Sanctioned

1.

The brief needle drop signaled that the evening pacification had begun. The hypnotic melody from the loudspeakers spilled far into the courtyard, traveling up the fractured brick walls and into the crammed hallways. The denizen’s ears rapt with the soft and lulling tune as they stood side by side in synthetic delight. Boiled tensions simmered and evaporated in the big melting pot of SEC 11. From grimace to grin the lot were eased… for now.

A figure appeared inside the gate and begun to slink around the faded parking spaces. His heavy frame swimming between the moored residents as their eyes grew heavy. An ECS, “Electronic Cerebrum Scrambler” rested upon his hip that swayed with every step. The calculated forage had begun.

2.

Merci sunk into the torn carpeting of the closet with her small hands clutched white around the handle and feet posted firmly on the door frame. Her eyes clamped shut in forlorn hope as the sounds of upheaval shook beyond the entrance. Sounds of Duke and his pack rifling through her father’s room was unmistakable. It appeared that his desperate attempt to appease their leader had failed.

Her breathing slowed as the stir had lost its momentum. Overturned furniture and cupboard slamming had tapered off. A sanguine air escaped her chest in a bountiful sigh. The mental countdown had continued in her mind, each number rising and edging closer to the pacification. That thorny savior bounded in equal parts alleviating and constricting with its heavenly chords.

Words too soft to place drifted like ash in the room beyond, coating the remnants of the blazing storm. Air closed inward as the closet now felt like the size of a matchbox. Merci released her sweaty hands from the handle and brought them to her chest. Gripping the impenetrable heart shaped locked around her neck she curled into a pile and traced its outline with her thumbs. Harrowed thoughts of her mother stained her mind as she dived further into the memories.

A thunderous assault breached the door, flooding in light and exposing the vulnerable girl below. Her heart now a severed anchor descending further into the pit. Time became an island as she attempted to clamber out from her sanctuary. Duke’s enforcer beamed at the sight of their prize as her attempt had failed. His stony grip swung like a guillotine to her neck, tearing away the locket. Her neck burned at the loss of that familiar metal.

Screams of protest did nothing to shake the brutes from their posts. Duke had once heard tell of something hidden within that locket and he aimed to find out. His enforcer presented the prize to his master, eyes simple with canine avidity. Duke’s smirk was enough to sate his eager footman. The men started for the door when the girl’s teary gaze bolted to the speakers in the courtyard.

3.

Notes of tranquility fluttered from the looming speakers to nest within the resident’s ears. “God’s Tone”, labeled as such by the A.S.D or “Auditory Science Division”, sedated any in its path. In a country governed by a Technocracy, the A.S.D was an invaluable asset to ATOM, “Apostles of Technology and Omni Mastery”.

A devastating war had occurred plunging the world into ruin decades prior. The aggressors had a contingency in place on the chance that their soldiers did not accomplish their goal; a bioweapon. This was set off to destroy the minds of the country’s citizens and forever ruin their genetic makeup. The result was unbridled violence and a numbing of logical faculties.

After the devastation, the leaders of the old world were no more, and the scientific giants of the era filled their spot. With no solid government in place and no ethics committees looming over their heads, the researchers had free reign. The hidden technologies of the military were now left to their disposal. The wheels must keep turning and ATOM was not going to take no for an answer.

4.

Merci plunged her hands into her jumpsuit’s pocket and felt for the string holding the two pieces together. Her search yielded nothing. In a fevered panic she whipped around to the closet. Eyes cast wildly onto the carpet in a darting haze until at last she spotted them laying in the corner. They must have slipped out when she had her legs pinned to the door frame. She dove to the ground and seized them in her palm, drawing them to her head and activating the device.

Muted relief washed over her heart and filled her worried chasms. She could feel the pressure around her dissipate in an instant like a flipped switch. The now docile bodies herded to the open air for their sweetened comfort. In the huddled masses she spotted Duke, chain wrapped around his fist which had fallen to his side in absent repose.

Carefully she approached the oblivious figure, her eyes locked on the necklace. Her hand extended to Duke’s hairy fist as she wrapped her fingers around the locket and loosened it from his grip. It fell gently into her palm unnoticed as he turned half glazed to her with a finger to his lips, pointing to the loudspeaker. Her hand squeezed the locket tightly, feeling the pointed end of the heart dig into her palm. Her sigh of relief is stifled by the feeling of something watching her. Merci turned only to find the Warden aiming his ECS directly between her eyes. His grin was ghostly as he clicked a button on the side and pulled the trigger.

5.

Haunted dreams crept into Merci’s head like a hidden sickness. Restless and fitful she cried out in the darkness. Images of her mother’s smile stretched endlessly contorted and painted across sterile blackened deserts. A torrent of needles rained from infinite skies only to dissolve in a sea of crumbling brick. The nauseating whirlwind continued until her weary brain could handle it no longer. True nothing had commenced.

6.

The girl awoke in the arms of a masked figure proceeding down an eerie hallway. Afraid of detection she closed one eye and attempted to peer with the other. Everything surrounding her was spectacular. Statues stoic and pristine lined either side, some looking rather aged. One bust of an elderly man glared with a playful smile adorning a mustache and wild wispy hair. A grand painting of an old temple stood mighty on the unsullied wall.

Merci was brought to an open room with a small number of men and women in lab coats and strange face masks. The figure transporting her placed her on the ground and vanished from the area. Her eyes bounced with worry to the solemn gaze of each specter. Her mind turned to the locket as she brought her left hand to her pocket. She felt the outline of the heart and smiled relieved.

The masked figure from before came back with a rolling chair and metal table with various instruments laid out. Positioned in front of Merci, the figure pointed to the seat and stared fixedly at her. With seemingly no option and nowhere to go, she shuffled to the open seat.

The figure began to initialize and prep the area as one of the men in a lab coat approached the girl. Merci stared in horror as the slender scientist reached his arm forward and handed her a transparent clipboard. Attached to this was numerous papers littered with information. Most striking of all was the image on the very front. Her mother.

Tears began to swell and spill as her heart wretched in her chest. Her own mother’s face greeted her in such a strange and unfamiliar place. She had never seen this photo before; it was not like the others. This was taken with her in a lab coat just as those around her with the same number of scientists surrounding her on either side. Strings of shock raced through her frame.

The air was dead silent except for the frantic combing of pages. Documents detailing her mother’s escape from ATOM, the virus strains plaguing the citizens, her missing daughter, and a missing cure. Merci’s head swam with confusion as her sight shifted one line to the next until the words drowned together. Her eyes met the last report with sinking dread.

The daughter was given the initial dose of the vaccine and reports indicate that it was a success: yielding the first recorded human not infected with the virus. Location of the child is unknown and immediate retrieval is crucial to the survival of ATOM and afflicted humans. Proper testing on the unaffected is necessary and will result in loss of life though will save countless others in the process.

Merci let the clipboard slip from her hands and crash to the floor. Fear clutched her chest as she darted out of the seat towards the entrance of the chamber. The figures stood secure as the masked man grabbed her by the wrist. Her mind twisted and screamed in terror as she panted heavily, deciding what she could do.

The thought ended abruptly when the man pulled an ECS from his coat and aimed it toward the girl. He tilted the device to show the buttons and their words etched into the metal frame. The button he hovered over was labeled “control”. It was then that reality sank its cold fangs into her. Whatever was to happen would happen with her help or not. The only difference is if she walks on her own volition.

Merci reached her hand to her pocket slowly and removed the heart shaped locket. Her body stiffened in numbing forfeit. She brought the heart to her lips before hurling it at the concrete below the flock of scientists. The metal clashed to the floor and tumbled, springing the door of the locket ajar and spilling a metal tube with a glass window to the floor. Etched, in tiny letters along the tube, were the words “vaccine.”