Revolution

- 29 -

Light assaults my vision and I flinch, squinting. I hold my hand unsteadily above my face but it does little against the bright white. I vaguely realize my arms were unlocked sometime overnight, but my limbs still feel heavy and thick. I don't want to get up at all. Using Brandon's words, I feel like hell.

The groans of the other mutants drag me back to reality. I'm still stuck in a cage, freedom at my fingertips. My collar hums twice to alert me to its active state. It's a warning.

Carefully, I stretch my legs against the far wall and manage to sit up in a semi-comfortable position. I stretch my newly freed hands above my head, feeling my spine crack. It doesn't do anything to get rid of my crippling anxiety. I don't have the room to stretch completely, but I manage to prop my feet on the wall and try a handstand. My elbows barely even shake. I'm thrilled that I haven't lost my strength, but it doesn't bring me much comfort. Nothing does anymore.

I don't know when I'm going to get to eat next. I got too used to eating whenever I was hungry instead of the regular intervals at the facility, and it's a horrible change of pace to be coming back. I try my best to think of a plan to escape, but I can't even remember how I escaped the facility in the first place, never mind how to escape this. I notice the dull rumbling under my feet that hardly jostles me, but it's annoyingly nonetheless. It's some sort of large vehicle. We're being transported somewhere, while simultaneously being carried away from any trail anyone could have left.

"Another fucking day," Clarissa mutters. She got here before I did, and I wonder exactly how long she's been cramped in this tiny cage. It's already driving me insane; I can't imagine how she feels.

"Do they give you guys meals here?" I ask, stretching my right arm over my left. My shoulder complains with a spark of pain, but I shake it out.

"Kind of. They're just pills that they can pop in through the cage, though." Clarissa sets her head in her hands. "They're pretty bland, but you don't starve, so that's a plus."

I curl my toes in my shoes. "What about clothes?"

"They don't give us anything that can't fit through the slots in the glass."

"Oh."

"Yeah, it sucks. I'd ask what you did with your couple weeks of freedom, but I'd just get zapped again, so I'm just gonna leave it at I hope it was good."

"They can't take what we saw from us," Noah says, plucking at the strings that hang from the edges of his patterned scarf. It hides the collar well. I hate to break his bubble and I debate keeping what I know from them, but I'd be lying to them. I can't do that.

"They can." Everyone's gaze snaps up to me. I wet my lips and continue awkwardly. "They have some kind of technology, the same thing they use for our dreams, to give us false memories. We don't really have families and didn't experience anything before the facility; we grew up here. They just didn't want us to know that."

I get a stunned silence. Then —

"Shut the fuck up, Paige."

"I'm being serious," I plead, turning to Sarah. She sits in the corner, glaring daggers at me. "They've been taking advantage of us this whole time. The world doesn't even know we exist because we've been isolated in the facility, all for money. They wanted to make us think we had a family, someone to go back to, so we would be hopeful for our release and act more compliant. I swear it."

Sarah works her jaw. "How do you know?"

"Emma showed me." The other inmates bristle at her name, and Sarah's eyes narrow.

"That lying snitch," she hisses.

I hesitate. "She told me you all voluntarily went back to the facility. That was a lie, wasn't it?"