(Image from Colourbox)
It was over a week later when Owen found himself standing in the city, ignoring the sound of the traffic above him. The cars were hard to keep track of, erratic pathways in the air, humming like huge bugs. Owen jumped as a taxi swerved down beside him, nearly knocking him over.
Geniuses usually hated city life.
But today he was working undercover. Today he was working for the military... not that X1030 could know that. The white lab coat was left behind, and he wore faded jeans and sneakers, a band t-shirt and a leather jacket over the top. He looked like any other man, any other civilian... although the contents of his backpack suggested otherwise. Laptop, a secure container, enough wires to set up shop, food for her, and medicine.
He was hunting an experiment.
By now, the reactor installed in the back of her neck would have started to act up. The subject would not have noticed much at first. She would just feel a bit tired... but then the cybernetics would start to act up... and fail. Eventually, Gamma radiation would leak into her bloodstream and slowly poison her to death. He was not sure what state he would find her in... however as long as the reactor had not gone into meltdown, he should be able to fix it.
The back of her neck had in fact started to ache. Not enough for her to think there was a problem, but enough that Xi was sure she had slept wrong. Rubbing, she pulled her coat further around herself. Back in the forest she had ditched her outer shirt, it had been soaked in blood, but then again, so had everything else. She had to make compromises.
She stayed as far away from other people as she could, finding herself in the back alleys and the forgotten places of the city. Xi had found the coat, just as she had found the warehouse. In the warehouse there were no people, no one to bother her and no one to wake her up when she only wanted to sleep. This was the old part of the city, from before the war. Mostly old dock yards and abandoned factory spaces.
Strands of dark coarse hair clung to her face. Her braid was coming undone. It was still flaking blood, abrasive and crunchy. The clouds had gathered tight one afternoon and the warehouse’s cracks and holes opened to let the rain inside. Xi had stirred awake, holding her mouth open to the dark air. The water was metallic. She had set out buckets, and had freed her body of the dried blood, but the rain had stopped before her clothes or hair could be touched.
Her tired arms guided her back down to the floor, curling into the jacket again. Like that a whole week passed.
Owen crept along, pausing to pull out a torch from his backpack as the sun dipped below the horizon.
It was the third warehouse that he got too when he noticed that the door was open,. The lock had been broken... ripped off. It hung off his hinges, propped at a skewed angle as it leaned into the dirt and pavement outside. Owen tentatively took hold of the door with one hand. "Hello?" he called out, shining the torch around.
At the moment, unlikely as it was, the subject was awake, taking a sip of water and watching a rat across the room. The sound of footsteps. Her eyes locked on the door and she was quickly on her feet, holding her black braid firmly in her hands like she was clinging to the end of a rope.
“Hello?” The voice rang out again, unfamiliar, and enough to make her shiver from head to toe. But the light wasn’t something she expected. It crossed over her, illuminating her whole form, but before she could let herself freeze up, she ran. As silently as she could, she got to the first cover she could find, the pile of old crates the rats would come and go from.
Owen jolted, gasping at the sudden figure of a woman in his beam.
"Wait!" he called, stepping into the dark space. The air smelled of dust and damp cloth left too long. He stopped dead.
"My name is Owen Greysham... we never met, but I worked at the laboratory... I'm not here to hurt you..." The man took a deep breath, the flashlight’s beam betraying him, showing how his hands were shaking. He sat on the cold stone floor, resting the torch on the backpack so it illuminated him, keeping his movements slow and gentle, just as the military had told him too.
"I'm unarmed... I have the hand eye co-ordination of a drugged raccoon, so I couldn't shoot you if I wanted to... not that I want too, X1030... I'm just saying," His face flushed and he swallowed hard. He felt like a prat.
"I've got food - I know you must be hungry by now... here..." From his position sitting cross legged on the floor, he slowly reached into the backpack and pulled out a pack of granola bars. The box rattled. "Blueberry flavored... I'm going to slide one across to you, okay?" He set one on the ground and swung it so it skidded toward her on the stone floor. There was a sharp gasp, but Owen still didn’t see anything. It was followed by an audible growl of a stomach. He tried to force his shoulders down.
"I also got some clean clothes for you... I can slide them across to you, if you like," he said soothingly as he removed them from the backpack of goodies. Sweatpants and a tank top.
A sudden flash of an arm and the bar was gone from sight. Without a second thought she pulled it open and shoved the whole it into mouth in a single motion.
“From the laboratory?”
Owen found himself ridged again as a face peered around the corner of a box.
“I don-” She winced. “I don’t know what went wrong.”
"Whoa, sweet..." Owen said slowly, holding up his hands to show he was unarmed and was not going to hurt her. He didn't move from the floor, although he wanted too. He felt more than a little defenseless, compared to the super powered woman in front of him. "I wont hurt you... I am just here to talk with you..." He cautiously slid another one of the granola bars toward her, and offered her a tired smile.
"The day of the... incident, I was off sick. I had a stomach bug..." he said soothingly, keeping his eyes away from her. "I work in the cybernetics department... I helped design the electronic... bits," He wrinkled his nose at the word. "I've come to help you, sweet... but I can't unless you trust me.”
A tremble and his tense body rose, strained smile still offered to the subject, and he held out his hand.
"What do you want me to call you?"