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Author's Note: Another big update, two chapters. A big question gets answered here and the first of many fight sequences takes place at the end. I hope you'll enjoy.

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Chapter Thirteen:

For the next three days I trained.

First it was in Krav Maga. Black insisted that I learn how to be aggressive so he brought in someone to help me. I wasn’t sure if I could take on one of the guards. After all, if it hadn’t been for my suppression, they would have killed me. But the person who walked into the room was someone I didn’t expect: Barry. He was dressed like us, in a black gi. He stood next to Black and crossed his arms. I could see the muscles in his arms and it made me go kind of faint.

I vaguely remembered Matilda telling me that Barry wasn’t in any Class. I looked at the two of them and Black explained. Like me, Barry had no real offensive talent. He was a “computer geek”, Black’s words not mine. When Black first got a hold of him Barry had been meek and shy but now he was apparently Black’s best student. Black was so confident that he left the two of us and Barry got to play teacher. I thought he was going to go easy because we were kind of friends but it didn’t work out that way.

Barry kicked the crap out of me. Literally.

After he pounded me during the whole fourth day of my training, on the fifth day he taught. He showed me everything he did to me the day before and told me to repeat it. But I was wary about hitting him so he started to taunt me. It was playful at first, because they were stupid taunts. But when he started going off about my friends, I lost it. I’m not sure what happened. All I know was somehow the blackness kicked, Barry went blue and I found those same dark spots as before. I’m not sure but I think I kicked him in the stomach, elbowed him in the face and kneed him in the groin. But it all happened so fast. I laid him out flat, to thunderous applause I might add. Apparently Black was just outside the room and saw everything.

“There’s that aggression” he told me as he helped Barry to his feet.

Our eyes locked and we smiled. It pained me to see the blood on his teeth and the look of anguish as he limped over to a bench for a warmer. Black scolded him about wearing pads and Barry honestly responded that he thought he wouldn’t need any. He never underestimated me again.

We trained for the rest of the day. But I didn’t go back into the Dark World, because I didn’t need to. Barry was able to help me utilize the skill I had and showed me how to get the best out of it. He said I was ideal for Krav Maga because I was fast and light. It also helped that I felt no pain and because of my enhanced sight and hearing, I could almost anticipate my opponent’s moves. I never thought of it until I tried and sure enough it was nearly impossible for him to get a hit on me.

After our two hours in the Dojo on the fifth day, we got dressed and Barry took me to what he called the Range. It was here that Greg was waiting. The Range is exactly what you might expect it to be: it’s a shooting range. It was a long room, with several shooting stations set up with targets in the distance. You’ve see them in most cop TV shows and movies. This one was no different. First Greg talked me through shooting range, which I’m not going to bore you with. Then he found me a spot and like Black, he was all about teaching by showing.

First Barry demonstrated with what he called a 9mm Glock. HE put on a pair of ear defenders, these funky looking ear muffs and took aim. His target was about halfway down the range. HE squeezed off a few shots, getting them clustered around the paper target’s chest. Then they let me do it. Greg had me try a multitude of guns but there was one that he said seemed to work for me, he called it a Beretta Px4 Storm Subcompact. It was a little black gun that just fit in the palm of my hand. When I fired it, I knew the gun was for me. I spent the next hour shooting targets and showing off.

Note to everyone: Enhanced sight girl, unfair advantage.

The sixth day was all training. First in the Dojo where I was starting to get the hang of things, even though Barry was still kicking my butt. Ok so maybe I let him a little. It was strange but as a guy I didn’t have one athletic bone in my bone but as a girl I was a super jock or something. In The Range, I owned. It didn’t matter how far away they placed my target, I got a kill shot each time. Me and my Beretta were best friends; I would have slept with it if I could. When Greg suggested something different I was mildly impressed but ecstatic when he produced a wooden box containing, throwing stars. Like the ones that ninjas used in Kung fu movies.

It was at the end of practice, that Barry took my hand. It was so nonchalant I never even saw it coming. We were walking back to the girl’s locker room, Barry was escorting me, he’s such a gentlemen. He reached over and took my hand. I turned and looked at him and his face went red. It was so cute.

“Are you going to be here tomorrow?”

He nodded. “If you want me too?”

You see after the first initial lesson, Barry hadn’t been required to go to anymore. But he confessed at the end of the sixth day that he liked the company. His room and all the computers were stuffy.

“You know I always we need a good punching bag” I told him.

He gave my hand a squeeze. “Shouldn’t that be my line?”

“You were a girl once; you should know that hitting girls is wrong”

He smiled weakly. I felt like kicking myself. I completely forgot about Declan and Max. Matilda said all the girls had it harder. Barry had been a girl once and I just stupidly reminded him of it. I could honestly say that I didn’t like to think of myself as once being a guy, as once being Rick. Ok I said I said it. I didn’t want to go back to being him either. But Declan and Max loved being girls. I was sure Barry felt the same way. I mean who wouldn’t love being a girl? Ok so I’m brainwashed now but c’mon, if you had a choice?

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean…”

He shook his head. “I’m not like the others. I mean I liked being a girl but let’s face it, Mel well she was…not the sharpest tool in the shed”.

I smacked him in the shoulder. “That’s a horrible thing to say about yourself”

He laughed. “She’s not me, not anymore anyway. She might have been a little bit after the Change but in the years since it’s like she was a distant relative”

“Did you have any family?”

“My father”

It was all he said so I dropped it. He talked a little more about himself but he switched gears and started talking about computers. He was obsessed with computers. I didn’t understand half of what was coming out of his mouth, so I just smiled and nodded. For a while the two of us forgot where we were and what we were doing. It took about ten minutes to notice we had actually walked into the girl’s locker room. He blushed a little and made a pink joke. I punched him in the arm and he laughed. His upper arm was solid; punching him was like hitting a wall. How much time did he spend in that Dojo?

I pushed him out the door and got dressed in my civvies. When I left the locker room, he was waiting for me, leaning against the wall. A couple of days ago, it would have been Max. But ever since his confession in the hall and the rose, he was avoiding me. Even in class. Though he still sat next to me in both, he only said hello and goodbye. At first it was kind of refreshing but now I kind of missed it. I’m not saying I was starting to like him but I thought the two of us were becoming some kind of friends. It was even different in lunch too. Before he used to spend the whole time staring at me, which had been real creepy. But now he stared at Holly.

As for her, don’t even get me started. She was a full blown pod person now. If you looked at her and tried to compare her to the person of a few days ago, you’d be floored. She’d done a complete 360 which was the creepiest of all. Gone was the slightly tomboyish, baggy clothes wearing anime freak and in her place was Clone Number Four. I’m not over exaggerating either. She dressed, talked and acted just like the Deviants now. She even insulted like them too. I should know, I said hi to her yesterday morning and she sneered at me like I’d crawled from the sewer. She mumbled freak under her breath and clattered away on her four inch heels. There was something seriously wrong with the Advanced Class.

The worse part of it is that the teachers didn’t seem to notice. The Priss congratulated her on her new style and criticized us, Holly’s former friends. Greg looked at her oddly but shrugged as if she was doing what normal teenage girls did. I would have agreed with that except for her drastic personality adjustment. It was like the old Holly was gone and this new bitch was in her place. When I mentioned it to Trish, she said it was stress. But I could tell there was something she wouldn’t or couldn’t tell me. I tried to press her about it but she told me that the Advanced Class was very trying and sometimes it worked if you fit in and went with the flow.

I knew then that something was seriously wrong. Matilda knew so too and told me. Even Donovan, quiet, shy Donovan made a comment. Barry seemed unfazed by it but he did think it was strange that she decided to model herself after Beatrice. He joked and said that’s why he and Matilda had started calling her “Queen Bee” in the first place, because of her ability to get the others to fall in line and copy her.

But the biggest one affected was Chloe. Holly’s drastic change absolutely destroyed her. It drained everything from her to the point where she barely ate, rarely slept and only slightly functioned in the classroom. She was a constant visitor to Dr. V’s comfy red couch. I was too but I was being ordered to do so and hated every minute of it. WE all tried to cheer Chloe up but nothing worked. I knew then more than ever that I had to get her, Holly and the others out of this damn place before we all started acting like creepy pod people. I shuddered more than once thinking about it. There was no way they were going to make me Clone Number Five.

“You ok?”

Barry’s question brought me out of my daydream. He reached over and took my hand. His hand was nice and warm. I could hold it for hours. It satisfied me to know that I was here holding it and Beatrice was not. I also knew it was pissing her off. I was getting to spend time with her man and she wasn’t taking it very well. Just yesterday she threw a little fireball at my feet as I was walking out of Greg’s room. Luckily for me I heard it coming and jumped over it. Unluckily for her, Greg saw the whole thing and Beatrice was forced to clean up.

“You did it again” he said, brushing a strange of purple hair from my eyes.

“Sorry, I have a lot on my mind”

“Is it Holly or Chloe?”

See, he already knew me so well. I smiled. “No, it’s actually Beatrice this time”

‘Really. Well I was going to say a penny for your thoughts but she’s far too cheap for that”

I laughed. “I was just wondering why she’s such a bitch”.

“Did Mattie tell you about her at all?”

I shook my head so he enlightened me on the great Queen Bee. He actually told me about Brian. He had actually been a pretty cool kid, which Matilda had already made pretty clear. But he was strange in that he didn’t feel right in his own skin. Matilda had mentioned that too, about herself. But Brian really didn’t feel right and knew something was wrong. When he found out he was going to Change and become a girl, he got real quiet. Then he started to cry. At first, Barry and Matilda thought he was upset. But apparently they were tears of joy. Brian fully embraced Beatrice and all things feminine. He was ecstatic when he found out he could control fire and when he became the first member of the Advanced Class it was like he was on top of the world. Then the others came. First Sara, then Rachel and Natasha. Things started to change and Beatrice started to change.

Listening to him tell her story, I could sense that he himself didn’t believe it.

“You think her change is unnatural?”

He nodded. “I’ve known her for a long time and let’s just say there’s no way she’d ever abandon her real friends”

Barry was clenching fists. He let go of my hand a few seconds ago and now he looked as if he wanted to kick someone’s ass. It pained me to see him this way. It also pained me to see him act this way over Beatrice. Maybe he liked her more? And why wouldn’t he, there was no way I could compete with that.

“Do you think they did something to her?”

I’m not sure why I was asking. I think I was pretty certain that they did something to Holly. Hell I think they might have done it to Max too. Whatever it was, it seemed to change people’s personalities and make them act like complete opposites. Was it Declan? Matilda said his touch could control your mind, right? But didn’t he have to still be touching you for something like that to work?

Barry took my hands but I hardly seemed to notice. When he gave them a squeeze, I stopped daydreaming again.

“Can I show you something?”

__________________________________________________________________

When we walked into his room I was floored.

I’d never seen anything like it. It was like walking into a Radio Shack on steroids. I don’t think there was a single space that wasn’t covered with some kind of electronic device. There were even scattered parts all over his bed. He looked a little sheepish as I stood there and stared. The main focal of the room had to be the computers though. They were all state of the art, at least that’s what he said as he sat in the lone chair. There were at least six flat screen monitors and several keyboards, well three actually. The display took up the whole wall. In both corners of the room were these large file cabinet-like things that kind of hummed like crazy. I think they were servers. Barry actually had servers in his bedroom.

“I’m sorry about the mess”.

I smiled and sat on the edge of his bed, it was the only place I could really sit.

He started to type away; the tapping was vigorous and crazy. I looked at his fingers going away, amazed. I’d never seen anyone type that fast in my entire life. Not only that but he seemed to jump from keyboard to keyboard. Images flew by on the screens, flipping so fast that I couldn’t even keep track of them.

“Can you read all that?”

He laughed. ‘I’m not just a Technopath. I’m the only one here with two abilities, my other being able to process large amounts of data in a blink of an eye. It may look extremely fast to you but it’s actually kind of slow to me”

I wanted to reveal my secret to him. I wanted to tell him he wasn’t alone and I had something else too. I’m not sure what that something was though. But then I remembered what Trish said, not to trust anyone with it. I’m sure Barry would never reveal my secret but right now maybe she was right. Who knew if Barry’s room wasn’t bugged like the others?

In fact maybe I should do a sweep.

I did just that, searching carefully for the tell tale signs of Big Brother. I scanned every inch of the room with eyes and ears. But the only thing I heard was the vibrating hum of the servers. Barry looked at me out of the corner of his eye. He laughed.

“They can’t bug me” he said, tapping a little red device on his desk. It looked like a soda can. ‘I’ve got a jammer, so no other electronics work in this room unless I have them shielded”

“And they let you have something like that?”

He laughed. “Of course not”

He tapped away for what seemed like forever. I took the time to finish checking his room out. It was similar in lay out to my room and Matilda’s. It had one window; luckily for me it also had dark curtains. The lights were out which was a big plus. His walls were painted a light green, which surprised me because he didn’t look like a green kind of person. HE had a run on the floor though you barely saw it with all the junk piled about. He had a lot of junk too. Most of it was useless and unidentifiable. There were a few pieces I recognized like some radio transistors and what looked like the innards of a TV set.

There were only two other pieces of furniture besides his bed and his computer station. One was a small wooden dresser, wedged into one of the corners. It was stained a dark color, piled high with a few egg crates. The other was a work bench of some kind. But instead of being scattered with scrap, it was scattered with blueprints. I slipped of the bed and quietly snuck over. There was a soldering iron cooling and something that I think used to be a clock radio, scattered in pieces across a multitude of blue paper.

“Is supposed to be a time released EMP generator” he said, without looking over his shoulder.

I nodded because I had no idea what that was.

He seemed to sense my confusion ever though he wasn’t looking at me. “EMP, its stands for Electromagnetic Pulse. It’s what the military uses to wipe out an enemy’s communications and missile guidance systems. The Z Man has had me working on a portable version of it for months now. Don’t ask me why but he’s been kind of paranoid lately”

The Z Man? Clearly Barry had a better relationship with Zero than the rest of us.

‘No, he’s still a bastard” he said, clearly reading minds was an ability too. He laughed. “I could hear your sigh. I don’t like him either but I don’t have much of a choice”

I went and sat on the edge of the bed again. “There’s always a choice”

He shook his head. “Not for me there isn’t”

He stopped typing and swirled in his chair. He took my hands and took a deep breath. “If I tell you something will you agree not to repeat it to a single soul?” I nodded. “My father is a criminal. Not nearly as bad as the bastards in this place but just as slimy. We didn’t have a lot of money; it was just him and me. He was kind of a loser and only had one real skill. He likes to boost cars; he’s been doing it for years. Before the Change happened, I was kind of good at it too. Melissa may have been a ditz but she was always a bit electronically inclined. Anyway, right before I was picked up, so was my old man, by the Five O. He may be slime but he’s still my Pop. So I made a deal: if I continue to help Zero and make anything he wants, he’ll keep my old man out of the slammer”

I nodded and did the only thing I could do, I gave him a hug. It felt good and he gently wrapped his arms around me. That felt even better. Never in a million years did I expect him to be so like me. So ok he had a bad and he wasn’t a foster kid but we were nearly the same.

When he let go, he smiled. “Ok, I shared. Now it’s your turn”

He caught me off guard. “Umm, I hate peanut butter”

We both laughed. Then I got serious. I gave him a rough outline of my life. I told him about being an orphan, living from one foster home to the next. Then I told him about Frankie and the others. How we escaped and lived on the streets for months, doing anything to survive. He listened silently. When I got to the jewelry heist and our eventual downfall, his eyes got huge. When I finished my story, I’m not sure what happened. One minute we were staring at one another and the next we were in each other’s arms. I’m not talking about hugging either.

Never in a million years did I ever think I’d kiss a boy. But when our lips touched, I felt this spark. It was overwhelmingly awesome. I lost myself in it and the only thing that seemed to exist was him. His hands moved up and down my back, our lips parted and our tongues meant. They were like clashing sabers in our mouths, both battling for supremacy. When we finally parted, it was the best thirty seconds in my entire life. It so good we went back, not just once put three times. On the third time, he slipped down my hood and took off my glasses.

“There you are” he said as he pulled away. “As beautiful as I knew you would be”

I blushed. It was strange but it was actually the first time he’d really seen me without my hood and glasses. At the movie a few days ago, I was wearing my coat. When he trained in the Dojo and The Range, I wore this hooded sweatshirt thing because Black thought turning the lights off would give me an unfair advantage. Even in The Range, the lights had to be on because no sane person shoots in the dark, even with night vision goggles.

“You’re not so bad yourself”

He smiled and kissed my nose. “Those eyes are fantastic. Do they always shine like that?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know, you’re the only one besides Trish who’s ever seen me without my glasses on”

“Sure Mattie and the others?”

I shook my head. “You never know what’s going to happen. So I always keep my glasses on”

“I’m honored”

He kissed me and we petted on his bed for a few more minutes. It felt strange to have him lying with me, running his hands all over my body. It was also invigorating. My body exploded as his hands grabbed my breasts. It tingled all over and there was this wet spot that was starting to form between my legs. I couldn’t control myself and neither could he. I started to moan as he massaged my nipples, it was fantastic. He really knew how to turn a girl on but that was a given. But I knew some things too and I quickly demonstrated as I stuck my hand down his pants. This time he moaned and I knew he’d never played with himself before. I felt him begin to stiffen and discharge. I didn’t want to stop. We were both moaning like crazy.

But reality has a way of stopping things at the right time. There was an irritating beeping sound that stopped everything. Barry pulled away, looking at the computer. He sighed, letting go of my breasts and kissing my nose again. I removed my hand from his pants, Barry’s discharge all over it. I sat up, still heaving and tingling. I found tissues and wiped myself as clean as I could. I’ll definitely wash later. But much later, I wanted his smell to linger on me as long as possible. I was a little upset that we had to stop though. I knew what would happen if we continued further and wondered if I was ready for that. I knew Trish would kill me and after our Birds and Bees conversation, during my first gyno exam I don’t think I was ready for what was next. Besides there was a certain monthly visitor who had yet to visit me and I wasn’t looking forward to her.

I wasn’t looking forward to Baby Barry either. At least not for a very, very long time.

‘This is what I wanted to show you” he said, beckoning me over.

I climbed off the bed, wrapping my arms around his neck and as I slid up behind him. I sniffed his hair and god did it smell good. I think I’m in heat. Do people do that? Well I think I’m the first because even his smell was making me horny. I could feel myself getting wet again. Then the elevator incident came back. I bit my lip, hard, drawing blood and snapping myself out of my revelry.

I looked at the screen, not sure what I was seeing. It looked like some kind of computer chip. The display on screen was almost 3-D, rotating about. It had these little prong thingies on the backside that looked kind of vicious.

“What the hell is it?”

“I’m not sure. Well I am but I’m not”

“Huh”

“I think I made it except I don’t remember doing so”

He tapped a few keys and another screen came up, showing a computerized blueprint. There was a lot of nonsense I didn’t understand but at the bottom of the screen were initials: BM, Benjamin Morrison.

‘How could you have made it and not remembered?”

“I can give you one guess and it starts with a D”

“Declan” I whispered.

‘I’m sure it’s not the first time the bastard has done it to me” he said angrily. “After all he is Zero’s little lap dog”

“If he made you forget you made it how did it end up on your computer?”

“It didn’t”

He typed a few more keys and a random bunch of numbers scrolled across the screen. Well not a bunch of numbers, 1 and 0 actually. I knew it as binary code (hey I’m not a complete computer moron). But as far as what it was, I had no idea.

“This came to me the other day, on an encrypted communiqué. I tried to trace it but it was routed through so many servers that I nearly crashed my system. I’m good but whoever sent this to me must have mad skills. Either that or really good friends, the kind that don’t like to be found out. It took me a while to get into this baby but once I did I found that picture I showed you and the blueprints”

“What is it exactly?”

‘The blueprint calls it a BMC, a Behavioral Modification Chip. As far as I can tell, it’s imbedded into the base of the skull, where it sends some kind of nonlethal neuro-toxin into the Endocrine and Nervous Systems. When the body is completely flooded with this toxin, the brain and other parts of it become susceptible to a certain amount of control and manipulation. But there’s something wrong with it”

He typed a few more keys and another screen came up. “After receiving the initial transmission, I received this one. It’s a detailed work up on the chip; it states its purpose and its uses. But it also states its flaws too. Apparently the chip does its job but a little too well. Initially it makes the subject appear tired and stressed. Then it makes the subject kind of agitated and paranoid. After the first two initial stages the subject’s whole personality and demeanor is completely rewritten. It’s like someone flicks a switch and they become the complete opposite”

The wheels in my head started to turn quickly. Oh God, Holly.

“Did this information tell when you supposedly made it?”

He nodded. “About three years ago, a couple weeks after Rachel, Sara and Natasha arrived”

“And around the same time that Beatrice became a royal bitch?”

He nodded. His anger was flaring. “They’re brainwashing them” He slapped his fists on the desk, the sound jumped at me, coming in a mass wave of red.

I grabbed his hand and led him over to the bed. We sat down and I urged him to calm himself. He started to hyperventilate and I held him. He began to cry, mumbling through his tears about turning all our friends into zombies. I kept telling him over and over again that it wasn’t his fault. After ten minutes, he stopped crying and I think I finally got through to him.

He wiped his tears. “You haven’t even heard the worse part”

“There’s more”

‘If overexerted or threatened, those who are implanted with the chips have exhibited extremely hostile and aggressive behavior. If the behavior goes unchecked, they slip into a coma and die”

I put a hand over my mouth. What the fuck have these people done? Before I just wanted to escape this place but now I needed to burn the damn thing to the ground. I couldn’t let these chips get into the wrong hands. Not that they were in the right hands to begin with.

“Can you recreate one of those things?”

Barry shook his head. “I thought the same thing do. Maybe if I had one I could figure out how they worked and found some way to shut them down” I nodded but he frowned. “I tried remaking one using the blueprints but there’s a component missing, apparently Zero is smarter than we thought”

I had a horrible thought just then. It made my face go whiter than it was. “How about us? Are those things in us?”

He shook his head and pointed at his doorway. I looked over and show this strange metal rigging around the door, it looked like some kind of metal detector.

It was around the whole frame and had blinking red lights.

‘I call it a Frager, it locates any alien tech that’s unauthorized in this room and fries it” He laughed. “If there were chips in us, I’m pretty confident that the Frager would have done its job. It can scan into the deepest levels of the human body and neutralize anything not supposed to be there”

It was amazing. It also gave me a pretty cool idea. “Can you build a smaller one?”

He smiled even bigger than before. He typed a few buttons on his keyboard and another blueprint came up. It looked like a remote, similar to the one I saw on Zero’s desk. I wonder if that one controls the BMCs. This one looked a little more streamlined and probably packed quite a wallop.

“It’s almost finished but I need some parts” he said “those they won’t get me so I’m going to have to get them through other means”

I nodded. Then I had another thought: I think it was about time to clue Barry in on the little escape plan Matilda and I have been cooking up. I leaned forward, kissed him and then slowly whispered into his ear.

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Chapter Fourteen:

“This way you two” said Matilda, tugging on my hand like a cheerful six year old.

I felt like one of those overwhelmed mothers that had too many bratty kids to take care of. I’m not saying Matilda was bratty but when she got to do something she’s always wanted to do then she was very overzealous. Though I had to admit it was kind of fun to watch Matilda and Clara trying to shop. I say trying to shop because neither one of them had ever done it as girls before. Yeah they both shopped a lot at the facility but that was through catalogs and usually someone got the stuff for them. But now they were actually getting to do for real.

Do you remember about me asking Trish about a shopping excursion a while back? Well it finally paid off. She managed to convince Zero and Green it would be good for morale. He finally relented two days ago on the condition that all the students went along and there were at least two chaperones. Trish had to go because it was her idea and it was real easy to convince Greg. I actually left that up to Beatrice and her Clones + 1 (I’ve decided that Holly is a Hostage and not an active participant). Even though if you looked at her there was no real way to tell her apart from the others. It was kind of creepy because they all looked alike except for the hair.

It’s been a week since Barry told me about the BMCs. At first we weren’t sure what to do with the information. But the next day, after The Range, we went back to my room and told Matilda. She said she figured it had to be some kind of brainwash, especially seeing how easy Holly fell in with the “It” crowd. We debated telling the others but we figured it would only panic them. But I really did want to tell Chloe so maybe she wouldn’t have such a hard time. I got resolved to tell her three days after we swore not to say anything. I went to her room and when there was no answer, I kicked the door in (yeah, kicked it in). I found Chloe unconscious on the floor, her wrist wounds fleshly reopened. When I screamed, Matilda and Barry came running immediately.

We rushed Chloe to Trish, who got her to the Infirmary.

They managed to stabilize her, just barely. Trish told me if I hadn’t been there, she probably would have died. Dr. V. took it upon herself to give me consoling. I hated everything about it, just like the first initial sessions I had with her when I got here. She wanted to know all about my feelings and anything I said, no matter what it was, she wrote down. Then she started to pry into things that weren’t her business like my relationship with my friends and the new one with Barry. I told her none of that was her business and stormed out after only two sessions. She didn’t invite me back and called me an ungrateful bitch (that last part she said under her breath so I wasn’t supposed to hear it but you know me).

Barry and I became an official couple the morning after the BCM reveal. We met up outside my room and walked to the Priss’ class hand in hand. Beatrice was pissed off and I swore I saw smoke come out of her ears. Max was upset but not mad. I kept looking at him all throughout the Priss’ lesions but he was unreadable. In Greg’s class he swapped easels with Barry so he ended on the other side of the room next to Beatrice. That pissed her off more. Beatrice didn’t act out her frustrations until lunch that day when she tried to set my coat on fire in the lunch line. Fortunately for me, Greg was doing monitor duty that day and caught her in the act. She wasn’t able to sweet talk her way out of it and he made her stay behind to clean the whole cafeteria. Me and Mattie (I decided I was friends enough to call her that) ribbed her the whole time, while the Clones + 1 glared at us.

I graduated from Greg’s training yesterday. After teaching me how to use throwing stars, he made moved on to knives and other small projectiles. When I mastered those he tried to talk me into rifles but I refused. I told him I was ok with Reta (that’s my gun, I named her). He tried to tell me that I would excel at being a sniper but in the end he gave up. Instead he started giving me books to read. Some of them were on military tactics which I gobbled up while the others were dull and boring. I’m not a fan of military pomp and circumstance.

After three more days of Krav Maga, Black decided to add Northern Style Wushu to my regiment. Its Chinese martial arts and it’s a lot more formal as far as training goes. He taught me the stances and then began with the Long Fist style. The next day he switched to Southern Fist. He told me to work on them and brought Barry in once again as a sparring partner. I wasn’t too bad but I definitely needed a lot more training in both.

“Your daydreaming again, Streak”.

Barry whispered in my ear. He had his arm around my waist as the two of browsed the aisle in the teen girl fashion boutique. Barry called me Streak because of the purple in my hair. It was a giant stripe and made me look like a skunk. He took pride in teasing me on it and I took pride in calling him a hacker whenever I could. It pissed him off when I did that. He didn’t think of himself as a hacker, he called himself a “computer skills artist” or something like that. But what else could you call a guy that could “hack” into any mainframe in the world, bypass the most secure firewalls and download all the information within and do it in less than five minutes.

Mattie came back over and pried Barry’s arm from me. “We need some girl time Barry, go look at footballs or something”

Mattie pulled me away and Donovan got a hold of Barry.

“We were in the middle of something” I pouted as Mattie stirred me toward a rack of skirts.

‘If the two of you started making out here I would have hurled”

“What do you have against him?”

She gave me a look as she shoved five or six denim skirts into my stomach, I barely grabbed them. ‘I’ve known him for years. Seeing you two together, cuddling and kissing is like watching you make out with my brother”

I stuck out my tongue and looked at the skirts in my arms. “Mattie I can’t try any of these on in here”. I pointed to the lights all around me and she frowned.

‘They’re your size, so we’ll just buy them and try them on later”

I tried to protest but she won. So I bought two skirts. Then she talked me into a couple of tops and some tights. She tried to pressure me into a dress but I managed to stop her there. I was glad that our Requisition money renewed every week because all the money Mattie had me spending was going to make me broke in one store.

After the boutique she dragged me to someplace called Claire’s. She made them pierce my ears which wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. However I don’t think I needed both ears pierced twice but she insisted upon it. She picked out the studs too: they were little skull and crossbones. She got a couple pairs of those then an assortment of silver rings. She was really forcing me into this whole Goth thing. But I let her because she was having fun.

We met up with the others at lunch. Chloe was in better spirits. Yesterday they let her out of the infirmary finally. She ordered a salad while the rest of us tackled the pizza place in the food court.

I was surprised how big the Spring Center Mall was. As far as I knew the facility was in the middle of nowhere. When we left this morning, they ushered us into two vans with blacked out windows. Trish was in ours and Greg was in the other. Beatrice, Max and the Clones +1 were in Greg’s van and the rest of got into Trish’s. The last time I’d been outside had been weeks ago and besides Clara, it had been months for the others. Barry said every once and a while they used to let him and the others out but not often. Less so in the last year or two when the facility started to really fill up.

I’m not really sure where the facility was located geographically. I know there was a forest nearby and that it had wolves. So that meant we were somewhere in the west. I also knew from stepping outside this morning it was sunny but really cold. Which meant we were probably somewhere north too? I could smell pine so that narrowed it down too and both Mattie and I thought we might have heard the ocean. So if I’m going to take a guess I’m going to say northern California or Washington. I tried running my idea pass Trish but she silenced me with a look, not wanting to answer because of the guard driving the van.
“You’re daydreaming again, Streak”

I kicked him in the shin. He yelped and we laughed. “I was just thinking about what to do now”

Mattie whispered at me. “How far do you think we’d get if we ran now?”

I looked around the Food court. There were probably a good hundred people sitting in the assorted circular tables around the spacious area. Beatrice and the Clones + 1 were several tables away. Chloe and Clara were two tables over. Donovan and Max were practically next door to us. I tried to find Trish and Greg but they were nowhere to be found. I did find our security escort though. They were real close, dressed as civvies but keeping a watchful eye on us. I’m not sure how many there were because Trish said a few groups were sent ahead. But some of them I recognized from the various stores we’d been in all morning. In fact Willis and Cross were over at a table near an Italian place, they were trying to be inconspicuous but they stuck out like sore thumbs. Of the guards that I was certain of, there were at least ten pairs.

‘There’s too many and we’re too far apart”

“We can leave some of them behind”

Mattie got kicked in the shin, harder than I meant too but it got the point across. “We’re not leaving any of them. I don’t care if its Beatrice, brainwashed Holly or Max. They’re all coming or none of us are”

“I was only joking”

Mattie bent and rubbed her shin then stuck her tongue out at me.

We ate our food in silence. But I couldn’t help scan the room, looking for threats. I don’t know when it started but I think it was after I read one of Greg’s books. It was about covert tactics and in it there was an emphasis on knowing the room and everyone in it. After Barry showed me that BMC stuff I convinced myself I could never let my guard down as long as I was a prisoner of the Syndicate. Even though we weren’t in the facility at the moment, we were still in their control. I didn’t want to say anything to Mattie earlier, but passing through Barry’s Frager seemed to fry the tracking chip in my hand. Barry told me that night right before I was leaving. He said the same thing happened to him too. He also showed me how he created a dummy program to make it look like his chip was still working and had already inserted my chip into the software.

So technically the two of us we as free as free can be.

I saw all the exits, including one in the corner that had no one near it. All Barry and I had to do was make a run for it. It would be easy to disappear with just him and I. He had mad computer skills and I had super senses. We could disappear into the world and they’d never be able to find us. Except we weren’t alone. I looked at Mattie, woofing down her pizza and then over at Chloe and Clara. If I was going, they were too. Hell I’d even take Beatrice with us, even if it was only for a mile or two. After that the bitch was on her own.

“I need to go to the electronics store” Barry whispered in my ear.

I nodded and whispered back. “Take Mattie and Chloe with you so you don’t look so inconspicuous to our chaperons”

He smiled, kissed me on the cheek and asked Mattie if she wanted to come with him. She gobbled the rest of her pizza and jumped to her feet. They snagged Chloe on the way out and disappeared. Clara looked confused so I beckoned her over. She smiled and slipped into the seat across from me.

“I was thinking about hitting the arcade” I told her “you want to tag along”

________________________________________________________________

Coin Land was large, dank and most importantly very dark.

As soon as Clara and I entered I dropped my hood and took off my glasses. Clara looked at my eyes for a few seconds, mesmerized. I waved a hand in front of her face, breaking the spell. We slipped into the back, trying to stay away from the doors as much as possible. All the noise was perfect. There were lots of bells and whistles going off, loads of beeps and boops and lots of screaming. Both of us winced at that. Her for the overwhelming emotion and me because it was loud. We both considered splitting up but thought better of it.

I let Clara pick first. She took us right to the Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) machine. I groaned because I knew that’s where she was dragging me. She tried to get me up there and I tried once. I sucked horribly. Remember my ballet lessons? They didn’t last very long because apparently I have “no grace nor aptitude for dance”. I proved that today as I made a total ass of myself. Hey I’m mega senses shooting babe not a dance queen. I think I can live with that. Clara, on the other hand, was fantastic. She hit almost every step and smoked almost every competitor. I watched in amazement. So did someone else.

I noticed a group of thuggish looking punks when we first walked in. They were over in the corner, trying to shake a preteen down for some coins. I didn’t interfere because I didn’t want to cause a scene. That and there were six of them. They were all tell and pretty fit, dressed in baggy pants, white wife beaters and all wore identical blue bandanas somewhere on their person. It told me one thing: bad news. It also told me that these guys weren’t going to take no for an answer if something interested them. At this particular moment one them was really interested in Clara.

I know there was no one to blame for it but us. Last night, right after Trish told us we were going, the first thing Mattie did was raid her wardrobe. But not for me or her, it was for Clara. She said that there was no way she was going to allow Clara to walk around dressed like she’d just rolled out of bed. So Mattie talked her into a pair of skinny leg jeans, a skintight turtle neck and some makeup. You remember how I said Clara would be smoking hot if she dressed right, well I wasn’t lying.

Unfortunately the thug thought so too.

I walked to the DDR and butted ahead of the guy about to get on. He protested, I glared and he called me a “freaky goth bitch” before he stomped off. I got on and made another ass out of myself.

“We have to bail” I told her as we grooved along.

“But I’m about to beat the high score”

“You’re about to be someone’s score”

I cocked my head and she looked too. She saw the thug, who was smiling at her. He had his bandana wrapped around his head, Rambo style. He was one of the scrawniest of the brood but he still looked pretty threatening, especially with the butterfly knife I could see sticking out of his waistband. I wish I’d brought Reta with me. I knew I’d never be able to get “her” past mall security but I could have said she was my Seeing Eye Gun. Ok so I’m in love with my gun.
I scanned the room, looking for our security. But of course they were nowhere in sight. The whole day, Cross and Willis had been dogging and now they were gone. Sounds a bit fishy. So Clara and I finished our DDR session as abysmal as it was. I took her hand, hoping it would give off the wrong single then pecked her on the cheek. She caught on quick, wrapping her arm around my waist. The two of us started to make our way for the exit. But we were cut off, there were two thugs there. So I turned Clara around and scanned the rest of the room.

Seeing in the dark had its advantages. I could see everyone and everything. I spotted the emergency exit in the back and stirred us toward it.

‘Can you do outside?”

“I should be fine” I said as I put my glasses back on and threw up my hood.

I hoped I’d be fine.

Clara went first, pushing open the door which made a slight buzz. I took a deep breath and slipped out behind her. The sun was hot, not that I felt it. It was bright though and almost got me in the face but I dropped my head quickly enough.

‘I have to keep my head down, lead us to the nearest door”

Clara took my hand and became my guide. She walked us along the back of the building, keeping my close to the wall so I could feel my way along. WE came upon a couple of doors but they were all locked. Clara sweared a few times.

We finally found a door and as she opening it, we heard the voice.

“Hey chicas, where ya think you’re going”

“Inside” I mumbled as I pushed Clara through the door.

I jumped in a few seconds later. I could hear the thug and now the rest of his gang running toward the door. I tried to find a lock but there was none. I looked around. WE were in some kind of behind the scenes part of the mall. It was fairly cool and slightly dark. Light was coming from large overhanging lights, which were spaced enough about to cast portions of the long hall in darkness. But it wasn’t enough for me. I cursed this time.

“Run and go find help” I said, holding the door shut. “I’ll keep them at bay”

“Not on your life”.

Clara came over and held the door too. It was pointless because a few seconds later, the thugs or bangers as I know knew them to be threw themselves at the door. It didn’t take much. One could slam and both of us tumbled backwards. The force threw us into the far wall, knocking my hood off my head. I yelped in pain as a beam of light stung my face. Clara threw the hood back over my head.

She didn’t have time to ask me if I was all right though because the bangers poured into the room. There was more than six now. There was at least twelve; most of them were armed with knives. Clara’s Secret Admirer was the one who kicked the door on us. He was also the one who reached for us first. All my training came back and acted fast. I grabbed his wrist, twisted it to the side and kicked him in the groin. When he was dropping, I drove my knee into his chest and threw him down the hall. It all happened in less than thirty seconds and when he was flying, I pulled the butterfly knife from his pants.

The other bangers laughed.

“Raul got owned” said one of them as they oozed through the door.

I grabbed Clara’s wrist and started to drag her down the hall. All she could do was stare at the prone figure of Raul, lying awkwardly on the floor. Nothing I did would cause permanent damage, maybe a broken wrist and a few cracked ribs but he’d survive. It was the others guys who were going to get mangled.

Especially the one that caught up with us and grabbed my shoulder.

We both spun me around at the time; I did it with my fist though. I smashed him in the face and when he stumbled back, I punched him in the throat. It dropped him in a gasping, coughing fit. The others behind him slowed their pursuit a bit.

‘Hey Hector, you ok man?”

The goon on the floor, Hector, nodded with tears in his eyes.

“What the hell, bitch” snapped another banger as he came forward and whipped out his butterfly knife.

‘Hey I have one of those” I whipped out the stolen one.

Close quarter knife fights were not covered in the Dojo. So if I had any chance of winning this fight it had to be real quick. The guy came at me with slash but these guys were pure amateurs. I dodged the swipe, grabbed his outstretched wrist, twisted his arm and easily swiped the knife from him. Then in the same fluid motion I swung him face first into the nearby concrete wall. You could hear his nose break on contact.

Three down, nine to go.

‘Hey bitches” a voice shouted from behind us.

Clara and I spun on our heels and sure enough there were several more bangers coming in from the other side. They must have had friends. Now not only did they outnumber us but they out flanked us too. I cursed under my breath, trying to weigh my options. I had two butterfly knives now and there at least sixteen of them that were still functioning. Mr. Wall Face was now on the ground, rolling around, blood pouring over his hands.

“These are my boys” said the guy who spoke before, advancing quicker.

He was clearly the Gang Leader. He wore two blue bandanas, one like a dew rag on his head and other like an arm band. He wore dark sunglasses, had a soul patch and had one of those swaggers that people thought was cool these days. He wasn’t the first banger I’d ever encountered who thought he was God’s gift to the world. In fact compared to the real gangsters in the inner cities, these guys were kindergartners.

‘Where you been Trey” said Mr. Wall Face as he got up off the floor, his words slurred through the blood.

“My own business, that’s what” said the one called Try, their so called leader.

Clara squeezed my hand, moving behind me. Her grip on my arm was pretty tight too. I’m sure she was already feeling the pain from the bastards I had to incapacitate. I hoped she wasn’t mad at me for causing her so much pain.

Trey and Wall Face began to argue. They were talking about “business” and cuts of that “business”. I’m sure it was about drugs. But I was hardly paying to them anymore. I was looking at banger directly to Trey’s left. He looked pretty smug, leaning against the wall, cradling an aluminum bat like it was a baby. I heard the swooshing sound a split second before he was violently slammed against the wall. The other bangers didn’t react in time though. Another tried to scream and he too was slammed into the opposite wall.

The first guy’s bat clanging to floor was what finally alerted Trey. He snapped around, ready to yell at his “boys” when he actually witnessed the third guy being violently tossed into another wall. Three guys were down in a matter of seconds and all I could do was smile. What the hell took him so long? I actually heard Max a little while back, swooshing from store to store, looking for something or someone. Probably me. I knew it would only be a matter of time before he figured out where we were.

“I found him” Mattie’s voice whispered as it swirled around my head. “Are you ok?”

I couldn’t response, least these thugs thought I was nuts. Instead I snapped my fingers twice; it was a code we worked out. Two snaps was “yes” and one was “no”. We figured it might come in handy if we were ever in a situation where neither of us could speak. So far the only ones who k new the system were me, Barry and Mattie. But after today, everyone was going to know it.

‘Hang tight. Barry and I have Trish and Greg, we’re on our way”

That was a relief. Unfortunately I still had to deal with these guys until they got here. But fortunately for me, Max hadn’t yet begun to fight.

Trey looked about confused. He saw his three men on the ground but of course there was no one. He started barking at his subordinates, wanting to know which one did this. When they feigned stupid, he reached into his waistband and pulled out a gun. One of the guys closest to the far exit ran. Trey didn’t have a shot but Max did. I saw his arm before the guy did. It was a perfect close line. The guy flew into the air, nearly flipping over as he crashed into the ground several feet away from where he was hit. Sadly for us, Max’s element of surprise was blown. Not that any of them really knew what was going on in the first place.

Trey had some idea though. He began firing wildly at the walls. But of course there was no way he could hit Max because the walls were solid concrete after all. It didn’t seem to bother Trey though. He emptied an entire clip. When he was reloading, Max struck. He was quick, quicker than me. Max appeared behind him first, drove a hard elbow into the back of Trey’s neck and disappeared into the wall from which he came. As Trey stumbled back, Max jumped at him from the wall directly in front of him, punching him in the face and then disappearing into the concrete again. It was beautiful, like an insanely choreographed ballet.

Max did it a few more times, zipping in and out, landing blow after blow. Finally Trey was done, a bloodied and ruined shell of his former self.

I laughed, it was beautiful. The other bangers all stood confused, gapping at their beaten leader on the ground. All of them, except one. Mr. Wall Face. I hadn’t been paying attention and why should I have been, he was no longer a threat. But he did have a gun and he was behind me. But it wasn’t me the coward went after.

I heard Clara scream and snapped around. Wall Face, his nose a bloody pulp, had Clara in a head lock. He had a gun barrel pressed against her temple and was heaving like a mad man.

“Tell your freaky ghost friend to get out here right now!” he shouted.

Max appeared at my side, glaring at the bastard.

“What the fuck are you people?”

“Nothing that you’ll remember” said Max with a smug look as he took a step forward.

“Back off or I’ll splatter her”

“Son, drop the gun”

Greg’s voice echoed down the hall. He was standing there with Cross and Willis, all three of them were armed with Glocks. At the other end of the hall the door banged open and more guys with guns streamed in. I recognized some of them from the food court. I smiled, never happier to see Syndicate security in my entire life.

Wall Face wasn’t ready to give up. He shoved the gun harder into Clara’s temple as Greg advanced on him.

Then Wall Face screamed. It happened so quick that I didn’t even register it at first but when I realized what was happening, I was speechless. It was Clara. Her eyes were as black as night and she was clutching Wall Face’s arm in a death grip. His skin went pale, almost gray in color and his body went slack. He dropped the gun and started to drool. HE fell to his knees his eyes glassed over. Greg got to him and was about to cuff him but there was no need. HE waved his hand in front of the guy’s face but there was nothing there.

Clara broke into hysterics. She kept repeating “I didn’t mean too” over and over again. I’m not sure what she even meant to do. I walked up to Wall Face and looked into his eyes. There was still life there but it was like it had on purpose anymore. I too waved my hand in front of his face and his eyes slowly followed. I snapped my fingers but he barely reacted. What the hell did she do to him?

Mattie crashed into me first, wrapping herself around me. Then Barry was there a few seconds later, we kissed over Mattie’s head. It felt so good, his lips were so warm. Max cleared his throat behind us. I turned and beckoned him over. I gave him a hug too and whispered in his ear that he had been amazing. He blushed a bit at that. Barry shook his hand and Mattie kissed his cheek.

Trish came over and hugged us all too.

She looked at me, shook her head and said “And this is why they don’t let you leave the facility”

Photo Credit: MeetMeByTheLake2Nite

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