The Telematrix, Part 4
There was a noise at the door.
Soy’s eyes turned immediately, seeking out the sound as though by radar. Her first impulse was to reach over and rest her hand over Telematrice’s mouth, both waking the child and making it impossible for her to make a sound. Telematrice’s eyes were wide with fear as Soy quickly pushed her into the darkness offered by the small room’s corners.
“Get them out!” a man’s voice whispered from the corridor.
Instead of joining Telematrice in the comparative safety of the dark, Soy padded softly to the door. She cupped her ear, listening carefully.
“How many rooms are left?” the same voice asked.
The answer came moments later: “I think we’ve got them all.”
The loud wailing of the emergency siren began to fill the air with a distant moan. For the first time, Soy’s eyes belied the terror she was feeling.
“The guardhouse is lighting up!”
Soy couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation, as the voices became more and more distant. Once she was reasonably certain their room had been overlooked, she hastened to the window to look down the castle embankment at the front gate.
She was shocked to see hundreds of young girls, nearly all the Telematrix, loaded up into carriages, the dead bodies of their caretakers littering the courtyard.