The Sphinx Project (2 page)

"Has it received a dose of AH four-sixteen yet?" She didn't even look at me.

I hated the way she spoke. Her southern drawl reminded me of Mom's voice. I didn't want my memory of Mom to be associated with this woman.

"Yes. Its immune system disposed of the organisms and expelled them from the body within two hours. It suffered no ill effects."

"Good." The first woman nodded, jotting something down in her notes. "WH three-oh-nine?"

"Yes. We were unable to tell exactly how long the virus remained within the body, but it wasn't present twenty-four hours after introduction. The subject exhibited minor symptoms, including fatigue, swelling of the salivary glands and headache between eight and fourteen hours after introduction."

"KN four forty-one?"

"Not yet."

She reached over and switched on a small recording device. "The Sphinx Project, subject Three Seventy-Six. Doctor Sharnee Foulds administered twelve units of KN four forty-one intramuscularly at thirteen-hundred hours on Thursday, November twenty-ninth." The woman spoke slowly to ensure the recording was clear. She opened one of the drawers in the trolley and extracted a small white box.

I curled my fingers around the arms of the chair. She emptied the contents onto the tray and my body tensed. No matter how often I had to deal with needles, they always sent my brain haywire. I couldn't help it.

I tried to moderate my breathing. My heart pounded in my ears. I was warm all over, too warm. The woman drew some sort of serum into the barrel of the syringe and my lungs accelerated. She approached. My eyes began to swim, my head thumped.

The tip of the needle hurt, piercing my skin; she gradually pushed it past the thin barrier, deep into my muscle. The lab techs were much faster than this. She depressed the plunger, forcing the tube's contents into my body. I gasped for breath. It seemed to last forever.

When she finally pulled the needle from my arm, the needle tore my skin.

Again, I tried to control my breathing and this time was slightly more successful. I wasn't surprised to find wetness on my face. Tears often appeared when they brought out the needles. I never meant to cry and I never sobbed or anything. The tears just leaked out.

"The subject is to be monitored at one-hour intervals over the next twenty-four hours. If after this time symptoms persist, observation frequency will be adjusted accordingly." She switched off the recording device, and the other collected her files. They both left the room without a backward glance.

No one came to retrieve me for some time, but I didn't mind. I was pleased the session was over so promptly—I hated being a guinea pig. Today hadn't been too bad so far; it appeared they'd chosen to see how far they could push my immune system...again.

When Mom died, their experiments had been especially cruel; they'd finally been able to test exactly how far our ability to heal stretched, which meant they had to give us something to heal from. The scars had long since faded, but the memories remained.

The guards eventually returned and, after locking my hands behind me, we left the room. They guided me to our little canteen, a room with individual tables and benches modified especially for us. The men pushed me down into my place. Turning my head, I could see that Briana and Nicole already sat in their places, but Mouse was missing.

The bright beginnings of a violet bruise blossomed along Nicole's jaw, and a sharp cut across her forehead was stitched roughly together. I couldn't hold back the frown tugging at my lips. What had Nicole done during her training sessions? And where on earth was Mouse?

I set my feet into the grooves molded in the concrete. A metal brace slid forward, locking them in place. Happy that I was secure, the guards released my wrists, allowing me to move more freely.

"Yummo," Briana murmured sarcastically at the arrival of our bowls. Nicole flinched as she reached for her food, obviously favoring her left hand.

The food wasn't actually bad. It was just boring. We'd been on controlled diets since before we were born; our mothers ate according to a strict feeding plan. The meals were balanced so we received exactly enough energy to facilitate muscular growth and training without encouraging excess flesh.

The only thing I really disliked about our diets was the lack of ice cream. In the past Mom would occasionally sneak some to us, but that was a long time ago. She'd clashed with the scientists over that several times. Now that she was gone, we had no one to smuggle in sweet treats.

When we'd cleared our bowls, one of the lab techs made his way between our tables, dispensing our daily vitamins. He paused in front of me, drawing something else from his pocket, hiding it from view.

"Hold out your hand," he ordered.

I did so. He reached forward and before I realized what was happening, a sharp burst of pain shot into my thumb. I pulled away instinctively.

"Ow!" I cradled my hand to my chest. "You could have warned me."

"We all know how that would have turned out." Everyone was aware of how much I hated needles. He pocketed the plastic device and pulled out a small microscope slide. I held out my hand again and he smeared the tiny bead of blood from the pinprick onto the thin rectangle of glass.

Before leaving the room, he set a small plastic cup containing three tablets in front of me. There was a brown liquid capsule, a white tablet and a pinky-purplish oval tablet. They were always the same. I swallowed them one at a time, washing them down with a mouthful of water while he watched.

***

Of all the things we were forced to endure, this was one of the worst. It was humiliating; there was no other way to describe it.

The washing facilities didn't allow us even the smallest amount of privacy. The showers looked like some sort of contraption a magician might use—tall cubicles standing in the middle of the room, constructed from a seemingly indestructible clear plastic.

The guards placed me inside the cubicle before locking the door.

Stepping into the cubicle, I cleared my mind and constructed my own imaginary walls between the guards and me. They never turned away, nor did they avert their eyes.

I'd come to terms with it a long time ago but it still sent shivers down my spine, knowing they watched as I undressed and washed. Pretending they weren't there was the only way I could clutch onto the last remaining shreds of my dignity.

One of the guards inserted a clear plastic key into a small hole in the enclosure, opening a window through which I placed my hands. They switched off the electromagnetic bindings before removing the cuffs.

Able to make use of my hands again, I removed my clothing, passing it piece by piece to the guard. When all of the garments were placed in the laundry bag, the guard pushed a button on the wall, activating the shower.

Water sprayed from the nozzle set into the roof of the cubicle. Using the liquid soap from the wall-mounted dispenser, I washed briskly beneath the cold water. It's never pleasant to find the water gone but the soap still streaking your skin.

As I straightened from scrubbing my toes, I became woozy. Darkness creeped in from the corners of my eyes. My feet slipped and I threw out my arms to stop myself from falling. I pressed my hands against the slick plastic walls, trying to hold myself upright until the dizziness passed. By the time I could move again, I barely had enough time to rinse off before the water stopped automatically and drained through the grate below me.

The guard passed a thin white towel to me. At least this guy wasn't a complete jerk. Some of them tried to throw the towel onto the wet ground or made rude gestures behind the glass.

I dried myself thoroughly before yet another set of identical white clothing was passed to me. I held my hands out and they reattached the cuffs, activating the magnets before opening the clear plastic door.

Usually I went straight back to our room, but today they stopped at one of the labs instead. There was only one person in there, a blond tech I'd seen several times in the past. She was probably one of the friendliest members of the tech staff, occasionally giving a small smile of greeting when no guards were paying attention.

She plugged a stethoscope into her ears and listened to my heart and lungs before checking my blood pressure. She peered into my eyes with a bright flashlight and glanced down my throat. After writing her notes into a folder, she nodded. The guards led me away.

It was a relief to finally enter our small room, more so after the men closed the door behind me. I was becoming more than a little rough around the edges; my head throbbed.

I ignored the other girls, shuffling from the door to my bed. Darkness clawed at the edges of my vision again. I curled up on the mattress, tucking my knees into my stomach.

"How are you feeling?" Nicole climbed in behind me. She wasn't moving smoothly, still favoring her left side.

"Not too bad yet. It's only starting." It often took a few hours for the viruses to take effect. "What did you have today?"

Every day we had training sessions, usually several in a row. We normally started with physical conditioning in the morning before general classes, where we learned languages and science. After lunch, the real training began. We were taught practical skills that ranged from wilderness survival and martial arts to vehicle control and weapon maintenance. Anything that would contribute to us becoming the perfect spies.

Sometimes, like this afternoon, they used the sessions to conduct tests and experiments. They weren't as frequent as they'd been in the past, but they still did them.

We were given this morning off after our mission yesterday; a rare but welcome occurrence.

"A weapons session with Mouse." Nicole shifted her weight to make herself more comfortable.

"Where is she?"

"She's in the hospital tonight." She sounded ashamed. I didn't need to ask what had happened. When they first pitted us against each other, Mom was alive and they'd given us blunt weapons. Now we used real ones. If we didn't give them blood in a training session, they found other ways to get it. None of us liked hurting each other, although Briana seemed to have less of a problem with it than the rest of us; she saw it as part of the process. The training sessions were a topic we generally avoided once back within our cell. Otherwise, the guilt over hurting each other ate us up.

"I had that creepy old guy supervising my shower today too," she continued, changing the subject. "He's so gross. Seriously, what do they think we're going to do? Rip the soap dispenser off the wall and bludgeon ourselves to death with it? If I really wanted to kill myself, he wouldn't be able to do anything about it."

I sighed, snuggling back into the warmth of her body. Nicole was only a few minutes older than me, but she was very much my big sister. She was so confident and strong.

I relaxed into her as she held me tight, my eyes drifting shut. We often slept together. I was safe with her right beside me. My protector.

Chapter Two

I woke screaming from a nightmare that vanished from my memory the second my eyes opened. I struggled, fighting to remember exactly where I was. Nicole, who'd roused me, held me close.

My heart pounded and I was sweating so much it was like I'd been running for hours. My muscles hurt, my vision blurred and my throat was dry.

With her uninjured hand, Nicole stroked her thumb along my cheekbone. Mom had done the same when we were sick or unable to sleep; it always helped.

I tried to relax, attempting to drown myself in the blissful fog of happy dreams. I hoped that whatever abominations my subconscious had created before would leave me to rest in peace.

I was so close—swimming through that strange world between waking and sleep—when my cuffs sprang together, jolting me straight back into reality. Nicole whimpered in pain at the sudden movement.

I couldn't face moving. I didn't even open my eyes when Nicole rolled away. My head ached and my entire body hurt like I'd been run over by a steamroller. Apart from Nicole crawling into her own bed, the room was still. Briana would be awake, but she knew the drill.

I heard the beep of the electrical lock and the scraping of the hinges in the door. I could imagine exactly how they looked spilling into the room, automatic weapons directed at each of us.

Someone else entered, hastening across the concrete on soft-soled shoes. Even through the haze surrounding my mind, I could still hear the difference between those and the guards' heavy boots. Hands moved along my side, pulling me gently onto my back.

I pried my eyes open slightly—it was the blond lab tech from earlier—then squeezed them shut again almost instantly. The light seemed to burn directly past my pupils into my skull. She placed her cool palm to my forehead and pressed the flat disc of her stethoscope against my skin.

"Sorry." Her voice was so quiet there was no way the guards would have heard her. She carefully separated my eyelids with her fingers. She'd shifted to block the majority of the light from the bare bulb on the ceiling, but it still hurt when the brightness hit my eyes. She smoothed the hair back from my face, allowing my eyes to close again.

She stepped away from me but didn't leave. Something buzzed slightly as she spoke. "Could you please send Doctor Foulds or one of the others to the girls' room?"

The crackle sounded again. Another voice confirmed that the woman had been sent for. Though my brain was sluggish, I had to wonder if anyone in this place slept except us.

When she arrived, the doctor spoke loudly, not bothering to lower her voice so Briana and Nicole could sleep.

A lot of what they said made no sense. I seemed to fade in and out of their conversation, but I did catch several phrases.

"Her body can't handle it…"

"Give it time…"

"Temperature has skyrocketed."

"Isolation ward."

Their voices faded as their footsteps moved away, but I knew the guards remained—I could hear them.

"What's this?" one of them barked, the noise filling our small room, making me jump. His booted feet stomped across the room, headed for Briana's bed.