"You know that guy?" Eli asked in disbelief.
"What do you mean- of course she knows me!" Simon growled, stepping out from behind the storage shelf. "Who do you think you are?"
Eli stood up taller, as if trying to make himself look more intimidating. "Maybe you should start explaining yourself- not asking me to," he spat.
"Brinley, can you please explain what's going on?" Simon asked, his narrowed eyes not leaving Eli's face.
Eli turned to Brinley in surprise. "Who the heck is Brinley?"
She hesitated. "... I am."
"What... what do you mean?" Eli sputtered.
Brinley bit her lip. She couldn't lose Eli- she couldn't lose her friend. Would he understand, if she explained? Didn't he like her as her- and not 'Emelda', or 'Jacqueline?'
"It's... kind of a long story..." Brinley mumbled.
"Well you had better explain it," Eli exclaimed. "Because I'm not moving until you do."
Brinley sighed. "Can you at least move to the bunk bed and sit down?"
Eli looked toward it hesitantly, before reluctantly taking a seat on the lower bunk of the bed closest to him.
"Brinley, what are you doing?" Simon hissed. "Why would you tell this to a stranger? He'll turn us in!"
"No, he won't," Brinley said angrily. "He's my friend."
"You don't know him, Brinley... how can you trust him?"
Brinley shook her head. "Simon, just trust me, okay? And anyway, he already knows that something is wrong now- don't you think it's better just to make the situation clear?"
Simon dropped his gaze, and sighed. "Fine."
Brinley turned back to Eli, who's eyes asked a million questions. He sat patiently, with his hands clasped tightly together.
"My... real name is Brinley," she began. "Not Jacqueline... or Emelda."
Eli swallowed, before nodding slowly. He believed her. "So... are you a spy or something?" he asked quietly.
Brinley shook her head. "No. And I'm not actually eighteen... I'm sixteen."
"Can you just cut to the chase?" Simon asked bitterly.
"Where did this mood come from?" Brinley glowered.
When Simon responded he wore a sarcastic, sour smile. "I don't know, Brin," he spat the last word, and Brinley winced. He never spoke to her that way. "It could be because I've been down here for about, let's see, a week, just waiting for you to come get me."
"Give her a break!" Eli scowled. "She's been sick. She could have died."
Brinley felt touched that he could defend her, even when he wasn't completely sure who she was loyal to..
Simon turned to her, his eyes wide. "You were sick?"
"Yeah, this is the only chance I've had to get away," Brinley responded, her voice sullen.
"Oh," Simon whispered, looking guilty. He avoided the other sets of eyes, and instead found a point on the floor to gaze at.
"Continue... Brinley," Eli said slowly, trying out the new word.
She started from the beginning. She told him about the day in West Virginia that seemed so long ago, about the call from Simon, the trip- until the point when they got on the plane looking for help. It was only then that Eli spoke- and even then, it was only a comment.
"I wonder why they would have stopped without a landing platform. That's dangerous... it could damage the plane, you know," he smiled apologetically. "Sorry. Continue."
She told him about the plan with Simon, about how she had decided to come and get him when she knew it was safe to leave. How it was ruined when she got sick, and how, now, she had to wait another week. Finally she got to the present, and was quiet.
There was silence, for a while. Finally Eli said, "I'll help you."
Brinley smiled, relief flooding through her. "You will?"
"Of course," Eli said earnestly. "It was all a misunderstanding- a pretty dramatic one, but a mistake nevertheless." He turned to Simon. "You're lucky to have found this place... with all the food and everything."
Simon wrinkled his nose. "It's awful. I've had to eat all this stuff frozen. The stuff I've laid out hasn't thawed as much as I hoped it would."
Eli shrugged. "That's okay, Brinley and I can take turns bringing you things until Saturday. We'll just figure out a schedule, and we'll sneak you food according to it."
"Thank you, Eli," Brinley said, tears coming to her eyes. She couldn't imagine leaving him in less than a week- never to see him again. She stood up from where she'd been sitting on a stiff mattress beside Simon, and embraced her friend.
He was so sacrificing, to do this for them. If he was caught sneaking Simon food- he could be punished. His term extended, his pay lowered- just like the boy Natalie told Brinley about, who stole a roll- and that was only one extra thing. Pilfering full meals- for five days?
It was risky- and yet Eli was willing to do it. She hugged him tighter, and when she released him he smiled sadly. "I wish that you didn't have to go so soon."
"I know," Brinley replied. "Just go back to doing whatever you did before you knew I existed."
Eli's shoulders slumped. "That won't be as easy as you think it'll be."
Brinley grinned, embarrassed. "I'm not that interesting, am I?"
"Not compared to me- but you're getting there," Eli winked.
Brinley rolled her eyes.
"Will the two of you stop flirting and get over here so we can figure out this schedule thing?" Simon asked, exasperated.
"We weren't-" Brinley began, her cheeks growing hot.
Eli lifted his eyebrows, but his face was red, too.
"Whatever," Simon said, rolling his eyes.
A plan was made, and soon Brinley and Eli were taking the elevator back to the first floor for breakfast. Brinley would give Simon half of her lunch each day, Eli would split his breakfast, and both of them would share one tray at dinner and give Simon the other. Eli was sure that having a full meal would improve Simon's mood- unless grumpiness wasn't just one of his traits.
"Simon was the nicest person I know," Brinley insisted as they walked to the cafeteria.
"Was?" Eli asked, amused.
"You sort of took over his position," Brinley said slowly.
"Don't tell him that," Eli laughed. "He might hate me even more."
"He doesn't hate you," Brinley sighed. "He just has a natural dislike for anyone who I know and he doesn't. Or, more particularly..."
"Boys," Eli grinned. "I know. Don't forget that I'm an older brother, too."
"Oh, yeah," Brinley smiled. "So it's a big brother thing- not a Simon thing."
Eli cocked his head slightly to the side, thinking to himself. "Well... he is a little bit harsh."
"Sorry," Brinley muttered, but Eli just laughed.
They had missed breakfast, it turned out. She tried to forget about it as the two of them headed to Segment B, but the gnawing in her stomach wouldn't let her.
"Don't worry, lunch will come soon enough," Eli assured her, as if reading her mind.
Being back at Segment B felt different than it did last time. Now the tools that had excited Brinley before made her tremble, as did the sight of the bodies that lay on each of the tables around the room. Next to each table was a slightly smaller version of the tub that had been in the center of the room last time she was there.
Brinley turned her head slightly to the side as she looked down at the face. But... she couldn't see the face. There was a mask covering all of it but the mouth, which was left exposed for the admittance of the endotracheal tube, no doubt.
"Why do you think they're covering their face?" Brinley whispered to Eli as they studied the corpse together.
Eli shrugged.
"Let's begin!" a voice called, and Brinley turned. The instructor wasn't familiar to her; a tall man with porcelain skin and dark black hair stood with his hands clasped in front of him patiently.
"Who's that?" Brinley whispered, not trying to hide her disappointment. "Where's Kam?"
"Sick," Eli frowned. "This is the replacement- Dr. Burns. He started on Friday." He lowered his voice to a volume below a whisper. "I hear Ms. Adley has been sick, too. It's lucky for you, I guess- you can keep working here. Until Saturday, I mean." When he added the last part, he didn't do well to mask his sadness.
"I hope Kam gets better," Brinley muttered glumly.
"Everyone," Dr. Burns repeated, eyeing Brinley and Eli warily.
"Sorry," Brinley sighed, and the two of them headed over to the center of the room.
"For those of you who haven't been here the past few days, due to... illness, I'm Dr. Burns. You may only refer to me as the said name, or just 'Doctor'. I am not your friend, and I expect that you won't treat me as if I am. I am your superior, and if I'm disrespected, you will be reported to the authorities. Trust me when I say that that would be a mistake you do not want to make," he looked around at everyone to be sure they were paying attention, and then smiled. "I'm sure you'll learn a lot here- until Ms. Liu gets back. She is... a bit too friendly with her subordinates, I think."
Eli raised his eyebrows at Brinley, who frowned. She missed Kam.
"So," Dr. Burns said, rubbing his hands together. "Let's just get into it. Split off into pairs of two, and find a table. I trust you know what to do after that. I'll be working with one of you here in the center. Oh," he seemed to remember something. "I suppose that you noticed that something's a bit different, now- a new rule was passed regarding the corpses. There have been complaints about their faces being exposed- families of the cadavers think that it causes privacy issues. That being said, get to work."
Neither Eli nor Brinley needed to speak a word, and yet they knew that they'd be working together. It seemed almost necessary; their relationship required it. They headed quietly toward the table in the far left corner of the room, and began the process.
"I didn't know we'd all be doing it on our own," Brinley said as she helped Eli lay the body inside of the tub.
"They chose the people who did the best on the first day, and we're the ones who get to work here. So you, me..." he trailed off.
Brinley frowned, and looked around the room as she realized.
Before she could ask, Eli answered. "She's at in the hospital wing with Liz. She doesn't look good, Emelda. I mean..." he smiled guiltily. "Brinley."
"It's like they're trying to kill us or something," Brinley muttered.
Eli's eyes widened.
"What? I was joking," Brinley said hurriedly.
"But are you really?" Eli whispered. "I mean, what proof do we have that they aren't? That the bodies coming in aren't the employees who are working here?"
Brinley rolled her eyes. "Eli, that's ridiculous. Think about it- there was the young girl the one day, and the shipments that were coming in by plane. They wouldn't need if they were using the bodies of associates. Anyway, this isn't some murder mystery. What reason would they have to do that?"
Eli injected the needle for the anti-freeze. "If they wanted to do a study on the similarities of people's physical bodies- internal, I'm guessing- they would need to use people who had been living under the same conditions. Eating the same foods, drinking the same water, and having the same cause of death." He worked quickly, putting in the second needle and turning on the other pump. Brinley was in control of the breathing while he did the blood draining and anti-freeze filling. "Anyway, don't you think that it would explain the masks?"
"Dr. Burns said that it was something about privacy," Brinley said weakly.
Elijah was whispering so quietly Brinley needed to lean forward to hear him. "Do you really believe Dr. Burns?" He said the name with such repulsion that Brinley flinched.
"I guess you have a point," Brinley muttered. "But how do you explain the shipments and everything?"
"They had to cover it up somehow, so it wouldn't seem suspicious," Eli suggested in a low voice. "So they had donated bodies imported first to cover it up, and then they switched over to employees. Anyway, there haven't been any more shipments since Tuesday. Don't you think that's a little suspicious, seeing as we haven't run out of bodies?"
"But I heard the doctors talking," Brinley insisted. "They said that there hadn't been any deaths- before Alex, I mean."
Eli shook his head. "I don't have all the answers, Brinley... but I'm going to go with my gut on this one. I don't have a way to prove anything, and maybe I'm wrong, but whatever's going on here is... strange." The corpses blood had been drained, and replaced by the anti-freeze. "We're done," Eli sighed.
Brinley looked around at the other tables. The others were still fiddling with needles and inserting them gingerly- some even trying to slide in the endotracheal tubes. Even thought Eli was talking, he worked so efficiently- as if he'd been doing this for his whole life.
Suddenly Brinley had a thought. "Eli?"
"Yeah?"
"What have you all been doing up until now? I mean, before the body preservation began? If that's what the whole project was about," Brinley questioned.
Eli shrugged. "There was a lot to be done. Building, setting things up. Honestly, according to my theory, they could have been preparing us."
"What do you mean?"
"You know how in Hansel and Gretel the old lady fattens up the children to cook?" Eli asked.
Brinley sighed. "Eli, you aren't seriously-"
Eli interrupted her. "I don't mean that they're fattening us up for cooking literally, but think of it as more of a figure of speech. Maybe they're getting our bodies used to the surroundings, before slowly changing the chemical levels at a constant rate? It makes sense- that's what they'd need to do if they wanted all of us to have reasonably the same health conditions. If they want to see how the environment can change people, they'd need to have a large number to work with."
Brinley didn't want to believe him, but the more he spoke the more possible the idea seemed. She shook her head despite this. "Let's just drop this for now, okay? If we find any proof that supports the idea that..." she lowered her voice to a whisper, "Their intentions are only kill us and use us for experimental purposes, then we'll decide what to do then. For now... it's just making me nervous."
"Okay, okay," Eli sighed. He lifted gaze from Brinley's face to something behind her, and she turned. Dr. Burns was approaching, so quietly that if it weren't for Eli, Brinley was sure she wouldn't have seen him until he was just inches away.
"Are you finished?" Dr. Burns asked, poorly hiding his surprise.
"We are," Eli said, his voice lacking emotion. Brinley knew that he was trying to cover up a cold, cynical tone that would have otherwise leaked into his words.
Dr. Burns nodded, impressed. "Alright, then. Put it on a cart and roll it to the preservation room, and then you can do another."
Brinley tried to keep her face even, but she wanted to scream at him. He had called the body an 'it.' Maybe the girl was dead, but she wasn't an it. Once she had felt emotions, had her own thoughts, family, dreams...
She swallowed the angry words, and forced a smile instead. "We'll get right on it."
When Brinley finally had her lunch break, she grabbed a sandwich and a bag of chips, before heading eagerly to the elevator. It was hard not to eat the food when she stood in the elevator, hunger burning like a fire in her stomach, but she waited anyway.
When she got onto the right floor, she needed to call to Simon three times before he came out. When he did, he was scowling.
"You took a long time," he muttered as she handed him half of the sandwich.
Brinley huffed. "I only just got on break, Simon."
He ignored her, instead taking a bite of the sandwich and staring at some random point in the distance. If he acted like this when it was her bringing him food, she could only imagine how he'd behave for just Eli.
She banished the thoughts from her mind. Eli could handle Simon, couldn't he? He was at least 5'9- an inch shorter than Simon- and was easily more muscular. Even now, at twenty-four, Simon was as brawny as he had been when he was a teenager. Eli, on the other hand, had a stocky build, square jaw, and well defined muscle in his arms- from what Brinley had seen.
Until she thought about their differences, she hadn't realized how close attention she'd paid to Simon and Eli's physiques- Eli's, at least. She was bound to notice how Simon was built, being his sister and seeing him for most of his life.
"You like him, don't you?" Simon muttered.
Brinley turned to look at him in surprise. "Who?"
"That 'Eli guy," Simon said, seeming confused himself. "Who else?"
Brinley turned back to her sandwich. "No," she said quietly. "We're only friends."
"You don't seem so sure," Simon observed.
"Ugh. Simon, he's almost nineteen, and after this week, I'll never see him again. How could we be any more than friends?" She scowled.
Simon was quiet after that. He shrugged, and then returned to his food.
The thought of Eli being any more than a friend to Brinley startled her. Had she been acting in a way that implied she felt that way? She shook her head. Who cared, anyhow? Eli would only be a memory in just a week.
But I have the picture, she thought.
Still, the thought of never seeing him again was so painful to think about that she needed to let out a choked sob. She covered it up by coughing, and then finished her half of the sandwich. She gave Simon the bag of chips, ignoring the growling in her stomach that declared she needed more to eat, and headed back to the elevator. She didn't want to deal with Simon anymore- she felt as if her brother was gone for good. He was different, like something had clicked in his brain and he would never again be the loving, selfless man he was before.
When she got into the main lobby, Brinley saw Natalie standing near the cafeteria. When she saw Brinley she looked relieved.
"I was looking for you," she exclaimed.
Brinley's eyes widened. "Is it Liz?"
Natalie bit her lip, and shook her head. "It's Elijah."