Chương 85: Deal

The week rolled by more and more like the first day, with one exception. Those small boxes were gone by morning time on the following day. People I asked about it had no actual idea what I was talking about. If it was intentional or genuine ignorance, I just didn't know. That resulted in each day building up more and more anxiety. Every other unlabeled box, Chris verified had contents that made sense. It was just those small boxes, and they were already gone. Who the Hell could've took them?

That was the question I kept asking, going to basically everyone but Jonesy to see if anyone knew what I was talking about. Most of them didn't even really think about the inventory much at all, so they wouldn't have noticed. The few who were more particular still weren't able to distinguish two small boxes of approximately the same size. It'd be needles in a haystack for them. I gave up on the initial search for answers at that point, instead focusing on trying to case the workers.

The only one who really raised any suspicions besides Jonesy was the forklift operator, who I had learned was named Ted, that offered me the end-of-week job. And that end-of-week job was looming as Chris and I made our way back to base. We'd taken to all sorts of miscellaneous conversations due to the ever-diminishing returns on our reconnaissance on this job. We were just hoping the job Ted gave me would actually make it all worth it.

Making my way down to my own room, I dropped my bag and made my way straight to my bed, flopping towar- Cat. The cat I saw. Shiny. Silvery. Just sitting on my bed. At this distance, I could see it wasn't glowing. Just reflecting light. It was pure silvery metal. Even where there should be at least some black orbs for eyes, it was just shaped metal. It didn't take me long to process what I was looking at.

"Shivvy?" I finished the thought out loud. Reaching out to the metallic feline, he suddenly stretched out into a long rope of liquid that bounded past me, bounding off of each wall. I gave chase, trying to catch up to him as he slid under the crack of my door. By the time I opened it, I could see him slithering into the crack of the door to Sam's lab. Of course.

Rubbing my face, I swung open the door and made my way down the stairs, where I could see a bit of the tail-end of Shivvy as he lunged up onto Sam's shoulder as she was writing something down. He returned to that felid form, looking at me with the indifferent expression of any cat. Sam, for once in quite a while, didn't flinch from my appearance. She looked up at me, holding onto her notes.

"Hey, Leo," she spoke with a somber tone.

"Guess the... cat's out of the bag, I guess."

"What the Hell is going on?" I asked, confusion winning the battle of who gets to take the wheel on my emotional state.

"I'd been studying Shivvy and made a few big breakthroughs. For starters, he's kind of like... metal threads. Metal fabric. The actual materials aren't like anything on this planet, but I did notice that he can become ferrous — magnetic — at will. Also he's an omnivore."

"Huh?" She reached into her lab coat's pocket, procuring a piece of... tree bark and holding it up to Shivvy. Instead of opening where a cat's mouth would be, a tendril just shot out and sucked the bark directly into his mass.

"Common oak tree bark is rich in four major metals: Calcium, potassium, magnesium, and iron. He loves this stuff. Can't get enough of it. Cheaper than canned food."

"Why the Hell is he a cat?"

"Oh, that. So you were able to get him to associate shapes with words, I was curious as to if he could see. I was showing him pictures of all sorts of shapes and normally he was kind of just lounging and not changing. At one point I also noticed he kept sneaking off to your room, and I put two and two together. I borrowed your pillow case while you were at work, rubbed it on a napkin, and put the case back, then I held that napkin up to him while showing him shapes."

I could feel tension building in the back of my neck. What the fuck was she doing?

"Suddenly, he started actually replicating the shapes I was showing him. Pretty consistently, even without verbal commands. So I got bold and I... showed him some videos of cats. He seems to like being a cat now. Thought it would be cute because," she looked off to the side, a smile forming on her face.

"You're kind of like a cat yourself. And your name's Leo, after all." It took a lot in me to not scrap this entire lab in one swing.

"What the Hell is wrong with you?" I asked. Her eyes stretched wide, magnified by the lenses on her glasses as she suddenly took a step back.

"You broke into my fucking room? You were touching my stuff? To get my smell?" I took a step forward, and she took two steps back.

"Why not just talk to me? Your son was saying you were crying about how we couldn't talk, so you just make it worse by sneaking into the one place that's almost mine and go through what little belongings I have?" My approach didn't stop, but she kept backing up.

"Did you think I'd be flattered that you did it to turn the alien weapon into a little pet for me? Like that'd somehow undo the fact you lied to me about putting a fucking shock collar on my goddamn neck so that I couldn't fight back while that scumbag Casney tortured me? Is that what this is for? Your twisted attempt at an apology? You can't fucking say a goddamn word to me but you're more than happy to keep doing all this shit behind my back like I'm not even a perso-""Sh-shut up!" She yelled, cutting me off.

My throat was already feeling raw, but she continued.

"You think I w- wanted to do that to you? You think it felt good torturing my only fr... friend in this base that isn't one of my kids? I s-set the voltage proportional to intensity of your brain lapsing in and out or your heartrate changing! The b-bigger the dip, the harsher the sh-shock! It should have only been light jolts to startle you, not fucking paralyze you!" The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. She sounded like she was fighting to get the words out.

She actually stepped forward, with the hesitation of a prey animal moving against every biological imperative one would have.

"But you'd been overloading yourself in either direction, more than any of us could imagine! If I didn't do that, if that kept going on, you could've had an aneurysm, o-or a stroke, Leo! I didn't want you to die!" Despite the anger in her words, her face was contorted into something closer to the early stages of breaking down in tears.

"And I couldn't tell you every little thing because I know how you react to things! And no, I'm not saying I'm sc-scared you would hurt me, I don't c-care what happens to me!" She added on, slapping her chest.

"But I have people that need m-me, so I have to protect myself too! And if I told you it was Tan... Tancred or Casney's plan, you would've probably wrecked half the city trying to get to them! They would've killed... they would have killed you for that! Ruined the program!" She then pointed a thumb at herself.

"I lose my grants and go to prison! And no one's left to take care of my son and my daughter! They'd have to go into foster care! A brick building like the one you grew up in! Is that supposed to be fair to them!?" I couldn't hold it in. Those last words tore through my chest like the wild animal in me just got the cage opened. I reached out and grabbed one of the tables near me, just hurling it without abandon. No real aim, just vaguely in her direction.

Loose parts on it flew every which way across the room Shivvy expanded to the size of a car just to catch the entire thing and swallow it down. As he reduced in size, I could see terror in Sam's eyes.

"Is that what I am to you? A fucking worst case scenario for kids you weren't even supposed to have?" I asked, before turning and heading back for the stairs.

"And just so you know, I don't fucking know if it's fair or not. You had all the same info Tancred had. I heard it. You know I don't even remember what happened in that place." She didn't say anything, but I could hear faint sobs as I stormed my way back to my room. I needed a fucking shower. Probably sat in there for far longer than I should have, but I just needed my body to warm up. Reset. Forget the fact that if Shivvy weren't there I could've just killed Sam.

She didn't deserve that, but my body just couldn't hold it in with that. Got too angry for my own good. And she was just constantly trying to justify what she did. I don't need that. Just need to keep away from her for a while. Finally giving up on just marinating myself due to the impending rendezvous, I got my clothes back on and picked up my bag. The stress of everything made it feel heavier than normal. Heading out the front door the base, Billy was going to take me to the meet-up spot in a fake taxi.

We had to go all the way out to Chesapeake for this, which Tancred wasn't very fond of due to us only really being in direct communication with Charlottesville's police department, but it was the best lead we had. Specifically, on the border between Chesapeake and Virginia Beach was our destination. A silent two-hour drive, that went straight through my old hunting grounds of Richmond, flashing back to me memories of that half of a year. I was there during the bitter cold of winter.

No walls or ceiling surrounding me for so long left me almost unable to get cold. It's why I could keep my jacket on even in the middle of summer. Summer. That's the present season. The one that's painting the buildings in the evening sunrays, unmarred by snow and frost. Summer came for it as I had left it. Maybe it wasn't coincidental. Finally, at the end of the trek we came to a lone house on a hill. Seemed like it hadn't been used for its intended purpose for maybe ten, fifteen years.

A couple trees sat surrounding it, sagging and gnarled. If I weren't on unfavorable terms with nature at the moment, I'd be curious about the stories they could tell if they could speak. Getting out of the car, I tapped the door to let Billy know to get the Hell out of there. I made my way to the front door and knocked. When it opened, my body immediately tensed. Hidalgo stood in the doorway, leering down at me. And then, a smile.

"Hey there, hijo! C'mon in!" He said, stepping aside to give me room to pass. I stared, one of my fists already clenching.

"... Kid, I know you're here for the guard work. Who do you think pays you guys? Get in here." He explained with a laugh, pointing his thumb into the house. After a few seconds, I slowly stepped in. The interior of the home looked better maintained than the exterior. Still decrepit in many ways, but not condemned. Just uncared for.

"Do you live here?" I asked.

"Oh I don't live anywhere. I'm dead, kid." I glanced at him, raising my eyebrow.

"... Yeah, not good at faking a sense of humor. Sorry," he admitted with a shrug.

"This is just my pad for trades. I've got a generator running, I just keep the lights off because I can see the dark. But that means you can get a beer from the fridge if you want. Just no touching my pig's blood." My face scrunched a little as I examined the immediate room I was in. Some kind of living room of sorts, with a ratty couch. The stairs to the second floor were caved in.

Could probably jump up there if I had to, but I doubted anything relevant would be there, all the doors I could see were half hung-open.

"I'm good," I answered.

"So where's everyone else?"

"They're in the meeting room, go past the living room and down the hall. We tend to treat these sort of like little bailanta. We just don't do any music to keep attention low. Go, mingle. We've got a few hours until our buyers show up." After three steps in the direction indicated, I looked back to Hidalgo.

"Wait, few hours? I was told it was a two hour job for two hundred."

"Ugh," he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Ted gave you the hook-up, right? No, the job is a hundred an hour. It's just, usually, a two hour job. I already got notice one of our buyers is gonna be late due to coming down from the Trinity Islands. Our firsts should be on time, though. Now go, go!" he said, waving me off. I took a deep breath as I made my way down the hall he indicated, where it led to this half-open room. The bottom half was worn down planks with chipped paint, while the upper-half was mesh and screens, likely to keep bugs out.

Directly across from the door I was at was a mesh door, half-open. At the center of the room was a long, rectangular table where four other men, one of which was clearly Ted, sat. While he waved to me, I couldn't help but feel stared at. Not by him. Or the henches. Just some weight of observation looming over me. As my gaze swept over the room in hopes of maybe finding the source of that observer, I noticed in one corner something more important. The small boxes. That motherfucker was the one who took them out.

Wasted a goddamn week on that. He was lucky I had to maintain cover, or I would've punched him into the horizon. Taking a seat at the table, I played along. Discussed sports based on the insights I overheard from other laborers at the shipping house. Made jokes that I then faked my laughter at. This lasted an hour and a half, until the door behind us cracked open and Hidalgo stepped through.

"They're here, boys." He then pointed out, towards the backyard. Trees. They weren't there a second ago. The thick trunks were made of coiled up roots that stood an easy ten, twelve feet tall. They lingered, before unfurling and revealing multiple men in green cloaks, carrying a few boxes and briefcases. They stood at either side of two figures. One an old man wearing a similar green cloak, though his hood was down, and someone else. One I could recognize any time, anywhere. That son of a bitch. Brother Gleditsia.