Star-Crossed

Part 41

Once my invisible shield is on, I run as fast as I can to catch-up with Pia. She's just about to enter the main building on KORP's campus. She types a code into the pad - 2100 - the year I was born. And then, she places both of her palms onto black pads and puts her face close to the screen above the two pads.

A code, plus a hand scan, plus a retinal scan - that's how you get into the main building.

The door clicks open and she goes inside. I follow as closely behind her as I can, without actually touching her, hoping that sensors won't detect my body heat.

I make it in without any alarms going off. I let out a big sigh and then immediately regret doing so. Pia swings around, looking for the source of the sound that I just made. When she doesn't see anything, she continues forging ahead.

We travel through a series of corridors - her punching in various codes and getting scanned, me barely sneaking through every time.

Finally, we arrive at a door in an obscure part of the building. It has a symbol on it, which sort of looks like two K's back-to-back, but with everything sort of warped, so it almost looks like the skeleton of a bug or something.

I shudder, remembering the well situation on Mimba.

Again, Pia types in a code - they are different every single time, I have no idea how she remembers all of them! - and has her palms and eyes scanned. But this time, the door doesn't open. Instead, a deep, raspy voice booms out of the speaker next to the door. It sounds like some sort of device is being used to distort the real person's voice, because it sounds overly produced and sort of artificial.

"Pia?" the voice says. "You're late."

"I'm sorry, sir," Pia quivers.

Silence. Pia takes off her hood, and now I notice a green splotch on her neck. She's so skinny that her cheekbones are starting to cave inward. Black bags are beginning to form underneath her eyes. She's lost the luminous glow in her hair and nails and skin. She looks sort of cracked-out - like that old lady from outside the corner story - and scared.

The door clicks open and Pia walks inside. I follow carefully behind her, checking my watch. I have five minutes until I'm no longer invisible.

When we enter the room, there is a big, desk in the middle, behind which sits a tall and ominous man...wearing a mask. It's the masked man from Mimba!

I tuck myself in the corner of the room, behind a chair, so that, even if I were visible, I would not be able to be seen.

Pia takes a seat in a chair right in front of the man's desk.

"What do you have for me?" booms the man in the mask.

"Sir, um," Pia begins, shaking. "The Squad has run several tests on Element X but they haven't found out how to replicate it."

"That's it?" the man screams. "What else?"

Pia gulps, "They've also discovered that it's not the panacea they once thought it was."

The man gets up, picks up a huge glass vase on his desk and slams it to the ground. It breaks into thousands of tiny pieces. A piece of the glass scratches Pia on the face, causing her to bleed. She shrieks in pain.

"I'm not giving you your own private stash of Element X for juvenile work," yells the man. "What else do you know?!"

Now crying, Pia pulls herself together and continues.

"The Squad doesn't suspect that Element X does much of anything at all at this stage," Pia says. "But there's one member, Zayn Malik, who is secretly running his own tests."