The white lights of the laboratories hurt her eyes at this time of the night. She grunted and dodged around a stack of files that were to be burnt. This vacuum sealed crate seemed to be heavier than its brothers and sisters. Kamala puffed out her cheeks as she waddled out of the lab, crate rubbing her supporting hip. She set it down as gently as she could on the electric trolley with its friends. She wasn’t built for this kind of abuse. Nobody in the labs had signed up to shift boxes in the middle of the night amidst a telepathic cock fight.

“This is bullshit, Dan. How can they do this to us?”

Dan set a crate beside hers. He paused to wipe the sweat from his tired, sunken eyes. “They didn’t plan for this, Kamala. It’s an emergency evacuation. What do you want me to say?”

She shot him a withering look. “I wasn’t talking about the hours of manual labour when I should be fast asleep in my own bed. I’m talking about the secrets.”

Dan looked at his feet and gave the most insincere shrug she had ever seen. ‘What secrets?”

“There is two of them. They had to have known it could go awry at some point,” growled Kamala. “The fact that so many of us didn’t know about him means they’ve kept it secret or… erased it. You’d think someone would remember growing the bastard. It makes me sick to think they’ve been fucking with us this entire time.” She dragged the finger she had been pointing at Dan to her feet. “And those boys down there? Don’t get me fucking started!”

Dan winced and leaned against the trolley. “I hear you.”

“Do you? Cause someone like you probably knows more than the rest of us plebs,” said Kamala. “Like why there needs to be multiple copies of a telepath and why no-one I’ve spoken to remembers growing one!” She leaned closer. “I think you owe me some answers. I think you owe all of us some answers.”

“This isn’t the only Kemprex facility to engage in clandestine research practices. Anyone of them could have…”

Kamala cut in, shaking her head and wagging a finger in the man’s face. “We have the Goose. Any clone is almost useless without him. You said so yourself the first day I was here. You are lying, Daniel McCarthy.”

Dan snorted. “Take it up with the higher ups. Speak to my boss if you need to. Yelich himself is down there. You could ask him yourself. I don’t know shit. I just follow orders.”

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“You’re lying.”

He laughed. “I’m tired. I haven’t slept in days. Being accused of… whatever you’re accusing me of isn’t helping. We’ve got a mountain of shit to move and hours to do it in.”

“Dan…”

“I didn’t know!” snapped Dan, pounding the trolley with a fist. “And that’s the honest truth! Do you think they’d let us walk around the kid if any of us knew? Think about it. He can read our thoughts. The first person to look at him out of the corner of their eye could set him off. I’m just as pissed off as you.”

Kamala grimaced, backed out of her aggressive stance. Dan didn’t just look deathly tired, he looked defeated. “What… What if they’ve been fucking with our minds, Dan? Do you think they’d do that?”

He winced and shook his head. “No…” he said trailing off. “Maybe? I…” He swept his hair back and cradled his head. “I wouldn’t put it past them, honestly. The shit we do on a daily basis… I mean, I feel nothing about it? No remorse.” Dan looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “You?”

Kamala sighed and nodded in agreement. “Yeah. I feel nothing too. It’s only work to me, you know? I’m excited with the discoveries and advancements the team has made but that’s about it. It’s weird. And I just don’t want to share with my family, even though I’m proud of what I’ve achieved.”

Dan stared at her for a moment and Kamala thought he would say more. He pointed back at the lab. “We’ve got work do to.”

Kamala let him pass. She stretched her neck, easing the knot that had developed between her shoulders. “This is bullshit,” she sighed to herself.

The general lights suddenly dimmed. She turned, looking back down the hall that led to the foyer. In the distance she could hear pops and bangs. “What the hell is that?” She walked closer, cocking her head to listen. Was it hammers or power-tools? Had they hit a wire? Screams and shouts interspersed the pops. She stopped at the corner and peered around. People were fleeing toward her, spilling out of the foyer and adjoining labs.

An older engineer got to her first. He wheezed with each clunky step, face crimson with effort. He noticed her and waved for her to follow. “Go! Go!”

“What’s going on?” she shouted, jogging by his side.

“We’re under attack! Coming through the front!” he wheezed.

She stopped and spun on her heel, looking for Dan. “Hey!” she screamed.

He emerged from the lab they had been assigned to empty, clutching a sealed crate to his chest, a frown creasing his sweating forehead. “What?”

“Run!”

Dan flung the crate to the floor and followed at a run. The pops resolved into gunshots behind them, long, loud and too close for her liking.