H.A.L.F.: The Makers by Natalie Wright

didn’t want to speak it out loud. She didn’t think the Conexus were going to eat them, but she didn’t think they would take her home again, either. “I know one thing.”
    “What’s that?” Ian asked.
    “We need to get out of this room and find a way home. And that Infractus creature may be our ticket out of here.”
    “She’s small. Probably easily overpowered. Unless she’s like Tex. Do you think she is?” Ian asked.
    “Only one way to find out.”

8
STURGIS
    Lillian Sturgis paced her jail cell like a neurotic panther in a zoo. Apparently due process doesn’t apply to the former commander of A.H.D.N.A. William Croft’s men had unceremoniously thrown her into the back of a white, windowless van and drove her away from everything that had given her life any meaning. She knew he wasn’t going to have her terminated. Croft was too pragmatic to kill someone who might be of use to him someday, no matter how much the person pissed him off. But being spared death was no consolation. Without her work to fill her days and occupy her mind, she’d go mad. And she’d rather be dead than have her father’s name sullied with the brand ‘traitor’.
    As if to illustrate to Sturgis the breadth of his power, Croft had Sturgis sent to a military prison without so much as a hearing or video appearance before a judge. She didn’t get a phone call. There was no right to an attorney.
    Sturgis hadn’t put up a fight. She’d lived a black-ops life. It was a world with its own peculiar rules but beholden to the law. Croft’s punishment was just the sort of thing she would have done. She knew the way out of her predicament was through outsmarting him at his own game, not by causing a scene.
    What galled her was that she should be punished at all. She’d performed her job exactly as requested and delivered two powerful hybrids. Her reward for a job well done was an orange jumpsuit and a windowless, six-by-ten-foot room.
    The first day of confinement she lay on her bed, stared at the ceiling and did equations in her head to keep herself from punching the wall and screaming out in anger. The second day she asked for library privileges.
    “Nope. We have specific orders that you are not to be allowed library or computer privileges,” the guard had said.
    Sturgis tried to use her authoritative voice. “I know my rights. I demand my library privileges.”
    The guard just shook his head. “Orders.”
    “Who gave the orders?” She had accepted the imprisonment without raising a stink, but denying her the right to access information was a step too far. “I demand to know why I’m here. They didn’t even give me an arraignment. Did you know that? I have the right to –”
    “You have the right to shut your trap before I shut it for you.” The guard’s face had become red and he moved closer to the bars that separated them.
    “You can’t use force on me. You’ll never get away with it.” She tried to sound sure of herself.
    “After what you did? Killing your own men just to test a new chemical weapon. Even the worst criminal in here never did anything like that. You push me too far, I’ll hand you over to the crazy-ass bitches in here and I’ll make sure they know that you killed men under your command just to advance your career. They’ll tear you to pieces, and me and the other guards’ll sit back and watch. So go ahead. Keep talking.”
    Sturgis pursed her lips. Her face was hot with anger, but she kept her mouth shut.
    Lilly had suffered through many difficult things in her life. Days of work with little food or sleep. Living with only the companionship of her paid staff and a few houseplants. Foregoing a normal life with the love of a companion and the joy of children. Suffering through the constant recriminations by her mother and the death of her beloved father.
    But Croft understood her well. He knew the one thing that mattered to her above all else.
    Being a Sturgis. All she’d ever wanted was to live