Banging the gavel and shutting the man up, I try to push to the next topic. “Fraiser, tell this court everything you know about the Doppelgänger, and then we’ll have Dr. Wright fill in any blanks.”

I look at the crowd in front of me; a few people shift or sit up in their seats, others slide low, Sam picks his nose.

Fraiser hesitates for a moment, but when I glare at him with a cute grin, a trickle of gracious sweat drips down his cheek. He begins to explain with gusto. “The Doppelgänger is the combined amalgamation of all human test subjects that were used in the experiments in this facility. After we grafted a bit of the living weapon onto those people, they would vanish the moment someone took their eyes off the person at... at first anyway.”

“Mhm, go on.”

He sighs. His gaze moves to his coworkers. Some scowl at him, while others are equally as uncomfortable. “...They started reappearing, but in people’s dreams, and always without their eyeballs or even the sockets. Then more and more of them started appearing—they were the same people except at different ages and periods in their lives. We dealt with this for a while by just observing sleeping habits and implementing protocols. However, that changed when the weapon commenced evolving tumors along its handle.”

I lean back in my chair. “That’s unusual for living weapons; describe these tumors. Oh, and what type of weapon is it again?”

“It’s a polearm…” He looks at me, tilting his head. “and you know about living weapons?”

“A bit,” I respond with a shrug.

Taking one more look at the people watching, he continues, “The tumors were gray and looked like the faces of the people who vanished and had been appearing in the dreams.”

Other than a few gasps, the room is totally silent.

Waving my hand for him to proceed, I question, “Alright, so this living weapon, what happened to it?”

“Well, the weapon kept accumulating more and more faces. When a face was fully developed, it would form a neck, then a torso, followed by arms, legs, and so on. The thing just continued growing bigger and more twisted; hence we submerged it in a bath of acid that we would regularly replace. Surprisingly it worked for a time.”

“But as the cliche goes, when you mess with something you don’t understand, it only gets worse and worse.”

“Well… yeah. The acid worked temporarily until the polearm adjusted its tactics. Rather than many faces, it began developing a single one. Then it grew arms and other miscellaneous body parts to shield the face and slow the acid. Eventually, that single tumor detached itself, climbed out of the vat, and slaughtered everyone within reach before smashing the vat. Thus we replaced the vat, opened it every so often, and cut the tumor. Except, similar things kept recurring: growing a tumor within the vats drain, going into hibernation, then forming a dozen tumors at once, clogging pipes with the tumors, etc. Still, we always adjusted depending on what it did.”

“Is that the current situation with the weapon?”

“Yeah, we contained it well enough. Except for maybe the first time it tries something new. Like one time, it grew to the size of an elephant while I was on my lunch break by absorbing a janitor who fell into the vat.”

“Alright.” My eyes turn toward Dr. Wright, who is biting his tongue. “Your turn!”

“Then that bloody idiot Falenoz let it out, tossing it into a big pile of meat he stole from the freezers. All the while, he was yelling about how it would save the facility from the Crawlers. So he let it grow out of control while trying to do some kind of ritual that he thought would work.”

“Okay, and what happened to Dr. Falenoz?”

“He threw himself into the thing, and it absorbed him immediately.”

‘Maybe mind magic ticked him into doing it. Great, I hate mind magic. He would have had one of the charms with him to prevent that too. I’ll have to think of a counter to that.’

I sigh and then ask, “What about the worms?”

“Oh, them.” He rolls his eyes. “I threw the Earthworm guy from another project into the room and locked the door. His body attracts those monstrous worms, and they’ll protect him since he’s basically the mother of all worms.”

Twirling the gavel on the desk, I purse my lips. “Mother of all worms? Sound gross; what do you mean by that exactly?”

“The guy vomits worm eggs, and then the worms take the eggs to hatch them. It was disgusting when it was normal worms, and it’s even more disgusting when they’re monstrous worms with teeth.”

‘Yep, gross as I thought. Everything here is gross, I swear. This place needs a major un-grossing.’

Someone’s chair slides out from under them as they stand and shout, “What the fuck do you mean monstrous worms!? No one told us about fuckin’ monster worms!”

Others join him asking their own questions:

“Or that the Doppelgänger has grown out of control!? We’ve been working in a goddam death trap!”

“Or the damn giants walking around outside.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“And what are Crawlers!?”

The yelling only grows worse from there as I watch Dr. Wright wiggle in the chair he is tied to, yelling at anyone who dares to question him.

I laugh and bang the gavel. “Order. Order in my cafeteria.” The yelling continues, and my brows furrow. Raising the gavel, I bring it down upon the desk. “Order!” I yell as the gavel cracks the hardwood that makes up the top of the desk.

Everyone goes quiet and sit down without another word. I huff. “If I say order in my cafeteria, I expect order in my cafeteria!” My eyes move across the blank faces. “Now, I’ll answer some of your questions…”

Time passes as I explain to everyone what has been occurring in Anchorage. Of course, excluding anything that might make me look bad or complacent. After all, I am totally innocent in all of this. They act as you might expect, a few people cry, a few get really angry, and then some panicked—as always dull stuff.

“Okay!” I throw my arms up. “I feel like we’ve had similar conversations to this before, so can you guys stop acting like this every time a sliver of new information comes out? It’s exhausting… Anyway, now that you know your current position better, let us continue.” I look at Fraiser. “How do we kill it?”

“...I don’t know it has never developed this much before.” I raise my hands and point at Dr. Wright. “Oh, yeah, I’m supposed to be asking him.” He turns to Dr. Wright. “Were the worms how you planned to stop it?”

Dr. Wright scoffs. “The worms obviously weren’t doing the job, or I’d have already left.” He looks at me, continuing, “I needed access to the lab where all our chemical storage is if I hoped to have a chance at that.”

I sigh and motion toward Fraiser, indicating that I’m merely observing… for now.

So with another huff, he scowls at Fraiser. “The lab. The lab with all the chemicals we’ve been using to suppress the thing this whole time.”

“Yes. I obviously know about that, but why?” Fraiser asks. “Nothing you could make in there would be potent enough.”

“That used to be true. Until those blood samples fell into my hands.”

“You mean the people you wouldn’t give her?”

Dr. Wright’s brows furrow. “Who else would possibly come to this hellhole?”

“So, you old fool, what about them helped with the chemical mixtures?”

“Their blood. Something faint, but it seemed to increase the effectiveness of some acids and solutions on the creature. We only noticed it after the one idiot hit his nose on a shelf.” He looks toward Sam, who is standing in the back, currently eating a bagel. “Blood sprayed everywhere, and some of his blood got onto one of the Palms that had copied his form. Usually, they’d ignore that kind of thing, but it seemed annoyed and ran away when it happened. An abnormal response for them.”

Sam touches his nose. “...Oh, well, that explains that, ” I see him say to himself.

“Anyway, we needed his blood to suppress the thing as long as we could.”

Fraiser and Dr. Wright begin to go back and forth, asking questions and yelling. ‘Hmm, now that I think about it, my blood did have more of an effect on them when we were fighting. In my mind, it is likely the reason the other’s blood was affecting the creature was that there would be traces of mine in theirs. If this thing really is related to a god, I guess it would make sense that my blood might have more of an effect.’

Working through my thoughts, I allow Fraiser and Dr. Wright’s conversation to derail in any direction they wish to take it. This enables the researchers to listen in on and hear about things I’m sure many of them weren’t aware of. Such as the inner workings of The Two Palm Society.

“The Consortium is just a bunch of greedy pigs!” Fraiser yells at Dr. Wright.

“Psh!” Dr. Wright snaps back. “I don’t wanna hear shit from someone who works for those wannabe Aristocrats Two Palms cave dwellers!”

“Yeah, but at least I’m willin’ to admit they are...! Although, I don’t know about cave dwellers.”

“We’re essentially in a cave right now!”

This goes on for an hour while I lean back in my chair and stare at the ceiling. ‘Let’s see what else I need to know. I already asked about his connection to The Consortium, the Doppelgänger, the weapon, the door that Kardama sealed, and the room they were trying to get in. Is that everything I needed to know for the trail?’ The sound of flesh striking flesh resounds. ‘Oh! I’m missing something good.’

My head swings in the direction of the two men, and I can see Dr. Wright with a bloody nose.

I bang the gavel. “Fraiser, no hitting, this is a trail, not a boxing match!”

“I have a question that isn’t related to Fraiser’s wife!” I haughty female voice shouts.

‘Ah, that must be what prompted the punch.’

My gaze turns to a larger woman with what I think is a perm. “Ask your question, Perm,” I respond, waving my hand.

She tilts her head. “How did you know my name is Pam?”

‘Pretty sure I said Perm, not Pam, but whatever..’

I shrug. ”Just ask your question.”

“Where did all the test subjects come from?” Pam asks.

Nodding, I look toward Dr. Wright. “A fair question; now answers.”

He clicks his tongue. “I don’t know.”

Raising an eyebrow, I use blood magic to push the blood that runs along his spine deeper.

He grits his teeth. “I don’t know! They could come from anywhere! If they’re sent here for testing, there is probably something wrong with them. Usually mentally stunted, braindead, crazy, death row inmate, too dangerous, who knows, could be any number of reasons.”

‘Too dangerous? Robert with the paranormal Talent didn’t even qualify as “too dangerous” I wonder what must qualify then. It would have to be something that had wide-reaching effects on lots of people. Which reminds me…’

“So those people in the hospital beds in the medical ward, are those the people you are referring to?”

“Who else would that be?”

“Hmm, so… can the grafts be removed from these people?”

“I mean, ma—” he stops speaking, his mouth hangs half-open. With a raised eyebrow, he asks, “...Why do you want to know?”

“Oh. Just curiosity, really, but I feel we have a duty to undo what has been done to these people,” I say with a big smile.

His eyes go wide. “A-absolutely not!”

“It’s okay, Dr. Wright, it’ll be some time before I ask anything of you regarding such things. Still, I hope that one day you can grow a conscience and look past your old despicable ways…” I look toward the jury. “Depending on what the jury deems to be a fitting punishment, that is, of course. After all, your fate is in the hands of these fine people that you once called your coworkers and acquaintances. Then it will be Akemi’s responsibility to carry it out.”

Akemi looks uncomfortable, turning away from my gaze.

I laugh. “So let’s loop back around to the original topic. Did Dr. Wright leave everyone in this room to die? If so, what should be his punishment?”