T W E N T Y - S I X

Don’t Put Me In The Basement

 

2024 March 31
Sunday

As Summer ran down the stairs, she was already reaching into her purse and drawing her taser with her left hand. She glanced down to check the display. Battery nearly full, with a long-range cartridge and a short-range one. Then she toggled on the laser sight—no ambushes in dark bedrooms today—and touched her thumb to the sensor. The light flashed green; she was ready to go.

She pushed through the door at the landing and glanced into the security room. Besides Pamela and Charlie at the security screens, four sponsors were there checking out tasers—powering them up, registering their prints. They’d be thirty seconds behind her.

She waved her taser at the sponsors. “See you all down there!” she called.

“Common room! Go through the dining room!” Pamela shouted back. Summer barely had time to parse the words before she was jogging down a flight of stairs once more, this time to the subbasement.

Two years of memories here—one as a boy, one as a sponsor—haunted her, but she pushed them aside; there was no time for nostalgia. She flicked the safety as she ran past the cell block, then pushed through the double doors into the hallway, veered right into the dining room, rounded the table, and kicked open the doors to the common room, sweeping in with her taser raised and adrenaline pumping.

One boy on a couch. One on the ground. Two standing, throwing punches at each other.

“He started it!” a panicky blond combatant said, dodging a punch from a dark-haired opponent. She knew better than to believe him—blame was a question for the cells—but the murderous grin on the other boy’s face wasn’t a lie. “Who are you? Why haven’t you tased him already?”

“I’m the bitch with the taser,” Summer snapped. “You two have three seconds to separate, place your hands behind your head, and kneel. One—”

The blonde started to comply.

“Two—”

Now both of them were moving, but the dark-haired boy was dragging his feet; he seemed eager to continue the fight. Summer trained the laser dot just below his chest.

“Three!”

She fired. The darts connected cleanly at the top and bottom of his belly and the dark-haired boy collapsed onto his knees, but didn’t fall over; that’s what she got for using a ten-meter cartridge in close quarters. He didn’t get up, though, didn’t fight, and that was what mattered.

Summer heard movement in the hallway—backup was close. Next to the immobilized boy, his opponent shifted, trying to look at her. She swung the laser dot over to him. “Don’t move, blondie!” she snapped. “Don’t make me use the other shot!”

The blond boy froze for a moment; then all of a sudden he was moving again, swinging for a vicious gut punch on the other boy. Summer fired again and the boy went down hard, but not before his hit connected.

The shock that followed the darts hit both boys. She almost felt sorry for the dark-haired boy—two shocks and a punch that took the wind out of him? Poor bastard.

When the taser’s crackling subsided, Summer ordered the boys to “Stay down”—a trained reflex—but it was hardly necessary. The dark-haired boy was reaching for the hand of the boy who’d been on the floor since the start. A bonded pair, most likely; they wouldn’t be trouble if they were trying to comfort each other. The blond boy, meanwhile, was immobile.

And the one on the couch watched it all with the air of a man who wished only for a bag of popcorn.

 

* * *

 

Persephone looked down towards the foot of the basement stairs and nearly screamed. Through the still-open second door, she could see a gaggle of women crowding the entrance to the security room, rushing around, grabbing equipment, talking. Thankfully, none of them were looking her way, but she wasn’t sure how long that would last. She quickly snuck down the stairs and through the slowly closing door, slipped onto the landing and past the girls into the hallway, then ducked into the first room whose door was ajar, careful to make sure she didn’t get locked in.

As her eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering through a square window in the door, she began to see where she was more clearly. Persephone was in what seemed to be a disused operating room for minor surgeries. There was a sturdy operating table in its center, powerful-looking adjustable spotlights overhead, steel tables and surfaces and carts of equipment, a large sink with soap and paper towel dispensers, a counter with a box of gloves and a set of instruments and an autoclave like the one Summer used for electro sessions.

Not surprising, really. Summer had told her this place was once a hospital; she’d expect to find an old operating room or two around.

Except Persephone couldn’t help but notice, as she began to move around and look at things more closely, that it didn’t really look like an old operating room. There was no dust or grime or rust to be seen. The equipment was nice and modern, with flat-panel screens and pearly-white plastic cases. There were even a couple of IV bags on a cart, and they were still bulging with clear fluid. Strange.

She wandered over to the counter. The faucet was dripping, but there was no corrosion in the sink, and the box of gloves looked pretty new too. In fact—she picked up the box, turned it over, looked for a date—they had been manufactured less than a year before...

Was...was this operating room still being used?

With trepidation, she eyed a wheeled white bin with a lid and a yellow biohazard symbol on the side. Medical waste? She pulled out a glove, stuck a few fingers into it, walked to the bin, and after a brief hesitation, lifted the lid.

The smell hit her first. Metallic. Blood. She coughed, putting her other hand over her nose to keep from gagging, then looked into the bag.

It was full of waste paper, cotton gauze, things like that. Some of it bloody. Some of the blood was browned, but there were still a few streaks of red. It wasn’t fresh—but it didn’t look years old, either. More like...days.

Persephone dropped the lid back into place and put some distance between it and her. Even with the reek dissipating, she still felt sick as she looked around the eerily still, quiet operating room with a squirming ball of fear in her belly.

Why was someone doing surgery in the basement of a dormitory?

Who? What kind? And on whom?

The hallway outside had quieted. Persephone peeked out the door; the last of the group of women who’d gathered outside the security room were mounting the stairs down. She slipped out of the operating room and crept quietly towards the security room. Even if she got caught, it was better than staying in that creepy room with nothing but creepy questions for company.

 

* * *

 

The next wave of sponsors poured into the common room through all three doors; a third wave soon followed with PMCs in tow. Summer didn’t lower her weapon until the boy she’d taken down was in cuffs; then Maria touched her arm, led her to one of the metal tables, sat her down. She ejected the redhead’s spent cartridge and tossed it to one of the PMCs escorting him away; they’d untangle him from the wires and barbs in the cell block.

The couple on the floor were also separated; the one who’d thrown punches was cuffed and led away too, albeit more gently. Then the sponsors started to check on the other boys. Edy knelt next to the one on the ground, helped him up and over to the seat across from Summer. He looked dazed, like he hadn’t quite recovered from whatever had put him on the floor. He and Edy began to converse, but Summer tuned it out. Instead, she reached into her purse, pulled out a fresh cartridge, and started reloading her taser.

As her fingers moved on autopilot, she found herself looking from one boy to another. Who were they? What had they done? Why had they done it? How would the sponsors get them to change? And who would they one day become?

She’d forgotten about that part of the job—the mystery of your boy, the curiosity about what makes him tick, the slow unraveling of the secrets even he doesn’t understand. It was an aspect of the job that she’d found only scraps of outside these walls. She missed it.

That thought should have been a surprise, but it wasn’t. She did miss being a sponsor, didn’t she? She missed this place, this work; despite all the challenges, she’d been having the time of her life looking after Persephone, and that was partly because of the girl but also because it was the closest thing to this that she’d ever found anywhere else.

Yes, she missed it. Too bad she’d failed at it.

Summer looked up when the boy from the couch, who Maria was now herding towards the bedrooms, stopped to taunt to the other one.

“That’s enough out of you, Mr. Stevenson,” Edy told him.

Summer recognized his pasty face and red hair from the file Maria had stopped by to show her—the file of the monstrous boy she was sponsoring this year. This was the doxxer. The man who gave her girls nightmares. The man who forced her client Z into hiding. This was Randal Stevenson.

His first appointment couldn’t come soon enough. She couldn’t wait to have the little shit at her mercy.

 

* * *

 

Persephone crouched down by the door to the security room. She leaned over, peering inside.

The crowd had completely cleared out; there was only one woman left in the room, and she seemed thoroughly distracted, her gaze darting between the camera feeds and the laptop in front of her. That gave Persephone time to study the screens, which for the first time weren’t blank while she was looking.

Some of them showed small, windowless dormitory-style bedrooms; one of these rooms held a person curled up in a ball near the door, while the others were empty. Some showed what looked for all the world like prison cells. But the largest screen, and the one that was currently receiving the most attention from the woman sitting in front of it, showed some sort of communal living area that looked overcrowded.

Most of the people there were women. Armed women. They were dressed up, perhaps people who’d left the party. Persephone even recognized a few—Maria, Tabby, Maria’s partner.

Four were...boys? girls? Persephone wasn’t sure, and their shaggy haircuts, nondescript sweats, and shoeless feet didn’t clarify it. But whatever their gender, the partygoers were treating them like they were dangerous, and a few of them looked roughed-up, like they’d taken a few punches.

And then there were the other two. The buff, black-clad soldier guys. Just like the ones who’d attacked them months ago in Summer’s apartment. They were restraining one of the people in sweats, someone with a split lip and shaky limbs.

And there was Summer. Sitting at a table, not standing like the other partygoers. Looking over her taser. Popping one of the cartridges out of the nose, just as she had when they’d fled her flat.

Tossing it to a soldier, moments before he hauled the person off that screen and through a couple more, finally depositing them in a cell.

The cell camera was closer, and now Persephone could see the person more clearly. They looked...they looked like she had a couple of months ago. Like the two girls who’d been with Stephanie. Like a trans woman in early transition.

All four of them did.

Persephone swayed a little, grabbing the doorframe for support.

This was...some sort of underground prison. For trans women. That occasionally brutalized them. And Summer had attacked some of the victims.

She watched numbly as the soldiers dragged another girl to the cells. As partygoers brought the other two girls to dorm rooms and locked them in. As Summer sat there, watching the nightmare unfold around her, calmly reloading her taser.

The soldiers started climbing the stairs—time to move. But Persephone’s knees felt like rubber, and as she stood, one of her feet shot forward, kicked the door.

Persephone looked up, startled. So did the woman at the security laptop.

“Who the hell are you?” the woman demanded.

Persephone didn’t answer. The lock on the door from the subbasement buzzed; she dashed past it, tried to run down the hallway, back to the unlocked operating room.

“Stop!” the woman said.

Persephone heard a loud pop, and then excruciating pain, like a full-body muscle cramp, was all she knew.

 

* * *

 

As the basement common room began to empty, Summer decided it was time to go. They were getting into after-action, and she had no role in that; the sponsors had their boys to take care of, and she had her girl patiently waiting for her upstairs.

She smiled to herself at that thought; she wasn’t sure why.

Nell arrived at a jog as she was lifting herself from her seat. The sponsor looked around the room before alighting on her quarry. “Summer!” she said with concern, hustling over.

“Nell? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Persephone,” Nell said. “She’s been put in Cell 3!”

Summer’s world stopped for a moment. When it started again, she was struggling against Nell’s grip.

“Summer! Wait!” Nell said, but Summer was on autopilot. Electricity crackled across the nose of her taser as she drove it into Nell’s arm. “Fuck!” she yelled, but she released Summer, and that was all that mattered. She pushed past and into the hallway, taser in hand, rushing towards the cells.

Summer was so focused on the cell wing doors that when the tackle came from the side, it took her by surprise. Maria slammed her against the wall, pinning the wrist of her taser hand above her head. Wildly, Summer tried to throw a punch, but suddenly Tabby was there too, pinning her other wrist. “Babe! This isn’t going to help her!”

Summer struggled against the women, panic in her eyes.

“It’s too late,” Tabby continued. “Even if you break her out of that cell, you can’t undo that she’s been in it.”

Tabby’s familiar presence—her warmth, her voice, her smell—did more of the work than her words, but the blind panic started to recede. And Tabby knew her well enough to recognize that.

“Do you want to get put in the cell next to hers?” Tabby asked. “Or do you want to actually help her?”

Summer froze for a second. “Fine.” She sagged against the wall. “How?”

“Persephone is a candidate who’s been moved to a cell,” Maria said, carefully taking the taser from Summer’s hand. “By program rules, that makes her an intake. And even if it’s only temporary, every intake needs a sponsor.”

“Do you want that to be a stranger?” Tabby asked. “Or should we tell Indira that you volunteer?”

There wasn’t any choice—it had to be her. “I’ll stand as sponsor,” Summer whispered.

Maria looked between the two. “I’ll let her know,” she said, and she took the taser with her when she left. Summer didn’t try to argue; instead, she slipped to the floor as the enormity of what had happened hit her.

The worst-case scenario—the thing she’d set out to prevent, had put her entire life on hold to stop—had happened. Persephone Chase had been taken by Dorley Hall.

Her sister’s comforting arms closed around her, and Summer leaned into her shoulder and began to cry.