No one was exactly in the right frame of mind to attempt another recording of the blank 34 that night, particularly with the planned infiltration of the central lab the next day. Somehow the group managed to sleep right through it, and Chase chalked it up to human adaptability. Being existentially terrified by things you don’t understand isn’t a great survival strategy, so humans had historically chalked up all manner of natural phenomena to gods or spirits and declared it out of their hands. Compared to an earthquake or hurricane, ignoring the source of 34 missing minutes that you couldn’t even remember was evolutionary child’s play.
Whatever the reason, the group met up for a tense breakfast the next morning. Any attempts at small talk were punctuated by long periods of silence as each of them dwelled on what they had to do today and the consequences they would face if they got it wrong. Soon those bits of small talk faded and all that was left was the chewing of granola bars and the sipping of coffee. Chase knew he had to say something that would get everyone’s head in the game, or at least baffle them enough to distract from the impending infiltration. Nervous people made bad actors, and even with Echo’s light-bending and attention-deflecting jewelry, Chase didn’t want to leave anything to chance.
Surprisingly, Jess beat him to the punch. “Hey guys?” She began, drawing the attention of the table. “I know none of us were super close before this whole nightmare started, not really. I just want to say that I don’t think I would have made it through without you, and I don’t want to make it out of here without you either. So stay safe, watch each other’s backs as much as you can, and let’s get out of here in one piece.”
Chase blinked, then nodded firmly. “What she said.”
“Yeah, I want to grab a drink with all of you when this is over and just another crazy story we can tell.” Tom added, toasting with his coffee.
“Please, no one is ever gonna believe half of it.” Miles scoffed, but he was smiling.
“It is rather far-fetched, but it will make a fascinating tale.” Ellie said with her typical half-smile.
The group turned one by one to Kayla, and her glare slowly softened. “Fine! I don’t hate you guys. Stay safe, you crazy bunch of nerds.”
“She likes us! She really does!” Chase exclaimed, and Kayla flipped him off while rolling her eyes. Tension successfully broken, the group began standing and stretching, heading their separate ways. Miles and Ellie put their heads together as they headed out, speaking in hushed tones as Miles absently adjusted the pen in his shirt pocket. Kayla split off to punch Tom companionably on the shoulder, trying to ease some of the burden he was feeling at being the only one of them going alone. Chase shot Jess a grateful glance, and the edges of her brown eyes crinkled up as she smiled. The two of them were together again, this time with an extra Kayla. Chase felt like nothing could stand in their way, at least not for long.
Soon enough Tom had left to meet Marcus and the rest of the facilities staff, and Kayla turned to Chase with her game face on. For her, that was just a firmer than usual scowl, but the hardness in her eyes showed that she meant business. Chase schooled his expression to something serious, and it must have been good enough as she turned to lead them out of the room.
“I figure we should start with where I saw the scientists yesterday.” She began outlining her plan as they walked. “If we’re lucky and these things really do make us blend in really well, we might be able to just attach ourselves to one of those groups and find a way in that way. If that doesn’t work or we can’t find one today, we’ve got the security keys as a backup option. I don’t know if they have someone more competent than the lazy security guard you guys mentioned watching the central labs or the cameras, so we’ll keep that as plan B.”
“You’ve really thought this through.” Chase commented.
“One of us had to. Don’t get me wrong, we wouldn’t be in this good of a position without your impulsiveness, Chase, but some things do need planning.”
“That’s entirely fair.”
“Alright, well, once we get in there our best bet is probably to keep following a crowd. I don’t want to test the limits on Echo’s distraction jewelry when we could get snatched and implanted with a parasite if things go wrong. Just following and observing should get us a start, and then we can decide if we keep passively following or try to seek things out. All depends on what we discover first, I guess.”
Jess nodded. “It’s a good plan. We can’t account for everything, so let’s not get bogged down in details just yet.”
Luck seemed to be on their side, as just past the supply room Kayla had seen the researchers raiding yesterday was another, with a different group collecting electronics and chemicals. With Echo’s disguises up, the three students looked like they were now each sporting a standard issue lab coat and generic professional outfit underneath, allowing them to seamlessly tack themselves onto the group of scientists. Chase picked up a random bottle and what looked like a fancy radar gun, focusing on looking like he belonged and staying a step behind the mid-thirties woman he’d chosen to follow. She wasn’t the most junior or senior member of the group they’d stumbled across, which just reinforced Chase’s belief that he’d made the right choice. If Echo’s disguise was designed to make him look like a face in the crowd, he should hang around the more average members of that crowd to stand out even less.
In no time at all, they were passing the doors to the central labs, doors that had always been locked and sealed even before the tour had gone so awry. Chase was trespassing, and he felt a tiny thrill at the mundane criminality. Doesn’t even qualify as breaking and entering, he mused, just straight-up entering. Maybe the breaking comes later? Better hope not, that means something will have gone horribly wrong.
From a purely physical perspective, there wasn’t much to separate these central corridors from the outer ones. Certainly nothing as extreme as Chase had seen with Echo’s designs in the dreamscape. Little by little though, the overall feel of the place shifted into unfamiliar territory. For one thing, there were far more people crowding these hallways than there were in the all but abandoned outer areas. At least three other groups like theirs passed them, either heading out for more supplies or returning with their bounty. Chase tried to note what kinds of things they were carrying, but there was no real rhyme or reason to it and he couldn’t name half of the fancy bits of equipment anyway.
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The worst part, the part that made the hair on the back of Chase’s neck stand on end, was the utter silence of it all. No one spoke from any group, and they greeted each other with tiny nods of acknowledgement, if that. Each person’s steps seemed measured, to the point where it would have been easy to sell Chase on the idea that this was a military lab and they were all defaulting to a matched-step march. The unspoken coordination added a somewhat surreal layer of creepiness to the whole ordeal. When Chase had been in elementary school, one of his cousins had gone through an ant phase. He’d filled his room with ant books and ant farms, and every time Chase went over to play with him he’d have to spend hours watching these ants industriously carve out new tunnels for their hive and form efficient assembly lines to ferry the dirt out or the food in. The utter inhuman efficiency on display here put those ants to shame.
Chase knew their original idea of following and eavesdropping definitely wasn’t going to work. Maybe there were conversations between some higher-ups somewhere, but the groups out in the open seemed to just be parasite-hollowed automatons. Jess and Kayla must have picked up on it as well, as they moved up alongside him as their group crossed the next intersection and nudged him to take a right. The three of them split off to no fanfare, and Chase mentally breathed a sigh of relief. He trusted Echo, but the other parasites were a wild card and might be able to see through anything Echo could put together. The hallway they found themselves in was largely empty, but Kayla still shepherded the two of them into a small conference room off to the side and shut the door behind them, rounding on them with wild eyes.
“What the fuck!” She hissed. “That was the creepiest shit I’ve ever seen! Like the fucking Stepford scientists! That’s what these parasites do to people?”
Chase nodded grimly. “You never saw Bobby, the security guard. He was a little more functional than they seem to be, but he’d basically been reduced to caricature. I’d guess all those scientists were pared down to a core of efficiency or something along those lines.”
Kayla shook her head. “I can at least comprehend becoming a stereotype, I’ve met a few people like that with no alien influence involved. But this shit is wrong on so many levels.”
“Yeah.” Jess sounded faint. “It is. Those were real people with families and hobbies and dreams. Now they’re cogs in a machine or facets of a hivemind or something.”
“Hivemind.” Chase breathed, eyes widening in realization. “Something Echo told me is starting to make more sense now that I’ve seen it. They said the parasites by default focus on the big picture, on everything at once. That it takes energy for them to look at things one at a time like we do. What if that’s what we’re seeing here? That conformity - lots of little parasites directed by an overmind. Like an ant queen.”
“And?” Kayla asked, anger and fear still thick in her tone. “That’s pretty much what we thought we were getting into here. Does it change anything?”
“Maybe.” Chase pondered. “If they’re functioning like an ant hive, then those people we were following are basically just following pre-programmed paths. Like robots. As long as we don’t do anything to throw off those paths and patterns too much, we should basically have free reign and they might not even notice we’re here.”
“Okay, that could be useful.” Kayla’s scowl eased up slightly. “How sure are you on this?”
“Eh, maybe seventy percent?” Chase waggled his hand back and forth. “It’s just a guess, but it feels right based on how they were behaving. I don’t think you need me to tell you that there wasn’t much behind their eyes.”
Jess nodded. “Chase is right. Unless we do something to attract attention, we can probably scout around undisturbed.”
“Alright, we’ll try it. But if we get captured because of this, I’m tripping you up as I make a break for it.”
“I always knew my leadership style inspired loyalty. It’s touching, it really is.”
Kayla rolled her eyes before poking her head out the conference room door. “Looks clear, let’s go. Er… any ideas where to?”
Chase shrugged. “Follow whatever looks interesting and try to remember which way to run if we get caught?”
“Truly, you are the greatest strategist since Napoleon.” She said dryly before leaving the room. Chase smiled and fingered his pocket watch. At least Kayla wasn’t focusing as much on the visceral horror of hollowed-out humans, dwelling now on the much more mundane horror of Chase being the group’s leader. He had known coming in here would be a risk, but he’d imagined more of a physical one. The psychological blow of seeing just what they were up against could be even more damaging if they were forced to dwell on it.
Corridors began passing again, and Chase tried to focus on their surroundings and map out the central area in his mind. He’d never exactly had a strong sense of direction, so he defaulted to the tried and true method of always turning left and hoping it wasn’t leading them in a circle. Thankfully, he didn’t get through enough turns before something worth investigating popped up to distract them. Specifically, the first voices he’d heard since they got to the central lab that weren’t their own.
They were soft and indistinct, but Chase motioned for Kayla and Jess to quietly follow as he crept toward the cracked door they were coming from. It was one of the heavy-duty steel ones, a tiny wooden doorstop preventing it from closing all the way. Chase wondered at the purpose of that, guessing that maybe this lab had an automatic lock that whoever was inside didn’t want automatically engaging. That would mean regular visitors or supply deliveries or something. He tried to convey this guess in exaggerated pantomime to the girls, and managed to get an approximation of his point across as they both turned to look to each side of the hallway as Chase crouched and brought his ear closer to the gap.
“...showing more promising results. Complexity is still an issue, core concept not yet determined. Current crop useful as labor or soldiers, not suited for critical thinking. More subjects and study required.” A low male voice droned.
“Hm.” A cultured feminine one responded. “Perhaps it is related to the maturity level of our current subjects? A breeding program is likely unfeasible, but we have observed more varied results with these younger subjects, correct?”
“Yes, initially disregarded for greater deviation chance. May indicate more flexible thought patterns.”
“There is a certain fluidity of identity in the young, isn’t there? Fascinating creatures, developing so long after birth. We will proceed with the plan to implant the younger subjects and use a slower paring strategy. They must be as indistinguishable as possible if reintegration is to occur.” Chase had a sinking feeling as he took in the words, and beyond that, the commanding tone of them.
“Yes, my queen.”
“Ah, I never get tired of hearing that. Such a curious concept, don’t you think? As if they could ever lead themselves properly. I simply can’t wait until we iron out all the kinks and perform the dimensional docking.” Chase could hear the vicious smile in her tone.
“Billions of hosts, all ripe for the taking.”