Unnatural Selection Free Sample

Chapter 1

“Dominic, don’t touch that,” Officer Elrod said with a shake of his head as he typed on his computer.

Nic dropped the pen he’d been playing with back onto the desk. He crossed his arms to hide the twitching of his fingers. He didn’t like doing nothing. That was the exact impulse which had been getting him into trouble for years. “I’ve told you before, just Nic is fine.”

Elrod didn’t break eye contact with the screen. He reached over and plucked the pen from where it had rolled and deposited it into the designated pen holder. His desk was always pristine. In all the years Nic had been pulled in here, nothing ever moved from its position. The same pen holder, keyboard, and even mug—painted sloppily in blue with the words “Worlds Bestest Dad!” scribbled across the front—which also inexplicably never moved. The only thing that changed was new family pictures in the old mustard-coloured frame.

And, of course, Nic’s age.

“Well, Nic, I feel like you’re getting a little too old for me to be pulling you up on these things.”

Tell me about it. Nic shrugged and tried to sink lower in his chair. Tonight had been stupid, and he wasn’t especially proud of it. When the police caught you mid-graffiti at fourteen, you were a rebel or a troublemaker. When you were nineteen and drunk off your ass, the names they gave you weren’t…as forgiving.

It just added salt to the wound that it was Elrod to catch him tonight.

The policeman was in his early fifties and seemed as if he’d spent his whole life in this station. Not once in the entire time Nic had known him had Elrod tried to climb the ladder or get promoted.

The officer had a kind face, creased with the wear of time. His hair was starting to grey on the sides but not the top, yet, unlike many of the other men his age, he made no attempt to dye it or shave it off. His dark skin was weathered, and some kid had told Nic years ago the uniform was hiding a massive skull tattoo on Elrod’s chest. Which Nic was fairly sure was a lie.

If Nic had to pick one word to describe the officer, it would be content. A concept so foreign to Nic it made him taste ash if he thought about it too long.

“I don’t think you realise how serious this is. You can be tried as an adult now.” Elrod’s eyebrows arched in worry; the expression was so familiar, Nic had to focus on the dust-free desk to escape it.

He aggressively pulled at a loose thread on his ripped jeans. He didn’t deserve concern—he was an idiot. He hadn’t been in the station for a little over two years now. Every second stuck here just made him feel worse. “I know.”

“What were you trying to do, exactly?”

Nic opened his mouth and closed it again. Could this get any more mortifying? Some of his friends had thought it would be fun—after a lot of drinking—to play truth or dare. He couldn’t say that. Especially when Elrod had his concerned, empathetic face on. It was excruciating.

The sad thing was that Nic had actually been excited when the night first started out. It had been so long since he’d felt that tingle of anticipation. He’d pulled out his tightest ripped jeans and his favourite shirt which makes his green eyes pop. He’d even used gel in his coal-black hair.

His life was pathetic.

Elrod turned his attention to his screen and sighed. It was a heavy sound, one that seemed reserved especially for Nic. The echo of clicking keys filled the silence between them again, each tap opening a chasm wider between them.

The hour of night meant the station was relatively dead. Most of the desks were empty, and the lights were tinged with a yellow hue, which made everyone here look a little sick. Across the room there was a bulletin board, a mix of papers tacked up, one in loud letters proclaiming $50 in exchange for a one-hour hypnosis session for a research project at the nearby university.

Nic crossed his arms. The air con was just a tad too high. His forearms were covered in goosebumps and his knees were cold.

“I don’t think those friends of yours are any good for you.” Elrod pursed his lips.

Nic ran a hand through his dark hair, an inheritance from his parents. He’d also inherited his father’s pale freckled skin and his mother’s grey-green eyes. At least that was what he’d gathered from the one picture that he had of them. There was no way to know if he had their humour or their mannerisms or their interests. “Oh yeah?” He pushed as much sarcasm into those two words as he possibly could. What did Elrod know about his friends? About his life? About him?

Elrod’s voice was dry as he said, “For one, they ran off and left you the moment I got there.”

Nic grunted. He wasn’t blind. He’d known they were the “all for yourself” kind of crew when he’d agreed to go out with them. He doubted he’d even see them for a few days since he’d been busted by a cop. He wasn’t about to give Elrod the satisfaction, though. “Can I go yet?”

Elrod stood and grabbed his jacket. “Okay, let’s go.”

“What are you doing?” Nic was still slumped in his chair as he eyed Elrod suspiciously.

“I’m driving you home.”

Nic shook his head. “I can walk.”

“I’m happy to. Besides, you have work tomorrow.”

Nic considered his options. Elrod was right; he did have work tomorrow. It was a basic retail job, nothing fancy. It was a miracle they’d hired him at all. Elrod’s letter of recommendation was responsible for that. To this day, he still didn’t know what the letter said. Elrod had insisted on delivering to it the store manager himself.

Besides, Nic’s head was starting to pound. All he wanted to do was sleep, probably get out of this god-awful chair. Back when he was fourteen, the chairs had never been this uncomfortable. Or had they?

“Okay,” Nic said tiredly.

They walked out of the station in silence, Elrod lifting his hand in a slight wave to one of the other cops sitting at a desk across the room. Nic shoved his hands as deep into his pockets as the fabric would allow and kept his head down. Once they were out in the parking lot, Elrod guided him over to an old brown Toyota. Nic slid into the passenger seat of the car. This was a strange sensation; he’d ridden in a police car with Elrod more times than he could count. He’d never been in Elrod’s personal car.

It wasn’t a long drive from the station to Nic’s street. Nic gave directions but didn’t see the point in any other small talk. The closer they got, the more Elrod’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.

“This one’s mine.” Nic gestured up at the building. It was old and wasn’t much to look at. Most importantly, it was technically declared safe to live in.

Elrod peered up at it. “You’re living here?”

“Yes.” Nic’s tone was clipped. He was well aware it sucked, but it was his, paid for with his own money.

Elrod glanced around at the other buildings on the street. They were in more or less the same state as Nic’s. “You have a lock on your door? A good one?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, good.” Elrod let out a breath that didn’t seem to calm any of his nerves.

Nic reached for the door. Before he could leave, there was a loud clicking. Elrod had hit the car’s internal locking mechanism. Nic groaned and let his head fall against the window. He just wanted to sleep. He’d only be able to get a few hours of shut-eye before he had to get up again.

“Dominic, I know you don’t like me very much.”

Nic frowned. That wasn’t precisely true. Was Elrod annoying? Yes. Did he have the worst timing? Yes. Had he been there for all the lowest points in Nic’s life? Yes. But he’d also been there. Nic couldn’t say that for anyone else in his life; bouncing from foster home to foster home in the area didn’t exactly leave much room for steady adult influences.

“You’re a good kid,” Elrod said. “I don’t want to see you throw that away.”

Nic pulled himself off the cool glass of the window and gave a polite distant nod. He’d heard a version of that phrase too many times to count. Maybe one day he’d look in the mirror and be able to call himself a good person. Not tonight, though.

Elrod hesitated as words fought to escape, a lecture no doubt. Instead, he settled for, “Just take care of yourself, okay?”

“I will.” Nic fished his keys from his pocket as Elrod unlocked the doors.

“And Nic?”

“Yeah?”

“You still have my number. Call me if you get in trouble.”

Nic pursed his lips. He did still have the number. It had sat untouched in his contacts for three years, since the moment he’d put it in there. Nic inclined his head and hurried for his building.

Elrod didn’t pull away from the curb until Nic was safely inside.

The interior was almost as bad as the exterior. Long ago, there had been some sort of elevator here. It hadn’t worked for years, at least. So Nic reluctantly climbed four sets of stairs—which always screeched as if they were moments from giving out—to his apartment.

He jiggled his keys in the lock. The lock was old and there was a trick to getting it to open. As he wrestled with the lock, he yawned and rubbed his eyes. The door finally squeaked open and unceremoniously slammed behind him once he was inside. He pointedly ignored the pan filled with burnt bacon on the stove. For the past few weeks Nic hadn’t seen his roommate—Seb—at all except for the various dirty dishes left in the kitchen. Tonight, he was too exhausted to deal with it. He barely had enough sense to plug in his phone that was dipping dangerously close to one percent and flick on the alarm.

He collapsed onto the mattress, too tired to readjust his position away from the springs poking into his body. He was dead to the world before he could form another thought.

Chapter 2

Nic jolted awake. Sunlight filtered in though his curtains. He groaned and let his head fall back on the pillow. His head was throbbing, and it was already too bright. After a few minutes, he groaned again and forced himself to roll over and click on his phone.

Nothing.

The screen stayed completely black.

Nic frowned. This was a new charging cord. Surely it wasn’t already dead. He sat up and flicked on the light switch, squeezing his eyes shut to protect from the light. But there was nothing.

He flicked the switch again, then again. And again.

The power was out. The freaking power had gone out, and he’d slept late.

Nic threw off the covers and raced to the window, throwing open the curtains. He squinted and based on the position of the sun, he’d slept through most of the morning.

Cursing and with a pounding headache, he rushed out the door, uniform in one hand and a piece of bread in the other as he tried to choke down his medication dry.

Nic ran the couple of blocks to the shop, so when he arrived, he wasn’t only late; he was also sweating buckets. His very angry manager met him at the door.

“I’m so sorry, Jane,” Nic said between big gulps of air. He pushed down the strong tilt of his stomach. This really wasn’t the time to throw up. “My alarm didn’t go off.”

Her eyes narrowed. She was the kind of person you didn’t want to mess with on a good day. Most of the time, Nic just tried to stay out of her way. She hadn’t hired him and wasn’t happy that his contract meant she had to keep him on the roster. “You’re two hours late.”

“I am so, so, so sorry.” He pressed his hand to his side, trying to dull the pain of the stitch ripping through him. “I’ll stay an extra two hours, or even three. You don’t have to pay me.”

“You can’t keep making excuses. When you don’t show, it affects everyone.”

Okay, that was a little unfair. He was on time, mostly. There were a few times he’d been ten minutes late but nothing like this had ever happened before. “Please, Jane. I can do better; I know I can.” Nic would have gotten down on his knees and begged if he thought it would make an ounce of difference.

Vomit rose in the back of his throat involuntarily and he bent over for a moment to get a grip on himself. He squeezed his eyes shut before he rose again, swaying a little on his feet.

Jane’s eyes hardened into an even steelier grey. “Are you hung over?”

“No.” Nic’s voice fell flat.

Her face twisted in disgust, and she glanced at her watch. “I need my team to be reliable. Besides we just got a new hire. I’m sure that he’ll jump at the chance for extra hours.”

Nic’s mouth fell open. No way. She was firing him! At the very least, he thought she’d cut him from the roster for a week or two. “I need this job,” he pleaded.

She gave him a long look. There was no sympathy in her expression. “Go home, Nic.”

Still shocked, he walked away from the store and sat on the curb. Nic leaned forward and put his head between his knees. Isn’t that what they always said to do if your plane is crashing? He wondered idly if it was just so you couldn’t see the inevitable coming.

God, what a horrible few hours. He’d just started feeling like he was getting a grip on his own life and had thought that maybe, just maybe, he’d be okay.

“Nic, my man.”

Nic pulled himself out of the small bubble he’d created to look up blearily. “Oh, hey guys.” Nic found that he suddenly wasn’t as keen to see them as he once had been. Their cool factor had rubbed off last night when they’d left him behind. “Where did you disappear to last night?”

The leader of their little group, who insisted on being called Tony (even though that wasn’t his name), winced. “Sorry mate, you know how it is.”

“I guess.”

“You up for some more fun tonight?” Tony slapped Nic’s back, which just made him feel queasy.

Nic hesitated. “I don’t know guys, my boss just fired me, and I’m not really feeling up to it.”

“Even better.” Tony beamed. “Don’t have to worry about work ruining things.”

“No, I just have to worry about my rent,” Nic said drily.

“Dude.” One of the other boys slapped his shoulder as well. “Don’t get so bogged down by money.” The bloodshot eyes told Nic all he needed to know about this guy’s mental state.

“Come on. Let’s grab a beer, you’ll feel better. Besides, my uncle can totally pay you to do a few jobs for him,” Tony assured Nic.

The offer was tempting. A beer probably wouldn’t hurt.

Nic shook his head. It definitely wouldn’t help, either.

Besides, he wasn’t fully clear on what Tony’s uncle did and it didn’t seem like something he should agree to blindly.

Nic looked at the crowd around him. They were the kind of people to take to a party, to have a good night. They were not the kind to sit down and try to pull your life out of the toilet with. If he wasn’t careful, he’d slip so far that he couldn’t get up again.

Elrod was right, he needed to at least try to make smarter decisions, and that started here. The reality was no one was going to fix his life for him. He’d have to do that for himself. “Nah, I’m good.”

***

Nic used a library computer to write a new resume and send it out to a few employers. The document was depressingly empty. He sent it anyway. The librarian—a nice older lady who suffered through all Nic’s questions as he tried to get the library computer system working—was kind enough to let him charge his phone behind the desk as well.

By the time he left the library, he had a new cautious optimism and a fully charged phone.

Halfway home, the bubble of hope he carefully constructed popped when he got an email from his landlord.

He headed straight for his landlord’s apartment on the floor above his own. “Jerry!” he yelled, knocking on the door. “What is this?”

Jerry gently opened the door; the look of pity was already on his face. Jerry was a big guy. He spent most of his time lifting weights at the gym. He only owned Nic’s apartment as an inheritance from some relative, and Nic didn’t even know what he actually did for a living. “Look, kid—”

“Don’t call me kid,” Nic snapped.

Jerry raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, I won’t.”

“You’re evicting us?” Nic said, waving the phone wildly in Jerry’s direction.

“You seem like a good ki—” Jerry stopped himself. “Guy. You always give me your share of the rent, even if it’s a little late sometimes. But I’ve come into some family money lately and I’ve decided to buy the building, clean it up a little.”

Nic frowned. “So what?”

“Drug dealers don’t make good tenants. Plus, your roommate never pays his share on the rent.”

Nic scowled. “Isn’t he your drug dealer?”

His roommate, Seb, had been dealing out of their apartment for months now. It wasn’t exactly that Nic liked Seb, but they’d been in the same foster home together and their birthdays were within a week of one another. It just made sense for them to move out together.

“That’s why I know he’s making enough to pay rent.” Jerry crossed his arms so that his forearms were bulging intimidatingly.

Nic closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. The worst thing he could do here was lose his composure. “What does that have to do with me? It’s not my fault he’s dealing.”

Jerry raised a brow. “You really think you can afford this place on your own?” After a moment of silence, he stepped back. “You’ve got a month.” He slammed the door shut again.

“Jerry.” Nic banged his fist on the door, but Jerry didn’t come back. The conversation was over.

Evicted.

Nic took some deep breaths again, trying to steady himself. It was a temporary problem, just like the job (or lack thereof). He would get a new job and a new place. He could totally do that.

Nic leaned his head back against the wall. If Jerry was going to own the building, this wasn’t somewhere he wanted to live, anyway. He was bad enough as a landlord and Nic was sure that he wasn’t reporting the rental income to the tax department since he made them pay in cash. Best to get away from here.

He trudged back to his apartment. Seb was home. The sound of heavy music pounded through speakers in the other bedroom and the air was filled with a burnt smell. Nic couldn’t keep up these days with what drugs Seb was peddling. It seemed to span everything, from steroids to ecstasy.

There was another thing to add to the list. Find a new roommate. He couldn’t live with Seb again. He could probably ask Elrod for help. Nic flopped onto his bed and opened his contacts. He stared at Elrod’s number. If he asked, he’d have to explain everything, and he really didn’t want to do that. There was too much in his life that Elrod wouldn’t approve of. He let a frustrated sigh and exited his contacts. Instead, he switched over to one of his many social media apps and spiralled into the world on his phone. It was a quick and easy way to numb his brain, to pretend that everything was fine.

That killed a few hours before he got bored, so he jumped over to his emails. There were a few automatic replies from companies saying they had received his resume. He checked his spam folder, his finger hovering over the “empty spam” button.

Except, one of the emails caught his eye. The subject line read in all caps: “NEED MONEY QUICK.” He studied it for a moment. It looked like exactly the kind of email you shouldn’t click on. Then again, what more did he have to lose, his identity? What the hell, the world can have my identity too. He opened it.

Small firework animations exploded across Nic’s screen. It was an advertising portal for researchers to find participants. Most were psychological studies. You got paid to come in and answer a few questions or solve some puzzles.

One in particular caught his eye. It was one interview for $500. A much higher rate than most of the others. The only stipulation was that you had to be an orphan between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two. He scanned through the rest of the information. There was a lot of scientific jargon that he didn’t understand, not that he really cared.

They were conducting interviews in a weeks’ time, and it would only be an hour or so out of his day. The longer he lay there thinking about it, the more stupid it seemed not to do it.

Nic typed out an email to the organiser.

Chapter 3

A week later, Nic was no closer to getting a job, and he was standing outside of a Subway. The longer he stared at the sandwich shop, the tighter his chest felt. He double-checked the address and then switched over to his maps app. It was the right place. He gulped; he needed this $500. Nic didn’t even want to admit to himself how desperately. He’d blown through his savings in no time at all, since he pretty much had no savings to begin with. Not knowing what to do, he checked the email for probably the fifth time in a minute.

The girl behind the counter waved at him to come inside. He shook his head at her, trying to convey without words that he was lost.

She gave a big sigh and came out from behind the counter and walked to the door. She pointed to the alley beside the building. “You get in from the back.”

Nic blinked. “What?”

“The research study, right?”

Nic nodded, dumbfounded.

“Yeah, I’ve had a couple dozen confused people today. They should have given a better description. Go down around the back and there’s a set of stairs up there. You can’t miss it. They’re on the second floor.”

“Thank you.” Nic smiled gratefully at her.

He hurried off down the alley, which he would have otherwise avoided. It was dark and thin. There was a large dumpster further down and it led to a dead end—a small concreted area, enclosed by a large fence.

The girl was right, tucked against the building was a set of stairs which lead up to a door. The door itself was a flimsy wire and there was no sign next to it.

Nic squared his shoulders and headed for it. $500. That was the important thing.

The door squealed as it swung inwards and Nic stepped inside to a very modern interior. Everything was either a crisp white or black with sleek lines and edges, in complete contrast to the dodgy way of getting here. There was a large desk in the front, and to Nic’s left the room opened up into a large section filled to the brim with plastic chairs. Most of which were filled with people. The sound of scratching pencils on paper and the artificial smell of flowers that only came from air freshener filled the air.

Nic stepped up to the desk. “Umm…hi,” he said quietly. His voice sounded like thunder in the mostly silent room.

The man behind the desk had a tailored button up shirt with absolutely no holes and his nails were long enough to make a distinctive tap on every key that he hit. Nic tugged at his own shirt with a few moth-eaten holes. The receptionist turned, a wide and obviously fake smile curving his features. It was the smile that had become easier to spot ever since Nic had started working in customer service. “You’re here for the study?”

“Yeah.” Nic fidgeted. He had the distinct feeling that others in the room were watching the exchange.

The receptionist pulled out a piece of paper with a flourish and attached it to a clipboard. “Just fill this in and they’ll call you in when they’re ready.” He tapped a pencil on the clipboard and slid everything across the desk to Nic.

Nic nodded stiffly and gathered up the clipboard. He shuffled over to the corner of the room and half-tripped over someone’s feet into one of the free seats.

The boy next to him checked his watch and huffed out a breath. His leg shook up and down as he glared at the clock with the wrong time on the wall.

Nic lowered his voice. “You good, man?”

The boy jerked and his gaze wheeled around as if he hadn’t noticed Nic trip right in front of him. After a moment, he seemed to get over his shock and gave a sharp nod. “At this rate, they’re never going to get through us all.”

The boy couldn’t have been more than sixteen, where did he need to be so desperately?

He slumped down in his seat and crossed his arms. He blew a few stray strands of blonde hair off his forehead. His hair obviously needed a cut, but it wasn’t quite long enough to be unruly yet. His skin was pale and still slightly pockmarked. He had swirling blue eyes; he was on the verge of the classic kind of handsome. He’d grow into it in a few years. “I have a therapy appointment across town, but I’m pretty sure”—he checked his watch, which was much more reliable than the slow clock, and slumped back in his seat— “I won’t make it.”

“You can’t reschedule?”

“They won’t be very happy with me, but I could.” He glanced over at Nic and grimaced. “Court mandated.”

“Oh, I see.”

A door opened from the one section of the wall that wasn’t taken up by seats. A pristine woman appeared. Her long black hair was straightened and not a single strand was out of place. Her skin was a light brown, and she had a small delicate nose. She was wearing a simple set of grey loose clothes and looked down at her piece of paper. “Niall Hoffman?”

The boy beside Nic sprung to his feet as if he was being propelled by magnets. “That’s me,” he called. Then he turned back to Nic for a moment and shrugged. “Maybe I won’t be too late.”

Without the distraction of his neighbour, Nic studied the pages in front of him and started to fill in his answers.

NAME: Dominic Mariano

AGE: 19

GENDER: Male

ARE YOU AN ORPHAN: Yes

AGE ORPHANED: 3

ARE YOU CURRENTLY IN A FOSTER HOME: No

Then it moved on to ask mostly about his medical history. All things that he could recite in his sleep and had been able to from a young age. A by-product of moving from home to home when he was younger. He didn’t have any parents to rely on remembering his peanut allergy, and later his epilepsy medication.

Nic frowned. Had he taken his medication this morning? He mulled it over for a moment. He’d skipped it yesterday, he was sure of that. He hadn’t been leaving the apartment and was a little too deep in a self-pitying spiral to be bothered. But this morning, yes, he was fairly certain that he’d taken it with breakfast.

The woman came out again and called another name, “Pepper Porter.”

Nic had to hold back a bark of laughter. She sounded like a superhero. No worse than that, she sounded like a cartoon character.

Pepper jumped up and seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. Despite being on the other side of the room, she glared at him. She handed over her filled-in sheet, and they both disappeared into the door.

There was no sign of Niall, and when he didn’t appear after a few minutes, he leaned across the seat next to him to tap a girl on the shoulder. “Hey, has it been like that every time? They call people away and no one comes back out?”

The girl spun to him. She had massive hazel eyes and thick eyebrows. Her hair was braided back tightly against her head. She surveyed him and then her warm brown skin crinkled as a knowing expression crossed her face. “They probably don’t want to contaminate the results by letting the people already interviewed talk to us. I once heard about this study that put you in a room to wait after your interview.” Then, with an all-knowing nod, she added, “To preserve the integrity of the experiment.”

“Oh, I didn’t really plan on this being the whole day,” Nic said.

She looked him up and down. “You have somewhere more important to be?”

He gave her a hard look and retreated back to his seat. Nic wasn’t sure if he should be offended or not. He crossed his arms.

The judgemental girl—Dawn was her name—left shortly after. Most of the interviews only seemed to go for ten minutes or so, but there were a few that lasted longer.

The room slowly emptied of people and Nic started to relax. The air didn’t feel as stale as it had when he’d arrived. The horrible floral smell remained though.

He’d been sitting for so long that the left side of his butt had started to fall asleep. He wanted to get up and pace a little to wake it up again, but he didn’t want everyone to watch him while he did.

“Dominic Mariano.”

He leapt up and hurried over to the woman, handing over his clipboard. She turned and led him down a long corridor, flipping through his forms as they walked. This place had more rooms than Nic would have guessed from the outside.

They stopped at a small room with only a table and two chairs. The rest of the room was completely bare, nothing on the wall or floors. She held open the door for him and Nic gave her a grateful and slightly awkward smile in thanks. He stepped inside and was immediately hit with how clinical it smelled—like every surface had been scrubbed down with alcohol. The woman slid into one of the chairs and gestured to the one across from her. In a soothing voice, she said, “Take a seat, Dominic.”

Nic lowered himself into the chair.

She scanned over his papers again. “You prefer Nic, correct?”

“Yeah.” Nic glanced around the empty room again. He had rapidly swayed from feeling bored to feeling uncomfortable, though he couldn’t pinpoint why. “No one really calls me by my full name.” Well, except for Elrod. Which meant when he heard it, he felt like he was in trouble.

“So not in a foster home. Where do you live now?”

Nic hesitated. It was a complicated question.

She smiled slightly. “I don’t need an address or anything. Have you moved in with a roommate? Some family you reconnected with? A house, an apartment or,” she said clearing her throat, “nowhere in particular?”

“I’m not homeless, if that’s what you’re asking,” Nic said flatly. He tried to focus on the $500 he’d be handed at the end of this. That was what made this uncomfortable questioning worth it. “I live in an apartment with a roommate.”

She scribbled something on her notepad.

After a moment, he added, “I did just get an eviction notice. So, I’ll be looking for somewhere else.”

She raised her brow. “With the same roommate?”

He shook his head and tried to stop his face from showing his annoyance with Seb. “No.”

She pressed her lips together in what looked almost like pleasure, then looked back down at his form. “You’ve put here you have epilepsy. How severe is that?”

“It’s not too bad. It’s usually triggered by high stress, but if I have my tablet in the morning, then usually I’m good.” She squinted at him for a second and it made him squirm in his seat. Did she want more details? His whole history with epilepsy, that one time he’d forgotten his tablet and had a fit in the middle of his English speech? Surely not.

He couldn’t take her stare anymore and broke eye contact to study the ceiling. It was just the same as the floor and walls; white, sterile and—wait. He squinted. There were vents in the room, painted white so that he almost couldn’t make it out. Goose bumps popped up down his arms. Nic licked his lips nervously and asked, “What kind of research are you doing here exactly?”

There was a long pause before she glanced back at his forms. “Last thing. It says here you’re allergic to peanuts. How severe is that?”

Nic frowned. He didn’t understand why they needed to know this. They weren’t about to try linking his peanut allergy or his epilepsy with the loss of his parents, were they? “It’s pretty bad. I need to carry an EpiPen with me. I could die if I didn’t have it with me.”

“Right.” She nodded and got up, knocking on the door they’d come in through. There was a click of the door unlocking, and it swung open.

Nic’s eyebrows furrowed. He didn’t remember it locking when they’d come in.

A man stepped through the doorway. He was wearing grey clothes that matched Nic’s interviewer. The man had dark hair with a receding hairline. He was pale, with large ears and a sharp, pointed chin.

“What do you think?” The woman asked him.

The man stared at Nic for a moment. Nic was seriously getting sick of people staring at him.

“He’ll do.” The man coughed. “He’s still young and strong.”

The woman hesitated. “He isn’t healthy.”

“They are both manageable conditions.”

Nic stood and stepped away from them. “What’s going on here?”

They ignored him. The woman spoke again. “How many does that make?”

“So far, fifty-five viable candidates,” he replied. “We shouldn’t need too many more.”

“Does that include—”

“Yes,” he said sharply.

“I’d like to leave now. I don’t even care about being paid.” Nic’s voice had risen at least an octave, and his stomach was churning.

The man turned to look at him. “We’ve only just begun.”

They both stepped out of the room, pulling the door closed after themselves. Nic leapt towards it, but it clicked shut before he could get to it. He pulled the handle, and it didn’t budge. “Hey,” he called, “you can’t just leave me here.”

There was a hissing sound. He looked up to see the vents opening in the ceiling. A light pink gas tumbled from it, filling the room with a strongly sweet scent.

“The police will know I’m missing. They’ll come looking for me,” he said, desperately banging on the door. The words sounded fuzzy and forced. Really, no one would care. No one, except maybe Elrod.

Nic jolted and he fumbled for his phone. His hands shook as he located Elrod’s name in his contacts. He clicked on the entry as his vision swam in and out of focus.

Then, suddenly, he was on the floor with no recollection of falling.

The phone rang once, twice, and then one last time. “Dominic?” Elrod’s voice sounded small and far away. “Dominic, are you okay?”

Nic opened his mouth, trying to form anything. His mouth didn’t follow directions and his fingers were starting to tingle.

“Dominic?” Elrod’s voice sounded strained now. “Nic?”

Nic pushed out the word, “Help.” It was strangled and hardly even the actual word. His mind was so filled with cotton that he wasn’t even 100% sure that he’d actually said anything.

It didn’t matter anyway, because after that, there was only darkness and silence.

Chapter 4

Nic was floating. No, he wasn’t floating, but he was definitely moving. He was somewhere between awake and asleep, which made it harder to grasp onto the sensations around him. His feet were dragging along the ground and his head lolled against his shoulder. His eyes didn’t want to open.

The air smelled like chemically cleaned metal. Nic jolted with the memory of the sickly sweet air and passing out. He lurched in protest and suddenly he had to hold his own weight. His legs weren’t working, so he hit the ground. Hard.

He groaned; a bruise would already be swirling over his hipbone. Nic scrambled to his feet and squinted, trying to pull the world into focus. At least his body was listening to him now, even though every movement was sluggish.

It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the bright fluorescent light around him. He was in a long, white sterile hallway, and he wasn’t alone.

There were two armoured bodies standing over him, each with matching smooth helmets that covered their faces and came to a point at the back of their head. They had wide chests with relatively thin legs and arms that didn’t quite look proportional.

“Remain calm.”

Nic wasn’t sure which of them had spoken, but he knew one thing for sure: that wasn’t a human voice. He blinked. Nothing about these two things was quite human. Their arm length to leg length to torso size. The shape of their heads was too tall and thin. When they shifted or moved, the cream-white plates of armour shifted, and a sliver of silver glinted out at Nic.

One of them reached for him. Silver flickered out from between its fingers.

“Robots?” Nic scrambled back away from them. This was not happening. It could not be happening; he was losing his mind.

“Remain calm,” the robot said as it approached him.

“Oh god,” Nic moaned, clutching his head. Nothing made sense.

The robot marched up to him and held out its hand. There was a small hiss and Nic was enveloped in a familiar sickly sweet scent.

“No,” Nic said weakly. He could already feel his consciousness drifting away. “You can’t do this.” His vision swam, and he fell into the waiting metal arms.

***

“Maybe he’s dead.”

“No way.”

“Eww, I don’t want to room with a dead body.”

“I think he’s probably dead.”

“We can actually check.”

A mix of different voices was the first thing to reach Nic through the dark. Then he felt a small prod on his arm.

“I was thinking something a little more scientific than that.” There was a pause, and icy fingers pressed against his neck. “Yeah, he’s alive.”

“Very scientific.” Another voice scoffed.

“Shut up.”

“No one else took this long to wake up.”

“I don’t have all the answers. I just know he’s alive.”

Nic blinked and winced at the sudden onslaught of bright light. The fingers that were still against his neck quickly disappeared. A face leaned over his, light glowing behind her head. For a moment, his brain short-circuited. Surely, this was an angel; was he actually dead?

Then his mind refocused, and he realised that was absurd. Besides, he knew this girl from the waiting room—Dawn.

“Nice of you to join us,” she said and moved back to reveal that there was a horde of other faces crowded around him.

“Please tell me I’m dreaming.” Nic dragged his body up so that he was sitting and scraped the back of his hand across his eyes. His back was stiff, and his mouth felt as if he was talking through a mouthful of cotton wool.

Dawn snorted. “What kind of weird dreams do you have?”

He ignored her and let his gaze drift around the group. Some faces seemed vaguely familiar, but no one that he really knew. The closest was Dawn and the boy from the waiting room—Niall.

“What happened?” Nic asked.

There was a lot of shrugging until one girl pipped up, “We all got knocked out and woke up here, just like you.”

“I remember waking up before and there was…” Nic hesitated. Had the robots been real, or had he been hallucinating?

“The robots?” Dawn hedged, practically reading his mind. “Yeah, they’ve brought in every new person and then that”—she pointed to the wall—“changes accordingly.”

He followed her finger to see a large screen with a big red 55 on it.

“What does that mean?” His mind flashed back to the man he hadn’t known talking about viable candidates, so far fifty-five.

There was a lot of murmuring and shrugging.

A hissing sound filled the room, diverting everyone’s attention from him. A door near the corner opened, and two robots stepped in, a limp body slung between them. They walked into the room and lay the body on the ground. The group around Nic quickly dispersed to gather around the new person.

Without everyone crowded around him, he had a better view of the room they were in. It was the same sterile white walls and the bright fluorescent lights from the hallway he’d been dragged down. Every surface was unnaturally smooth, and the air was that same mix of chemically clean metal. The room itself was large and housed row on row of metal bunk beds with flat pillows and grey sheets. There was an open door at the back, through which he glimpsed a bathroom area. A single bed was pushed to the back corner, separated from everything else. It was the only bed that wasn’t a bunk and the sheets were white to match the walls.

Nic pulled himself up to sit on the nearest bed. The grey mattress was thin, and he could feel the metal bars beneath it.

Something round and red was shoved into his vision. An apple, held in the hand of a smiling Niall. Nic took it gratefully and bit into it as Niall joined him on the bed.

“What’s your therapist going to think?” Nic asked.

Niall shrugged. “They’ll probably assume that I’ve pulled a runner. I doubt anyone will even realise I’m missing.” He glanced at Nic. “You?”

Nic opened his mouth, then closed it again. Only a week ago, he would have vehemently disagreed with that. But now, not so much. He didn’t have a job, his landlord was kicking him out, and his roommate hardly ever knew what day of the week it was. His only hope was Elrod, and Nic really wanted to say that Elrod would notice. But he also wouldn’t bet money on it. Not seeing Nic was probably a good thing in Elrod’s book.

“Yeah, same.” Nic craned his neck around the room. “How many—”

“Sixty-one exactly,” Niall cut him off. “I already counted. Twice.”

“Including that one.” Nic gestured at the single bed.

“Yeah.”

“So, five more then,” he said. The big red number said 56 now.

Niall nodded but didn’t say anything else. Not that there was anything else to say. They’d all been kidnapped and now here they were. They finished the rest of their apples in silence and watched as another two people were unceremoniously dropped into the room.

It was only then that it occurred to Nic that everyone was wearing the same clothes. Loose-fitting navy pants and a matching singlet. He stared down at himself.

“My clothes,” he said in astonishment, and wondered if the sweet-smelling gas had done something to his brain.

“They took literary everything.”

Dread shot through Nic like a spear and his hands shot into his pockets.

“They took your phone too, dude.”

Nic sighed in relief as his finger wrapped around the familiar shape. He pulled it out to show Niall.

“An EpiPen?” Niall asked, sounding a little uncertain.

“That must mean they don’t want to kill us.”

“Maybe they’ll kill us later,” Dawn said. She wandered over to them and plonked herself down on the bed opposite them. “Who knows?”

A small, wiry Asian girl trailing behind Dawn leaned against the end of the bed. “I don’t think theorising will help any,” she pointed out. “Hi, I’m Monica.” She had strong shoulders and a pretty, rounded face with dark eyes and a buzz cut; her short hair was bleached white.

“Nic.”

“Niall.”

They responded at the same time.

She gave them a small smile. “I would say nice to meet you, but, well…” She swept out an arm, gesturing at the surrounding room.

“Did you guys have someone else come into your interview?” Nic asked.

Niall and Dawn shook their heads.

“I did.” Monica frowned. “It was weird, too. They found out I was fifteen.” She blushed a little. “In my defence, I wanted the $500. The woman kept saying that I was too young, and the man kept calling me viable, whatever that means, and then they knocked me out.”

“I don’t like that,” Dawn said, scrunching up her nose. “Viable? That seems a little… I don’t know…like harvest your organs or enslave you vibes.”

“He came into mine as well,” Nic said. “He said something about collecting viable candidates.”

Dawn raised her eyebrows. “Are you fifteen as well?”

“No, I’m nineteen.” Nic was tempted to roll his eyes, but stopped himself. He twirled his EpiPen. “She said I wasn’t healthy, and the man insisted that my conditions were manageable. That I was still viable.”

“It sounds like they want to keep us alive,” Monica said.

“But for what?” Dawn pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms tightly around them. “What are we viable for?”

Niall stood and stretched his arms over his head. “This is all so strange. She didn’t even ask me questions. Just looked at my form and knocked me out.”

Nic checked the number. It was at 59 now. “Not long,” he muttered.

The others turned to look as well.

“Then what?” Dawn asked.

No one had a theory to pitch after that, at least not one that they were ready to give a voice to.

Chapter 5

The loud red number ticked up to 60, and then…nothing.

No more kidnap victims. No more robots. It was just them and the number. Nic paced back and forth in front of the beds. Dawn stretched out on one, pointedly not looking at him because he was “getting on her nerves.” Niall sat on the bed next to Dawn’s, watching Nic, and Monica sat on the floor between the beds. She was alternating between tracing patterns on the pristine floor and staring at the closed doors they’d come through.

It took about half an hour for anything to happen, or at least that was Nic’s guess. The door opened and Monica shot off the floor. She didn’t need to say anything. They all turned immediately, the already quiet room turning into the deathly silence that only came from everyone holding their breath.

It was a woman of about thirty. She was ghostly pale, with dark bags sitting under her eyes. Long red waves spilled down her back, which seemed to constantly be in motion and catching the light. Two of the robots followed her in. They stood at the now open doorway as if guarding it.

The redhead glided into the room. She didn’t talk or make eye contact with any of them. She trailed her way across the room to sit on the only single bed and hunched her shoulders.

The bed, her age, the way she entered the room. She was an anomaly.

Nic swivelled his gaze, strange, he thought, eyes locking on the glowing number which remained at 60 despite there being sixty-one people in the room now. She wasn’t one of them. Then who was she? She obviously hadn’t been drugged and brought here. Though that didn’t mean that she was here by choice. Everything about her, her demeanour, her body language, it all screamed I’ve given up. Whoever she was, her will had long ago been broken.

Nic watched her for a moment. “Do you think she’s okay?”

“I don’t know if any of us are okay.” Niall bit at a hangnail.

“You can say that again.” Dawn settled herself back onto the bed.

Monica pursed her lips, and the muscles in her jaw tightened as she surveyed the robots at the door. “That has to mean something, right? Her showing up. Something will happen now.” She said it more to herself than anyone else.

Nothing did. Not for a long time. Nic lost track of time. It could have been one hour, it could have been three, he wasn’t sure. He rubbed his hand down his face. He didn’t even know how long he’d been drugged. Was it even still the same day?

Speakers somewhere above their heads crackled to life and made Nic jump.

“Proceed to the welcome banquet. Be warned that any attempt to escape will have dire consequences.” Nic searched the roof and the walls. Every inch and surface was flat and smooth. He couldn’t see the speakers anywhere.

The robots turned and marched out of the room. For a moment, there was silence, before a trickle of people followed them.

“Dire consequences?” Dawn scoffed. “Sounds like an empty threat to me.”

“You ready to bet on that?” Monica countered.

They weren’t. Nobody was.

***

The walk was filled with more white walls and no distinctive features to mark any of their turns. Whatever this place was, it had to be absolutely huge.

Dawn whispered to herself each turn they made and counted the steps between each turn. It was getting a little annoying if Nic was honest, but it would be helpful if they needed to run for someone to have a small semblance of where they were, so he didn’t comment.

“I don’t think she’s going to remember all this,” Monica whispered.

Niall shrugged. “Maybe she’s one of those geniuses who remember like everything that happens.”

“They don’t actually exist.”

“They totally do.”

Dawn ground out, “Shut up, I need to concentrate.”

Nic couldn’t concentrate like Dawn was. He searched for anything, any mark or imperfection, that might mark where they were. But there was nothing. Even the ceiling lights were all the same distance from one another. There was nothing out of place that they could use to navigate. So he’d be no help at all if they had to try to get out of here.

A flash of colour in his periphery caught his eye. “Did you see that?” He stopped. There was a door ajar. Inside, there was something on the back wall.

Niall, Monica, and Dawn paused as well. Nic nudged the door further open with his foot.

“What is that?” Dawn squinted at it. The room was small—only a few meters wide, basically a broom closet. On the back wall, there was a swirling blue glowing rectangle with a black outline. The blue looked like an otherworldly water, like a strange vertical pool.

“You know what it looks like…” Niall said.

After a moment of silence, Monica nudged him with her elbow. “You gonna finish that thought?”

He shook his head. “No, I thought if I said it, then my mind might come up with an answer.”

“Great plan,” Nic muttered. He was tempted to step into the room. He wanted to touch it, like a moth to a flame. In this place full of clinical white walls, the swirling blue felt like a breath of fresh air.

“I would keep moving,” said a faint dreamy voice beside them.

Nic jumped. He hadn’t even heard her approach. It was the redhead. Up close, her face looked even more drawn. Whatever the reason she was here, it was not a good one. But seeing her this close, he could see what he couldn’t before. She was a survivor. She was tired and her consciousness was half-floating in another world, but she was determined enough to still be fighting whatever battle she was losing.

She shuffled past them. “Don’t want to get left behind.”

“That was weird.” Dawn shivered next to him.

Niall lowered his voice and repeated the words from earlier, “Dire consequences.” It elicited a laugh from Monica, which seemed to please Niall.

“Come on.” Nic started walking again. There was something about the way the redhead spoke that gave him the jitters.

They jogged a little to catch up with the group, Dawn no longer counting her steps, though Nic was fairly certain that she was still trying to remember all the turns they were taking. It was only a few minutes before they came to a large dining room. The walls were still sterile white, no surprise there. There were four large metal dining tables that ran almost the length of the room. A smaller table ran perpendicular to the larger tables. Sitting up the front, at the smaller table, where two people Nic vividly recognised.

“Is that the man who you saw?” Dawn asked, turning to Nic.

“Yeah.”

Monica wrapped her arms around herself. “He looks just as intimidating as he did then.”

The man rose and opened his arms in welcome. However, his face was decidedly unwelcoming. He lifted his chin and looked down at them all as if he was their king. “Please sit and eat.” Not once did his mouth move out of his downward sneer as his voice cut through the room like a knife. He was tall and pale, with brown stringy hair smoothed back over his head. His cheeks were gaunt, and his eyes smudged with blue underneath them. He looked like a walking corpse.

Everyone moved towards the various tables, where cutlery had already been set out. He took a seat near the end of the table, as far from their two captures as he could get. Niall sat on his left, while Dawn and Monica sat across from them. The redhead trudged over to the kidnapper’s table to sit with them, though Nic didn’t miss the fraction of a second when she sent them both a glare.

Once everyone had jostled around for a seat, more robots spilled into the room. They were smaller than the guards that had walked the group here and they zipped around on one wheel. They all had sky-blue armoured plates that covered their metal skeletons, though these looked more decorative than protective. Each robot carried six plates of food and deposited them in front of people quickly and efficiently.

It was a hot chicken pie with a salad on the side. The smell wafted up to Nic and made his mouth water. He prodded the top of the pie with his fork. The flaky pastry split and more of that creamy chicken scent escaped which filled Nic’s chest with a warm familiarity. It had to be a bad idea to accept food from people who had drugged and kidnapped you.

The rest of the table seemed just as uneasy. A few people couldn’t help it and dug straight in. As the minutes ticked by and none of them died, everyone else joined them.

Their captors said nothing else; they just ate the pies that were delivered to them.

Nic remained unconvinced. He pulled the pie apart; he wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for, but he couldn’t help himself.

“Just eat it,” Dawn hissed. “If they were going to kill us, they wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble to get us here.”

Maybe. Nic flicked over another chunk of chicken. His hand wrapped around the EpiPen in his pocket. She was probably right. He conceded, eating his deconstructed pie. It tasted exactly like all mass-produced food did. It was almost good but not quite. Still, Nic hadn’t eaten a very substantial breakfast pre-kidnapping, so it tasted better than it had any right to.

Nic was about halfway through his pie when the corpse up at the front dabbed his mouth with a napkin and stood. He cleared his throat as if every eye hadn’t been on him from the moment he moved. “Hello, all.” His voice wasn’t as sharp as it had been, but it was still cold. “My name is Maxwell Ledger, and this is my wife, Tasha.” He gestured to the woman sitting next to him, who looked like an actual human instead of a ghost.

She rose and gave them all a small wave. Her gaze swept across the group, caught for a moment before she continued, then settled on the back wall so she wasn’t actually looking at them.

The tables broke out in whispers.

“No way.” Monica leaned into the table. “You know them, right?”

“Yeah,” Niall said.

At the same time, Dawn and Nic said, “No.”

“They’re millionaires,” Monica said.

“More like billionaires,” Niall said. “They are completely insane. They’re always on the news for doing crazy stuff like trying to import endangered animals or suing government agencies.”

Monica brushed her plate away and planted her elbows on the table. “And like no one ever sees them. They are so private that they even bought a property that’s like hundreds of acres just to keep people away.”

That answered the question of where they were being kept. Nic rapped his knuckles on the table. “No wonder, if this is what they do with their spare time.”

Tasha raised her arms and smiled. It wasn’t a warm or friendly smile; it was a prop to be used. “Welcome everyone. We are so pleased to host this exciting opportunity.”

Nic raised a brow. “They can’t be serious.” Then, after a moment, a second thought occurred to him. “You don’t think they do this every year, do you?”

“No,” Monica said. “People would notice if sixty people disappeared every year.”

Nic wasn’t as sure. They seemed to have been quite thorough about who they picked. People with no family to notice their disappearance, who were already a flight risk.

“I’m sure you all have a lot of questions,” Maxwell said. He definitely didn’t look like a billionaire. He looked like the guy who swindled the billionaire with some sort of pyramid scheme. “I assure you that you will not be getting answers to them.”

Tasha jumped in. “You will be remaining on a need-to-know basis.”

The delivery was rehearsed. They switched back and forth in a tilted manner and it just made the whole thing worse. Tasha smiled again and the hair on the back of Nic’s neck stood on end.

She continued, “For now, all you need to know is that for the coming weeks, you have only one objective: to survive.”

Dawn cursed, and Nic’s spine stiffened. What the hell does that mean?

Maxwell laced his fingers together in front of his body. “I will also add that you must follow every instruction that we give you to the letter. If you don’t, then I direct your attention to the inner elbow of your right arm.”

There was shuffling around the room as everyone lifted their arms. Sure enough, there was something there. A small silver scar that wasn’t there before. Nic ran his finger over the skin. Underneath the scar there was a hard lump.

Tasha said, “If you do not follow our instructions or try to leave the premises without our permission, then the capsule in your arm will release a lethal dose of poison.”

Dawn’s eyes flashed. “They can’t be serious.”

“It’s a bluff, it has to be,” Niall said, though his face had drained of colour as he prodded at the lump under his skin.

“If anyone would like to volunteer to demonstrate, that can be arranged,” Maxwell said drily. Silence swept across the room. “Right, so you can all—”

Someone at the table over from Nic’s jumped up. He was young, probably the same age as Niall. “This is a joke,” the kid screamed and raced for the door. The two robot guards were standing in the way and pushed him back.

“Of course, there’s one,” Maxwell said, though his tone had changed. His voice almost had a hint of glee. Nic could have sworn that a little colour of excitement made its way onto Maxwell’s cheeks.

“Sit back down.” Tasha’s voice boomed across the space. But the kid didn’t listen. Instead, he was trying to force his way between the robots.

Maxwell threw his wife a glare before he moved across the room. He glided silently like a ghost and, as he reached the commotion, he pulled out a small black scanner. He grabbed the boy’s arm and wrenched it to himself. Maxwell ran the scanner over his arm where the implant was.

Maxwell kept a hard grip on the boy’s arm so that everyone could see his arm and, more importantly, the implant. The implant started to flash underneath his skin. As time went on, the light flashed faster. Maxwell watched the light with relish as the boy began to cry and apologise. The flashing was a rapid blink now. The boy let out a cry and then went limp. Maxwell’s lip curled, and he dropped the arm. The body slumped to the floor. Nic couldn’t take his eyes off the motionless form. The boy looked so at peace that it was disturbing.

Maxwell turned to the silent room. “Go back to the dormitory, and don’t do anything stupid or your chaperone Celeste”—he nodded at the redhead who was not doing very well at hiding her anger—“will tell me. Won’t you, Celeste?” The question was sharp, cracking like a whip.

Celeste glanced up at the ceiling and gritted her teeth. “Of course.”

He nodded approvingly and then waved a dismissive hand at his kidnapped victims. “You’ll have your first test tomorrow.” He stepped over the boy he’d just murdered and strode off into the maze of hallways.

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