X-periment 5

The Tracker

“I’d rather not answer.” I simply reply to her. I was trying my hardest to ignore her previous words, truly she had to be mistaken. She just had to be. I’d never seen this woman in my life at least to my knowledge.

“It’s okay. All I want you to get out of this is that you can trust me-”

“Is that so?” Something irked me about her -sureness that she can be trusted by me so easily. That wasn’t for her to decide if whether or not if I could trust her, it was entirely my decision.

“You may not believe it now, but the time will come when you will look back at my words and find them to be true.” her knowing tone made me have chills down my spine. I took this time to examine the others sitting at the sides of the table. The man closest to the woman, seemed to be in his late 40's. His skin was a dark brown, the same color as one of the delicacies I saw but hadn’t tried at the President’s gala oh so long ago. His eyes were a deep brown and his jet black hair was in many braids the same way Celina sometimes kept it.

“Easier to handle and train in.” she would tell me when I asked. He didn’t look like he had any input to the conversation and instead quietly listened to the retorts being thrown with an amused smirk playing on his lips.

The man opposite him had deeply tanned skin and prominent muscles that made me almost worry for anything that could come into physical contact. His face was expressionless, which didn’t surprise me at all. As I made eye contact with him I expected for them to be alert but instead they were weary-almost at our exchange. This surprised me since I expected him to be the one most cautious around my presence, instead it seemed as though he was bored.

As I moved my eyes to the woman next to him I noticed that she refused to meet my gaze. She looked away from my stare covering her face with her long dark brown hair. Noticing that she wouldn’t want to even make eye contact with me any time soon, I averted my eyes to the man closest to me. The color of his hair couldn’t be his natural color, it was an artificial blue like the lights of some of the large screens in Aberithis advertising various useless products. He made direct eye contact with me as if daring for me to say something, anything to him. His eyes were a color similar to mine, amber. He was clearly the youngest of the 5 others, maybe in his early or middle twenties.

“So Rye, care to tell us about your experience at the Institute?” The woman asked me causing me to break my gaze with the blue-haired man.

“Why would I tell you anything, I don’t even know who you all are.” I snapped back but as the woman widened her eyes I silently cursed at myself. I should be more courteous so they can think I trust them. Surely that’s all they want from me.

A silence fell upon the table but soon enough the lady gave out a sigh and cleared her throat. “Why of course, I’m sure if they taught you anything humane there it was manners.”

“I am Council Head of this organization, my name is Cassandra. This man next to me is Lynn, my second in command. The quite intimidating man across from Lynn is Pace; he runs all of the missions and is the operator behind the mission that brought you to us. The woman next to Syn is Josephine, I’m sure that she had Clara take care of your wound already but if not then you’ll meet her after this. And lastly this flamboyant individual is our head of computing and security, West.”
“What do you want with me?” I might as well should’ve asked from the beginning, but with this twist in events I haven’t even gotten the time to do so.

Cassandra smiled at me like a professors back at the Institute would’ve done in pity with a young pupil who hadn’t answered correctly. But sitting here at this table, made me feel like that pupil, meek and naive not understanding what was occurring around me. It was a completely foreign to feel this way.