Breeders

The air was still. Electric thrumming surrounded Ruth on all sides, ringing in her ears like alarm bells. She had to find a way out of this closet, filled with blinking lights and red wires. She was too close to getting caught, and the electric hum made her sick. A fair trade for interrupting the bots tracking her from the inside. The small machines that twirled inside her, pinging the Monitor at every opportunity.

She had discovered this interference by luck, and luck alone. In the search for supplies for her cleaning cart, she had tried the handle, thinking it would be locked. The door opened, and she found herself staring into one of the many server rooms on the grounds. She went in, driven by curiosity. The blinking lights and bundled wires that ran into the walls and ceiling had excited her at first. This was it; the place of power. The source of their total domination of the people in Westborough House. She stayed longer than she meant to, captivated by the small room. Later that evening she received a thrashing when she wouldn’t say where she'd gone.

“You blinked off the tracking for thirty minutes,” Sneed had said, “see?” He pointed to the screen that showed her along a graph with the others, all with full bars by their names. “If you will not tell us where you went, then you will be spending the night in the coal trap.”

“I haven’t left or gone anywhere,” she said, “not since coming here. We can’t leave, remember?”

Sneed gave her a pitying stare, but his lips drew tight. He didn’t say another word as he pulled the crop from the holster on his belt.

After the beating was over, he led her down to the coal trap. The room in the basement named for the darkness within that had nothing to do with coal. He sealed her inside the cold room that smelled of piss and fear without a moment's hesitation. In that foul, putrid dark, she had realized what this meant.

Freedom.

The bots were implanted two years ago, so her time was up. Her friend Mabel had hit the two year mark months ago and was moved to the nursing wing. She hadn’t seen her since then, other than through the windows as she mopped the floor. She was already swollen with child then. She looked miserable. Tubes ran from her to the modification stands they pulled around. Without the constant drip into her veins, the fetus and Mabel would die. W.O.M.B. they called them, or Women of Male Breeders. Always full of tubes and fetuses.

She scratched at her scalp, trying to stay calm at the thought of being bred and hooked up to tubes the rest of her life. Tom should have been there by now. After her time in the coal trap, Tom had come to her in the night, creeping beside her bed and whispering in her ear.

“Do you know what freedom is?”

Afraid to speak, she only shook her head.

“It’s life outside these walls. Free from Westborough’s control.”

“How?” she whispered as a tear streamed down her cheek. She knew she had a chance, after the room, but didn’t know how. “The bots…”

“You found out on your own, that’s why I came to you.” He looked around to make sure the others were still asleep in their beds. “We have an EMP that can kill the bots and free you from this place.”

“Would I be able–”

“No.” Tom shook his head, “The bots are the only reason Westborough can farm you like they do. Without them, you will never be with child.”

She thought about it, remembering Mabel with the tubes. All the others before her who had never come back from the nursing wing. Thought of the smell of smoke seared into her nostrils from the weekly cremations. She thought of the wails that came in the night when the babies were born. Then the sobbing that would echo the halls for weeks once the babies were taken away for placement.

“When.” was all she said then.

The time was now, a month later, but Tom was late.

She started to pick at her scalp again, digging out clumps of hair, when the doorknob rattled. Her breath caught, and she tried to back further into the cables, but there was nowhere to go. She was a rabbit in a hutch, and there was a fox at the door.

The knob turned and a black mask appeared, a mask of solid cloth, waving for her to come. There was no way to tell if it was Tom, but she knew it was better than hiding here. The Monitor would have picked up her absence by now, and might be headed for her at that minute.

The black clad figure headed down the polished linoleum halls and Ruth followed. Sandy coloured hair poked out from behind their mask, and she realized it wasn’t Tom.

“Tom?” she asked, stopping dead in her tracks.

The black figure whirled around, holding a finger to where their mouth would be and kept walking. Ruth didn’t move, frozen to the spot with fear, her insides squirming. They walked back and stooped down. A hint of cloves and mint hit her from behind the face mask and a man’s voice said, “Tom had some trouble. I came to help get you out instead.”

“What happened to Tom?”

The man rubbed the back of his neck. “They found out…about this.” he motioned from Ruth to himself, “They took him in this morning for questioning.”

“Is he alright?”

He stiffened his back, drawing to his full height. “I doubt it. Now, unless you want to join him, we need to move.”

The lights in the hall went dead and a blaring horn echoed through the hallway. Red lights flashed from emergency boxes on the ceiling, turning the world crimson.

Sneed’s voice crackled over the intercom, “Stay where you are Ruth, and you will not be harmed. You are in danger, going with that man.”

Ruth looked at the mask, unreadable black fabric hiding the face within. Her heart felt hollow and her stomach flipped. Caught before we even made it outside the hallway.

The man lifted his mask, revealing blue eyes that shone violet in the stark red light, “Trust me. We can still make it.” he said, and held out his hand.

The siren blared twice more, but the man didn’t move. He kept his eyes locked with hers and his hand extended. She reached out and took it as one of the Monitors burst through the door at the end of the hall.

“You! Stop!” he shouted.

Ruth wasted no more time and bolted, the man running beside her pulled his mask back down.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Rutger.” he said, pulling her along, his long legs carrying them faster than Ruth could go alone.

They skidded around a corner and Rutger collided with a Monitor. Aiming his elbow at the man’s throat, he sent him to the ground gasping for air. He pulled her into the stairwell and headed down.

“Where are we going? If we go to the basement, we’ll be trapped!”

“The others are waiting for us at the loading docks,” he said, “and they better have the van running.”

The door above them banged open and shouts followed after, filling the stairwell like an echo chamber along with the sounds of boots on steel. One of the Monitors threw a baton in an attempt to slow them down. It deflected off Rutger’s shoulder and bounced up into his ear. He yelped as it struck, but only stumbled for a step.

Ruth felt her lungs ripping as she tried to draw in more air. She was terrified, but didn’t know what scared her more. Making it to the van or being captured. Her life up until now suddenly seemed so cozy, so secure. She had three meals a day, a hot shower, a warm bed…there was no way to know what waited for her out there. The only thing that was guaranteed was pain. But pain was all she would know in Westborough too, wasn’t it? The pain of childbearing, of losing the children to the cold calculating placement agency. She would be forced to birth children until she had nothing left to give and died on the table. No. She wouldn’t live that life, not when she had this chance.

She ran harder.

“Sir, they’ve nearly made it to the loading dock.” Ruth heard a Monitor call into his walkie, "Permission to take lethal action?”

A voice crackled back, Ruth always pictured it was Sneed, and then gunfire barked out behind them.

“Zaya!” Rutger shouted, but the door of the van had already opened. A tall woman returned fire, letting the Monitor’s have it with a submachine gun burping out bursts of leaden death.

Rutger opened the door and shoved Ruth in, “Keep your head down, for fuck’s sake!” he said.

The van crept forward and Zaya jumped in, spraying one last helping of bullets at the Monitors. As she slammed the door shut, holes appeared in the paneling of the van with deep metallic thunks. Ruth screamed, covering her head with her arms.

The driver floored it, sending the van kicking to the side before it powered on, building speed.

“Hold on!” he shouted and a second later, Ruth rocketed forward as the van rammed the gates. Screeching metal and another pop of a revolver saw the van off and into the night.

“It’s alright.” Zaya said, “You can look now.”

Ruth lifted her head, eyes blurry from tears, and looked out the rear window to see Westborough House shrinking away. The white walls reflected the moonlight, its enormous frame taking up the entire landscape. The only building for miles.

Rutger shifted beside her and gasped.

“You’re hurt!” she said, looking at the dark wet stain covering his ribs.

“They winged me, that’s all.” He said, and pulled off his mask. He looked paler than he had before, but that could be because he wasn’t bathed in red light.

“Why did you do this for me?” Ruth said.

“Because it’s the–” the van hit a bump and Rutger grabbed at his side, unable to speak.

“It’s the right thing to do.” Zaya said. “No one should be told what to do with their body. No one should have that power.” She shook her head and looked at the ground, her eyes seeing something that wasn’t there.

“Thank you.” Ruth said.

Zaya looked back at her and smiled. “You’re not out of the woods yet.” she pointed at her stomach, “we still need to get those bots out of you.”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “I'd forgotten with everything...” She held a fist to her chest.

“A couple more miles and we’ll have you at the safe house. We’ll wipe out the bots with the EMP and you’ll be free to move on, or…”

Ruth met her eyes, seeing the question there, and asked, “or what?”

“You help bring Westborough House down.” Zaya’s back stiffened. “We need more people, people like you, so we can take that place down for good.”

The van turned into the drive of an abandoned farm house. The crops around were long dead and the family went with it. The driver said, “we’re here.”

Rutger kept still in the back, looking daggers at Zaya as the driver got out and opened the door for Ruth.

Once she was out, she heard him try and whisper, “She’s just a kid, Zaya. We didn’t rescue her so she could come play child fucking soldier, did we?”

“She’s the same age I was when I joined.” Zaya said and hopped out of the van. “Besides, it’s her choice.”

Rutger sat in the van, holding a cloth he had pulled from a bag to his side.

“This way,” Zaya said and led Ruth to the house. She pulled out a key and opened the padlock that held the door closed. It looked like the house had been vacant for years. Dust piled in every corner and more cobwebs than not. They filed in. Zaya shut the door and drew the deadbolt.

As the lock clicked home, a light flooded the room, blinding them.

“Keep your hands where I can see ‘em.” a man said.

Zaya went for her gun and the man behind the light fired, sending two bullets into her sternum. She was dead before she hit the ground.

The driver held his hands up, pale as a ghost and said, “Hey, buddy. I don’t have any weap–” another two pops and he fell to the floor with a hole where his eye had been.

Ruth screamed and covered her face, turning away from the dead man and waiting for bullets to slam into her. She heard a crash and a thump, then the light went dead.

She peered through her fingers to see Rutger standing over the Monitor with a broken chair in his fists. He threw the legs to the side and frisked the unconscious man. He produced a pair of cuffs and pulled him to the rusty old radiator. Ruth stumbled forward to help and they managed to move the bulk into position and cuff him to the pipes.

“Fuck,” Rutger said, picking up the Monitors pistol and stuffing it in his waistband. “Fuck.” He went to the kitchen, holding his side and pulled a box from under the sink. He opened the plastic case with slippery red fingers, and pulled out a large plastic gun. “Come here, quick.” He said, turning the switch on the side. The gun made a high pitched squeal and a light flashed red, then yellow, then finally green.

“Is that the–”

He didn’t wait, pointing the gun at Ruth’s stomach, he pulled the trigger.

A pulse from the gun knocked the air from her lungs, and she fell backward. She grabbed her abdomen and gasped, unsure if she would ever be able to breathe again until she finally managed to suck in a lungful of air.

“Sorry, but we have no time.” Rutger said, already packing the gun away in its plastic case. He held out a bloody hand and Ruth looked up at his pale, determined face. Those steely blue eyes looked into her soul. “It’s now or never.” he said, “Welcome to the free life.”

She took his hand and he pulled her up with a grunt, clutching his side immediately after. They jogged back to the van and Rutger jumped in the driver seat. “Seat belt.” he said and peeled out of the driveway and back onto the highway.

Ruth looked back. Westborough house was a pinprick of white on the horizon. They passed a black sedan hidden behind some shrubbery a half mile from the farm house. Slowing until they could see there was no one in it, then Rutger hit the gas.

“They must have broken Tom.”

“Broken?” Ruth asked.

He shook his head. “We’re lucky it was just one. Next time we won’t be so lucky.”

Rain started to fall from the scattering of clouds and the darkness grew as they moved in to cover the moon.

“All I ever wanted…was to be free of that place.” Ruth said, looking at her hands.

“Well, now you are.” Rutger said, “Can you press that towel to my ribs? I’m still bleeding.”

Ruth grabbed the towel, already covered in blood, and held it to his side. “Will it always be like this?”

Rutger stared ahead at the road, his jaw tight, as the wipers worked in vain to clear the windscreen.

“Yes,” he said. “Always.”