Mindless

Chapter Nine - 008

When I wake all I feel is fire.

Everything on me burns, as if my veins had been replaced with lava. I know it's not real, it's just the poison. Except when I look down at my hands, my glowes are torn at the fingertips and my fingers are bright red. I think I must have burned myself on a loose wire or something.

Except when I touch them to the floor to get up, the floor makes a sizzling sound and my hands get warmer. I yank them away quickly.

Not possible. Not. Possible.

The fire vanishes as the door slides it open. I quickly dismiss the idea of it being real. That would make me-- no. No. The chances are one in one million. It's not even a chance. Impossible.

I quickly stand up, facing down the person coming into the room. I immediately wish I hadn't. My head twirls, my vision edging with blackness.

"Who are you?" I ask. My voice translator is still in place. The shaggy-haired boy with the plastic on his face doesn't seem to care, other than a slight flick of his eyes up to me and away from the tangiscreen he holds.

"I'm asking you that. But, I'm Enzo." I stare him down. No way am I going to give away my identity just like that. He could be with the moonBases, maybe moonBase 050. I heard they have different uniforms there, different ordinances. But... what's an Enzo? What's his identification?

"I'm not telling you."

"You have to."

I sound like one of the youngers, the children that move up in each generation behind ours. But I can almost imagine the chubby face of a younger, staring up with those huge eyes.

"Why?"

"Because it's my job to know these things."

"And it's my job to not tell you them."

We go on like this for close to what my internal clock, my very precise sense of time, says is an hour. He asks me something, I talk in circles until we come right back to the question, except now I'm asking him. Sometimes, he answers without pause, then slams his palm into his forehead and starts asking questions again. Sometimes he catches me talking in circles and tries something else.

But he doesn't get one answer out of me. So we never make it past the who I am part.

"I don't want to have Seth do this. But that's what it's coming to... so I'm going to ask you once more, what is your identification?"

I shake my head. He sighs, then walks out of the room, grumbling. I wait for this Seth person to come in. I can deal with whatever he throws at me. I have to.

So when the door slides open, my heartbeat accelerates by way too much. I know I can keep my identity a secret. I have to, so I will. So I shouldn't be silently running odds in my head over and over again.

Across the room from me, separated by an electric field, stands a human, male, probably around my age, with messy brown hair and the bluest eyes I have ever seen. He looks nothing like the other person who was just here. His uniform is also different.

I recognise those eyes a moment later. They were the ones I saw before the poison made me pass out.

"I take it Enzo already told you who I am?"

"Yeah."

"So?"

I shrug. So what? He'll be just the same as Enzo, or maybe he'll use pain tactics, which I know I can withstand. What's another hour? If I give myself away, I'll be locked up for life.