The Sympathizer

Chapter 36

Lopsided faces, drooping eyelids, awkward gaits. The humans stumble by each other in their quarters where Ron has been broadcasting his feed for us. 

Axis was able to sharpen the images and without all the static interference, they are more horrible than when I last saw them. 

There's a girl standing by the wall, next to her bunk. Her eyes are vacant, saliva dripping from the edge of her mouth. The left side of her face twitches every few seconds but she remains in place like a lifeless zombie. She's not the only one like that. 

Practically all of the humans are non functioning. It now makes sense why the Plutonian presented to us wasn't allowed to speak. It's not that he wasn't allowed to, he couldn't. Somewhere along the transformation, the humans lose their consciousness and never get it back. 

Images of the human in that tank suffering from seizures comes to mind and my body tenses. We're running out of time to act. Even though Ron volunteered, I can't let him suffer the same fate. 

I don't know how I'm going to get him out of there, only that I must. 

We're at the Sympathizer headquarters and General Lyra has been silently watching the feed and the recordings I've received. 

"Our device works well. I'm surprised they haven't picked up any signal from the transference." She finally says once Ron is lead into a chamber for his daily check up. He switches off the device for safety reasons and the screen goes blank. 

I remain silent, wondering how that was the first thing that came to her mind after all the depravity we've witnessed. 

"Oh, wash the judgement off your face. If you're going to be that easy to read, you shouldn't bother about leadership." She says to me irritatedly. 

"We still haven't seen any sign of the brother." I reply, ignoring her statement. 

Her eyebrows raise in question and I sigh. How could I expect her to remember? This was my project, not hers. 

"I sent Ron in to find his twin brother. So far there has been no sign of him."

She puts her fingers to her lips. "The motivating factor. If he has been turned into a mindless Plutonian, then he would not be recognisable. If he is dead...need I say more?" 

How is she not as stressed about this as I am? My frustration grows with each passing second. The General always knows what to do and yet here she is, admiring her spying technology instead.

"I need to get him out of there," I murmur and she casts me a sharp look. 

"Commander, you may leave." She nods at Commander Axis and he quickly exits the room swiftly. The tiny lights above us blend together seamlessly, creating an overcast that illuminates every inch of our viewing chamber. 

Up here, we have full view of the entire floor below. I catch numerous chambers being used to study the snakes General Lyra has been obsessed about. 

She notices my line of view and points to the high chamber by the far wall on our left. "Have I mentioned that those snakes are all female? They reproduce by cloning themselves, every cell, every telomere precisely the same as its mother. Hence, no need for reproduction." 

"They're genetic make up is exactly the same? What about their mannerisms and behaviour?" I ask even though this really isn't the time to be discussing yet another experiment of hers. 

She smiles and the lines around her mouth multiply. "That's the fun part. We can't control their growth, the way they look or their size. But if we intercept their development from the time of birth, we are able to control how they feed, how they act, how they move."