Function. Quota. Pain.
The words had become everything. My breathing. My heartbeat. The only thoughts that existed in the space where my mind used to be.
How long now? Days? Weeks? The blindfold made time meaningless. The concrete under my face was permanently stained with things I didn't want to think about. My wrists had stopped bleeding where the wire cut in. Just scabs now. Hard, thick scabs that cracked when I moved.
I didn't move much anymore.
Function. Quota. Pain.
The door would open soon. They would ask the questions. I would try to answer but my voice was mostly gone now. Just whispers and gasps. But they kept asking anyway.
What is your function? Sort... pieces... What is your quota? Five... five hundred... What happens when you fail? This... always this...
The door opened.
But the footsteps were different. Wrong. Too light. Too quiet.
"Ahh"
The voice was different too. Not flat and bored like the others. Tired, but not empty. Like someone who had seen too much but still felt things about what they saw.
"Kid, can you hear me?"
Hands touched my face. Gentle hands. That was wrong. Hands weren't supposed to be gentle here.
The blindfold came off.
Light exploded in my eyes. I tried to scream but nothing came out. Just a cracked whisper.
"Easy. Take it slow."
When my eyes adjusted, I saw him.
He was tall. Really tall. Wearing a long black coat that went down to his knees. Black hat pulled low over his face. Black sunglasses even though we were underground. Everything about him was dark except for his skin, which was pale like he didn't see much sun.
There was a gun in a holster under his coat. I could see the handle sticking out.
He looked... cool. That was the only word for it. Like someone from a movie or a story. Someone who didn't belong in this place of concrete and pain and broken children.
"What's your name, kid?"
Name. That was a word I remembered from before. From the time when words meant things other than Function. Quota. Pain.
"Eight... four... seven," I whispered.
His jaw tightened. Something angry flicked across his face, but not angry at me. Angry at something else.
"No. Your real name."
Real name. I tried to remember. There had been something before 847. Before the facility. Something that felt warm when I thought about it.
"E... Echo."
"Echo." He nodded. "Good."
He cut the wires holding my hands. My arms fell and I couldn't feel them. Couldn't move them.
"Can you walk?"
I tried to sit up. The room spun around me. My legs felt like they were made of water.
"Didn't think so." He picked me up like I weighed nothing. Like I was a child.
Maybe I was still a child. I couldn't remember how old I was supposed to be.
"We're leaving," he said. "All of us."
All of us? What did that mean?
He carried me out of the concrete room. Out into the hallway where the lights hurt my eyes and made everything look yellow and sick.
There were other people in the hallway. Kids in gray coveralls. Some of them I recognized but couldn't remember from where. They all looked scared. Confused. Like they'd been woken up from a nightmare but weren't sure if they were still dreaming.
And there was someone with brown hair. Standing against the wall. Staring at me with eyes that were huge and terrified.
Her face was white. Not pale. White. Like all the blood had drained out of it. Her hands were shaking. Actually shaking, like she was cold, but the air down here was warm and thick.
She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, then closed it. Opened it again. No sound came out.
The terror in her face was complete. Not just scared. Not just worried. Something deeper. Like looking at a ghost. Like seeing someone come back from the dead, but wrong. Changed. Broken in ways that couldn't be fixed.
She was looking at me like I was something horrible. Something that used to be a person but wasn't anymore. The way you'd look at roadkill that was still moving.
She knew me. I could tell she knew me. But I couldn't remember why that should matter.
"We need to move," the man in black said. "They'll notice soon enough."
Security breach? What was he talking about?
He carried me toward the stairs. The other kids followed behind us like they didn't know what else to do. The girl with brown hair walked next to us, still staring at me with that horrible terrified expression.
As we climbed the stairs, she started to remember.
Started to remember how he'd appeared in the facility like something out of a nightmare. How the lights had gone out all at once, plunging everything into darkness. How the security doors had unlocked one by one, electronic locks clicking open in sequence like dominoes falling.
How she'd heard gunshots from the supervisor levels. Not many. Just a few. Clean, efficient sounds that meant the people in charge weren't in charge anymore.
How he'd moved through the facility like he owned it. Like he knew exactly where everything was, exactly what needed to be done. No hesitation. No wasted motion.
How he'd found them all. Every kid, every number, every broken soul that had been sorted and processed and stored away down here in the dark.
How he'd told them they were free.
Free. She remembered that word now. Remembered what it used to mean before this place taught her that freedom was dangerous. That safety came from quotas and compliance and never wanting anything more than what you were given.
But he'd used the word like it still meant something.
Like it was something they could have again.
She looked at me as we climbed toward the surface, toward the world above that she'd almost forgotten existed.
She remembered who I used to be. Before the processing room. Before they broke me down into nothing but Function. Quota. Pain.
She remembered Echo.
And seeing what they'd done to him, seeing what was left of the boy who'd sacrificed himself to help her...
That was why her face was so white with terror.
Not because she was afraid of me.
Because she was afraid of what they'd turned me into.