We sat in the same booth we had the night before. Tom brought me a drink and sat across from me at the table. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all since we had last spoken, he had a day’s worth of stubble, and his eyes were bloodshot and weary. His hands shook as he lifted his glass to take a drink. I waited out his silence, sipping my drink as I did. It took a long time.

“This is a bad idea,” he muttered, staring into his whiskey.

“I wasn’t sure that you were going to show,” I noted.

“I wasn’t sure I was going to, either,” he refused to meet my eyes. “I don’t like any part of this, Ray. I don’t think any choice I make is going to turn out well, here.”

“We are, admittedly, in a bad situation, Tom. Sometimes there are no good choices, just, less bad.”

“Comforting.”

“Why did you come, then?”

“I am worried about you, Ray,” he fidgeted, fussing with the edges of his coaster. “I think, maybe this time you are in over your head.”

“Really? You think that this decades-long global conspiracy is a bit beyond me?” I laughed.

“It isn’t a joke, Ray.”

“Doesn’t really matter, does it? Somebody has to do something.”

“Does it have to be you?”

“I don’t see anyone else volunteering. Besides, it isn’t just me.”

“I… if you keep on like this, you are going to get yourself killed.”

“Maybe. It’s my risk to take, Tom.”

He finally looked up and met my eyes. I tossed back the rest of my drink, holding his gaze before setting the empty glass down on the table. He shook his head slowly,

“Yes, but I don’t know if I can be part of it.”

“You aren’t backing out on me, are you?”

“Ray, I… I spoke to some of the others in the office, about your concerns.”

“You did what?!”

“I was worried about you. When we met you seemed, off. I don’t think you are thinking clearly. So, I brought your concerns to some of the higher ups. I know you didn’t want me to, but… I couldn’t just lie to my bosses, to everyone. They aren’t what you think, they are concerned for you, all of you. They told me that this type of paranoia is symptomatic of the exact problem they warned us about.”

“Paranoia? Is that what you think this is?”

“I know you can’t see it, not right now, but we can help you, Ray, if you just come with me. Things aren’t as they seem, to you.”

“I can’t believe I am hearing this,” my mouth was feeling very dry. I ran my tongue over my lips and found they were numb and tingly.

“It’s going to be alright; I promise.”

I tried to stand, but stumbled and sank back into my chair.

“Are you ok?” Tom regarded me curiously.

“Yeah, of course. I’m just feeling a little warm, is it warm in here?”

“Maybe you need some air, huh?” Tom offered me a hand and helped me to my feet.

I leaned on his shoulder, and he guided me out through the hallway, past the bathrooms, into the alley by the dumpsters. The cool air felt good on my flushed cheeks, but didn’t really help the dizziness, so I gripped Tom’s shoulder to keep my balance. As we stepped out past the dumpsters, I heard the sound of a vehicle door opening, and as I looked up, two men stepped out of a van at the end of the alley. The headlights in my eyes kept me from seeing their faces. I turned to Tom, but as I opened my mouth to speak, he clamped a hand over my face. I winced, that had been a little rough. He leaned close to my ear,

“I am sorry it had to be this way, Ray.”

“What have you done?” I mumbled through his hand, it wasn’t very clear, but he knew what I was going to be asking anyway.

“I am doing what I promised,” he looked over to watch the approaching men. “I am helping you. We are already working to save some of the others. We can save you, too. Please, just trust me. This is the only way.”

I shook my head as I tried to pull away, but the effort was weak, and Tom held me fast without no difficulty. I slumped against him; the tingling had spread all over.

“Just relax. Don’t try to fight it. This is for your own good.”

My eyes slid shut before the others arrived.

I heard the sound of heels on the cement floor, a sharp, measured click that was growing steadily closer. I couldn’t see anything, my head was still in the dark bag my captors had placed on it, after I had been loaded me into the van. It was itchy, though most people in my position likely didn’t mind. The footsteps stopped close by,

“Don’t look so nervous, she is still unconscious,” I recognized the voice as Carmine’s.

“I know. I just… I hope that she is alright. We can help her, can’t we?” Jessica’s voice sounded truly concerned.

“Of course we can,” Carmine reassured her. “Just get her ready to take to the recovery suite. I will go have them prepare a bed for her. And don’t remove the hood or the handcuffs, just in case. Even drugged, she could still be dangerous.”

I could feel the cold metal cuff on my right wrist, Tom had cuffed both wrists before depositing me in the van, but when I arrived, they had attached one end to the metal table I was lying on, instead. Presumably so that I couldn’t escape. I wished them luck with that.

“Of course, Carmine. Thank you, for doing this,” the sound of them kissing made me nauseous.

A moment later, I heard the door shut behind Carmine, then felt Jessica’s fingers seek my pulse, loosening the cord on the hood to access to my neck, then holding for a count. Afterwards, she stepped away, turning to record some notes. I tried to keep my breathing even and my pulse slow. It wasn’t as easy as you would think, to pretend to be unconscious. Especially when someone throws you in to the back of a van and then burns you with a cigarette, just to be sure. The cocktail of painkillers, benzos and beta blockers helped to sell the illusion. Deadened the pain so I could ignore it, slowed my heart rate and breathing to an acceptable level, but I was still conscious, if a bit more relaxed than I probably should have been, under the circumstances. It was better than the real thing. Now, the drugs were beginning to wear off, if the increased throbbing of the burn on my calf was any indication. I waited patiently until I heard the door open, and Jessica’s heels clicked away, then the door lock engaged behind her. Alone at last. I didn’t know how long I had before she came back, so I didn’t waste any time. With my free hand I yanked the hood loose. I was stretched out on the cold steel table in the morgue, like a corpse. It made me shudder. I spat the key from my cheek into my hand and unlocked the cuffs, moving slowly to avoid making too much noise. Tom had almost broken my tooth, jamming that into my mouth, but couldn’t exactly complain, he hadn’t really wanted to do any of this in the first place. I slipped the cuffs from my wrist, rubbing gently where the cold metal had bitten into my skin. I moved to the small table where Jessica’s notes lay open, next to the bottle of sedative she had been preparing, in case I needed another dose. I picked up the syringe and inspected it, we were about the same size, so hopefully this would be the appropriate amount. I slipped behind the door as I heard the sound of her heels on the floor again. She stepped inside and I heard her breath catch in her throat, as she noticed that the table was empty. It was too late, though. I clamped one hand around her mouth to stifle her scream, and dragged her into the room, shutting the door with my foot.

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“Hello, Jess. How have you been?” I kept my voice low.

She whimpered into my palm, struggling against me, but it wasn’t really much of a contest. I liked to think that she didn’t put her best effort into it, but who really knew? She wasn’t exactly trained for this. Still, I didn’t have any trouble jabbing the syringe into her neck and pushing the plunger home. She bit into the webbing on my hand, but I didn’t let go.

“This is kind of awkward,” I explained, waiting as the drug took effect. “But I need to take you with me. So just, relax and this will all go much easier.”

She didn’t, but I hadn’t really expected her to. It was important that it look like Jessica had helped me escape and gone on the run. Or that she had been sloppy, and I’d escaped. Either way, she couldn’t be here to contradict that story. Otherwise, they might suspect the truth; that Tom had only pretended to drug me. That he wasn’t truly on their side. After we first spoke, Tom had looked for the other abductees. He found them down here, in the medical wing of the Organization headquarters, where Jessica was apparently helping with the experiments that were being run on them. Conveniently, that was just where I needed to be, so this seemed the easiest way to get here. It was going relatively well so far; Jessica slumped against me after only a moment, and I picked her up gently, laying her on the exam table.

“Sorry about this,” I muttered.

I stripped her down to her bra and underwear and donned her slacks and top, I considered taking the shoes, but her heels were too high for that to be practical. Barefoot would be quieter for now. That done, I redressed her in the short purple dress I had worn to meet Tom, after I split the seams and retrieved the set of thumb drives from inside, under the ruffles. I slipped the hood over her head, then picked her up and laid her out on the table, for now. I couldn’t carry her with me for this next part, mobility was important. I cleaned up the room and checked the hall. Empty. Good, that meant I could move on to part 2: find the other captives and see if they could be freed. Then locate the data storage room and retrieve the files and records that I needed for my other plan. I took a long, slow breath. I tried to remind myself that this was the only way, that it was better than the alternatives. I still only half believed myself. I was about to free a bunch of injured, possibly drugged agents, in enemy territory and then just… leave them to their own devices. This should have been a proper rescue, but we didn’t have the resources to manage that, and we had no other way to get our people out. Still, they were professionals, maybe some would make it. It was better than just leaving them here. Hopefully. I shook my head. The time for doubt was long past. I was here, this was happening. I checked the hall, it was deserted. That wasn’t a surprise. Apparently the ubarae were keeping most people away from their experiments, so the bulk of the staff, including all of the Immune, were upstairs. It wouldn’t do to inspire doubt. Their control of the Immune was not absolute. This meant there were only a few ubarae down here, which I could hopefully pick off one by one, if I was careful. This would also improve the odds for the other Partials. But I could really use a gun. Or a few guns, if possible. For now, I would have to work with what I had, so I filled the syringe with another dose of sedative. I slipped out into the hall and padded silently down the corridor. Frankly, I was hoping I would find Carmine, because with the week I was having, it would do me some good to work out my stress on his face. His betrayal stung me more than Suzette’s. I never liked or trusted Suzette. Carmine, I had thought was a good man. I didn’t like being that wrong about people. Knocking some of his teeth down his throat would go a long way towards ameliorating my discomfort. Sadly, the first person I encountered was an ubarae I wasn’t familiar with. He was young, probably in his twenties, with blonde hair and an ill-fitting uniform. He appeared to be part of the new guard, the people the Domini brought in, after they took over. He also looked like a little boy playing soldier. I stuck him in the neck and looped my arm around his throat, holding tight until he dropped. It didn’t take long; the effect was almost instantaneous on ubarae. I had adjusted the dosage to about 1/5th of what I had used on Suzette, which meant this likely wouldn’t kill him, but either way, I couldn’t worry about that now. I took his gun, stripped his uniform and dragged him back to the medical bay. I didn’t put the uniform on, though I considered it. But, while he was relatively small for a man, the uniform would still have looked ridiculous on me. It wouldn’t be a good disguise. I crept down the hall towards where the ‘recovery’ room must be. At first glance, it could easily have been mistaken for a hospital. They had gone to some effort to make it look sterile and medical. All part of the illusion, to keep the trust of their people, I assumed. Or maybe they were just being scientifically rigorous with their experiments. A dozen men and women lay in the room, all cuffed to their hospital beds. They had an ubarae guard watching over them, lounging in a chair by the door, since apparently, they were not confident enough in their control of the Immune to leave this to them. He had a gun, but it was on his belt. He was, after all, guarding neutralized prisoners. And he was facing away from the door, watching the beds. That was good. Though Carmine wasn’t here, which was a shame. I pushed the door open slowly and approached the incubus from behind. I clubbed him over the head with my pilfered pistol, wouldn’t want a shot alerting anyone, and when he fell from the chair, I kicked him in the throat. I heard a crunch and he went still. That taken care of, I turned to face my coworkers.

“Hey,” what could I say, really?

They simply stared back at me for a long moment.

“Ray? What the hell is going on?” I recognized the woman as Clara Cole, she’d been here a few years longer than me.

I summarized what we knew, while I flipped through the medical charts hanging on each patients’ bed. We had gotten lucky. It looked like everyone they had kept to experiment on was healthy, and they weren’t even being anesthetized, just receiving massive doses of various hormones. Apparently, they were hoping to reverse whatever immunity we possessed to their abilities through chemical alterations. Whether that was possible, I had no idea. Still, this improved things. I finished my recounting of recent events as I was unlocking the last set of cuffs. The small ring of agents were all standing and massaging their wrists and struggling to digest this new information. I couldn’t blame them, it was a lot to take in, though they undoubtedly had some inkling of this already, based on their circumstances.

“So,” one of the men I couldn’t name spoke up. “What’s the plan now?”

That was the big question, wasn’t it? Though I kept that thought to myself.

“Well, first things first. There should be more of you here. Do you know where the rest are?”

The group exchanged glances uncomfortably, before Clara spoke up,

“They are gone. Anyone who was too injured to be useful was killed.”

“Are you sure they didn’t just move them…”

“They cut their throats. They made us watch.”

I flinched briefly.

“Alright, that simplifies things I suppose,” there would be time for grieving later. “My apologies, but this isn’t going to be much of a rescue. It’s just me. So, the plan is this,” I tossed the guard’s uniform I had taken earlier to the man closest to his size. “We have 2 uniforms available. Put them on. The rest of you need something to cover your faces and tie your wrists. The only way out of here is the elevator to the eleventh floor. So, the two of you with uniforms are going to be ‘escorting’ the others out.”

“And why exactly are we going to be doing that? Won’t they ask questions?”

“They might, but you’ll have a good reason.”

“Which will be?”

“Well, you’ll obviously be evacuating the subjects, since the medical wing is on fire.”

The group exchanged glances, processing that information.

“Alright,” Clara responded to a general nodding from the rest, they rolled with the punches well, it was a normal part of the job, though the punches weren’t usually this hard. “And what do we do then?”

“Get out. Any way you can. Take the weapons from these idiots. If someone tries to stop you, shoot them.”

“But those are our people.”

“I know. But they aren’t on our side at the moment, and we don’t have any other options here. Just find a way out. Don’t let anyone stop you. When you leave the building, take the fire stairs, not the elevator. Then scatter. Find a place to hide. We have people watching the building and they will help if they can, and get you somewhere safe.”

“That’s it? That’s not much of a plan.”

Ouch.

“True. But it’s what we’ve got.”

“The odds of all of us getting out of here are slim.”

“Better than they were twenty minutes ago.”

No one argued with that.

“We don’t have much time. Take what you need and follow me.”

I led the little group back to the autopsy suite and retrieved Jessica from the table, with my dress and the hood we would look similar enough at a glance. If they got her out, with any luck they would think I had been carried out and Jessica fled on her own. It wasn’t essential to the plan, but the less they wondered about how I escaped, and the less they wondered about what I might have done while I was here, the better. Tom had taken a big risk getting me in, I had to at least try to not get him killed. I handed her to the nearest agent,

“Jessica needs to get out, too. Take her with you. Make sure that whatever happens, she makes it.”

“She was a part of this, you know. She experimented on us.”

“Not willingly. You know she isn’t Immune. Besides, we need her information,” I held Clara’s gaze for a long moment, trying to assess if they would do what I asked. It didn’t matter, I had no other play, here. “Alright, go wait by the elevators. When you hear the alarms, go up and do your best to bluff your way out. When that fails, start shooting.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be making my own way,” I replied vaguely. “If anyone asks, you didn’t see me at all.”

I wanted to help them more. They were going to need it. But this was the best I could do right now. I was only one person. Couldn’t do much against the small army in this building. I needed to set a fire, get upstairs myself, and then loot the server room. I began searching for something flammable to begin the process. That was the downside to this kind of infiltration, I couldn’t really bring many supplies. Somehow, I think they would have noticed if I had tucked a pipe bomb or Molotov cocktail into my dress. Fortunately, I was pretty sure I knew where to get what I needed, and the Domini didn’t seem to have moved anything that wasn’t in their way. Which meant that there should still be a locker here with the effects of any prisoners, patients or deceased that had been brought in. I just needed to find the one I was looking for and then I would be in business.