Chapter 11: The Voice In The Walls

POV: Avery

At seven, while Helen was handing out soup, a loud click came from the ceiling. Small red lights turned on in six corners of the room, and every person looked up. Then a calm man's voice filled the whole space.

"Good morning, subjects," the voice said. "The experiment has now entered its second phase." Victor pulled out his pistol and pointed it at the ceiling.

"Who's there?" I shouted, standing up so fast that my soup spilled. "Come out and show yourself!" Nobody answered, and the voice kept talking like I wasn't there.

"Every shelter in this city has been watched since the first day," the voice said. "Some of you came back from death and some of you did not, but all of you are subjects."

Elliot stood up very slowly. His face showed nothing, and he didn't even look at the lights. Nathan glanced at him and then at me, and I knew we were thinking the same thing.

"Avery Hale bought her warehouse from our agent, Walter," the voice said. "He has worked for us for three years, and he gave her address to Diane Hale and to Vanessa's group."

My stomach dropped. Walter with his nice suit and his big smile, asking if I was in any trouble. I promised myself that if I ever saw him again, he would regret it.

"That snake," Diane said from her corner, holding on to Gerald's sleeve. "He told me you were rich, and I thought he was helping us." Nobody laughed, because we all felt stupid.

"You came to my door for my money, Diane," I said, turning to her. "Walter only told you where to knock." She pulled her arm from Gerald and said nothing.

"Here are the new rules," the voice said. "Each shelter will receive objectives, and every objective completed keeps your heat on. Every objective failed turns it off."

"I own the generator and the fuel," I said loudly. "You can't turn off my heat." A second later, the lights went out, and the generator stopped like someone had pulled a plug.

Darkness covered us, and I heard Gerald yelling for somebody to do something. Helen found a flashlight and turned it on, and the cold was already creeping in. Twenty seconds later, the lights and the heater came back on together.

"That was a small demonstration," the voice said. "Next time, it will be twelve hours." Nobody said a word, and I could see my own breath again.

"What do you want from us?" Helen asked, hugging her blanket. The voice answered like it was reading from a list.

"At dawn, eighteen survivors will arrive at your door," the voice said. "You will let them in, and you will keep all twenty-seven people alive for seven days."

"We can't feed twenty-seven people, and you know it," Damien shouted, jumping to his feet. His voice cracked, and it echoed across the warehouse.

"Yes, we know," the voice said calmly. "That is the point." Then it went on without a pause.

"There are eleven shelters in this city," the voice continued. "Food drops will go only to the shelters that finish first, so be careful who you trust." The red lights blinked once, and the speaker clicked off.

"Eleven shelters," Helen whispered, and her hands started to shake. "My daughter could be in one of them." Victor held her shoulder, but he had no answer for her.

"Then we will find her," Victor said, squeezing her shoulder harder. "But first we get through today." He turned his pistol away from the ceiling at last.

Nobody moved until Tyler, still tied to the post, started laughing in a high, strange voice. "We're lab rats," he said, "and she opened the door for everybody."

"Be quiet, Tyler," Victor said, and he climbed on a box to look at a red light on the wall. "A camera and a speaker in one, and it has been here all along."

I turned to Elliot with my arms crossed. "You worked in security," I said. "You checked every camera and window when you came in, so how did you miss these?"

Elliot looked at the wall, then at me, and his voice was flat. "They are new, and I checked the ceiling twice," he said. Everyone stared at him without a word.

I didn't answer. Nathan looked at the floor, and I knew he was holding the same question I was. I put it aside because we had a bigger problem.

"We take them in, or the heat goes off," I said. "That's the choice." Victor shook his head slowly.

"Eighteen strangers is a lot," Victor said, rubbing his forehead. "And we only have rules for nine." He looked tired for the first time since I met him.

"Then we make rules for twenty-seven," I said. "Everybody sit, because we are going to count every can, every blanket and every liter of fuel." Helen already had her notebook open.

"We have forty-two cans of beans, ninety cans of soup, and rice for sixty meals," Helen read from her notebook. "For twenty-seven people, that is about seven days if we eat very little."

"New rules for the new people," I said, and I pointed at the wall. "Everyone gets searched at the door, every weapon goes on the table, and nobody walks around alone." Victor nodded and began writing the list.

"It's a test, Avery," Elliot said softly, stopping beside me. "They want us to fight over food, so we must not." I looked at him without answering.

We counted supplies all day. Food for nine would last twenty days, and food for twenty-seven would last one week at best. Helen wrote the numbers on the wall with a marker so nobody could argue.

Around midnight, Victor and I checked every red light in the building. There were six, and each one had a tiny green dot that blinked every few seconds. We couldn't reach the one on the ceiling.

At dawn, I was already awake. The monitor beeped, and eighteen people were standing in the snow in front of my door. A thin woman in front stared straight at the camera, like she knew I was watching.

"You decide who comes in first," Elliot said, standing beside me. I pressed my thumb on the pad, and the thin woman's calm eyes scared me more than any crying.