Losing Eight Lives

19 | Lab 6

As we walked through the hallway, I thought a little more about being a Nine Life. We have feline traits?

I thought about that for a second, and studied the way Marty walked. His feet pounded the floor beneath him, and he carelessly shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He walked clumsily through the hall. I thought they walked funny . . .

My eyes shifted to the way Jace walked. He carefully placed one foot in front of the other and smoothly made his way forward. His whole body went into his walk for balance, and his arms were out to his side slightly as they swung back and forth.

Maybe we were the normal ones, I thought defensively, and these huge, careless, clumsy people were the ones who didn't fit in.

We finally approached a glass door. Lab 6 was written on the glass, and behind it was exactly what I pictured a science lab to look like. The walls were white and one large window took up an entire wall. Inside the room were lots of tables and machines, lights and buttons, containers and computers. Adults in long white coats and glasses were everywhere.

Marty grabbed the handle of the door and pulled it hard to open it. The three of us walked into the room as Jace and I stared at the machines in awe. The lights and buttons were all different colors, the machines shined with dull colors of gray and black, few of them matching the white walls behind everything. Marty led us to a wall of TV screens, where a lady sat in a chair staring at them intently.

The woman wore a formal black dress with matching heels, and her brown hair up in a tight bun. Her red lipstick was applied heavily along with the rest of her makeup, and her long pink fingernails were obviously fake. She looked important though.

"Linda," Marty greeted, "The subjects are here as you requested." He said the words with caution, like he was afraid her.

The subjects, I repeated bitterly, they didn't even address us as human beings.

"Thank you, Marty. You are dismissed." Linda turned around in her desk chair and looked at Marty as he walked away. "Phoebe, Jace," she turned back to the wall of screens, "This is where we had monitored you."

My heart raced as I carefully studied the video clips. One screen showed the front lawn of my house. Another monitored Amanda's empty bedroom. A third was placed Jace's deserted living room, and so on. I was looking at a live recording of the road in front of a local store, when the picture changed into a view of the school.

Or, what was left of the school anyway.

A large blackened patch on the ground from where it used to stand was the only trace of its existence. The video looked black and white, but I knew that the ashes and leftover smoke just made it seem that way. The fire seemed gone, but if it was still burning, it moved to some place elsewhere. The only word I could think of to describe it was depressing.

I suddenly found myself holding back tears, and I swallowed hard. I had so many memories in that school. So many fake memories, I reminded myself. So many stimulated memories, gone forever.

I took a deep breath and wiped my eyes casually. "Where's Becka?"

As if answering my question, a screen changed it's picture to a camera that must have been hidden in a tree. The woods were suddenly broadcasted on the TV, and sleeping on the ground in a pile of leaves, was Becka.

Surprise flashed across Linda's face and she sat up straight. "Give me 76," she ordered.

Another screen showed Becka from a different angle, this one showing us a major detail that the other left out. A large fire devoured all the dead leaves and tree skeletons in its path, and crawled right in her direction.

I gasped and felt my eyes widen and insides twist. Becka. Becka wake up, I pleaded silently.

"There she is," Linda stated, "She's about to be burned alive."

I stared at Linda. "Well aren't you going to help her?" I snapped.

"No, we can't. But this is the first time we've located her. So if she lives then yes, we will go out there and get her."

I sighed and stared at the screen for a few seconds. "There's nothing you can do to wake her up?" I asked in disbelief.

"Not before the fire reaches her."

The thought of just watching my friend be burned to death made me sick. Come on Becka, wake up!

"Where did the fire come from?" Jace asked next to me.

"It's probably the same fire that burnt the school down. It finished the school and it's moving on to clear the woods. But don't worry, there's a barrier around the city that isolates it. And we're done with experiments in that city anyway so I don't care if it's burned down." Linda responded.

I care, I thought miserably.

The fire was dangerously close to Becka. But she suddenly jerked awake. Relief flooded me as she sat up and stretched her arms up above her before scanning her surroundings. Her eyes widened with panic when her gaze landed on the fire, and she gathered her things quickly before running away from the flames.

She quickly and smoothly avoided fallen branches and bushes as she ran. Her whole body went into her running as she carefully made her way through the trees. I studied her way of running until she left the view of the camera. Yeah, she does remind me of a cat.

I tapped my fingers on the desk watching Linda do nothing but watch. "Can you go get her now?" I asked impatiently.

Linda rolled her eyes. "Yes, fine. We will go right now," she picked up a small black box next to her and said something into it that I didn't hear. She turned around and faced me with a bored look on her face. "There, now some movie-looking guys are on their way to rescue her," she said dully.

I looked at her for a moment before answering cautiously. "Good."