"Please, don't hurt us." The woman rocked the whining baby in one hand and raised her free hand, pleading.

"What-how-?" Tamara stuttered while absentmindedly readjusting her face mask, but I suspected I knew what she was thinking. How was what we were witnessing even possible?

The woman's eyes were wide with fear. "We ain't no threat. I promise." The two teenaged girls at her side agreed with a nod. Clearly, they were frightened too. Neither the woman nor the girls looked familiar, not that they should. There were hundreds of people in the hemi and I couldn't meet them all, even if I could I wouldn't remember everyone. Still there was something different about these girls. Their clothing was worn, faded and tattered. Their faces were sunken at the cheeks, causing black shadows to collect in the dips and creases of their naturally dark complexion. And they gave off an odd, unpleasant odor, different than the familiar stench of sickness or sweat. And judging from the frame of the girls, they looked to be around thirteen or fourteen years of age, which added to the mystery. No one was born in the facility after the door leading to the surface closed. There hadn't been any announcement of births. Not even the birth of the child in the woman's arms.

Taking the words from Tamara's mouth, Vince lowered his firearm. "Who are you?"

"I'm Natasha. These girls here are my nieces." She gulped, clearing the shakiness from her heavily accented voice. "This here is my son, Baby Malcolm." She bounced the infant slightly and held him against her chest.

"That's a baby." The words slipped from my mouth before I had a chance to let them register. How was that even possible, and what did it mean that there was one in the facility? They would've made a huge announcement, and news of a birth would have definitely been displayed on the wall monitors for everyone to see.

So why had it not?

Vince peeked around the nearest darkened corner. "Where is everyone?"

"They're focusing on the other lift." Natasha pointed toward the east end of the level. "Since nobody from the lower half is over there to stop 'em. But a few of 'em are keeping an eye out on this side here. My man's with them. You won't hurt nobody, will you? We're not supposed to be down here yet, but we snuck past when they wasn't looking."

Tamara scoffed. "Snuck past? What-?" She shook her head, confusion in her wide eyes. "What about contamination? How are you breathing the air?"

Natasha pointed to Vince and shrugged. "The same way he is."

I exchanged worried looks with Vince and Tamara. No doubt they were just as baffled as I was. What the hell was going on?

Tamara studied the girls with her eyes. "The baby's not hurt, is he?"

"That depends." Natasha cradled the dark, curly head of the baby in her palm as she kept him pressed against her. "Are ya'll gonna hurt him?"

I shook my head, a bit insulted by her judgment of my character, but given the circumstances, I understood her skepticism. "Of course not."

A concerned look twisted Tamara's face. "But the air, he's not symptomatic? None of you are?"

"What'd you mean? What's wrong with the air?" Natasha's eyebrows pulled together in confusion.

Tamara scoffed. "The toxins-"

Muffled pop-pop-pop of gunshots echoed toward the east end.

"Down!" I rushed forward and carefully pushed Natasha and her nieces toward the floor so they were safe from the gunfire. The baby screeched. The tears in the girls' eyes switched a trigger in my gut, and all I wanted to do was comfort and protect them. I looked into Natasha's tear-filled eyes. "We're here to defend you, not hurt you."

She nodded, but doubt flashed across her face in her expression.

Footsteps approached so fast we didn't have time to concoct a plan, and before we knew it, Vince's rifle was pointed at a large man who towered over us by a couple of inches while Vince stared down the barrel of an identical firearm.

"Drop it!" The stranger demanded and several men appeared around the corner, joining him by aiming their weapons and pointing them directly at us.

Vince's firearm clinked as it hit the floor, beckoning more screeching cries from Baby Malcolm. Vince lifted his hands and Tamara and I stood and followed suit.

"Grab 'em." The facial hair on the large man obscured most of his features, but from what I could make out, he wasn't just set on restraining us. One of the men grabbed Vince's arms and pinned them behind his back the way the higher officers would've done during an arrest.

Natasha pushed by me. "Don't hurt 'em, baby. They can help us."

"What're you doing down here, Natasha?" His growl gave away the anger he harbored. "It ain't safe yet. Take that baby and those girls back."

"But you ain't gonna kill 'em, right?"

"I'm not gonna kill them. I'm gonna let Emily decide what to do with them." The large man huffed. "But I won't promise they ain't gonna get hurt until then."

The men pushed us along the long corridor by our wrists, which were secured behind our backs. First, the red lights surrounded us, and when they went off, darkness settled in, with only a glimpse of dull light coming from the other end of the hall.

"Bring them this way," a distorted voice called from where the light shone. "We'll interrogate them down here."

Vince pulled away, stopping in his tracks. "We're not telling you guys anything until you answer our questions first. Who the hell are y-?"

"Shut up." The large man swung his fist so fast it connected with Vince's jaw before I could react. Vince stumbled back, nearly going down.

"What the hell are you doing?" I pulled my wrists from my captor's grip and shoved the guy before it registered that I was no match.

He pushed back, almost knocking me off balance. "You want some of what he just got?"

He grabbed my elbow and directed me toward the light. I looked to my right at Tamara, who complied, and to my left at Vince, whose head hung low. "Vince, are you all right?"

He nodded, limping along as they guided us to the light.

It wasn't until we moved closer that the massive, jagged hole in the wall, and the concrete debris that had shattered from it, came into view. The light beamed out from behind it, illuminating the devastation. And from beyond the hole, a slender silhouette appeared.

"Is it clear?" The slurred voice was high pitched like a female, but distorted enough to make her pronunciation of the hard C come out gurgled and the words meld together.

The man pushed Vince, causing him to stumble forward. "We took some down. The rest retreated, except these fools."

Who were these people and what did they want? They couldn't have come from the outside because the facility was located many miles beneath the surface and its exact location was a secret except to the facility residents. But more importantly, we were told the contaminates killed everyone on the surface who had survived impact over fifteen years ago. Not even plants survived the toxic, dry, darkened world above.

"Tell us what you want." I directed my statement toward the woman, who I was sure called the shots. "No one else has to get hurt. Just tell us what you want from us."

She scoffed. "No one has to get hurt? Many people have already been hurt. Killed, even."

"No one else has to get hurt or killed." I swallowed a lump of nervousness in my throat. Knowing they could've executed us at first sight, there had to be a reason we were still alive. "How can we help you?"

She chuckled and I made out the unamused sarcasm in her muffled laugh. "Now that I think of it, there's probably not much help you can offer unless you have the power to open the emergency shield in the stairway and get us to Nine."

She is a resident.

The terms she used and her knowledge of the sealed off staircase showed her familiarity with the facility.

Tamara cleared her throat. "Whatever it is you want doesn't matter, since you assholes are all contaminated. You're gonna drop dead, maybe not today or tomorrow, but either way it's gonna be painful and your plan will be useless."

"No." The woman took a few steps forward, her voice eerie and low. Her features still cloaked by the silhouette she formed. "The toxins are on the outside of the facility, not in here. They've never been in here. There was never a breach, never a contamination leak. What you were told to believe are lies."

"Lies?" I shook my head. Who was this woman and why would I believe her or trust anything she said?

"Yes," she hissed. "All lies." She finally moved close enough for me to see the pale skin on her face, which had been disfigured and scarred so badly only small holes for her eyes and a slit for her mouth were present beyond the mangled characteristics. Her uneven hairline receded to the middle of her head on one side, and what was left of her curly dark hair hung in a low ponytail at the back of her head.

Tamara stepped back and I successfully held in a gasp.

"What?" Confusion clouded my mind. "Why would I believe you?"

"Take them up." She threw her thumb back. "Clean them up and take care of their wounds, and discard those ugly, useless gas masks when they get up there. We have Plan B to get underway."

~~~

What's questions are going through your mind? How did this chapter make you feel? Thanks for the support as always.