White Space

31

 It would have been more than enough—and more than helpful—for Doc to just remove herself from the lab and do whatever kind of patching up she might have had to do. Accacia hated that she had to be around. Why did she have to act like everybody's reluctant stepmom in this place? And even if she needed somebody to pamper, she could have tended to her favorite pet like she'd always done whenever the kid was chock full of substances that were so clearly missing from her office. Yet, here she was, fully dressed up in a hazmat suit, which, in fact, was just like the surface suits, only with fewer capabilities and allowing for more dexterity, also super cringey yellow. She was looming over her in the decontamination chamber like some watchful, twisted saint. Ah, Accacia could sometimes just slap everyone in the face in this place. Why couldn't they understand she was still an excellent scientist and a good boss?

 She nodded towards her and leaned over the hand resting in the extra secure version of a regular sandwich bag. Well, resting might have been a bit of a stretch, Accacia thought. Although she took extra care to slowly undo the lock, the hand inside the bag twitched ever so slightly. In the few minutes while they suited up, all the black substance that had been oozing from the severed limb had disappeared. Which would have been impossible, Accacia knew it very well. The bag wouldn't let it evaporate. It also didn't leave any kind of dry marks around, so it must have been somehow absorbed back into the hand. It was ridiculous to arrive at such a conclusion, but this was the only possibility left.

 As soon as the bag was open, the shifting under the increasingly pale skin intensified. It was as if the hand itself could sense that there was a change in its surroundings, and it was time to wake up from whatever hibernation had taken place before. Accacia was scaring even herself by arriving at these outlandish conclusions. Then again, the hand was detached from something that also made very little sense biologically speaking, so who could even say what conclusions were considered outlandish anymore? Maybe assigning agency to a piece of inanimate, decaying flesh was still fine.

 She reached forward to secure the hand when it twitched again. This time, it was practically jumping into the air. She pulled her hand back and possibly let out a strange squeal. She wasn't sure. Whatever the hell was happening, it was getting worse. And yes, the damn thing was moving. It wasn't just the shifting anymore. As crazy as all the moving around under the milky white skin was, the actual, full-fledged motion was worse. She had to be quick. She would just take a sample with the small biopsy pistol she had prepared and then close the bag. It wouldn't be clean, but a bit of a messy biopsy was still preferable to whatever was about to happen in there. Pressing down on it with her left hand, she gently picked up the pistol with her right. She felt her brow getting wet with sweat and her breathing was becoming shallower. She slowly turned the pistol towards the mouth of the bag where the severed end was situated. The long nozzle of the pistol inched closer and closer as the hand was visibly undulating like it was about to blow up. All of a sudden, she became painfully aware of the warmth of her own shallow breathing assaulting her sweaty face. She had no idea when it started to bother her, but it was already almost unbearable. She pushed the extractor nozzle clean inside, stabbing the stump in the fleshy part and pressed down on the trigger. The machine did its job with almost inaudible whirring. As soon as the tiny green light came on, she pulled the pistol back. That's when she realized it was stuck.

 "What the—?"

 "What's wrong?" She heard the Doc inside her suffocating helmet.

 "I can't pull it out." She said, trying to tug at the pistol gently, pressing down a little harder on the hand. "I might have struck a—"

 As she tried to push down harder, she increased the strength of her pull with her right hand in order to dislodge the pistol. She didn't want to wriggle it around. She had no idea about what the hand was capable of, but she felt like that was a bit too dangerous. Somehow, this little tug-of-war was getting incredibly ridiculous extremely fast. She was old enough to remember vaguely what Addams Family was. Then, after failing at it, she decided to yank at the pistol withal she had while pressing down on the hand harder than ever before. The result was a sharp pain in her left palm. She instinctively withdrew it and saw a large, white splinter stuck in the suit.