That evening, Tiberius called an urgent meeting at the guards’ complex. He was furious with their behaviour at the orphanage. The guards formed a large circle around Tiberius and the head trainer, who was the captain of the guards prior to Tiberius.
‘Today’s actions were appalling and abysmal,’ shouted Tiberius. ‘Twenty-four of my guards disobeyed my orders because they were afraid of some children. I ask you. How can we deal with hardcore criminals, rebels, and gangsters if you are afraid of children?’
‘We were not afraid of the children,’ shouted back one of the guards. ‘We just refuse to slaughter them for the sake of your ego.’
‘When you are a guard, you have one and only one responsibility, and that is to follow the orders of your superiors,’ shouted the head trainer. ‘When Captain Tiberius gives you an order, you will follow it unconditionally.’
‘I am within my right to have all those who disobeyed me executed,’ shouted Tiberius as he began to pace. ‘That is not what I’m going to do. Instead, for the next month, every guard will undergo obedience training. As part of this training, you will be required to obey every order you are given. Any failure to do so will result in your tongue being removed.’
The guards remained silent. The head trainer looked at Tiberius and nodded.
‘All of you down on your knees,’ shouted the head trainer. ‘Lick the floor until I tell you to stop.’
All the guards’ immediately obeyed.
‘Off to a good start,’ whispered Tiberius into the head trainer’s ear. ‘Maybe I’ll be counting less than a dozen severed tongues in a month.’
‘At the end of this, you will have absolute loyalty from every one of them,’ replied the head trainer.
A month passed. Tiberius and the guards had not returned to the orphanage. Instead, Tiberius’ focus had turned to pursuing gangs and the obedience training. He had considerable success in both areas. He and his guards had managed to arrest several of the nastiest gangsters in the North District. Tiberius was actively involved in interrogating suspects. He had a knack for making them talk.
The obedience training was tough. The guards were forced to do horrible and sometimes brutal things to themselves. This included eating manure, running naked during snowstorms, crawling across shattered glass pieces, and submerging feet in boiling water for up to ten seconds. Despite all of these tortures, all obeyed and endured, and nobody lost their tongue.
It was now the final day of the obedience training. All the guards had gathered in the guards’ complex yard. Tiberius and the head trainer stood in front of them. Three dozen beds of nails had been placed on the floor behind them. On the other side of the beds of nails was Patricia Alset. She had a trolley loaded up with vials of an unknown drug.
‘Good news, everyone,’ announced Tiberius. ‘Nobody will be losing their tongues today.’
The guards began to clap.
‘We need thirty-six guards to lie on top of these beds of nails,’ said Tiberius. ‘The rest of you will walk over the guards lying on the nails to reach Patricia. She has a little something for you.’
‘Right, get to it!’ shouted the head trainer.
The guards ran desperately towards the beds of nails. They willingly threw themselves on top of the nails. Some of them cut themselves quite badly. Several guards were so eager they even jumped on top of each other.
‘Enough, enough,’ called out Tiberius. ‘Your enthusiasm is overwhelming. The rest of you cross over to Patricia.’
The remaining guards crossed over to where Patricia was standing. They had little regard for the guards they were trampling on.
‘Tell us what this little something is that you are going to inject into my guards,’ demanded Tiberius as he casually walked across the guards lying on the beds of nails.
‘It is a simple drug that was initially designed to boost health,’ said Patricia.
‘So, does it actually work?’ asked Tiberius.
‘Not at all,’ replied Patricia, ‘but it does have a very interesting side effect. It causes partial brain death.’
‘Sorry, I was under the impression this was going to help my guards not turn them into zombies,’ said Tiberius as he jumped off the last guard lying on the nails.
‘They won’t be zombies,’ said Patricia firmly. ‘In fact, they will improve. The parts of the brain that die only act as a hindrance. The parts that remain will be laser-focused and undistracted.’
‘That sounds completely twisted,’ said Tiberius with a smirk on his face. Tiberius turned to face the guards who crossed over and said, ‘Those who graduated from the orphanage, step forward.’
Twenty-seven guards stepped forward.
‘You can help yourself to this lot,’ whispered Tiberius in Patricia’s ear. ‘They are expendable.’
‘In a month’s time, you’ll be back to have the rest jabbed,’ said Patricia smugly.
To Patricia’s displeasure, Tiberius ignored her comment and turned towards the remaining guards. ‘Help this lot up. They are slightly impaled,’ he said as he looked down at the guards who were still lying on the beds of nails.
‘I’m not done talking to you yet,’ said Patricia firmly. ‘Our research facility is growing rapidly. It needs fulltime security.’
‘I’ll have a security team assigned permanently to your facility,’ said Tiberius as he turned to Patricia. ‘In turn, we would like access to some of your technology.’
‘No problem at all,’ smiled Patricia as she stuck a needle into one of the guard’s arms.
Two days later, NB14564 was peddling the little go-kart that NB14572 had made for him around the field behind the orphanage. A guard approached him.
‘Hey, NB14564, how’s life treating you?’ asked the guard.
‘How do you know my number?’ asked NB14564.
‘I was an orphan here just a few years ago,’ replied the guard. ‘Don’t you remember me?’
‘No, I didn’t spend time with the older children,’ replied NB14564.
‘The other guards from here remember you too,’ said the guard. ‘We all think you would make a great guard.’
‘I don’t like guards, and I have no interest in being one,’ replied NB14564 curtly. ‘I’m going to work at the new Alset research facility.’
‘This go-kart is really cool,’ said the guard. ‘Working for Alset might be a great career choice.’
‘Oh, I didn’t build this,’ replied NB14564 as his cheeks turned a little red with embarrassment.
‘Did your girlfriend, NB14572, build it?’ asked the guard.
NB14564 nodded.
‘Oy, what the bloody hell are you doing?’ shouted Melandria angrily as she approached the guard.
‘Just popped by for a visit. I miss the old place,’ said the guard.
‘You better piss off, or parts of you will never leave here!’ shouted Melandria
‘Okay, okay, I’m off,’ said the guard as he scampered away.
Once he was out of sight, NB14572 shapeshifted from Melandria back into a child.
‘That was so good. You even sounded just like her,’ said NB14564 as he clapped his hands.
‘They know about us, and that is very dangerous,’ said NB14572 firmly. ‘They will use you to get to me.’
‘Let’s run away into the mountains,’ said NB14564. ‘Let’s start our life together. Let’s give ourselves names. Build a cabin. Grow cakes.’
NB14572 smiled at NB14564.
‘We can’t move to the mountains. They’ll track us down,’ said NB14572 as she held NB14564’s shoulders. ‘We will need to leave the North. I heard large carriages leave from the centre of town. We need to get on one of them. I have a rough idea of when they leave. We break out the night before.’
‘I want you to name me,’ said NB14564.
‘Only when we have fled this place for good will I do that,’ said NB14572. ‘It will mark the start, the real start of our lives.’
Sapien Loop: Frozen in Time is the sequel to the book Sapien Loop: End of an Era. Sapien Loop: End of an Era is available on Amazon, in collection series on my 
