The Killing Jar (13 page)

SHUTTLE DOCK CHI-31, CHICAGO, NORTH AMERICA

AUGUST 9, 2232

The monster Arrenstein offered her much more freedom this time. No guards. No escorts. He gave her a transport code and let her be, let her make her own way to CPI.

If that’s what it was still called.

Mable’s eyes took in each exit, each door, each maintenance corridor that could be used as an exit. She had a dozen opportunities to run.

But she couldn’t.

Not now. Not until it was safe.

The shuttle was fairly standard, scratchy brown cushions, crowded passengers absorbed in their tablets. Mable found a quiet corner and sat her bag in the adjacent seat. She pulled her knees up to her chest, buried her face in her arms and cried.

It was the safest place. It was the last time she would have some measure of safety, here in the shuttle. There were hundreds on board, but none paid her any mind.

There was safety in numbers. In such a crowd, she was invisible.

So Mable let herself cry, gave herself that bit of release before she was locked away with him. Sobs racked her until her chest ached and tears soaked the crooks of her arms. Mable allowed herself to cry one last time.

Five minutes.

That’s all she needed. That’s all she would allow.

Mable picked her head up and wiped her sleeve across her face to dry her cheeks. She counted to calm her breath and settle the thumping in her head.

A woman approached but quickly retreated when she saw Mable’s ice-cold glare.

From her bag she fetched her sketchbook, a bound stack of manila pages with spiral binding. One of her treasures.

She flipped past her completed drawings and in-progress sketches. They were her memories, her emotions, documented in chronological order. It was the history of her life in the underground.

Her fingers traced over the pages as she turned them. A charcoal sketch of Rowen, his dark hair and eyes black from the coal, his features sharp and severe as he was. A blonde with a laughing smile, as Hadley always seemed to have. A blank page.

Mable shuffled around her bag and found the first colored pencil she could reach. The carved label called it ‘bluebonnet’.

She set the pencil to paper and sketched thoughtlessly, the ideas flowing directly from her mind’s eye to the aged paper.

The shuttle shuddered as it landed, pulling her from the dreamspace. On the last page, there was a girl. Her long wavy hair was pulled back, but several strands fell elegantly around her face. A shimmering diamond hung on a jeweled chain across her forehead. From the irises placed in her hair to the subtle fullness of her lips, she was a stunning beauty.

Hadley looked like a queen.

The shuttle lights brightened to signal the time to exit. Mable packed her sketchbook into her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and walked to ground transport. As she expected, a pod was waiting for her.

“Mable Wilkinson?” a guy asked.

She slid into the pod without a word.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He got in and cued up the autodrive. “I’m Osip. Where ya from?”

Mable crossed her arms at her chest and closed her eyes.

“Long flight?” He was clearly not getting the hint.

“Be quiet.” Her tone was harsh. She had no intention of making friends. Anyone lured into this trap wasn’t worth getting to know.

As he was told, the guy was silent the rest of the way.

When she let her eyes open, she found an oddly familiar sight. New York. She’d been here before, though most of her time had been spent underground.

She knew people in the bellows of this city.

Not that it mattered. If she ever left, Arrenstein would look for Hadley.

Mable closed her eyes once more and waited to arrive. The boy parked the pod in a garage and led her to a pair of doors.

Inside, a girl darted across the crisp white room, arms spread for a hug. “Hi! Welcome to CPI! I’m—”

“Get away from me.” Mable side-stepped at the precise moment to dodge her completely.

The girl took an awkward step as she missed. She looked at the guy who only said, “This is Mable. She doesn’t talk much.”

Mable strode down the corridor in search of her room or cell, whatever it might be. The halls were all white, the lights too bright. The doors had no labels. Despicable Scholar layout. Mable pushed at the first set and found them locked. Moving on, she pushed at the second pair of doors.

When those opened, she continued her wanderings. In the small side-wing, the lights were dim over a central desk. Empty chairs sat lined along the front wall. There were at least three doors to narrow, clinical rooms filled with strange equipment and machinery.

No one noticed her. No one bothered her.

Until Arrenstein found her. They must have told him she was here.

“Maggie? Your appointment isn’t until this afternoon. Your room is this way.” Arrenstein trotted to catch up to her before leading her back to the main corridor.

“What appointment?”

“There’s a cleaning process all new recruits go through. You’ll see. It’s pretty low key most of the time, but you’ll have a hard time with it. I’m sorry about that.” His voice was low as if it bothered him.

His tone caught her off guard. She tightened the arms crossed at her chest. She was wary of his tricks.

“Each recruit gets their own room. Eventually, you’ll move forward in the program and be given assignments offsite, but for now you’ll live here. Boys on the right, girls on the left. You’re the third. Dasia arrived only yesterday.”

Mable perked up at the mention of living offsite. In the right circumstances, she could get out, could go find Hadley, could make sure she was safe. It might be possible, if she played her cards right.

“This is you, number six.” Arrenstein turned the knob and let her in but never moved past the doorway. “The bathroom is there on the left and the closet is on the right. I’m sorry we don’t have your tablet programmed quite yet. Should be ready by the time you’re done with cleaning. Can you find your way back?”

Mable shot him a cocked eyebrow. “Of course I can.”

“Good. You’re expected there at 1300. Welcome to CPI.” Arrenstein pulled the door shut and left her alone in the room, in her new home.

Mable set her bag on the foot of the bed before she took a turn about the room. The comforter was pure black with silver threads woven in a paisley pattern, complete with matching pillows. She would have liked it had it not been draped over the bed in her new prison cell.

Everything else in the room was white and metal, standard issue, hotel-type furnishings. A nightstand with one drawer, a dresser that came up to her shoulders, a writing desk with a black office chair. Cold white tiles covered the floors and every surface in the bathroom. Would it kill them to put some color in here?

Mable sat on the edge of the bed and stripped off her heavy boots. Her feet ached from two straight days in them. She rubbed the soles, massaging out the fatigue as she waited for the minutes to go by.

She had nothing to do. Nowhere to go. No one to take care of. Mable didn’t quite know what to do with herself.

She rolled over and lay across the bed, one foot hanging off the side. It was pretty comfortable as far as beds went. Still she wanted to go home, back to the cave, back to her friends.

Her eyes flashed open when she heard a quiet
meep-meep-meep
. She had fallen asleep, only to be woken by some strange noise coming from her room.

Upon inspection, she found an alarm going off above the door, complete with modest flashing light. She had no idea what such a thing might be for. Surely it wouldn’t alert anyone to evacuate in case of fire. It was so quiet, she doubted you could even hear it in the next room.

Then she knew, it was a timer. She was late.

Mable forced her feet back into the boots and laced them up with no real effort to hurry. She wasn’t here to impress anyone.

As she emerged from her room, two girls walked down the hall. The first, the girl from before. The other, a gorgeous red-head. Mable couldn’t help but notice the emptiness in her eyes, a look she’d recognize anywhere.

Then Mable realized she was staring.

The two stopped talking when they saw her. The first girl said something to the other as they darted into a room.

Mable retraced her steps since Arrenstein found her and arrived back at the cleaning station minutes later.

A woman with a pressed lavender shirt and matching pants waited for her. “Good afternoon, Ms. Wilkinson. We’ve been expecting you. I’ll be conducting your cleaning.”

The nameless woman led her to the first of three rooms and instructed her to strip naked, don the white bra and panties provided, and put her clothes on the chair. Mable did as she was told, leaving her clothes in a haphazard pile before opening the door.

“Please, lay down. We’ll start with a preliminary examination,” the woman said as she turned off the lights. Mable crawled onto the cold metal table that turned out to be scanner. A hoop hovered around her, starting at her head before moving down to her toes and back up.

A holograph projector illuminated the figure of her body on the far side of the room. Several areas shone a dull red, a few spots on her torso, her feet, her head, her hands. The top of her head was pale blue. The entire length of her arms were an ugly brown, along with her entire left side along her ribs, the patch of skin beneath her belly button, and her right thigh.

Everywhere she had a tattoo.

“This is going to be a long day for you I’m afraid. We might as well get started.”

She told Mable to lay back on the table as she called in a pair of women with identical purple suits. They pulled peculiar devices out of hidden cabinets and set to work.

At first, it was strange. So many women touching her, hovering around her. They began with her feet, treating her soreness with some sort of humming device. She could almost feel her body repairing itself as the minutes went on.

When she realized what they were doing, when she felt the pains and aches fading, her body recovering, Mable let herself sit back and relax. They moved on to the next area, addressing the large bruise across her chest, the one Rowen had inflicted the day before. A lifetime before.

“It heals?” Mable touched her chest and marveled at the lack of pain there.

“It’s a cellular repair prototype. It can fix anything except brain cells. If necessary, it can administer immunizations, though of course you don’t need any.”

One by one, the team of women worked on her injuries, from the scrapes and wounds across her back to the raw knuckles she earned from the last match.

By the time the holograph version of herself showed no more red, Mable felt renewed. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so well.

Then the woman said, “We’re going to start on your tattoos. It won’t leave any scars, but I warn you it will be quite painful.”

Before she could protest, the women descended upon her. They used their hands, their arms, even their knees to keep her in place as one pushed a cool metal object against her forearm.

A blinding, searing pain ignited like flames, spreading up her arm like burning death.

Mable had never known such pain. She screamed with the agony of it.

Careless to others that might hear, Mable let her voice ring out, her only outlet for the horrific heat in her arm.

“There, that’s one.” The women released her but the fight had gone out of her. She lay limp on the table, only lifting her arm to see the damage.

As the woman had said, there was nothing. No scar, no burn, no tattoo. Only clean, smooth skin where there had been a maple tree before.

Mable stared, her hand retracing the area over and over. She had liked that tree, enough to put it on her body anyway, but it was hardly her favorite piece. Instead, she felt robbed. They had taken it from her without her consent.

Mable felt violated.

“Now you know how it feels. Ready to keep going?”

No. In fact, she wasn’t ready at all. Her fist flew out and caught the woman in the face. She swung her legs around and pressed her feet to the table before she kicked the other two in one swing. Unexpectant and clearly untrained, they were sent to the floor in seconds.

Then she ran from the room.

She was back in the main corridor before she realized how little the white outfit covered. Still, she wasn’t about to go back.

Instead, Mable ran. She didn’t know where to go, where she was. Each hallway looked the same as all the others. Her feet smacked against the floor. Her arms pumped as she raced. She was lost, but she couldn’t go back. She could only run.

Around a corner, she ran smack into a man’s shoulder. Fucking Arrenstein.

“Christ, Maggie. What are you doing?”

She held up her arm. “What the hell is this?”

“Let me take you back. I’ll explain.” He put a warm hand on her back and tried to walk her down the hall.