The Starling Vigilante [Watty's 2015 Award Winner]

Chapter 52

Hearing the metal runged doors of my cell shut roughly, I jolted upright, hot and flustered. The sedative hadn't agreed with my immune system, the chemical making me sweat as I lay on the cold, bloody floor.

Looking to my left, I saw Hendrick in his cell, his toughness and strength drained by the shock of the night's events.

'Hendrick!' I whispered in fear of the captors separating us if we shared a conversation. 'Are you alright?'

'Yes,' he shivered. 'Where are we? And where's Peter?'

'I don't know, and I don't know,' I answered. 'But I'm going to find out! And whoever did this to us is going to pay!'

As heavy footsteps neared towards us, I sat back down in silence, scared. My inability to see them made me uneasy; they could have been coming to kill me for all I knew.

'It's your lucky day!' I heard a man sneer.

Looking up, I saw a tall figure holding a gun in his left hand turn the lock with a key on a huge loops with, what I presumed, were the keys to the rest of the cells.

As I stood up, I nodded to Hendrick, and kicked the man in the groin, making him drop his gun and the keys in turn. Grabbing the keys, I threw them to Hendrick, who desperately tried to find the key to his cell, and I sped out of the slippery cell through the passageways of wherever I was, picking up the gun on my way. Despite the gunshots behind me, I carried on through the building, deciding to climb the stairs to get an advantage on the scene. Other prisoners held out their arms to me in hope that I could free them, but to much regret I had no way of freeing them.

As I climbed higher and higher, I found more and more cells. And then I found Peter.

'Aria!' He groaned in pain, his aching body led on the floor of his cell. He looked worse for wear, and his skin looked pale. Frankly, he was ill. Very ill.

'What did they do to you?' I asked, shocked and concerned.

'They took me to this room and put me under some sort of... beam,' Peter coughed. 'And before I knew it I was vomiting and my skin was burning hot.'

'Do you know why?' I asked quickly, looking around for a sign of anyone chasing me. No one had found me yet. 'And do you know where we are?'

'No,' Peter shook his head. 'But I think we might be somewhere near water.'

'Thank you, Peter!' I exclaimed. At least I was getting somewhere. 'And if Hendrick escapes, he can get you out, he is the only one with keys. But right now, I will try to find a way to get off this ship so I can come back for you both.'

'Okay,' Peter coughed. 'I hope you succeed.'

'You too,' I smiled, before running off.

My plan wasn't a very good one to be perfectly honest, but I had to find a way out so that I didn't just lead Peter and Hendrick into failure. They were safer if no one knew they were involved with my escape.

But, the weird thing was, no one was following me. The whole place was silent. Something wasn't right, but I knew I couldn't turn back now. I had to just carry on.

Running further upstairs, I found a corridor without any cells, but solid, metal doors instead. Guessing this was where the more important people were, and a means of escaping, I turned the wheel on the nearest door round to open it.

It revealed a metal walled and metal floored room containing mismatched furniture, windows cut into the walls to give the place a little light. And stood in the middle of the room was a man with greying hair, wearing a shirt and jeans. He seemed... normal.

Even though he seemed normal, I held up the gun I had taken from one of the men downstairs to the man in caution. If he was in charge of this whole place, then he would be the one who was responsible for my imprisonment.

'Who are you?' I growled. 'And why do you have me imprisoned here?'

'Dr Anthony Ivo,' he answered, walking towards me and pushing my gun down. Instead of resisting, my hand merely went limp, and I listened to what he had to say. 'Have a seat.'

Still on my guard, I sat on the seat behind me, and he sat on the barstool next to me. All I wanted to do was run, but my legs did the opposite. It was like the sedative had taken over my whole body.

'And you are?' He continued as I tried to hold the gun up again. But my muscles were too floppy to do anything, as though the chemical I had inhaled had stunted my movement, or at least delayed it.

'Aria,' I said slowly. 'What has happened to me?'

'You were subject to a very small dose of the drug Curare,' Ivo explained. 'Part of one of the many experiments I'm doing.'

'Experiments?' I asked, confused. 'Is that why you've locked up people? To experiment on them? Like lab rats?'

'No,' Ivo said. 'To save the human race.'

'You're mad!' I said with delayed speech, my mouth growing tired. Lying down, I felt myself grow weary until my eyes closed and my body shut down.

---

My body becoming responsive again, I found myself back in the same room, with Ivo.

'You were only out for about an hour,' Ivo said. 'I gave you a cure I've been working on for a while. And it seems to have worked, as well as the fact that your body is very strong.'

This was just plain weird.

'Why did you take us- I mean me?' I asked angrily. And I had just revealed that I knew Peter and Hendrick.

But he probably already knew that.

'We've been monitoring your group for a few weeks,' Ivo explained. 'When you weren't with them, as well. We could see you from miles off, in here.'

'How?' I asked. 'Where are we?'

'We're in a boat, Aria,' Ivo said. 'My boat. And we also have powerful telescopes on this boat and cameras on the island. One day, I saw you hunting, and surviving, and I knew that we needed you.'

'For what?' I cried. 'All I want is to be back on land, with a family!'

'This is your home now, Aria,' Ivo announced, bringing his stool further to me. 'You belong here, in shelter instead of that dreadful island you were living on.'

'Why do you need me?' I asked despairingly. I really wanted just to be away from the boat, even if it meant going back to the island.

'To find the last supply of Mirakuru,' Ivo told me.

'But, we got rid of it!' I exclaimed. 'We-'

Ivo laughed with his head back, a menacing smile on his face.

'He didn't tell you, did he?' Ivo laughed. 'Peter knew there was another supply of Mirakuru. He just saved it for me.'

'But, how did he know?' I pondered. 'He read about it in a journal!'

'My journal I gave to him,' Ivo corrected me. 'He was working for me. I told him to give the Mirakuru to me, but when he decided to destroy it I took matters into my own hands.'

'What are you doing to him?' I asked angrily.

I was annoyed at Peter for roping me into this, but much more annoyed at Ivo for tracking me down and testing stuff on me.

'Radiation tests,' Ivo said simply.

He was poisoning him.

'That'll kill him!' I exclaimed. 'His cells will mutate, and then he could get-'

'Cancer,' Ivo finished my sentence. 'I know it's hard to understand, but you'll see why I'm doing it.'

'No, I will never understand someone like you!' I retaliated. 'You're just killing him!'

'Why would I kill him?' Ivo laughed. 'He is... some use to me.'

'So, what are you going to do to me?' I trembled, anxious all of a sudden.

'You're going to help me in... some of my experiments, as well as finding the Mirakuru,' Ivo declared. 'And there's nothing you can do about it.'