HIDDEN: A Dystopian Science Fiction Adventure by Troy McLaughlan

Author:Troy McLaughlan
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Blue Eclipse Press
Published: 2017-11-15T23:00:00+00:00

~~~

Despite her warning, Merrick and I continued to train. I tried to tell him several times what she said, but I didn’t know how to start. Maybe I was afraid of how he would react. That it would bring up forgotten memories better left buried.

A few weeks after I turned eighteen, I finally defeated Merrick and the other two slaves. I had to be defensive most of the time, using the entire space of the training room to evade their attacks. Patience was the secret. To wait for Merrick or another slave to make a mistake before I attacked and struck the three blue patches.

Merrick grinned from ear to ear. “You’ve done it!”

He lifted me up, and twirled me around in his arms. “I always knew you could do it. You’re finally ready to meet your destiny.”

“And what is that?” To be one of his wives? If he asked, I’d accept.

“Soon, very soon you will know, my dear Fives, but now we will celebrate. Name me your desire, and if it’s within my power, you shall have it.”

A question stirred within me. Something I had always wanted to know. I motioned my head to the other two slaves.

“Leave us,” Merrick said to them.

The door closed, and he looked at me with his eyes aglow.

“Where are the children?”

His face scrunched up, confused at my question.

“In the books you gave me, I read of people who fall in love and have babies, and yet there are none in our compound. Where are they?”

He looked almost disappointed. “I should have expected this. Come with me.”

He led me to the cellar, past the hidden gate and into the stone room. In the farthest cavern of the room, he reached inside a stone box and handed me a clear oval container with a black box attached to one end. Numerous tubes snaked inside and on the surface of the box was a touchscreen.

“When the Targs first came, they slaughtered nearly all our people. But they still needed us as slaves. So they removed the sperm and eggs from those that remained and sterilized every single one of them. Then they killed their children. They did this, to break their spirit and pacify them. Afterward, they had the Exogs build these.” He handed it to me. “It’s an artificial womb.”

I ran my fingers down the strange device and tried to absorb what he had told me. I pictured the slaves leaving their mud brick houses. That’s when I realized that the slaves never returned to the same home at night. They were being mixed up each time. In horror, I began to grasp the lengths the Targs went to control us.

“You see,” Merrick said, “there are no families, no babies, and no children. When the Targs need a new slave, they simply have the Exogs make and train another.”

He shook his head. “We are not born Fives, we are grown.”

I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t believe it.

“No! I—I remember being a small child. I remember the song Lumenara played to me at night.

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