Octavio had to think. Revolution seemed unthinkable, they'd be killed just for trying. Octavio thought about joining the others and storming out of the room in disgust but that seemed wrong too, it seemed like cowardice. It wasn't that he disagreed with the Madame, he was afraid of the cost. However he believed she was right; the current government was an abomination. When Octavio thought about his own life he considered how the Government's actions had destroyed it. First they tore apart his family by deporting his father; then they took him from his mother; stuck him in a residential home where he was beaten; and turned him into a criminal just for trying to use his powers to help people. They took what should have been a gift, something that should have given his life purpose and turned it into a curse, that would weight him down and made him a pariah.
What she suggested still seemed extreme, putting Awakened at the fore front didn't sound like a utopia. Testing sounded insane but what if it could make him better? Able to finally become the kind of hero he'd seen on the news and read about? Maybe if he stayed he could he keep this from going too far and then the ends could justify the means. Once his mind was made he spoke, "Alright, I'll join you, I've seen too many people suffer under this government, I've had friends killed just because they wanted to fulfill their purpose and help people. Something needs to change, and they've made it impossible for us to do it from within the government, so we've got to do it from without."
The Matron listened placidly, mostly staring into and stirring her tea as the children spoke their piece. Emil and Octavio were on board immediately; that was encouraging. Dana had questions, which was only too reasonable. But Enrique remained in an uncomfortable silence, and the rest had turned quickly to insults. She sighed. She had expected this, though, as children lacked the vision that comes with age. They also lack some of the right information. With a smile, she turned to Dana.
"I will answer your questions shortly, my sweet, but allow me to attempt to change the mind of those who are slightly less open-minded first," she spoke with a gentle gravitas, before once more tapping her cup until some level of order was once again established.
"There is another reason you may wish to join me here. Another thing the government has kept from you. You will not remember this, for they would have drugged you beforehand, but each of you was given an injection while being registered. The injection was a solution of nanomachines that was programmed to entrench itself in your body. The desired effect would be achieved within approximately one year. That desired effect is called 'The Nanolytic Killswitch',"
"In case you do not understand what 'lytic' means as a suffix, it relates to the rupturing of cell membranes. With the press of a button, every Awakened, the world over, can be instantly killed, in what I am informed is an excruciatingly painful way to die; torn apart at a microscopic level, from the inside out. My sources inform me that the Killswitch will be activated in three years. The effect will be blamed on the Voyagers, who will leave when they are no longer welcome. Humanity will be galvanised against the invaders, and the emergency powers will be once more instated. It seems that dictatorships are rather intoxicating. The awakened will be treated better in the future; it will just require the death of every living awakened, and the surrender of every liberty."
She paused a moment, allowing this information sink in, attempting not to overwhelm them. She imagined it would be pretty horrifying to hear for the first time, if she had not heard it for the first time when it was nought but an embryonic idea within the mind of a government official. She allowed an appropriate amount of consideration to pass, before continuing.
"My research partner and I, we have developed a purifying cocktail. It is a miscible electro-magnetic intravenous cocktail, which, using the body's natural electricity, pulses throughout the entire body, kill nanomachines. It will make you sick; very sick. The worst sickness of your entire life, and then it will pass. It takes a week; a week you must be under my constant care, or else it will fail to work. A week to consider my offer. A week in my care. A week to learn to trust me."
She looked about the room, scanning their reactions, then smiled to herself, placing her cup by her side.
"So either you join me, and assist me in preventing the most widespread genocide ever conceived, or you go home, live mediocre lives for three years, and then die in agony. Justin, you compared me to Magneto; an aged reference, especially for you, but also an unfair one. I am not talking of the supremacy of Awakening; I am talking of its inevitability. They do not know it, but every human being is an awakened in waiting. The sooner we bring this fact to light, the sooner we are able to save the world from the lies built around hiding it. Also, since you're so dependent on it, I have internet; it's just encrypted and running out of a private VPN with several obfuscation layers."
The Matron turned to Dana.
"Dana, my goal is never to harm anyone, and I promise you; any violence enacted in the name of this revolution will only be in self defense; only to keep those we act as caretakers for safe. The experimentation is entirely voluntary, I would never force such a commitment on someone. My days of using science as a mask for cruelty are behind me; I am trying to atone for all I have done wrong in my life," she turned her focus from Dana to the assembled, "I assure you, I would never do anything to bring you to harm. I seek only to protect you, to save you from a world that seeks to destroy you. Will you not give me a chance to prove as much?"
"Prove it." Ari leaned on the table. She'd been willing to hear the lady out, but her patience was running out. "Nanomachine killswitches implanted in our bodies? A pre-ordained kill time, and a random death to be blamed on an outside group so we can institute a dictatorship? I've heard more plausible stories listening to AM radio at three in the morning. What next, gonna tell me that the CIA killed JFK?"
She pressed her lips tightly together. "You want us to give you a chance to let your creepy scientist guy give us a cocktail of -electromagnetism-. And then we have to stick around for a week, because if you're not there to constantly watch us it'll fail? Don't piss on my shoe and tell me it's raining."
The Matron blinked at Ari.
"JFK? You went for JFK before George Bush doing nine-eleven? That's an extremely dated reference, especially for someone of your age. Additionally, I do actually have the means to prove it."
From inside her dress, she produced the device she had been holding onto tightly. It was a small, black cylinder with two outward components; an antenna and a round button, seemingly locked into place by a catch. She displayed it for all gathered to see.
"This is a local Killswitch activator; they are kept on site at the SNASS, designed by me. They transmit a shortwave of encoded information that activates a relay sequence between the nanomachines inside of prisoners, thus causing their death. Effective range ten meters, design specs are classified; I stole this one before 'dying'."
She put air quotes around dying, before producing an apple from her dress pocket, and setting it on the table in front of her. With a certain grace, like a wizard casting a spell, she pointed the antenna at the apple, carefully unlocked the button, and then depressed it. The sequence of events that followed was curious.
First, the apple seemed to rapidly oxidise and rot, folding in on itself; then it melted into a rapidly shrinking puddle, before disappearing entirely. The Matron looked at it grimly.
"I've never seen it actually used on a human being, fortunately, but if it was really so necessary to prove that it could work on a human being, this device could do the same to any one of you," she chattered, a disturbingly detached tone setting in. Her eyes widened, as if she had caught herself doing something, before she locked the button once more and interred it back into her dress.
"So if my intent was to hurt you, I could've killed one of you and held the rest of you to ransom already. my intentions are pure, I assure you. The cocktail isn't of electromagnetism; it's electromagnetic, when electricity is run through it, it produces electromagnetic pulses. I could get into the specifics of it, but considering you don't even have a highschool education, I think it'd be a wasted effort. You need be under my care while in the course of purification because you will be bedridden, and this cocktail only exists in my house."
The Matron rubbed her eyes, sighing weakly.
"You're an extremely rude guest, Miss Vagari, and my patience is wearing rather thin. My research assistant will be upstairs shortly; you may decide whether he is creepy when you have met him yourself. Until then, I would suggest some manners are in order. I am not some senile old woman, and I am not some predatory villain hoping to exploit and defile you; I am a benefactor, and I am a devil, attempting to re-earn her feathers."
"They're both before my time, and JFK conspiracies are a little more enduring in the popular consciousness. That doesn't prove anything except that you've rigged up an imploding apple, and now you're claiming you have the power to kill us at will. Give me a good reason I -should- believe you, ma'am, beyond your doomsaying. You're making a lot of very large claims and with only some very dubious evidence to back it up. Even if this technology is real, how are we to know you aren't the one creating it, and this whole production isn't a charade to get us to -take- this little death serum. If this really is true why are you keeping it a secret? Broadcast this to the world, tell everyone you can find. The greatest weapon you'd have against the government - if this were true - is the mere existence of this within the Awakened."
"Pardon my language, my dear, but are you fucking stupid? A mad old woman who faked her death ten years ago comes crawling out of woods, speaking against the established order, without anyone to back her up? I'd be dead by dawn, for one, and it would achieve nothing, for two. Your brashness is only showing how little confidence you have in your own assertions. What do you want me to do, show it works on you? Dissolve one of you right now? I'm not so desperate to convince you I'm right that I'd kill one of you, for God's sake."
The Matron rubbed her eyes, and sighed heavily. She had expected it to be difficult, but this girl seemed to be playing the contrarian for its own sake, making accusations that didn't even really make sense. It was the very same treatment she'd gotten out of government work to escape; finding it here was giving her sneaking suspicions about the exact nature of humanity. After a moment, she pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her nose and resettled into her chair. She gave a little huff, composed herself, and continued.
"If you want to continue trusting the government blindly, Miss Vagari, then you may be my guest to walk out the door. If you do leave, don't try and report me to police; to them, you're a crazy awakened hobo with a drinking problem, and I've been dead for ten years. You have outworn your welcome in my home as a guest; you may either agree to residency, or be escorted out."
Emil frowned. As much as he hated to admit it, she did have a good point. The story sounded outlandish, even for these days (if it was true, he was sure as hell glad he managed to hide his powers and was never registered).
And there was something else that was bothering him...
The Matron looked at Emil, and frowned. She coughed a small, frail cough, and then sighed.
"I...developed, nanolytic technology. Or rather, my research acted as the foundations of nanolytics. My full title is 'Professor Cassandra Thurgood' or in my time researching, 'Agent Marshall'. I worked with the CIA in the research of Awakened individuals, using this residential school as a front. I..." she trailed off for a moment, took a breath, and continued, "I conducted experiments on the children while playing mother to them; earning their trust. None of the Awakened who came out of this school would resent me from what they knew of the good Matron Thurgood, but if they remembered the things I had done to them..."
She trailed off completely for a moment, rendered into silence.
"When I saw what my experiments had done to Henry, the horror of my actions began to rush to me. I couldn't live with doing what I had done in the name of progress without...without doing something to correct it. The government did not trick me; Cassandra Thurgood was a viciously curious and inconscientious women. But no institution that would allow me to do what I did, no institution that seeks to continue my work, should be allowed to continue to exist," she finished finally. She found she could no longer bring herself to look the assembled in the eye. She instead took up her cup of tea and stared into it.
"I had hoped to wait until I had earned your trust to tell you that, so that it would not colour your view of the woman I have become, but if it is necessary for me to tell you to earn your trust, so be it."
From a door, a dozen meters or so from the parlour, in the kitchen, the sounds of light footfalls on slick stone steps echoed. The Matron's grimaced grew.
"Oh bother, this is hardly the time," she muttered, before turning her attention to the gathered, "you best steel yourselves for meeting Josef; this will be rather hard to explain."
For once in her life, Mia found herself agreeing with some hobo who was ranting about conspiracies. The whole thing about Awakened been tracked through nanomachines. She tried to think back about the incident in Connecticut, where she tried to walk into Mohegan Sun with a piss-poor New Jersey ID and she got busted. It meant trouble for Kaitlin Day, but not her at the time. She couldn't remember how much time she spent in that Uncasville jail though. Could they have pulled that shit on me?
The apple demonstration was a neat, if creepy, parlor trick. It didn't ease her mind any though. If someone put shit in me that allowed that to happen, why hasn't it happened yet? I've pissed off enough people. Someone has to have figured out how to fine tune that shit. So why wouldn't I be liquified by some other twat? Again, Wondering Homeless Woman served as the mouthpiece for her own thoughts, although she could do without the crazy conspiracy theories. Who cared about a bunch of dead dudes?
When the Matron laid out the options though, it didn't make a lot of sense. Mia's relationship with the police was strained since childhood, and her relationship with the government was non-existent as much as she could help it. Still, this was a crazy old woman who just admitted to participating in crazy experiments in the 20s, in a room full of people she just became aware of and who were in various states of disrepair, with some already on board with this plan.
Fuck this. I don't need this shit. My head hurts just trying to figure out who is worse. I'm going to Canada.
As the Matron finished up her admission, Mia was about to let her know that she trusted no one and was clinging to that belief. Then the footsteps came. "The fuck is that?" is all she got out.
Mohammad slowed down for a second, looking at the place where the apple once was. He shook his head, then pointed to the spot. "You could fake that. Voyager technology, your own power, plenty of things. We have no way of knowing that stuff is in us. And I'm not letting you pump me up with drugs saying that they'll 'cleanse me.'" His voice started to rise again, but he stops himself, calming a bit. "Just... something that can't be faked. Real footage, verified documents, anything."
He looked to Vagari as the Matron spoke, the traits that reminded him of his mother slowly dissolving. "Vagari, I'll drive us in to town if she can't come up with anything. They'll believe two of us." He offered, staying by the door. He looked over the others. Some were coming over to her side. Worst case is a shootout with the police. Hopefully it doesn't come to that. The footsteps coming from the kitchen put him a bit on edge, but he still held his ground. He could take a thug if it came to it, he'd kept decently in shape and remembered his training.
"I mean it sounds like there's one way she could prove it to us, but we'd need a particularly stupid volunteer and a few seconds to get just over ten meters away." Octavio interjected.
My full title is 'Professor Cassandra Thurgood' or in my time researching, 'Agent Marshall'.
" Hold on, I recognize the name Agent Marshal. They had us doped up to our eyeballs when you came to the school in SF. The Dean said you were recruiting for an 'advanced curriculum' operation, even back then we were smart enough to know that meant yoi were looking for lab rats. You took, Jamal, Kari, Jason, Rachel, and Ken, we never heard from them again, they told us never to speak of them or be punished," Octavio recalled, " So how did you get the nanolytics into everyone? I mean the kids in residence schools were obvious but what about everyone else? Had the hospitals in on it? Cops? Snuck it into the drugs?"
As he heard the footsteps Octavio steeled himself, he freed his hands incase he needed to blast something. Madame Thurgood may have his interest but he didn't have her trust yet.
Dana was silent. As Matron Thurgood explained, she did not believe at first, but she still felt sick to her stomach that someone would even think of something like this.
And then she remembered that this was not the first time in history someone tried to do something like this. Less secret, but ... well, if you wanted to do it again, you would need to do it this way. As a German, Dana had learned enough.
She listened further, as the others voiced their doubts. She had a lot of questions as well. But they were answered by the Matron, one after the other. It did not make her feel better, it made her feel much worse. The step to kill her would be the logical, final step to her life. It seemed like nobody cared, but they did ... for others.
And then, she just puked, feeling sick to her stomach and ill, just from what she had been told. She sank to the ground, just sitting there, shivering, not knowing what to do. She had to trust others about what proof the Matron had, but they did not seem to be of one mind, so she had no idea what to think either.
Not that this was already too much to take in, now she heard Taylor behind her seeing something else entirely. "Someone." Dana muttered to herself. "Someone tell me what's going on. Someone please make sense of all this."
"I'm not going to the police. The police are worthless, like fake tits on a zombie." Ari said with grim humor. "Ma'am, if you actually wanted to get this out there you'd go to the New York Times. The BBC. Al-Jazeera. Some French newspaper I've never heard of, preferably all of the above. If this is true you have to have some kind of hard scientific evidence, you supposedly managed to develop a cure for it. Research materials, journals, notes, the lab rats you tested it on, hell, you must have samples of the nanotech used to do it, you just -demonstrated- it."
She glanced behind her, scanning for a quick exit and adjusting her seating so that when gravity realigned she'd fall feet-first.
"But I'm more inclined to believe you, with what he said." She angled her head at Otto. "Which makes me really curious about your motives for all this. You were perfectly okay with murdering thousands until you saw one littlest cancer patient and decided it was wrong? Bullshit. You're a monster, and monsters don't change their scales."
She glanced around at the others. "But I've got my guess. She thinks she can use us to seize power. An army of unified Awakened could overwhelm the government, and then she's sitting at the top of a new nation of evolved Humanity." She knew she sounded paranoid, but considering the other party involved had already admitted to having poisoned them all years ago with dissolving solution paranoid conspiracy seemed like a reasonable order of the day.
Through the door stepped a familiar kind of figure to those who had been watching the news recently, though infinitely more decrepit: the figure of a Voyager. It stood to attention of its pod of four feet, and under its six arms it carried a wild assortment of things; journals, what seemed to be microscopes, petri dishes, and a pair of syringes. The chlorine pump on its back wheezed, and the suit that kept earth?s gravity and atmosphere from crushing and suffocating it inflated and deflated in rhythm with the pump. A semi-circular helmet, framed by two large blue hemispheres and a small pair of speakers, turned around the room. The Matron sighed quietly.
"Josef?"
Code:
YES CASSANDRA
"They don't believe me, Josef."
Code:
I KNOW, CASSANDRA. I HAVE BEEN WATCHING THROUGH THE SURVEILLANCE. I AM HERE TO CORRECT THIS FACT.
The Voyager scuttled into the centre of the room, near the table The Matron had used to demonstrate her apple trick, and place the Microscope-like devices on the table. The devices, unlike microscopes, did not have an eyepiece; in the place of one, instead was a project, which the voyager now flicked on. Both microscopes projected a blank white light onto the ceiling.
Next, the first set of arms on Josef's cephalothorax launched the journals they were carrying at Mohammad, by the door, with surprising force and accuracy. When the Voyager spoke, it emerged from the speakers, tinny as all hell, and had the rather hellish quality of having both a female and male synthetic voice contribute.
Code:
BOOK ONE CONTAINS OFFICIAL NANOLYTIC RESEARCH NOTES, OFFICIATED AND STAMPED. BOOK TWO CONTAINS A REGISTRY OF ALL CHILDREN INTERRED IN THIS FACILITY, INCLUDING THE NAMES AND FACES OCTAVIO MENTIONED. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO UNDERSTAND THE RESEARCH NOTES: THEY ARE OUTSIDE OF YOUR COMPREHENSION
With their hands free, Josef scanned the room, looking for something, though exactly what couldn't be discerned; there is no greater pokerface than a blank, black helmet. Finally, their vision seemed to shift onto a single spot; the prone form of Dana, curled up on the floor.
Josef dispassionately observed the pile of vomit and the quivering girl beside it. As gently as possible, they pushed the girl aside with their left arms, and with their right set they scooped a sample of the mess into a petri dish, which they then rapidly capped. Leaning back up to their full height, they looked around furtively.
Code:
WHERE'S THAT HUMAN BAKING SODA VOLCANO WHEN YOU NEED HIM
"Josef, please stop calling my son that," the Matron said with a sigh, massaging her eyes. Josef seemed to ignore her, and snapped back to reality, into the matter at hand. They regarded the room, before the same synthetic voice barked through the tinny speakers either side of the blue spotlights that an observer could only assume to be eyes.
Code:
I NEED A VOLUNTEER, TO PROVE CASSANDRA CORRECT
Shalim Stepped forward from the wall meeting the creature's gaze with an equally dispassionate expression and spoke clearly with surprising authority and confidence.
"I assume you mean to analyse a blood sample and illustrate the Nano-bots inside us already. I would have suggested it earlier, but I wanted to see if any of my compatriots here could devise a solution on their own. If I have it wrong I do apologise for being presumptuous, but in my view, something to that effect seems the most effective."
There was a slight stutter and shiver in his voice as the anxiety of meeting one of the two hundred or so voyagers that were part of the exchange, along with being very visible in the room started to catch up to his initial bravado.
"If you would permit I am curious to see if the Matron's claims are true for myself," he continued, stretching out his arm and rolling up the sleeve.
Josef regarded Shalim's outstretched arm. There was a pause before the same tinny speech came through.
Code:
YOU ARE CORRECT. I AM IMPRESSED. DO NOT GET USED TO THIS
And with that, Josef stuck Shalim with a syringe, taking no care and holding his arm in place in the solid, vice-like grip of a Voyager, their two thumbs framing the spot where Shalim?s blood was being extracted. Shalim did not let the shock of having a syringe stabbed into him go entirely unnoticed, wincing slightly and making a rather perturbed set of blinks in Joseph?s direction. Without warning, when it seemed Josef had a satisfactory supply, they retracted the syringe rapidly, leaving Shalim to nurse his bleeding arm. Josef interred the blood into its own petri dish, and capped that one too. They scuttled back over to the microscopes, uncapped the dishes, and slid them into the observation level. At first nothing seemed amiss; microscopic views of blood and vomit, grisly but nothing extraordinary.
Code:
CASSANDRA. THE DEVICE.
Josef said, hand outstretched. Cassandra carefully passed the wand over to Josef, who then pointed to the ceiling.
Code:
WATCH CAREFULLY
Josef unlatched the button, and slammed it, taking no care not to catch one in the firing line. Within an even shorter time frame than the apple took to turn to nothing, it happened. The blood cells that could be observed were rapidly destroyed, their cytoplasm spreading before disappearing itself, and for the vomit sample, everything turned to nothing in a flash. Just quick enough to be seen, but too quick to be truly understood, both petri dishes were empty. Josef turned to the group.
Code:
CASSANDRA IS TELLING YOU THE TRUTH. IF YOU REFUSE TO BELIEVE HER, YOU ARE ONLY KILLING YOURSELVES. SHE CARES ABOUT THIS; I DO NOT. I AM GOING BACK DOWN INTO MY BASEMENT. DO NOT VISIT ME UNLESS YOU ARE COMING FOR THE COCKTAIL OR TO PARTICIPATE IN MY EXPERIMENTS.
And with that, almost as quick as they had arrived, Josef disappeared back down the cellar door, which dripped and stank like an open throat. They slammed the door behind them. The Matron looked exhausted.
?...So...That?s Josef, my research assistant?? She spoke meekly. She turned to Vagari after she had composed herself.
?Miss Vagari, I have killed no one. My experiments were never fatal. Your accusation is baseless and revolting. I have no involvement with the current nanolytic project; it was established against my warnings. I would also thank you not to refer to my son as if he meant nothing more to me than a stranger. If I was a monster, if I was attempting to seize control of your lives, I would?ve liquefied you by now, and used such a threat to keep everyone else here under my control. I have no intention of ruling the world; I?m not some comic book villain, and after this is done?? The Matron paused, and heaved a sigh, ?...And after this is done, I will no longer be around.?
The Matron looked down at Dana, and with a pained expression, she looked at the rest.
?Will the rest of you have some humanity and help her up and explain what just happened? I?m not physically capable of lifting her up and it?s probably for the best that one of you give her the situation.?
Shalim was admittedly moved by the Matron?s rhetoric , but chose to say nothing for the moment. He did, however, feel rather pleased that he had not acted so as to give away his initial revulsion at the Matron?s plans. He had to admit that before him was all the evidence he needed to know that he was in grave danger unless something was done about it- as was everyone else in his position.
This post was written in conjuction with spiritGuide. If any of you are confused as to the biology of Voyagers, here is an image to elucidate matters.
http://i.imgur.com/3O0QgaH.jpg
Note that Josef is in a containment suit, and so what you just saw was this basic shape with thick black plastic wrapped over it with a frame of a mechanical exo-skeleton and a ton of wirework. They are about ten feet fall.
There are a lot of things observed in shady back rooms, and in her time traveling with her father Mia thought she had seen them all. Illicit drugs, women kept in cages, dogs snarling at each other in a small pit. One time she thought she saw a unicorn doing unspeakable things to a man in a Joel Embiid throwback jersey. The...thing that emerged with those thumping footsteps. In all her time criss-crossing the country, Mia never seen anything like it before.
It was massive, and metal and it basically scooped up Dana's vomit like it was nothing, then put a needle in another guy and took blood out of him. As the slides were projected and both organic samples were vaporized in a flash, Mia stopped moving for the exit and looked over at the fallen German, casually pushed aside by that thing. Damn it girl. C'mon. Hold strong. She walked over, heels clicking against the old wood flooring to help the woman back up to her feet. "C'mon. Don't need to lie in that stuff." Mia grabbed a hold of Dana's hand to help her up to the sill of the bay window, letting her sit there to recompose herself.
"Next time," she spoke to the Matron. "I would lead with him. Pretty convincing." She dusted herself off and took a spot on the sill next to Dana. "So if this shit is in my blood, which I'm pretty sure it isn't, since I've never been registered, check the books, you can get that shit out? Because I'd like to head up to the Moon at some point with as minimal chance of being vaporized as possible."
The Matron stared at Mia for a solid minute. Dealing with these kids was like herding cats.
"Mia, you're registered. I wouldn't know who you were if you weren't registered. You wouldn't be in my house if you weren't registered. I pulled all your names from dossiers provided to me by an old friend. Dossiers from the registry act. Everyone in this room is inundated with nanolytic machines," she chattered in a rapid explanation, her frustration being made clearer by the minute, "And as I said, I can get 'that shit' out of you if you stay here for a week and complete a purification cocktail course; then you'd be free to go with no chance of being vapourised, let alone minimal. There's no other way; unless you can find some completely side-effect free method of running an EMP through all of your cells constantly at an alpha particular penetration degree that Josef and I have failed to find."
The Matron ran a hand through her graying hair, and let down her bun. She begun to compulsively play with her hair, to calm her nerves, to avoid her emotions overcoming her.
"And introducing you to Josef was something I wanted to keep until and only for people who had agree to residency, given that his very presence here is a bigger secret than anything else I have told you."
"Well... damn, first time I was school by an alien." Octavio mused, still a bit shocked, he looked over at Vagari, " Look I don't want to kill anyone and if what they're saying is true, which unless you've got a way to debunk the space alien, I say it is, then we're going to be saving thousands maybe even millions of lives, maybe even stopping an interplanetary war!" Octavio began to reconsider if lived in a comic book after that last statement.
"I mean this sounds insane, because it is insane, but that doesn't mean it's not real," Octavio told her, " I don't know what to tell you, I mean I've got my misgivings, but the way I see it this is going to happen with or without us. So either we can join and make sure this gets done right or leave and surrender our fates to others."
Mia shut up instantly at the sound of her real name being used. Taylor wasn't going to cut it anymore, but that was the least of her issues. Fuck! How does she have my real name? I haven't used that name in three years! Not even in Connecticut! Fucking government! Fucking bastards! They must have tracked me down or...tested my blood. Fuck, what did they do to me?
The New Jersey native slumped back on the windowsill, paranoid thoughts starting to seep in over just how much the government had violated her body. The if was starting to disappear from her mind. Also revenge was starting to sound pretty good.
Enrique had sat and listened the whole time, he had listened when the others had yelled, he had listened when the Matron, in her frustration liquefied an apple and then her companion, a goddamn alien showed them that it worked on their blood as well. It was all terrifying and so he had been searching for the right words for the longest time. And he found nothing that he could really plan out. So he was going with his gut.
And so he chuckled. It was the only way to get the stress out of his system. Laugh and the world laughs with you, "Well, I didn't think the government would want anything with a dirty bum like me, let alone one with a useless power. But now you tell me I have something in my blood that could kill me in an instant if they so chose it."
It was frustrating, so frustrating. He had accepted his state of affairs years ago. He was content and such a part of his area now that the cops only came to talk to him if someone actually caught him pickpocketing them. All that work to blend, all that effort to adapt and here we were, the government still had a problem with him.
"Matron, I'll say this much. I don't wanna die so I'll help you on that front. I ain't killing, but I'll do any stealing or arson or whatever the fuck you need for your revolution. I also ain't getting experimented on first, I'll be open if I see someone else get it done, but until then you can count me out of that. Plus room and board is something I haven't had for a long time so I guess I can count that as a perk."
He was signing on the dotted line, "You have me Matron, in this capacity. Now though, I think I've been good enough, do you mind if I grab a bottle from your cabinet and go have myself a nice long cigarette?"
Uncharacteristically (and for the first time in like, forever), Justin kept silent. Vagari was doing well to challenge the old lady?s rambling and didn?t feel the need to back her up. Even then, the parlour was falling into further disruption. One of the girls scrunched into damn-near fetal position on the floor, crouching over her puke the way a curious toddler spies a trail of ants in the park. Then the boy had to physically stifle his yells as a large visitor entered the area. He would?ve yelled ?OH GOD, WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!?, but it wouldn?t be nary but a kneejerk reaction. He had seen enough news to know what a Voyager was. It was, however, his first time being this close to one.
It was fascinating watching the big bug work. So unnerving, so uncaring...yet so efficient. If the nerd wasn?t struck dumbfounded by the order of events playing out before him, he probably would?ve asked for its autograph. He had to tell himself that he hadn?t of found a new role model; he still wanted to direct his anger at the situation. Even if grandma was right, and it became clearer with every passing second (unfortunately) that she was, he couldn?t help but think that she could?ve handled it a little better. ?Probably should?ve led in with the problem, before telling us of your solution.? He pondered as he carefully inched his way back towards the parlour?s threshold.
He took note of the dude off to the side, chuckling to himself. ?Succumbing to insanity already? Might as well.? Justin wrote the guy off, grinning himself, but took it back once he showed he could still speak proper english. ?So we?ve fucked ourselves into a real lose-lose situation, huh?? He mumbled absently. ?Such is the price of merely being alive, I suppose. C?est la-fuckin?-vie.? Out of habit, he brought forth his phone and began scrolling through it mindlessly. It was a real situation where he didn?t know what to do with himself.
?If I may piggyback off of Pedro here, I too could use a stiff drink after all that.? Admittedly, Justin was never really that big on drinking. Mostly because he was still considered underage in New York. But things could always change. ?Sheesh Cassandra, you drop a big ass bomb on a bunch of unsuspecting kids and poor people, and just expected it to all work out without a hitch, huh? Shit, ya could?ve at least got us drunk first.?
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