The Unknown

SIXTEEN | awoken.

Tess snapped her eyes open, but the blackness didn't lift from her vision. A soft breath met her ears. She knew immediately that it was Kyle.

She scooted over to him, beyond grateful they hadn't been separated, but also suspicious. The government would never be kind without some ulterior motive.

She remembered the sudden arrival of soldiers and the clouds of gas. The soldiers had finally come prepared and worked efficiently, capturing them within minutes. For so long, the government had been incompetent, but it seemed they had upped their game.

She found Kyle's hand. At her touch, he gave a groggy, muffled groan. "Where are we?"

"Somewhere government-owned, I guess," she said softly. "I'm shocked they didn't separate us."

She heard the sleepy smile in his voice. "Right, don't they know we're unstoppable together?"

Maybe they'd given him a bigger dose of drugs than her. He gave an unworried yawn.

She laced her fingers between his and drew his hand toward her heart. His arm yielded, and he gave her a squeeze of reassurance.

They spent what felt like hours—time was hard to gauge in total darkness—feeling around every corner of the room. The walls were smooth and cold like metal. Pounding or yelling provoked no reaction. There was no easy way out, but she held onto hope they'd find a way.

That's when the paranoia and claustrophobia of being trapped in pressing blackness set in. Her brain formed the most unspeakable, horrifying images in the blackness, and she felt the walls closing in on her. She was grateful Kyle couldn't see her. She grabbed his hand again to ground herself, willing her breathing to slow.

"You okay?" he asked, an odd inflection in his voice.

"Maybe."

"I don't know how, but I can feel a surge in your adrenaline and cortisol levels. Your heart is pounding, too." She heard him inhale deeply. "I think I can...smell your blood."

"Stop smelling me," she said in a dead serious tone. "Weirdo." Then she fell into Kyle and surrendered herself to a fit of laughter, the fear draining away.

Kyle laughed too, his stomach vibrating under her. "I'm serious, I can sense it. I never noticed until now."

She said playfully, "I'm sure I can too, it's just that you're pathologically calm all the time. Or"—she ran a hand through his thick, grown-out hair—"maybe nothing gets past your thick skull."

The lights suddenly blinked to full brightness, practically searing their eyes. Tess had to cover her face and peek through her fingers until her vision adjusted.

A huge screen on one wall came to life. On it was a man with a worn yet confident demeanor. His eyes were piercing and analytical, with dark gray circles underneath.

"I'm going to be very straightforward with this," he said, staring. "You—your name is Tess? You've been here before. You know what they do to patients here. Medical testing, experiments, everything short of dissection. You don't want that, and neither do I." He cleared his throat, eyeing a paper in his hand." So we're giving you a simple choice: more experiments against your will, or...you assist in the government's operations against the invasion."

Tess looked at Kyle and said what she was thinking, "No experiments."

The man took this as a decision. "Great. It's not doing us any good, anyway," he muttered under his breath. Then he spoke louder, "So, if at any time either of you don't cooperate, it'll be the other one we punish. Understood?"

So this was why they'd been kept together. Somehow, the City was aware of their bond and intended to use it against them.

Tess spoke up. "How do we know you'll keep your end of the bargain?"

"Excuse me?"

"After we've helped you, how do we know you won't just experiment on us anyway?"

He stopped to think this over. "You know, that would have been a brilliant idea. But my orders are to get your assistance, nothing more." His cold eyes gazed at them through the screen. "The real answer is that you have no guarantee, but hey, I'm not cutting you open now, am I?" He gave an off-putting, slanted smile. "I'm no Josef Mengele—I do have some ethical standards."

Tess and Kyle looked at each other. She felt anxious and powerless.

"If you both stop complying, of course, we can always assume you've changed your mind and proceed with option two."

"So," he continued, flipping through pages of a binder, eyes scanning intently, "first, I'm going to need you to tell me everything you know about this Species. We've already interrogated others, and I understand they don't tell you much." He wore an expectant, tooth-flashing smile.

Reluctantly, they relayed everything they had learned about their kind, like their ability to rapidly heal and control their biology.

"I noticed that about the other kids we captured. Make an incision and it closes up before you can finish your work."

A shiver washed over Tess at the thought of what had happened to those caught before her.

The man switched gears. "We noticed you had a device on your person—"

"You didn't press any buttons, did you?" Tess asked nervously.

"Not yet, waiting on tech guys to come in and analyze it."

"There's an emergency button—you can't press it. Last time we did...it seemed to instantly kill everyone nearby and send a signal to the Species to pick us up."

For the first time, the man looked unnerved, giving a slight shudder. "They have that kind of power?" He took a deep breath, his skin looking suddenly clammy. "Could they wipe out the entire human race if they wanted to?"

Tess opened her mouth and glanced at Kyle. "We have no idea what they're capable of or what they want. Honestly, our situation isn't that different from yours. Maybe we're on their good side, or maybe we're just expendable pawns to them. We've never directly communicated with them. I don't know if they can even...you know, understand English outside of a human body."

The man took a moment to process this. He was leaning forward, his arms propped against a desk, eyes on the floor. Then he looked at his watch. "Well, you've been a lot more willing to work with us than I thought. My bosses will be pleased." He leaned over to write something down, a pen bobbing at the bottom of the screen.

"What happens next? When will you let us out?"

"Oh, honey." His voice was smug and smooth as butter; he gave her a sly, almost lecherous smile, "I never said anything about letting you out."