The Exiles

Underground

Underground

The sky was just getting light as Mr. Atlas stepped through the glass doors into the Council Headquarters. He swiped his ID at the turnstile and checked his watch as the metal grate slid open. It wasn’t yet 6 AM, and the room was still dark. He had two hours until the lobby would be full of people again. That would be more than enough time.

            The elevator dinged softly as it took him down, further and further into the basement, where he stepped out six floors underground into a dull grey hallway lined with flickering fluorescent lights. The security cameras were still on, but he could deal with that later. He paused and checked that the gun inside his jacket was still there. Usually he’d have other people to deal with the business of intimidation, but not today. His footsteps echoed through the hall as he walked past a row of heavy white doors. He stopped at the last door on the left, 163. For a moment, he didn’t want to open it and ruin the perfect silence.

            Mr. Atlas scanned his ID on the wall and the door clicked, pulled back towards him and slid sideways, revealing a blindingly bright white room behind it. Atlas inhaled slowly and stepped inside, holding his gun at the ready.

            The room’s only occupant was a small black girl who lay curled in a ball in the corner. Her eyes were blank and dead, and her emaciated body was still. A thin tattoo on her throat shone dark and clear like a morgue tag. The only sign she was alive was in her hands. She held a large bronze coin in one palm and stroked it absently with her fingers. As Atlas approached her, she stared up at the point of his gun. He tried not to look at her. It was best not to interact with the transgressors when they were like this.

            “Come with me,” he said.

The girl blinked at him with wide, bleary eyes. Atlas grabbed her by the arm and pulled her forcefully to her feet. The girl seemed likely to keel over at any moment, so he kept an arm clamped tightly around her as he led her out of the room.

            “Are you going to kill me?” she croaked.

Atlas kept his eyes fixed on the elevator at the opposite end of the hall. The elevator doors slid open and he dragged the girl through.

            “Not yet,” he said quietly, “You’re going to take me there.”

The girl slumped against the wall of the elevator. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen. It made him feel slightly sick, so he tried not to think about it.

            “Where are we going?” she murmured, her head drooping to her chest. He didn’t answer. It was too risky to talk while they were still inside the building. For a moment he wondered about the fate of the girl. Would they simply dispose of her when it was over? If her information didn’t prove useful, he would have to do it himself. He didn’t like the idea, but he hadn’t gotten to be Head of the Council without doing some things he wasn’t proud of.

            As he watched the girl, the memory of her first interrogation came back to him. He hadn’t been in the room, of course, but he’d watched through a one-way window. She had been afraid, like they all were, but it was her confusion that struck him. She didn’t understand the way things worked around here.

            The interrogator had shone a light in her face as one of the guards took the bag off of her head. She had tried to look down, still fiddling with her ridiculous coin. They hadn’t had one like her before. The other transgressors were the usual insurrectionists and nonconformists and miscreants. But this girl was something they had never had to deal with. Atlas had known this day would come eventually, but he’d never thought it would be on his watch.