Three Hearts Left Intact

Chapter 15: Truth Revealed

The second the two men drove off into the dead of night, Mallix immediately began asking Alex hundreds of questions to try and make some sense of everything that was dumped on him. At first it started as minuscule questions that he found important. "How do you know that guy?"

Alex sat there baffled as he lightly chuckled turning for a second to look at his buddy besides him, "I thought it was obvious. We used to work together when I worked with the Cave."

"No I mean like, who is he?" Mallix reiterated. It was clear that Alex and him had a past together, but Mallix was more curious as to how reliable this source was. Especially when the information he was dishing out had everything to do with him and his family.

"Oh..." Alex turned back facing the road. "I, well I dunno."

"You don't know?!"

"Not really, no. When I worked with the cave, he would stop by every now and then and let me know what was going on with the big companies. Back then, the only thing I could focus on was saving enough to start my own business in the Cave that I could profit off of. If things were to go well, we would've been partners, but that time never came. We graduated high school before that could happen. And you know what happened then, my ideals changed and my whole life plan steered a different way. Now he still messages me often still giving me heads up on what's going on down under, especially now that he knows I'm an attorney. Last thing he wants is for me to put him behind bars. So I use him as my personal informant to gather information on people going into court. He's well versed in pretty much every aspect of the Cave." Alex covered.

"So you trust him?"

"With my life, look he may work for the Cave but he's not a bad guy. We've had some pleasant chats before. Besides I used to work for the Cave and you trust me, they aren't all criminals."

"What were you guys talking about when he mentioned the different levels? What was it he said...oh yeah, what's this level four and level five? What happened to levels one, two, and three? Why'd we jump all the way to four and five?" From the passengers seat Mallix could tell he hit a rough spot as Alex nervously cleared his throat shifting slightly in his seat.

"Well...now that's going to be a lot of explaining. And you see, your not going to like it." Alex's light hearted tone was completely gone. He knew this conversation was coming and that he would have to explain it sooner or later, he just wished it'd stay as later business.

"Come on dude, how bad can it be? It sounds like it's a mixture of some hierarchy and a video game, with all the level talk." Mallix lightly punched Alex's arm to which he nervously flinched at thinking it was going to be much harder.

"Um...well yes...and no, in a way. Yes, that it is like a hierarchy and that each level here represents an amount of power, and starting from one that has the least amount but the higher up you get the higher the power increases as well. But no, that it isn't like a video game. It's much more serious and complex."

"How serious?" Mallix sat up straight in his chair realizing the true danger of the warning Alex's tone held. But his friend didn't respond, instead he sat in his seat gulping down his words before they could come out. "Come on Alex what is it?! My girls are involved in this?! He said my wife was in level four and my little girl was in level five?! You said the higher you get the higher the power gets?! What does all this mean Alex?!" He was yelling at this point, his tone was far from calm.

Scratching the back of his neck with one hand, Alex took a deep breathe. "I explained it to Z in a more simple and straight to the point way. Did you want that or more in depth?" Alex's pitch rose the further he got hoping Mallix would let him off easy with a simple explanation.

"In depth of course. I want to know what's going on here." He tore Alex's heart in half as it crumbled to pieces and fell all over the inside of his body.

"Then, well...the levels refer to the five departments the Fendly's facility house. Each department has different stages to them, and within each stage there are different levels. To make things simplistic, all level ones are referring to people who are locked in the faculty for ransoms. So there just being held hostage, locked away in some cell until the Fendly's get what they want. Then we have level two's. There for people who are in debt to them. If you're in for a level two then you're stuck doing manual labor until your debt is paid off, which is almost never. Most die before they get out." He began before checking in on Mallix who simply looked at him and nodded for him to continue.

Stopping to breathe Alex continued on driving through the dark night as he explained, "Level threes are for people who have dirt or information that the Fendly's want. So they get interrogated by any means necessary, some even end up as double agents. Living their normal day to day lives to continue gathering information and reporting it back to the Fendly's in exchange for their safety."

He made a long pause knowing now was finally the time he would have to face his biggest fear. "Now for level fours." He announced to which he noticed Mallix shift in his seat so he was facing him, making sure not to miss a single piece of information. "Alright well, so... a level four is usually in for defiance. Causing a ruckus by threatening to hurt the Fendly's. In order to deal with them, the facility has procedures on how to break them."

"Break them?"

"Like, get rid of their urge to harm them. The Fendly's are a bunch of cowards who want nothing more than their own lives spared so they'll take any measure to make sure they stay safe."

Mallix nervously gulped wiping his sweaty palms on the front of his pants. "So it's torture?"

Just the idea of confirming it to Mallix gave Alex shivers. He nodded not daring to take his focus off the road ahead of him.

"And...level five?"

"Fives are for people they find valuable in some way. They're for people who are in good health. It's an easy way for them to make money."

"How do they make the money?"

"They sell them. Auction them off to the highest bidder. They'll usually get almost half a million for most people, others go above and beyond, some even range in the billions depending on the criteria."

Letting everything sink in Mallix's face darkened as he gasped in realization of the dire situation surrounding him. "What the hell do you mean my wife's stuck in a torture chamber, while my little girls getting ready to be auctioned off like some piece of meat in...in...what did he say?! Oh yeah two weeks?!" Mallix yelled at Alex from the passengers seat of the car.
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Let me know what you think. Thanks Lexx signing off