The Deathless Trilogy

3.6. Communications

As I walk onto the patio, Celia bounces out to meet me from the hall of labs. I almost laugh at the contrast between her upbeat spring and her heavy, spiked clothing. Spikes cover her shoulders and chains drape down her back. She wears black and silver clawed gloves with small spears on the tops, and a headband matching mine holds the hair back from her eyes. She's a walking prototype for our armor.

"Hey Isla, are you on lunch? Want to eat with me?"

"Actually I just ate with Declan," I say and I watch her deflate. She's not used to me having other friends besides her, Daniel, Nina, and Ava. "But I can come up and meet you when I'm done with this errand."

"That's okay," she says. "What do you have to do?"

"I'm going to see Mitchell. I need to ask him about Gunther's plans, and then get into Ian's head."

"Okay...?"

"Everything is fine. Declan and I just want to have a funeral for everyone, so we need to make sure we'll be okay to have everyone sort of off guard."

"Oh, okay." She turns her eyes down in thought. "Well, if you're going to see Mitchell, can I come?"

"Are you sure?"

"I haven't seen him since he took my spear and slashed my leg with it. I want to see his face when he sees my scar," she says, pulling up her pant leg to reveal the bottom of a fresh purple scar.

"Of course. Let's go," I say, taking her hand.

Together we walk down the narrow stairwell to the first floor of the tank, where the detention center is, though I'm not sure either of us were expecting to find Mitchell in his current state.

As soon as the guards leave us alone in the detention center with him and the other prisoners, a shiver runs up my spine.

"Mitchell?" Celia asks, now with more concern than anger. "Is that you?"

Like a crazed hedgehog, Mitchell moves around his cell in a crouched position, carving the wall with some small object I can't see. He doesn't even notice anyone is here.

"We gave both him and Collins a disruptor to stop the messages from coming into his brain, but they seem to be stuck on a loop for Mitchell," the guard in the detention center tells us when we cross into the room. Lines of cells on either side of the room stretch before us.

Collins, the soldier who was always paired with Ian, the one who shot and killed Ava, leans against the bars of his cell, which is directly across from Mitchell's.

"I don't know why I'm not getting messages," Collins says.

"Because you're an idiot," I say, focusing on Mitchell, who now moves more like a horrifying crab than a man.

Collins scoffs. "Pink hair, huh? It's weird."

I ignore his comment. "What's going on with Mitchell?" I ask.

"He's been doing that and repeating those numbers for days," Collins says with frustration. "Please get him to stop. Can't you, like, knock him out or something? You got that gas, right? You could just release it in here, and I'm pretty sure none of us would care."

"Shut up Collins," I say, and Celia hits her hand, spike encrusted glove and all, against the cell bars. He jumps back, and Celia and I both laugh before turning our attention back to Mitchell and his numbers.

1s and 0s cover all three walls of his cell. It looks like it could be binary, which would make sense based on Mitchell's specialty. Who knows what it means though, because all he says is the number pattern over and over again as he scrapes more numbers into the last few inches of wall space near the floor.