Sixteen (ON HOLD)

2.5 One Step Behind

Cole entered the exam room just as Sadie was coming around, her mind racing to separate the two distinct sets of memories that now consumed her. Kate spoke out loud, with no one else in the room there was no reason not too.

“Have you helped any of the others yet?” Kate was hopeful, anxious to get things back under control.

“No,” he paused, looking away from her. She was not going to like what he was about to suggest. “We need to find Krave, try to heal him, and get out of here.”

The girls both looked at him with horrified expressions. Their human sides were starting to emerge, and fear was their first lesson. Not liking the emotions their frightened faces evoked in him, Cole launched quickly into his explanation.

“This mission is compromised. The longer we stay here the more chance we have of being discovered and I’m not talking about this backwards county police department. You know who I’m talking about. We were supposed to come back and assimilate, stay just long enough to confirm that the experiment was successful and then return. So far we’ve been damaged in transit, examined by tests that are bound to come back suspicious and shown ourselves to be different at every possible turn.”

“So what are you suggesting? That we abandon the others? Or is it the whole mission you want to abort? Are you ready to just go home and wait to die Nox, is that it?” Kate moved across the room to where he stood as she yelled at him. That was a mistake. As she neared him the heat from his body melted her resolve. Memories, not her own, but Kate’s real memories, swelled up inside of her. She could clearly see moonlight gleaming off the hood of a vehicle, smell the freshly cut grass wafting through the cracked open windows and feel the heat of desire as Cole’s steady hands unbuttoned the top button on her blouse. Shaking the memory from her mind, Kate fought the urge to turn away. For some reason she didn’t want anyone to know what she was thinking, embarrassment, she noted.

“Use the human names,” Sadie reminded them, standing up. “And don’t worry about what a few test results might show or about a few displays of questionable ability. We’re talking about the human bond between parent and child here, it’s the only reason I agreed to the assimilation with teenaged subjects. These parents will believe anything, and ignore everything, just to have their children back. Trust me on that.” Sadie, used to breaking up arguments between the two teammates, stepped in-between them and pushed them apart.

“There will be four of us,” Cole said quietly, trying to calm himself, “that’s enough to continue the mission if we just get out of here, the others will be fine. They don’t remember anything, in time their new families will accept them and they’ll just stay here.”

“You don’t actually know that, look at what happened to Krave, I mean, Troy. His host body isn’t functioning, what if that happens to the rest of them?  It will be Experiment 9 all over again, and there will be no one here to help them,” said Kate.

“This is exactly why you shouldn’t be in charge; you don’t know when to cut losses!”

Their voices were starting to rise again, and Cole started to tap his fingers rhythmically against a stainless steal counter top, faster and harder until his abnormal strength caused slight indentations in the surface.

“They are not losses, they are people. They are our people, and we are not leaving them here!” Kate watched Cole’s fingers fly up and down against the counter; the annoying tapping was his flaw. As cold as he wanted to appear, he was having trouble with this as well. It wasn’t going to be as easy as they had imagined and they had already tried to imagine the worst.

“Quite!” Sadie shouted the word soundlessly into their heads, as heavy footsteps barreled down the hallway outside their door.

The Chief knocked once then threw open the door without waiting for an answer. His face and neck were red, his breath fast and hot like he had been running. He looked taken back at the three of them, expecting to find only Kate. He took a moment to consider his safety before entering and closing the door behind him.