Generation Y (Chapter 3)
The safe house was more like an old mining hole, one that had been reinforced with new pillars of strong wood. It was a long walk down to the main part of the bunker, a well kept room with beds lining the furthest wall. The walls were dry wall and plywood, painted a warm yellow to give it a brighter feel. The floor was made from cold concrete, and a large area rug was draped over it. There was a table and a couple couches. A fire stove top stood behind the table, a stack of unused firewood next to it. An escape tunnel led to the other side of the mining hole, an easy route to pass through. There were doors to keep the warmth in.
Besides bruises, scrapes and minor cuts, everyone was unharmed, but very dirty.The kids huddled close to each other, Sunny squished between Onew and Key like they wanted to protect her. They kept asking where Taemin and Yoona were, though the adults were certain that the kids knew deep down. They had been taken to Plutotec.
Natalie was silent, staring at the floor while she sat on the couch. Jessica sat next to her, her head resting on her mother’s shoulder. She had become very quiet and withdrawn since she heard the news.
Junsu had come in moments ago, empty handed and pale. He explained the situation in a quiet voice, and Natalie forced the tears away hurriedly. She refused to break at a time like this. She quickly glanced at her daughter, who looked like she was going to pass out. However, Jessica was stronger than she let on, and she turned away, going to the table and sitting down in shock. Changmin hurried over to comfort her while Tiffany cried silently for Yoona and Taemin.
Suddenly the door opened again and Changmin and Junsu leapt to their feet, wondering if they had been caught yet again. However, in the doorway was Yunho, carrying a limp and pale Jaejoong. Yunho had pulled off his shirt and was now pressing it against Jaejoong’s side. It was completely soaked in what looked like blood.
Natalie gasped and stood up suddenly, rushing over. Tiffany followed her, while instructing Jessica and Changmin to clear the table. Yunho, led by Natalie, went over to the little wooden table and gently set Jaejoong down, careful not to irritate the wound any more than it was.
“What happened?” Natalie asked, suddenly functioning and ready to get to work. She had had experience in home surgeries and was thankful they had a well equipped first aid kit sitting under one of the beds. “Tiffany go grab the first aid kit, I think the bullet is still in there.”
“The house is gone,” Yunho whispered, but Natalie was in working mode. “He was shot by one of those Plutotec soldiers…. I didn’t know it happened.” She let the words in but pushed them out just as quickly, knowing she had to be completely focused in order to help Jaejoong.
Fortunately the wound wasn’t serious. It had just nicked Jaejoong’s right lung, and cracked a rib, but that was all easy to fix. The only problem was the bleeding, which hadn’t slowed since Yunho had found it. Slowly she cut the shirt and examined the wound a little better.
“We need to clean it. Everyone please, I need space to move. Jessica, get the children and go over to the beds and keep them occupied. Tiffany, get some water to help clean this off. Junsu I need you to talk to Jaejoong to remain calm please. We need to make sure he doesn’t move around when I’m taking out the bullet.”
“Can’t I just take it out?” Yunho asked, and Natalie knew what he meant. She shook her head slowly, grabbing a cloth.
“If you happen to lose concentration and let it go then it can hit his lung and he’ll be in more trouble,” she said calmly, “it’s not that I don’t trust you Yunho, it’s just I think it’d be easier to go in physically and get it out.”
Yunho suddenly realized that she needed the distraction. Natalie knew better than anyone that his control was unwavering, almost flawless. So her excuse was weak and from the lips of a woman who had just lost yet another child. He nodded slowly, and went over to the couch where Changmin was sitting. Now all he could do was wait, and in the background he could hear Junsu muttering softly in Jaejoong’s ear and pictured his love’s body to completely relax, going limp. He was completely under Junsu’s control now.
On one of the beds, the kids sat close to Jessica, not looking over to the table, but listening to Jessica read them a story they had stored there. Changmin stared silently at the fire that burned, looking tired and worn out. Yunho patted his shoulder gently and gave him a reassuring look. No one spoke for the entire hour that Natalie was working on Jaejoong. Only Junsu’s occasional muttering could be heard, and that was all.
Finally, Natalie cleared her throat and straightened up. “It’s all done. We should move him over to his bed to give him some rest.” Yunho nodded and went over to pick him up. As he was carrying the light man, Jaejoong stirred briefly and stared up at Yunho through glossy eyes.
“Am I still alive?” he whispered, his voice groggy.
“Yes Jae, you’re still alive,” Yunho replied, “there is no way I am going to let you die you hear me?” Jaejoong just nodded and drifted off again as Yunho placed him on a bed. Then he drew the covers up to his chin and turned back to Junsu.
“Alright let’s figure out what we’re going to do,” he said, surprisingly in a need for a fight. His hands were curled into fists and he stared at his family through burning eyes. “They’ll pay for what happened tonight, and that’s a promise. We’ll bring Taemin and Yoona back alive.”
“Do we even know where Plutotec is?” Tiffany asked.
“I do.” They all turned to Junsu, who was quiet and eerie looking. With his wings out he looked like the angel of death. “I found out where the closest one was anyway. There are Plutotec institutions all over the world, and quite a few around our area. The closest one seems the most likely but I’m not too sure….”
“Are there any documents of the patients living in all of them?” Yunho asked.
They were all sitting at the table now, after the children were sleeping. They were speaking by candlelight, creating haunting shadows that danced with the flame. Junsu shrugged and picked at a chipped piece of the table.
“I didn’t get that far in the research,” he admitted, “I was just about to open a file when the attack happened.”
“Why were you looking up Plutotec anyway?” Jessica asked, and Junsu shrugged and opened his mouth as if to answer. Yunho interrupted him quickly, not wanting to cause an uproar.
“Well if you were to look could you find something?” he asked, looking intently at Junsu. Junsu stared back and then nodded again.
“Of course, finding Plutotec’s files were surprisingly easy, and if anything that file I was going to open could very well have been the prisoner list.”
Yunho nodded and folded his hands together. “Alright, so tomorrow morning we go undercover to the town’s library. We can use the computers there. Junsu and I will go, and everyone else will stay here. The walkie-talkies should still work so we’ll take one and the other stays here in case something happens. We’ll get as much information as we can and bring it back here. Sounds good?” Everyone nodded silently. “Okay, we should all turn in for the night. Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.”
~*~*~
Yoona remembered the pods. Even if she forced herself to forget them, there was no way she could fully push them away. They all stood upright in one long hallway that was three stories high. Shoulder to shoulder was the pods made big enough for any size person. The smaller you were, the better it was for you because it gave you more space to move around. They were so cramped, however, that the most a person would be doing was sitting or standing. This was exactly what many of the kidnapped Generation Y’s were doing.
Some were sitting, their foreheads resting on the thick glass of their pod, others were pacing awkwardly, and some were just sitting with their backs against the wall. They all had one thing in common though-they were all dead looking, as if their life had been sucked out of them. They were all pale and malnourished. They had bruises from being poked and prodded, and scars from being examined internally. Many mutants didn’t last very long in Plutotec, so Yoona was surprised to find so many of them in one facility.
“It’s almost as if this is Plutotec HQ,” she thought to herself. Wherever that was. She wasn’t sure how long, but the ride there had to have been a couple hours’ tops.
Taemin was now walking, holding her hand, and she prayed that they wouldn’t get separated. The boy looked so terrified he quivered, but he didn’t make a sound. Their training for situations like this was coming into affect and Yoona was really proud of him.
They came to a stop on the third floor and their guards each opened an empty pod. Yoona sighed in relief; at least they’d be together. Roughly they were shoved into the pods and the glass door swung shut heavily, making Taemin jump. When the guards disappeared he slipped closer to the glass and peered out it. The pods were entirely made of thick, armour designed glass so it allowed Yoona to see Taemin. She watched as he placed his hands on the glass and stare out wide eyed and scared, his teddy bear still in his hand. Slowly she came over to the glass and knocked on it. He turned and scrambled over, saying something she couldn’t hear. Sadly she pressed her hand to her ear and shook her head, and Taemin dropped his hands in defeat. Then he curled up in the corner and wrapped his little arms around his legs. Yoona wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him, hold him tightly, and tell him everything was going to be alright.
Sighing she leaned back and closed her eyes, her mind working hard to figure a way out of this one. Their powers were subdued so they couldn’t escape that way, and they were encased in a pod made of impenetrable glass. It seemed so hopeless.
Suddenly a tap on the glass to her right made her jump and open her eyes. She had been so wrapped up in making sure Taemin was alright that she didn’t notice that the pod beside hers was occupied. Her head turned to the right and she smiled in a friendly, polite kind of way before taking a double look. Her eyes widened in shock and her mouth opened slightly. Hurriedly, on her hands and knees she crept closer to the window and put a hand up to it. The other person did the same, and he looked just as he did two years ago, except he looked as lifeless as everyone else there.
Yoochun was alive after all.
~*~*~
“I’m sure they didn’t get very far,” a woman snapped into her phone, “I don’t care if you thought they’d be caught by surprise, obviously they weren’t, now were they? Normally these people are rogues, often travelling by themselves which is why they’re easier to catch. But a group of twelve is going to take more than just that. Check the surrounding areas and I don’t want a freaking bug to pass through inspection, you hear me? Don’t come back until you’ve found them.” And she slammed the phone back onto the jack, pinching the bridge of her nose irritably.
“Sun, are you done with the call?” another young woman asked, slipping inside the office. Sun nodded and looked up.
“Does it look like I’m still on the phone Bong-cha?” she snapped back, making the girl jump in surprise. “What have you got?”
Bong-cha composed herself and cleared her throat. She was a little more soft spoken and scared of Sun, but she still spoke in a clear voice. “We have the two new mutants in the pods. The boy was indeed born a mutant Natalie Kim and her deceased husband-”
“Yes, yes I know all this,” Sun said, waving it all away, “but what’s interesting is that children are starting to be born as mutants. The older ones were all genetically mutated by man, but then it started spreading through the DNA. It’s even more interesting that it’s not the same mutation as the parent had, but something different.”
“We’ve had several cases throughout the years of children being born with special abilities. It’s nothing uncommon especially since Generation Y are so few in numbers that they might be considering keeping themselves alive by reproducing.”
“Yes that is a possibility,” Sun agreed, “after all Natalie has three children, the oldest being twenty-two, the youngest is five. She’s been reproducing these mistakes for years now!”
“Um, yes that is true indeed.” Bong-cha pulled out her charts and placed it on Sun’s desk. “Lately the children of Generation Y have been growing in numbers, especially in the past year. Usually they don’t survive for as long as a normal human being does, but they seem to get stronger and more durable than the previous ones. One like Natalie especially would be ancient compared to the others because of the fact that she outlived the average lifespan. The fact that she has three children-and the oldest is still alive too-means that we have proof of a stronger breed of Generation Y.”
“But we have two of her children now. I wonder how much longer he’s going to survive.” Sun pulled spun in her plush office chair, and she was gazing out at the pods. She smiled and shook her head. “If there really is a stronger breed of Generation Y, that doesn’t mean they’ll be harder to kill. After all, underneath all those abilities, they’re all human in the end.” She turned back to Bong-cha. “Let’s find out the reason why they’re surviving so long. That boy should be the first experiment.
Bong-cha nodded silently, and held her files close to her as she left the room. She didn’t understand why Sun had such a grudge against Generation Y, and why she wanted to eradicate them as soon as humanly possible. She knew that she hated Generation Y because they killed her parents when she was a girl. Sun found her as an orphan and raised her to loathe the mutants even more. However, there was always a little voice in the back of her head saying that it wasn’t right. They were still human too, and had rights just as much as anyone. She came to the guards at the entrance to the pods, and ordered that the new mutant boy be brought down to the lab. As she left, again, she had that strange feeling that it was wrong to be doing stuff like this to innocent people.
~*~*~
Junsu couldn’t sleep. He lay on his bed, arm under his head, and stared absently up at the ceiling. The only thing he could think of was Yoochun, and how he could very well be alive still. Then he thought of Taemin, the little boy who had never experienced the horrors of Plutotec. And Yoona. She was brave, very strong willed and wouldn’t back down to anyone. At least Taemin had her to get him through this, but even she could break. Hopefully they were able to find them soon.
Slowly he crept out of bed and drifted by Jaejoong’s bed. He had been sleeping since Natalie took out the bullet, but was still breathing evenly and so far there was no infection. Yunho’s head was resting on the edge, his arms folded underneath it, his eyes closed. His breathing was soft and gentle. Everyone looked so vulnerable when they were sleeping, so peaceful and relaxed. The three kids curled up on one bed and lay in a tangle of arms and legs, Sunny still in between Onew and Key. Tiffany. Changmin. Jessica. They were all sleeping and looked so young and innocent, at that moment Junsu could barely tell that they had all suffered through the worst experiments and tortures Plutotec had to offer. They all carried scars both mentally and physically about their experiences, and that made it really hard to forget. Now Taemin would be part of it, he would know what it felt like to be a lab rat.
Junsu moved silently towards the door, which was locked with three different kinds of locks. He stood there, wondering what he should, his hand resting on the doorknob. If he could find them then no one else would have to be in danger. They wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught and going back to their worst nightmares. He could take them all on by himself.
“You think that this will stop us?” a voice said suddenly, making him jump. He spun around and saw Changmin was awake and standing a few feet from him. There was no doubting in his eyes, he would follow Junsu no matter what. Now that he thought of it, Yunho and even Jaejoong would as well.
“I don’t want any of you involved,” he whispered, his eyes on the ground. “It’s too dangerous.”
Changmin shrugged and gestured to their safe house. “We just fought for our lives, our house is burned to the ground and now we’re on the run. Again. You think that anything to us is dangerous? We’ve survived so much and now you think that going to Plutotec is too dangerous? Maybe it is but we’ve got family there that needs us. We’re not leaving them behind.”
That was the biggest speech Junsu had ever Changmin say. Usually he was so quiet and reserved, but he was gentle and kind. Ever since he escaped from Plutotec he didn’t speak as much but when he did it was logical and wise. So if quiet Changmin was really that concerned, Junsu dropped his hand and turned away. He went back to his bed and slipped under the covers, listening for Changmin. When Changmin was in bed Junsu flopped over so he was on his back and staring up at the wall again. He didn’t admit with words but he knew that Changmin was right. No matter what they were all a family, and if one went they all did. It should be as simple as that…so why did Junsu feel uneasy about it?