Page 24 of Jarran

“I don’t know. Hard to tell time in here.” He flexed his hands inside the mag-cuffs. She could see the muscles in his arms straining, and she understood. He wanted to pull her close. His whole body was angled toward her, leaning in, but the cuffs kept his hands locked together and the best he could manage was reaching out and tilting her chin. He turned her head carefully and looked at the side of her neck where the wand had connected. He winced. “Red mark. Swollen. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them.”

“It’s not your fault.” It wasn’t, but the look on his face told her that he felt he’d failed her.

“Isn’t it?” He dropped his hands.

She looked at him properly now and knew she had to accept the fact that he was probably the only person who was keeping her alive. She wasn’t his doctor anymore, as she’d resigned that morning. The forms had been filed after a vague conversation with Silca about advanced methods that she’d sweated through. Dr. Evie Carr was no longer professionally responsible for Patient Nine. But instead of taking a shuttle to the nearest transit hub, as she’d intended after their final session, they were prisoners together. She wasn’t sure what they were to each other now, beyond two people in a cell who had kissed, once.

The weird part was, she’d only ever seen Jarran in the agricultural bay. That was the version of him she’d come to know. In this cold metal box, cuffed and bruised, with no soil under his hands and no plants to tend? Well, that was disorienting.

“I’ll live.” She reached out and touched his jaw where the bruise was spreading. “What about you? What happened to your face?”

“Fought when they handled you rough.” He said it flatly with no self-pity. “I stopped after they shocked you.”

She dropped her hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” He sat back on his heels and rested his elbows on his knees. “You didn’t hit me.”

Evie let out a chuckle, knowing he hadn’t intended for that to sound humorous, even though it did. “So, they took us to this ship?” She looked past him, through the energy barrier, into the open space beyond.

“Yes.” His gaze followed hers and hardened. “Very big. The guards…” He waved a hand toward the people out there who were not, at the moment, paying attention to them. “They act strange around me.”

Evie knew why that was, but didn’t know where to begin explaining that to him. Instead, she took in the space. It appeared to be a converted cargo hold, meaning it was enormous with high ceilings and simple, bright lighting. Equipment lined the walls. Weapons racks. Training mats. Holographic targeting systems. Raiders were everywhere, prowling, talking, and mostly watching the activities happening in the room’s open center. There, moving in synchronized formation, were ten young females.

Most of them were shorter than Evie, with close-cropped hair in shades that ranged from silver to pale green. Their skin had a faint luminescence that marked them as not fully human, but Evie knew there was very likely some human DNA in them. Knowing what she did about Pella Rin’s experiments in the Sifters, it was easy to guess that these females were more hybrids. They wore identical dark bodysuits and moved in perfect unison. Spinning, striking, blocking. They were doing combat drills, and their precision was scary to witness. Their faces were blank. They moved with the efficiency of machines. These women could kick her ass with almost no effort.

A guard strode among them, barking commands. The females responded instantly, pivoting into new stances, switching from hand-to-hand techniques to weapons without a beat of hesitation. They executed a disarming move so fluid, Evie let out a low whistle.

Evie glanced up at Jarran, who was also watching them. The furrow in his brow had deepened and his cuffed hands pressed together. Something was working behind his eyes. Was it recognition, fighting through fog?

“Do you know what this is?” she asked quietly.

He was quiet for a while as he worked through a thick swallow. “I think…” He stopped. Started again. “I made this. Something like this. Before.”

He didn’t elaborate and he didn’t have to. She could see the horror on his face, building behind his eyes, crawling up from wherever his memory stored things his conscious mind couldn’t reach.

“Tell me.” His voice was rough. “Tell me what I’m looking at. I need to know.”

Evie hesitated. Two cycles ago, she would never have just told him. She’d have doled it out in clinical portions, calibrated to his emotional tolerance. But she wasn’t his doctor anymore and the truth was standing in formation thirty feet away. He deserved to know.

“Durik, the male who captured us, was Pella Rin’s second-in-command. His lieutenant, of sorts. After Pella Rin was captured and the Sifters scattered, Durik went underground. He was never captured.” She kept her voice low, watching the guards beyond the barrier. “What you’re looking at is his operation. He got hold of Pella Rin’s bioengineering research and he’s producing a second generation of hybrid females.”

Jarran’s eyes didn’t leave the training floor. “Hybrid.”

“Engineered. Created in a laboratory by combining genetic material from multiple species.” She watched his face carefully. “The first generation of engineered females was designed to be resistant to the effects of the terti flower, which is a powerful, highly addictive drug that’s been trafficked across the quadrants for decades. Processing the flowers is dangerous. Workers become addicted and eventually incapacitated. Pella Rin’s solution was to create females who could handle and process the terti without being affected by it. They could work the flowers indefinitely without addiction.”

Jarran’s expression didn’t change. He was processing the information, and she couldn’t imagine what he had to be thinking.

“These females are different,” Evie continued. “The first generation was designed for labor. It looks like these are being trained for combat.” She nodded toward the formation. “They must have been created with a different mix of species because they do look a bit different from the others. These show instant obedience, no hesitation, and no individual expression. They follow commands without question.”

“Like I did,” Jarran said. His voice was barely audible. “In the memories. The laboratory. The masked male gave orders and I couldn’t refuse.”

Evie mentally filed that away. It could be significant. “I don’t know if it’s the same mechanism, but the result is the same.” Absolute obedience. Engineered compliance. These females weren’t just fighters. They were living weapons, but this was hardly a new tactic. Super soldiers had been made with varying results for centuries. There had to be more going on with these women beyond just fighting.

She saw one of the females execute a sequence of strikes against a holographic target. Each impact was met with a shower of sparks and the sound of spitting electricity, but the female’s face remained blank. She seemed to absorb the impact and kept going, as if she felt no pain.

“It’s Pella Rin’s science,” Evie said in a whisper. “Durik took the foundation and built something worse.”

Jarran opened and closed his fists. A low growl came from him. Evie had been with him as he cried over his brother and she’d watched him shake with terror after Pella Rin’s influence briefly invaded his mind. But this was different. For the first time, the fragments in his head weren’t abstract horrors. They were real. Real people, stripped of autonomy and trained to kill.