Humanity [4]

Chapter Two

"Erin, are you crazy?"

Daylight sliced its way through Tomas' eyelids. His head felt groggy, torn between sleep and fighting to stay alert. His body wasn't in much better shape, his limbs stiff from lying curled up on a hard floor. Unmoving, Tomas blinked sleep from his eyes, taking in the wire mesh surrounding him.

He was in a cage.

Breathing heavily, he tried to clear his head and remember how he got here. The fight at the supermarket, Russell holding a gun to his head. Russell bundling him into the back of a car and driving him back to the school. The science lab he'd been taken to, and the girl in the lab coat with the cold stare. The strong grip she had on his arm as she pierced his skin with a needle, sedative seeping into his system.

"What choice do we have, Dylan?"

He recognised that voice. The girl in the lab coat. Erin, that was her name. She was speaking loud enough to eavesdrop, but Tomas didn't think she was close enough to be in the same room. Still, he remained motionless, his breathing shallow as he listened.

"We can choose not to do this." A male voice this time; the same as the one that had woken him. It must be Dylan.

"How?" came a different female voice. This one was smoother and quieter; it had an almost seductive quality. It sounded to Tomas like the voice of somebody who usually had the attention of everybody in a room. "Russell will kill him anyway, even if Erin doesn't do her little experiment."

Tomas' stomach dropped uncomfortably. He didn't need to wonder too much who the 'he' they were referring to was. And he didn't much like the sound of Erin's little experiment either, whatever that was.

"I thought you wanted to help," said Erin. "I thought you wanted to help work toward a cure, or at least some sort of resistance."

A cure? Tomas' ears pricked up.

"Yes, but not like this." Dylan again.

"How else are we going to study the effect of immune blood on the human body?" Erin's voice was cold, clinical. There was no emotive reasoning there. Tomas shivered. "Finding a cure isn't fun and games, Dylan. You have to experiment with these things. Besides, we don't know that he will die."

"I thought," came the slow response. It sounded to Tomas like Dylan was gritting his teeth. "I thought we started all this to help people. Use Russell to find out more about immunity, and protect the kids here until we can take him on. I don't see how this is helping people."

So Russell was immune? Tomas made a mental note to tell everyone at White Otter Farm. But with a painful pang, he realised he might never get the chance.

"Why are you even defending this kid? Just because he's an enemy of Russell's doesn't make him a friend of ours."

"I thought it was innocent until proven guilty. We're meant to be protecting people; not condemning them."

"There isn't innocent and guilty anymore; just powerful, and powerless."

"Danielle, back me up here, babe," Dylan's voice was pleading.

"I agree," a voice purred. She must be Danielle. "With Erin."

"You can't be serious?"

"I'm sorry, Dylan. The kid's got a death warrant from Russell anyway. At least Erin could try something before Russell finishes him off."

"I can't believe this." Dylan sounded resigned. Tomas felt his pain. It was hard fighting for what's right, especially now when allies and those you could trust were hard to find. "I thought we were better than Russell. Now we're playing by his own damn game."