Luke was careful to load his tranquilliser and walk as quietly as possible toward the door. He had to be ready to disappear if the person calling was a threat.
He opened the door a crack, but immediately lowered his tranquilliser upon seeing who it was.
"Hey Adam," he said, letting him pass before closing the door quickly. "Sorry it took so long to answer... You have a key now, right?"
"Well, yes, b-but I think showing up completely unannounced wouldn't go down very well right now, do you?"
"Okay, fair, but..." Luke paused. "I... I wasn't expecting to see you for a few more days at least."
"N-No, I totally get it. But... You said I could come here if I needed to talk," he replied, placing a lime-green lunchbox on the table as if it would explode if he wasn't careful. "And I-I... I kind of think we need to right now."
Luke eyed the box. "That's an interesting colour."
"I couldn't risk it getting wet, but look..." He opened it up and took out a silver USB. "I-It was in two parts when I got it, but I put it back together and it should still work okay. U-Unfortunately I don't have a laptop with a USB port. Whoever made it was super old-fashioned, it's really bad... D-Do you... Do you have a laptop with a USB port?"
"There's one in my clipboard." Luke picked it up to examine it. "Are you sure it isn't a virus? I mean, it does seem a little strange that they just left it lying around."
"I-If by that you mean biological warfare, I'm pretty sure it's clean," he assured him as Luke turned it over to look for any sort of inscription. "I t-tested it already for any kind of pathogen."
Luke nodded, trying not to look taken aback at all. "Smart."
"If-If you mean a computer virus, I guess we have to take our chances."
Luke frowned. "I mean, it's just a clipboard. As long as it doesn't blow up, I'm sure we'll manage," he muttered, before putting it back on the table as gently as he could.
Adam nodded and turned to leave.
"Where are you going?"
"You don't think it might look a little suspicious to the others if I just happened to come by with a mysterious pen-drive that I can't tell you anything about?"
"Less suspicious than you dropping it off and then leaving?" Luke turned away from the table, trying not to look too afraid of it. The odds of it actually exploding had to be fairly small. "Look, it's nearly lunchtime. People will be out on the streets soon. It's not safe to go back until it gets dark now, and even then... I'm surprised you didn't get attacked on the way here."
Adam hesitated before closing the door. "Fine, point taken. Do you have the remote to these things?" He pointed at the handcuffs that he was still wearing.
"Right here." Luke took it out of his pocket to show him. "I don't think we're ever going to use it though. I think we all know who's side you're on by now. Besides, Jess hasn't worn them for days and we haven't had any issues with her yet."
"Well, that's Jess, isn't it?" He replied.
"Nobody sees you as a threat anymore," Luke said.
He laughed. It might have been nervous, it might have been bitter. It was hard to tell. "I beg to differ."
"I know I don't."
Adam looked up at him briefly, before looking away again. "I'm not risking it," he mumbled.
"Well, it's good to be prepared." Luke said eventually, deciding just to end that line of conversation.
He realised Adam was still wearing the jumper he'd given him a day ago. He'd vastly underestimated their height difference at the time, and it hung down loosely on him; his sleeves rolled up past his elbows and bunched in a way that hid the scars and bruises. It made him look softer, more stable.
It gave him a heady wave of something to see Adam wearing his clothes. Something he knew he shouldn't look too much into.
Breaking the silence, he held out his hands gingerly and asked, "C-Can you check these are still working? Just... Just to make sure... I don't want her to freak out if they break or anything."
"Of course," he said quietly. "Shall we sit down?"
Adam nodded gratefully and he pulled up two chairs and faced them opposite each other. Sitting down, he took his hand hesitantly, trying not to focus too much on how it felt. It had been a while since he'd touched anyone, and it felt like the last part of his defence was finally slipping away. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep pretending to be unbiased. Maybe he was losing his mind. If he was, it felt like an improvement. He forced himself to focus on the metal band and struggled to make conversation. "You got down here okay, then? Nobody saw you?"
"No, nobody." He spoke hesitantly, and Luke could feel his hands shaking almost imperceptibly in his own. "I-I probably shouldn't have taken the risk when it was still light out, but with everything that's happened, being alone in that house miles away from everyone waiting for dark..."
"It's fine," he assured him. "Really. As long as you're not hurt."
"D-Don't worry about that. Worse things have happened."
"That's not reassuring." He paused whilst checking over the handcuffs and just held his hands for a moment, steadying him, then looked him in the eye. "You need to get out of that place. I know that the others are staying here as a precautionary measure - it wouldn't be a big deal. At all."
For a moment Adam just looked at him, and he realised how close they were. Their faces could only have been a few inches apart, and he could count the faint scars on his pale skin. It was getting harder and harder to ignore that something about him felt different to the others. Even Jessica didn't have that sort of disorientating effect on him. And if it couldn't be because of what he was, then it had to be who he was, which was a much more difficult reality. He didn't have any way of articulating it, but he wondered if he felt anything similar.
Then Adam drew away. "N-No, th-that's a... That's a bad idea..." He said, seemingly more to himself than to Luke.
"Because of the... Yep..." Luke stood up, smoothed his shirt down, and brushed his hair away from his face. "Smart."
"I mean I'd love to, but..."
"No, no... Really, you're... You're right..." He moved away, straightened up, and forced himself to look casual. "Maybe when things calm down a little we can..." He realised they were still stood in the hallway, and made to put a hand on his shoulder in a comforting gesture. Changing his mind mid-action, his hand stopped in mid air, and then for some reason decided on patting his head instead. Adam looked up at him, confused, so he brushed his hair back and gestured at the USB, feeling his face heating up. "Forget it. Put that thing back in the box for now." He spoke in a strained, business-like tone. "I'll go get the others."
. . .
Quinn leaned against the wall, glancing over at the clipboard, which had been propped up against a stack of books on the table. Her head hadn't stopped spinning, but it was bearable. She wasn't going to lose her temper this time. She was going to be calm and rational until she could decide whether or not her fears were justified. "Where did you find this again?"
"It was on the ground outside," Adam replied from the corner, where he'd promptly sat himself down, having evidently decided to keep as far away from the others as possible. She hadn't objected. Being near him still made her feel ill, and she couldn't explain why. "It should have been destroyed."
"Cool. And how do we know it isn't going to blow up?"
"Blind optimism," Luke said, struggling to put the USB in at an angle that actually connected.
"Is that all we have to go on, though? Because you guys were gone a while," she said, lowering her voice. She'd noticed the day before that Luke had returned without his jumper, and seeing Adam wearing it only confirmed her suspicions. "I'd assumed you were checking it over."
"Obviously we were," Adam called out, and she startled, not having realised he could hear her. "W-We checked everything over. It's as safe as we c-could feasibly prove it to be."
"Yes, see?" Luke pointed at him. "Thank you." He finally succeeded in putting the USB into the port and took a step back in anticipation, but nothing happened. "There," he told them. "It should work now."
They watched as the screen slowly filled up with files and documents. The whole screen was taken up in print that was barely a few pixels high and the scroll bar in the corner shrank. "Page one of... One hundred and seventy-four," Jess read aloud, standing up and leaning over his shoulder. "That is one hundred and seventy-three too many."
"I guess we have to be selective with what we read first, then." Luke took a page of gold star stickers out of his pocket and stuck it over the Web-cam. "It could kick us out at any moment."
Quinn looked at him in amusement. "I'm sorry, how old are you?"
"What?" He turned around defensively.
"You get those for doing your homework really well?"
"Let's just start reading okay?" Adam interjected, standing up quickly. He waved a pastel-pink notepad vaguely in their direction. "L-Look, I have a notebook with me already."
"That is a beautiful notebook. It's the exact colour of a roseate spoonbill," Jessie called out from across the room, where she was idly doodling on a scrap of paper. "That's a bird," she elaborated.
The others ignored her. Adam stood up and moved forward slightly, squinting to read the writing on the screen from across the room. "Okay, so... Case files? Do we go chronologically?"
Luke nodded. "We'll see how long we have to look."
He opened the first file and a diagram displayed across the screen. It was similar to a computer mouse in appearance, and it had a scale beside it demonstrating that it could only be a few centermeters long. It was mostly black, with silver spikes curling out of it like nerves. Quinn noticed Jessie wince almost involuntarily.
"What is that?"
"That is the transcranial. They are implanted in the left arm. Under the scar, usually the last digit." Jessie held up her arm and showed them her scar, which branded her with the number '113.' "The number hides the scar."
Quinn threw Adam a look, but he just shrugged, looking equally confused. She vaguely remembered him having a small scar there, but it had been too small to really notice, and his hands were usually already scarred from his inventions, so it hadn't seemed worth asking about. It must have been a lot more noticeable after coming to, since he hadn't taken the black bandage off of his arm in days.
"Transcranial magnetic stimulation," she clarified. "It is how we are able to stop our victims from moving. Interferes with brainwaves. When... When she takes control," she held up her arm again, "she can do it instinctively. He can too." She pointed at Adam. "That is why we are all left-handed. Unfortunately we can't use it as us, because it isn't suited to our brainwaves. We can only use it as... As them."
He stared at his arm and prodded at his scar gingerly, then looked away, visibly nauseated. "You never mentioned that before."
"I do not like to talk about it any more than you do. I wish we were not talking now." She wrapped her arms around herself. "It makes me go all shaky."
"Then we don't have to," Luke said. Quinn jumped, having almost forgotten he was still beside her. "We may have bigger problems."
He leaned back so that the others could see the screen, where information was rolling on in waves. Page after page of random letters and signals that didn't seem to have any meaning whatsoever. "Okay, what...?"
"It's a link," Jessie called out again. You solve the problem given and that answer added to the first paragraph gives you a link. It's a link."
"Jesus, I thought at least we'd get a break from equations for a while," Quinn replied, attempting to make a joke. Nobody reacted.
Adam raised his hand slightly behind her and spoke up, "I-I can... If you want me to do it for you, I could... Could one of you write it down and hand it to me, or-or read it out, or...?"
"For the love of God, just get over here," she snapped. He looked startled, and she realised she was doing it again, and so tried to speak in a softer tone. "I'll be fine."
Adam nodded quickly and hurried over. Quinn stood up to give him her chair. He sat down and immediately started to work, muttering under his breath as he did, very noticeably not looking at her or speaking too much. She supposed she should have been grateful for that.
She moved over to Jessie and leaned on the table beside her as the throbbing in her head got worse again. She struggled to find any conversation with her to take her mind off of it. "How did you work that out so fast?"
She looked caught off-guard for a moment, before replying, "I remember some things, and I remember this thing. Sometimes, in my dreams..."
"There you go." Adam called out, showing how the field of text had rapidly shrunk to one paragraph. "I think that's it. It's... It's affine, so..." He glanced up at Luke. "You know, easy."
Luke saved the document and it immediately turned blue. "Looks like you were right, Jess." He told her, clicking on it. "It's a video."
They crowded around the laptop, waiting for the video to load. The audio started before the picture, faint rustling and crackling which distorted the sound. A man's voice was just about audible, saying something about a definitive test. A girl's voice interrupted him, screaming something incomprehensible, but he continued narrating. The sound made it difficult to hear the distinct words.
Suddenly, the girl fell silent and the narrator grew quieter until the video ended.
"Anybody here understand a word of that?" Quinn asked.
Luke shook his head. "I got a little bit at the start about the experiment, but... After that, no."
"He killed her," Jessie mumbled, her voice barely above a whisper. "I've heard that video before. The girl died. She's dead now..."
"What was that?" Luke interrupted, seeing she was going off on a tangent.
"They wanted to see if they could do it to an older human. They had only tried to turn infants who hadn’t had the chance to develop yet, but the mortality rate was already so high... It is considered a long process to wait for them to become strong enough to be fit to work, but they tried giving the girl the operation in her teens and..." She trailed off, staring into the distance. "I think I helped."
Luke frowned. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise this might make you uncomfortable."
"I'm not afraid," she replied quickly.
Quinn reached towards the clipboard and moved it away slowly. "Maybe we should just come back to this later..."
"If you shut it down now we may never see it again," Jessie said sharply. "We will read more."
Luke nodded slowly. "Okay, well... If you need to leave, you can. No questions asked. Okay?"
Jessie nodded, face carefully expressionless. "I would appreciate that please."
Luke took back the clipboard and placed it in the middle of the table. "Okay, are we good to keep going?"