project madness

three: //t wales

three: //t wales

"Pilot thinks she's the only one who still makes video diaries," I told my webcam, balancing the computer on my lap and leaning back against the wall. My feet hung over the edge of my bunk. It was safer to do that now that Evie was the one on the bottom bunk. It was less safe when I bunked with Fox, because one of the most popular dorm room pranks was to pull people down by their feet. Evie was nice, though, so she wouldn't do that. I hoped.

It was empty in the room. Evie was getting a refill, Pilot was still in the lab, and Fox was who knows where. Probably hooking up with Scippio. Most likely hooking up with Scippio. I wouldn't have ever even thought it before, not until I walked in on them.

I used to think the awkward haul was awkward.

I shook off the memory - literally - and focused back on the video. "Okay, so, it's some time late afternoon on, uh, Friday, and I think it's September but I'm not really sure anymore. And, uh, I'm really bad at these. But today I discovered that Mr. Muffins is hypoglycemic, Tiberius is cannibalistic, Octavius is boringly fine, and Pilot has gotten nowhere with the wires, so I have no way to map their neurological progress besides external outcomes, like Tiberius eating his brother. Jesus, it's actually working. I mean, the brain of animals are incredibly complex and definitely have differences from the human brain, and I was sure I could be able to navigate that of monkeys or something, but rats - rats are a whole other spectrum on the animal line, and getting closer to unlocking their - "

"You sound incredibly fanatic and incredibly weird," Cody said from the doorway.

I turned off the video camera. "Shut up. The rats are my friends."

"You need friends that aren't animals."

I pushed my computer to the side and jumped off my bunk. "You know that's not possible, it's in my brain, you dweeb."

"Did you just call me a dweeb?"

"Yes."

Cody glanced around the empty room, frowning. "Where is everyone?"

You really don't want to know about everyone. "Pilot's in the lab, Evie's getting a refill, and I don't know where Fox is." Technically.

Cody nodded, leaning back against the doorframe and combing his hair out of his eyes with his fingers. He always did that; it always fell back. "So - can I see these cannibalistic rats?"

I grinned. "Yeah, okay. Grayson probably left already anyway, we can go back in."

I wasn't all too upset about Grayson being upset with me, that happened on a daily basis. I was even less upset about Pilot finding out that my parents - foster parents - were, in fact, alive. If only she knew that Beetle's were, too. I was an open book, but Beetle clamped his teeth over that secret and kept it in a cage. I only knew because we came here together. I was the most upset about Grayson kicking me out of the lab, because when he went to measures as extreme as that, he meant business.

On my way back into the hallway, I passed Pilot. "Hey, is Grayson gone?" She nodded tiredly. "Thanks."

I led Cody back into the lab. The room was colossal, fit with long lab tables for each person and a desk. Pilot and Evie were the only ones who actually used their desks. I couldn't tell you what experiments the others were working on, because I was so wrapped up in my rats that I never even paid attention at the twice a year meetings.

"This is Mr. Muffins." I pointed at the first container, pulling on a pair of gloves. "That's Octavius. And that's Tiberius." A buzz of Mr. Muffins' energy connected to mine. He was pissed. I stopped pointing. Much better.