Super

Chapter 19: Plot, Counterplot

In the silence that followed, Riss pulled up two more documents, one with Lex's name and one with Casey's, and put them side by side with Ivy's “treatment” document. Lex glanced at them briefly, noting that what she could see of them matched almost exactly. She swallowed against her dry throat and just looked at Riss.

“Why?” she finally managed to ask, and the word hung heavy in the quiet room.

“Well, from what I can tell, we're all being used as test subjects in the main facility's very theoretical gene therapy experiments. For now, they have their own 'monster army,’ as I've seen them put it in company documents, but eventually they hope to be able to bottle and sell what we can do, especially to the army. Due to the political climate several years ago, around the time filling Guantanamo got popular, someone passed laws that denied standard human rights to anyone who can do things beyond a normal human's abilities: in essence, declaring us not human. They are, as a result, legally able to keep us here within the teams, or, if we start looking or acting less than human, they're able to keep us permanently within their main facility and use us as lab rats if they wish. Since it got passed along with a lot of the homeland security garbage, I guess you could say we've been nationalized. These laws have never been repealed by successive administrations, either.”

Lex's head spun and her stomach was in the process of tying itself into a tight knot, but even so, she looked at Riss again, trying to catch her eye even though the other woman attempted not to look at her. “There's something else, though. You said my life was in danger, not mine and Casey's.”

Riss nodded, still looking at the screen. “Actually, yes. I wasn't initially happy to hear you were coming along today, Serena, but now I'm glad. Do you remember a woman by the name of Cynthia Cross? The roster puts her on the team in New York around the same time you were.”

Casey looked across at Serena with a raised eyebrow, murmuring, “So that's where you came from,” while Serena nodded in affirmation at Riss' question.

“Yeah. I didn't spend enough time there to make many friends, but I remember her. She seemed pretty smart. Kind of stuck up, though; she never wanted to talk. I think she could move things around with her mind or something like that.”

Riss nodded. “From what I see on her records, she has several talents like that. There's another protocol our sponsors developed that they give to people with special mental abilities. Unfortunately, Cynthia is now in one of their experimental facilities, too, having suffered brain damage as a result of the drugs they gave her. I won't bother to show her to you, unless anyone particularly wants to see.”

Everyone shook their heads in the negative, Lex trying not to wince at the motion. Her head had started to ache and moving it now felt painful.

“The people on this team currently getting this type of 'treatment' are me,” said Riss, pulling up some more documents, “and...you, Lex.”

Lex stared at the screen, her hand now on her stomach as if trying to keep the twisting pain in, and saw that Cynthia's protocol document matched almost perfectly with one with Riss' name on it, and one with her own, paged down from what Riss had shown earlier.

“For some reason,” Riss continued, “they're not giving any drugs to you, Serena, or to Joan. Joan didn't surprise me; I know she's a ringer, here to watch us. She's really a high ranking military officer, but as you can tell from how often she's at the facility, they don't consider our team a big flight risk.”

Serena shrugged. “I figure they're not giving me any crap like that because of my family. My father arranged to get me assigned to one of these teams to give me something to do because I'd embarrassed him one too many times hanging around the house, but I am still his daughter,” she sighed.