Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171288 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
She also wondered if she ought to try and escape by herself. But she’d been depending on Shurla to go with her. And besides, the woman with short black hair who had served them breakfast had promised to tell her more during their time in the exercise yard—maybe she ought to wait and hear what she had to say before making a break for it…
“Now then, my lovelies.” Mother Toone was suddenly there, standing in the front of the dormitory. “Did everyone enjoy their yummy-yummy breakfasts?” she asked brightly.
“Oh, yes—it was delicious,” Shurla said, smiling at her. “I’ve never had anything so tasty in my life! They certainly don’t have anything nearly this good back at Hell’s Gate Station,” she added.
The other women nodded and murmured, agreeing with her. In order to avoid being found out, Penny nodded along with the rest.
“Good, good!” Mother Toone cooed. “Now…” She cocked her bald orange head to one side inquiringly. “I notice that you mentioned your old home, my dear,” she said to Shurla. “And I want you to know, you can go back there if you want. That is, you can get up and leave the Compound right this minute. In fact, everyone can.” She paused theatrically, her yellow eyes flickering over all of them. “This is your first, last, and only chance. Speak now if you want to leave our lovely Compound.”
It was on the tip of Penny’s tongue to shout that she wanted to go! That she wanted to get out of this crazy place right now. But she remembered the other woman’s words and the sharp look she’d given Penny when she told her not to say a word when she was asked if she wanted to leave. So she bit her tongue and waited, hoping she wasn’t blowing her only chance to get out of here.
After a moment, Mother Toone nodded in apparent satisfaction.
“That’s good,” she said, smiling widely. “Very good. So you’re all happy here?”
Shurla answered for everyone.
“The Compound is our true home,” she said, smiling beatifically. “Why would we ever want to leave it?”
All the women murmured agreement and Penny pasted a smile on her face and murmured right along with them. But inside her stomach was knotted into a fist. What in the hell was going on around here and how was she ever going to get away now that her only friend had deserted her?
Penny could only hope the woman—whose name she didn’t know—was telling her the truth and that she could give her some hints on how to escape.
Because there was no way she could stay in this creepy place—no way in hell.
Twenty-Six
There was another physical where they all stripped and lined up against the wall while a NeverBreeder doctor checked their vitals. After that came the horrible internal exam on the cold metal tables where Penny’s womb was pronounced “healthy and ripening, though not yet ready to conceive.”
After the exam, their robes were taken away and they were all given shapeless pajama-like clothing to wear which looked a little like white scrubs. Then, as promised, they were herded out to the exercise yard, which was just a big, walled-off area of neatly clipped turquoise grass with a few flowering bushes around the edges.
“Now then, my sweeties,” Mother Toone sang out as the prisoners wandered around the manicured lawn and looked at the sky, which could just be seen over the high wall. “You all have a lovely time exercising and then I’ll come get you for lunch. All righty?”
She left without waiting for an answer, locking them into the yard the same way she had locked them into the dorm the night before. Presumably, they were on their own for a while.
Penny thought about trying to speak to Shurla, but her friend had an expression of blank bliss on her face. She was wandering about the exercise yard with a vacant smile, staring up at the sunlight filtering down through the shimmering atmosphere bubble and humming contentedly to herself.
So talking to Shurla was out. Penny’s other thought was to wonder if now was a good time to try and escape. But the wall around the yard was at least thirty feet high and made of a solid block of some smooth, glassy gray stone like polished marble, which provided no hand or footholds at all.
She was just beginning to despair about ever getting out or finding out what was going on around here, when the single door to the yard opened again and the woman with short, straight black hair slipped out. Carefully, she locked the door behind her and then went to tend the flowers on the bushes that ringed the perimeter of the yard.
Penny watched her for a moment, and then wandered over as though curious about the bushes.
“Hi,” she murmured to the woman, trying to keep a happy smile on her face as she spoke.