Maximum Ride Fan Fiction ❯ After Armageddon ❯ Chapter Seven: The Cages ( Chapter 7 )

 

After Armageddon

 

 

Chapter Seven: The Cages

 

Charlie

 

Well if this was not a “oh shoot” situation then I do not know what is.

Someone pulled on the rope attached to my net, dragging me to the ground. I landed with a solid thump which stunned me and knocked me breathless.

When I was able to breathe again, I saw that both Aaron and Liela were wrapped in tangled webs next to me. Liela, who was in between Aaron and I, looked terrified and I remembered that she had never been to a School before. She did not know what horrible things the Whitecoats could do, so her imagination ran rampant with even worse rumors and talk she had probably heard in the city.

“Charlie,” She whined as her fingers clutched the netting.

“Quiet.” A Flyboy said in its unemotional voice as it kicked her hard in the middle of her back with a steel foot. She screamed in pain and I guessed that part of it was because her new wings had just snapped in half.

I looked over at Aaron and saw he looked just as worried about our new friend as I was. Liela whimpered and cried, but did not say anything else. Apparently the Flyboy still thought she was being too noisy because it was about to kick her again when one of the Whitecoats watching told him to stop. The Flyboy instantly froze as only a machine can and the Whitecoat who had spoken knelt down next to Liela. He prodded the spot in between her shoulder blades where blood was discoloring her shirt non to gently in my opinion. Liela held back a shriek but could not stop the shudders that shook her body.

The Whitecoat did not seem to notice or care. He was more interested in her half grown wings and the lack of scars that were usually left after living with a bunch of overly curious scientists and doctors. I saw he was especially surprised to see that both her wrists were free of the hairline scars that meant she had been tagged with one of the small chips that could be used to track us or kill us depending on the Director's mood.

“Great,” I thought grimly. “Batchelder didn't give her a chip but he didn't give her a scar to fool the others either. Idiot.” I myself had the thin scar but no chip thanks to Grandma. She had been nice enough to take it out after the losers put it in. Aaron was not so lucky; because of his shape shifting abilities, the Whitecoats had had to put his somewhere in or near his brain. Not even Grandma was brave enough to try and remove it, especially since there was no way she knew of that would not leave Aaron as either a vegetable or a corpse.

The Whitecoat inspecting Liela snapped his fingers and his Whitecoat-in-waiting dropped down beside him. Okay, really he was some kind of aid but that's no fun to say is it?

“Sir?” The Whitecoat-in-waiting asked.

The older man did not look up as he spoke. “I want you to tell the Director that we've found the two that escaped from the Colorado Institution as well as an unidentified avian-hybrid.”

The younger man nodded and I suddenly got a bad feeling about what this message meant.

“Would you like me to ask if we have permission to retire it sir?”

Oh how I hate that word. It. Not she, it.

I stayed very still, trying to ignore the anger that was starting to simmer somewhere in my stomach. I was not surprised that they were thinking about killing Liela. I hated it, but it did not surprise me. The School's were always so afraid that nay experiments that they did not create were either made to destroy them (which is sometimes true) or that they will end up joining with the rebellion and try to destroy them then (which is also true).

Given Itex's fear of destruction by mutants not their own, the commanding Whitecoat's answer surprised me.

“No,” He said standing up. “If the Director orders it then we will follow her orders, but I wouldn't bring up the subject if I could help it. This one seems to be different from the hybrids we've made before and I for one would like to know how she can be so healthy when they added the avian DNA so late.”

I sighed in relief. She would live for awhile at least. But that gave us all a chance to escape from the School in one living piece.

“What about the other two sir?”

Well I hoped it gave us all a chance to get out alive.

 

*******

 

“Hey Charlie?”

“What Liela?”

“It's my turn to write. Give me the notebook.”

“What? No. I haven't written enough for a chapter and I just got to the part where the Whitecoat's first captured you, Aaron, and me.”

“I know that's why I want to write. You two got stuck in a couple of cages while they did things to me. So it's only fair that since they did things to me then I get to write about it.”

“I thought you didn't remember half of it.”

“Well, no, but I remember enough to write. And besides, I was saved first. Now come on and give me the book. Please?”

“Ohh, don't look at me like that Liela. Fine, here you-hey, where'd the book go?”

“Mouse, what are you doing?”

“I'm writing out your argument so the readers know that you switched writers and why.”

“Oh, well let me see the book so I can write about what happened to us in the School.”

“Okay Liela, here you are.”

 

*******

 

Liela

 

I was terrified as they dragged the three of us into a small entrance room. My back felt like it was being pulled across a bed of burning thorns instead of the cool metal floor I saw. I nearly sobbed in relief when the metal wolf-men who had been pulling me dropped the cord and halted. I was able to pick up a few words from the older man who seemed to be in charge, but I was to hurt to try and comprehend what he was saying.

I was able to figure out what he said anyway as the metal guard suddenly hauled me out of my net and shoved me into an unpainted metal barred crate with a piece of flat plastic on the bottom. I was dimly aware of movement and another cage ahead of me as they pushed us further into the building.

I focused my eyes enough to see Aaron staring worriedly back at me and Charlie doing the same just beyond him. I saw Aaron's mouth forming words I should have understood from my time with the Clutter's, but it was too much to try and translate.

Charlie said something to Aaron and they both started to say something in what I barely recognized as German. I tried to drag myself back from the edge of unconsciousness to understand what they were yelling at me.

“Ich bin ein Berliner Liela.”

I laughed pretty sure they did not know what that really meant. I'm not sure why they were screaming it either. Maybe they were trying to get me to stay awake? I don't know but it made me laugh as the Whitecoat's pushed us through the antiseptic smelling halls. I do not think Charlie and Aaron were expecting that because they stared first at me and then at each other in confusion.

I stopped laughing when the guy pushing me suddenly wheeled me through a door to the side. Charlie and Aaron were still heading straight. Despite my ignorance I knew that was not good.

“Charlie!” I screamed trying to rattle my cage to pieces. “Aaron!”

The guard kicked my cage and I flew back as far as the confined space allowed, knocking by already fogged head against the rusty bars, making everything finally go black.

 

*******

 

“Nice Liela, your lack of consciousness has me riveted.”

“Shut up Ricky and give me the book back.”

“I don't have it.”

“Mouse!”

“'Giggle' It's funny how you all said that at the same time.”

“Anyway…”

 

*******

 

Still Liela

 

The next time I woke up, I was alone in my crate, unable to stand or do anything else for that matter seeing as how small the box was and how woozy I was. I noticed that my back had stopped throbbing in pain, but it still burned when I moved.

Despite my new back problems, it was the small almost insignificant pain in my wrist that had a clean pristine bandage covered my hand to the middle of my forearm. It was almost funny really, to see something so white and perfect on my dirty bloodied body in what I instinctively realized was Hell on Earth.

I think I must have laughed because a young woman wearing a white doctor's coat carrying a clipboard with a pen and a bunch of charts and papers walked smartly over to my cage, her high heeled shoes making an annoying clacking noise against the tile floor.

“It's awake.” She told someone off to the side that I could not see. “Go tell Dr. Borcht that the experiment they brought in the other day is fully awake.” She had a clear no nonsense voice that was sharp and clear. That plus the dulling pain made it possible for me to understand what she was saying. Sadly I recognized the name ter Borcht and the fact that he was coming to see me only terrified me more.

Fortunately for me, in some strange twisted way, the young woman gave me a needle full of…something before he got there that nearly knocked me out again, so I do not remember that first meeting with the `evil scientist'. I do not know why they kept me so sedated, but I thing they took me out of the cage which may have explained why they wanted a limp little girl instead of fully awake one. Now I do remember quite a few other meetings with ter Borcht in vivid detail, but that first one was only a blur of color and outlines as first they talked and then after they took me out, I'm sure they did now, wheeled me down the hall past numerous doors until finally someone banged my cage into an empty place along the wall in a room full of cages identical to mine.

It took me a moment to realize that I was not alone either.

“Liela?” Someone whispered next to me. “Liela! Charlie its Liela!”
My head felt like a lead weight for some reason and it took more effort then I thought to tilt my head back from my upside down spot in my cage. On the other side of the room there were more cages lining the wall. “Hallo Aaron.” I said my words slurring together as I recognized the only person I could see. Aaron peered anxiously in between the squares the intersecting bars made, his face pressed as close as he could get it. I thought for sure he would have little squares on his face from the bars.

“Wo ist Charlie?” I asked my words a little clearer then before as the whatever-it-was the lady had given me started to wear off.

“I'm over here.” Charlie said from my right. I looked over, my head not quite so heavy now, to see Charlie stuffed into a cage too. I waved at him still a little delirious I guess because I do not really wave that much.

Charlie and Aaron freaked out when they saw the bandage on my arm. They both started talking at once, miming something frantically. I finally figured out that they wanted me to unwrap the thing and I did so as quick as possible, some of there urgency wearing off on me. When they saw the scar I think they both nearly had a heart attack.

A door opened somewhere down the hall, sending metallic echoes down the hallway, startling us. I rewrapped the bandage around my arm, not wanting to get in trouble for anything as stupid as that.

The young woman from before clacked her way towards us. She peered down at me and then wrote something down on that clipboard of hers. She did the same thing for Aaron and Charlie and then she motioned for two men in scrubs that had followed her.

“I want these two.” She said pointing to Charlie and me.

“Yes ma'am.” One of the two men said as he and his partner lifted my cage and set it down sharply on the steel cart they had brought with them. My poor back banged against the bottom of the cage reviving the pain instantly. A moment later, Charlie joined me.

“Apparently these people have never heard of recovery time,” I thought to myself as the two men in gray wheeled us out of the cage room. Not that I really needed to recover from such a tiny cut, but it was either that a more surgery. Guess which one I got.

 

*******

 

So when I woke up from surgery, again, I was in a metal room strapped to a metal bed wearing, you guessed it, those cloth nightgowns that do not really close. Ha, had you going did not I? Anyway, I was stuck to a metal slab in my nightgown and underwear (I still thank my God in heaven that they had left me those). I jerked at one of the wrist straps, but the Velcro strips did not give. I pulled again and heard a nice ripping sound. I pulled again and the strap felt noticeably looser and the wretched thing finally broke.

The sound of a lock from an outer door got my attention and I went still wondering what kind of punishment these people would give me if they found I was trying to escape.

I decided I did not want to meet them and find out. I reached over with my free hand and pulled at the other wrist strap. I had never realized until that moment how difficult large slabs of Velcro could be. Wasn't Velcro supposed to be easier to deal with?

Well mine was not. I yanked and pulled afraid that the intern or aid or whoever-it-was was close by, but the stupid thing would not give. I looked up and saw in horror that the door in front of me was starting to swing open. I panicked and pulled even harder at the straps hoping to get my other arm or a foot free. I did not look up as the person shut the door behind them after wheeling something in after him. I must have been about to scream because a strong hand clamped down on my mouth, cutting off the small squeak I had managed to get out.

“Liela, stop it's just me.” A semi familiar voice said and I looked up in surprise.

Taylor stared back at me uneasily, probably afraid I might try to scream again and give him away. I closed my mouth and he slowly removed his hand.

“Do you remember me? Are you okay?” He asked nervously.

I nodded slowly so as not to aggravate the headache which seemed to have stayed with me throughout the surgery. “Yeah, I'm fine.” I said then clapped my hand over my mouth in shock as I realized I had been speaking English. I may understand most English but I speak very little and I had not heard those words before so how could I speak them?

Taylor did not seem too shocked. “You speak English now. That was fast. Come on then, let's get you out of here.”

“Taylor,” I said my voice breaking as he quickly undid the straps tying me to the table. “Taylor, I don't speak English. I can understand it, but I can't-”

Taylor held up a hand to stop me as that outer door squeaked opened again. Someone else had come to check on me and I had a good feeling that first of all Taylor was not supposed to be there and secondly I was supposed to be sleeping tied to a very uncomfortable metal table.

Taylor mumbled something that I will not repeat. He grabbed me and shoved me close to the wall where the open door would hide me from view. “Stay here.” He ordered quietly and then darted to the other side of the room where he pretended to busy himself with putting supplies on the cart he had brought with him.

That annoying clacking noise let me know who was there without having to see her. I pressed myself to the wall and nearly stopped breathing as the woman from earlier stopped in the open door way.

“Where is the experiment?” She asked sounding outraged and suspicious at the same time.

Taylor looked behind him at what I guessed was his superior. “I don't know Ma'am.” He said. “It was not here when I got here.”

“How long ago was that?” The woman asked.

Taylor shrugged. “About fifteen, twenty minutes ago. I think I heard someone running the other way when I came in though. Towards room C10.”

The woman turned around so fast that her coat made a sharp `shwip' sound and her heels clacked furiously against the floor as she sped away. Taylor waited a few minutes, calming stacking plastic wrapped supplies onto his cart. After about five minutes he turned around, walked toward the door and closed it.

“Get in the cart.” He instructed opening the small door to the lower half of the cart and motioned for me to get inside. I did, curling up so that my knees touched my chin and wrapped my arms around my legs to pull them tighter. Taylor looked in at me and then closed the door. Then he wheeled it towards the door, opened it and walked outside.

I struggled to keep my breath even as the small dark space started to creep me out. It felt like the dark was a piece of fabric that was slowly suffocating me and I tried to remind myself that the dark was the dark, not cloth. I could breathe. I could breathe. I might panic anyway but I could still breathe.

We suddenly stopped and I was not sure if I was about to hyperventilate or stop breathing all together. Whichever I did, I did it quietly and listened as a new voice drifted through the metal walls of the cart.

“Hey janitor, where are you going with all those?”

“Who me? I'm taking these to Doctor Gray.” I heard Taylor say to the new person. “He's over in his office, just down the hall if you want to check.” Taylor offered.

I heard some shoe steps go ahead of us and I guessed that the man had taken Taylor up on his offer. Taylor wheeled the cart after him at a slower pace and reached what I guessed was Dr. Gray's office because I heard the man who had stopped us earlier say, “Sorry, my mistake Dr. Gray.” Then he left and Taylor stopped again.

“I have those things you wanted Dr. Gray.” He said taking some of the supplies on the top and putting them in Dr. Gray's office. The doctor thanked Taylor and then told him to close the door behind him as he left.

He wheeled the cart down the hall, took a left and stopped inside a room. It was the longest two minutes of my life sitting there in the dark crawling down the hall, but eventually a door opened, a door closed, and Taylor let me out of the box.

I banged my knees trying to get out there as fast as I could. I curled my legs up and rested my forehead on my knees trying to regain control of my breathing. Mercifully, Taylor did not say anything or try to touch me. I think I would have lost it right then and there.

Eventually I lifted my head and looked around me. Taylor and I were in a small wire filled room with several TV screens on the far wall. They showed large pictures of rooms flashing to different pictures of rooms, some with operating tables, some with desks, some with poor mixed up creatures sitting curled up in there cages.

“Charlie! Aaron!” I cried when I saw there faces enlarged on the middle screen. Taylor looked up from whatever it was he was doing and saw his brother-in-law and his friend on screen.

“Don't worry,” He told me. “I'm going to get them in a minute. They'll have to open the cages themselves, but that won't be a problem for them. Just watch.” He said clicking a button so that the room with the boys stayed on screen. I watched as Aaron and Charlie waited, presumably for some signal that meant this would not be caught on tape. A brief flicker of static crossed the screen. “That means that this camera is the only one working right now.” Taylor explained. “All of the other cameras have mysteriously switched to static.” He said happily his eyebrows going up and down in amusement.

Apparently Charlie and Aaron knew what happened because Charlie pushed up on the top of his cage lifting it up to show that the bottom was not attached to the rest of the crate. He threw the main part of the cage onto the floor and jumped to the ground to let Aaron out. The rabbit kid waved at the camera making me laugh as Charlie smiled up at the screen and then grabbed Aaron and ran.

I looked behind me to tell Taylor that they were out, but he was already gone. I looked around the cluttered room but no one else was there.

“Taylor?” I asked. “Taylor?”

Movement caught my attention and I looked back up at the TV. Taylor leisurely pushed his janitor cart down a hall on another screen. He passed nurses and doctors who pretended not to notice him as he walked past. Meanwhile, Aaron and Charlie scampered and hid avoiding the same nurses and doctors until they finally met Taylor. I did not see him stop, but I guessed the boys had gotten inside because he looped around pretending to finish his errand and started to come back here.

He made it back safely and as soon as the door was closed behind him, Charlie and Aaron spilled out of the cart.

“Good gracious Aaron you could have gotten your foot out of my mouth a little sooner. Gross.” Charlie said spitting on the floor. Aaron changed out of his furrier form and ignored Charlie.

“Well that was fairly easy.” He said with his usual smile.

“Yeah, meaning you should go while it's still just as easy.” Taylor said opening a door hidden behind the multi-colored wires hanging along the wall. “So hurry up and move.”

“Hold on a minute,” Charlie ordered and Aaron and I stopped moving. “They put a tag on Liela and if we leave now they'll either detonate it or just follow us through that. You've got to take it out first before we go anywhere.” He told Taylor. I admit that I stopped listening at that point, my mind was stuck on the word detonate right then.

“Now?” Taylor asked incredulously. “We don't have time right now. You have to leave. If they find this place they'll put two and two together and figure out that I let you out. Then not only will I get in trouble but so will Cal and your family.”

Charlie thought about that and I took advantage of his momentary quiet.

“Don't I get a say in this?” I asked my voice high pitched because of my fright. I swear Charlie and Aaron looked at me like I had grown another head, or learned a new language in two hours, but that's beside the point.

“She speaks!” Aaron cried throwing up his hands. “English!”

“How long have you been able to do that Liela?” Charlie asked suspiciously.

I thought about it. “About thirty minutes, now what's this about an explosive in me?” I noticed in horror that my accent was completely gone, but pushed it aside at the thought of boom.

“That's what they put in your arm.” Charlie explained pointing to the bandage. “It's a tracking device as well so we've got to get it out before we go anywhere.” He turned back on Taylor who was staring stubbornly down at Charlie with a `heck no' look on his face.

“No.” He said.

“But Tay-”

“NO.”

“Please?” I cut in starting to panic. “I don't want to explode.” I said pitifully as tears started to leak out of my eyes. Traitors I thought. I had not cried since my parents died. I guess my own death was having the same effect as theirs.

Taylor held that stubborn look for another second before it crashed and he sighed. “Fine,” He said hotly pointing to another partially hidden door. “Get in there. Aaron, I'm going to need you to go snatch some more bandages from the supply room. You're going to need some on your trip.”