Project Gemini (WATTYS 2016 WINNER!)

Chapter Twelve - Dr. Matthias Pyne.

THE GAMBLE WAS dangerous, a risk in a calculated game she prayed would pay off. The tattoo had cut their tongues from their mouths, not a word uttered from any of them as they stood in silence. The government lapdogs stared slack-jawed from the arch of the loading bay at the sheet of skin baring their beloved H tattoo. A piece of one of their own stolen and put up for sale in this shitty warehouse, abandoned deep in Section Four.

She kept her fingers laced together on the back of her head as the Reapers' rifles focused on her spine, barely daring to move. Rays of early morning sunlight poured through the open shutter door against their backs, bleaching the men's faces before her to a shade of dull grey, and reflecting off the barrel of the buzz-cut grunt's handgun before her.

The warmth didn't reach her as she struggled to hold the pose, basking in the shadows. Only coiled back, hitting some invisible barrier as she searched the darkness for anyone or anything else, a niggling prickle running down her spine. She was being watched, but by who she didn't know. All she could feel was the vast early summer's heat beating down on the men and the idling van, baking the blood splattered concrete of the warehouse entrance beyond. But it wasn't her blood, and the longer she knelt the longer she realised how wrong the scene was. The lack of people. And how the once blazing oil drum was now nothing but a smolder.

She let her mind shift back to the man before her. A part of her refusing to break eye-contact with the man's body camera mounted on his shoulder, looking straight into the lens knowing deep inside that the Chancellor would be watching. Waiting for her to break. Waiting for her to slip-up and beg for mercy. Waiting for her reprieve. Only she was too stubborn and too stupid to give in first.

The tattoo provided her with the reaction she wanted. Fear. She hadn't been the one to harvest it, but hell, she'd be the one to reap its benefits and play it for a bargaining chip if it got her out of this mess. The tattoo reminded them of what they were, that their perfect little world inside Section One had been violated, that one of their own had run afoul of the mutations they fought to control the most. That the purebred master race sacrificed naturality for morality. And that the tattoo struck them where their fears lied the most, to where it only meant one thing: that the system had failed.

Another bead of blood slipped from her nose and onto the curve of her upper lip as she fought not to crumple, her body trembling from exhaustion. Adrenaline drained from the corners of her mind as she refused to break. The Chancellor would have to cave. He had to give in. Had to. Any second now. Her eyes flitted to the Reapers circling her. He had to. An order. A signal. A sign. Intervention. Anything.

So do something, you bastard.

The man before her leveled his gun with her forehead. "What have you done?" he whispered. "What the fuck have you done?"

"You're looking at the wrong person," she said, "the one you're after is already gone."

"And the missing Pariah?"

"I told you. Search the river."

He cocked the gun and pressed the cold barrel into the spot between her eyes. "Do not play games with me, girl. Last time; what have you done?"

She gritted her teeth, "You honestly think I did it? Send it to a lab. Get it tested. See who it belonged to and when he died." She looked directly at the camera, to the Chancellor, lowering her voice. "You wanted Jasper, this is the next best thing. You know where I was the night Wickers died."

A muscle jumped in the man's jaw as he stroked the trigger, still not satisfied. He lifted a finger to his ear, to the plastic radio coil as his eyes searched hers for the lie. For the deception. But she kept her gaze cool, fighting the urge to crumple as the adrenaline seeped out of her veins, exhaustion creeping in.