Ayushi95: 'Some' things will be revealed soon. Thank you for reviewing. :)
Chpll1525: -Thank you for the reviews. I'll be working on Whispers again soon. Lyndsy Fonseca was the best thing about The Ward. :)
Amanda smiled as she opened a roll on the table beside the dental-like chair. This was going to be the more interesting part of retraining Alexandra's mind. The ECT gave the younger woman a bit of a reset. She had considerable resistance to mind control and the ECT simply wore away all of that in preparation for today.
Amanda began examining the equipment that she helped design. She took a needle from the sterilization pouch and affixed it to the device. She hummed happily as she hit a pair of keys that caused the needle to ease forward to a point where the head stilling straps and the eye covers would leave young Alexandra's forehead.
She ran the diagnostics. The sound files would leave the young woman disoriented and open to suggestion, the small half shells that were designed to cover her eyes providing private screens would program the hates, loves, and goals of Amanda herself. Images of Nikita and the people she loved would soon turn into targets to be eliminated. The needle would serve a dual purpose of stimulating areas of the brain during the first phase, and puncturing Alexandra in the frontal lobe, short circuiting what feeble resistance she still had after everything else had been done to her. Amanda had spent two long years perfecting her device and it's ability to get the job done. She was confident that Alex would serve her and her alone this time.
Amanda brightened as she heard the young woman in the corridor. She didn't know exactly what images she would conjure to weave narrative around the programming, but Alex would be enjoying a unique experience. Amanda brought up the computer to ready status and stepped back so Alexandra could be placed and strapped into position.
The woman stopped. She turned slowly taking in her surroundings. She stood in the middle of a road that seemed to stretch on forever. Trees grew heavy and thick with scrub on either side. There were buildings barely visible over the top of the trees down one side of the road. Her brow knit. She looked left again before turning back the other way.
"Where am I?" She looked down at her hands. Short nails and clean skin. A jumpsuit and tennis shoes completed her outfit. "Who am I?" She thought long and hard. "Who am I?" she asked herself again. A dust devil pushed a few leaves in a dance at her feet. She looked up again and traced the top of a small town over the trees with her eyes. Sighing, she began to walk.
The young woman walked down a main street in a small town. She passed the obligatory soldier statue standing guard on a green and a gazebo. She looked expectantly into window after window. No dogs barking or tipping over garbage cans. No teens smoking on a bench. She had not seen a single car drive by... Not a single living being moved in the town that she could see. She walked on until she spotted a local diner.
The bell at the top of the door rang as she stepped inside the restaurant. "Hello? I need a doctor? How about some water?" She dug in her pocket and pulled out a few wrinkled bills. "I have money. Not much but a sandwich worth maybe." She looked around. Nothing. Spotting a phone, she picked it up and put it to her ear. "Hello?" Not even a dial tone answered her. She swallowed hard.
The woman put a dollar on the counter and took a doughnut out of a pile under a glass dome. She chewed slowly as she looked through the front window. Her eyes narrowed. She pushed out of the diner and ran across the street and into a dress shop. Her hand went out to push on a shoulder. "I need help." What was left of her stale doughnut fell from her fingers as the arm flew one way and the rest of the mannequin fell the other.
She stared at the arm as if not comprehending. She looked around and picked up the arm. "Is somebody there? Please," she whispered repeatedly. No one in the changing rooms. No one in the stockroom. She climbed the stairs to the owners apartment. "Please... Hello?"
She looked around at the neat apartment. Still, no one. She picked up the phone and dialed for an operator. No tone. She looked out the window and strained her eyes. The gloom was gathering. She jumped as she turned, catching a mirror from the corner of her eye. She stepped closer, tilting her head. She had a youngish face. "Hello me," she whispered. "What say you and me look for the cop shop."
The woman moved to the town hall. She was terrified now. It was as if she was the last person on earth and part of her was afraid that her heart would explode if she found herself not alone and at the same time that it would deflate if there was nothing.
She moved quickly up the steps. The woman pushed the well oiled door open slowly. Her footsteps echoed lightly. She wanted to call out her fear and her need for a doctor and her own name if she knew it and a thousand other things, but she was afraid. Her fingers brushed the pebbled glass over the sheriffs office door. She pushed at it and walked inside. No one in sight. She hesitated before picking up the CB microphone. "Hello? Can anyone hear me?"
The seconds ticked away. No response. Her face twisted briefly. She grabbed a book of tickets and threw it. Her hand frozen in midair as her eyes widened. She crept up on a desk. She peered at the glass sitting on a file. The cubes still swam in it, the condensation beading on the outside. Her finger slowly moved forward to barely touch the glass. No illusion. A cold drink and the ice was still big.
Her head swiveled back and forth. She crept to the door to the back where the cells were. The door moved in and she peeked around the door jamb. No one had walked past her out, and here were jail cells and no one in them. The woman moved past each of the cells. At the end of the short hall, she slid down the wall and wept.
She wept until she felt sick. Her head came up suddenly. She moved to the front and looked out through a window. Dusk was slowly embracing the main street. She could have sworn she heard something. She lowered herself slowly down the stairs. She was afraid to add her own clatter to the near total silence.
She felt oddly grateful to the bird that provided a soundtrack to her adventure. The young woman drifted into the elementary school. She ran her fingers over name tags. She wondered again who she was. She looked up at a creaking and smiled. "Is someone there?" She moved to close the window which had admitted the creaking of the tetherball chain. Was she the last person on earth? She began to think so.
She moved through the deserted streets again. The woman looked into a camera mounted above an antique store door. Could someone be watching? "Please … someone. I know there has to be someone watching. Please talk to me."
She began screaming, just hoping the sound might attract attention. She looked down the street at a grinding sound. At first low, the noise growing slowly. She stopped screaming and turned to face the rising noise.
She drew back out of the road. A John Deere tractor furnished with a pair of small snow plows on front rolled slowly by as she stood watching it. There was no one in the driver's seat. She ran after it. Jumping on and pulling herself inside she found a brick against the gas pedal. She grabbed at the brick, tossing it off. The green John Deere stopped, idling.
"Someone is playing games with me," she growled. Jumping into the Deere's seat, she turned it and began to go in the direction it came from. She drove with a fierce look on her face. Someone playing with her...they had to know her right? She would learn her name and then she would run this plow up their asses.
She saw a plywood sign. Snow Plow for sale in large red letters. It was at the edge of a long driveway. She saw a flannel clad man laying in the driveway next to a stack of bricks, his wheelchair several feet behind him, wheel spinning in the air. She jumped off the tractor and ran for the man.
"Hey! Are you okay?" She came to a grinding sliding halt on her knees beside the still man. She carefully turned him over. Air exploded from her lungs as she stared at a mannequin face with white eyes and blank expression.
Her hands smashed outward sending a glass of water flying across the hospital room. She tried to catch ragged breath.
"A dream a dream...just another dream." she whispered.
She stood and yanked out the needle connecting to her IV. Stumbling forward, she made her way to the door. Quietly opening it, she looked into the dark hall. Blood smeared down the corridor wall. She began shaking as her eyes darted back and forth. She slid against the wall below the blood smear toward the nurses station. The nurses station featured dried blood puddles and a single finger, dark and nasty. She wondered where the owner of the finger was now. Her head spun at the sight and smell.
A metal cart near by caught her eye. She pulled up the top to take out a tubular leg. She heard the creak of leather and turned to see someone staring at her from behind black leather and a gas mask. She raised the metal leg, combat ready.
The figure ripped away the mask to show a woman with icy blue eyes.
"Alex. Alex. Its me!" The woman dropped the leg with a ringing clatter.
"I'm Alex?" She was badly confused.
The woman looked down the hall. "We need to take this to the roof. Can you help hold off the freaks for a few flights?"
"What's going on?" Alex whispered, terrified.
The woman swore and reaching over the nurses station, snagged Alex's hospital gown and pulled at her.
"We have to go... Now." The woman began pushing her toward the staircase.
Alex pulled at the handrails propelling herself upwards. She was feeling dizzy and sick. The other woman put her arm around her and began moving them faster.
They pushed to the roof and looked out over a cityscape clouded by the rising smoke from burnt out buildings. She moved slowly toward the edge to look down over the hospital grounds. There was a sprawling tent city below. Large dogs moved in the small gaps. Birds lined the edges of tents and tops of haphazardly parked cars. The gas mask made sense now. This was the place people would have come to die. These were the scavengers and the inheritors of humanity.
Alexandra bit back an urge to scream. The cramps running through her stomach helped with that. She dreamed that she was the last woman on earth. It may very well be a near thing depending on just what led to the tent city below.
She turned around to face the woman. The leather clad woman stepped close. "You are important to us. You aren't alone when you are with us."
Alex blinked and felt frozen as the gun came up. "Why?"
The woman's head cocked. "You're meant to live and die for us alone, Alexandra." The bullet threw her backwards off the hospital roof.
Alexandra jumped, her eyes opening as she sat up startled and confused. Was it all just a dream? She ran her fingers through her sweat soaked hair, looking at the chair across from her. The chair occupied by Amanda, the woman with the icy eyes.
