End of Women: Part Five

Making Exceptions

In the matrix of interlocking cages surrounding the elimination centre, women stood huddled in shivering bunches, not an inch of space between each woman and the next cold naked female body. Tarpaulin sheets slung over the roofs of their cages rippled in the wind, peppered by spots of rain. The concrete floor was damp and rivulets of clear water flowed here and there, pooling beneath feet of clenching toes. As darkness fell, each communal cage became lit by a single orange tinted floodlight, bathing the cold female skin in neon. At half-past midnight the peppery rain started to lash and thrash the tarp, and the wind became a howl.

Between the fifty communal waiting-cages there were walkways for Bluenorth employees, FCOs, Arrowhead men and anyone else working the site. At that late hour, bleary-eyed and yawning, an Arrowhead named Barron made his rounds between these walkways, flicking his flashlight left and right at the herds of shuddering women. His light cast long dark cross-hatch shadows over them as he passed, their faces and bodies partly obscured by the cage mesh and bars between him and them.

In those quiet moments, when most of the facility were sleeping, he had plenty of time to think. As his light fell on the trembling face of one young demure redhead, his thoughts turned to what he would do once this was all over. The girl kinked her leg inwards and closed her eyes to shudder violently from the cold. One day, he thought, the last woman would die, and then what would he do? The man carried on along the thirty-foot walkway to the next transition gate, twirling the flashlight in his hands casually. He had always felt like being a detective. Maybe his time hunting runaways would bolster his credentials, somehow.  

He checked his watch. A timer was rapidly counting down in red digits to zero, and had ten seconds left. He sucked in a breath and lifted his head up. 'TEN SECONDS!' He yelled at the cages around him, hearing a series of voices echo this announcement down the line. The familiar, predictable wave of wails and moans from inside the cages followed the same echoing announcement.

As the seconds ticked down he took his position at the gear console and took hold of an extended lever. At zero, his watch bleeped loudly and in unison with all of the other late-night walkway operators he yanked the lever hard downwards. At this command, one entire section of the communal cage wall began to move to the right, and the opposite section began to move left, closing in on the women inside. At the same time he pressed a red button to open up the stairwell access at the hard wall rear of the cage, forcing the women to start hurrying up the stairs or else be crushed. The cage walls moved slowly, giving the women enough time to figure out where they had to go, and soon the cell began to empty, slowly. At the last there were only a handful of girls left, struggling to hobble up the steps as the cage walls closed in completely. When the last one had made her way into the stairwell he hit the red button again to close the bars leading up to it, and yanked up the lever so that the cage walls began to separate once more. Finally he hit a blue button, opening up the ground level access door, and as soon as he did a flurry of fresh women poured into the cell, panicky, nervy, filling it like a cascade of ping-pong balls until the whole thing was full. He closed the ground level access door again and reset his watch to ten minutes.

Just as he turned to resume his patrol he noticed that a figure in a black raincoat and windbreaker had appeared in his walkway. He couldn't see the face, but recognised the man as Bluenorth instantly. The double-lace Trooper style boots gave him away, not to mention the finger gloves and apparent muscle density not many men have, even in the service.

'Can I help you?' He called to the figure, wincing against the whip of the wind on his face. The figure approached, pulled off one of his gloves and presented a keycard marked CLR 8.

'I gotta to get down to the sub-level.' The man said, pulling his hood back. He was black, around six foot tall and roughly as thickly built as first appeared.