Amber Skies: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (Book 2 of the 2136 Trilogy)

PROLOGUE

Wake up.

I heard them whispering to themselves, but I couldn't understand a single word through their hushed tones. The one saw me watching and blocked my view with his body. What were they doing over there? What were they going to do with me?

Through a crack in their stout shoulders, I saw a steel table and a raised hologram emitting from the center. Its cylinder blue orb flickered as the person on the other end moved out of view. I heard my name and one of them looked back at me. I felt my lip quiver and my heart spasm beneath his glare. He shifted closer to the hologram, completely removing my vantage point.

I decided it was speaking to them, relaying or issuing orders and instructions, perhaps. For all I know, they were discussing me, and how to dispose of my body after they were through with me. Whatever that was. I instinctively attempted to rise and flee but found my wrists bound down with polypropylene straps. Whoever they were, they didn't want me leaving.

I tried to move, but my body was stiff. I felt the edges of my skin bubble beneath the large whipping fan overhead. The goose bumps dotted my entire naked body in tiny raised bumps. I felt them scattering, locking hands, and linking my arms with my torso and my feet to my legs, but I can't move them, not a single toe. I could feel the hard metal under my shoulder blades, feel the bite of the rough edges as they dug into my elbows and pelvic bone. But no matter how hard I tried my body wouldn't listen to me.

What did they do to me? I began to wonder.

The thought shifted my gears and poured the worst possible scenarios through my mind. At least that seemed to be working. One of the others glanced my way and smiled. I didn't know who he was, but my anger raged wild within me. Just untie me and I'll wipe that smug expression off your face I thought. But he must have seen through my thin facade and straight into the black mist of fear hovering over my limp body. The lump in my throat swelled with the extra flood of blood coursing through my body. I tried to breathe through my nose but something blocked the airway. I heard the wheezing sound like a dying pup and wondered if it was me. I held my breath and counted to three. Yup, it was me.

What is going on? Where am I?

So many questions and all there were for answers were the mysterious men huddled around the triangular table communicating with a hologram. I couldn't remember how I got here, or even where here was.

They had draped my head under a black hood within seconds of barging into my sleeping quarters in the middle of the night. Gagged and bound, they had flung me over their shoulders. My rib cage throbbed even now from the incessant bulge from their shoulders having dug into my side with every step. I remember screaming or yelling for help, but my moans and grumbles went unheard beneath the barrage of screams echoing all around me. I remember flashes of bright light, the rush of wind and water against my feet, and then nothing.

They must have drugged me and transported me to a different facility. Ever since the incident in the Harvesting Chamber they had held me in quarantine. Every morning, midday, and evening the sliding metal door would hinge open and a gloved hand would lower in a tray of food. They collected the empty trays at the end of the week or whenever the doctors came for me. Those were the worst parts of solitary confinement. It wasn't the loneliness of it, though that was difficult. It wasn't the fear of wondering where Parker and Roxx were. I had already come to the conclusion that they were both dead, and I was next. I didn't even fear the unknown anymore, or why they kept me in this cell. But rather, the experiments they ran on me every third day. When day three came around, the cell door would swing open and four hazmat suits came in, strapped me to a gurney, and hauled me away for the next round of pricking and probing. I never knew how long it lasted, but it sure felt like a lifetime. Then they tossed me back in my cell, and I counted down the days until it started all over again.