Find A Way Out

Chapter 8 - Before.

I looked at Austin. He looked at me. He was still holding me. I couldn't believe it. After those tests... we're left together.

A smile broke onto my face. I hugged him tight.

"They're actually letting us be together! Randson's actually letting us be together!" I say excitedly. I let go of him and stood, bouncing a little on my feet.

"Y-yeah.." Austin replied, a small smile tugging at his lips. My face fell a little.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

He shrugged, and turned away slightly, looking at the floor. "It's just... this isn't how I thought we'd have to earn our time together... you... you shouldn't have to go through what I just saw you go through. I can't even begin to think of how anxious your power makes you feel when in that situation... and... I- I hit you... I can't believe I actually did that how he got me to do that I shouldn't have listened-"

"Austin!"

He looked up at me again.

"Dude, I would've had to go through those tests anyway... at least this time I was with you and there was a reward at the end... and look. The whole hitting me thing? That wasn't your fault. Randson told you to, and my power seems to have a loophole I wasn't fully aware of. I'm not upset at what you did. I'm upset at what he made you do. Okay?" I took hold of both his hands gently.

"O-okay..." he replied, holding my hands slightly tighter.

"Good." I looked around the room. My gaze landed on the wall closest to us. I looked back at Austin.

"Shall we?" I said with a lopsided smile, gesturing to where the wall met the floor.

He smiled as well and we went and sat down. He leaned his head against the wall, and I leaned mine on his shoulder. There was silence for a bit.

"Hey... There's something I've been wondering. Has Randson always been this-"

"Cold? Heartless? Cruel?" I interrupted. He looked down at me. I sighed and sat up. "...No."

"Wait actually?"

I nodded.

"I've been here since I was... let's say... five? Well I can't remember anything before that. And back then They didn't do 'tests' like they do now. I was mainly just observed and taught things. From what I've been told since then is that the teaching was important for development, or something. I don't know. But back then, I had regular interaction with two main people: Jaquelin, and Randson. Back then he even let me call him James."

"Huh.." Austin said. "So that's his first name."

"He was actually... quite kind. He was never mean, anyway. My warning signal had never gone off around him..."

I stared at my hands as I thought of a memory of Randson talking to a guard as I stood behind him, hiding behind his leg because I was scared of the guards, and he'd softly explain that I didn't have to be scared of them. I smiled a bit, but it faded as I carried on talking.

"...Until one day. I was about... 8? He walked into the room with his usual welcoming smile, and I was excited to see him. But... as he got closer, I felt my warning go off... and I became scared. Once he saw my expression change... his did as well. He looked... surprised? Hurt? But then... he took on a straight face. I found out why I felt scared not so long after..." Austin was watching me, waiting to hear what happened next.

"He brought me to a room, and when I went in, he picked up an inhibitor collar- which back then I had never seen before- and put it on me. My warning signal stopped and my fear faded. What my younger self thought had happened, was that this meant I was safe. I was happy. I smiled up at Randson. 'Thank you James!' I remember saying... but he didn't reply. He didn't make eye contact. He told me to face him. I did. I felt someone poke me in the back, and I was confused because I should've been alerted of that. I was about to turn around, but Randson ordered me to keep facing him. His voice was cold. I did as I was told. Suddenly, I felt someone jab me in the side with their hand. I had shouted 'OW that hurt!' and spun around to see a guard, who was obviously chosen for the job because I was supposed to be scared of him," I muttered the end, it was one of the things I had realised after a few years of thinking about that day.

"Eight-year-old me froze and began crying. I was confused. I was scared. My warning signal didn't go off... I had always relied on that to tell me when I was in danger, or at least that was the instinctive feeling I had about it. Randson then explained what the collar was to me, that it would stop the warning signal while I wore it, and I told him I didn't ever want to wear it again. He told me it didn't matter. Ever since that day, they did similar tests, getting worse. Randson told me to stop calling him James. And he didn't care what he or they did to me, and you came along, and he was like that with you... I still don't know what changed..."

I wasn't looking at Austin, but he was looking at me. He didn't know what to say. I felt him put his arm around my shoulder, and looked up at him.

"Anyway that's enough about me..." I said, trying to change the subject. I haven't spoken about that day with anyone. "Do you remember much, if anything, about before you came here?"

My friend froze, staring through me. He seemed to think for a minute. "... I don't want to talk about it..." he said, turning away.

"Okay, I understand," I told him. He gave me a small smile.

"Thanks."

Later that day, Randson sat down in his office to listen to the recording of Zina and Austin's conversation. Yes, he lied, but they should've expected that by now.

The beginning wasn't that surprising, he knew from observing the subjects that this is how they would react. But what happened next... he didn't exactly expect. He should've, though.

He listened carefully to how Zina explained it. He hadn't thought of that day much since it happened, but he did think about what led to it.

He walked into the room where Subject 1 was waiting. Someone had told him that the boy had seen a new vision, one that James would want to hear. They wouldn't tell him what it was, insisting that the boy tell him himself. This was interesting.

The fourteen year old wouldn't look at him. He seemed nervous.

"I hear there's something you want to tell me?" Randson asked, sitting opposite him.

"Uh, no, it's nothing. I don't know why they called you down, really," he replied, looking up at the man then away again once he made eye-contact by accident.

"Come on, you know you don't have to hide anything from me, right?"

Subject 1's leg was bouncing in unease. He hesitated, but must've understood that he'd find out one way or another.

"I... it's not that detailed..." he began.

"Okay..."

"But- but uh... it was... something..."

"Go on..." Randson encouraged.

The teen looked at him, right in the eyes. "Zina... Zina will ruin you. All that I got from the vision was that you'd lose your job, and everything else. And I mean everything. I don't know how, what causes it or what happens after, except that... I think we are no longer in this place? Me and Zina, that is."

The man knew that this must mean something big happens in the future. He stood up and left, not replying to the boy.

He needed to speed up the operation, which meant he didn't care how they'd get their data from now on.