Hurricane Heart

Hurricane

I dug my nails deeper and deeper into my flesh as I waited for the kettle to boil, fuming with fury, but, being the coward I was, doing nothing about it. Running away. Hiding from myself.

I’d always thought of myself as a strong, powerful individual. In a way, I was—I could get into powerful rages; I could lead a group well; I could get people to do whatever I wanted with some careful persuasion; I could complete many daring, dangerous tasks to a high standard. But that was all a shallow, outward vanity.

Within, I was weak. And that was the truth of the matter. Arjan had awoken that truth, and it was the truth that I had been running from, or possibly the truth that had caused me to run in the first place. I could control people and scare people and lead people, and I wasn’t afraid of pain or death like some people were, but that didn’t make me strong. That was a shallow strength; a plastic strength; a fleeting strength. Not true strength. Truly, I was weak, and that was what made me run.

I ventured back out into the living area at the same time as Tobias returned from down the corridor. I was ready to punch him, but thankfully he did not give me any of his typical arrogance and smugness. If he did, he might just have a few less teeth and a lot of blood dripping from his nose.

Perhaps he genuinely thought prisoners should be treated that way; perhaps he imagined that that was how I’d been dealing with him all along. It still didn’t make him any better, but it made my anger wane a little, so I chose to believe that, purely for ease.

‘I brought you both some new clothes,’ said Carl into the tense silence. I gave him a shallow smile before glaring back at Tobias, ready to talk about what we were supposed to be discussing.

Tobias didn’t seem to acknowledge him at all. ‘Now that inconvenience has been sorted out,’ he muttered darkly, ‘we can start.’

‘I see the Institution hasn’t changed you at all, Tobias,’ I said icily, allowing myself a chance to be smug and mocking. He gave me a threatening look.

‘Alright!’ cried Carl, holding up his hands as though they were creating a barrier between us. ‘No need for that, you two.’

His light-hearted tone went unnoticed, and Tobias and I continued to glare at each other.

‘I think you’ll find that the Institution would make me even more resentful than I was before,’ Tobias said, ‘not that I was resentful before.’

‘We’ve all been there, Tobias,’ I said coolly. ‘You’re not the only one—and it was only six months; minimum sentence.’

‘Don’t judge until you know what they fucking did to me!’ he roared. Carl jumped right out of his seat but I forced myself to sit, unflinching, unblinking, unafraid of him.

‘He has a point,’ Carl said, giving me an apologetic look. I tried not to glare at him for taking sides; I didn’t need any more enemies. ‘Things have changed in the Institutions since you went in.’

My eyebrows lowered over my puzzled eyes. ‘What do you mean?’ In my opinion, the Institutions couldn’t get much worse. I was in for six months too; most people spent that long in there on their first time, as the Dreamer Institutions were different from any ordinary prisons, even the ones for imagination-related crimes. If they couldn’t prove you were a Dreamer—although the government preferred to call them ‘Official Terrorists’ or ‘Official Rebels’ as a continuation of their propaganda—you just went to ordinary prison, no matter how serious the crime. If you were official Dreamers—and they could tell that from their almost foolproof lie detectors, it was straight to the nearest Institution for six months on a first offence; longer after that.

‘How long ago was it that you were in?’ he asked.

‘I was let out about a year ago,’ I replied. ‘Why, what’s changed?’

‘Have you heard about Branding?’ asked Tobias.

‘No. What is it?’

He rolled up the sleeve on his right arm to reveal some sort of tattoo; a large, black letter D in a slightly swirly font. D for Dreamer? Probably, though I was surprised it wasn’t T for Terrorist.

But however cool the tattoo happened to look, that couldn’t sidetrack me from what they’d actually done to him. This was easier than lie detectors—they could probably stop and check people on the streets; I was certain they’d start doing it in airports and seaports and all places like that; stop the Dreamers from getting out of the country.

‘Is it just a tattoo?’ I asked.

‘Pretty much,’ Tobias said, ‘but it hurt a hell of a lot more. The bastards just strapped me into the chair and began to jab the needles right into my skin. It’s a lot easier for them to recognise me; I won’t be able to do anything anymore. And they’ll be able to tell next time without the need for any records or lie detectors that I’ve been in at least once before.’

‘Bastards,’ I muttered, once again astonished and horrified at how cruel our governments could be. This wasn’t the Utopian paradise they’d promised after the Revolution. This was a dark, sinister world, full of lies and secrets and corruption. We weren’t a world of hope and promise; we were a world in fear.

‘And the torture was horrible,’ he added.

‘Torture?’ I cried in outrage. Sure, they’d tortured me when I was in there, but they did it to all Dreamers, usually to find out the locations of our bases—not that it would really do any good. A bit of pain wouldn’t force us to give anything away.

‘Proper torture,’ said Tobias. ‘Not like what everyone else talks about. A guy was in there with me on his second time in an Institution; he said the second time was ten times worse than anything he’d experienced the first time. It was my first time, so I had nothing to compare it to, but I’ve still heard enough stories to make my judgements.’

‘That’s terrible,’ I murmured. ‘It’s...sick...disgusting. What kind of torture?’

‘Well, there was all the ‘brain re-education’ as they like to call it,’ Tobias explained. ‘Y’know, where they hook you up etc, etc.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ I said dismissively. ‘They did that to me as well.’

‘It’s excruciating,’ he said, shuddering at the memories of the ‘re-education’ processes we’d all endured. ‘But then, on the first day, they strapped me up to this machine and, well, tortured me,’ he said simply. ‘It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt by a long way. And they did it at least once a week. They wanted information, but I didn’t give them anything—I swear I didn’t. The raid on the Berlin base ain’t nothing to do with me.’

I believed him. I didn’t like him, but he wasn’t a betrayer either. We had too many enemies in this world to start making them out of our allies too.

‘They did it every day for the first couple of weeks, and then lessened it to about once a week for the rest of the time,’ he continued, ‘I guess they hoped they could break me. But I’ve never felt pain like that. It was true, true agony.’

‘I’ve never heard them do that before,’ I whispered, suddenly afraid. The Institutions were always our biggest fear; but it was the fear that lingered in the back of our minds, always there, but never affecting our lives in any great way. But now things were changing. The governments across Europe were getting wiser—I didn’t suppose it was just Germany that had taken to medieval style torture methods.

‘I know, but they’re doing it to everyone now,’ Tobias spat in disgust. ‘And then there were other things too—all the injections and electrocutions, though I take it you had them too.’

‘Yeah,’ I confirmed before letting him carry on.

‘And they would do stuff just for the sake of it,’ he said. ‘I swear they’re not allowed to throw you around like that anymore, and chain you up by your wrists just ‘cause they feel like it.’

‘There are no rules for Dreamers,’ I said with a sigh. ‘We’re the vermin they need to exterminate; the dirt they want rid off of the bottoms of their pristine shoes. They’ll do anything and everything to get us to give in. But they’ve clearly realised that doesn’t work. Them and their fucking Human Rights Act; well it seems that they long since decided that Dreamers don’t count as humans.’

‘You’re right about that,’ Tobias said, practically spitting his words in disgust.

‘And I heard about the three up for the Operation in England.’ This time it was Carl who spoke. He was lucky; he’d never once been to the Institution, and had very narrowly escaped an ordinary prison sentence—you know, the prisons where people still had rules and rights—before he became a Dreamer. He’d been recruited within minutes of his trial ending—apparently, the Master liked his intelligence and wit (they’d been watching from secret cameras inside the courtroom).

‘I know,’ I said, feeling shivers run up my spine at the mere thought of it. It was beyond sick. No words could describe how horrible the Operation was. ‘Do you know who they are?’

The words were out before I could stop myself. But then, was it better to remain ignorant than know? Wasn’t being a Dreamer all about fighting ignorance; fighting blind belief; fighting all that this government stood for?

‘Two men and a woman,’ Carl said. ‘Didn’t you hear about it the first time it was confirmed? Amy and Casper were devastated for days.’

‘Poor them,’ I mused, truly sympathetic. I had never properly known anyone who’d faced the Operation, but there had always been some people carted out of Berlin who had never returned. ‘Anyone I’d recognise the names of?’

Carl retreated back into his expert memory to try and retrieve the names. ‘Simons, wasn’t it?’ he said. ‘Carmen Simons? That was—‘

‘Nightshade,’ I finished in a horrified whisper. ‘Oh God. So the rumours were true. I thought Casper was just fearing the worst—I didn’t realise he knew, as a fact, that she’d been captured.’

‘I know,’ Carl said. ‘And she’s not even that old. Late thirties, perhaps.’

‘And the other two?’ I asked, shivers dancing uncontrollably down my skin. I had never met Nightshade, but we’d all heard of the feisty, eccentric leader of the second biggest base in Europe. And now, just like that, she was worse than dead.

‘I don’t think you’d know them,’ he said. ‘No one who has ever been to Berlin.’

‘It’s still disgusting,’ I muttered. ‘Are the London guys doing anything to help them?’

‘Of course they’re trying—the ones that are still there,’ Carl said, ‘but you know how high-security those Institutions are anyway; and they keep the pre-Operation ones in the deepest darkest cells of them all. They think it’s imperative that no one gets in.’

‘Aren’t they allowed a visitor before it...happens?’ I asked. I noticed only now that my voice had lowered to a whisper, and tears burned the back of my throat.

‘Just one visitor,’ Carl said. ‘The rest of the time they’re chained up in their padded cells, normally for a few days between when the official decision is made and they actually go through with it, so everything can be set up. Normally, the people due to face the Operation are in the Institution for up to a month before anything is confirmed, and then it needs setting up. The government likes to pretend it doesn’t carry out the Operation too lightly.’

‘But they still do it,’ I said, feeling hatred almost beyond control boiling within me. One day, we would get our revenge. This world was so much sicker than any non-Dreamer could imagine. The government kept everything from us, feeling it imperative that they keep us in the darkness, but we’d slowly but surely discovered the truth long ago. Whatever they told us was a lie. We were nothing but a world in fear, living mere fragments of a life that we could otherwise be leading.