"Let us go, my dear. I believe a feast awaits us in the dining hall." Soto placed his hand against her lower back and rubbed his thumb back and forth against her bare skin. A wave of revulsion flooded through her.
He led Sam from the room and back out of the mines. Climbing the staircase proved to be just as difficult as the descent and Sam dreamed of the moment when she would be able to remove the heels.
They reached the top and trundled back through the maze of hallways. Sam thought they were headed in a different direction but she couldn't be sure. Everything looked the same. The gold and green marble floors. The gaudy wall art. The cameras.
The doors lining the hallways changed and the rich, mahogany doors turned golden, each etched in beautiful, elaborate designs.
"This is where our royalty are housed," General Soto said.
Sam walked by his side in silence, her arm still intertwined with his as he had insisted, and still hating every moment of it all. The effigies of the children had burned into her retinas and her heart ached for them.
As they continued to walk down the hall, a young girl burst from one of the golden doorways. The General let go of Sam's arm and advanced on the girl. She was naked from head to toe but Sam recognized the headful of lavender hair.
It was Alex.
She locked eyes with Sam for a moment and then straightened as the General approached. The girl's purple eyes darted to the floor, and she pressed her bare backside against the wall.
"What do you think you're doing?" Soto asked.
Alex shook her head, but her eyes remained fixed on the floor. Violet locks from the girl's disheveled hair covered her face. Heavy, black streaks of mascara ran down her cheeks, and her bare chest heaved up and down. The girl was barely a teenager. Far too young to be naked and crying in a hallway. Sam's blood boiled with hatred for this place.
"Answer me," the General said.
But Alex didn't have to answer. The golden door burst open again and this time a man wearing only a pair of crusty yellow briefs exited into the hallway. His gray hair was as prevalent around the crown of his head as it was in his ears and nose. He wore a thick golden chain around his neck and the extravagant medallion at the end rested in a thick tuft of chest hair. He had dyed his skin an awful orangish-brown color, and it amplified the deep wrinkles covering his body. Sam's stomach knotted up at the sight of him.
"Ah, General Soto," the old man wheezed. He smiled to reveal a set of teeth that were as white and straight as Soto's. Too white. Too straight. "It's so nice to see you this evening." The man spoke with no sign of embarrassment, not even the slightest shred of shame as he stood half-naked in the middle of the hallway.
The General's heels came together and his spine stiffened. "President Gates, it's always a pleasure," Soto said as he brought his hand a perfect 45 degree angle towards the brim of his hat. Gates offered a half-ass salute in response and the General lowered his arm. He then motioned toward the girl. "Is there a problem here?"
Gates laughed and shook his head. "Heavens no, General." The old man walked over to Alex and grabbed a handful of hair. Her eyes grew wide, and the man yanked down hard. She shrieked in pain.
"No!" Sam screamed.
Both General Soto and President Gates looked at her in astonishment.
"Don't hurt her," Sam said.
She attempted to run to the girl, but Soto took a step to his side and blocked her path. He grabbed her by the arm and marched her back to the guards. One of the soldiers seized her from behind and the other shoved the cold steel barrel of his gun in her face.
"You won't say another word," Soto seethed. "Not one more fucking word or I'll rip your spine out of your goddam throat. Do you understand me?"
Sam didn't answer him.
He grabbed her by the chin and squeezed her cheeks together. Sam moaned as excruciating pain shot through her.
"Do you understand me?"
"Yes," Sam said.
Soto's grip relaxed. His lips, which had peeled into a nasty sneer, relaxed as well and then curled into a twisted smile. He took a deep breath, unfurrowed his brow and spun around on the balls of his feet.
"I believe the question at hand," Gates said, a large clump of curls still wrapped in his fist, "is do
you
have a problem?"
Alex's head was cocked at an abnormal angle and Sam worried that her neck would snap. She struggled and tried to go to the girl, but the guard's grip tightened around her arms. Sam relaxed as she thought of a way to escape. A rear-kick to the groin of the guard behind her, perhaps? Then she would drop to the floor and sweep the legs of the one beside her. But the gun shoved in her face would be a quick end to any exit gone awry. Her thoughts halted and for a nanosecond she questioned where it had come from.
"Of course not, sir." Soto looked humbled. His eyes scanned the marble floor, and it became clear that while he might be in charge of the commoners, he wasn't the one pulling the strings in Lost Angel. He was the royalty's puppet. Their singing, dancing, mustachioed enforcer. And President Gates, the old man sporting wood in the yellowed briefs, was the monstrous puppeteer working the marionette.
"The girl is the outsider we found on the up-top," Soto continued. "I haven't had a chance to break her in yet."
"Well see that you do," Gates grinned. "And I will do the same. The younger ones always take a bit longer to tame." He flashed another toothy grin at the General and then yanked the young girl's hair again. Instead of a scream, Alex emitted the tiniest of yelps. "See? Better already."
Without another word, the old man led Alex back through the golden door and slammed it behind him. Sam's skin turned to gooseflesh, and she made a mental note of the golden plaque next to the door. Room 491. She was helpless to act now, but she would return for Alex. She would return or die trying.
General Soto nodded. The guard released his grip and pushed her away. Sam stumbled, trying her best to balance on the foreign heels but then collapsed. Her knees slammed hard against the stone floor and an ocean of stars filled her vision. Luckily, or perhaps not, the stars faded at once.
Instead of passing out, she watched on her hands and knees as the General's polished black shoes approached. Each step echoed off the marble with a maddening ferocity. She waited for his hand to wrap its way into her hair. To be pulled up like the young girl was moments ago. Instead, the General extended a hand to her. She hesitated and then she took it.
Soto helped her back to her feet. On shaky legs, Sam straightened her dress. Her cheeks flushed as she felt the hemline bunched up above her waist and then turned to see the two guards ogling her backside. She lowered her gaze to the floor and unbunched the dress. She was embarrassed and scared. She didn't want to be seen as a victim.
"I'm sorry," the General said. He placed a finger on the under her chin and lifted her face. Sam lifted her head and met Soto's gaze. "Things have gotten out of hand. Do you accept my apology?"
Sam didn't answer. She cringed when he lifted a lock of hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear.
"Let's go to the dining hall. We will feast and you can tell me all about the place that you come from. New Hope was it?" His voice was almost friendly now and the acidic feeling in Sam's stomach increased tenfold. General Soto turned away from her and began marching down the hall.
"What about that girl?" Sam asked. Soto stopped and turned back toward her. "What about Alex?"
"That girl is doing her job," he sneered. "She's doing her part to make sure that Lost Angel continues to thrive."
"And the surgeries?" Sam asked. "Does that help keep Lost Angel
thriving?"
The General's lips curled into a queer smile. "We have a certain look we try to maintain here. Practices our forefathers began long ago. Traditions that must continue. The men up here, they want something nice-looking to keep them warm in their bed."
"They're children," she said. "You sick fucking bastard." The rage boiled over and she couldn't stop herself. "You're surgically modifying children and then turning them into sex slaves. These men are raping your children and you sit back and let them."
Soto's smile faded, and the sneer returned. And then he charged her.
She backed up as fast as she could but the heels prevented any sort of retreat. Before she took her second step backward, the General's hand wrapped around her throat. He slammed her against the wall and Sam's skull bounced off it with a nauseating thud. Soto tightened his grip and then lifted her off the ground.
"Those
children
are given a choice," Soto said.
Sam barely heard him. She dangled on the edge of consciousness. Her feet hung inches from the floor and she kicked at her aggressor. He evaded them and then pressed his body against hers and she was unable to kick again. Her lungs screamed for air and her eyes bulged. Her heartbeat thrummed between her ears and the world faded.
"They can choose to work in the mines or they can choose to keep the men happy." The General's mustache pressed against her ear. "That's the way it always has been and the way it always will be."
As Sam struggled to take the smallest of breaths, her brain flashed on Prime Minister Troy's noxious tongue wriggling in her mouth. The ancient boner grinding against her. The General's doing the same. Pressing against her. She tried to pull away but couldn't move.
"I can't breathe," Sam managed.
He stared at her for what seemed like an eternity and then his grip loosened. She managed to touch marble and her windpipe expanded. Air flooded into Sam's lungs and the stars faded away from her vision. She coughed in agony as her lungs inflated.
"My men have needs," Soto said. He removed his hand from her throat and pressed it against her cheek. "Itches that need to be scratched. And these needs, these itches,
must
be scratched to keep balance and civility. These girls serve a purpose."
"A wet hole to fuck?" Sam hissed. "They're childr—"
The General slapped her hard across the face. The bitter taste of copper filled her mouth and she spit a mouthful of blood onto the floor. He grabbed her by the neck again and pushed her head against the wall.
"These children," Soto seethed, "as you insist to refer to them, choose that lifestyle and are
deeply
rewarded by it. They become mothers and they raise children of their own." The General lowered his voice, but the hot breath against her ear remained.
Soto's free hand slipped under the hem of her dressed and his fingers slid up her thigh. "We all have
needs
, my dear."
"Fuck you," she said.
"In due time." He traced his fingers up her thigh and to the thin silky underwear. He rubbed against the almost non-existent barrier and pressed his groin against her hip.
Sam's mind raced. The guards' had their guns trained on her. Even if she could escape from Soto, how far could she make it down the hall before getting shot?
"Relax," the General said. "We'll have our time after dinner. I'll show you first-hand how these
children
are rewarded." He placed his tongue against her neck and gave an exasperated breath. The slimy muscle traveled from the base of her throat and up her cheek leaving a trail of hot saliva behind.
"I promise you—" Sam said but stopped.
Her teeth clamped together and her stomach balled into a tight knot as the General kneaded his fingers harder and deeper into her groin. She managed a breath, despite the chokehold, and said, "Before the night is over… I will kill you."
His fingers stopped squirming, and he removed his hand. He lifted the two fingers to his mouth and licked them. His lips curled into the trademark nauseating smile and he said, "Delicious." Then he turned away and resumed his march toward the dining room.
Sam stood against the wall, fighting the overwhelming urge to cry, until one of the guards poked her with the barrel of his gun. She turned and followed the General—the soldiers on her heels. And as she walked down the hall, the General's reproachful touch still lingering between her legs, she promised herself to make him hurt before she killed him.
6
Soto unlocked the heavy double doors at the end of the hallway and swung them open, revealing a magnificent dining room. It was the polar opposite of the dilapidated chow hall in the mines. Track-lighting hung from the ceiling and illuminated the stained glass windows lining each wall.
A long dining table sat in the center of the room. Sitting at the end—squeezed into a tuxedo two sizes too small—was Cole Porter. Her friend. Her fellow refugee. The only thing left in the world that she recognized
"Cole!" Sam squealed.
She ran to him as fast as the heels would allow and threw her arms around his thick neck. She squeezed tight, afraid that if she let go he would disappear like Jordan or David. Like the memories of her mother.
The General followed her into the room and took a seat at the head of the table. The two guards took a spot on either side of the door. She thought she heard the door lock as it closed, the
click
echoing against the stone walls of the dining room, but didn't know for certain. In this moment, she didn't care. All she cared about was the giant hulk of a man.
"We have to go," Sam whispered into Cole's ear. "They're going to kills us."
After a moment, when Cole hadn't responded or returned the embrace as Sam would have expected, she released her grip. He continued to sit in silence, not moving, barely breathing it seemed, staring straight ahead.
Sam moved around the end of the table so she could get a better view his face, but Cole didn't acknowledge her. Instead, he stared at the wall ahead of him. His eyes were blank and his pupils dilated. He looked drugged.
"Cole?" Sam asked. A wave of panic rushed through her. The memory of calling out to Jordan in her dream and not getting a response flashed through her mind. Cole Porter was here in the flesh, but his mind was miles and miles away.
"Cole!" This time she screamed. Her voice echoed off the stone walls. Her friend still didn't look at her. He didn't seem to register that she was in the room.
"Have a seat, Samantha," General Soto said.
"What's wrong with you, Cole?" She reached out to her friend and grabbed ahold of his arm. His hand fell off the table and hung limply at his side. He made no intention of placing it back on the table.
"Samantha, did you hear me?" The General's voice was so even-keeled, so level, that it made her want to scream. She still felt his fingers squirming between her legs. "Please sit down. You're making a scene, and I do despise a scene."
"What did you do to him?" Sam asked but didn't let her attention stray from Cole's lifeless face. Her friend took short shallow breaths with long pauses in-between and his chest rose and fell in infinitesimal movements. But he
was
breathing. He stared at the wall with listless, unfocused eyes. His thin lips, barely visible through the bushy, gray beard, were parted, his jaw slack, and Sam detected a hint of drool escaping them.
"Samantha, I must insist—"
"Fuck you," Sam hissed as she continued to examine Cole's face. There was something peculiar about it—other than the obvious lack of emotion. She was missing something.
When the two lived in New Hope, she had known Cole Porter only from afar. She'd never studied the man's face or the endless details that made up his features. The wiry eyebrows and the small scar, no more than a few millimeters in length that ran across his left cheek above his beard. Two emerald green eyes were and his cauliflowered ears. All these minute details she had never noticed. But
something
was different. What was it?
And then she saw it. The subtle difference. A tiny bulge extruded from the back of Cole's head just above the nape of his neck. The wispy strands of gray hair had camouflaged it. She reached up and her fingers slide up the warm flesh of his neck and disappear into the unknown of his mane. She gasped as they ran across the beginning of a surgical scar and then cold metal.
"It is no longer a request, Samantha."
General Soto's tone had grown stern, but the words didn't register. She focused on the device implanted into the back of Cole's head. Her fingers pushed away the matte of gray to get a better look at it. A dime-sized metal box protruded from the back of his scalp.
"What have you done?" she asked as her fingers touched the device.
"That's it," Soto said. He rose from the table with such force that the heavy chair went sailing back. "When I say get in your seat, I mean get in your goddamn seat, bitch!"
Sam hadn't heard the heavy wooden chair crashing to the ground, or the heavy footfalls as he stormed closer, but she recognized the venomous words he spewed. She looked in time to see the General standing right above her. He grabbed a handful of hair and nearly lifted her off her feet. Sam screamed out in pain, but Cole remained motionless.
She tried to scream again, but her head lurched forward and slammed into the wooden table. Sam heard the crunch of her nose breaking against the solid wood and then felt the pain that accompanied the bone-chilling sound. Her lips busted as they smashed into table, followed by her teeth crashing against them. White stars appeared and the illustrious room grew faded and distorted. The General screamed obscenities as he dragged her across the room but she didn't fight it. She focused on not losing consciousness. The world had become distant as the stars multiplied and engulfed her field of vision.
She shook her head, and the stars faded. She moved across the room but not under her own accord. A moment later, Soto lifted her from the ground and sat her down hard into the chair. The lower half of her crashed into the heavy wood and rockets of pain shot through her lower torso. The stars reappeared.
"There, that's better." He rested his palm on the back of her head and stroked her hair. "I do apologize, my darling, but you must learn your place here."
"Learn my place," Sam repeated. The white orbs faded, and she touched her busted lips. Bright crimson covered her fingertips when she withdrew her hand.
General Soto snapped his fingers and one of the guards came to him. "Miguel, find out what's taking the chef so goddamn long." The guard nodded and disappeared through the door. Sam heard the muffled click of the door being unlocked and a clack as it snapped shut.
"Now, let's talk about where you two came from," the General said. He spoke as if he hadn't just broken her face. "You two are the first outsiders that Lost Angel has seen since I was a boy. Your coveralls said New Hope but my staff couldn't find that anywhere on the map. Where is that, Samantha?"
"Learn my place," Sam said. Her voice was distant and her thoughts far away from the conversation Soto was attempting to have. Her mind swirled around the three-bedroom apartment in the burning city. But the city wasn't burning in this memory. This was before the infection. Before the quarantines.
Thick, lime-green wall-to-wall carpet and a small RCA television-set in the quaint living room. The balcony full of potted plants and the view of the bustling city that surrounded them. Sam's old apartment. Her family's apartment. A young girl with brown hair pulled into pigtails sat in the center of the room.
"Samantha?" the General asked from far away.
Sam didn't respond. The image of the girl fixed in her mind. She looked so familiar. The pigtails and the icy blue eyes. It was the girl she hadn't seen in an eternity.
Rebecca.
The name echoed between her ears. Rebecca Young. Sam stared as the small girl played with a baby doll and hummed a lullaby. And then the girl with the pigtails and blue eyes, the girl she loved so very much, looked up at her and smiled back.
Far away, the General said, "Leo, go get Doc. I think I broke her." Laughter followed the request, first General Soto's and then Leo's. It faded and Soto added, "And if you see the chef, Miguel is worthless today, tell that useless bitch she has two minutes to bring us our food or I'll cut her from ear to ear."
Leo's laugh cutting out. "Yes, General."
The
click
of the lock opening.
The
clack
of it closing.
It all seemed so distant though, Sam was unable to pull herself from her memories. Or perhaps she didn't want to. She was unwilling to break her stare, mesmerized with the image of the girl. With the memory of Rebecca.
"Play with me, Sam," Rebecca's said. Her voice echoed throughout the living room.
"Why are you here?" Sam asked.
The girl grinned. "I live here, silly goose."
Sam frowned. "No. This was before you."
Rebecca smiled at her and then laughed. "You
are
a silly goose indeed." She held up her baby doll and Sam took it. "Now, will you play with me?"
Sam nodded, and the child's face lit up with a brilliant smile.
"Will you play midnight runners with me?" Rebecca asked.
Sam's jaw fell open and the trace of a smile fled from her face. This beautiful memory, this long-lost recollection, this hallucination, was now engulfing her. Sam was no longer sitting at the dining room table but rather standing in the living room. She had taken her heels off without realizing it and buried her bare feet in the shag lime-green carpet.
"What did you say, baby?" Sam said. The words dropped to her knees. Rebecca stood and took a step closer. She wrapped her small, thin arms around Sam's neck and Sam took a deep breath and squeezed her back. It was Rebecca's familiar scent and tears swelled in Sam's eyes. She squeezed tighter.
Rebecca put her lips to Sam's ear and whispered, "Play midnight runners with me." Then she pulled away and stretched her tiny arm outward. She pointed toward the corner of the small living room.
Sam slowly moved her head, following the little girl's arm, and sitting in the breakfast nook of the apartment was Cole, who stared back at her blankly.
"Midnight runners," Rebecca said.
"Midnight runners," Sam repeated in a whisper.
"I'm sorry, dear. What was that?" Soto asked. "I couldn't understand your mumblings."
The question brought Sam back to the present moment. Rebecca, the living room, the apartment, it all disappeared, and she sat in the dining hall once more. A pounding headache returned. Her lips were swollen and throbbing. Her nose crooked and out of place.
Someone had placed a plate of food in front of her. There was food everywhere. Silver platters filled with vegetables and fruits filled the length of the table. More platters with roasted turkeys and chickens.
The intoxicating aroma of the food pulled Sam even further from the memory—Rebecca's face almost forgotten now. When was the last time she had eaten real food? Weeks? Years? Decades? Centuries?
She looked down the table to Cole, who remained motionless, and then back to the plate in front of her. Steam rose from the plate. To the left of the plate were two forks, one slightly bigger than the other, and to the right two spoons and a knife. All the utensils were gold and shiny, the light from the crystal chandelier gleaming in their reflection. Sam couldn't see a single spot or imperfection on any of them.
She looked to her left and General Soto was staring at her, his eyes focused and his brow furrowed. His jet-black mustache and the lips underneath curled upward in the hideous smile.
Behind the General, Miguel had returned but not Leo. He stood at parade rest, the automatic rifle slung over his shoulder, the muzzle pointed skyward toward the door. Leo hadn't returned yet, or so she assumed because the doctor was nowhere in sight.
"What were you saying, my dear?"
Sam shook her head and tried to knock loose the cobwebs. She didn't remember what she said. She didn't remember the food being brought in or Miguel returning from his chore. But she did remember that they needed to be getting on their way. She remembered that somewhere east of here was a town called Concordia, and she had questions for the people that live there. She remembered her friend sitting at the end of the table. Immobilized and drugged and stuffed into a tuxedo. She remembered that they didn't belong in this city. And she remembered the reprehensible feeling of the General's hand between her legs.
"My dear, you look pale."
Sam didn't answer him.
"I can see that you haven't learned your les—"
"What happened to Cole?"
The General shifted in his seat as Sam turned toward him. The words came rushing back to her:
midnight runners.
"My darling, I haven't done anything to your friend."
"What's the midnight runner project?" Sam asked.
Time slowed to a stop as General Soto's eyes grew wide and his mouth fell open. The guard by the door tensed—his feet pulling together and his back straightening. In one fluid motion, he had gone from at-rest to attention and now his finger was wrapping around the trigger of the weapon. It all unfolded in slow-motion. All magnified to the
nth
degree. Something had happened when the General slammed her head into the table. Something had jarred loose or perhaps, snapped back into place. Something inside her had changed.