...

Hawkesbury River

Barden Compound – Stage ONE Reproduction Facility

DAYS INSIDE: ZERO [ 0 ]

August 19 – Late Winter

...

After I tried to shoot Wilkes, they sedated me. I came-to on a hospital bed with three little nurses chittering around me like canaries trying to retrieve scraps of bracken. Each nurse was female, and each had artificially modified features. G.H.O.O.L mods, like mine, except as with the fashion in Newcastle, their modifications were overtly apparent.  

Yellow eyes, blue hair, freckles that shimmer like flecks of glitter. 

Their assessment of my complete health portfolio was so thorough that I can't believe their scanning devices didn't detect the eSight in my right eye.  

I thought I'd get to clean off or at least sleep, but the pretty Doctor told me I had to undergo an interview first because of the nature of my wounds. I didn't tell her my history, that I nearly died from some sort of blood infection last year, or that Elias's Nona had to use old medicine to extract a fish worm from me. I get breathing fits, probably asthma or anxiety, and it only worsens with every cigarette I huff or any vape I pull on. I've had broken bones and other injuries born of idiocy or violence, usually both. In fact, I always dislocate my shoulder because the tendons are so weak. Still, the only Doctor I have willingly spoken to since I was twelve was the man who installed my eye.  

I sit on a pleather bed in a small glass room protected by thin curtains. A Lance Corporal named Gerhard looms over me with his arms crossed behind his back. 

The glass wall hisses, pulling back for Wilkes to stride in, relieving Gerhard of his duty. The Corporal leaves as a woman enters. Her stick-straight hair resembles a mixture of salt and pepper, and her crystal pink eyes blink at me like a strange bird. Freak. 

I glare at her tightly pursed lips. Neither she nor Wilkes wears a mask. Why? Everyone else hides behind them. 

She smooths her white petticoat with manicured fingers, placing a glass device on the table in front of me before smacking a pair of blue gloves on her hands. She drags her pink eyes down my face, cocking her head in disgust at my blood-caked appearance. 

Doctor Carden doesn't bother pulling the curtains closed. Instead, hundreds of people dart around, soldiers escorting Lake Darling rescues down halls and into rooms, letting people peer in and stare at me. 

"Hello, Miss Warrendale." Carden clears her throat, looking at the device as she sits. When I sneer back at her, Wilkes cracks a threatening knuckle and the hair on my neck prickles. His reflection in the window becomes a constant ghost—a terrible set of hawk-eyes peering down at me. 

"Wh-." I cuss silently when my voice breaks, pain lancing through me. Doctor Abigail gave me something to help, but whenever I talk, it kills. 

Carden narrows her pink eyes on me until I feel like I'm hiding behind a glass bottle. "I understand Doctor Abigail and her nurses completed a medical review and assessment of you." Doctor Abigail was the pretty Doctor, with yellow eyes and highlights in her hair that reflected like ribbons of gold. "I'm going to talk you through a couple of things and fix up some holes in our paperwork." She clears her throat, narrowing her eyes at me when I shift in my cuffs. "First," she spins the device to face me, "can I get you to scribble your name down there?" 

She points with a gloved finger, and I blink at the expanse of writing. 

Subject RF72 Miss WARRENDALE, Violet - Declaration of Consent. 

What does this bītch think I'm gon' do? Sign? 

"No." 

I lean against my chair, and a lightning bolt strikes her features. She presses her wrinkly lips together like my mother does when she's... I freeze. The realisation that I'll never see my mother purse her lips like that hits me in the gut. A knife twists in my chest, but when I remind myself that I hated her, it makes me want to vomit on this bītch's table. Her pink eyes would explode out of her head. I'm a Ghoul; I'll take your eyes. Who am I kidding? I haven't been a Ghoul for a long time. 

Her voice drops out of the pitch she'd been using on me. "Write it up that she was too volatile to risk uncuffing; therefore, I signed on her behalf," Carden orders the Sergeant. She picks the device up with her pinkie in the air, like the dirt from my mere presence will permeate through her gloves. She's too high and mighty for a mask, but don' wan' breathe the same air as me? Shit don' make a lick of sense. 

Hot lava boils in my stomach when she scratches a signature on the device, sighing like I'm the one being difficult. 

"Miss Warrendale. I've made special provisions in my schedule to see you today as I understand you are Craig Warrendale's daughter?" The vat of lava gurgles in my stomach, but I remain silent. They know my father. I swallow down bile, trying to make myself concentrate. "Right. So. When did you last see your brother Tokyo Warrendale?" 

I snap my eyes up to look at her and clench my fists behind me. "Why?" 

What have they done to him? 

"Answer the question," Sergeant Wilkes snarls, and I flinch away. 

"Four y-years ago."' I croak. 

Carden curls her lip back, "When he enlisted? Is that correct?" She doesn't wait for an answer and scribbles it down. "Alright. We'll come back to that. How old are you, Miss Warrendale?" I narrow my eyes at her, and silence pervades. She clears her throat. "I understand it's painful to talk. You can point." She spins the device around again, and I cock a brow at her. How do I point with my hands cuffed...? 

I flinch when the number I was looking at starts glowing like it knows. "I-I." Can it sense the G-Mod contact in my eye? 

"Preserve your energy." 

Silence. I look around, my heart thumping. 

"Blink when it focuses on the right age." 

I almost unleash a bitter laugh, but when Sergeant Wilkes shifts behind me, I stare at the device. 

"Twenty, right. A nice age. This is excellent." She doesn't smile, but her pink eyes widen in delight, "I'm going to commence asking you a series of questions about your health. I understand you resisted revealing this to Doctor Abigail. Unfortunately, you don't have a choice. We have many more unpleasant measures to get the information, so I suggest you tell me now." I'll show you unpleasant measures. "Do you understand?" I grit my jaw, and she takes my silence as consent. "Now, when was your last period?" 

I narrow my eyes. "Don' know." 

She clears her throat, "Weeks? Months? Years?" 

I grit my jaw, but the silent threat makes my skin crawl when the Sergeant exhales behind me. "Months." I rasp. 

She nods, "As expected. It appears Dr Abigail left notes on your file; it's quite normal to miss a couple of menstruations whilst in a state of stress." Silence. "When did you last have sexual intercourse?" 

I cock a brow, kissing my teeth, "Month." The lie rolls off my tongue, and she nods. 

"Any spotting afterwards?" 

She takes my silence as a negative, commencing with a varying interrogation. Finally, after what feels like hours, she looks at the Sergeant with a mechanical smile. "This is very satisfactory. Right, I'll finish up pairing, and then you can take her to the temporary wing." Pairing? "Miss Warrendale, Violet? I'll call you Violet." 

I try to hiss out a complaint. 

Dr Pink-eye pats her petticoat down again, then nods, "Violet. I understand you have had a long day, but I need you to focus. As an Australian citizen, your sovereign duty is to serve your country." I blink at her. What? "There has been a spike in infertility rates in Newcastle." My skin crawls. Infertility? What the hell would make a city infertile? I know there was an outbreak of the old D.V.B. disease because the army started dropping their dead in Manic Territory six months ago. But D.V.B is a respiratory condition... I nearly blurt my question out, but I bite my tongue, hard. 

They think I'm a little factory dog from Lake Darling who hasn't seen more than rotting skyscrapers and ration cards. The government has this thing called a Virtual Public Network, which is a broadband processing net. It restricts anyone in Lake Darling from accessing the media supply generated in the Actual Public Network... which is what the rest of Australia accesses. If they had an inkling that I even knew what the Actual Public Network was, or worse, I have tech in my eye that lets me access it 24/7, it'd be grounds to have me wiped from records. Scribbled. Scratched.  

Executed.  

I realise I stopped paying attention to her, and she clears her throat when my eyes find hers. "You are at your reproductive prime," my jaw loosens, "and we need to repopulate."  

Silence. Cold, prickling silence. They're going to artificially inseminate me? Make me pop out a kid like a dog? 

I balk, searching for the words between those two sentences that would lead to... a repopulation scheme. But she fails to hold eye contact like she's unable to watch my confusion. Carden looks at her device and starts reading, "Human Rights are a core principle within this project; therefore, I must explain your options. Whilst you partake in this service, you have three paths in order to achieve conception. First, you have the opportunity to volunteer a preference for your new reproductive partner. Is there anyone you think you would be compatible with?" 

"What?" I snap. Reproductive partner? Why would they need me to pick someone...? Everything dawns on me. 

"As a sexual partner?" Dr Pink-eye clarifies. 

My heart starts thumping, and I look around, trying not to let out a noise of fear. My rage mixes with terror. They're going to force me to have a baby? What? What is this? What is this place?  

"W-Wh-." I stumble out of my chair in horror and the Sergeant grabs the back of my shirt. "What are the other two. You said there were three options-. Wh-." My voice sounds weak and foreign. 

"Sergeant." Carden commands and Wilkes eases his grip on me. She gestures at me to talk, and I sigh in relief. Weak, Violet. You're giving her the power. 

"What are the other options?" 

Carden blinks a bit too quickly, looking away for a split second. 

Wilkes jerks me roughly, but Carden raises a palm at the Sergeant in silent order to stop. He still grips me like a dog holding a bird in its jaws so she directs a pink eye to him, "Compassion, Sergeant." Compassion. I nearly scream in her face for her condescending tone, "Ms Warrendale." Carden swallows, smoothing the bare desk with gloved hands, "If you fail to reproduce authentically within an, appropriate period of time then you will be offered the choice of artificial insemination, but this will cost you several credits. You may not elect this method until there is evidence of authentic trials... Therefore, you must choose a partner." 

I blink at her in outrage, "No." Then, I snap, "What's the third option-." Wilkes jerks me again, but this time Carden doesn't tell him to stop; instead, her intense gaze falters. She glances from me, to her table, to Wilkes before, with a stiff expression, she nods at him to explain. 

Wilkes grabs my throat from behind, pressing a sloppy kiss to my neck, "If you don't pick a bed-buddy I'll fück a kid into you." 

"What the Sergeant means is I can schedule appointments for soldiers participating in the program to visit your room." She clarifies irritably.

I don't even let myself feel the ensuing terror. "Get off-. Get him off me." 

"Miss Warrendale. Violet." Dr Pink-eye tries to grab my attention but everything spins out of grasp when Wilkes slides a rough, oversized hand down my äss. 

I go rigid, "Let go. Please. Stop-." I squeeze my eyes shut, scrambling to pull myself together. Stop panicking. "I'll pick." I look at Carden desperately, "Get him off and I'll pick." 

She already has her hand raised, "Sergeant. Enough." Wilkes releases me begrudgingly, stepping back to the corner as I lower myself into my seat. "Who do you want as a partner, Violet?" 

My mind goes blank, my heart squeezing. I force myself to concentrate. "Elias Connley." Maybe they have him in the system. I can check if they got him. 

The pink-eyed bitch patters her fingers against the screen. "Already paired." They got Elias? What about Ibis? He must be with Shelley. "Is there anyone else, Violet?" Carden mutters. 

... 

Trembles overcome me and I glare at my hands accusingly as they quiver. The cut on my palm throbs relentlessly, but it's the least of my wounds. Mum's blood has dried into an ugly brown, flaking around my nails. It smells putrid, like fish and metal. 

They dumped me in a holding room for the night and said they would bring my new partner once he was discharged. I can't think about who it is, I just can't bear the nauseating suspense. 

I stand in the bathroom mirror, but my reflection looks like a Zero'd Manic. Like I'm one of the cannibalistic creatures from outside the walls. 

My face is covered in blood, my cheek is grazed; my eyes are bloodshot. Black bruises ring my neck, and the cut on my forehead throbs. 

My mother's fur coat is so caked by blood that it crunches when I shrug it off. 

I twist the tap, unable to understand when it starts spewing water, but then I dully remind myself that they have a lot more than water in this place. 

I scrub her blood from my hands, and the basin goes red, but it becomes too much, so I brace my arms on the white porcelain, staring at the mirror as the tap vomits fresh water. 

The girl in front of it looks broken. 

Bones poke out of me, and my eyes are sunken. My hair is crusted with blood and I'm alarmingly pale.  

I'm scrawnier now and my chapped lips aren't as full. I was cuter as a kid. I brush my teeth, trying to scrub away the nasty taste in my mouth. 

I tell myself my nose is arched like my mother's, and there's a similarity in our eyes; dark blue, but these are things people have said to me since I was a child, not things that I can see... I can't imagine her face anymore. Dad gave me black hair and a standoffish glare, but I've never liked how my features are always set in a hard frown—masculine and unattractive. 

I shake the vain thoughts away, returning to scrubbing my tongue until I gag. Again, I know Tokyo's face sits in a pleasant, confident way, but I struggle to picture him. Every moment I spend trying to grasp an image of their faces, they become more invisible. 

A sob wracks my chest but the noise is closer to a dog being kicked in the ribs. No tears fall, the blood draining from my face as I'm stricken with the realisation of how much I lost. 

Pelt. Pelt. Pelt. Did they use a silencer? I don't remember. 

They took my family, my dreams, my life. My skin crawls, and my stomach churns like a pit of snakes. My ears ring. Did a door slam? How do I tell Tokyo? He's the only one who ever loved her. I need Scorpius.

She's dead. Dad is gone. Scorpius is alone with people he hates. Elias, missing... taken from Binnie. I'm never gon' escape Wilkes. They're gon' make me have a kid. I killed Mal. I'm never going to get to Holders Bay. The Manics will attack Lake Darling. I failed. I failed. I let everything go to shit because I had some pills and a few too many drinks. 

It's all gone. 

I puke up anything I have left, gagging and retching. It takes me back to when I was sick with the blood virus. When I had to cling to that rusty bucket as I heaved, and heaved, and heaved.  

I panic harder, hating the taste of my bile and the bitter reminder it throws at me. 

You know when you cry so hard that you wind yourself? When your jaw is screaming at you and you're fighting for breath? It started as tears of... grief? Tears for myself. Selfish tears. Not for my mother, but for the fact we never fixed anything. She died hating me, and I'll die hating her. 

I gag again but nothing comes up. My heart starts racing harder when the cut above my eyebrow starts crying blood down into my vision.  

Someone touches my back, "Vi," He croaks, but I lurch and my arm slips on the basin, making the water gush over the side. I swing at him but he grabs my wrist defensively. 

I freeze, struggling to breathe evenly. "Let go," I choke out. 

"Vi, I'm not gon' hurt you," He drops my hand, but his voice is enough because I snap my head up. He stands over me like a reverie from hell with his black hair falling in his eyes, blood crusting his jaw, his dark glare dog-mad enough to challenge that of a Manic... but he looks panicked. 

Reid. 

His grey-green eyes soften and he opens his mouth like he's trying to say something, but neither of us manages a word. 

A thousand emotions, amplified by humiliation, grief and shame, smack me in the gut. But what overwhelms me the most, is the instant flush of relief that makes me want to cry harder. "Have you seen Elias?" I try to sound like myself, bitchy and cold, but my voice cracks on his name. 

"They sedated me. You're the first person I've seen since the Nurses." Blood runs down my cheek and he focuses on my forehead, "It's running in your eye," His callous voice is groggy with exhaustion.  

His presence is so intimidating that I find myself dwarfed but instead of skittering around like a nervous cat, I front like I'm uninterested and unbothered by him. I can't bear to prove I'm strong for another second, so I glance down. 

"No shit." I mutter, turning away coldly before I lean over the basin again and splash my face. It stings like a bitch so I grit my jaw, stifling a slight noise.  

I need today to end. 

He stands behind me and to his point, the cut springs back into a trickle of blood. It tracks through my eyebrow, racing down the ridge of my eye socket before it trawls all the way down my neck. I wipe it, but the water makes the blood run further. His presence makes every inch of my skin aware like I can sense the heat of his body, but I refuse to acknowledge my nerves.  

"Do you think we're gon' see the others?" It feels awkward to say we. 

He clears his throat, watching the cut. Before I can do or say anything he hooks his finger in my belt buckle and spins me to face him. His eyes weigh on me like he knows I'm on the brink of tears. Like he knows how unfathomably brutal and gut-wrenching the last twenty-four hours have been. I try to argue, but he reaches around me to twist the tap off. Then, before I can even really focus on what he's doing, he pushes my hair back like he's silently warning me not to freak out again. "What are you doing?" I snap my eyes up, but before we can even enter some puffed-up glare off, I look away like a scared little kid.  

His brows loosen, and I feel him relax, noticeably less cautious. "Hold still." He takes a hand towel from the wall before he runs the tap over it. 

Reid stands close again, "What are you doing?" I croak, grabbing his arm when he lifts it. My fingers tremble, and he notices.  

"I loved Tokyo." He clears his throat, "Him wouldn't handle seeing you like this."  

I look up at him, sceptical. He raises his brows irritably, like he don' wan' play games, like this isn't a sign of affection but simply a skewed expression of... guilt? Like he resents the fact I even look weak. 

I never liked him, but some of my sweetest childhood memories come from the time I spent with Cola when we baby sat his little sister. Reid's mum was so protective of Bloom, so I felt important when she trusted us to look after her.  

I lower my eyes to his neck, and finally, he presses it to my forehead. "You on a come down?" He ignores the tremble in my hands, but he must've noticed before. 

"Yeah a bit. An' I got choked out." My headache throbs with every pulse of my blood. 

His eyes narrow slightly, "Explains the bloodshot eyes," He applies gentle pressure. "Drink water." 

He pays attention to my cut but then we catch eyes and I look down again. "They said they're sending doctors in half an hour. The shower isn't very private, but I won't look." 

I nod slightly, unsure of how to react to my emotions. "Why are you on the hospital wing?"  

He sniffs slightly, swallowing like his throat is raw, "Don' know." Reid watches me with a heavy gaze and the muscle in his cheek dances as he clenches and unclenches his jaw.  

"Is... is Bloom okay?" I croak and our eyes catch, hot dislike flaring in his features, but then he sees that I'm concerned and his steely resolve crumbles. 

My heart breaks, "I don' know." He rasps, averting his gaze, "They gave me this," he takes a roll of medical tape from his back pocket and gestures for me to take it, "Use it once you're cleaned up."

...

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