Rustles

Part 12

She felt sick entire evening, thinking on how she’d given hope to someone, who she would have to refuse one way or the other. Being miss spontaneous wasn’t her thing, she’d had enough exiting life, when living with the circus.

Something she saw that day in her dreams made her reconsider it all. She hadn’t thought on Alex Pickett nearly four years! It had been fun and all, but in the end she didn’t think more of it than a good way to pass two months in big city doing nothing but work and hoping for dreams that never seemed to arrive. But that night she saw Alex again, like she’d seen him the last time – waving for good bye and laughing as he disappeared in the shadows. It had been sad night, one she never liked to think about, because it hurt. Now it was back, stuck in her memory even when she was awake again. The man, who had dug his way through the soil looked similar to Alex – she knew it, but couldn’t put her finger on it.

She woke up in cold sweat, image vibrant before her eyes how the soldier from the years back melted together with the man waving her to leave him to dig his tunnel. It didn’t feel right, this wasn’t true – there was no way it could be true and she was sure he was someone else. But that glimpse of an idea gave her chills. Saving the world wasn’t her cup of tea, but refusing help for them made her feel horrible.

She called sergeant on the next night, right before nine. Isley immediately arranged her to come over on the next day and get acquainted with the group and the methods they used. With methods mentioned, her first thought was dissecting the dead and that nearly sent her to bathroom.

But she found a taxi and found her way back to that street and to that house. It looked different during the day. The greenish glow she’d seen in the night turned out to be dramatic blue, glossed over by yellow streetlights. The cars in front had far bluer tone to them, too, so nothing that seemed black was actually that.

What followed was far cry from shyness of the scientist before. Twin, Shooter and Silver stood on the living room door or leaned against the wall while she was sat on the middle and fed information after information after information. Most of what they told her didn’t actually give her any specifics and everything else was neatly brushed under “top secret, sorry, can’t explain further” carpet.

“There are eleven victims.” The bald man, whom she now knew as Walter Drees, got to the point. “Seven are held here, nearly half have been killed. We hope to find the cure before they all are taken down. In order to do so, they need daily shots and for that we need to hold them here.”

She nodded, though the entire point of it was still lost to her.

“Your job is to help us catch them, when they escape and help to bring them back in order to keep them under the treatment. They’re not… how you’d say… cooperative.”

“What happened to them?” She was holding one of the documents she was shown. It was list of the eleven, all names were neatly blacked out with blue ink checkmarks next to five of them. One was marked with big fat point. This paper represented to her the absurdity of all bureaucracy she had ever come across. What point did such lists have? 

“They were caught unguarded on a mission.” Dr. Hagen said, her eyes fixed on dr. Drees’ face. “They were attacked with chemical that triggered the change in their body about a year ago. One of the most notable features is their nails! And muscles! They can go through remarkably strong materials with minimum damage!”

Margaret stared at her new friends with enough horror to shut her up.

“Sorry, I get carried away sometimes.”

Perhaps she can find a way to cope with it some day, but what did she mean by minimum damage? The men she saw were all covered in blood! She felt madness, terror in their actions that pushed them to either run or die – how on earth could she see anything positive about that?