Chapter 13: Captured!
The biomes became the incubators for new humans. These new humans were isolated from Earth and the biome habitats were tightly controlled as they were gradually transformed from an Earth-like habitat to an alien-planet habitat. The change was to be gradual, happening over a period of 300 to 800 years, the exact time dependent both on how far away the destination planet was and the degree of mutation that would be required for human survival on that planet. The process of genetic manipulation started as soon as the biomes were inhabited. The changes would occur gradually during the long journey to the new planet over the dozen or so generations it would take to get there.
Jayne opened her eyes, trying to focus slowly on a grey, plaster mottled ceiling. Nausea roiled in her stomach and pain speared her face. Her nose and lip ached. As she sat up quickly, the pounding in her head multiplied a thousand fold. She closed her eyes again and lay back down with a groan. She willed the pain to subside.
It took a few minutes before the pain eased, but when it did she opened her eyes again. She was in a small windowless room with a bed and a bathroom, but nothing else. She slipped out of the bed and stood for a moment, holding onto the edge of the mattress and looking at herself. She was still wearing the clothes she wore when she was cleaning the debris scattered by the line-vacs, but the oversized coveralls were gone. As she attempted to walk toward the bathroom, she hesitated and a wave of dizziness swelled in her head. She stopped and concentrated on keeping her balance. Trying again, she slowly slid her feet across the floor, gasping as the light in the bathroom came on automatically. She looked at herself in the mirror. Her right eye was blackened and her lip was cut and swollen. She remembered being pushed and hitting the far wall of what looked like a line-vac. She remembered the hiss. Gas. Knockout gas. That’s why her head ached. She needed water. She filled the glass and slowly brought it to her mouth. She drank on the left side. Water dribbled from her swollen lip on the right side. The water was cool and she greedily drank it all. She felt better except for the pounding in her head. She turned around and forced herself to focus and dismiss the pain. Her body wanted to slide back to the bed, crawl under the blankets and sleep, but her mind slowly filled with fear. She wanted to escape. She took a step towards the door of the room, but her head started to spin. She lost her balance and fell to the floor, unconscious.
When Jayne regained consciousness she could hear people speaking and quickly realized that she was tucked back into bed. She felt a pinch on the back of her hand.
“An IV tube,” she thought, keeping her eyes closed and breathing slowly, feigning sleep as she listened.
“She must have gotten up to get a drink of water. I found a used glass on the bathroom floor. She never made it back to bed. You used too much gas. I warned you about her size. She can’t be more than 45 kilos. That much gas made her sick,” said a female voice.
“I had to be sure she wouldn’t try to escape from the modified line-vac,” a male voice responded.
“Who was the idiot that gave her a fat lip and black eye?” she asked.
“One of the nubes. He only joined the cell last month. I’ve had an eye on him since the day he arrived. He’s a big kid, not too bright, but his size might come in handy. We took over his training and can now send him wherever we want. You never know when we might need a big strong kid. He probably doesn’t know his own strength and pushed her too hard,” he answered.
“Is he the one we’ve been watching?” she asked.
“Yeah, we’ve been watching and manipulating him to keep an eye on her. We were subtle because they have been watching her very closely,” he answered, then paused. “She’s not awake, is she?”
Jayne became increasingly tense as she listened to this strange conversation. She wanted to hear more, so she concentrated on relaxing her body and slowing her breathing. The woman touched her wrist.
“She seems to be sleeping quietly, but I’ll keep her sedated so she’ll sleep off the effects of the gas,” she said.
Jayne heard footsteps as she walked away from the bed.
The man chuckled. “We even made him follow her for the first couple of outings. I knew that they would try to do something and I wanted to know what, so I set his floor directions to follow her. But they were careful. He never got into the psi testing hall, but I can guess what they discovered. And after a few tests of our own we’ll know too.”
“Didn’t he suspect something was strange?” she asked, as she injected the sedative into Jayne’s IV shunt. As soon as the sedative hit her bloodstream, her consciousness slowly submerged, like slipping into a warm bath. Jayne fought to remain alert, wanting to learn more.
“Not at first, but once we recruited him, we told him about it. He didn’t think it was funny. In fact, he was a little angry,” the man said and Jayne could feel his gaze as he stared down at her. “I sure hope she really isn’t what they think she is.”
Jayne struggled to hear more but the drug dragged her down into a dark sleep.