"Wake up girly."

Bulla rubbed her groggy eyes. Bulla turned her head from the wall to escape her own morning breath. Kalus and Cloak waited on the other side of the grate. Kalus gingerly opened the door and hoisted her to feet by her collared neck.

"Where are you taking me?," she asked.

"To medical," Cloak replied.

"No, I mean what do you want with me?"

"Listen," Kalus said, "Hush up and keep walking. Your guess is as good as mine," Kalus said.

Bulla limped along the floor. Her socks slipped along the platform. Bulla whipped her head around, gandering back down the long hallway. The walls were lined with stacked cages. Red symbols flashed down the rim of each grated door. Huddled masses occupied them. To Bulla they were tangled bundles of arms and legs just like herself in an assortment of shapes and sizes. Their breath and voices composed the low static hum of the hall. Bulla stopped limping and began to drag her leg behind her like a cumbersome club. The exertion made her lungs hungry for air. Kalus and Cloak talked among themselves. Bulla shuddered at Kalus' occasional laugh. His hand on the back of her neck was firm and frustrated despite his chatty demeanor. Cloak braced Bulla beneath her arm. Her flesh sunk into him, like a fork in custard. A bubbling, spearmint tingle prickled her armpit and ribs. It was a soothing distraction from her aching leg and rumbling stomach.

The hall ended in a new room. Cloak meticulously pushed a big square button the wall with his index finger. The door sealed behind them and a hiss filled the cabin. Bulla's ears cracked uncomfortably, and pressure built in her sinuses. The metal doors ahead squeaked open, sliding apart on its worn base. Without a beat, Kalus and Cloak prattled through the door with purpose. Bulla staggered down the hall with them, forcing her legs to keep up. A weaving maze of hallways were lost to her exhausted mind. Each door looked like the next and faceless bodies scurried around them with their maroon jumpsuits and visored helmets. They turned Bulla's head time after time, yet they ignored her, like it was common place to see her battered purple-pulp of a body, hobbling along. Kalus seemed to exchange passing niceties with them, like secretaries gossiping at the water cooler.

I might as well be reduced to an inanimate object, Bulla thought.

They passed through another set of double doors. Bulla sleepily expected another hallway. She walked head long into a hard barrage of voices like a brick wall. Bulla looked up into the cavernous room, and the noise boomed down like thunder rolling from the heavens. Two sky scraping walls climbed high above their heads. Clear doors lined the walls in neat tidy rows like windows on a tower. Kalus and Cloak split the room right down the middle, dragging her along. Terror welled inside Bulla. She threw her shoulder back and fruitlessly wrested against their grip, like a mule bucking against its handler.

"Is this a prison?," she cried, "Where the hell are you taking me?"

"Let's go, girly," Kalus said casually, then picked up where he left off whistling.

He stiff armed her forward, paying no mind to her dug in heels. They left as soon as they had arrived. Before Bulla could even process the situation, she found herself stopped in front of a thick clear door. Kalus slapped his hand on the wall. The clear covering retracted. Bulla thought of the webbing between a frog's toes. Chilly air settled on her skin. Once again, she was trapped between stainless-steel walls. Big half-dollar sized rivets sectioned the walls. The room was empty without even a place to sit down.

At least it's not a cell- no bed, and no toilet, she thought.

Kalus eased his grip on her collar when the membrane door opened again. The metal cart rolled through first, followed by the stooped over figure pushing it. The bow-legged person shuffled slowly in their white paper jumpsuit. A blue elastic bonnet covered his face. He leisurely rearranged the utensils and tools on his cart. He turned his attention to Bulla and approached her with a teetering gait, flicking the cuffs of his elastic gloves over his wrist. He looked bulla in the eye, but her gaze drifted toward her feet.

"I'm your med tech, please cooperate for relief. Do you understand me?," he asked her.

"Yes," she said with a nod.

He looked her over from head to toe and scribbled onto a black pad with his stylus, only breaking his stride to ask the occasional question or two.

"Sex?"

"What?," Bulla said.

"Your gender ?," he said curtly.

"Oh, female. Mister-"

"Age?"

"15."

"Get on the scale and stand up straight."

"What are the charges, why am I here?," She raised her voice.

Bulla turned to Kalus and said, "You said this was a mistake, what are you-"

"Hold still- little pinch," the med tech interrupted.

He popped a needle into her arm until the syringe filled with blood. He plunged the needle into tiny vials waiting on his cart. The med tech flashed a light over her eyes and squeezed her cheeks to pry her mouth open. The wooden probe scraped her teeth as he manipulated her tongue in her mouth. He paused, ignoring her gag. He scraped her clawed cheek with his finger and turned to Kalus, exchanging words with a puzzled stare.

"Whatever he's telling you isn't true," Bulla rattled off.

"Of really, what do you think he said?," the tech said with a cocky snort.

Bulla's anger bubbled up inside of her until it spilled from her lips, "Well, what did you say to him?"

"To use more water next time," he said with a flat smile.

"And you call yourself a doctor," she said, "Fuck you."

Bulla erased the smile off his face with a hacked up glob of spit.

"Broken femur with a suspected emboli," he said wiping her saliva from his brow with gauze, "Who said I was a doctor," he added.

The med tech turned his attention to Kalus. Cloak continued to restrain Bulla by her collar.

"Listen pup," Cloak said shaking his head, "That's not the way. Just keep your head down and your mouth shut."

His words dripped with disappointment and something akin to tangible sadness. She was convinced that she could taste his words and take a bite out of them, like a shiny red apple that was rotten inside. Bulla watched the med tech poke and prod at Kalus' blotched shoulder. He pinched the skin together as it to close it up and hide the blemish. The tech dropped his hand and unconsciously shook his head, 'no'.

Cloak's polar embrace left Bulla at Kalus' beckoning. The med tech and Kalus went out the door with Cloak trailing them. Bulla plopped down on her back side and finally allowed the tears to come amid the disorientation. Time left her as she recalled the events leading her to this cold place.

Can't be more than three days, right? I haven't drank anything. Wouldn't I have died from dehydration? Then again, I'm not exactly human, Bulla's mind went back to aircraft downed in the forest, and the memories mended together like a jigsaw puzzle in her recollection. The airlock..., she theorized, …are we under water somewhere?

"Okay," she told herself with a deep breath, "Mom and dad are looking for me now and they've probably got the dragon balls- so I'll be here just a few more days- tops. Pan, she's safe Pan is safe. Pan is safe," she repeated her mantra over and over again.

Bulla clinched her elbows in her hands and rocked back and forth with tired, closed eyes. She tried to sooth the throbbing pain in her leg. The membrane door opened, regaining Bulla's attention. Kalus waltzed into the containment space and tossed a matted grey lump of hair onto the floor.

"Bell?," Bulla questioned as she recognized her pet. The cat struggled to pull herself across the slippery floor with her back legs dragging behind her. Bulla thought she looked like a wad of grey lint pulled from the dryer trap. Bulla scooted on her butt until she gathered the moaning animal from the ground.

"Please, can you help her," Bulla sobbed, "Can't you put her out of her misery. I know you have medicine. Just give her a big dose of pain medicine or something," she begged, "Please don't let her suffer."

"They won't waste drugs on it. Best we could do is drop it here in the decontamination chamber so it can't make anyone sick," he shrugged her off.

"Sick? She doesn't have any diseases. She's just old, please!," she tried to persuade him.

Kalus looked down at his shoulder. He slowly raised his eyes to Bulla's face again. The white lights above shadowed his eyes beneath his heavy brown bone. The realization fell on Bulla, weighing down every fiber of her being and her resolve. She was in a room with him, alone, and no one cared.

"Ya know," he said wagging his finger in the air, "Maybe I could help her move on, per se."

"Oh, please she's suffering and she doesn't understand."

"Suffering?," he spat through grinded teeth, "The tech that came in here. Ya know, the one you spit in his face. He says that they can't torch this shit off of me or cut it out. There's not enough skin to even cover it up."

"I didn't know, sir, okay. I had no fucking idea that you would lose your virginity, or something retarded by me bleeding on you after YOU hurt me."

"Oh, I'm a sir now," he laughed and turned toward the door, "Suck up or not, I'll be back with help."

"If Landi, loves you, she'll understand, and I would be willing to tell her myself what happened if she doesn't believe you."

"Yolandi- her name is Yolandi and no thanks."

"But-"

"Shut up."

Several hours had come and gone. Bulla was left alone to stare at the red-painted walls. Nothing distracted her from her chapped flesh and the burn between her legs. Bulla hid her face in a corner of the room. The distant sound of the door opening echoed against the cold walls. It was a slushy wet crackle, like a frost-bitten piece of flesh melting.

"Go away!," Bulla screamed.

The tremble in her voice spread throughout her body. Their clanging footsteps inched closer until a pecking finger tapped her shoulder Bulla saw a team of people with matching white paper jumpsuits and bonnets. They shuffled in metal carts and locked boxes of supplies.

"What- what are you here for?," she stammered.

"Come, here," the tech waved her closer.

Bulla limped behind him as the others arranged the hauled in table and white screens. Bulla's eyes settled onto the blood splattered walls that seemed to evade them. The tech patted the flat table with his hand as it to lure her. She pulled herself onto the metal slab bed. Her legs dangled over until one of the techs grabbed her ankles and swung them over the end of the table. She hollered in pain as they dropped her heels onto the slab.

"Mess, huh?," one of them said to her, motioning to the walls.

"They pulled her apart. They ripped Bell apart," she stammered in hysterics.

The technicians stared at each other, speaking volumes without opening their mouths.

"Kalus and that boy. He made him have sex with me. They raped me," She groaned.

The technicians paused gain, looking at each other with wide eyes. They exchanged hurried words in their scrambled tongue.

"Who?," one of them finally asked her.

"Kalus brought a bunch of 'em in here and he made them-"

"Kalus?," One of them questioned, "Kalus Naisong?"

"Yes," she responded.

"Captain Naisong?,"another tech laughed.

"Yes damn it, clear as crystal!"

"But did he actually-"

"No, but why does that even matter?"

The technician turned from Bulla and continued to set up machinery and equipment.

"Bayada, tell captain Naisong that this one is a eugenics asset and that she's unavailable for the crew's activities. It's going to be expensive, and time consuming to remove their genetic material. I'll escalate this to interdisciplinary relations if he doesn't comply.

Bulla's face went sheet-white. Her palms became clammy with sweat. She jerked her arms out of the restraints, snapping the nylon tethering with her wrists.

"My body is not just another HR complaint!"

Her voice was full bodied and defined. It had an uncanny booming quality that was unnatural for the reserved teenager. Bulla threw herself from the table and stalked around the room like a caged animal. The white suits creeped closer to her. Bulla jammed her fist into the tech's neck. He fell back on his spine and skidded across the sleek floor. Red flashing lights strobed above her head after a panicked tech pulled the red handle mounted on the wall. The room was flooded with guards. Some of the same ones that visited her before to take care of the cat. Bulla dead-lifted a metal cart above her head, supplies and all hurled at the bodies piling into the doorway. They fell over like fumbling red bowling pins. The many groping hands pinned her down to the floor as she caught her breath. A tech forced a mask over her nose and mouth.

"Calm down," his hazy words reached her. His round face floated and faded over her head. The edges of his face became buried blobs of color, "Don't hold your breath. Go to sleep… sleep… sleep."