Vengeance Through Shadows

Chapter 1

I sit in a DUP transport truck with four other conduits, idly thinking about how this came to be. A week ago, I never would have imagined I'd be heading to Seattle in the back of a DUP truck. In Chicago, DUP presence wasn't so heavy. It was easy for conduits to live their lives and not get caught. Chicago DUP put most of their resources into trying to catch up with criminal conduits. I guess I fell under that category because I have been behind bars for three weeks, until now. The Chicago DUP division doesn't take extreme measures when locking up conduits, but Seattle is a whole new story. Up there, it's DUP central! I don't know how any conduit can possibly survive in that city.

I wound up in this mess because I was blackmailed by someone I thought I could trust. Sure, I participated in criminal activity over the years, but I didn't commit the crime I was accused of. I've hurt people, stolen things, and managed to hide through it all for so long. But I guess the law has a funny way of catching up to a person. I was captured and thrown into the Chicago Conduit Holding Facility, CCHF for short. This place usually isn't a permanent prison for conduits and it's definitely not as big name as the conduit prisons in other in cities such as Seattle. Usually any conduits that get caught in Illinois or neighboring states get taken to the CCHF, where they get sorted into two different categories‒ passive and hostile. Passive conduits are the ones that get caught for simply being a conduit. Hostile conduits are the ones that get caught committing a crime. I was sorted into the hostile category even though I was wrongly accused. Being deemed as hostile meant that I was going to be under more intense lockdown than the passive conduits. I was put into high security with everything from the clothes I wore right down to the cell I stayed in. Hostiles were each put into individual cells in solitary confinement. All the cells were armed with anti-conduit technology and all the prisoners that were put here were forced to wear anti-conduit jumpsuits and handcuffs.

At first the whole situation was pissing me off, but the longer I stayed alone with only my thoughts, the more I calmed down. I hated being locked up, especially when I didn't deserve to be. But I after a while, I gave up on protesting. Nobody in here would listen to what I was saying or help me get released, and I was just wasting my breath begging. So I decided I'd just deal with the being imprisoned and silently think of an escape plan. That would prove to be difficult considering my powers were restricted inside this building. So I decided to just drop the ideas of escaping entirely and wait my sentence out. I always had the feeling that I wouldn't be staying in the CCHF for long, and I was right.

At the end of my third week, two guards came to take me out of confinement and into a DUP transport truck. I didn't know where I was going at first because nobody would answer my questions. But after eavesdropping on the conversation between the guards and DUP soldiers, I found out I was heading to a facility in Seattle called Curden Cay. I didn't know much about this Curden Cay place, but from what I did know, it's not pleasant. I wasn't the only one that was being transferred either. There were four other conduits from this facility that were being transferred along with me. They all looked just as scared and confused as I was.

We were all loaded into the back of the black and yellow DUP transport truck like cattle walking right into the slaughter house. A few of the other conduits with me were desperately pleading that this was some mistake and they weren't scheduled for a transfer. I knew begging was pointless, so I stayed silent and boarded the truck in an orderly manner. Within minutes of boarding, we were off to Seattle.

That brings me to where I am now‒ stuck in a truck full of anxious conduits. None of us talk and I snap out of my thoughts for a moment to look around at the others that are in here. There are three males and one other female besides me. One of the men is tall and muscular and has shoulder length, dark hair that hangs in his face as he looks down at his lap. He looks like he's trying to nap or something. I looked across the room at the only other girl in the vehicle. She was shorter than me and had long, strawberry blond hair that was tied up in a ponytail. I realized how much she looked like someone I knew and a mental image popped into my head of my old friend. I guess the girl noticed my staring because I was snapped out of my daze by her accusing voice.