The Storm Inside

Chapter Twenty: Revelations

A/N: sooo many reveals in this chapter. Well like, two

"Remind me, why are we doing this, again?" Dove whispered to Mary.

"Because if the electricity is down, then the cameras and a lot of the locks are down too," she replied. "It's the perfect time to do some investigating."

"This is such a bad idea," Dove groaned. I had to agree.

Maeve nodded. "Do you know what happens if we get caught?"

"No, do you?"

"The doctors will probably find out that we haven't been taking our pills. That me and Kaiden, and Mirai, and multiple others have also not been. And then they're never gonna let us see our families."

"They might never regardless," Mary said. "We have to take everything they say with salt now."

"With what?" Dove asked. I was confused too.

"You know. It means that we shouldn't take it super seriously."

"Where did you hear that?"

"Mr. Garcia said it."

"I don't think that's exactly what he said."

We headed up the stairs trying to walk as quietly as possible. "So..." Dove started. "Abiel was in your room."

"He was?" Maeve asked, her eyes wide.

"You guys go in my room all the time," Mary said innocently.

"Yeah, but that's different, we're your friends. You like him and he likes you."

"We're figuring things out," she said. "But he's more than my friend, now. Now that he's been in my room in a not-friend way."

"A not-friend way?" Maeve gasped. "Do you mean...?"

Mary blushed, looking down at her shoes. "I know that we're not allowed to... you know, but... we did. And I think that makes him my boyfriend."

The fact that they weren't allowed to have sex was definitely interesting. I tried to remember if there'd been any sort of rules against that in the orphanage. I doubted it. They just gave us condoms and let us figure out the rest. If someone got pregnant, they would probably have been given a Plan B pill or sent away somewhere. Or, their adoption process would turn into a two for one deal. But here, I could understand. They couldn't have their test subjects procreating when they didn't know what would come of it.

"But you're still my best friend," she continued, taking Dove's hand and squeezing it. "Nothing can change that."

Dove smiled, but I just felt sad for the two of them, because I knew that would change, very soon, since Mary had said that Dove thought she was dead and they hadn't had contact since they were kids.

"What about me?" Maeve asked.

"You're my second best friend."

"I think this is it," Dove said, as we came across a metal door with three heavy locks.

"I don't know about this," Maeve said. "It's very against the rules to go in here."

"So whatever they're hiding from us would be in there," Mary said, pushing open the door.

It was a small room with shelves, filing cabinets, and different technology. I skipped the cabinets and went straight to the computer, hoping they would have the same idea. "Let's try and get into this," Maeve suggested to my relief.

"I think it needs some kind of code," Mary said, as the screen asked for a four digit passcode.

"How far do your abilities go?" Dove asked Maeve. "Just electricity, or could you get us into this?"

"I don't know," she replied. "I could try."

As she went towards the computer, Dove hopped onto the desk beside her and Mary and I went for the shelves, as the filing cabinets had non electrical locks on them. She pulled out a binder and sneezed as dust came off of it.

"Shh," Maeve hissed from the computer.

She rolled her eyes. "No one's going to hear us." She pulled it open, and sighed in disappointment. "It's just the building plans for this place, they're really old."

She placed it on the table beside us, and went for the next one. She thumbed through the binders, but none of them held any shocking secrets, just stuff about the hospital.

"These are boring, we should-" Dove started, but I never got to find out what she had been about to say before Maeve waved us over.

"I did it!" she said excitedly. "I'm not exactly sure what I did, but I was touching the screen and the keyboard and trying to focus really hard, and then the passcode filled itself in!"

"That's great!" Mary said. "Are we in the computer now?"

She nodded. "Yeah, yeah, just give me a moment, that really tired me out."

She sat down on one of the tables, and Mary and I pored over the computer. Once again, I had to be patient with them as they figured out the controls of the computer and how to maneuver it. This took a little while, but eventually we managed to open some files from the home screen. It was mostly different money transactions, for things like food and equipment and payment for the staff, all from a man named Enzo Montgomery.

"Do we know who that is?" Dove asked.

Mary shook her head. "Must be the boss."

So now I had the name of Thomas's old boss who had gotten him into the business, gotten him a job. He must have been some kid intern here. It seemed like Montgomery had seen potential in him. And then he had taken the idea and run amok with it.

"Let's see if we can find anything on our families," Mary said. "I bet they would have them listed in one of these files."

I watched as she scrolled through each of them, looking more and more confused as she didn't find anything. "Why is there nothing about them in the transactions?" she asked. "Wouldn't they be paying the doctors to fix us?"

"Check the emails, they probably send our parents updates about us all the time," Dove suggested. I wished I could tell her that it was all a lie, that there was no one waiting for them, that the reason she couldn't find anything about her parents was because she didn't have any. But all I could do was watch as she searched for them.

"There's something in the inbox," she said. "I think it hasn't been opened yet."

"Is it from our families?" Maeve asked from the chair.

"Let me see," Mary said, opening one and skimming it. "Oh, this is just about the pills, apparently they've been specially made for us. It's from the manufactures."

"What are they saying?" Dove asked.

She looked more and more worried as she read it. "It's a human consumption recommendation," she said softly. She turned to her friends, looking shocked. "They're been feeding us some really dangerous stuff," she said.

"What are they?" Maeve asked.

"They're not vitamins, they're repressives," she continued. "And we're the test subjects."

As they panicked, I went over to the shelf, grabbing the binder with the building plans. I'd had the suspicion for a bit, but now I had to know, even if it turned out that I was just paranoid. I hoped I was just paranoid.

I flipped through every page, looking for details that matched. The sub-level basement that Maeve, Kaiden, Mirai and I had passed while going down to the sub-sub where the train track was, was practically identical to the level I had stayed on with Sophia, just with the room we had stayed in had been a storage room. And behind the train tracks was the prison complex, the cells that Sophia, older Mary, and myself were currently sitting in.

It was the same building, just older and upgraded. Mary was in the exact same facility she'd grown up in and she didn't even know it, presumably because she'd woken up in the cell and hadn't seen the rest of the building. She was back where she'd started.