"I know. Just don't do anything stupid. Don't play the hero."
19
DAVE
The Dormant enclosure was just as sprawling as the collective memories of the eight who were Dave had suggested, but their childhood perspective had been limited to the sections where children were permitted. From an adult's vantage point, the enclosure was a self-contained settlement. The dormitory buildings, single-story and as basic as the soldiers' barracks, were arranged in rows along paved pathways.
A central courtyard held a covered communal kitchen and dining area that was open sided to let the breeze through. The kitchen had long counters for serving food, and the simple tables and benches of the dining area were shaded by a broad metal roof. During storms, heavy-duty roller curtains were dropped to block the onslaught.
Beyond the dormitories, a recreation yard stretched to the far wall, bordered by low benches and a few scraggly trees and bushes that provided patches of shade.
It wasn't a prison in the traditional sense. It was more like the penal colony Dimitri had told Dave about, the place theRussian government had sent him to as punishment for crimes he had not committed. The Russians no longer called them gulags, but according to Dimitri, the official name was the only thing that had changed. Prisoners were still shipped to remote camps in Siberia, still forced to perform hard labor under brutal conditions, and still treated as expendable resources rather than human beings.
The Dormant enclosure operated on the same principle.
It wasn't punitive like the gulags, but it was confinement dressed up as purpose, cruelty, and violation justified by the end product. The women produced warriors the way Dimitri's fellow prisoners had produced timber and gravel. They had no choice, and no one with the power to stop it cared to end the practice. It was the cornerstone of the Brotherhood's operations. Without the breeding program, there would be no new warriors to grow the army.
Other than the massive wall separating the enclosure from the rest of the island, there were no cells, no bars, and no chains. The women moved freely within the compound, and the children ran and played in the yard, seemingly carefree, but Dave knew better. The children knew, at least the older ones, but this was their world, and they didn't know anything better.
This was their normal.
But there was nothing normal about eight immortal warriors inside the enclosure, walking in formation with nearly identical expressions on their faces. The Eight tried to make it look less disturbing by assuming more individual facial expressions, but it was difficult to do while thinking with what was basically one mind.
The women nearest the gate saw them and froze for a moment before scattering to gather children and steer them toward cover. The response was coordinated without being organized, the instinctive behavior of a population that rightfully considered male visitors as trouble.
Within less than a minute, the central courtyard was empty except for Dave.
Number One stopped walking and looked around at the vacant pathways, the abandoned benches, and the curtains being drawn across dormitory windows.
"They're terrified of us," Number Eight said.
"This is to be expected," Number One said. "We are eight armed immortal warriors who are not supposed to be here." He glanced at the other seven as if he needed to gauge their response. "Let's try to act more like individuals. We are scary enough without the added strangeness of our collective. Voicing our thoughts makes it seem as if we are conversing."
A woman emerged from behind the kitchen building. She was an older-looking human, with gray streaking her dark hair and a wary expression on a face that reflected the hardships she had lived through.
She walked toward them slowly, her chin raised, her hands visible at her sides, trying to project confidence, but her eyes betrayed her fear. The woman had probably assumed the role of intermediary for the others, which was admirable given how terrified she was.
She stopped some distance away from them and regarded them with dark, assessing eyes. "Your kind is not supposed to be here. What do you want?"
"We are conducting an inspection on behalf of Lord Losham," Number One said. "We mean no harm to anyone. We are just observing."
The woman's expression didn't change, but something flickered behind her eyes. Disbelief, maybe. "Then go ahead and observe." She waved her hand around.
"I'm looking for someone," Number One said. "A woman named Sullha. She's nineteen."
The woman's mouth narrowed. "Why?"
"I knew her when I was a boy. We were friends before I was taken to the training camp."
His reply was met with silence. The woman studied Number One's face, searching for something, though Dave doubted she would find it. The training camp and the enhancement process had changed them beyond recognition. There was nothing left of the boys they had been.
"There is no Sullha here," the woman said.
She was lying.
Dave didn't need to probe deeply to know it. The lie sat on the surface of her thoughts, thin and transparent, driven by her protective instincts. Beneath the lie, the truth was simple. She knew exactly who Sullha was and where she could be found.
Dave could have pushed. A flicker of compulsion and the woman would have told him everything, guided him to the right building, the right room, the right person. But something in the way she stood, chin up, hands steady, lying to protect a girl she cared about, stopped him.
