Shaking off the lingering chill, he turns around and continues through the doorway. It leads to a much darker hallway. Red lights blink slowly high up on the walls every 30 feet or so. The place gives the boy an extremely eerie feeling. He feels a sharp pain in the back of his skull. Suddenly, the room is much easier to see around in.

“What was that?” he asks out loud. It’s almost as if a night vision filter has been placed over his eyes. Feeling more confident with this newfound eyesight, he continues down the hall. After walking for a bit, the boy encounters a double doorway. These doors are shut. The boy debates for a minute whether or not he should go forward or turn around and go back to the hallway with the beds and wait to see if anyone comes to explain things to him.

--

Two men in white lab coats are standing in a room with many different screens displaying camera feeds from around the facility. They are in the middle of an argument.

“But what if she can’t handle the dosage?”

“It doesn’t matter! You heard the queen! If she continues to give us no response, we need to increase the dosage! We’re behind on schedule already, we can’t have another one of the pawns falling behind in the procedure.”

“What if we kill her? The company doesn’t need another body to dispose of.”

“That’s not our problem to worry about. What the queen says goes. And she says to double this girl’s-”

He stops mid-sentence. The door on the other side of the room creaks open, revealing a boy in navy pants and a dark green polo shirt.

“What is he doing here?!?!” one of the men yells. He storms over to the boy.

“Where are you supposed to be right now, pawn?”

--

Maybe he should have chosen to go back to his bed. The boy has no idea what was going on, but he can put together that he was now somewhere he shouldn’t be.

“What quadrant are you supposed to be in?” The man in front of the boy is getting impatient.

“Quadrant 3. I came to retrieve the latest security footage.” The boy says without thinking. ‘What am I saying?’ he thinks to himself? He wasn’t trying to speak, and yet the words fell out of his mouth, like someone was talking for him. Whatever he had just said, it seems to please the man in the jacket.

“Oh. Steve! Get him a copy of tape 4-21.” The second man places down the syringe he was holding and grabs a DVD of some kind.

“Here you go.” he said gruffly. “Now get out.”

The boy turns to leave, but the first man stops him before he can leave.

“Hold on pawn.”

“What is it sir?”

“Where’s your name tag?” The boy’s mind begins racing. He’d left it on the chair by his bed. He didn’t think he would need it. Apparently he did.

“I-I-I must have lost it sir.” The man frowns.

“Incompetent. I’ll get you a new one. What’s your name?”

The boy thinks hard. What had that name tag said?

“James Kanite, sir.” The man types a few things into a computer in the corner of the room.

“What the…” he says. “You’re not supposed to be awake yet-”

The man turns around. The boy is gone.