[Niall]

I just finished writing chapter three. It's all very exciting to be writing this now because I have so many ideas for it and I'm slowly getting there and I have so much more to write and ugh yeah. I'm gonna stop rambling so here:

Spoiler:

The moment Roker ceased to speak, the armed ranks that had amassed behind him launched into action.

The first thing they did was relieve the guards of their duties. Weapons were confiscated, and destroyed with their owners being placed under arrest (even though most of them offered no resistance). They tried to placate us, telling us all that they would simply be interviewed and nothing more. None of us believed that. The blood that still marred their uniforms screamed nothing but brutality and oppression.

Secondly, all points of entry to the compound surrounding the building were blocked. No-one was allowed in, and no-one was allowed out. Several tents were quickly erected, and more soldiers flowed into the crowd. They swiftly began corralling us into several neat lines for the ‘registration’ of each individual.

I grabbed Aly’s arm before two of the malevolent figures roughly shoved us into line. Her wide blue eyes were fixed on the dark canvas tent ahead of us. I grabbed her hand and held it tight. There was little I could do to reassure her now.

As the queue shambled forward, an atmosphere of unease had settled over the courtyard. Most people clung to those they knew in fear. Others glared at the menacing soldiers who paced here and there.

A scream erupted from the queue to our left where a woman was refusing to enter the tent. Soldiers rushed towards her, but didn’t manage to pin her down. She thrashed and made a run for the front gate, but her attempts were obviously in vain. I shoved my hand over Aly’s eyes just before gunshots once again sprayed vivid red over dull brown. No-one made any attempt to resist after that. Fear choked everyone into mute obedience.

I pulled my hand from Aly’s eyes and grab her hand again. We were only a short distance from the tent now. A panic began to rise inside me: what was going on in those tents? What if they were just trying to distract us before executing us all? I start breathing faster and my thoughts become scattered. The world looks hazy. Like I’m watching things happen from a distance.

“Adam are you okay?” Aly is looking up at me, concern and fear written all over her features. I have to keep it together. I have to keep her calm.

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” I force a smile.

“Next!” barks a voice from the other side of the tent my heartbeat kicks up a notch as we approach the dark structure. For a moment I don’t think I can face it. Part of me just wants to cut lose and make a run for it.

The canvas swings to one side and a brown haired woman glares out at us. Her cold grey eyes take a long sweep of us both. “One at a time.” She grabs Aly’s arm and turns back to enter the tent. Aly looks back at me, her face pale. Her eyes fix on mine in a sort of pleading gaze.

I try to move, to stop her but it’s like my limbs have turned to ice. I swallow and a strangled cry escapes my throat, “Wait! Wait, please” The woman turns back to me, her frigid eyes meeting mine. “Please, just let me through. She’s my sister. I’m not going to do anything I just want to make sure that she’s safe. Please. Please I promise.”

For a second I see her eyes flicker to one of the guards and I think she’s going to call for help, but miraculously she seems to relent, “If you dare make one move against me and what I’m doing, I will not stop myself from getting them,” she inclines her head at the nearest soldier, “to shower you in a hail of bullets. Understand?” I nod. “Then get inside and sit down.” she hisses, holding back the heavy canvas for us all to pass through.

Inside, there isn’t much. A steel chair and table stands to one side of the room with various complex medical instruments laid atop of it, across from it is a thin looking bed with a small yellow bin standing at it’s foot, and other than the dull gray light from outside a small fluorescent bulb casts a harsh blue-tinged glare across the space. The room also has an overbearing scent of detergents. My stomach churns. I do not like this.

The woman pulls Aly over to the bed and directs her to sit down. She pulls the chair up to the foot of the bed and grabs a clipboard from the desk, and begins a complicated interview with Aly. I try to pay attention but the questions are mundane things like, “What’s your name?”, and “How old are you?”

I look at the desk more closely. Rows of spotless utensils have been placed along it but I can only recognize some like a scalpel, syringe, and gauze padding for wounds. Many of the other instruments however, are completely alien to me. Large plastic tubs have been placed toward the back of the table with names that offer little meaning to me like “Sleep”, “Relief”, and “Regenerate”. The woman seems to be very involved in her line of questioning so I take a step closer to get a better look inside the strange pots. Within them are numerous small white packages with strange symbols on them. I frown. All the medical equipment I’ve seen has not even closely resembled this.

Next to the pots sits several unlabeled jars with liquids of varying shades of gray, neatly ordered in a line. In front of them lays a syringe much longer and much more complex than the others I noticed. Across it’s barrel is written, “FOR USAGE WITH NANOROBOTIC CONVERSION GEL ONLY.” I tilt my head to one side. What the hell?

The chair squeaks behind me and I turn around. The woman stands up, approaching the table. Her hands hover over the small gray jars for a moment, fingers fluttering over them before her right hand delves into one of the plastic tubs at the back. “I’m going to need blood samples from both of you.” She produces two small white packets and rips one open. A small white square with rounded edges tumbles onto the table. She curses and picks it up. The closest thing it looks like is some kind of plaster. I don’t understand seeing as all the blood samples I’ve ever had taken from me have involved a maliciously long needle, and several painful pokes to find a vein.

I look over at Aly. Her face is contorted into a picture of confusion. “What’s she doing?” she mouthes at me. I shrug and take a seat next to her.

The woman moves to stand in front of us, holding one white square between two fingers. It’s only now that I register the name Andrea sewn into the upper right-chest of her uniform in small, neat stitching. On her arm is a patch saying “Arescet armed forces medical staff”. Her clothing is all tinged in various shades of brown, for camouflage probably. Not that these people would need it, as their strategy of brutal murder in broad daylight so openly displayed.

Andrea holds out her left hand to Aly. “Give me your arm.”

“What are you gonn-”

‘I said give me your arm.” Aly frowns and gingerly offers her right arm to Andrea. She sticks the patch just below the crook of her elbow, and it lights up softly with the rim gently glowing blue. Andrea grabs a tube hooked up to a small clear pot and hooks it into the patch. The light then pulsates, turns bright green and dark red starts to flow down the tube. My mind fails to understand how that is even possible. This technology is beyond anything I’ve seen.

“What the heck is this thing?! How is it taking my blood?! I thought you had to use needles to do this sort of thing.” She runs her fingers over the small plastic patch in a sort of awe. Aly always hated needles.

Andrea moves over to the table and rips open another packet. “I’m afraid I didn’t design it, so I can’t tell you how that blood extraction patch works.” She returns to us, another plastic square pinched between her fingers. “But I can tell you that it’s far less invasive or painful than anything you people use.” I catch the note of disdain in her tone. Hatred coils tighter in my stomach.

She places the patch on the same part of my arm and it begins to collect my blood. Andrea goes through the same mundane questions again with me, frantically scribbling what I say on a clipboard. Strange. I would’ve thought pen and paper to be a bit primitive for these people given their technological prowess.

Then she checks our patches. Both of them have stopped glowing. “Okay these are done. I’ll get rid of them.” She pulls each one off and throws it along with the plastic tubing into the small bin by the bed. The pots have somehow sealed themselves. I ask her how and she gives me a haughty look before launching into some rambling, complicated explanation of something called ‘smart plastic’. I don’t listen.

Andrea fills out more papers on her clipboard. The three of us sit in silence. I grab Aly’s hand and give her a grin. She smiles back at me weakly. Guilt momentarily replaces the hatred that has so deeply settled in my stomach. She’s seen so much today. She doesn’t deserve this. None of us do.

“Right, so you two will have to report back here in two days time once your blood tests are done.” says Andrea monotonously.

“Why?” I say.

“For a full physical evaluation. The blood samples going to be analysed and from that we’ll be able to detect any diseases or conditions in your bodies, and we’ll cure them for you. There’s nothing sinister to it. I promise.” She seems to brighten up at the last to words. Sincere. She sounds sincere. “Oh but there’s one last thing I have to do.” She thrusts a hand into her pocket and produces a small white pot, one that usually has pills inside. Unscrewing the lid, she tips two deep purple ovals onto her hand. “You’re gonna have to take these.”She extends her hand.

Apprehensively I take one and swallow it. Aly follows. We don’t really have a choice in the matter. Andrea returns to her clipboard, scribbling more stuff down. “Would you mind telling us what those are?”

“Uh yeah sure,” she says, eyes still fixed on the clipboard. She finishes off another sentence and looks up, frowning slightly. “They’re really small compute- you know what computers are, right?” we both nod, “Well that’s what they are. Only so small you can’t even see them. They’re going to assemble themselves into a tiny computer inside your palm that tells us where you are. A tracking beacon is what we call it.” She returns to her clipboard again. Anger flares up within me, white hot and seething. I feel filthy for letting them anywhere near me and my sister. We’re no more than livestock to them. Things to be used and killed. Objects and nothing more.

There’s the sound of paper ripping and Andrea extends her hand once more. Two small pieces of paper are clutched between her fingers. “These are your identification numbers. Don’t lose them. You two are free to go now.” She returns to her seat with a tired sigh.

I grab Aly’s hand and pull her through the tent doors again once more. The lines outside had gotten longer and people gawked at us. I tug Aly’s arm faster and we half-walk, half-run into the safety of the block. Inside the musty air which I usually loathed gave me a strange comfort and reassurance. It was familiar. Familiar and safe.

We enter the stairwell and we ascend the steps. Everything is silent apart from the sounds of our footsteps reverberating across the walls.

I shove through the door into the our floor and even the vile smell that lingers in the hallway seems mildly comforting to the point where I don’t even notice it much. We reach the door to our apartment and I put the key in the lock and turn. We’re home. They can’t get us here. For now anyway.

Aly kicks off her shoes, laying down on our battered, threadbare couch. “So, what do we do now?”

I shut the door and turn to take my own shoes off, “I don’t know. We’re just gonna have to do as they say for a while. There’s not much else we can do.” I catch sight of myself in the cracked mirror on the wall. Dark brown hair is jutting out from various angles on my head. I run a hand through it. It doesn’t help much.

The couch creaks and I turn to face it. Aly stares at me skeptically. “What d’you mean there’s nothing we can do?”

“I mean that there’s nothing we can do to escape these people right now. Unless you want a hail of bullets to rain upon us?”

Her expression is incredulous, “We can’t just sit here and let them walk all over us Adam we have to do something! We can at least try to escape!”

I place a hand over my eyes and will myself not to lose my temper. Keep it together Adam, keep it together. “Look I’ll try and think of something. It’s just been a really long day so can we just forget all this until tomorrow, please?” She opens her mouth to speak but then thinks better of it. “I’ll take that as a yes.” I move into the kitchen and open the pantry. All we have left is a half loaf of bread and a half dozen vegetables. I sigh and grab them all. We’re running low on food. If only I’d gotten to the market earlier..

We spend the rest of the evening in silence. It’s times like this when I wish our parents were still around. They’d know how to get us talking or cheer us up or forget our troubles. Everything was so much simpler when they were alive. My mind flicks to happier times, times when they protected us, played games with us, tucked us in at night.

But the pain of those memories is too much to bare so I push them down, deep down inside myself and lock them away and throw away the key. I take long deep breaths and will the pain away.

Through the windows I see that the sky is now an inky black. Over on the couch Aly has already fallen asleep.

I lay on the floor and shut my eyes, too exhausted to move to my bed. Maybe she was right. Maybe we should try something and it’s then that I decide: tomorrow, we run.