“What’s the commotion?” Tamaya asked her boss as she brought him a coffee.
“You didn’t hear? One of our agents just brought in the guy from the accident.”
Tamaya tripped, nearly spilling the coffee.
“Is something wrong?”
“Hm? No I just… wasn’t he supposed to be dead?” She handed him the coffee. “You know, nothing but dust?”
“That’s what everyone had assumed. He’s here now though, so clearly that assumption was wrong.” He took a sip from his drink, then stood up. “Come with me.” They left the room and walked in silence as he sent a message on his phone.
“So…” Tamaya began after he put the phone away. “How did he survive?”
“That question is the one everyone is asking. The scientists are very eager to find out.”
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“To be honest we aren’t even sure at this point, that’s part of what the commotion is, emergency meetings to figure out how to proceed. For sure we will run some tests on him, see if there’s any knowledge we can gain from the whole… mess.”
“Then at least there would be a bright side to the accident…”
“Yes there would.”
“Is it airtight?” Keegan asked as a scientist sealed a large glass door in front of him. “You know it has to be airtight, right?”
“That’s the idea…”
“Should I test it for you?”
“I don’t—”
Before he could respond Keegan winced and began dispersing.
“Shit, he’s gone.”
Keegan reformed on the outside of the glass. “Huh, I guess it isn’t…”
“How the hell did you do that?”
“Well I—”
“Hold on,” the scientist interrupted as he opened the door again. “First I need to ask you to get back inside.”
Keegan sighed and entered. “Is this really necessary?”
“People in charge want it, so it’s necessary.”
“Well if it’s just to keep them happy it’s probably good enough, even if it was airtight I could probably melt through the glass anyway.”
“You what?”
“Melt the glass? You know, this thing creates a lot of heat, and heat melts stuff.”
“Yeah, but you’d need to get quite hot to melt glass.”
“Well, I wouldn’t need to completely melt it, just soften it up enough to get through.”
“Look, maybe you should stop talking about ways you could get out…”
“Yeah, sorry.”
The scientist walked over to a nearby desk, picked up a clipboard, and began taking notes. “What you can talk about is how just now you triggered an activation without taking any damage, and how you are able to control where you reconstruct.”
“I just focus really hard where I want to go and think about pain.”
“And how did you figure this out?”
Keegan paused, carefully considering how to avoid revealing that he knew much more about the experiment than he should. “Well, I was having flashbacks and some crazy head pain when somebody—”
He was cut off by someone entering the room in a hurry.
“Change of plans; interview time is being moved back. Jonah is on his way.”
“Right now?”
The messenger nodded. “Right now.”
The scientist set his clipboard down and turned to Keegan. “Just a tip, Jonah is in charge of this site, I’d recommend making a good impression.”
The messenger walked up to a keypad by the door and entered a code. “He also said he wants the room.”
Without a word the scientist got up and left with the messenger, leaving Keegan alone. He sat on a chair they had provided him and observed his surroundings. On his side of the glass was a hospital bed, the chair that he sat it, and a TV.
“Probably something they’ll use for tests,” he mumbled. “I doubt they put it here to keep me entertained.”
Outside the glass was a fairly plain room with a couple desks. One desk had a computer and the other was completely clear. There were also quite a few cameras mounted in various places, most of them pointed in his general direction. He picked one and nodded towards it, as if to greet anyone who may be watching him. As he did so Jonah entered the room, Tamaya behind him.
“There he is, the one causing all this fuss,” he said.
“Wait, what are we doing in here?” Tamaya asked, surprised.
“I thought you’d like to meet him.”
“But isn’t this way above my clearance level?”
“I’ve made an exception, don’t worry about it.” He turned to Keegan. “She’s an intern here. Normally she wouldn’t get to know anything about you or what you have, but she found out about the lost experiment by accident and I decided to let it slide.
“Do I know you?” asked Keegan.
“Um—” Tamaya began, wringing her hands nervously but trying her best to hide it.
“If I’m not mistaken,” Jonah interrupted. “You work for her uncle.”
“No not her, you.”
Tamaya loosened up, relieved that he was steering the conversation away from her.
Jonah shrugged. “It’s a small town,” he replied. “People run into each other. I mean, you work for her uncle, isn’t that something?”
“Yeah, uh…”
“Are we done?” interrupted Tamaya. “Even just being here is way above my—”
“You’re free to go if you wish. I’m just going to ask him a few questions.”
“Thank you,” Tamaya responded, and she promptly left the room.
I think I took care of everything I needed to get done to post this… I hope I did…
-David
chipgw.com 