Endogenesis (Complete)

Chapter Fourteen

For the third day in a row, Dante was awakened by a screeching alarm at the crack of dawn. They were given enough time to eat, clean and dress before the guards arrived at their door. They lined up against the wall near the kitchen, not saying a word as the guard stopped in front of them. His companion didn't breathe a word as he glared at them cautiously, his finger over the trigger.

'From today, you will start attending morning assembly in the training hall with the rest of the teams. You will be punished if you are not inside by zero six hundred. Is that understood?' The guard said.

'Yes,' Nadia responded.

'You will proceed to the training hall, where you will be given further instructions,' The guard ordered.

Dante kept his head down until the door swung shut behind them and automatically locked with a loud clunk. He wasn't sure what to make of his new-found degree of freedom. He would prefer to spend as little time with the Republic 'patriots' as possible, but it was hard not to speculate if they were planning something.

'If they're not going to escort us everywhere, then perhaps we can finally poke around a little,' Gabriel said.

Nadia leaned against the wall behind her as she tapped her foot, 'Hopefully, we'll have time later today... There must be a reason they're letting us stroll around by ourselves.'

'The idiots might be convinced we won't try to escape,' Gabriel suggested.

'Or they have something planned for us. Maybe they hope we'll do something so they can put us back in the cells,' Elijah said in distress.

Dante placed his hand on his younger brother's shoulder, 'Nothing was stopping them from keeping us down there to begin with, but that doesn't mean we can trust them.'

Nadia turned and poked her head through the kitchen door, 'It's five to six. We should get moving.'

Gabriel sighed, 'I'm sure this will be fun.'

They went outside and to the training hall, which was near their dorm. As they stepped inside, everyone turned their heads, both the instructors and the other children, though very few were actual kids. The four teams sat on the mats facing the back wall, well away from each other. All but the Reds had two children in their group between the age of ten and six. Amongst them were groups of siblings; both the Greens and the Greys had a set of identical twins.

The instructors lost interest, but the other teams began to whisper, staring at them with looks of fear, curiosity, or in the case of the Greys, aggression. Nadia was the first to finally move. Dante followed her onto the mats, and they huddled together three meters behind the Blues.

'She's not here,' Elijah whispered.

'Who?' Nadia asked.

'Rat Girl.'

Dante went to speak when his attention shifted to the Reds at the front of the mats. There was no sign of Meryl, but she might not have attended class if she wasn't living in their dorm. How had she managed to do so without the guards going after her?

'Quiet,' Sergeant Arthur bellowed.

Dante picked at his chipped nails and lowered his head. The teens twisted around to examine them, eyeing them as if they had a second head.

'Eyes forward,' Sergeant Arthur ordered.

Dante glanced up as they all turned around, some murmuring to one another, too low for the instructors to be able to hear. The speaker crackled, and the screen attached to the far wall flickered until a blue light appeared. There were several white spots along the bottom of the screen as if it was damaged. Unless the Republic had gone to the trouble of opening a factory to build new tech, everything would have been ancient. With the Republic spending so many resources on fighting the machines, he couldn't see why they would bother when they needed a constant stream of supplies for the war.