Shards

chapter 32

Chapter 32:

At first she tried, she really did. We memorized the twists and turns of the halls, and since we were not yet in the high security wing we wandered the halls during the designated times, waiting for an opportunity to present itself. It was more of a game to us than it should have been.

I hadn't seen it; so intent I'd been on escape, but re-watching it made it painfully obvious. Nea hated to lose. We were alike in that way. She watched as some of the stronger boys began to make themselves known, and she often vented to me about the physical disadvantages of being female.

While my worries centered mainly around getting away, hers became more internally pointed. At first, to keep us alive, but eventually for other reasons I had not yet fully grasped. When that day finally came, where she blew me off for the sparring mat, I should have seen it coming, but I didn't. Re-watching it for the second time now, I began to wonder what would have happened if Ian had not offered his hand.

Would I have become a robot like my ex-best friend? Probably not; but the uncertainty of it all was eating away at me. From the second we met, Ian and I spent every possible moment together. The connection was there, even before we realized that we were the only two to make it through the Initiation room unaffected. He shared my need for freedom, and our escape plans became more and more plausible.

Our first attempt was one of our best. We got outside the wall, something we struggled to match for years after. They hadn't been expecting it. The younger children were watched a lot less closely, and Ian and I were no exception. Back then we'd been on no ones radar, the guards hadn't known us by name.

“This way.” I tugged on the back of Ian's shirt.

We were in the long, concrete hallway that lead to the psy-ops wing. The corridor was flat on all sides, light coming from evenly placed fluorescent bulges running across the ceiling. Later I learned that there were really much more efficient ways of entering the facility, and the hallway was meant to have a numbing effect on those being brought in for testing.

Ian and I were slowly weaving our way to the back of the line. The testing to which we were headed was not particularly frightening. It was about role models or something; heroes. Whatever it was, it had no effect on those living inside the walls of the Compound. Everything psy-ops did was to understand the thoughts of those who payed their government salaries. But at nine, I neither knew or cared about such things.

“Soon?” Ian looked at me.

It wasn't really a question, but I nodded anyways. As if his voice had called it, the metal door appeared around the next corner. The guard at the front of the line stopped to talk to a woman in a white coat, and we all stopped behind him. Past the woman, exiting the facility, another line of children filed past. Exchanging a look; Ian and I joined them. No one noticed, well no one but the kid we'd slid in front of, but he wasn't going to say anything.

When we passed through the yard, it was easy to blend in with the children out for their fresh air. They were a couple of age groups ahead of us, but I was tall and it wasn't like anyone was going to ask Ian for ID. No alarms would be raised when we didn't check in. Our group would be staying in the psy-ops wing until late in the evening. Now, all we needed to do was wait for an opportunity.

It came sooner than we would have thought. The garage door that allowed the guards' Jeeps to drive into virtually any part of the Compound, slid open. We hadn't been expecting it until later, when the teenagers were brought out into the yard.

The guards in the car finished talking to the one on duty. He paced to the center of the courtyard, and began to yell.

“Kyle Hawthorn and Desmen Brown, please make your presence known.”