Primal Gambit

Chapter 24: Shuke Sees Her Again

The trees kept them alive.

When the ash fell heavily on the outside world, causing casualties to those not protected by the foliage, audiences would still gather to watch the primitives to take respite from their own lives.

The shackles locked around his wrists connected to a thick metal chain that jangled across the concrete floor. He was yanked forward violently, the tops of his feet dragging a trail of blood behind him. Arthur was being removed from the confines of his paddock for the morning as doctors and surgeons in the deep underground tampered with ingredients for a workaround that had caused problems for only two of the prisoners. For unknown reasons, perhaps a conflict of genetic makeup, their bodies were rejecting the nutrients from the tube-injected feedings.

The man on the other end of the chains had little remorse for the professor that tugged behind. It was the second time in one week that Captive Number 1174 was being removed from the exhibit to find a workaround to keep him healthy enough to interact with the others and bring in a revenue worthy of his name. Every time Arthur was brought into the underground he was pulled past her exhibit and reminded of the things he had been robbed of.

Paddock #7.

As they walked past slowly, Arthur stopped in his tracks to peer within. It was as if for a moment, he was on the outside looking in: to see if she was there, to make sure she was still alive, still breathing. The thick jungle shrouded the contents of the paddock from view. He could not feel her as he normally could, her body close to his, the warmth in their eyes. On other occasions when he had been brought past her enclosure he could feel her there, though he was unable to find her. This time was different, and as the captor loosened his grip on the chain to let the sorrowful man look inside, to feel human again, he was filled with regret of hurrying the moment.

A sparse glimpse of human compassion in a corporation where none existed.

Time was of the essence and with a couple of loose tugs on the metal, the captor spoke:

"Come on, Shuke. She isn't there. Let's go figure out what's wrong with you." He fixed his baseball cap and pulled the drained man along. Arthur wasn't sure how to take his words: had something happened to her?

They continued along the cement floors, dim lightbulbs showing the way and illuminating the two-tone cracked and fading walls. A gated elevator waited for them, another man holding the gate open. Below them, the mysterious labyrinth of tunnels and chambers loomed. Besides the sewage system, the elevator was the only way down. The deep darkness terrified Arthur.

The echo of water drops dripping from a sink ricocheted off the walls and invaded their eardrums. When the elevator caught the pulley and the gate opened to a level deep within the maze, the two men walked out and began down stairwells and guarded doorways. Something sticky and humid floated in the air, the putrid stench unbearable. Ghastly moans echoed from faraway rooms, the last gasps of air before mouths were tightly sewn in sinew.

Before long the two arrived at their destination. The broken man already knew what was on the other side based solely on the German classical music that blared from within. The captor pushed the door open and led Arthur inside. What he saw shocked him.

The very practitioner who had sewn his mouth shut danced drearily before one of two crude hospital beds. Conley hadn't noticed their entrance, and so he continued to shuffle with his back to them. A body fidgeted on the bed but Arthur didn't have a clear view as to who it was. Before long the practitioner was talking to the captive:

"Aw, we're going to have so much fun finding out what is wrong with you my dear – aren't we?" In his hands were a clipboard and a girthed, engorged needle. Filled with viscous orange liquid, the piece of equipment resembled a plump tick filled with blood, just waiting to be popped. He turned to the resounded chains slithering across the ground.

"And what is this? Oh, what a treat! My favorite captive come back to visit me, I see?" He beamed with devilish eyes at the shackled man who had finally caught glimpse of the woman squirming on the table. Her bindings were tight, digging into her bloodied wrists.

"Just get this over with, Doc. I've got plans later and I don't want to spend my night with you in this moldy prison." The high-ranking warden requested as he turned with a key to Arthur, unlocking his shackles.

"Oh no? I thought you enjoyed our late-night sessions. Perhaps we need to up your morphine prescription, eh?" He grinned. "Put him on the table." The practitioner added.

As Arthur was brought to the second bed and tied down, the heinous man started again. The captive didn't listen, instead looking regretfully to the woman, whose eyes had become so bright they could have short-circuited the power in the room.

"Ordinarily, I would refrain from telling you wretches what I am about to do – but this is too much. Like the twist at the end of a ripping story, I must tell you." He injected the liquid into the girl's arm. The light in her eyes drifted away, her voluminous brunette hair became a tattered mane with years of imprisonment.

"For some unknown reason, you are both rejecting the nutrients in the liquid bags we feed you with. Perhaps a love too strong, separated by an insurmountable wall, is coming together in protest. So, we are going to get to the bottom of it by testing different kinds of ingredients on the two of you. Some will prove more painful than others on your digestion tracts, but that's where things start to get interesting, isn't it?" He moved for the table to refill the needle.

"Just get to the bottom of it, Conley." The warden growled as he slumped down into the desk chair, pulling out his phone to connect with the people his job pulled him away from.

"All in good time, my friend. All in good time." The practitioner retorted, his back to the room.

Arthur Shuke paid no attention to the words that sailed across the dank air, instead keeping locked eyes with the woman across the way. They laid in the same room again, but could not be farther apart. He wondered when he would get to see her again.

"Did the two of you know each other before you were captured?" Conley turned, noticing the connection between them. "Oh, who am I kidding? Of course you did."

"Injection number two – you will feel this one a bit more, I might warn." The doctor approached the woman and poked the needle through her frail skin. She didn't make a noise, wincing as the thick goo entered her system.

Arthur screamed as loud as the sinew would allow. He tried to think of the times they had shared outside of captivity, when they were respected and contributing to the bettering of society.

Nobody cared about that now.

"You're next." The evil man whispered stingingly.

She could look, but she could not see. She could touch, but she could not feel. They lied there together, but were worlds apart.