“They’ve killed so many people,” I said, my voice shaking, thinking of the Awakened that had torn both of my parents to pieces. “They’ve torn the world apart.”
“Don’t give them more credit than they deserve, Zoey,” she said, her voice suddenly harsh. “They are my creation. They are acting on my will. I am the one with the power and the control.” She pulled something out of her pocket, a small tablet. Using her finger, she navigated through a series of menus before selecting a single button.
It was like a trigger. The two Awakened chained to the floor were suddenly loud, demanding, and struggling against their bonds. They reached for us, their voices a high-pitched wail in the echoing room.
“I just want to eat! Please, please let me eat. Her flesh smells so good. Please, oh god, please, just one bite!” The closest one to me, a male, was reaching, stretching with all his might toward me, his black eyes focused on me. I bit my hand hard, struggling to keep the bile from rising in my throat.
Dr. Cylon watched them for a moment before pressing on her tablet again, and they once again became subdued. I looked over at her in shock, and she smiled, quite triumphant.
“I control them all. Would you like to see?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she brought up a screen on the tablet, one that looked like a rough map, with blinking numbers across it. “There are groups all over the country, and I control them. I can make them hungry or docile. I can make them attack. Most of the ones out in the open are free. The ones I’ve kept to myself in here…well, let’s just say it’s a bit distracting to have them wailing about all the time.”
I stared at the screen for a moment. The numbers were so many; they overlapped each other. The country was far more overrun with Awakened than I could have possibly imagined. I wondered if any of them had managed to die in the nuclear blasts. “But how do you control them?”
“It is simple,” she said, walking away from me and up to the Awakened. I gasped at her close proximity to them, but they just stood there, silent and calm, not noticing her. She turned the male around, showing me the back of his neck. With her finger, she pressed on the base of his neck, and a piece of flesh popped out.
I was going to throw up. There was nothing left in my stomach, but I knew I was going to throw up. This was sickening. Between the tiny bit of flesh was a piece of metal, gold and shining. It looked exactly like…
“A computer chip,” Dr. Cylon said, finishing my thought. “It is in the back of the neck of every SK-521 out there. It is what awakened them, and it is what gives me the control that I have. They each have their own individual signal, and those individuals have their groups as well. I can control their every action…or simply those of the group they belong to.”
“But…but why?” I demanded, my hands rolled up into tiny fists. I wanted to shake her, punch her and throw her against the wall. Why on earth would she ever create something like this? I watched her place the cube of flesh back in its place, right at the base of the neck. No wonder that was a prime spot to aim for when trying to take one down.
She placed the tablet back in her pocket. “Come,” she said. “I will show you.”
We left the room, and I heard the click of the lock behind us. I was on autopilot. My feet were doing the work for me, making sure that I walked alongside her as she took us down a different hallway, which led to an elevator. This time, she typed in a code, and the doors immediately opened. She stepped inside, using her hand on my arm to guide me inside with her. The elevator glided smoothly upward and immediately opened at a new floor.
I gasped.
She nodded, looking proud. “These are our research labs. They are quite impressive.” We went through a series of doors and walked alongside a hallway until we reached one last door. She typed a few numbers into the keypad and pressed her thumb to another pad, and the door slid open.
We were inside an office, not unlike any other office you would see. There was a large desk, on top of which sat a sleek, high-tech computer. The walls were covered in frames, most of them degrees of some sort. I saw Harvard, Oxford and a few others that I couldn’t make out. There were bookshelves along the walls filled to the brim with books, scores and scores of books. The back wall was completely glass and looked out on a huge room. I peeked out, and saw dozens of people, all in white lab coats. Some were on computers; some were working with what looked like chemicals. I even saw a group, bent over an Awakened with a scalpel, cutting into its blue flesh.