Chapter 3: Labs


The smell was the first thing he noticed as he cracked open his eyes, his nostrils flaring in disgust as he caught the scent of his sweat-stained clothes and his greasy hair – his eyes started to water from the power of the aroma as it mingled with the cold air that also irritated his senses. Coughing, Bart tried to roll over, but pain erupted from his ankle, the metal shackle holding his leg in place and forbidding swift movement. Quickly flopping back over to realign his ankle, he slowly shoved himself upwards into a sitting position, his whole body fuzzy from both discomfort and exhaustion. He could feel the bags under his eyes and the snot dried under his nose – sleeping on the snowy ground without either a tent or a cot had left him vulnerable to the weather overnight. Realizing he'd survived being left out in the elements, Bart lifted his hands, examining each finger, testing them by trying to bend them. His movements were numb and blockish, but despite the initial resistance, he smiled slightly when he discovered his hands had fared well with his scrappy gloves providing some warmth. His skin was pale though, with cracked lips, blue fingertips, and flushed cheeks. He definitely wasn't in good shape.

Beetle had left him bolted in the middle of camp, where he'd made his speech – Bart cringed as memory swept over him, forcing him to relive the enforcer's ultimate unveiling, his final conclusion – that wicked smear of a grin that'd coated Blue Beetle's face as he so readily announced where Bart would be going – The Labs.

The Labs were legendary. Countless horror stories filtered themselves around camp, scaring younger children so they wouldn't step out of line and providing a warning to the adults. It wasn't a fact how many were true and how many were just glorified myths, but they all painted a daunting picture of the Labs. From every story Bart had heard, scientists from the Reach experimented on humans, injecting them with diseases and medicines, using them like lab rats. One story suggested that they took samples from every camp, and the least productive human strains were…terminated. Most stories had an array of horrible layers, but most of them had a common theme – no one ever came back.

Absentmindedly, Bart tugged on his collar – as much mystery as there was in the human department, the fate that happened across Metas was even more secret, the details even scarcer than warmth. Sighing, Bart wrapped his arms around himself, enclosing himself in a forced hug as he listened to the camp live and breathe around him, the Work Zone alive somewhere behind the numerous tents that surrounded him.

The Work Zone was located at the edge of camp, behind the tents. Piles of scrap from the war scattered the ground meaninglessly; that's where the job came in. The purpose of the work was to be long and unrewarding, which it was; find and sort useful leftovers from the wreckage. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack, as Aunt Dawn had commented once.

The dark veil of night coated the Camp, and Bart eyed the fence. He could hear the electric current running through it, his uneven breaths keeping a ragged beat with the disembodied hum. A dim searchlight passed over the Camp's ground, its beam falling unevenly over the tents and pooling lazily over the ground – he was working the night as punishment for breaking curfew a few weeks ago; he could feel dirt infusing with the tips of his nails. The hard ground was stiff beneath his outdated boots, the trodden snow huffing from his movements. The Work Zone was the emptiest Bart had ever seen it, only a few souls toiling over their loads, others who had been deemed in need of penalty; he didn't recognize them, their forms too far away to make out as they hovered over their own sorting piles.

Bart pressed his lips tightly together into a thin line. Doubt flickered in his soul, but Bart shook his head, as though he could rid the emotion from his body. Excitement lit him, dimming his uncertainty as Bart threw a look over his shoulder before ducking into the darkest shadows of the night – he had exactly one night to change his life.

With a shaky breath Bart slipped deeper into the Work Zone and abandoned his post, gliding along the fence line until he reached the edge of the zone – no one came here, and his tracks were the freshest addition to the untouched ground. Barren as the rest of the Work Zone was, the outskirts seemed desolate in comparison. The place was dark and cold and empty. Not even the prominent hold of the searchlight lingered long in this place – the scent of death was strong in the air as Bart crept closer to the ends of the Work Zone, the place many referred to as simply the Edge. The name was ominous and final, which was fitting – this place was home to the dead, a place with hundreds of makeshift graves sticking up and out of the dirt. This was the Camp's graveyard.

Even Bart, who'd grown up his whole life with the factor of death, who had himself been witness to its unkind hand, flinched at the sight of the Edge – the sight of hundreds of little graves, marked only with makeshift tombstones, little stick crosses that served as a marker as an occupied grave. Uneven ground was marred by shovel and unpacked dirt that had never been set and left telling piles of frozen mud, an occasional view of rotting skin popping up from below the surface where some workers had left unfinished labor in favor of finishing their own work. It was unnerving to see all of the small crosses rising from the ground, their small forms eerie in the pale of the night and casting threatening shadows across the earth. Bart didn't believe the rumors or stories that buzzed through camp and kept little children from wandering beyond the Work Zone – he didn't believe the tales that spoke of how the dead would moan and weep in the still of the night, didn't trust the stories of them rising from their shallow graves and dragging their victims below the hungry earth. Yet, he held his breath as he carefully made his way through with soft footfalls, not daring to disturb a single grave as he crept pas the area – he kept his eyes locked on the horizon, locking on to the fence, his mind remembering an old weak spot he'd found on the night he'd helped burry some poor old guy who hadn't survived a kind of lung cancer Doctor hadn't been able to cure with needle or thread. That's been a few weeks ago, but Bart crossed his fingers, whispering a few words of plea under his breath in silent prayer, begging whatever entity could hear him that the small hole he'd seen hadn't been patched up.

His freedom depended on it.

Bart was shaken from his reverie as he saw Blue Beetle approaching him – Bart's throat went dry when he saw the scientist moving in step with his enforcer, a strange language escaping his mouth with a cold and monotonous tone. Panic seized his body, his mind freezing as the reality of what was happening hit him – this was happening. This was happening. He wasn't going to escape. That scientist, with his pale yellow eyes, blue tinged skin and superior smirk, was going to take him away. He was going to take Bart just like they'd taken Aunt Dawn –was this how she'd felt? Trapped, powerless and small? Had she been this scared? Had she been so paralyzed? How had she hidden that behind her defiance? Where had she gotten that strength?

Bart felt his body begin to shake against his will, and suddenly his skin itched and tingled – he felt claustrophobic, felt a desire to simply not be there. To be gone, to be anywhere else but where he was. It was overwhelming, his own emotions cruel as Beetle and the scientist stood to stand in front of him, the scientist's eyes analytical as they studied Bart callously. Bart wanted to snarl or growl out a few words of hatred, but fear held firm to his tongue, the wrath from yesterday giving way to dread. Instead he shifted his glance from Beetle to the scientist, taking in Beetle's look of content vengeance and then switching to the scientists expression of mild interest, like he'd been given some strange puzzle and intended on cracking it open for its answers.

Bart cringed as the scientist pointed to him as he turned to Beetle, asking the enforcer a question Bart couldn't understand. Frustration nipped at him, but he held himself still, feeling sweat start to drip down his back, his ankle starting to throb from pain as he felt his heart beat faster inside of him.

Beetle replied in the same grotesque tongue, and the two stood there, discussing him – Bart ground his teeth. He couldn't understand a word of it, but he could piece a few things together. The scientist was asking questions about him, and Beetle was dishing out answers – answers that could possibly kill him. They could be discussing his fate right now, and there was nothing he could do.

Beetle turned to him suddenly, his eyes cold, "Get up. You are done here."

"W-What?" Bart stuttered – this was happening to fast. His heart started thudding loudly in his ears.

"Don't be stupid – Get. Up." Beetle growled, his arm unfolding a small gun and frying off Bart's shackle. The metal stung as it transformed from brutally cold to viciously hot and burst apart, but Bart hardly registered the pain through his anxiety. Numbly he got to his feet.

"P-Please. Please," He stammered, flinging his eyes first at Beetle and then at the scientist, "Don't take me. Please. I don't want to die."

He was going to die. He was going to die. He was going to die.

Bart felt his tone shake, felt his body quiver as the impact of what was going on gripped him again. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to be cut open, didn't want to be tested, didn't want to be taken by the people that had stolen Dawn away from him. He had a horizon to see. For Dawn. For that old woman who no one knew. For that old man who'd been shot because he couldn't work. For Doctor. For all of the people in camp who would never know anything but the limits of the fence. For himself. He couldn't die. But he was going to. He was going to.

Beetle's big armored hands grabbed him, causing him to yell out unintentionally.

"This one is a trouble maker," Beetle hissed to the scientist beside him, who was watching the display with curiosity, like Bart was some animal to be studied.

"Put the specimen in the pod," The scientist responded.

Bart felt something in him shut off, felt something in him come undone. He started going wild, kicking and screaming at Beetle, ignoring the blood that started to run from his knuckles as his hands collided with Beetle's armor. Ignoring the pain exploding from him as the color went on and electricity started to tear into his veins. He thrashed in the enforcer's grip, lashing out and somehow striking the scientist in with a random kick, his worn boots digging into the alien's face. He kept going, trying to writhe out of Beetle's grip. Sheer panic wreaked chaos in his brain, making him numb as Beetle roared in anger and squeezed him, his bulky hands hitting his sore rib and eliciting a sickening wheeze from him. He felt the energy melt out of him, and he weakly trembled in Beetle's grip.

Bart let go of a breath he hadn't noticed himself hold as he went to the weak spot in the Edge's fence and found the hole burrowed under the fence. It was small and unwelcome, probably an abandoned grave where a body had been too large to fit – but it was there. Bart bit his lip, not remembering the divot so close to the fence line. He could hear the hum of electricity play off the fence – he'd have to dig under.

Without further hesitation, Bart started digging to freedom, his hands scraping up handfuls of hardened earth until the hole extended a little ways past the fence, barely big enough for him to squeeze through. He didn't even pause to glance behind him as he started to burrow through the hole, feeling the electricity rip through him. His muscles went into a spasm and tingling burned him, but he kept moving until he felt himself slip completely to the other side.

Bart stood up, brushing the dirt from his mud-caked pants as he looked out over the night-covered landscape – he was on the other side of the fence. Nothing between him and the horizon.

Bart laughed. He genuinely laughed as he started to run into the distance, leaving the camp behind, putting more distance between him and Beetle with every step he took. Happiness took hold of him, and suddenly the overwhelming depression of the Camp released him, a tremendous burden lifted from his shoulders.

"Freedom," Bart whispered to himself as he entered the tree line. The word felt good on his lips.

He was free.


The scientist opened the pod that'd been rolled up to the side, and Beetle angrily pushed Bart inside. Before he could move the glass shut over his face.

"NO!" Bart screamed, "No!"

His fists pounded meaninglessly against the pods unbreakable glass as he felt a sedative gas pump through the pod's air filters.


Author's Note: OOOH, look at all the kind reviews! These have made my day! Thank you soo much!