This choice: Explore the military base. • Go Back...Chapter #11Explore the military base. by: Seuzz   Of course there's a tall fence around the place, but a little nosing around uncovers a spot that, with a little careful digging, can be opened up wide enough to send your pack through. It doesn't take long, either.
David's memories of the day he got doused in blue gunk aren't very clear, and the world nearer the ground looks a lot different from what he remembers, and light has only just begun to creep over the eastern horizon. So you are soon baffled and frustrated. If you're going to figure out where you should look, you are going to have to take a soldier.
You find one out toward the back, and he's vulnerable, too; for whatever reason he's huddled close to the wall of a building and taking a piss. You pad your pack up softly behind him, and throw two of them silently against him. With a light "oof" he bounces off the wall and falls to the ground, and then one of your wolves blorts a little goo into his face—goo you had stocked it with in case you needed something like this.
You feel a new warmth and tautness flowing through you, and then you're looking up at the still-dark sky with your new eyes. You groan softly and try to think: you are Captain Eric Sanchez, and you shouldn't have had all those cups of coffee in an attempt to make yourself extra alert this morning. But now that you are Captain Sanchez, you are quite pleased about the sudden call of nature. You sit him up and zip him up.
The building with the blue stuff ... that would be Building A-6 ... Professor Harding's lab ... in fact, you're expected there yourself ... Colonel Lord will be here soon ... you've got to help with the experiments with Solution SX-2 and the David Johnson case ...
Apparently you've found the perfect body to use as an infiltrator. Sanchez grins. What a lucky piss, and what luck Sanchez likes the feel of open air on his dick ...
You send the pack back out of the base and brush off and straighten the captain's uniform for him. Before you yourself forget, you wipe out the memory of the wolf rush and step him quickly along to A-6. Corporal Ed Zander is already out front; running on Sanchez's instincts, you give the guard a snappy salute and go in.
It's a warren inside the building, but Sanchez knows his way around, and though you're the one moving his feet, they still pull you along to the back, where you find the professor, the colonel, and Jesse Lasky, a technician, all frowning at a glass enclosure. It contains a snake, which is suffering the most peculiar spasms.
The colonel looks up at as you arrive. "Nice of you to join us, Captain," he says dryly.
"You're here early, sir."
"Yes," he sighs. "Don't worry about it. The professor's not even been to bed." Professor Harding, who despite her title is a button-cute brunette no more than thirty, doesn't look the least bit tired, but Lasky looks exhausted.
"What do you make of it, Sanchez?" says Harding.
"Ma'am?"
"The snake."
You look at it. You would say that it was trying to strike, but there is nothing for it to strike at. Also, instead of coiling, it is stretched out in almost a straight line, and yet is straining its tail and its head, as though trying to thrust itself forward. It's a pitiful display.
"It looks like it's got a bad kink and is trying to straighten itself out," you say.
No one says anything for awhile. Finally, Colonel Lord mutters, "Well, we know what it looks like, but what does it think it's doing?"
"Is it a physiological reaction of some kind?"
"We exposed it to some of that residue," says Harding. "Not the solution, but the residue from the lab animal. The hare."
You look in the cage. "Where's the residue?"
"Inside the snake," says the colonel.
You look at him in surprise—your own and Sanchez's. "Sir?"
"When we first put it in, it tried escaping—the residue, I mean," says Harding. "But the snake cornered it finally—I suppose it was curious—and then the residue shot into its mouth."
"When was this?"
"Earlier this evening. I mean, this morning. The snake was quiet for a while, and we thought it might have died, so I had Lasky try to pick it up. And that's when it started doing this."
"Constantly?"
"No," says the colonel. "It will stop for a while. But then it will start up again. The curious thing is that it doesn't show much of a proclivity for coiling or for gliding. It just keeps trying to ... to ..."
"To tear itself in two," says Lasky.
Harding shakes her head. "Not quite. That's the effect, but it's not pulling itself in different directions. There is a spasm near the tail, and then another spasm toward the front. But they are both forward-thrusting spasms."
"Like it's trying to jump," you say off-handedly, almost without realizing it.
Lord looks at you with irritation, but Harding's eyes get big. "Oh my goodness, I think you've got something there, captain," she says.
"What?"
She says nothing for a few moments. Then she points. "But don't you see? The spasms at the back are near where the vestigial limbs would be. It's like it's trying to push with them. The same thing is at the front. The head is even lifting, as though it is trying to reach with forward limbs." She is silent again, but her eyes are shining. "Colonel," she then says. "The snake is trying to hop like a bunny rabbit."
He looks at her as though she's crazy, but you've figured it out. They've dunked a hare in some Solution SX-2, the stuff that dropped on David, and turned it into the same kind of goo that he turned into. Then they put the goo in a cage with a snake, where it went into the snake, the same way David went into his friends and finally into you. And now ... now the snake is trying to act like a hare, because the hare is possessing the snake.
You don't say anything, though, and rein in the part of Sanchez that wants to talk, and instead just take notes as Lord directs while Harding burbles and speculates.
You are soon torn between two necessities. On the one hand, you want to continue to concentrate on Sanchez, to learn what he knows, and to try steering Harding and Lord away from making too many dangerous deductions. On the other hand, doing that would mean you'd have to miss school. That by itself isn't a tragedy, but it is a price to be paid.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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