Chapter 131

The buzzing sound assaulting Adam’s ears was familiar in a way that made him never want to open his eyes again. His head felt like it’d been run over by an army transport vehicle, and the smell burning his nostrils was also a stench he’d hoped he’d never smell again.
“Are you awake then, Twenty-four C?”
The voice he heard scratched his inner ears, it was so offensive. He knew exactly who was speaking to him before he even slit his eyes to look at her.
Adam’s worst nightmare had come true. He was strapped to a chair in the Insemination Ward. The lights were out, except for the soft glow of the safety lights, and across from him stood one of the Military Mothers.
He knew which one, even though he couldn’t see her face. Nothing could ever erase the memory of her from his mind. All these years, all of the horrible things he’d lived through, none of them were as atrocious as what this woman had visited upon him.
Adam tried to lift his head, but it hurt so badly, he had to let it fall back against the black leather seat. The room was chilly, and he was aware that all he had on was his underwear. At least he was still wearing those, but he had an idea they wouldn’t be on for long. His arms were strapped down, as they always were, and his legs were, too.
“Do you remember me, Twenty-four C?” Mother Jaguar asked, coming a bit closer to him. He tried lifting his head again. Rolling it to the side, he could see her standing there with a needle in her hand. Beads of perspiration popped out on his forehead, and his heart began to race. His stomach twisted into knots the closer she came.
He was helpless again, hopeless. Tied to a chair and about to be forced to pleasure a woman he didn’t want to touch. As she stood there, her teeth gleaming in the faint light as she smiled at him, visions of her mounting him the day that he’d tried to save that other Dick filled his mind. She hadn’t been the only one that time, though. They’d just kept coming, shooting him up with more and more drugs as each of the Mothers took their turn with him, trying to teach him a lesson for interfering.
Struggling against the restraints did him no good. They were fastened tightly. As she approached, needle in hand, Adam did his best to try to break free. If he could just get one arm loose, or one leg, he could defend himself, but he was still groggy from whatever she’d given him when she’d snuck up on him in that concrete room.
He thought of Rain. Was she still down there? How long had he been out? What if something happened to her while she was in that awful place? It was clear they’d missed an opening somewhere. What if there were other Mothers down there, coming after her?
Mother Jaguar was so close to him now, he could smell her perspiration, her sour breath. “Now, this isn’t going to hurt. But you know that because you’ve had this done a thousand times before, Twenty-four C.” She raised the needle up for him to look at.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked, trying to stall her as much as he wanted to understand. “Why would you want to have sex with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with you?”
“Why?” she asked, cocking her head to the side. “Because I can.”
“But… you have no idea what you’re missing out on, Jaguar.”
He didn’t expect to be able to change the Mother’s mind. It’s not as if a few moments of discussion could overcome all of the years of evil she had built up inside of her. At the most, all Adam could hope was that he might be able to keep her talking long enough for help to arrive.
“And what is that?” Mother Jaguar asked, her voice filled with sarcasm. “Don’t tell me you and the redheaded rebel have found some sort of true love. You can’t actually believe she could really love you, do you? You? A Dick? With no personality, no schooling. You may as well be an inanimate object. You’re nothing but a living, breathing dildo.”
If Adam allowed himself to listen to what she was saying, he’d fall apart. He had to block it out and remind himself that Rain loved him, that she had fallen in love with him for who he was, that he did have value--even though he was a man. His past didn’t define him. “And what are you, Mother Jaguar? A cog in the machine of Michaelanburg? President Violet’s henchman who follows orders without question and doesn’t think on her own?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, you little bastard!” Mother Jaguar growled, but it was clear that he had hit a nerve.
“Of course I do!” Adam countered. “You know that I’m not an inanimate object, that I have feelings and thoughts, that I’m capable of making up my own mind about things. You’re just pretending like you don’t know that because if you acknowledge me as a human being, you’ll have to face all of the horrible things you’ve done in your life. You’d better hope that there’s not someone standing in judgment of you on the other side of The Bridge, Jaguar, because if there is, you’re going to be paying for your sins for many years to come.”
“Shut up!” Jaguar screamed, her rage apparent in her eyes. The whites of them were so wide, they looked like they were glowing in the dim light. “I wish I would’ve kept you unconscious. I was thinking it would be more fun if you were awake, but I didn’t realize you’d learned to use your mouth while you were gone.”
“In the middle of an attack on your country, you’re pausing to rape someone just because you’re so fueled by your own sex drive, you can’t even put it off until after the war is over?” Adam asked as Jaguar tested the needle to make sure the syringe was ready to go.
“The Mothers don’t need me at the moment. We are winning.”
Adam laughed. “You’re a fool, Jaguar. You have to know that Quebec is far bigger than Michaelanburg. We can throw ten troops at every one of yours. We will win. And you’ll either die for your crimes or spend the rest of your worthless life rotting in prison.”
“Enough talking, Twenty-four C. It’s time for you to perform.”
With his eyes narrowed, he looked right into her eyes and said, “My name is Adam.”

* * *

The feel of hands around her ankle lingered even after Rain was pulled to safety. At the top of the silver tube, Mist and Walt yanked her up out of the slide. Her hand was aching and cut from the rope, but she didn’t care. If it meant leaving one hand behind, she would’ve done anything to get out of that room.
“The Mothers were grabbing me,” Rain said. Her breathing was labored, her heart pounding in her chest. “I don’t know how they got in there. We looked everywhere for a way to get out.”
“Where’s Adam?” Walt asked, resting his hand on her shoulder as Rain bent over and tried to catch her breath.
Tears filled her eyes again as Rain said, “I don’t know. They had to have taken him.” She stood up, wiping at her eyes.
Mist and Walt exchanged a glance. “We need to hurry,” Walt said. “Come on!”
“Where are we going?” Rain asked, but she didn’t slow for them to answer the question as Mist grabbed her arm and took off behind Walt.
“If someone took him, I think I know where they would’ve taken him to,” Walt said, not turning his head to face her as he led the way down the narrow hallway.
“Where is everyone else?” Rain asked, hoping her curiosity didn’t delay them. They ran through a patch of sticky red that stained the white floor, and she knew it had to be blood. She just didn’t know if it was Mothers’ blood or if it had come from someone on their side. On the ground, it all looked the same.
“The commanders keep sending more people in,” Mist explained. “We got separated from Josie when we heard Seth reporting over the comm that he couldn’t find you or Adam.”
“Got separated or left your detail?” Rain asked as Walt stopped at an intersection to check for assailants in the hall around them. In the distance, Rain heard the ping ping of bullets firing. They could run into a group of military Mothers at any moment.
Mist didn’t answer her question. “We had to find you, so we went back the way Seth said he’d come through.”
“Where is Seth now?” Rain asked. “Do you have any idea?”
“Last we heard, the rest of that group that was with you had gotten wiped out, trying to make it into the next hall over from where we found you, closer to the records room. Seth was the only one to make it out of there alive.”
Rain’s heart sank. She hadn’t known the others that well, but they’d worked together to make it this far. Her shoulders slumped, and she felt a pang in her chest thinking about them not making it out.
Walt turned another corner and then stopped abruptly, the girls running into him. At first, Rain thought that there must be a group of Mothers in the hallway ahead of them, but once she realized where they were, it made more sense.
They were in the hallway that the women used to use to access the Dicks when they went for their rounds in IW. Rain looked around again and realized this was the exact same hallway where she’d first seen Mother White. A chill went down her spine.
“You think they brought Adam here?” she whispered.
Walt nodded. “Otherwise, wouldn’t they have just shot him?”
He had a point. Rain inhaled deeply through her nose, refusing to let her mind slip to all of the awful things that might have happened to Adam already. How long had she been separated from him? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? That was certainly enough time for a Mother to get her jollies from him, maybe a whole group of them.
She thought back to that story he’d told her, the one he was never quite clear about because it was too painful, the one he’d screamed at Daniel Redd about in Judea. The idea that he could be reliving that nightmare right this second made her want to beat down every door.
Walt was moving forward slowly, the women right behind him, as they all listened carefully. Over the gunfire in the distance, Rain thought she heard a murmur of conversation. The further down the hallway they got, the more she was sure. She could hear a woman talking--and a man.
And that man was definitely Adam.