I crept down the metal hallway as silent as a mouse. There was no way I could screw this up now, not when I was so close. My monitors informed me there was a laser trap up ahead and to proceed with caution.

Finally I got to the last stretch of my journey. The goal that had eluded me for so long was right in front of me. I could almost feel the anticipation tugging me towards my destination.

Excited as I was, I made the most basic, most embarrassing mistake that a senior Protector could ever make: I didn’t check for traps.
I took another step - and there go the alarms! Shrieking, sharp, painful screams echoing in my ears. As I clapped my hands over my poor ears, red lasers started appearing around me. I stumbled, blindly moving about, when the most searing agony went through my right leg. I looked down for a moment and almost blacked out at the sight of my leg.

Or what was left of it!

My leg, my beautiful, useful leg, was cut off at the knee, the muscles and fractured bone pieces reaching out of it like a grotesque handshake. My foot and the rest of the leg were lying on the cold floor besides me, still twitching with quickly leaving life.
The shock made almost fall over another laser beam, but I managed to keep my head. I decided to abort the mission - my life is more important than some mission!

I turned to attempt to leave… and screamed. My left pinkie grazed the laser, and I could hear a “tink!” of the nail hitting the metal floor.
I froze, trying to figure out the situation.

“What happened?” I thought frantically. The whole operation had failed! Finally, unable to deal with the gravity of the situation, I blacked out.

*
*
*

I woke up in a bed.

Most people don’t think that’s strange, but for a senior protector who’s been on the run for months, this is not a good sign. I attempted to get up, maybe there would be an escape I could look for. But I was stopped by the great lance of fiery pain than ran up my body. I looked down, and discovered something that fell under the category of “definitely not good.”

My right thigh was wrapped tightly in bandages. I think they were white once, but now they’re bright red. I slowly lowered myself back down onto the mattress, my mind whizzing. So whoever had captured me wanted me alive, but why? I took in my surroundings trying to determine what they might want with me.

I was in a cold steel room. One light bulb dangled from the ceiling. There was a panel in front of me that could have been a door, but I knew it would be locked from the outside. To my right there was a rolling table, although I had no clue as to its purpose there. Maybe for torture devices?

My head swam in confusion. Why would my captors, and my person's captors, bother with healing me? But I was of no concern at this point. I had to escape to save Bryn. My heart breaks just to think of what they might have done to her. She was my last assignment, a poor little eight year old girl whose parents had left her beaten on the side of the road. That's what my agency does; we find kids alone, abused, and wandering, take them to HQ, and either find them a family or begin training them as an agent for the Rangers.

I heaved a huge sigh. I remembered when I had been taken off the streets of Chicago, just seven years old in the middle of a bitter winter. My agent had been Clarissa, and she was my angel. When the agency could not find me any families, Clarissa stepped up as my trainer. She taught me how to track with tech and nature. She showed me weapons defense, to protect the kids we rescue.

But she taught me the best qualities ever; kindness, mercy, and forgiveness. I have always loved her for that.

I shook myself to get rid of the momentary flashback. It must have been the wound, getting a grip in my head. I needed to get out of my cell and find out what a high tech lab would want with Bryn. I gripped the edges of the bed to prepare myself for liftoff. I had just swung my uninjured leg over one side of the hard bed when I heard the sound of electronic locks whirring.

I quickly pulled my thin blanket over my legs as a wiry old man strode purposely into my cell. He walked up to my cot and snatched off my blanket, twisting my leg a bit as he did so.
“Hey!” I protested. The old man looked up, startled, then relaxed.
“Don’t worry, my dear.” the man replied smoothly. “ I’m just inspecting your leg to make sure the stitches have held.” He began unwinding my bandage.
I stared at him suspiciously. My gut told me to trust this man, but my training said find the facts.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked carefully. The man smiled, but didn’t look up from his work.
“Despite what your monitors may have told you, we are not monsters in this facility.” The man, apparently finished with his inspection, began wrapping a new bandage around my stub of a leg.
I frowned. “How do you know about my monitors?” I asked, then instantly regretted it. Now I had just confirmed the fact that I had monitors. Thinking of which, I realized that my monitors were no longer buzzing around my eyes and in my head. These people must have shut them off. But the man just shook his head and finished tying off a fresh white bandage.
“We know about your agency, Miss Wilde, and we know your reasons for coming here. We intend to reunite you with Bryn as soon as you both are healthy enough.”
“Is she hurt?!” the words left my mouth before I could snatch them back. The man cocked his head, confused.
“You don’t know? Miss Wilde, you do know this lab deals with unusual injuries and circumstances, correct?”
I shook my head mutely. I feared the worst.
“Bryn was found on a highway, off to the side. Her legs and arms had been run over multiple times by cars. And yet, despite the enormous trauma and damage to her small body, which any other person of the same frame might have died from, she was still alive and conscious. In extreme pain, yes, but alive!”
My mouth was hanging open, but whether from relief or shock or confusion, I wasn’t sure.
The old man smiled at the multiple reactions that flitted across my face. “Yes, we felt the same way after that discovery, Miss Wilde. And I can promise that as the young lady, and yourself are healthy enough, you may see each other.”
I felt my suspicions return at once. In a strange place like this, with someone who promises you exactly what you want with nothing in return, something is wrong.
“What’s your name?” I asked the old man. The smile vanished briefly, and when it returned it appeared forced.
“Well, you don’t need to worry about that right now,” he replied uncomfortably. I was reminded of a bug that has been pinned under a microscope. But then he smiled again.
“You need to start preparing yourself. You see, since your leg…ahem...removed…we will be replacing it with a synthetic leg. You will be good as new!”
“NO!” I shouted, startled at my own ferocity. The man appeared taken aback as well. I mentally patted myself down, recalling that it always pays to keep your captors pleased. I tried again.
“No, sir, but thank you for the offer. You see…” I struggled for an answer. I finally continued, “It is against my . . . religion to have anything fake on my body. You understand, of course.” I attempted to smile sweetly at the old man.
He frowned. “Ma’am, I can assure you that this operation will take place.” He paused, then said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, “You need to at your full health in order to meet Bryn.”

And without another word, the man strode out of the door and locked it behind him, for my safety I supposed. As I stared at the door, a new thought entered into the confused puddle of my mind.

“What happened here?”

So my captivity began.



*
*
*

The next two months, or I think was two months, passed in an endless blurred cycle of routine check-ins and operations. Every other day, the same old man would come in and analyze my wound. He never spoke again after our first encounter, and the only words I ever said were “What’s your name?” and “How is Bryn?” Naturally, I received no reply.

I was treated reasonably, given food at the beginning and end of the day, which was how I kept track of the time. I was also given books to pass the countless hours. Needless to say I became an avid reader. All these things were brought to me by the same old man, so I figured he was pretty low on the scientist pecking order. I decided to name him Old Man, so I could stop referring to him as the old man.

At the end of a week a crowd of faceless scientists would come in an operate on my leg, adding more and more pieces of the fake limb. The first few times I resisted, punching and lashing out at anything. But then someone would grab my arm or head and inject me with some liquid that put me under, hence my uncertainty of the length of my imprisonment. Afterwards I merely accepted the pain medication so I could watch and try to understand the process of rebuilding my leg.

First, they began by attaching knee sections to the stub of my thigh. Then they continued adding pieces to the “base” they called it. Day after day, piece by piece, my leg was put back together, until finally my leg was whole. Gleaming white plastic sprouted from my seared and scarred stub in the shape of a leg.

I can’t say at the time that I hated the leg, just that I knew the scientists had done something to it; added a tracking device, a bug, something. I knew that at the first chance I got it would have to go.

When the last procedure was over, Old Man came in with a smile on his face.

“Today, you and Bryn may be reunited. Maybe after this you will be convinced that we here are not monsters.” His smile broke into a grin, like I had just missed a hilarious inside joke.

On the inside I was elated and suspicious, but I kept my faced composed.

“Lead the way.” I replied. Old Man seemed slightly disappointed by this response, but nevertheless opened the door and gestured into the hallway.

I stood shakily from my bed, hands out for balance. This was not my first time walking on my new leg, of course, but I felt that playing that up might help me in the future.

We set off down the hallway at a slow pace towards a room on the very right end. I was a little nervous because I had never met Bryn, only seen photos from my office, but my reports told me that she was a shy little sweetheart, but since her incident, past experiences may have caused her to be untrusting. I was afraid that she might reject me, not play along, or worse, have been recruited to the Dark side. I also noted that there were cameras every meter or so and sliding panels lining the cold metal hallway, certainly concealing weapons of some sort. In every similar situation that I have read in my training manual, sliding panels, 95% of the time, conceal weapons. So these “harmless” scientists were obviously well prepared for any challenges.

Old Man took a plastic card from the pocket of his gray scrubs and swiped it across the bar on the door. As soon as his card left the door, a little scanner popped up, at which point Old Man leaned forward to allow a red light to pass across his eyes. I filed that information away for later.

The locks whirred and the door slid silently open. Old Man gestured to inside the room, but made no move to accompany me. So I gathered my nerves and walked in.

Bryn was being kept in a brightly colored room, full of blue skies and green hills and playful animals. Her bed and floor were surrounded with discarded toys, books, and games. Bryn, however, was huddled at the foot of the bed under a mountain of thick warm covers, rocking slowly back and forth. I stepped next to the bed and lifted up the blankets, not expecting what came next.

Bryn, or at least, I assumed it was Bryn, was huddled under her blankets, moaning softly to herself. Although she naturally had a tiny frame, she was so skinny it looked like she was starving, because since she had seemingly ripped the pajamas off her body, her ribs were very defined against her olive toned skin. Her arms were like the tiniest of toothpicks, and they were curled around her stomach as she rocked forward and back, forward and back. I couldn’t see her legs since they were tucked underneath her, but apart from her near-starvation-boneness, Bryn appeared to be fine.

Then she looked at me, and all I could think of was “What happened?!”

Bryn’s eyes were multicolor, and constantly shifting. If I looked close enough, random images would pass through her eyes. A bunny hopping, a family eating dinner, a man playing basketball. But what was worse was the lack of emotion written all over her face. With a child of Bryns’ age, you would expect fear, relief, or terror to be all over at the moment. But not Bryn.

I stumbled away from the child in horror. In my panic I hadn’t noticed Old Man enter the room.

“Yes, that is exactly how some of our scientists reacted at first sight of the child. Upon further examination, we discovered only one possible explanation for her … condition. Our superiors are very skeptical, but it's all we have.”

“Yeah? And what’s that?” I spat at him. I was still reeling from what I saw in Bryn’s eyes. What could possibly have caused that?!
“We believe that, since Bryn was conscious as she went through her terrible ordeal, she went insane, and then started to return to her Creator. However, it was not her time, and so when she return to the world, being insane, she retained some of the information she saw in the heaven’s.” Old Man finished his explanation, taking a deep breath and looking extremely proud of himself.

I stood stunned for a moment, taking it in. Then I doubled over, laughing so hard I thought my lungs would burst. Old Man looked confused, and a little taken back.

I regained control of myself and stood up, breathing hard.

“That’s your explanation?! For this?!” I flung my hand toward Bryn, who had crawled back under her covers.

“Well, Miss Wilde, I can assure you that our team is-”

“I don’t care about what your team thinks! What I care about is getting Bryn safe and SANE!” I was shouting now, really and truly worked up.
“Have you done anything to make her better?!” I demanded.

“We have run many different tests, and we have discovered that while it may be possible to restore Bryn to her original healthy nature, we have no way of restoring her mental capabilities.”

I gritted my teeth. This is not what I had expected when I had come to rescue Bryn. I had assumed that it would be dangerous, scary, not just for Bryn but for me. I had not expected to have my leg turned to plastic or my person to be locked in a research lab, mentally insane from her return from- of all places- Heaven! Now, make no mistake, I believe in God and heaven, but to have scientists say that that is the only explanation for what happened to Bryn, maybe they are the ones who are crazy!

All of the sudden, I heard a high-pitched wail come from Bryn. I launched myself at her, tearing off her blankets and hugging her. Her body was like a rail, so small and weak. But as soon as my arms were around, Bryn stopped her terrible screaming and looked at me, her eyes wide. I did not want to look at those kaleidoscopic eyes again, but something drew me to them. As I looked, I saw the two of us running down the metal hallways of this lab. It looked like hope and freedom.

“Jenny.” The name, my name, had come from Bryn. I wrenched free from the grasp of her eyes, instead looking at her face. It was still completely expressionless, but as I watched, a faint smile touched her tiny lips, and one eye slid closed, then opened.

A wink.

It took a second, but then I smiled back. She was going to be fine. Not good, not okay, but fine.

I disentangled myself from her grasp and gently helped her lay down correctly. Then I pulled up her covers and hobbled back to Old Man.
“How does she know your name?” Old Man asked suspiciously. I glared at him.

“How do you?” I responded, and that got through to him. Old Man stiffly reopened the door and gestured to me for me to leave. Clearly, my time was up.

As I sat in my cell once more, I contemplated all the information I just learned. I still don’t think that Bryn went to heaven and returned here crazy. In fact, I think she is perfectly sane. But something did happened to her mind, and now I harbored the suspicion that maybe Bryn could see a little in the future. It would explain her reactions and the images I saw.

But first I had to see and understand more. I was not going to be like the crazy scientists or researchers here. In fact, I believe I know exactly where I am now. There have been rumors that here, in the most isolated part of Chile, there was a group of people who took heavenly devotion to the next level.

They built a sanctuary, they say, where they would abduct people and things that might have possibly come as a sign from God. They were very up to date with technology, so they knew if someone were looking for them, and were seen as harmless in the sight of government, because nothing had proven. But everyone nearby steered clear of them.

Looks like Bryn and I stumbled right into them. But I wasn’t concerned anymore. I knew what I had seen in Bryns’ eyes, and if my guesses were correct, she and I would be leaving soon. And who knows? Maybe if the Rangers can’t find a good home for her, she could be one of us.
Who knows what will happen?


The End