The Genesis Saga

Adrian’s eyes flew open as the lights in the room abruptly turned back on. Blinking away spots, he groaned as he blearily sat up. He had heard some shuffling throughout the night, but none of the guards had come to their room.

He rubbed his face in vain, trying to wake up faster. He’d slept poorly last night, constantly worried that the guards outside were coming for him.

“What time is it?” a voice rang out from across the room. It belonged to Stanley. “I need my beauty sleep. Can’t remain this gorgeous without it. How else am I supposed to rock the prisoner look?”

“Now would be a good time for some coffee,” Adrian fired back.

“What I wouldn’t give for a cup of espresso right now.”

“Good morning everyone,” came Lily’s chipper voice. John shot her a death glare from where he slept, one arm over his head trying to block the light.

“How are you so awake?” John moaned. “It’s only been a minute or two since the lights turned on. Can’t you just be tired like the rest of us?”

“I’ve always been a morning person,” Lily admitted. “I love waking up and watching the sun rise. It’s such a peaceful time of the day, before all the hustle and bustle starts. Not that I can do that in here, though.”

“Some of us like our sleep.”

“Tell that to the lights then. They’re the ones that woke you up,” Lily replied, unapologetically.

As the group woke up, they came to the realization that there truly was nothing to do besides wait. The shuffling of feet could be heard periodically from outside the door, but they never stopped in front of their room.

“I’m bored,” announced John, an hour later. “Can’t they come get us or something already?”

“Be careful what you wish for,” warned Stanley. “We still don’t know what they’re going to do to us.”

“At this rate, anything will be better than just waiting around. If only we could just leave.” John got up from his cot and began pacing around the room with a nervous energy.

Adrian gently tapped his foot to the beat of a song in his head. “Wouldn’t that be nice,” he mused. “I think I’d rather leave this place and take my chances in the desert if I could.”

“You mean escape?” Lily balked. “The killed the last guy that tried to run!”

“If we could steal a vehicle we’d be able to get away pretty rapidly.”

“I didn’t see any cars parked outside. How are you going to manage that?”

“I don’t know,” Adrian admitted. “I haven’t thought that far ahead yet.”

“Wonderful,” Lily said flatly, clearly not impressed. “We don’t know if they’re recording us or not, so you’d better be careful with words like those.”

“Lily, we’ve been over this. They’re probably not recording us.”

“You don’t know that! There’s always a chance. If you’re going to talk about escaping, do it where you know they can’t hear you.”

“And where would that be? This is the only private place we have. Every time we leave the room, we’re escorted by guards. If we talk elsewhere, then they’ll for sure overhear us.”

Lily was at a loss for words. Adrian was right – everywhere else they were under guard. “The cafeteria?” she offered. “The guards were sitting pretty far away from us last time. If we whisper, then they might not hear us.”

“That’ a pretty big risk,” Stanley said. “What if they notice us whispering to each other? That’s pretty suspicious behaviour.”

“Then we take turns whispering while the others have a conversation, so the guards don’t hear. I don’t know, it was just an idea!”

“I think it’s best if we talk about this sort of thing here, where we know that the guards can’t hear us.” John said.

“What do you think?” Stanley said, turning to the stranger that was in the room with them. He had yet to interact with the group in any manner, opting to ignore their attempts to talk to him.

“I want no part of this,” the man said, for the first time. “You saw what they did to the last guy. I don’t want to end up like him. Leave me alone, and more importantly, leave me out of it. I don’t want any trouble.”

The man spoke in a deep, raspy voice. He sounded like someone who smoked too many cigarettes. Eyeing him again, Adrian wondered what prompted him to finally answer them. Thus far, he had remained completely silent. Thinking back, Adrian didn’t recall hearing the man speak when he first saw him either nor when they were all on the truck together.

Stanley nodded. “If that’s what you wish for, then we’ll leave you out of our discussions. If ever you feel like talking to us, feel free to join in on our conversations.”

“I won’t,” the man said tersely. Stanley shrugged and turned away from him.

“Anyways,” he said to the group, “don’t you think it’s a little early to be planning an escape?”

“I hardly think this counts as planning,” Lily said. “If we’re going to escape, I think we’d better do it sooner, rather than later. Before they do god knows what to us.”

“I think so too,” John agreed. Before he could say more, the door to the cell opened. Once again, there were two guards waiting outside.

“Follow us,” one of them said.

“Not big on words, are they?” Stanley muttered under his breath, earning a small chuckle from Lily.

“What was that?” one of the guards asked. The group remained silent, not making any noise while the guard scrutinized them. “There’d better not be any talking. Not even a whisper,” he said sternly before turning around and making his way down the hall.

The group quickly followed in silence, not willing to risk earning the guard’s ire over some silly comments. They were brought to the showers, where they once again had to clean themselves under the frigid water.

Dripping wet with no towels, they were forced to get changed back into their old clothes. The added dampness hindered their meager attempts to warm up. With chattering teeth, they followed the guards yet again, straight down the hall towards the cafeteria.

They passed by another group on their way to the cafeteria from the showers. Adrian noticed the miserable look on all of their faces and wondered if it came from being subjected to that torture they called food.

Scrutinizing them, a new detail caught Adrian’s attention. Each person was wearing a bracelet on both wrists and more than one of them appeared to be rubbing their wrists in pain. Adrian looked down at his own wrists, noting the lack of bracelets. He idly wondered if that was what was happening throughout the night when he heard people moving around outside the room.

One of the cafeteria workers was clearing a table of the trays left behind by the previous group when they arrived. They were dressed in a uniform consisting of a teal shirt and pants. The look was not very flattering. The trays were placed at the entrance after being wiped down quickly with a damp cloth before they disappeared behind the counter.

Remembering yesterday’s protocols, each person grabbed a tray and lined up along the long counter. In front of the counter along its length at stomach height were three long metal bars for the trays to rest on while each person waited for their food.

The counter itself was chest height and had plexiglass stemming from the top of the counter two meters up, held in place by a black metal frame. At the end was a slot just large enough for a bowl to fit through. Lily was first in line and went straight towards the opening. There, the worker from before slid a bowl of the same grey gruel as the day before through the hole towards her.

Grimacing, she reached up over the counter and grabbed the bowl, placing it on her tray. The worker slid a plastic spoon and a small cup of water through the hole for Lily, before disappearing again to prepare the next bowl.

She made her way to the table in the corner of the room and was soon joined by the others except for the man who’s name they still did not know. Not a single one of them made a move to begin eating. She poked around in the food with her spoon, feeling just as little desire to eat it as she did yesterday. “Are we going to have to eat this every day? What do they even put in it to give it this texture?”

“Not food, that’s for sure,” Adrian joked.

Lily rolled her eyes and brought a spoonful of the questionable substance towards her face and sniffed at it recoiling in disgust. “Nope, I’m still not eating this. There’s no way they can force me to eat this.”

“You’re going to have to eat it eventually,” Stanley cautioned. “Otherwise you’ll starve.”

“Maybe that would be the better alternative.”

“It’s not so bad,” John said, bravely taking a bite. He chewed slowly, grimacing as he did so.

Stanley arched an eyebrow. “Very convincing.”

Sighing, Adrian decided to bite the bullet and joined John in his daring endeavor. It tasted the same as yesterday, causing him to almost spit out the foul food. Slowly, he forced it down his throat, drinking water to help.

“If only they didn’t give us these tiny little cups of water,” he complained, waving the short Styrofoam cup in the air. The tiny cup already had a noticeable amount of water missing just from the one sip.

“I agree,” said Stanley. “Water is precious and all, but they could give us a little bit more. And a little less of the food.”

Much like the previous day, the guards remained near the entrance, making no move to go further into the cafeteria.

“Do you think they can hear us if we speak like this,” whispered John softly.

Lily’s eyes widened and she furtively glanced towards the guards. They didn’t react to John’s whispering. “John,” she hissed back, “what would you have done if they heard us?”

“Relax, they didn’t. At least now we know they can’t hear us from over there.”

Adrian and Stanley had their backs facing the guards and were unable to see their reactions. They kept eating, putting on the pretense that everything was as it should be.

The stranger sitting at the next table over paused his eating as John and Lily continued to whisper to each other and looked towards the group. He narrowed his eyes before returning to his food with his head down, evidently not willing to make a scene.

“Still,” Lily continued, “you shouldn’t have risked it. That could have ended really badly. Wait,” she looked over Adrian’s shoulder, “shit, they’re looking at us now. Oh fuck, they’re coming over here,” she swore.

Adrian stiffened at that. He did not like being unable to see what the guards were doing behind him. The sound of rubber soles squeaking on the floor grew louder as they approached.

“Candidates, meal time is over. Please leave your trays where they are and return back to your rooms.”

Adrian looked at his mostly finished meal. If he was being honest, he couldn’t bring himself to eat more. He was glad to have an excuse to not finish his food. John and Stanley’s bowls were similarly emptied of their contents. Only Lily’s remained untouched.

Under the watchful eyes of the guards, they returned to their room. Once they were gone, the stranger wheeled around to face John and angrily said “Are you out of your minds? You could have gotten us all killed with your little stunt. They explicitly told us to be quiet. How hard is it for you to follow simple instructions?”

John stood there stunned alongside the rest of the group. This was the most they had heard the man speak. “Well, I thought that it was the perfect time to test out our theory from before,” he stammered.

“Next time just keep quiet!”

“Listen here,” John trailed off. Pausing, he tilted his head and said “You know, I don’t actually know your name. You never introduced yourself to us.”

“What’s the point of you knowing my name. It’s not like we’re friends,” the stranger said defensively.

“We can’t just keep calling you ‘Hey You’ every time we speak to you,” Adrian interjected.

“Then don’t speak to me. Wasn’t the hint obvious enough?”

“Still,” Lily started, joining in on the conversation, “it would be nice to be able to call you something.”

“Fine,” the man relented. “My name is Adam. There, are you happy now?”

“Quite,” Lily said, pleased.

Adam returned to his cot and lay down, his back facing the group. Adrian and Lily did the same, opting to sit up on their cots instead.

“If we really want to get out of here, then we need to start collecting information,” Adrian said. “Maybe eventually we’ll able to work out a plan with what we gather.”

“I agree,” Lily said, “but how are we supposed to learn anything when we stay cooped up in here all the time?”

“We learn as we go,” Stanley said. “Each time one of us leaves the room, we need to learn something. It could be the layout of the hallways, how many doors there are, where the guards are located. That kind of stuff,” he clarified.

“They’re going to come for us eventually. When they do, we keep our eyes and ears peeled. We’ll report what we find back to the others once we’re back in the room,” Adrian said. They all agreed to pay close attention to their surroundings whenever they left the room.

After several hours with nothing to do, the door opened, and the guards entered. “Candidate ARD-BX17-018, come with us.”

A moment passed as everyone looked at each other, unsure. Quickly, Adrian looked at his arm to see what his tattoo said. Relieved that he wasn’t the one chosen, he looked at the others. They copied him and checked their arms as well.

“That’s me,” John said nervously.

“Candidate, please step forward and come with us. It is your turn,” the guard said.

“My turn for what?” John asked.

He was met with silence.

“John,” Stanley said, “just go. I’m sure it will be fine.”

Resigning himself to his fate, John trudged forward and left the room. The door shut behind him, his absence already making itself heard.

“Do you think he’ll be ok?” Lily asked once he left, worried.

“I think so,” Adrian said. “I noticed that the other group had these bracelets on their wrists when we passed by them earlier, but apart from that they seemed fine. More or less.”

“I didn’t notice,” Lily said, surprised at the revelation. “What do you think they do?”

“I’m not entirely sure. I guess we’ll find out.” Adrian paused, listening carefully. “Sooner, rather than later. I think somebody’s walking towards us.”

“Maybe they’ll just pass us by like they usually do?” Lily offered. The thought of being selected and taken out of the room terrified her. The shuffling sound of feet paused on the other side of the wall. It looked like Adrian was right; they were here.

The door opened again, the usual two guards waiting on the other side.

“Candidate ARD-BX17-011, come with us,” they announced.

“Well then, looks like it’s my turn,” Stanley said. He got up from where he was seated next to Adam and made his way to the front of the room. He smiled thinly at Adrian as he passed by. “I’ll be ok guys, I’m sure of it. I’ll see you later.”

With that, he was gone.