04

“Do they all think she’s okay?”

“How the hell should I know? I don’t even know if we’re okay.”

“You know what I mean. She’s the only one who hasn’t woken up yet.”

It seems like she got hurt pretty badly.

“Wait! I feel like I saw her eyelids move.”

“Nonsense.”

“I swear! Man, look! She’s totally awake.”

Strange voices swirled around me, their words tantalizingly close to being understood by my foggy brain. I was tired. So tired. Everything felt heavy. Even my tongue. And especially my eyelids. There was pain too. In my arm, in my shoulder, and in my face.

“I’ll just sleep a little more...”

“Oh, no, you don’t need to.”

I was being shaken now. And the words were coming into clearer focus.

“It’s not time to take a nap, dear. Wake up.”

Is that you, Grandma?

I forced my eyelids open, my eyes darting left and right as I tried to focus on the face in front of me. It wasn’t Grammy. Of course not. Idiot.

The face above me was young, maybe even a year or two younger than me, with prominent cheekbones and nearly invisible blonde eyebrows, one of which had a piercing, set above deep blue eyes. A piercing in her nostril sparkled, and she had another ring dangling low between her nostrils. In my confusion, I couldn’t remember the name of that type of piercing. All I could picture was an image of a bull. I looked closer at her, trying to get my eyes to focus better.

Though her features were lovely, even delicate, her shaved head gave her a look of not giving a damn, and her stormy expression could rival any bull’s anger on the planet.

“Why isn’t she responding? Maybe she hit her head.”

Huh? Someone was asking me a question?

“Give her a minute and let her catch her breath. Damn it.”

The girl with the piercings leaned in closer.

“What are you, noooame?” she said slowly, dragging out the syllables.

I heard someone snicker behind her.

My name? That was something I could remember.

“Celia. Cece.” My voice faltered. Damn, my mouth was dry.

“Here, give it to her.”

A hand appeared, passing Piercings Girl a metal flask that she opened and pressed to my lips.

Hmm. I really should be drinking this?

I had no idea where the hell I was, or how I got there. But I was so, so thirsty.

Damn it.

I took a sip, relieved to find it was just good old plain water. I took another sip before inhaling a little and starting to choke, each cough sending a sharp pain through my head.

“Quick, sit her up.”

The Piercings Girl took the bottle back and extended it to me again, and I drank, careful not to confuse my stomach and lungs this time.

“Well, that didn’t do much, dear. Sorry. A nasty cut you got there.” It was only then I noticed the southern accent that shaped her voice. She must be American.

But wait. This definitely didn’t seem like the University of Toronto.

At least, no building I’d ever seen.

“Where are we?” I mumbled, gently touching my jaw and flinching.

Lina huffed.

“No idea, dude.”

The line of Lisandra’s mouth turned into a dark line, and Tara shook her head.

“Yeah, none of us knows. I was the first to wake up in this room. Then military guys brought Lisandra and then Lina. And now you.”

“Military guys?”

What was she talking about? None of this made sense.

“Yeah. They were wearing some kind of army uniform. And they spoke English when they talked. But they didn’t tell us anything.”

“Are we... are we in the USA?”

“Hell if I know,” Lina replied. “I mean, I kind of hope so. That means we’re still in the country.”

“Well, I’m from Canada, so I don’t know what that tells us.” I sighed harshly.

Lina raised her pale eyebrows.

“Seriously? Shit. Well, I have no idea then. We three are Americans.”

“Do you know how we got here?”

There was a series of memories flickering at the edge of my brain. I was doing everything I could to grasp them, but they kept slipping away.

“I woke up earlier and so far I remember more,” Tara said. “But even that’s not much. I remember I was coming back from my boyfriend’s house. Well, ex-boyfriend. I had just dumped him. It was late and dark, and then someone grabbed me and tossed me into a truck or van or something. Then I woke up here. And that’s all I’ve got.”

A van.

That was just enough to slot things into place. I looked down at my clothes. Running clothes.

“Yeah, I guess I went for a run. Someone grabbed me...”

Lisandra nodded from across the small space.

“Yeah. It’s the same story for all of us. From what we can remember.”

We thought we were drugged.

“Well, that would explain the memory loss and the headache,” I muttered, rubbing the tips of my fingers on my temples in small circles. I knew I should be thinking, trying to come up with a plan, trying to do something. But I just couldn’t. It was like my brain and my body had completely given up.

“Anyway, that basically leaves you caught up. You know what we know,” said Lina, shifting her hips forward and then falling back onto the mattress, her arms crossed over her waist.

It didn’t seem like I had been taken at any speed. Not at all. It felt like I was completely paralyzed.

A sudden sound at the door on the other side of the small room made us jump. Lina immediately stood up, and Tara and Lisandra got to their feet. I followed suit, all four of us glancing at each other as the door opened inward.

“Oh good. You’re all awake.”

A woman with red hair pulled back in a tight bun and wearing a button-up shirt that showed just a bit of her belly stepped inside. I looked at the other girls, but I couldn’t decipher what their expressions might mean.

She was older than us, maybe in her thirties, and her light eyes were completely clouded over, but I couldn’t find anything wrong with the woman.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“I’m a bit older than you, so I guess I should have a bit more information,” she said, her eyes sparkling.

“That’s not good if you’re the only one who knows what’s going on.”

She smiled.

“Relax. Don’t worry. You’re safe.”

"Finally, we were led through a large open door to something that seemed a bit more familiar. The cafeteria, as Theresa called it, looked much like the cafeterias I used to attend in school. Except instead of large windows, wood, plastic, and bright lights, everything was made of the same silver surface, and the light was dim, with no windows. At one end of the room, a long row of counters, the kind you see in a buffet or cafeteria, was empty.

I guess it’s not time to eat. My stomach turned with nausea at the thought of any kind of food.

'Here.' said Theresa, guiding us four to sit at the nearest table. We did so, looking around. The other tables in the large room were also occupied. My heart tightened at the sight of all the people, all the young women, exactly in the same situation as us. Looking confused, irritated, scared, some of them in torn clothes, bruises, and cuts.

This isn’t good. The fact that we were all young women was leading me more and more to the conclusion that we were in some bizarre human trafficking network. My hands clenched tightly on the edge of the table, and I saw the faces of Kat, Melanie, and Theresa darken with thoughts similar to mine.

But when a tall man with broad shoulders and gray hair, also wearing a U.S. military uniform, walked to the front of the room, my confusion deepened.

'Why the hell is the army here?' Kat hissed quietly beside me.

Melanie’s dark eyes followed the man's movements. 'Maybe they're in disguise or pretending. Maybe it's some kind of setup.'

'OK, but look at this place.' I whispered, and we all exchanged furtive glances around the room. 'This doesn’t look like a common criminal operation. It’s not like we woke up in some warehouse somewhere.' The more I thought about the insanity of the situation, the less it all made sense. If this was some kind of legitimate military operation, with the necessary budget to create a building like this, why the hell were we kidnapped off the streets and drugged?

There were similar whispered conversations happening at the tables around us, and the man at the front shouted.

'Hello, everyone. I’m Colonel Anthony Jackson.'

'Colonel, that’s high, right?' I asked, and Theresa nodded from across the table.

'I’m sure you’re all wondering why you were brought here.'

Kat scoffed, and a girl from somewhere in the room shouted: 'You mean kidnapped?'

Colonel Jackson didn’t even flinch. He ignored the girl who shouted and continued smoothly, his gray eyes empty. A chill ran down my spine.

'You have all been specially selected to serve your planet on a confidential mission. This mission is one of the first of its kind, and its secrecy is of utmost importance. Thus, you were selected and taken before any information could leak out.'

'Hey, what the hell are you talking about?' Kat yelled, standing up. Colonel Jackson looked at her and then averted his gaze to somewhere behind her, shaking his head once. Theresa stepped forward and struck Kat in the neck with what looked like the butt of a glock.

'Oh my God.' I stammered, barely catching her as she fell with a scream. She dropped back into her seat next to me, rubbing her shaved head, which I could see was already swelling where she had been hit. 'Are you okay?'

'What do you think?' She replied, glaring fiercely at Theresa and then back at the Colonel. But he ignored her, as if she were a fly that had been crushed and was no longer buzzing irritatingly nearby.

'As I was saying, this mission is of the utmost secrecy. You have all been selected for your areas of expertise: chemistry, biology, anthropology, botany, linguistics.' My throat tightened at the mention of my PhD program. So it wasn’t some insane mistake that I was brought here.