The Transcended: They call him Lucius

Part 3: Blood ~ Chapter 11

With a towel draped around her, Zoey stepped into the dressing room.

Gwen looked up from her phone and smiled at her. "I took the liberty of getting you an outfit." She pocketed her phone and gestured at the pile of clothes on the bench next to her.

"Hey, are those my boots?" Zoey said as she walked over.

"Yeah, everything you had with you in L.A. we took along. It wasn't much, though."

Zoey dried herself and started to get dressed. "Those clothes aren't really mine, to be honest. Lucius stripped me of everything. Only those boots are mine—I got them from my gran when I started working as a cop."

"That's so sweet! Did Lucius know that or...?"

"Ha! As if he'd care. Nah, I think he just didn't want to bother having to buy me the right size shoes. Back at his place, I didn't get to wear them; he always kept me barefoot. I didn't even know he still had my boots until we were preparing to leave for L.A.."

Gwen smiled. "Well, I'm glad you have a memento of your past. As for shoes... I did also keep the ones we bought for the party—after I cleaned them, of course."

Zoey flushed and quickly pulled on her socks.

"I would offer you to come shopping with me, but I fear that won't be so easy."

"Why's that?" Zoey asked as she tied her laces. "I'm not allowed to leave?"

"It's more that the nearest town—if you could call it that—is over two-hundred kilometres away."

Zoey looked up. "What?"

"Yeah, we're pretty remote. If you want, I can take you to the surface first as part of the tour."

This only made Zoey more uneasy. "Surface? We're underground?" Gwen nodded, causing Zoey to murmur, "Well, that explains the lack of windows."

"Oh, we have artificial windows—with LED screens behind them—in other parts of the complex. You'll see." She held out her hand. "Come."

They exited the dressing room and made their way to an elevator. The thing itself didn't look too modern, but it required Gwen's thumbprint before it activated. As they waited, Zoey asked, "So, on which floor are we?"

"The tenth."

"Jesus, ten floors? There are ten floors underground?"

"Thirteen, if you count the lower maintenance one which is only reachable by stairs. Also, below that are some old tunnels that were only used when we built this place. Mind you, we've had several renovations in the meantime."

"When was it built?"

Gwen hesitated before answering, "Just after the first world war ended, though we already had an above-ground complex here long before that."

Zoey scrutinised her. "How long ago would that be?"

The elevator arrived and Gwen scanned her thumb again to open it so they could step inside.

"Not that long, considering." Gwen had to scan her print once more to activate the elevator. "We went here back in 1907 to build our own little town, if you will. We had a lot of help, but it still took years before it was done—Siberian winters are a true hell, not to mention all the unrest in the country at the time. The war that followed not long after, however, proved in our advantage regarding research subjects." She grinned deviously, but it quickly faded when she saw Zoey's reaction. "Oh, don't look at me like that. What we did didn't even come close to the kind of stuff the Nazis did years later."