“You can’t kill me,” the Chosen One sang, “because if you do, you’ll die too.”
“What are you spouting, boy,” Mister Mittens hissed.
“They put something in my chest when I was born. If my heart stops beating, it sends a signal to the computer and this place gets filled with gas. No one lives if I die!”
The Chosen One began rolling on the floor, laughing.
With mild amusement, Gabriel placed a boot on the kid’s chest, pinning him to
the ground and pushing the air from his lungs. The silver spur on his heel drew blood.
The kid tried to laugh again, but found he couldn’t with the pressure from Gabriel’s boot, so he contented himself with glaring.
Drawing one of his pistols, Gabriel pointed it at the kid, pulling the hammer back with his thumb. The click of it locking into place echoed through a very sudden and deep silence.
“But you’ll die,” the kid’s eyes widened in renewed fear.
“If you don’t tell me exactly where to find all the stuff your boys stole from me when they kidnapped Sam, I’m going to blow your head off and find out what happens.
Things don’t look like they work too well down here anymore, I think I’ll take my chances. Care to test your luck?”
Staring up the gun barrel, the kid shook his head emphatically.
“Where are our things?”
“Probably still with your animals at the stable on the north edge of the surface town. If they haven’t been butchered yet for the meat, anyway.”
“And how do we get out of here?”
“Green button,” the Chosen One pointed to his throne. “It opens the elevator to the surface behind my throne.”
Gabriel nodded to Sam and she pushed the button. Part of the wall slid aside
revealing a small elevator.
“You’re going to trust an elevator down here,” Mister Mittens asked as he leapt up to the arm of the chair and then onto Sam’s shoulder.
“Look cat, I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention, but I’m almost out of ammo, and I’ve done enough killing to last twenty lifetimes. Getting in here almost killed me and I’m not too keen on fighting my way back out again.”
“Fair enough,” the cat shrugged, another gesture that looked decidedly odd
performed by a cat.
“We’re just gonna go,” Sam said quietly. “And leave the Children for the next unwary travelers to come along?”
“If you want to slaughter everyone that’s left you go right ahead, but me, I’m getting the hell out of here as quickly as possible.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Sam said with a deep and reluctant sigh.
Dropping to one knee, she glared into the Chosen One’s face. He tried to flinch back from her, but there was nowhere for him to go.
“Listen to me, you little turd! Women are people, not objects for you to give away as gifts. You will never treat women like that again or your older sister is gonna come back here and rip your balls off with her bare hands. Understand? You are not the Father Sun. You do not dictate who lives and who dies. And you do not, treat women as playthings!”
She finished off by hawking up what sounded like one monster of a loogie and
spitting it in the kid’s face.
Pressing down with his boot one last time for good measure, Gabriel lifted his foot and offered Sam his hand. She accepted and he pulled her to her feet, gesturing toward the elevator with a bow. Giggling merrily, she limped toward it.
“Oh no,” the Chosen One gasped. “No! Stop!”
Looking down, Gabriel saw the boy scrabbling at his chest as if trying to open his skin like a close fitting jacket. There was a flashing red light under his flesh.
“Initiative six six six has been activated,” a mechanically feminine voice blared over a loudspeaker. “Purge of main facility begins in thirty seconds.”
She began counting down from thirty like the self-destruct timer on any number of generic sci-fi shows he’d seen as a child.
“You idiot,” the Chosen One cried. “You triggered the device with your boot!”
“What’s happening,” Sam asked, looking up at the source of the voice. “What’s initiative six six six? Is that the gas the kid was talking about?”
“Probably.”
“We have to get out of here,” the Chosen One cried. “We’re all going to die if we don’t get out of here.”
“You heard the kid,” Gabriel gestured toward the elevator with his pistol before holstering it.
Sam rushed to it, closely followed by Gabriel. He pressed the button marked
ground level and the doors began to close.
“Wait for me,” the Chosen one cried, dashing toward them.
“I don’t think so,” Sam kicked the boy savagely in the chest, knocking him
backward into his throne. “You can stay down here and rot like you deserve!”
The doors to the elevator closed and it lurched into motion in short bursts with a grinding sound between. Wincing at each one, Gabriel expected the cables to snap at any moment, dropping them to their deaths. The motion of the elevator was highly at odds with the soothing tones playing over the speaker in the ceiling.
Looking to Sam, he could see that her jaw was set so hard the muscles were
standing out.
“You’re a man so you can’t understand what it’s like to be locked up in the cold and dark waiting to be raped,” she said in answer to his look. “You can’t understand the fear it puts into you. You don’t know what it’s like to know that you’re completely and utterly helpless to stop a man having his way with you, no matter how hard you fight. I was terrified out of my mind! Terrified! It’s no more than that brat deserves. I hope he takes hours to die!”
Wiping angry tears from her eyes, Sam kicked the metal wall of the elevator,
yelling something unintelligible.
“They all deserve to die, and I’m glad I did what I did!”
Looking at Sam, Gabriel could only see her profile, as she’d turned away from
him so he couldn’t see her tears. Though she had some features that made her look much younger than she really was, her eyes gave away her age. He was surprised he’d never noticed it before. Despite her youthful appearance, her dirty and scruffy looks, her foul mouth and even fouler way of thinking, and the fact that her hands still smelled of urine, she was beautiful. In fact, the way she seemed not to care about her appearance, not prettying herself up at every opportunity like other women, spoke to how truly beautiful she really was.
Putting an arm around Sam, Gabriel pulled her into an embrace. She fought a bit at first, but then she leaned into him and began to sob. At first, he’d only thought of her as a sex crazed child, but the more he learned about how horrible her life had been, the more her behavior and appearance made sense, and the more he fell in love with her. She was so strong to have come so far alone, and he’d always admired real strength.
“I was so afraid,” Sam bawled. “I thought you were dead, and I knew I was
gonna spend the rest of my life getting rammed by every disgusting mutant the Children of the Chosen could produce. I can’t believe you actually came for me. No one’s ever cared enough about me to do something like that. I knew I had to find my own way out, because no one cares about me, not even my own mother.”
“I need you,” Gabriel replied simply.
“Of course,” Sam said, pulling away and wiping at her tears. “You’re completely lost without me, aren’t you?”