Heathen

What… is… your name?

"I'm not asking again, boy." Richard asked in a voice that scared the bejesus out of me—it had, for like, the first three months. "Now, give me your name or…" cold metal touched my chin. I tried hiding the shivers. Not from cold. From… from incoming pain. "Answer, boy!"

I barely lifted my head. My eyes were filled with defiance, the kind only a fourteen year-old who hated his world could muster in this situation. I was aching all over, bruises, oozing cuts covered me in a map of torture from my never ending stay at the Facility.

Blood caked lips cracked open, I sucked in a breath.

Richard was wearing a splattered shirt. Courtesy of my blood. It almost made me crack a grin. I knew he hated getting his clothes dirty. Chains rattled from both left and right. I winced as the manacles bit into the already torn flesh, causing more blood to flow. I felt it trickle down my suspended arms, dripping onto the floor…

Richard's face morphed. He came at me quick and lethal, snarling. He pushed the crowbar's curve edge under my chin, pushing my head up, locking our gazes together. His was simmering with impatience. A promise of pain. Then again… pain was all this place offered.

"What. Is. Your. Name." My left eye drifted shut from being swollen two times its size.

I croaked, "My name… is James… Wheeler…"

If my handler was angry before I answered, now that rage stared me in the face multiplied by an infinite number.

"Wrong answer, bucko." I tried to get air in before—

SLAM.

My knees buckled under me. I cried out, now completely held up by the chains. The wounds at my wrists deepened—cutting through every soft tissue, touching bone. Blood dripped down my cheek. Richard turned the crowbar in his hands, admiring the shiny redness across the metal. Admiring it… like it was rich paint, not… not my blood.

"What's it going to take," he started sounding dismayed, eyes still on the weapon. I could tell this thrilled him, I felt it in every blow. "For you to break? I'll tell you, kid. You've got balls. That—or you're just incredibly stubborn. Either way, it'll get you killed."

Ha. Getting killed might be a blessing. At least in death the pain would fade. There would be nothing. I would be nothing. Cease. Puff! I liked that option… Shame barreled at the thought, though. Death was the easy way out. Dad wouldn't be proud. Then again, Dad hadn't been proud three months ago when I was selected to be a test subject. I… was a failure. Maybe… maybe I should take up that new name.

Maybe…

No, something inside roared. I wouldn't play into their hands. I wouldn't be another puppet. They wanted to brainwash me. Use me, if I manifested the H-gene. Which was looking unlikely.

I murmured something intelligible. Richard came closer, grabbing a handful of my hair, hoisting me to his height. Face to face. I'd lost weight since I'd 'checked in', but this strength felt different—enhanced. Looks like us kids hadn't been the only guinea pigs Mead Labs had used.

"Didn't quite catch that, son. Did you bite that tongue of yours?" he smirked up-close and personal.

Swishing saliva and blood—almost retching at the copper—into a glob, I spat a mouthful hitting his nose and cheek full-on. A bloody grin stretched my split lips, causing my cut up cheeks to sting.

Pain exploded across my torso. Ribs broke like twigs after the fifth hit. How many? Couldn't tell. I wanted out. I wanted to be far away—Ah! A chocked scream shrilled in a distance. Buzzing, like a bee swarm, was making me dizzy. The crowbar hit again, again, again, again…

I gasped awake, sweating. My breaths came close together, drawing a new one when I hadn't finished the last. I was shaking from PTSD shock. From the… memory. A glimpse of red made me jerk up, sitting. My palm was smeared in dried blood. Right—the cut. From last night. I… I'd cut myself on a fence. Exhaling I rolled off bed, taking a minute to swallow ghosts from Christmas past.

It was a little past four in the afternoon. Slept longer than I'd thought.

Ah, shit. This place was a mess.

My room was a chaos of dirty clothes thrown everywhere—how the hell did my boxers end up hanging from the ceiling fan? I scratched the back of my neck. Shirts were scattered, with bloody patches here and there, some were ripped from knife attacks, others sported holes. Not from moths. My bed and dresser were the only furniture stuffing the room. I needed the empty space to do basic work out like push-ups, sit-ups, squats, yoga. Yoga helped with the… anger issues. Sometimes.

I walked out, bathroom on my mind, archiving 'tidy bedroom and do laundry' on my to-do list. Soreness accompanied me with every step, with every breath. It felt good. I felt weightless. It'd be weird not to feel like I'd been trampled by a horde of elephants. I'd spent the last nine years training, studying how to take hits—how to inflict pain. To the point where you'd beg for death. Aching muscles, bruises, were a nightly dosage of mosquito bites to me.

The bathroom was the tinniest room. Only big enough to house a shower, sink and toilet. On the towel hanger was my belt. Two holsters for my babies on the back, a sheath for the hunting knife—still under my pillow—and four other pouches. For nano-trackers, heatwave pills—you did not want to swallow one those bad boys—a high-voltage Taser I got in the black market, since they're only manufactured in Mead Labs' engineering division. I could set it to fry someone's brain. Don't ask me how they got the voltage so high, all I know is: it's awesome. And lastly, homemade smoke bombs for a quick escape.

I sniffed, turning the faucet. I braced my hands on the sink's ceramic glaring down at the running water. A bead of sweat slid down my forehead, trekking its way down my nose before falling off. I splashed water across my face. Once. Twice. Until the cold drove away sleep. Lifting my head, I caught my reflection.

I wondered if the least you slept the more used your body got—running on low juice? I remembered a time where I'd go a day without sleeping and dark bags would decorate my eyes. Now, not so much.

Sea-weed eyes. Just like Mom. The faint smile washed away when my eyes fell on the scars running along my arms. There wasn't a pattern to them. Some ended up crisscrossed, some were small—barely noticeable—others were larger but were half healed, turning pinkish. I didn't need to glance down at my wrists to see their ropy tissue. My back wasn't a pretty picture, either. I knew I had small, circular burns—from cigarettes—I knew that on both shoulder blades were long, thin scars like someone'd tried giving me wings.

My face wasn't bad. Only had a white scar under my chin. Call it a miracle. My chest donned welts, especially my abdomen. Stab wounds. Believe it or not, these marks hadn't been all courtesy from my time at the Facility. I'd gotten them later, too. Training. Patrolling.

No pain, no gain. Story of my life.

Unconsciously, I coursed a hand through my dark hair. Buzzed on the sides, long on top. They'd shaved our heads at the Facility, given us all equal clothing and matching shoes. A tactic to say we were all the same, belonged to them. I'd kept part of my hair buzzed ever since I'd escaped. A reminder of what I'd undergone.

"You can take the boy out of the Facility…" I trailed off, offering a bitter smirk to myself. I grabbed the askew hanging towel and cleaned my face. "Time for patch-up work." I thrust the cut hand under running water. Blood dissolved, peeling away and going down the drain. Once the cut was clean, I shut it off, wrapping the towel around the cut.

Where had I put the medical supplies? I walked out, surveying my kitchen/living room. I had a whole duffel bag with bandages, medical tape, staples, tweezers, Neosporin… I walked around the room, bending and glaring everywhere for that lifesaver. My hyper-sensitive eyes fell on red bag. I kicked a spare Kevlar vest—jackpot!

I dragged it over to the couch. Sitting down, I managed to unzip it and rummage for the antibiotic. Fucking last thing I needed was an infection. With my luck I'd end up having to amputate the hand. Finding it, I uncapped the bottle, unrolled the towel—seeing it pinkish. Guess the cut was oozing. I poured some Neosporin, not even flinching at the sharp sting. Throwing the antibiotic back in, I wrapped it in bandages, then secured them with medical tape.

I flexed my fingers making sure the tape would hold. It did.

"Now," I reached for the phone. "Time for breakfast—"

A blaring noise made me tense for two seconds before I recognized the ring tone. Letting out an enormous groan, I jumped from the couch, marching to my bedroom. I snatched the burner phone blasting away my peace and quiet.

"This better be good, Axel. I was going to order breakfast."

"You mean a large pizza with extra pepperoni, no olives?" Came the know-it-all tone I'd gotten used to for the last five years.

I closed my eyes, my stomach rumbling with double the hunger from last night's running exercise. "Is there any other kind?"

"Yes. Bacon and eggs. Cereal. Pancakes—"

"That was rhetorical." I deadpanned stopping his arguments about my unhealthy diet. Last time I'd let him lecture me, I'd learned all about LDL cholesterol—the bad one. When I wanted to learn physiology, I'd ask him for a crash course. "Last night was a bust. I got chased away from Mead Labs' meeting point. Some motherfucker redhead spotted me. Put up a chase, too." I detoured our conversation topic, using my shoulder to keep the phone pressed to my ear while I opened the fridge and uncapped a bottle of OJ.

I kicked it shut as I drank greedily walking back to the couch.

"Hmm, sounds like heightened endurance." I imagined Axel rubbing his chin, pensive. It was his trademark tick. "Wait—did you have your gear?"

"Huh, no. I'm picking it up today. Needed new gloves since I tore through my last pair three days ago. I need new ammo for both guns, plus nano-trackers."

"You went unharmed?"

I held the phone away, frowning at it.

"No. I had a knife." There was a long drawn out silence before he sighed. Excessively. "It was perfectly safe."

"You and I have very different definitions on the word 'safe'." Agree to disagree. As usual. I grinned, flopping on the couch, reaching for the remote. "Moving on," I heard some shuffling—like papers being swept away or crumpled. My eyes were on the small plasma screen, waiting. "I got something for you. It's about an Adam Hatfield. His family donates largely to several charities."

"Okay…"

"Listen," Axel urged, knowing I was losing interest. "Two weeks ago, his Father was approached by none other than Richard Cabe." My spine went rigid. My hand held the cell a little tighter, the plastic squeaking in protest. "Ring any bells?" he whispered. I didn't answer. He knew that man's name made the bells of Notre-Dame toll.

"Go on."

"Alright. So, my source says Adam's Father scheduled a dinner with Cabe. Now, neither of Adam's parent has a career in law enforcement. There's no connection. Adam was signed up for a HA-injection a week later. He got the injection."

"Did the H-gene manifest?"

"That's where it gets interesting. It did."

I tilted my head, "How's that interesting?"

"Because!" Axel exclaimed loudly. He had to be home. Axel was a doctor at Mead Labs, he wouldn't even be having this conversation if he wasn't somewhere remotely safe. "Because it's been a week today since he was injected with the HA drug. A week since his H-gene manifested! And he hasn't been seen since."

Fuck me sideways. This was getting interesting.

"You're saying they took him…?"

"To the Facility? Yeah, Jay, it's possible."

That didn't add up. Why? A while back, like twelve years ago, Mead Labs stumbled upon a drug that could make a dormant gene activate. Not just any gene. It was called the H-gene. H for heightening. In theory, every human has the gene which means after being injected with the HA drug everyone's H-gene should turn on.

Yeah, sometimes it didn't.

Scientist don't know why. A way to remedy that? Send the subjects to the Facility. A place where they coax your H-gene awake.

Ha. Coaxed. More like: tried to shake it awake under distressing life-or-death situations. They beat you. Starved you. Cut off absolute contact with the outside world. Until your gene came on. If it didn't? They kept at it 'till it did. Some never came on. Those people ended up leaving. In body bags.

"The only people sent there are the ones whose H-gene doesn't manifest. People who have a parent in law enforcement or people ranging from eighteen to twenty-five who've enlisted to 'serve our country'." I mocked. "Normal families who pay don't get their kids sent there."

If the gen pop ever found out the ugly truth behind the Facility the government would fall. They funded Mead Labs' research aggressively from the very start. They'd approved testing on humans too soon and because of that, they'd decided the first batch of Guinea pigs should be younger people. From ages ranging from thirteen to eighteen. They selected kids whose parent or parents had careers in law enforcement—why? Because before family came the duty to their country and government.

Lucky me, Daddy was an FBI agent. Unlucky me, for some obnoxious reason my H-gene didn't activate right after the injection.

Guess where I got dumped off? Yeah, at the Facility.

"What about Adam's Father? Hear anything from him—stirred any trouble?"

"No, none." Hell. Looks like me and Adam might have something to bond over. "And get this… It says his H-gene enhanced his strength. The same as the previous subject—a Brock Caldwell. You know there isn't a tangible way to deduce what the H-gene will amplify, but Brock has always had history with being strong. He's in his high school's wrestling team, if that's any indication. But Adam? I did some background check. No sports' history aside from… skating? Is that an actual sport?"

I ignored Axel's lack of knowledge on recreational activities.

"Someone at Mead Labs is covering it up." The question is why? H-gene activated? Everyone was happy! Why would Mead Labs lie about his enhancement? Could be because of side-effects. Thanks to Axel, I knew about some. That HA drug could be a real bitch.

I couldn't believe Cabe would drag a wealthy kid—whose H-gene had been successfully triggered—to the Facility. No one outside of the DOD—department of defense—a few Mead Labs scientists and certain militia, knew about the Facility, of its location.

Why risk it?

"Fuck, yeah, Axel. You've finally brought something hot to the table."

"Language," he barked. I rolled my eyes. "Don't roll your eyes at me." That was creepy. The H-gene didn't give humans super-powers, only enhanced a quality. If I didn't know that, I'd say Axel could turn invisible and was spying me right now. "I think you should look into this, man. What if Adam's manifesting after effects? We've been looking for a way to prove side effects of the HA drug for months. This could be it! If they're hiding Adam—if we find him, if we show the world what this drug can do—we can put a stop on Mead Labs' injections."

Maybe even expose what really happened inside the Facility.

Looks like I'd have to take a rain check when it came to tidying up my room. For now, I was going to eat at least two pizzas, then visit my favorite arm-dealers for magazines, pick up a box of knuckled gloves and hunt down some info on this Hatfield family.