No Time To Bleed

We walked down the dead silent hallways.

“So, how does this code breaker stuff help us find Ryant?”

Clarissa sighed. “When you’re the child of a Lexicon worker, you’re implanted with a micro tracking chip shortly after birth.”

Sounded freaky enough to be in a science fiction movie, but then again, this was real life.

We came upon the thick plated glass doors that overlooked the insides filled with heavy rectangular external hard drives. There had to be hundreds of those things along the floors of the place. I inserted the flash drive to the USB port at the door and the door slid open.

“Only one person’s allowed access in at a time. It’s you.” She stepped back. “Good luck. Everything you look at will save onto that hard drive.”

I nodded and stepped through, the door slammed shut behind me. Shots and white hot flashes went off on their side of the glass. A bullet left cracks before my face and Clarissa could be seen shouting. Cece and Shatoya made their way over and a fierce gun battle took off. Shatoya screamed words I could never hear, but I could only guess what her lips read: Hurry up!

I jogged down through the rows and rows of hard drives. The room was one big structure with a ceiling in the shape of a glittering globe to signify the Earth. The floor were marble gray just like the rest of the building.

A loud smack echoed through the room.

“Who’s there?” I muttered.

My voice seemed to resonate through the entire room.

“Hello?”

My heart was pounding against my chest like a jack hammer and I would dread if there were any zombies in this room. But that’d be stupid, right?

My steps went on and I eventually I found the sunken in platform of large computer screens. It was a semicircular desks with loads and loads of keyboards with all different sorts of symbols. I found the one with the English alphabet.

God damn, this computer screen had to be at least twenty feet high and wide. I inserted the flash drive and the thing came to life.

LEXICON CORPORATION OPERATIONS

The screen went into a series of numerical scrimmages and it was all just gibberish to me. I still had no idea why they’d given me this job. It made no sense. I was no top secret heist person. I could fight. I could survive. But, breaking top secret corporations files? This flash drive was my savior.

A click came from behind and something solid went to the rear of my skull.

“What’s your name?”

“I don’t tell strangers my name.”

His voice sounded young, younger than me.

An explosion of hot white hit my vision and the butt of the gun went to my head.

“TELL ME YOUR NAME!”

“Jasmine Rushman.” I had crumbled to a heap on the floor. “God, that hurt. Who the hell are you?”

“Rodney Wiggins. I work here.”

I turned and struggled to stand, finally seeing this boy. He seemed taller than his age, neither skinny nor slim, but compact weight. His hands held the gun steadily, steadier than anyone else I’d seen my age to hold a gun. He’d been trained. His eyes were a cucumber green that regimented all sorts of things and his hair was light blonde feathers upon his head.

“What are you doing in here?”

“What the hell does it look like I’m doing? I’m fucking up your system here!”

“Stand up.” He ordered.

And I did, reluctantly.

“Give me your bra.”

My eyebrows creased together. I was sure this was wasting time.

“My bra? What?”

His eyes stayed glued to me, possibly seeing me naked with his pervy X Ray vision. “Your clothes are wet and I can see all sorts of outlines. It’s sexy.”

A flirtatious smile etched into his face as he paced around me, still cradling the gun in hand.

“So, what is this? A rape attempt? Do you have a fetish?”

“I’ll let you go, if you give me your bra.”

“Well… it’s got zombie blood on it. So…”

His smile never faltered and I knew I had only one option.

So I reached under my shirt, unhooked my bra, and handed it to him.

“Hm, C sized breasts. Perfect.” He purred, stroking the black soaked bra in his hand.

I was actually a D, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

Then he took it full on to his nose and inhaled. The perv was smelling my bra right in front of me.

“The sweat is so fresh. I like it.”

I wondered how often this dude did this.

His grin went off and I jumped as something whizzed past my shoulder. Behind me was the now wasted computer screen cracked open and glass chips.

“I’ll make them think you did that.” He grabbed my arm. “Come on. I’ll help you get out of here. They do bad things to people like you.”

I snatched out the flash drive and crammed it into my pocket, hoping the needed info had gotten onto there. The glass from the front doors had finally shattered and people were screaming.

“Shoot her! Shoot her! She’s in there!”

We ducked past an aisle of hard drives.

He pulled on my hand tighter. “Come on! We’ve gotta move quick!”

His voice was in a rushed whisper. His hand felt warm against mine and something weird was stirring inside my stomach. He led me through two doors and down a slight of stairs to a steaming maintenance room. Rodney tugged off a metal grate and set it aside.

“Climb in! Fast!” He helped me through the opening finally.

My feet landed on a cement stoop and he went in behind me.

“Ew, is this sewage? Oh my God.”

The entire darkness was an underground brick structure that leaked from the ceilings.

He held out his hand for me to grab and grinned. “It’s the only way out of here.”

I took his hand as he went into the sewage water first in his suit and tie. I plopped into the water. It reached my waist, cold and chunks of green slime. Grass moss tickled my ankles and I wondered where Clarissa, Cece, and Shatoya were right now. At least the flash drive was water resistant.

We wadded through the water. Rodney led me to the left and held onto my hand.
“If you’re only 15, why are you working for a company like Lexicon?

He beamed a tiny smile. “How’d you know my age?”

“Guess.”

Rats scurried along the bricks around us.

“It’s complicated.”

“I think I’d understand complicated right about now.”

He chuckled. “Well, my dad is a CEO first off. Trading stocks. Torturing people. He’s barely home. So, when my mom died, he said he wanted to make a man out of me.”

“How’d he do that?”

“Forcing me to inject babies. Watch people get chained to walls like animals. I think he even killed my girlfriend.”

“Your dad sounds worse than mine.”

We had neared the end of a path of water. Echoes and shouts bounced everywhere.

He removed a thick barred grate. “On the other end of this and 15 feet to the right, you’ll climb up a ladder and end up outside.”

For some reason this whole set up amazed me. “Did you know I was coming?”

He snorted. “I wish. This is how I usually sneak out of this hell hole.”

“But…”

His cool green eyes stared at me. “But, what?”

“How are you gonna sneak out from now on?”

He shrugged. “I’ll find some other way. It’s my job to stab my father in the back. It’s the first rule of life he taught me.”

Sounded intense.

“Well, I’ll see you around, Bra-Less.”

I climbed through and shouted back at him. “You better hope you don’t Fetish Boy!”

Weirdly, I wished Rodney was coming with me. But then again, I’d never have any bras to wear.