Feeding Ground

Prologue

The receptionist at OriGen's New York office looked up at two young men walking toward the half-circle desk she sat behind. They looked young, around college-aged. One had brown spiky hair and brown eyes and wore a black button-down shirt and blue jeans. The other young man had dark blonde hair and blue eyes and was wearing a flannel shirt over a white shirt and khakis. The one with the spiky hair removed his sunglasses and looked around, then he made eye contact with the receptionist. "Hi, how are you?" He asked politely.

"Fine thank you," The receptionist whose name was Beth, replied. "Who are you here to see?"

"We saw a notice at the college that this place is looking for interns for a two-week project. We wanted to sign up for that."

"Ok!" Beth replied cheerfully, handing each of them a clipboard. "I will need you to fill out these forms completely, and bring them back to me. Then you will go up to the 6th floor and ask for Dr. Silva."

The two young men sat down in the waiting area she indicated and filled out the forms, which were long, and asked extensive questions about their medical history.

About a month later, in a police station near NYU's Greenwich Village campus, the fax machine whirred to life. Two missing person flyers slid out, and a desk sergeant picked them out of the tray. He scanned them and saw that a couple of college students had gone missing from NYU, their parents had not heard from them in several weeks, and they had not been to classes. The sergeant shrugged and figured they probably went on a road trip. College kids did that all the time. He looked at the photos again; one boy had spiky hair and the other had long hair that looked like it might have been dark blonde. He tacked the photos on the board of missing persons. There were so many up there already, children who were much younger than these two. College kids were surely capable of taking care of themselves. The sergeant went back to work and soon forgot all about writing a report on the boys.