|Viraliv|[17-21]Ciusir-Bi|Umaek|Sol|Mars|
12,763,892,458cy
Black site “Last Resort”, Medium Mars orbit
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Before Theo and Glena’s plan started, Theo asked if Glena would go along with him through the tunnels. He looked nervous, Glena thought he needed some help of the mental kind, someone to give him the last push. She agreed, she would lose nothing going through the vents with him, save for a bit of dirt on her clothes.
Crawling through these tunnels is scarier than Glena had initially thought. Various insects and rodents could be found, oftentimes you would only hear them and not see them. Cobwebs and carcasses are fairly common and all of it is difficult to see. Glena thinks that she wouldn’t have been able to do this without Theo, who seems to be able to navigate these cramped quarters with little issue. Theo looks back for a second and says, “We’re almost there…”
Glena looks up, trying to see his face in the darkness and asks, “Almost where?”
Theo replies, “Almost to a little cubby, we can stand up there and take a breath.” He faces forward again and starts moving.
Glena welcomes the thought and renews her efforts, she continues following Theo’s movements. Eventually Glena could see what looks to be a dim light ahead, a strange place for a light but maybe Theo put it here when he was mapping this place out. Glena sees Theo coming out of his crawling position, he must’ve entered the cubby. Glena moves forward slowly, trying to find out where the vent ends and the cubby begins; her hands swipe unseen into the dust trying to find the edge. She finds it and looks up and a bright light flashes and her eyes, so used to the dark, are over stimulated by it. She groans out in pain and asks Theo what that was for, she hears nothing but a loud noise behind her.
Glena looks behind her trying to see what it was, with the aid of the new light she spots what looks like a grate. Glena yelps as she feels a pair of hands grab hers and pulls her out of the vents. With her heart beating incredibly fast and heavy she looks up and sees a few scientists, Theo’s being held by a pair. Theo is mumbling sorries and crying, Glena isn’t sure what is happening but she does understand that it’s bad. The scientist that pulled her out of the vent is now holding her down by her neck. Another scientist moves closer and injects her with something, a few seconds later and she begins to feel sleepy; strange for sure given how much adrenaline is flowing in her. Her vision grows dark to the sounds of Theo sobbing and to the scientist talking amongst themselves, too quiet to hear as everything slips away.
Some time later, the exact amount is unknown but probably hours, Glena regains consciousness in a very spartan and clean white room. Well, room is a bit generous, more like a cell with just enough space to have a small bed in it. There were some clothes on the bed, the type a medical patient would wear, Glena looked down and just now noticed her own nakedness along with the cold sensation of the floor. She’s having a hard time remembering what happened or how she got here, a lasting effect of whatever they injected her with no doubt. She just remembers Theo saying that he was sorry, did he betray her perhaps? Was the whole thing just a lie meant to lure her in? What about her parents, are they okay? Such thoughts were the only ones speeding through Glena’s head while getting dressed. Once she had finished nothing happened, she was stuck in this white room, no window to view out of or anything. With nothing to do Glena decided to try and get some rest, still feeling drained from the events in the vents.
She didn’t know how long she was lying there, she couldn’t sleep anyway, but the time melded together with nothing to keep track of it. Still lying there she heard the door swish open, a few lab personnel stepped into her already cramped room. Glena tried to ask them where she was and what was going on but she got nothing in return, they seemed very intent on just doing their job and nothing extra. They strong-armed her along with them, through the multitude of sections of the lab until they reached section eight, dubbed the “Testing Lab”. Whether Theo was lying about what happened in this lab or not, Glena really didn’t want to find out. Lashing out against the ones holding her she didn’t make it very far in her struggle before she felt a small but intense electric numbing and fell to the floor. The lab personnel are very used to dealing with people who have enhanced bodies, Glena was no different to the others who had tried the same thing.
This time the lab technicians didn’t bother transporting her with dignity, instead opting to simply drag her into throughout the section. She was brought to the glass box, the one Theo had talked about, at least that wasn’t a lie. Other kids like here were in it, about twenty-three or so, maybe more that were in other sections. Some adults were also trapped, though only about seven, maybe they were harder to capture or perhaps it was too risky for them to go missing. Regardless, other than a few new ones, they all seemed drained and were slumping over against the glass. Darkened eyes and sickly figures seemed to be the common sight. The new ones, like Glena, were banging on the glass or crying. Emotions ran high but Glena was more preoccupied observing this place, and with trying to spot Theo. She didn’t find Theo but she did spot many weird contraptions, a few she knew from school, though these looked an era more advanced. More than anything else there were various bags of green goop hooked up to almost every machine, like blood bags, perhaps this was what the scientists were working on.
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Glena seems pretty calm about everything but it’s safer to say that this is too overwhelming for her, similar to a shell-shocked new recruit on their first battlefield. The scientists don’t do anything to Glena, they seem content to simply put Glena and the others into the clear room. Glena can also see some other clear cubes, smaller though. Inside are small testing animals, a rat would fit in there though scientists don’t use rats anymore. This observation makes Glena realize what position she’s in by being in the clear room, she’s just like the other testing animals. Seeing that the scientists are all wearing sealed suits and that the clear cube itself is sealed by an airlock, Glena can surmise that she likely has whatever they are testing already, or at least she will catch it soon.
Glena doesn’t understand why but the scientists seem content with not doing anything to the new members of the cube, Glena included. A few times they can be seen motioning for the others, the ones that look like they’ve been here awhile, to stick their hand into a machine. The machine allows the scientists to operate on them without ever touching them, robot arms controlled by them do the actual work. They mostly draw blood samples or swab various parts of the body, maybe looking for the green goop or something. Other than the general sickly look people have, pale skin, bags under their eyes, coughing every now and then, no other obvious symptoms could be seen.
Glena is still shell-shocked, though to a lesser degree, as the scientists seem to be done for the day. Food is passed out by some guards and then the light is shut off in the lab. Not even being treated like a human is a shock for Glena, on top of everything else this seems to break her. Finally she starts sobbing uncontrollably, not even being able to eat her food she falls asleep eventually.
She wakes up to the lab lights being turned on, the lab-suits shuffle in and begin turning on the machines. The whirring noise the machines make is the only thing Glena can focus her mind on to keep away from dwelling on her current situation. It seems someone took her food while she was sleeping, her stomach growls and she doesn’t yet know when the guards will hand out more. At the least the bathroom is separate, though still situated in a clear cube, it can’t be seen from the main cube and has some waist-high blockers. The other subjects don’t seem to want to talk, either new and shell-shocked like Glena, or old and dead-eyed.
Several days pass, the same monotony, the same noises, the same faces. One of the scientists drew her blood, they never injected her with anything so Glena guesses whatever they are testing is passed through air, contact with the others, or maybe even the food. Glena thinks about her parents and home often, her parents must be going crazy right now. Even in this situation imagining them turning this station upside down to find her makes her smile, a smile not reflected on her face. She learned not to show emotion on her face, believing that the scientists will treat them differently if they show anything other than boredom, it’s just an assumption but she doesn’t want to test it.
Another uneventful day passes, that is until another subject is thrown in the cube. Glena doesn’t care enough to look, she’s blending in quite well with the others by now. Indifference until she hears the subject make a sound as they are pushed forcefully into the cube. Looking up, Glena sees that it was Theo, who was pushed into the cube, now lying on the floor and scrambling to get up. Glena didn’t care about blending in anymore, she rushed over and grabbed onto Theo’s arm and pulled him into an empty spot of the cube. Theo looked up and saw that it was Glena that was dragging him and he opened his mouth before closing it, this repeated several times, like a fish out of water.
Glena thinks it’s a bit funny and then slaps Theo. It was a solid one that made even the more coma-patient looking subjects look at what’s going on, she then starts crying. Theo looks a bit shocked at first and then cries along with her. After a few minutes of crying Theo chokes out, “I- I’m sorry, they said that they’d let me go back home if I got someone else. I know it’s bad but I was so worried and wrapped up in my own life that I got you drawn into this too. I’m sorry!”
Glena looks at him with harsh eyes, the eyes a mother would have after their child just marked the walls with crayon. “Theo, I can’t forgive you for this but at least I understand why you did it. I don’t know if I would do any different if I was in your situation.”
For the rest of the day they sit next to each other, in silence. Glena doesn’t trust Theo but he is a familiar face, which is something that seems to be extremely rare in this cube. A few days passed in relative silence, then small talks began, then they started to talk more openly regardless of the environment that they were in. Glena thinks it unlikely that their relationship will ever get over what happened but she doesn’t hold it against him as much. Perhaps feeling that the situation is inescapable or understanding the fear Theo must have been through. Throughout these days, Glena was tested some more. She’s starting to tire more easily and is more pale than usual, Theo seems to be doing better. He told her that he was given an earlier, less efficient, version and that his body was more suited towards fighting it due to that; the scientists seem to deem Theo an important subject due to that.
Perhaps because of that, or as a reward for bringing in Glena, Theo has more autonomy than the other subjects. Maybe that was why Theo had a different outlook compared to the others, more courageous. And, maybe that was why after some time Theo suggested to Glena that they should escape. Last time he was caught and forced to trick others to save himself but, this time he has some experience and knowledge about the layout of the lab. Of course they couldn't do it alone, the more escapes there were the harder it would be to catch them all and they could pool together their information about the facility.
Glena felt turmoil hearing about what Theo planned. On one hand she definitely wanted to get out of here and any chance to do so was welcome. On the other, even if she can’t think of a reason why the lab would orchestrate another plan like this she still can’t bring herself to trust Theo to this level. Regardless, Theo is a needed piece for any escape to happen, Glena just needs to take on more of a leading role this time to ensure that nothing bad will happen to her this time.
Glena decides to start working on it, of course they’ll need the help of the apathetic others and they’ll need to do it while in the cube. The scientist would likely take interest if their subjects started to, all of a sudden, behave differently. Theo would be an absolute must in this regard, to give them secret messages.