The Sector

Chapter Nine

Seth was silent. Then, softly, "I know you killed Patrik—murdered him because he didn't meet your criteria..."

"And what criteria might that be?" Gianna asked, her calculative gaze never leaving his face.

"That, I don't know. If you'd like to share it with me, though, I'd be more than happy to find out." The words rolled off his tongue as crisp and cutting as ice. If it was going to save his life, he would give her what she wanted, but he would not play her little game or pretend to be her friend. He would not leave an ounce of doubt in her mind about the utter loathing he held for her in his heart or how completely she and all of her troops revolted him.

You're not people, he thought to himself as he watched her, you're animals.

Gianna kept a level head, showing no sign of a reaction to the cold bite of his words. "We both know that's not going to happen, Seth. What else did you hear from Frasier and the Officers?"

"Just that you're running some kind of secret operation here... That none of the Occupants can know what's really going on because no one would ever agree to it," he told her.

"And?" she prompted.

"And..." Seth murmured, a self-satisfied smile creeping across his lips, "That you need me. That I'm one of the best Occupants you've seen in months and that it would be a huge sacrifice to murder me and take me out of your precious little gene pool."

Gianna regarded him for a moment. Her face was blank, unreadable. Then, she turned to Frasier.

"Next time," she said, "you will take care to close and lock your doors before you go blabbing about this program. You're lucky you caught him, Frasier. If you hadn't, this whole operation would be at risk and you would be the one facing the chopping block in his place."

Seth watched the colour leach from Frasier's face, his Adam's apple bobbing apprehensively.

"I trust you can handle the task of watching our dear Seth here for a moment while I go and collect the Officers for Seth's... Departure."

"What?!" Seth yelled. "You said if I told you what I knew, you wouldn't kill me! You told me—"

"What I told you, Seth," she murmured, levelling an impassive glance at his face, "was that if you told me what you knew, you wouldn't necessarily die. I made no promise of what would or would not actually happen, I just informed you that there could be more than one ending to this story."

"You heartless bitch!" he screamed at her as she turned and left.

She did not look back.

Frasier closed the door behind her and stood guard in front of it. He did not look at Seth, his eyes instead settling on the cool concrete wall behind his prisoner.

"Look at me," Seth spat at him. The blood from his nose had dried and cracked down his mouth and chin. His cheekbone was swollen and purple and he sat low, huddled over his stomach, still aching with every breath he took.

"Look at me, Frasier," he demanded, anger pooling in his chest.

Slowly, the man's eyes trailed over Seth's small, shackled form, stopping at his eyes.

"Are you satisfied?" Seth asked. "Is this all worth it?"

Frasier's gaze never faltered. "Yes," he murmured. His eyes lost focus and for a moment, he was staring off at something else, something only he could see. "It has to be worth it." His eyes flicking up to bore into Seth's. The fierce determination in them startled him.

"Why?" Seth demanded. "What's so important to you people that you're willing to murder innocent children?"

"You don't understand, Seth. There's more going on here than you could ever hope to comprehend. We're fighting a much bigger war, and we can't afford to lose. And that means we're willing to do whatever it takes to ensure the success of this program—to ensure that only the strongest and brightest and best continue on into the gene pool and that no one stops us before we've done what we came here to do."

"What do you mean? What war? Why kill off the ones who don't meet your criteria?"

"Because for this to work, we can only breed the best of our species. To create the superhumans we need in order to survive this battle to the end, we can't risk the weak mixing with the strong; it will only hinder us."

"Wait, what?" Seth choked. "Superhumans? What the hell do you mean? What superhumans?"

Frasier smiled at Seth's reaction. It was almost, Seth thought, as if he were proud of him for asking. He stopped to ponder for a moment, then seemed to decide that Seth would be dead soon enough anyway, so what was to stop him from explaining why?

"This program has been running for decades. Over a century, in fact. Generation upon generation has passed since it began, and each one has been stronger than the last—all because of our criteria. If the strong breed with the strong, by law of basic genetics, the offspring will inherit the same traits. And so we eliminate the weak until only the strong remain. That's what happened to Patrik," he said, and Seth didn't miss the cold, practiced detachment in his eyes. "If you saw yourself standing next to your great-great-great grandfather, you would not believe the differences between the two of you. You think you're average, Seth—slight, and small, and not necessarily athletic—but compare yourself to your ancestors, and your opinion would change in an instant. When this program began, the average man would struggle to lift forty-five kilograms over his head... Tell me, Seth—what's the heaviest weight you've lifted over yours?"

Seth thought for a moment. "I don't know," he said, "maybe sixty?"

"Exactly. Now stop and think about how much more you could lift with proper training. You've just had your eighteenth Life-Day and you can already lift one and a half times the amount of weight your ancestors could. And that's just the physical side of it. Those examinations you went through... Well, your ancestors wouldn't have lasted more than three minutes in your mental examination, and very few would have lasted more than half an hour in the emotional one. You passed both with flying colours."

"I don't understand..."

Frasier's eye caught his, light flaring in them brighter than Seth had ever seen before. "You, Seth, are a superhuman."

Seth was silent as he struggled to process what he was being told.

A long moment passed and the thick steel door Frasier guarded swung open again to reveal Gianna standing in the threshold with two Officers behind her.

"Take him," she ordered, and the men stepped forward to remove Seth's shackles and wrench him painfully from his place on the floor.

In an instant, Seth's mind was racing, his vision blurry with panic and his heartbeat thumping in his ears. He had to get away from them, but how was he supposed to do that when the odds were four against one and his opponents were vastly stronger, smarter, and faster than he was?

As the two large Officers pulled him towards the door, his body aching and his mind a storm of clashing thoughts and feelings, he heard Frasier's voice telling him that each generation was stronger than the last. 

Seth's mind cleared. He blinked, his eyes coming back into focus, and took in the scene around him. 

The two Officers held him by the biceps, as they had before. Frasier stood by the thick steel wall, just inside the doorway. Gianna waited just beyond the threshold. 

He would only get one chance.