Chapter Five - Deeper Still

Eggsy unzipped himself from a body bag, and he slapped his cheeks in an attempt to un-numb his face. The drugs would take some time before they completely wore off. The perfect combination of a small amount of the particular poison from Roxy's poker knife mixed with extra tranquilizer capsules they were able to take before they fell unconscious, made for the perfect fake death cocktail. His heart rate dropped and he was able to pass as dead.

As Eggsy rolled up his body bag, he laughed under his breath.

"So much for classic army technique," he uttered to himself, remembering back to a simpler time of training and the beginning of friendships. Those days that had long since past.

He glanced at his watch. "Bloody-" the time it had taken him to wake was much longer than he and Roxy had anticipated. He couldn't fathom what they could've done to her by now, so he tried not to think about the millions of things that could've happened to her. Which in turn made him think about them all the more.

Roxy was strapped to a medical bed with Radcliffe looming over her. His eyes were red but he didn't look angry. However, the air of madness about him was still present. Roxy didn't think he could ever lose it.

"I hope you're ready Ms. Morton." Radcliffe said hauntingly, "they're still prepping the semen sample we took from your partner before his untimely death. While you were both sleeping actually. Not much time now." Radcliffe fidgeted his hands like he was a child waiting in anticipation for his favorite thing in the world.

It was strange, Roxy thought, that Radcliffe didn't begin his kidnap process with artificial insemination. Radcliffe had explained that to her. But his warped mind could only make sane people capable of understanding a percentage of it.

He loved love stories, he had told her. He always gave the opportunity for his subjects to fall 'in love', or more frankly, mutually agree to make-love for the sake of staying alive. Though another reason was that Radcliffe seemed to Roxy, to fit the description of a porn addict. A terrible realization she came to when she paced her and Eggsy's cell for three hours, finding every hidden camera in that room.

"He's a sick man," she had signed in British Sign Language to Eggsy. Right before they separated for their impromptu operation. Right before their farewell kiss.

"Eggsy." she thought to herself. He was suppose to have sent a signal by now, or help. But it seemed to her that their time calculations had been off. She wouldn't dare entertain the possibility that he wasn't able to revive himself. Yet the concern she had for him had skyrocketed. More so than the concern for herself in her present predicament.

"Not many have made it past the tournament of torture I would have put you through. Had you not killed Mr. Unwin, you'd both be there now. Some die before they create something that they know they can't keep. Your 'killing your partner' bit was unexpected. I had eyes on you both and was convinced you were in love. Either that or extremely close friends. Pulling a Romeo and Juliet confirmed my suspicions. Though normally the lovers do that together. Die, I mean to say... Yet you get to bypass the torture because my scientists say 'it'll only work now'. They can't preserve the sample for long. Science is a funny thing. One can be so fascinated by it, yet never understand it."

Roxy's heart rate accelerated as two men in scrubs and medical face masks wheeled in a shiny cart of medical supplies.

Eggsy walked slowly through a long empty, and eerie hallway. There was the distant sound of children talking. Yet something was off to him. The pitch of the voices were distinctly childish, yet the style in which they were talking was not. They weren't laughing, or speaking with different tones of voices. As he peaked into a room he saw children from the ages of 4 to 10 intellectually discussing how to dismember a persons body, limb from limb, in a way which could inflict the most pain.

Eggsy wanted to vomit.

"Who are you?"

Eggsy bolted around. He was face to face with a five year old who's presence he didn't even notice.

"Why is there blood all over your shirt?" She asked.

Eggsy smiled. Though his heart was beating out of his chest. These kids were all unknown possibilities, with unlimited potential to be vicious. They had been conditioned since birth to be what Radcliffe intended. Though what that was he didn't know.

"My name is Eggsy. And I'm a tailor. Do you know what a tailor is?"

"No." the little girl shook her head.

"I make fancy clothes fit people perfectly. I help em dress properly for the occasion. And the blood's just from an accident, me and my best mate were in."

"What's a best mate?" The girl seemed genuinely at a loss for the definition. "Is that similar to someone's favorite person to mate with?"

Eggsy, still speaking relatively soft, carefully put his words. "Not exactly. A best mate is your very best friend."

"What's a friend?" The girl asked sincerely. She seemed truly interested too, as if she wasn't some stiff robot like she seemed at first glance. She seemed for a second to be an actual child. "Is that like my brothers and sisters?" She gestured to the room.

"Almost. A friend is like a brother or sister, only that you didn't grow up together. A friend is someone you chose to be a sister or brother too, even though they're not your family or a part of your home. A best mate is someone you chose to be a friend too, that you'd chose their company over that of any other friend or brother or sister. Being a best mate is having that person's back and being there for them no matter what. Doing whatever it is in their best interest, over whatever's in yours." He wondered how Roxy was, though he knew she could always handle herself.

The girl just looked at Eggsy for a long moment. "You know, you're very strange. But you have interesting information that I don't yet possess. I want to introduce you to my brothers and sisters." The girl grabbed Eggsy's hand, very firmly, and dragged him into the room full of children who didn't seem very much children like to him.

"This man. He's a tailor who's got a best mate." She said interrupting her siblings' lesson. "He's told me so much new information. And he's not lying about it."

The other children, her brothers and sisters all stared blankly at her and Eggsy.

"He's an outsider. Master said that outsiders were not to be tolerated. That they don't belong here, he's to be reported immediately." An older brother of hers said starkly. He seemed to be near the age of 8.

"No." The girl still holding Eggsy's hand said firmly. "He can teach us so much new information. Master always said that the best thing we can do is learn, and use that knowledge to help us serve him. This tailor knows many things, and he's honest, and I don't hate him like I do all other outsiders that come here to do work."

"No. This man must not poison all our minds. He is an outsider, and he must serve his purpose without interfering in our lessons 24!"

Her name was 24, Eggsy realized. They didn't have names, they had numbers. How many there could be, Eggsy didn't know. But he had to get them out. As many as he could possible.

"My name is Eggsy, and I'm not here for my tailor work. I'm not here to do the work of your master. But I am here to teach you. I want you all to know that you are at an age where you can decide for yourself what it is you want to be and what it is you want to do."

All the children were looking on at him, studying and absorbing his every movement and word.

"I know there's been times where you've doubted your master's intent. He's taught you, you've learned to love him and him alone, and serve him and him alone. But the world is so much bigger than you know, and there's a lot your master hasn't shown you. He doesn't love you. Your families love you. He took you away from your real families. I'm here to take you away from this place. If you'd like. I'll teach you all I know so that you can make an informed decision away from here. But we have to go now." Eggsy tugged on 24's hand and turned to her, "my best mate's in danger."

Eggsy was able to, with his enchanting speech, win some of the children over to his side. 24 didn't let go of his hand as he exited, and several more of the others followed them. Though Eggsy was surprised that he wasn't attacked by the lot of them. They saw something in him, and that's what compelled most of them to follow him, and the other's to refrain from killing him.

24 led Eggsy to the nursery, where three toddlers played under the watch full eye of a robot. Whom Eggsy dismantled quickly. He was also led to a room with a single baby in it, who seemed to be 6 months old. Eggsy took the babe into his arms and he almost let a tear fall as he looked into the innocent child's eyes. It was so small, so alone, and yet so precious. The baby boy had to be protected. Though not by him.

Eggsy realized that as a kinsman agent, he wouldn't have the opportunity to hold a child that was his. He'd never want to have children who's parent's lives were always questionable as to being alive or not. Not having his father growing up, crushed him, and his mother. He never forgave God for taking his father from him, and breaking his mother like it did. He'd never want to put a child, let alone his own, in that same possible situation, on a day to day basis.

Roxanne screamed a cry of pain as she dragged herself out of the medical room she had lay waste too. There was blood on her hospital gown, tangles in her hair, bruises on her knuckles, and there was a large metal syringe sticking out of her side. She had been stabbed with that large 'doctor's tool'. Though anyone would be horrified if they came across the man who had stuck it in her. Roxy had completely torn him apart. Though with good reason.

She closed her eyes tightly as she prepared to pull the very long needle out of her side. As she was about to pull out the instrument, a man stood over her and stepped on it causing an immense pain. Radcliffe was there. His face was covered in blood, and he seemed to be missing a limb or two. But the thing most different about him was his angry breathing, that matched that of a dying wolf, which also seemed to be more threatening than his horrifying complexion.