Boarded the train approx. half an hour ago. Subject Enjolras is already awake and alert; has been asking questions about where we are taking them and who we are. Subject Joly complained of motion-sickness and has been medicated accordingly. Subjects Prouvaire and Feuilly both reacted badly to the sedatives, but have now been stabilised.
Subject Courfeyrac tried to escape. That was a slight complication. He had the door open and would have jumped out of the moving train. It took three of our men to hold him down while he struggled. It was as though he knew exactly where he is being taken - notes say that Subj. Courfeyrac is usually an indomitably cheerful sort, but there was wild fear in him today. He shouted that he would not let us change him; that he would not lose himself.
How wrong he is.
Subject Grantaire seems oddly aware of his fate, too, but he is resigned to it. He knows what we will do to him, and he sees no way out. Almost feel sorry for the boy. Things will be better when he realises that this is all for his own good. Their lives will be so much easier when they are without pain; without fear; without feeling. It is better to feel nothing at all than to feel everything. When they see that for themselves, they will be grateful.
We have had to put Subject Courfeyrac in cuffs; the sedatives seem to have little effect on him. He shouts at us and tears at the cuffs, and sometimes cries. He makes the other subjects uneasy. My associate wanted to get rid of him, but I would not have it. We must do this the right way; no cutting corners.
We will be back at the facility within the hour. Have everything ready.
— Dr. R. Javert.
END OF REPORT. THIS REPORT WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN 30 MINUTES.
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There were nine boys in the train-compartment. Nine boys from different parts of the city, but all with the same look of fear in their eyes. All, that was, except for one. This boy, angular and fair-haired, with an aquiline nose and solemn, deep-set eyes, was impassive. Ten minutes into the journey, he had stirred from his sedative-induced stupor and began to fire brisk, direct questions at the blue-uniformed official who sat in a corner of the carriage, watching them all. But the man had said nothing, and so after a time, the boy had fallen quiet.
The boy who sits opposite him was slumped against the window. His eyes are closed slackly and his breathing is shallow and ragged. The fair-haired youth is concerned for him, but presently, his intent gaze strays, landing on the boy who tried to escape. This boy is Subject Courfeyrac. Enjolras – for that is the name by which we will come to know the fair-haired boy – knows this because he heard one of the officials say so, when they were discussing what to do with him.
There is a cut just above Subject Courfeyrac's right eye. It doesn't look deep, but it's dripping a slow, viscous trickle of blood, and the other boy doesn't try to blink it away. He's a year or two younger than Enjolras; lithe and fit, with a mop of unruly dark hair and eyes that are a darker blue than Enjolras' own. He guesses him to be from a fairly wealthy family; his shirt has some brand-name Enjolras has never heard of stamped on the pocket. The boy called Courfeyrac has stopped struggling and gone limp, for now, his head tilted back against the seat. He's breathing hard, a vein standing out in his neck. Even from here, Enjolras can see where his wrists are red and inflamed from the amount he's been tugging and pulling at his bonds.
For the first time in at least an hour, Enjolras opens his mouth to speak.
"I'm not going to tell you it'll be alright," he says, "But if you struggle, you're only giving them what they want." He glances pointedly over at the still-silent official. "They like to see us like this; desperate."
Courfeyrac lifts his head, sitting up a little straighter. "How do you know what they want?" he asks, but his voice isn't unfriendly; just tense. With another quick look at the blue-uniformed man, Enjolras twists around, leaning his back against the window, the better to look at the younger boy.
Enjolras lifts his shoulders in a shrug. "I make it my business to know things like that," he says cryptically, and the boy sitting opposite Courfeyrac sniggers.
Outside, fields roll endlessly by; an expanse of yellow-brown corn. Enjolras has never been this far out of the city, before.
"I'm going to get out," says Courfeyrac, "I will, you know. I'm not going to let them – let them do that to me."
"Do what?" asks Enjolras, bluntly. Though not shy about showcasing what he does know, he is apparently equally honest in admitting what he doesn't know. But Courfeyrac swallows hard, his lips moving soundlessly for a moment, hands clenching at his sides. Then he says nothing.
"Do what?" the boy opposite Courfeyrac parrots Enjolras, but his tone is mocking rather than blunt, "The great escape-artist isn't afraid, is he?" There's a hollowness behind his words, and Enjolras realises that he isn't trying to be malicious.
"Wouldn't have tried to escape, if he wasn't scared," a voice from the other side of the carriage startles Enjolras, though it is only a low mumble. He leans forward to peer around Courfeyrac at the speaker, who sits propped against the window in the same spot Enjolras is, only at the opposite side of the aisle. As he watches, this boy tries fitfully to sit straighter. "Anyway, we're all scared." He turns his head to look in the general direction of Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and the boy who had accused Courfeyrac of being afraid. Large, hazel eyes blink owlishly in a thin face as the boy tries to focus. He is, Enjolras thinks, almost the exact opposite of Courfeyrac. His clothes are threadbare and too large; his light-brown hair much in need of cutting. A foster kid, Enjolras decides.
"I'm not afraid," the mocking boy responds, "I'm resigned." He stretches his arms up over his head and then lets them down with a low, slow sigh. But his eyes dart towards the two officials bracketing the door to the next compartment, as though expecting them to say something.
They do not. Enjolras wonders what, precisely, they are playing at, letting the subjects talk amongst themselves like this.
"Re...signed...?" Blink. Blink. Blink. Owl-eyes working to dispel the last mind-numbing traces of the sedative. Courfeyrac looks over at the boy.
"What's your name?"
He opens his mouth to speak, but the official in the corner gets there first.
"Subject Feuilly," he says, "You are not to engage with the others on a personal level. That means no first names."
Subject Feuilly sags back against the window, though this time, Enjolras thinks, as a result of dejection rather than any sedative.
So there is Courfeyrac. And there is Feuilly. Enjolras wonders what the others are called. None of them, aside from the sardonic youth opposite Courfeyrac, have said anything much. There is a boy with large, frameless glasses and messy lightish-brown hair, and a boy whose spiky hair has been dyed bright scarlet, and whose leather jacket blends in with the black leather of the back of the seat behind him. There is a round-faced boy whose head is startlingly, gleamingly bald, and beside him a reedy little thing who complained of feeling sick shortly after Enjolras had first woken up. All except for this last boy are still unconscious, their breathing deep and even. That makes nine, Enjolras realises. Nine boys.
"Where's the last one?" he asks suddenly, "The last boy. You usually take us in groups of ten."
Predictably, none of the officials say anything.
"They're not going to answer, you know," says the mocking boy; the resigned boy. He smiles a wry smile. "I'm Subject Grantaire," he says pointedly, "Who're you?"
There is the briefest of pauses. Then, "Enjolras," says he, simply.
"How can you two be so normal right now?" Courfeyrac's outburst is so sudden that both Enjolras and Grantaire startle. He yanks at his chains again, making them clink slightly. "We're trapped! They took us and drugged us and – and we – and we have to get out! You can't just – just –" but he breaks off, head bowed and shoulders shaking. "Aneille," he says, under his breath, "And Marius. And Cosette. What if – what if - ?" And, though he cannot complete the question, Enjolras knows what he's thinking. What if I never see them again?
Presently, the train begins to slow. Outside, the colour of the sky is changing, shot through with pale lilacs and brilliant oranges. Evening.
"We have arrived," one of the officials at the door announces unnecessarily, and as the train hisses to a halt, Enjolras fights to quell the faintest flicker of panic uncoiling itself at the back of his mind. He must not lose his nerve.
He must not let them win.