiting for us. He was already politely against the back of his cage and motioned for me to help. I pulled the door from its hinges and threw it to the floor.
“Thanks. But you may want to know that this noise will attract attention sooner or later – it quieted down in the hallway. Erasers have good hearing,” W21 said calmly. He jumped to the floor and grinned a wolfy grin. As if on cue, the door managed to open and three angry and flustered whitecoats entered, followed by about twenty-five Erasers.
“Aw, man!” I whined as I broke W21's shock collar. C102, B72, B73, T212, and S43 came from around the corner and ran towards us. S43 looked frightened. “We have to fight to get out of here. Raise your hand if you know how to fight.” I raised my own hand, followed by W21, C102, and S43. The other four looked at each other sheepishly. “Uh…that’s okay. Just stay behind us, so that you won’t get tangled up in this.” The four of them nodded. “I’m going to lead them away first, and you three sneak attack.” C102, W21, and S43 grinned.
Leaving the others behind me, I walked into the open. This was probably the worst thought-through plan ever concocted, but it would work for now. The Erasers had been looking around stupidly, and then spotted me. “There’s another!” one shouted, pointing to me. I put on a “Who, me?” expression, before running. I ran down the ‘T-R’ section, the Erasers following behind me.
One of them caught up enough to snap at my heels. I jumped and made a small squeaking noise before running as fast as possible. It was pretty fast, but only about the Eraser’s speed, which kept that one inches from my fleeing feet. Please hurry, I whimpered in my head. My legs and lungs were starting to hurt, and when I turned the corner at the end of the row I skidded and almost hit the wall. Against my will, I started to slow. Even a ferret couldn’t keep up this pace forever.
Behind me, the Eraser caught up and grabbed my arm in a vice grip. I yelled out as his claws dug into my skin. Suddenly, he turned, dragging me around with him. It was hard, but I managed to hold back my laugh. C102, W21, and a big cat were standing there, with about fifteen of the Erasers down and only ten remaining. The big cat had a shock collar around its neck still. Whoops. One of the Erasers noticed and laughed, shocking it until it turned into S43, who was crying and clawing at his collar. They seemed confused that the rest of us weren’t getting hurt, too. I heard another yell from the section I had left behind. Both that yell and S43's died down as the Eraser let go of the button.
“Doesn’t matter – take those three. We’ll get these ones new collars and bring them back to their cages,” the one holding me snarled, shaking my arm. I growled and kicked him between the legs. His grip loosened and he bent double, snarling. Two more Erasers grabbed me before I could make a run for it. I turned and punched one in the stomach, breaking its ribs and probably breaking a lung. The other one was stronger than me, oddly enough, and I couldn’t break free of him.
The other three were also being held. C102 seemed surprised that I was struggling to get free and that I hadn’t brained the Eraser already. “Come on,” the Eraser holding me snarled and dragged me forward despite the fact that I was trying to dig my heels into the ground. I gouged two faint marks on the tile.
“Let her go,” I heard the voice of the head whitecoat say. The Eraser holding my arm stopped in its tracks and looked around wildly. I did so, too, even though it wasn’t directed a me. “Let all of them go – we can take them from here.”
“Sir?” the Eraser holding me asked, sounding confused.
“Just let the experiments go, or else,” the voice said ominously. The Eraser growled and tightened his grip. I gasped in pain and my other hand shot to my arm, which was starting to bleed a little.
“Who’s saying that?” he snarled angrily. I guess that they have big enough brains that they can think. You learn something new every day, apparently.
“I warned you.” This time, it was B73’s real voice. I looked around cautiously, then flew backwards a couple feet as something raced right in front of me, creating a big wind. The Eraser went the other way. I slid and hit a shelf. Empty crates toppled on my head from each shelf. I saw stars and felt ready to pass out. I didn’t, though, and pushed all, uh, twenty five crates or so away from me. By the time I was completely unburied – with the help of S43 – the other Erasers were down.
“What’d I miss?” I asked, nose twitching nervously. Everyone laughed.
“The Erasers being knocked senseless,” T212 said.
“You could have been knocked senseless,” W21 said. I scowled at him and C102 pulled me to my feet.
“Let’s just get out of here,” I growled. Still smirking, they followed me to the door, which was still open. The other experiments in the room were deathly quiet as they watched. Right outside the door, I stopped. “Wait – T212, S43, come here.” They came towards me and I snapped their collars off in one deft motion. “Now, let’s get out of here.”
Silently, so that we wouldn’t be caught again, we made our way in the direction that we thought the door was in. At one time, we came to an intersection and I made to turn left, but B72 said, “No, right.” Glancing at her briefly, we went right. As she said, the door was only a couple hallways away. Only three yards from the door, an alarm started blaring and the hallway was basked in a red glow. Erasers were already heard running behind us.
“Run!” B73 shouted, and we instantly did so. I went up front, and turned my shoulder to take the impact of the door. I only dented it when I hit it. I heard my shoulder break under the impact and yelped. “One more time,” B73 urged nervously. She glanced over her shoulder, tongue flicking wildly. “You can do it.” I turned to my other shoulder and rammed it, too, against the doors which finally flew open. That shoulder seemed to have been dislocated, but nothing as major.
“Let’s go,” C102 ordered, ushering the other six out of the building. The Erasers turned a corner and started towards us in full morph, saliva running down their chins in anticipation. I gulped and turned, tripping over my feet as I hurried to get away. My shoulders were jarred as I ran and I winced with every step I took.
The eight of us were in a race for our lives, heading towards the trees about a quarter mile away, unfortunately. The Erasers ran out of the lab, slowly gaining ground. Y100 shot forwards in a blur suddenly, and S43 turned into a bird, getting into the air and racing after her. Amber completely disappeared, and T212, who was on her back, disappeared as well. W21 turned and shot ice from his palm, forming a thick wall between us and the advancing Erasers. I heard one run into it, before they all ganged up on it to ram it down.
We were about twenty yards from the trees when the ice sprayed in all directions, completely destroyed. I heard a bodiless whimper from beside me and a gasp – I assumed that it was Y100 and T212. The sounds left my side, and I started to lag. It was the same dang problem as in the lab – ferrets can’t keep up the same pace for long!
I just barely got into the trees by the time five Erasers managed to catch up to us. I ducked around a small tree and wrapped my better arm around it. With a little effort, I pulled it out of the ground, and sent it crashing into three of them. That would hurt in the morning, no doubt about it! For both of us. My shoulders both started hurting at the same time again and I decided it was time to get moving again.
Once I started to move, I realized I didn’t know where I was going. The others had gone out of my sight, and I had a crap load of Erasers on my tail. This just wasn’t my day, now was it?
After a moment of running, I slid under a bush, biting back a scream of pain as I jarred both shoulders. I couldn’t move my right shoulder to pop the left one back in, so they were almost useless. Except to pull trees out by the roots, though that hurt a lot.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” an Eraser taunted. I shuffled back into the bush further, wishing I wasn’t so powerless at the moment. The Eraser made its way towards me, three of his buddies trailing behind him, sniffing me out. One tapped the Eraser on the shoulder and pointed to my bush. I cowered further down. “You can run, but you can’t hide,” he snarled, walking purposefully towards me. Oh, God; oh, God; oh, God, I thought frantically. I wouldn’t be brought back! Not after what I had just gone through! As if on cue, Y100 suddenly zoomed past, tripping the Eraser. I stifled a laugh.
The other three Erasers were looking around stupidly and had stopped in their tracks. One got hit in the head by a floating branch and fell in a heap on the ground. Another turned and ran, tripping over everything from roots to his own feet. The large cat from before jumped from the trees, landing on the last standing one. That one, too, got knocked out. I let out a sigh of relief, though I had forgotten about the lead Eraser.
The Eraser that had fallen on his face in front of me, because of Y100, was getting up slowly. What happened next wasn’t slow. His hand shot out and grabbed the arm with the dislocated shoulder. He pulled me out and I yelled out in pain. The two experiments that I could see froze and looked at me. I was biting my lip hard enough that it was bleeding. I kicked the Eraser in the shins, but nothing happened. I was too weak from the blinding pain.
“A1!” C102 yelled out. I looked around sharply, trying not to get carried off at the same time. Man, is that challenging! “Duck!” I dropped to a sitting position and bit back another scream. Fire erupted over my head and collided with the Eraser, who let go of my arm and left me sitting there stupidly.
“You okay?” T212 asked worriedly, coming out of the trees with B73, W21, and S43. I nodded and managed to get up without using my arms.
“I just broke one shoulder and dislocated another on that dang door,” I spat. I realized that I had blood in my mouth and spit it out sourly. Stupid bleeding lip.
“Here. I’ll help with the dislocated one,” B72 offered. She came and grabbed my arm. “On three.” I nodded. “One.” She popped my shoulder back into place and I yelled out.
“You said on three!” I yelled, rolling my shoulder. B72 smirked.
“You would have tensed and it would have hurt more – that was the only way to do it,” she answered smugly. I glared, and W21 interrupted.
“I don’t mean to interrupt this fun moment,” he started sarcastically, “but we had better get away from here. There should be a place to stay around here somewhere, where there’s water and shelter, otherwise some of the larger animals here couldn’t survive. There ought to be a cave or something in that direction.” He pointed.
“How old are you?” B73 asked incredulously. Yeah, I wanted to know too. I didn’t see how a kid, younger than me, would be able to figure all this out in a second. I was still digesting everything he said! Then again, I am kind of slow…but away from me!
“Nine,” W21 said simply. “Are we going or not?” Shocked, the rest of us agreed and went in the direction he pointed out. Hopefully the night would be a lot better to me than the day.
