Interlude (3)

"Good morning, Miss Maisie," the children chorused.

"Good morning, children," Miss Maisie absentmindedly returned, one hand resting on her belly as she drifted into the classroom.

The children sat down at their little seats. Almost as one, their heads turned towards the door and the two guards walking by, guns at the ready.

"Today, we will be going over why our lords and masters are just and why we should always obey." Maisie flashed a brilliant smile. She wandered to the giant whiteboard and picked up a marker.

"Can anyone tell me when they achieved their first glorious victory? Kaylen? Dawnie?"

"They defeated the infidels and established the true regime in 0 AV," Court called out.

"Court? Why are you in this class? Do your parents know where you are?" Maisie fisted her hand and placed it on her hip. Her other hand reached back, massaged the small of her back.

"They do, Miss Maisie. They always know where I am," Court replied. He frowned. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just fine. Now," Maisie turned towards the whiteboard and grunted. A puddle started forming under her feet. "Well, that's unexpected," she muttered as she hit a button next to the whiteboard.

The children were silent as more guards swarmed in, placed Miss Maisie on a stretcher and wheeled her away. Another teacher entered, smiling.

"Now, where were we with that lesson, hmm?" The teacher turned towards the nearly empty whiteboard and scowled at it. "Well, let's just start from the beginning, eh?"

She reached for the marker, one hand resting on her belly that was just starting to swell.

"In 0 AV, our glorious and just masters established the True Regime and sought to bring enlightenment to the ignorant masses," she began.

*****

"Do you think she's going to be okay? Miss Maisie?" Dawnie asked, anxiously rubbing the bracelet on her arm. It always itched.

"I think it's not natural that she's having another baby so soon," Lucy replied. She glanced around the crowded cafeteria. "Didn't she have one not so long ago? My Aunt Sissy's friend had a baby and said she couldn't have another one for a whole year. It can't have been that long yet."

"It hasn't been," Court answered. He picked at the food on the tray. "Is this really what they feed you guys? This stuff is weird."

San and Don didn't participate in the conversation, wolfing down the food. They were adept in handling the weird little blobs and not letting anything splatter.

"It's what they always give us," Kaylen said. He leaned back and glanced around the room. "There's two less guards here than usual. Do you think it has something to do with Miss Maisie and Aarti?"

"Both of them?" Lucy thought about it for a moment. She shrugged. "Maybe. There's not a lot of people in the medical center; at least there wasn't when I was there the other day."

"That wasn't fair," Court muttered. He snuck a glance at Lucy's porcelain skin. It got fairer and fairer with every test.

"I don't think they can get the Quell to work on her," Kaylen finally announced. He leaned in, causing the others to lean as well. "One of the containers said that Amazons are magical, and I don't think they know how to contain that yet."

"Then maybe she can get out?" Lucy asked. "We already know they watch us, but maybe if it's Aarti?"

"Let me look at my parent's records first," Court volunteered. He pushed his tray away and it was immediately swooped down on by San and Don. "Maybe they know what's wrong with Aarti."

"What's wrong with Aarti is that she's not under Quell," Lucy said, her eyes wandering over the bracelets most of her friends were wearing. She was still being tested and had yet to acquire her own.

They nodded amongst themselves even as the guards came and pulled them away to different tables.

*****

Aarti stood in her cylinder, fuming. She had so much anger built up and no way to really release it. She looked up at the perforated ceiling. She was aware that any 'suspicious' movements would activate the tranquilizing gas. Aarti wasn't worried about being poisoned. They had Lucy as their pet project for that.

Her eyes followed the researchers as they buzzed around Miss Maisie who'd just been brought in on a stretcher. Her stomach looked abnormally large this time. Aarti shivered. She was fully aware of her status as a prized future container. There weren't enough specimens from the Amazons, especially those successfully cultivated by the researchers.

She refused to call anyone lord and master. That was part of the reason she was in the cylinder. So she couldn't 'infect' the others with her insolence. At least that was what Overseer Luac had snarled before disabling the Assimilator. It didn't matter. She'd been practicing and could faintly tell what the researchers who were facing her were saying.

They weren't as invincible as they wanted the children to believe, and if it wasn't for the drug Quell, they wouldn't be able to rule over them either. Aarti had become increasingly sure of this during this sojourn in the medical labs. It was their own inherent arrogance that had let her come into contact with one of the few Amazonian containers they'd collected.

What she'd learned was mind-blowing. If Overseer Luac hadn't been making the rounds, she was sure she could have learned more. That was why her cylinder was glass now instead of energy. The Amazon herself had been wheeled away to another lab. Overseer Luac interacted the most with the children and was quick to shut down any thoughts of rebellion.

A small part of her pitied them. They had more power than they knew what to do with and could only use force to subdue it to their use. However, that part of her was pretty small.

Miss Maisie started twisting on the stretcher and to Aarti's horror, she could see a hand—a tiny little hand—pressing against her swollen stomach. The muted noise became even more frantic as most of the researchers streamed away into the medical lab's surgical bay.

Aarti froze. She looked around. There was no one in the lab as the remaining researchers darted out the door, presumably for weapons or even more researchers.

Taking a deep breath, she reached deep, trying to remember what the Amazon had said.

"I am Artemis, future queen of the Amazons," she muttered. Then she gave a derisive laugh. "I am Artemis," she began again, "and no one is going to ever make me do things against my will again!"

Then she punched as hard as she could, immensely surprised when her tiny fist penetrated the glass cylinder. Cracks formed and spread until the glass started shattering. She crouched, her arms covering her head. She remembered Lucy telling a particularly gruesome story about a friend of her Aunt Sissy's who had fallen through a glass window and cut up her face. At the time, Aarti and the rest had scoffed at the thought that glass could break despite Lucy's repeated insistence. They'd all thought it was some dream she'd had before she came.

Aarti jumped down from the cylinder and crept to the door. This medical lab wasn't deep underground like some of them. You could see bars of light when they brought you which Lucy insisted was caused by something called a 'sun.' A couple of the older kids had told her to shut it about that when they overheard which Aarti thought leant some credence to her claims.

Aarti grinned. Looked like she was going to find out about all this herself.