January 31, 2138 (Late evening)
After eating supper I headed back to the cage where Rachel was. Kim thought I was being too quiet as I ate and thought something was wrong, but it wasn't. I just couldn't stop thinking about the conversation Youth Leader Rachel and I had. I didn't know that one talk would make me see any part of where she was coming from. There was this part of me that couldn't deny some of what she was saying. Why wouldn't she see things like she does when she's been given what she has by the side she's taken? Without them she might not be able to see. And yet I know so many things that the biodread empire does that's wrong and she denies it. I felt like I was arguing with myself somehow.
My thoughts about our discussion got cut off quickly as the time came for Dad and Kim to have their own talk with Rachel. This thought kind of scared me as I didn't know what they planned to ask her or where their discussion might go. And a part of me was worried for Rachel too. I was hoping that they wouldn't hurt her to get her to talk.
Upon getting to her building I could see Sarah walking down the trail with Tommy to scout together, and both of them were looking back at us as we reached the door where Karl was standing guard. Kim stopped for a second and handed Karl a small flashlight and said, "I hope this is good enough." He looked at her and replied, "Me too." Then all of us went inside as Rachel was sitting in the cage looking at us. Dad asked me to stay at the door, which I did as Kim approached her and opened the cage and Karl turned on the lights. Rachel remained seated and didn't say anything as Kim walked up to her and reached her hand down in an offer to help her up. She didn't take it and Kim said, "Please come outside." She looked at Kim for a second and got up from her seated position on her own without ever taking Kim's assistance. A table had been placed in the center of the room and Dad asked Rachel to sit down. She complied and Kim removed a key from her right pocket and walked over to her. She then looked at Karl and Dad and said, "Please step out and step back away from the door with Amber. This should only take a second or two."
Dad and Karl said nothing more and stepped outside with me as Dad kept looking inside through the door. "What's she doing," I asked Karl. He replied, "Removing the wrist grenade. It wouldn't be good to have the girl tamper with it on purpose and blow all of us up in an attempt to commit suicide." After a few seconds she called to us again so that we could return inside of the room. Karl sat beside of Rachel and asked her to look at him. She complied and he took the flashlight Kim had given to him and began to shine it in Rachel's left eye. At first I thought it must be kind of blinding to have him shining it directly into her eye like that, but she didn't even blink. It was as if the intense light wasn't bothering her at all. He did this for a good minute, and then switched to the other eye. This time she started blinking as though it was bothering her. Karl said, "I'm sorry about this, but I'll be finished in a second." And he was, and then turned to Kim and Dad who were still standing and said in a reassuring voice, "I can't see anything." Kim said, "Thanks, Karl," and he left the room. Dad then walked to the wall and leaned against it while Kim stood directly in front of Rachel. That's when the discussion started.
"Out of respect for you not resisting us as we returned here, you won't have to wear the wrist device any longer. However, don't mistake our benevolence for weakness. Each and every one of us is prepared to kill you if you force a decision like that upon us. Don't try to escape and that won't happen. If you do, it will. None of us want to hurt you, but the decision as to whether that happens or not is within you. Do you understand," Kim asked.
"Yes. And if you think that your posture and the fact that you're standing above me while I'm stuck in this chair will intimidate me into telling you whatever you want to know, it won't," she replied with an arrogant stare.
"You've just used up your one freebie with me. You won't get another one. So you better have enjoyed it, because if you spout off at me again sitting and seeing won't be a problem for you any longer," Kim replied with her icy glare that made a chill run down my spine.
Dad interrupted at this point saying, "We don't intend to ask you more than what we need to know. But you might have noticed that we're in more of a desperate situation than what you might have come from. Desperate enough that we'll do whatever we have to do to survive and stay safe. If that means forcing you to give us information, that's what we'll do. It was never our intention to capture you and bring you here, but you and your friends forced that upon us. As a result, you're here and you have information that we can't afford to risk ourselves trying to get in any other way. We'll limit our questions, but I'm asking you to answer them fully. As a father I don't want to hurt children. Even if you don't think of yourself as one, you're the same age as Amber here. I have a duty as a parent to protect my children. And I will, even at the cost of you."
"I have a duty too," Rachel replied.
"You will answer what we ask of you, one way or the other, regardless of your duty. It doesn't have to be hard on you and we'll try to meet you halfway. You can at least try to do the same. If not, the next person to ask you some questions can be that young man you met this morning. If you would like me to arrange that, just stop me at any time and I will," Kim replied as she seemed to break off her brief effort to be understanding to Rachel.
She remained seated without saying anything more as Kim went on saying, "What's your name?"
"Youth Leader Rachel," she replied.
"Is your left eye armed with any type of a weapon?"
"No. It's just an enhancement to fix my vision," she replied.
"Was the young man with the blond hair in the mall your overunit," Kim asked.
"Yes," she replied.
"What's his name?"
"Overunit Vargus," she replied.
There was that name again. I knew after she had said his name that the questioning was going to become more intense. Before Kim could go on, Dad stepped away from the wall and started asking questions himself.
Dad said, "Vargus? Where were you both posted at and why were you running in the direction of the mall last night?"
"He's in command of the hospital on the West side of the city. The facility that used to be called Memorial. He's been tasked with not only commanding and securing the hospital, but with finding someone that the machine believes to be near here. We were searching for that person when we had an incident with a group of resistance fighters who attacked us and had pushed us back in the direction of the mall," she replied.
"Who," Dad asked with an intense stare.
"Wouldn't you like to know," Rachel replied as Kim backhanded her and she fell out of her chair to the floor. I closed my eyes for a second as the sound of her hitting Rachel rang out so loudly that I could almost feel it myself. She started to get up as Kim grabbed her by the hair and pulled her up the rest of the way and shoved her back in her chair saying, "What part of one freebie didn't you hear me say to you?"
Blood was slowly flowing from the side of Rachel's mouth and ran down her chin as Kim remained next to her as if she might need to do it again, and I could see Rachel swallow hard and close her eyes for a few seconds before Dad spoke up again saying, "Rachel, please. If I didn't need to know this from you I wouldn't ask you. But I do and I have to have an answer."
"Overunit Vargus found someone's blood at a church located in this area. He took a sample of it back to the hospital laboratory for analysis. After a lot of testing and running it through a database we found it to belongs to a relative of the person he was tasked to find. It belongs to the daughter of a woman named Karen Wharton," Rachel replied as I tried to hold in this feeling of despair I was having as she referred to me and Mom.
Kim turned to me and walked towards me, placing herself between me and Rachel as if trying to hide me from her view. She wanted me to step outside with her. I did and Kim looked at me and said, "Can you go get Tommy and have him take your place?"
"I want to stay, Kim. I know that she's talking about me but I won't let it show. I promise," I replied.
"It might be too late for that already, but we'll see," she said back to me as we went back in.
As we walked back inside Rachel looked at me and said, "You're the one, aren't you?"
I didn't reply even though she was right and we all knew that she was aware of who I was. Before Rachel spoke again Kim said, "That's not your concern."
Rachel spoke up again saying, "Is your mother here? I know that this one isn't her because she isn't wearing a wedding ring and her name patch gives it away."
It was unbelievably fast, how quickly Kim had drawn her laser and grabbed Rachel around the throat before Dad could even react to try and stop her. Rachel's chair fell backwards with her in it still as Kim slammed her into the floor and put the barrel of the laser right in her face saying, "Don't you ever utter the word wedding in front of me again or you won't make it to see how perfect your world can get, because I'll burn you right where you are and not think twice about it. Whether you get your perfect world or not, it'll go on without you."
Dad ran forward and grabbed her arm saying, "Please, Kim. She doesn't know. She couldn't know."
I moved closer to her also and said, "Rachel, Kim's fiancée was…"
Kim interrupted me saying, "No. She didn't know. I'm sure she didn't want to know either. Tell me Youth Leader Rachel, when your perfect empire fills your head full of their propaganda and wants you to fill other cadets heads full of it too, do they tell you to include the parts where the biodreads attack medical stations? Maybe one much like the one where you had your eyes fixed at? And that they kill anyone who resists them and what they're doing? Including injured patients? People that can't defend themselves? People that have someone waiting for them somewhere? Someone that loves them? No, I'm sure that they don't bother you with that. Do they? Hell, you probably have no idea what love is. Do you? And I'm sure that you don't bother any in trying to find out what it really is either. Which is probably a good thing in the end because after all is said and done, you'll fully understand why I'm not showing any remorse while I'm killing you that way. Someone like you killed love in me, so I don't want you to be shocked when I'm choking the last breath of air out of you. I'm just occupying my time while I wait for my man to come home."
As I tried to hold in the emotions I was feeling for Kim as she rose up from Rachel and started to walk towards the door, she slammed the key to the cage on the table and looked back at her as though she was thinking about pulling the trigger on her again anyway. Then she turned back and walked out. I tried to reach out to her as she walked by and say something to comfort her somehow, but she kept walking and said, "Not now." Suddenly I was reminded of how important Tommy's plan was as I watched Kim walk away, leaving her pain behind for everyone to feel.