Looking for a BETA group for YA, action, adventure manuscript – set in Brazil, featuring clone

BRASILIA MECHANICS started out as what I hoped would be a twisty story but became much, much more than that. I wanted to write something that would similarly distort the lines between the real world and sci-fi noir. The novel would probably span the bridge between young adult and middle grade, although, the protagonist is a teenager, the book will sometimes cover adult themes, situations and ‘language’. So guys, give me feed back on the first three chapters!

ONE

The surrounding sleepy streets were a dizziness of blurred shapes, as a thundering military vehicle swung violently around the corner picking up momentum with another assured gear change. Hazy street lights illuminated the cluttered vicinity of dwellings like a bright electric labyrinth for captivated fireflies and lit the way for the pursuing vehicle. Its four trained occupants had strict orders: no one was to survive from the fleeing vehicle, except one.

Up ahead, the engine of the dirty VW Campervan pulsed at an incredible rate as the driver floored the gas. The vehicle tilted around another corner, zooming through the cluttered streets. A side mirror sheared away as the van hit another parked rust-bucket that cluttered the narrow street.

Outside, screams and gunshots eloped the night in a blanket of confused fear; like most nights in the broken districts that made up the sun-drenched city of Rio de Janeiro.

“AAAGGGHHHH! JESUS CHRIST!” the passenger howled an eye-watering cry in a broad Portuguese accent as a bullet lodged in his shoulder. The driver joined him, yelling obscenities back into the overhead mirror as he saw the pursuing military SUV steadily gaining on them, with a dazzling brightness of headlights and firepower.

“Meus Deus – My God! Amigo… ya… kay?” said the driver. He was built big with dark sideburns and a shaved head. Tribal inkwork decorated his bulging biceps. “Donal—amigo, speak to me?” he said to his wounded friend.

“Sim – Yes,” Donal replied. He was slouched forward in the foetal position, blood seeping through his white vest and under the strap that held his modular belly holster in place. “No worries, Filipe. It is only a flesh wound,” adding, “Just get us the hell outta here!”

“Kay, amigo.” The muscled driver answered, and brought his foot down on the peddle sending the van hurtling down another tight street. “Muito mal, Donal?” he asked, alternating between his native Portuguese and English at every possible opportunity.

“Yes… Filipe, I know the situation is bad. But we have an important job to do,” he answered, gasping for breath. Donal held his palm to the wound in his shoulder, trying to stem the flow of blood.

The big driver looked at his injured comrade. “You’re not kidding ‘bout that,” then nodded in an assured agreement, before shifting his focus back to the road. He gazed back into the little convex mirror above his head and caught sight of the battle-hardened SUV steadily gaining on them. “Why in the hell did we choose the VW as an escape vehicle?” he asked.

“God only knows!” Donal answered, making his friend smirk at his remark.

Donal wheezed heavily, sucking in the searing sensation that fizzled through his muscles from the stray bullet. He was used to the pain that came with being shot. Underneath his white – now visibly darker red vest – his whole body was a jigsaw of holes and scars. It was what had made him into what he was today: a hired gun, one of the best in the districts. But no one had hired him for the task today. He had undertaken that responsibility by himself.

Donal tore a strand of fabric away from the bottom of his vest and dressed his wounded shoulder, reminding himself later, to remove the little souvenir that peppered his body and make it into a keepsake – like he always did, every time somebody had come close to ending his life.

Manoeuvring around on the seat his eyes caught sight of the pursuing SUV through the shattered back window before he found his (precious cargo, resting on the dusty floor).

   The boy is still breathing, he thought, he has to survive, so we all can survive.

“Donal, you think all this crazy shit is real?” Filipe asked.

From the windowless seat of the passenger side, Donal looked across the small distance, contemplating his associate’s question. “You saw it for yourself underneath the building, Filipe. All that equipment, all those bodies!” he dithered for a moment, thinking wildly about the stuff they’d seen. How come I couldn’t see this shit myself? “It’s all off-beat and weird like Hollywood has come to town—Schwarzenegger type-style crazy action stuff!”

“I’ll be back kinda stuff! Hey?”

“Sim – Yes. Just like that, Filipe.” Donal answered. He was aware of his best friend’s timely wit, which brought a small smile to his face.

The muscled driver nodded. Donal knew his eldest friend was correct, even if he didn’t want to admit to himself what he saw back in that secret underground scientific room—to be true.

Donal felt himself take an unconscious step back earlier in the night. Huge metallic pods filled with thick green liquid surrounded bodies lined side-by-side, around the inside of a huge round room. The sheer size of space seemed to be the same as an Ikea store, except without the ready-to-assemble furniture and the astonishing amount of traditional Swedish meatballs. Nestled between each pod sat screens and computers of varying sizes that were fed by multiple coloured wires.

Filipe looked at his friend once again, his brow furrowed, his sideburns rising. “And taking the kid… it’s only way?” he asked.

Donal stole another sharp glance back over his shoulder (a scar roped up the back of his neck and trailed behind his right ear, another sign of past dark deeds) until he saw the small holes of light filtering through the VW’s side where the bullets had just entered. Then he dropped his sight to where the boy lay. A black cloth bag covered a young face with black hair, while a thin torso wriggled madly, and spindly legs kicked out in desperation.

“Sim – Yes Filipe, this is the only way!” he eventually answered.

Filipe nodded back and stole a quick glance into the back of the vehicle. “The kid is awake, amigo. You think he understands us?” The VW engine suddenly revved to a mechanical scream as he shifted gears.

“Maybe, Filipe,” Donal answered. “Maybe the boy does. Maybe he doesn’t. But he is with fear, and at this moment, fear is our greatest leverage in this dangerous situation.”

“Is that right?” Filipe added. He sounded rather dubious with his friend’s unconvincing explanation. “What shall we do now with the kid?”

“Sedate him,” Donal replied. Then winced in pain as the van tipped into another tight side street. He righted himself, before pulling a syringe from the half empty glove compartment. “Then we’ll keep to the plan and wait to see what happens, Filipe.” He discarded the protective tip and flicked the small needle with his ring-finger. “There’s some shady stuff goin’ down where the kid’s father works, and we need to find out what?” adding, “The next move is in his father’s hands. If he cares about his son’s safety, then he’ll stop whatever madness is happening at that company!” Then he climbed into the back of the van.

Filipe grunted a reply but was far too busy navigating the shallow streets of the favela with uncomfortable ease to see his friend try and administrate the cocktail of drugs to the kid.

The enemy’s SUV was in touching distance to them now.

TING! TING! TING! TING!

“Quickly, amigo,” Filipe yelled, as another spray of bullets hit their ride. “Those gringo’s are gaining on us!”

The young captive suddenly lashed out a foot towards his kidnapper in a vain attempt to knock him over and to win his freedom. But Donal side-stepped the foot and went to one knee, ready to inject the clear serum into his hostage’s arm.

“Calm down, kid! I promise it won’t scramble your brain.” He said unashamedly, then gave the syringe a little squirt. The young prisoner wriggled like hell, but couldn’t speak.

“What’s the deal, amigo? You finished, yet?” The driver hastily enquired. He was getting annoyed by the constant spray of bullets puncturing tiny holes into the old van’s side. “What you doing back there, taking the kid for dinner or something?”

As Donal squeezed down on the plunger, the glass canister containing the general anaesthetic vanished, and he finally relaxed his grip from around the boy’s arm, as his willingness to escape slowly subsided, and Donal turned back around. “You’re a funny fella, Filipe,” he said, “You know that. Right?”

“I know.”

Filipe leant over the wheel. A dragon tattoo crept silently around his neck. His keen, experienced eyes had picked out the path ahead. They were only several miles to their patch. Nearly home. The night was just ticking over into the early morning, yet still, little bright lights flickered ominously on, like the communities that formed the favelas around the vast sun-drenched city.

Donal sighed and struggled with his victim again. Normally, dosing a hostage was no problem, especially a teenager, but with an injured arm and only himself to restrain and to administrate the concoction of drugs – it was hard work.

“How about that, huh?” he finally said, and the youth fell silently to the rusty floor. Donal cushioned the kid’s hooded head gently down then answered his accomplice’s question. “Yeah. We’re done, Filipe. Huh, I guess he didn’t like what I was serving him for dinner, after all.”

The muscled driver allowed one firm hand to unwrap from the steering wheel and held up a high-five to his partner. His face cracked into a smirking grin, so wide Donal found himself smiling back. On the back of his friend’s knuckles – LOVE – was inked in stunning purple and black italics. Filipe laughed and slapped his sweaty hand back across the wheel; love coming with it like an inspiring 60’s symbol.

The driver began talking in his Portuguese ghetto-esque accent once again, but Donal tuned it out. The night wasn’t going as planned and his friend’s unsavoury mouth was the last thing he needed. Then something flared in front of his vision through the dirty front window of their ride.

“TER CUIDADO – WATCH OUT, FILIPE!” Donal yelled.

Filipe spun the wheel and pulled the van hard left – the occupants in the back performing freestyle acrobatics – before returning his attention to the street just in time to see the side of another rust-bucket slide right across their path. Filipe spun the wheel back in the opposite direction, and Donal flew towards the front compartment like a drunken superhero who couldn’t quite get off the ground, before negotiating the VW Campervan around the rear of the passing vehicle, mainly with luck, and years of precision driving skills.

Donal quickly grabbed at the ripped plaid interior of the passenger seat and tugged himself into a sitting position. “LOSE EM’, FILIPE!” he shouted, “QUICKLY, GO, GO, GO!”

There was a Thum, Thum, Thum, like a drum roll in a marching band, and then the windows exploded, filling the vehicle with the burning smell of lead. The high calibre weapon fired again from the pursuing military SUV, and Donal ducked, the bullets narrowly missing the top of his head. Filipe shouted a barrage of insults but to no avail. He glanced left, then right, a solid concentration forming across his hard-set face.

   “Shit!” muttered Donal, and flung a look back over his shoulder in the direction of their uninvited guests. He had a sense that their mission had failed before it had even crossed the starting line, and zeroed in on the pursuing headlights. “We’re done now. Time… has finally run out for us, amigo.”

Filipe jerked his head to his left and was ready with a reply, “Is that—” but his sentence trailed away like a dizzy dream.

The van clipped the side of a crumbling building and propelled the back-end into a freestyle whirl, which sent the occupants into a swirling haze of dizziness. The military SUV slowed to a halt, as the VW careered over a blip in the street, demolishing a brick wall and smashing through the centre of one, then two tin shacks, before eventually coming to a stop through a third home. There was a sudden BOOM as a gas canister exploded somewhere close-by and a terrific heat engulfed the van-sized hole in the first and second tin shacks, making the homes look like an oversized pizza oven from hell.

Donal woke up in blackened surroundings and rolled over to his side. He jerked at the shock at being outside of the escape vehicle. He could feel the heat and see wreckage and flames everywhere.

“Ah, Jesus…” he muttered and grabbed for his injured shoulder before he finally pulled himself up and towards the wreck. His head hurt as well as every other muscle in his body, and he was dizzy. For a moment, he stood transfixed, unable to remember what had happened. Then he remembered, and looked around and heard commotion in the distance. He wasn’t sure if it was the angered Moradores da favela (the inhabitants of the sprawling slum) or the armed soldiers closing in around him? But he wasn’t that interested in keeping around to find out. Donal reached down to his modular belly band holster – his pistol wasn’t there – and a flurry of extremities escaped his mouth.

Donal limped towards the front of the carriage and looked through the hole – the passenger door had sheared clean off – and found Filipe sprawled awkwardly over the lip of the missing windshield. He wasn’t moving.

“Meus Deus – My God, Filipe, you okay?” he called and manoeuvred himself through the doorway. “Filipe! Talk to me? Filipe!”

His muscled friend didn’t answer. Donal reached over and felt for a pulse. Filipe was dead. Donal’s mouth dropped open in disgust, and he crisscrossed his chest out of respect for his fallen comrade. But he couldn’t rest, not here, not yet and steered himself into the back of the now fast-filling smoking van. The boy lay drugged on the rusted floor; his body curved in a graceful arc. Searching for a pulse Donal found one. Thank God, the boy is still breathing; he thought, I can’t leave him here, I have to save him!

Donal swung a kick at the side-door and the rickety catch gave away – the door rolling away with a suspended judder – before pulling himself out and then the boy. Looking around, Donal heard shouts and shots above the roar of flames. He knew the armed posse of soldiers wouldn’t be able to cross the burning ring of fire; and with the added influence of the local cartels entering the frame sooner (he hoped, rather than later) knew the pursuing soldiers didn’t have long before they had to make a hasty retreat.

Shuffling the boy over his good shoulder, Donal followed a clear trail through the decrepit tin house towards a door and hoped it was all clear on the other side. With one final glance back towards the smoking VW Campervan, he wished his former friend all the best in his next life, and then with a mighty hoof, he unleashed a thundering kick which knocked the dangling door off its hinges and disappeared into the frantic darkness.

TWO

The man in the tactical ballistic vest stood atop the hill, a small-calibre handgun dangling from his upper thigh, and watched as a heavy black body bag got loaded into the waiting chopper. Thick black smoke drifted below from the hundred make-shift houses that had made-up part of the slum. Two dozen figures armed with standard automatic rifles and side-arms ringed the area in a protective stance, casually standing around the scorched ground, looking on idly as the intense morning heat hit the intense noon heat.

He dialled a number on his mobile as a plume of dirty smoke blew gently in the wind until it reached his nostrils. “One body of interest to report, sir,” he said in a thick Afrikaans voice. “It seems he was an employee of your company that we can make out from the insignia on his garbs that wasn’t burned to a crisp in the inferno last night.”

“That is a shame,” a nervous voice answered from a far away building. “Just the one body, you said? Are you sure?”

As the standard black chopper departed the devastating scene that had engulfed the favela the night before, the cautious man brought his eyes back towards the burnt-out shell of a VW Campervan. It was nestled uncomfortably in the middle of a former home. “Unfortunately, sir. I’m sure. The body is on its way to the facility, should be with you shortly, sir.”

“Mike, I want to know if that burnt ruffian had accomplices and how many there were? And locate the boy! If you don’t, then the whole operation is over. We cannot afford any more misdemeanours. You understand me, Mike?”

“No need to worry, sir. I have my best men on the case.”

The line went dead for a few seconds before a heavy sigh flooded the mobile’s tiny speaker. “Just make sure you find the boy, Mike. Alive if possible for the benefit of his father. We cannot afford to have him out of the endgame for the foreseeable future. Dr Jones needs to be on his tippy toes for the next stage of the project and not pestering me by trying to involve the Federal Police.” There was a moment’s pause again before the line flooded with the man’s voice. “Mike… dead is plausible for the boy if another outcome cannot be sorted in time,” adding, “I’ll start on a replacement protocol as soon as possible.”

“Understood loud and clear.” The man with the protective vest replied. “Hopefully, the situation will not build to that outcome.”

“Mike, there is no hope if you can’t locate Dr Jones’ son in the next day or so,” The voice down the phone sighed again. “Just make sure you are gone from the area before BOPE decides to spearhead an intervention.”

“That won’t be a problem, sir. We have got what we need, and by the time BOPE shows up with their shiny batons dangling between their legs—we will be long gone.”

“Good to hear,” the voice answered. “That’s why I always rated you, Mike. You are clinical to the last detail on any mission that you are assigned to.”

“True, sir. You have to be in a job like mine,” he replied. There was a short, sharp, laugh on the other end of the line before it eventually went dead.

Mike gazed over the top of multi-coloured roofs crawling up the hill below to where BOPE. The Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais (PMERJ) Rio de Janeiro’s elite police battalion, was slowly making their way to where his men stood. To arrest or drive out gang leaders, which were believed to have caused last night’s horrendous inferno.

It was standard protocol for Mike’s talented team to feed false information to the region’s TV and News broadcasters; for any unforeseen complications that may have popped up and disrupted an assignment in which he had been assigned too.

The response was always the same by Rio’s authorities: they sent in this specialised crack military unit. Nicknamed the Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad) – they specialised in urban warfare and counterterrorism.

So the government has sent in BOPE to clean up my employer’s mess! Mike thought. He made out their insignia: skull, dagger and crossed pistols emblem on the doors. It looked more like a gang-patch than a police unit.

Heavy armoured trucks with 50mm-calibre rifles and armour-piercing ammo, flashing lights moved together up the tight streets, furiously, fruitlessly.

Mike gazed on appreciatively as about twenty tropas – troops, in their black uniforms, some with German shepherds dispersed into the tight lanes of the favela. Better trained than ordinary police units, they had a reputation as some of the most capable and lethal units in the world. These soldiers had the firepower to rival the gangs’ and weren’t afraid of a ruck. But luckily the local cartels had turned out and were making it a difficult task for BOPE to reach Mike’s standing position, and a wet smile broadened across his grizzled jaw.

Mike’s features were that of a seasoned rugby player; big and muscular, a brute of an intelligent monster. In retrospect, he had been a Captain in South Africa’s apartheid-era security forces and was a veteran behind the Boko Harem rout that had helped to end the six-year reign of terror in northern Nigeria. To his men, he was a quiet, hard-working, just in his discipline and a generous supporter of the greater good.

“Oh, I’m superb at this,” he announced to the surrounding hot breeze.

Mike set off down the stony footpath to herd his clean-up team into the three remaining choppers that would ferry them the short distance back to the checkpoint. Lifting a single digit, he made a lasso action above his head and summoned the pilots to start their engines. A whirring sound began to fill the vicinity as dark blades began to spin to a Black Swan rhythm, and his team made their last checks around the area as they swept in towards their departing flight.

Mike pulled his small-calibre handgun from his holster and unloaded five shots into randomly placed metallic barrels. Each exploded in a haze of smoke and fire and instantly caused mayhem in the skirmishes at the bottom of the hill. Gazing the ground in a neutral fashion towards his waiting flock, he loaded himself into the cockpit next to the pilot. “Take us home,” he ordered, and his instructions relayed to the other waiting pilots.

In a whirl of combat engines, gunfire and smoke-induced mayhem, Mike and his team enjoyed the unfolding show below, minus popcorn and fizzy drinks. Soon, though, they would have another mission – to find Dr Jones’ son. Dead or alive.

THREE

Light filtered through the end of his eyelashes splashing darkened colours into his blurred vision. The boy felt light-headed and touched his sweaty brow. He felt like a truck had hit him, followed by another. Wincing, he brought his bandaged wrist up close and personal to his face and examined his injury. He could wiggle the end of his fingertips easily, but his whole wrist still throbbed with a stabbing pain.

The boy took a deep breath and lowered his bandaged hand back down by his side. He was lying on a bed. Where the hell am I? He thought, shaking his blurred vision away.

He tried to remember what had happened to him. How did he get here? How did he hurt his hand? Who had bandaged his hand? He lifted himself up with the flat of his right palm, his arm muscles struggling with the uneven weight, and stared uneasily around his new surroundings. Shafts of light crept through cracks in the walls. There were no windows. The room was a mish-mash of timber and metal with big rusty bolts thrown here and there. Sun-faded posters of old music bands and athletes he had never heard of peeled from the walls. The whole place looked like it was about to fall to the ground at any moment.

He shook his head. My name is Adam, he thought. At least, that’s a start. But that was all he could remember. Strange, that he couldn’t remember anything else? His parents, friends, where he lived, even his surname. All of the relevant information in his life—lost. But how? He thought, how is it possible that I can only remember my first name, and nothing more? And yet, he had facts and figures. Adam certainly knew he had attended school. He had relocation of events in history: from Gaius Julius Caesar through to Napoleon. Adam understood mathematics. He was aware that the Earth travels around the Sun. He even knew he liked to eat fish and chips. It was crazy having these pockets of blurry images floating around in his head of common facts. But no precise detail of his most intimate details, and how they were all connected. It was a baffling sensation.

The English language should have a word for that feeling you get when you first wake up in a strange freaking room and have absolutely no relocation of where you are. If it does, Adam would use that little chaotic word, right here, and right now.

Adam eventually swung his legs over the edge of the bed and touched the ground. Hard concrete connected with the soles of his feet, but it was warm to the touch. The whole room was warm. He was wearing unfamiliar clothes; a pair of black sports shorts and a yellow singlet with a – white tick – striking through the middle. He couldn’t imagine himself ever wearing threads like these. Adam looked around his new environment. The room was square-ish, uneven in how it had been built. It was also small, but not too small. He had room to move, to stretch and to walk. There was a small wooden table next to his bed with a half-used-candle standing centre. A ceramic bowl and jug of clear fluid stood next to the semi-sculptured wax statue. As his eyes adjusted to the fading light that flashed through the cracks in the wall, he guessed it was fast approaching early evening: wherever he was?

“Where the hell am I?” he frustratingly said. While a little voice in the lower regions of his brain, asked: I hope we ain’t going end up as mincemeat?

Adam looked around again and saw a door above a single step. It was positioned on the far side of the room and shut. He hoped it wasn’t locked. Blinking, he stared at the door again. He was in a cell, and he was on his own. “Hello!” he whispered. Then again, a little louder. “Hello… is anyone there?” But there was no reply, just a scurrying of tiny paws echoed from a corner.

Adam was inclined to lift his feet from the ground but didn’t. That little voice in his head awoke again: Come on Adam. Pull yourself together and find a way out of this mess!

Cautiously making his way over to the door on the opposite side of the room, he tried to open it. It didn’t budge. Adam tried yanking the handle, still nothing. The door was heavy, bulky, made from steel. “HEY! WHAT’S GOING ON?” he shouted. No one answered. At that moment, Adam thought he might be in prison. But that was impossible. Adam took another look around. Prisons, are nothing like this? If this was a prison, how long have I been imprisoned? Maybe, a day, a week, maybe longer?

Suddenly, he jerked around at an unseen voice. “Who’s that?” he asked, worryingly, looking for the source of the sound. “C’mon! Where are you? Show yourself, already, I can hear you, you know!”

Adam heard the murmuring of sound again—it was a voice. He looked up at the door frame. There was a grill slightly to the left, too high to reach. Adam was quite tall even standing on top of the step, but still, the grill sat a good four feet away. He heard a voice again, coming from the small metal bars of the grill. But it was different to the first voice, more subtle. Was it a girls voice, he could hear?

Then the voice’s stopped.

Adam’s heart started to thud as he heard keys in the door; loud enough to wake the dead. He pulled back immediately from the doorway, nearly falling over. And then there was light, fragmented light with a shadow at the centre that stood before him. Adam squeezed his eyes shut and tried to regain some composure. Come on, pull yourself together, he told himself. He shut and opened his eyes another couple of times before he eventually kept them open. His heart had slowed, but only slightly.

A kid stood in the doorway with fists clenched, and was narrow-shouldered and thin-hipped and dressed in a corporation’s worst nightmare. An old yellow and blue Nike soccer jersey clashed arguably with a pair of white and black Adidas shorts. Paint splattered converse sneakers made up his outstandingly muddled outfit of logos. Adam guessed that his new threads came from the ‘kids’ wardrobe.

Adam eventually backed away towards the bed. “Who are you?” he asked, unsure of what answer he would receive. “What do you want with me?” The kid took the single step in one stride, and Adam jerked further back out of surprise, but mainly with fear. “Now wait—stay still. Tell me what’s happening here?” and his fingers found the scratchy fabric of the bed.

The kid didn’t answer. A ragged fringe swept across his forehead. It reminded Adam of a legendary Brazilian striker. Then he took another step forward. “Don’t come any closer! I mean it,” Adam said. “STAY… WHERE… YOU ARE!” his voice rising out of desperation.

Adam searched around for anything that he could use as a weapon. The bowl and jug were the closest objects to him, but he knew they wouldn’t cause much damage. Adam could use one of the legs of the small wooden table as a club if he smashed it against the wall. It would have to do, he told himself and made a whirlwind move towards the table. The assortment of objects that nestled on top – flew in every direction, as he lifted the small table quickly with his good hand and smashed it against the wall: sending chunks of wood everywhere.

Adam spun back around with the club in hand and thundered: “DON’T TAKE ANOTHER STEP CLOSER OR I’LL BATTER YOU LIKE A PIECE OF FISH!” adding, in a calmer voice, “Please, just tell me… where am I? I really don’t want to fight you!”

The kid’s hands were instantly up; hands clenched, then there was nothing for a few seconds, no movement, no speaking—just nothing.

Yeah, this is different? Adam thought, but he still didn’t like the look of how the kid held his hands. Then there was movement behind the ‘kid’ and another figure stepped next to him. Adam’s brain roller-coasted into a steep desperate fall. Oh no! There’s two of them? And then Adam tightened his grip on his new found weapon.

The new kid was a girl; she didn’t say anything and stood calmly still, as Adam acted like a Neanderthal.

Adam saw her small eyes blinking through the strengthening light that filtered through the cracks in the walls. “W-what’s wrong with you? Why aren’t you talking?” he nervously asked. “P-please… tell me,” stammering, “w-what’s… happening here?”

The girl inclined her head, bit her lip, and stepped towards him.

Adam tightened his grip on his make-shift weapon. But instead, the girl turned and said something in another language – he didn’t recognise – to the kid beside her.

As the two talked, argued (whatever) Adam noticed both of them shared the same black hair. But the girl’s skin had a golden complexion, more coppery than the boys. Also, she was much, much smaller than the ‘corporations’ worst nightmare. He listened to the conversation brewing between flurried-hand-movements of the friends (he assumed) but still, Adam couldn’t understand the language.

Suddenly, a trickle of information drip-fed into his frontal lobe like a hungry hippo. Are they speaking Portuguese? Adam stood quietly, thinking. Am I in Portugal? Why am I in Portugal? How did he know what language they were speaking? Adam couldn’t ever recall studying it at school. He didn’t even think he could speak the language. Wow! Can I actually remember my school? He thought. Eden’s College in Oxford. It was the same school as his dad had attended. Slowly, his memories were returning to him. I spent three years there… until… until… Then his trail of thoughts avalanched in on themselves, and he couldn’t remember anything else.

The girl spun back around and gazed at him for a tantalising moment; judging him like a prize-winning greyhound, before taking a step forward. The girl bit her lip again and asked in an assured manner: “How do you feel, now? Better, I hope? You look more alive than you did a few nights ago.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed, his mouth widened with a bemused look planted unceremoniously across his face. Apart from being imprisoned, not knowing where he was, loss of memory: he felt bloody excellent. “Y-you… speak English?” he stumbled. It wasn’t meant to be a question, but it escaped his lips as one.

“Sim” – she nodded, then shook her head – “sorry, I mean… yes. Yes, I do! When I need too,” she declared in moderately good English.

When you need too! You needed to, five minutes ago? Adam thought but didn’t say this aloud. Instead, he asked a flurry of questions that were beginning to burn a great big hole in the back of his mind. “Where am I? Why am I here? What did you do to me? Why can’t I remember things? Who are you people?” He didn’t know if people was the right choice of word, considering that they were nearer enough the same age as him. He assumed.

The girl interrupted. “You want answers? We can give you these. But first” – she gently raised her hands in front of her, her palms facing towards Adam as to not alarm him any further – “please, please put down your weapon so that we can talk… correctly?”

Adam gazed at her with a look of are you friggin kidding me? Then his gaze slipped off her face and onto her hair, then onto her vibrant blue eyes. With a monumental effort, he finally wrenched his gaze back onto her face, and said, “I don’t even know where I am. All I want is some help. So, until I have answers, and then, maybe then, I will consider it!”

She let out a faint gasp and blinked back at Adam reluctantly.

Adam had almost forgotten about her friend standing next to her when suddenly the kid made an involuntary move towards him, and he was ready; clamping his sticky palm around the table’s broken leg, and then made a forward motion with his makeshift weapon. “What’s your problem? I told you already, stay where you are!” he said, wanting to keep the fear from his voice.

The girl instantly raised her voice, said something in her native tongue, and her friend – stopped dead in his tracks. The kid looked at her for a moment, the corners of his lips were slightly turned down with an expression of I’m sorry for that, spread across his face.

“W-what… did you say to him?”

“I asked him, to stop being a dick,” she replied. “This is the right term; you would use to describe someone aggravating someone else?”

Adam considered the question and nodded an affirmative ‘yes’ back towards her. Then he looked the girl up and down, nervously. Unlike her friend, she didn’t wear a multitude of logos. She was wearing black shorts, a cream singlet and a baby blue beanie, which fell slightly over her left eye and held her long dark black hair in place. Her bright blue eyes shone as she gazed back at him.

She smiled again and calmly reassured him. “Please, Adam put the weapon down!” before immediately biting her lip, once again. “I swear on my mama’s life that we honestly mean you no harm.”

Adam’s shoulders slumped a little, his eyes flickering, and his good hand holding the wooden club relaxed. “W-what’s happening? Seriously… why am I here? H-how do you know my name?”

“You were repeating it, over and over in your sleep,” the girl answered almost apologetically. “We understand—this to be your name? Are you called Adam?”

She was looking at him with eyes wide, now.

Adam felt his palm unwrap around the weapon, and it hit the hard floor with a clank. “Really! Was I? Why was I repeating my name, over and over for?” he said to himself, unsure if he did or not, and finally brought his eyes back to hers. “Yes. Of course, I mean—Adam. I’m Adam,” he muttered slowly, calmly under his breath.

The girl nodded then gently smiled at him. “It’s nice to meet you, Adam!” and her friend nodded his head next to her as well but kept still as a cat this time.

Adam studied them, finally asking, “Who are you? What are your names?” A pause. “And what the hell is happening here? Happening to me?”

The girl stepped closer.

“I am Catia, by the way,” she said, “but you can call me Cat,” and with a wave of her hand, she introduced the boy standing next to her. “And this is Felix, and he means you no harm.”

Adam gazed across at him.

The kid stood planted to the floor, like a chess piece just before its great first interaction. Finally, he stuck out a hand in the general direction of Adam, and said in a thick Portuguese accent, “Ola, boa noite, Adam! Muito prazer.” before adding in English. “My name’s Felix.”

Adam’s eyes shot towards the girl’s eyes for help in translation.

A smile ripened her face, and she bit her lip for the unbelievable amount of times. “Olá, boa noite – it means, hello, good evening, Adam. Muito prazer – it means, pleased to meet you.”

He didn’t quite understand why he was extending his hand towards the kid who he thought was going to attack him a few moments ago, but the words trickled from his mouth like moist honey. “Olá, Felix. Muito prazer!”