Author's Notes: This story starts slow, I know, but picks up. I takes a little while to get there is all. Also the begining will seem a bit spacey. You'll learn what is happening just as Brea is. All in good time.
Phase one: Entrapment
Chapter Two
The lights abruptly flicked on and, like every time before, Brea squinted against the optical assault. She heard faint hisses and moans from people in the other cages as they too resented the sudden light.
Her migraine had diminished over a long period to a barely noticeable ache. Her body was still stiff as a plank of wood, her movements creaky and rigid, but thankfully the searing pain in her arm had also been quelled down to a light burn. After inspecting the offended arm, she found a swollen bump on the back of her shoulder, just beyond her range of sight. It stung maddeningly for her to touch it, but like a child picking at a healing scab, she continued to finger it (out of curiosity then anything else). It had been dark when the swollen bump had unexpectedly popped and she felt warm blood, and possibly puss, ooze from the new wound. She hissed in pain when the skin broke, causing her to shiver involuntarily. She cleaned her hands by swiping them onto the padded cushion that lined the floor of her cage.
Since waking up in the strange place, the lights had come on six times, with long periods of darkness in between. During the dark periods, she could hear people crying. Each 'light time', a robot (there were three different ones she had seen so far) would walk into the room down the line of cages, looking into them to peer in at the inhabitance. One of the robots seemed slightly OCD and took his time peering into each individual cage for a few seconds before moving onto the next.
On the sixth 'light time' one of the robots (its body colored an obnoxious yellow and purple) had walked in carrying a strange oval tank with a small think hose as the end. It would pause in front of each cage, slip the think hose inside the cage over a container near the bars and fill it half way with water. Brea had drunk from the water with life craving earnest, ignoring the metallic taste.
Her dire thirst quelled, she sat back against the wall and waited as the other cages were filled.
A sudden harsh noise, over laid with faint static, caused her to jump, bumping her still healing shoulder painfully against the wall. Curious, she crawled over to the bars and peered out by sticking her head through. She absently noted that a few other people were doing the same. The robot was crouched low, looking into a cage near the far end. Its eyes glowed bright red and it punched the floor with its fist, causing several of the curious onlookers to flinched and pull back behind the bars. The robot looked up from the cage and barked something in a foreign and unfamiliar language. Another voice answered back and Brea had the immediate impression that the second voice was not happy.
Another robot, body colored black, came into view and walked down the rows to stand next to its fellow, bending over with his hands on his knees. Both looked inside the cage and there was a quick exchanging of words, none of it meaning anything to Brea.
The black robot rose and tapped its partner's shoulder, saying something and gesturing vaguely to the cage. Brea decked back inside as the robot past by, disappearing from sight for a moment, before reappearing with what looked like a plastic bag. As it past by her cage to strange next to the other once more, Brea stuck her head back out to view the strange behavior.
The yellow and purple robot looked up to the black one and whined something (Brea had the unexplainable feeling it was whining about something), and the black robot's body emitted a strange revving noise that sounded alarmingly like a growl. The yellow robot opened the cage and reached inside. When the hand pulled back, Brea gasped in horror.
Pinched between two of the robot's fingers like some sort of diseased rodent, was a person, a woman. Her body was limp in the robot's hesitant grasp, being held onto by one ankle while the rest of her dangled unseemly, red hair sprouting from her head. Brea heard the other human spectators all gasp and some of them cried out in shock or anger or lament. She heard some man from below her yell "You fucking bastards!"
Both robots looked up around them at the sudden outcry from the imprisoned. The black robot took a step forward, giving them all a sweeping glare as it yelled at them, "Quiet or you'll all be going in the incinerator!"
Brea didn't know if it was simply the fact that the robot had spoken in English or that its tone had startled them all into obedience, but nevertheless after its threat was made, there was not one sound to be heard from the cages. The yellow and purple robot dropped the dead woman into the plastic bag and twisted it shut.
Brea didn't see exactly what happened next, but a sudden movement caught her eyes and she saw the yellow and purple robot abruptly reach out to his right as something ran past its leg and grabbed at it, dropping the plastic bag that held the deceased woman with a sickening crunch. She realized with a silent gasp that it was a person. It was a young woman, maybe a year younger then Brea perhaps.
Her screams echoed hauntingly in the space and there was muffled gasps and cries from the other humans. The robot got to its feet, both hands clasped around the struggling, human and kicked the door to the cage shut. The black robot turned back around and took the young girl from its companion wordlessly and held her against his chest with one hand.
It turned and spoke again in aloud commanding voice with a kind of metallic accent, "Listen closely fleshlings, because I will not be repeating myself. You and your planet are now under Cybertronian rule and you are property of the Kaon Trading Company," The robot glanced down at the captive girl, "Any disobedience, any disruptions, any complaints, or any more attempts of escape will result in immediate termination."
Brea's mind screamed in horror, believing the black robot would simply kill the poor girl right there in front of them all for her own attempt at freedom. The young girl had gone limp and docile in the metal giant's grip, small pale hands splayed against the dark cruel metal.
"It will not be quick," The robot continued, taking deliberately slow steps down the row of cages, undeniably aware that it now commanded the humans' terror filled attention, "It will not be pleasant, and it will be without mercy. Insubordination will not be tolerated in any form. Learn your place."
Brea coward in her cage, hugging her shoulders and shivering with fear, and tears gathered at the edges of her eyes. Her heart seized in her chest as the robot stopped next to her cage and peered inside, eyes glowing intensely. She could see, and hear, the young girl whimpering and sobbing, just a few yards away. The girl looked like she might have been 15, curly strawberry red hair, and freckles on her face. For a moment, their eyes met and Brea was filled with so many emotions it was hard to tell one from another, she felt completely…indescribably scared. The girl's eyes were red and puffy, she'd been crying for a long time, her green eyes had lost all luster and were a dull shade. She looked as though her spirit had been broken. Brea vaguely wondered if that dead woman had been her mother. Her heart lurched as her thoughts trailed to her own mother. But the robot continued before her thoughts could congeal.
"If you are smart and obey unconditionally, no harm will come to you," The robot turned away and continued on past Brea's cage to glare into the others. Then its voice turned soft, almost reassuring, and it added, "You're expensive commodities and it gives us no pleasure to reduce our inventory by even a single unit," Brea watched the robot lift his other hand towards the girl. Her heart froze in anticipation for the horror she was about to witness…but it never came. Instead of crushing the life out of the young girl as she, and possibly the other humans, suspected, the robot ran the crook of one finger gently across the top of the fluffy mess of red hair, almost reassuringly. The girl turned rigid, expecting death at any moment, "We will give you no reason to fear termination," The robot turned and handed the girl to the other robot, unharmed, "If you give us no reason to implement it."
The yellow and purple robot took the girl and walked back down the row to the original cage and placed her inside, shutting the door after her. The yellow and purple robot, a good head shorter then the black one, took a sweeping glance of the 'inventory' and said something to the black robot in the alien language they had been using before.
The Black robot looked them all over too, its lips turning into contemplative frown. "I warn the males now," The black robot added, "All mating attempts will result in castration and any resulting procreation will result in termination."
With that, the two robots left, carrying the water tank and the plastic bag that held the dead woman.
The lights flickered and died. The dark was filled with hopeless sobs.
In the dark, she absently tugged on the metal collar around her neck, hunger having weakened her considerably. It was hard to muster energy to do much and the fact that there was nothing much to do but wait around and wallow in fear and uncertainty seemed only to drain her further. She resigned herself to lay prone on the cushioned floor, tugging and fingering the metal collar, and quietly humming to herself. She ran songs in her mind and whenever she came to a line of the lyric she couldn't recall, Brea would simply start again until she remembered the song in its entirety. It was successful in momentarily distracting her fidgeting mind from the reality that seemed too far fetch to be real, but whenever she heard a sob, or a muffled whimper, a curse, or a cough, she would return to the present and have to find a way of explaining it to herself. She knew so little about what was happening, but what little she did know picked at her brain and she tried to fill in the gaps. None of it seemed to be leading anywhere positive so she did her best to distract herself from it.
A few hours in the dark made her other senses heighten to their peak, and it made the situation all the more unbearable as the latrines were being put to use. She had one as well. It was nothing more then a low rimmed tank in the back corner of the cage, half the size of her water tank in the front of the cage. During the times of light when the Robots came to inspect them for whatever reason, Brea had the chance to look around her small confined space. It seemed to be a perfect square, as far as she could tell, and it seemed rather spacious compared to how the other humans seemed to be crammed into theirs. She could lay down with her hands and feet extended and they would still be a foot or so away from touching either side of the cage. The cage itself was mostly solid walls of metal with the one wall being open, lined with the vertical bars, her only view to the outside.
She was asleep when it happened. The cage around her buckled and lurched and she cried out as she was jolted awake by the abrupt and terrifying motion. She heard others do the same as their own cages rocked and swayed. There was a long moment of silence in the space where all the humans sat in the cages, listening. They could hear strange scraping and banging sounds, muffled, but audible.
And then all at once, the lights turned on and there was a clamor of foot steps and raised voices yelling out in the alien language. Multiple robots filed past, all of the snarling something at one another. From her cage, Brea watched as a robot stopped and picked up the topmost cage on the row across from her. The humans inside cried out in chorus and as soon as they did, the other caged humans were sent into a panic. Confusion and panic took over and before she new it, everyone was screaming and crying out. The robots snarled and yelled at the humans with little effect in the way that they presumably wished. Instead, it only seemed to make them all the more scared.
Brea scampered to the back of her cage and curled herself into a ball, eyes shut tight. She mumbled wordlessly in her mind, an incoherent babble of 'pleasegodnononopleasedon'tletthemtakemepleaseohgodno'.
Her heart nearly stopped altogether when she felt the ground beneath her lift and rock. She uncurled and splayed her hands on the floor, fingers stretched like a gecko, to find purchase of the swaying cage and she felt herself turn ill when the cage suddenly lurched and dropped. The sudden movement stopped as soon as it began and there was a light click as her cage was placed onto the floor. She looked out just in time to see the faint glimpse of giant feet walk away.
A loud hissing sound of released air pressure made her jump up a few feet and cry out in surprise. The room then became frigidly cold and Brea wrapper her arms around her shoulders against the chill. Beyond the bars, she could see other caged humans, whose confines were on the floor, being picked up by the giant robots. Brain spinning a million miles an hour, Brea's eyes darted around rapidly to try and decipher what was going on. But before she could even reach the bars, her cage lurched again and it slid across the floor as it was pushed away, causing Brea to tumble backwards.
When she looked back up, and after her head stopped spinning, Brea looked out to see several of the large robots wandering around, picked up the cages and walking out of her line of vision. She watched as one robot bent down and picked up a cage and began to walk away with it when an angry voice shouted out at him. The black robot from before stalked up to the one carrying the cage and barked something, pointing in Brea's direction. The robot glanced the way the black robot pointed and then at the cage in its arms, said something, and then walked over. Brea held her breath as the robot neared, and then deposited the cage adjacent to her.
From that angle, Brea could see inside the cage. There were two young women, maybe 19 or 20, sitting in the back clinging to each other.
"Hey!" Brea called out to them. Both girls jerked and looked her way. "Are you guys alright?"
"What's going on?" One of the girls sobbed. "Where are they taking us?"
"I don't know," Brea replied, feeling as hopeless as they sounded. "Did you see anything?"
"They're taking everyone outside," The other girl said, sounding slightly more collected then her friend, "There's a huge ramp and they're taking everyone outside, I don't—"
The girl was cut off a robot approached and dropped yet another cage next to their collective; the cage held only one person and again it was a young woman, possibly 16 or so. Brea's stomach lurched at the realization so far, the ones being set aside were all females. Horrendous and terrifying thoughts about the significance of that fact made her feel ill and her arms grow cold. Two more cages were added, both holding young women. One of the young girls looked no older then 12. She was crying and wringing the hem of her shirt, dirty blonde hair matted and tangled from lack of combing. Brea had no idea how many cages there were altogether before they were moved, but she counted roughly 25 as the robots disappeared from vision, carrying the human filled cages away. The cold grew worse and she shivered while her teeth chatted involuntarily.
There was a long moment where she thought she might freeze to death sitting there. But no sooner did she have the thought that they were moved, again. A robot walked up to the collection of women, pushing what might have been a trolley of some kind in front of him, but it has no wheels. It hovered in the air as if it were magic. The rebellious part of Brea's mind boggled at it, her eyes seeming to attach to the rim of the hover trolley that glowed a bright green. The cages were loaded up one by one, stacked carefully on top of one another.
Brea curled into a ball and wedged herself into a corner, rubbing her arms and trying to keep somewhat warm. The ground lurched once more and there was a sense of movement. Gazing beyond the bars, the space she saw nothing but for who knows how long past by. The space had been some sort of giant room, walls made of metal with crates of unknown content staked neatly in the far corner. There was a sudden dip and her world tilted as the trolley slide down a ramp. From her view, Brea could see the break in the wall where the ramp began and on one side of the break was the dark space.
Although she didn't know it at the time, on the other side of the break in the wall was an entirely other world.
It was freezing, painfully freezing. She saw the other cages that had been unloaded were staked on top of one another with several of the robots standing around, draping green tarps over them. There were other robots, lots of them, all running around doing things. She did have much time to observe them because almost as soon as the trolley slid off the ramp, a tarp was thrown over her cage and everything went dark. As she sat there, the temperature began to rise and she rose from her corner, grateful for the heat. There was more sense of movement as the trolley was pushed along and it lasted for a long while. The sounds changed every once in a while almost like if someone had switched records, like they were going into different rooms maybe. When it finally did stop, they sat there for perhaps a half hour before the tarps were abruptly removed.
The room they were in now was painfully bright. It was a white square room with a large square table in the middle with a silver metal surface. Around the room, built into the walls, were more cages. All of them seemed to be empty. There were more robots. Brea must have been on the bottom of the stacked cages because all she could see of them were their feet.
The two new robots had a short, somewhat heated, conversation with the trolley driver, before there was the sound of an automatic door opening and closing. Brea supposed the trolley driver must have left.
Fear gnawed at her insides as she awaited for whatever was to happen next. However, it was not something she expected.
"What a glitch head," One of the robots muttered in English. Brea perked up and listened.
"It can't be helped," The other replied, "They don't have any experience with organics."
"Why didn't they hire a more experienced crew then? Primus, they should have at least brought one of us along to supervise the transport. Swindle told me one of the special orders deactivated during the trip too."
"Sucks for Swindle. Who was the customer?"
"Some debutant from High Towers. Vortex was pretty fritzed about it."
"I would too," The other replied with a laugh. "Anyone from High Tower orders something from you, you slagging well better deliver it. I wouldn't want one of those rich glitches mad at me."
"Not to mention how much credits they lost because of it."
"That too. Frankly, I'm surprised they didn't loose the lot of them. Fragging glitch heads. Organics need more then water to survive."
"Well, let's get them refueled before another keels over and we loose some of our cut."