There are no identifying markers on her uniform. She looks vaguely middle-eastern, you think, with short dark-brown hair and thick eyebrows furrowed over intense green eyes. Her left ear is missing and a cobweb of white scar tissue covers that side of her face, twisting her lip.
"What country do you work for?" you shout over the engine.
The pistol is pointed in your face. "How many men are there in the facility?" she shouts back.
Over the last weeks you've begun to learn about your new status as a vital resource. The nurses and physiotherapists had been coy about the matter but their care had been both obsessive and impatient, as they hurried to get you stable enough to breed. "Clearly you've come a long way. You wouldn't go to all this effort to kidnap me just to shoot me in the head."
The gun points lower. "We don't need your kneecaps," she states in her heavy accent. "How many more men?"
"I don't know."
"If you don't tell us, there are plenty of nurses who will. My girls will enjoy beating the information out of them."
"Four or five maybe," you say. "Honestly I don't know. They kept us apart to quarantine us."
"There should be more."
"I don't think there are."
She spits an oath in her language, hesitates before barking something into a radio. The armoured transport jerks violently to the side, heading for the front of the hospital. The makeshift military defenses are in tatters, vehicles in flames, soldiers in disarray. A pitter-patter of bullets bounces off the transport.
The enemy soldiers appear at the hospital entrance as the transport nears it. They are dragging a man with them, though his limp body is giving them some difficulty. Two of the soldiers are cut down in sprays of blood. The man is flung around and held up as a shield, a pistol pressed against his head, and the firing ceases. The group reaches the transport and piles in. The rear of the personnel carrier snaps up, plunging the cramped interior into near darkness. The acceleration throws you to the side as seven sweating, blood-soaked women force themselves into your personal space. Hands paw you and elbows and rifles jab you as the soldiers clamber over each other into their seats, cursing all the while. They stare at you appraising.
The man lays on the floor between the two rows of seats. He is old with thin, grey hair and his features are gaunt, his skin deathly pale and flaking and his eyes deeply recessed in black pits. As he looks up and catches sight of you, he wails in horror, more afraid of you than the soldiers. "Get away from me! Don't breath on me, for God's sake!" He covers his mouth with his hands.
"Edel, did you plant the explosives?" the scarred woman asks.
A soldier slips a detonator from her belt. "Yes but-"
"Blow them."
The soldier's finger hesitates on the detonator. "But there are still men in there."
"We take what we can and destroy the rest. Every one we leave behind may breed a hundred thousand soldiers to fight us."
With a grimace of disgust, Edel squeezes the detonator and a ear-splitting boom rocks the transport, followed by a series of secondary explosions. You realise too late that they've just blown up the hospital.
The old guy has crawled to the far end of the transport, as far away from you as he can get, and is screaming to be let out, that he can't be around the "unclean". There are flecks of foam around his lips. The soldiers wrinkle their noses, those closest to him shifting away as he clings to their legs.
"He looks sick."
"Disgusting. He's too old."
"Was he the best you could find?"
"I didn't realise we would be pulling out so soon," one of the soldiers mutters defensively. Her dark eyes flit across to examine you. "At least this wasn't a complete loss. That's the healthiest male I've seen since this all started," she says approvingly. "What's your name?"
"His name isn't important," the commanding officer cuts you off. "It's an hour until we're back at the landing strip, after that you'll never see him again." She rises from her seat and leans in to check your bindings, her scarred face grinning close to yours, before unbuckling her helmet. She runs a hand through her thick, sweat-matted hair. "One hour til the landing strip. You've all got your orders. I expect half of you to be pregnant by the time we arrive. No excuses."
The soldiers turn to look at the drooling, gibbering, diseased old man. There is a sudden rush for your side of the transport.
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