Chapter 07

The night time after midnight and before dawn was a very unsettling period. People were spilling out of clubs, or escaping houses of their one-night stands; others were working the third shift; but a majority of people were sound asleep in their beds. Paloma Lorca truly wished from the bottom of her heart that she could've had a place in that majority.

"look alive Pal" Katie, who was driving the ambulance van called out to her friend "we're nearly there"

"yay" sarcasm filled that one solitary word.

"you're the one who complained about feeling cooped up in the base" Katie reminded her friend.

"I was hoping to go grocery shopping or maybe getting a coffee, not transporting comatose people before the sun even rises"

"you gotta learn to work with what you've got" Katie was gifted a punch to the arm.

"look" Katie sighed "I got you out here to apologize"

"for keeping me out of the loop?" Paloma asked rhetorically

"pretty much" Katie smiled wistfully "I just... you're a sweet heart Paloma, you love helping people and healing them; but our line of work comes with a lot of caution, and a lot of secrets; both aspects that you're notorious for being bad with"

"Hey..." paloma was affronted, but deflated when Katie looked at her "... you're right"

"you're a brilliant surgeon Paloma, but you'd make a real shitty secret agent" Katie summarised her feeling on the matter; before adding "we're here"

Katie eased the ambulance to the bay entrance of Saint Heart Memorial, a masked Paloma jumped out as soon as the ambulance stopped, opening the back doors and prepping the back of the ambulance as two orderlies wheeled in the target.

"who're you?" the orderly asked when he saw Paloma

"Extra security" Paloma lied, from behind her Katie popped her head out of the van to give a thumbs up to the orderlies.

"here he is" one of the orderlies handed a clipboard to Paloma "Vincent Davis, male, twenty-five years old, comatose" Paloma was the epitome of coolness as she glanced through the clipboard, checking the vitals and stats of the latest subject.

"A'ight" she handed a stack of bills to the orderly as she closed the ambulance doors, sat in the front beside Katie, and then the two women drove off, away from Saint Heart Memorial. The entire process taking less than five minutes.

"Oh. My. God." Paloma breathed out once they were finally clear of the hospital "that was awesome; I got goosebumps" she showed her hand to Katie.

"I'm glad you enjoyed picking up subjects with me" Katie laughed.

"when do we get to do it again?" was all Paloma asked

"oh dear"

XXXXXXX

Doc took a sip of his earl grey tea; it was a sunny morning and the good weather was keeping him in relatively high spirits. Placed in front of Doc were three mouse cages, holding three mice.

"Good morning Tom, Dick, Harry" Doc greeted the mice with a smile; all three of them extremely crucial to his experiments and as such Doc felt himself quite close to them.

Doc placed a piece of cheese in front of Tom, doused with a smell that rats would find appealing, training him to love his morning cheese snack;

In front of Dick he placed a piece of cheese that would smell pungent to rats, training him to treat his morning snack like a kid being forced to eat vegetables.

Harry on the other hand got a tiny morsel of cheese, much smaller than those of Tom and Dick; but the little mouse swallowed it hurriedly; happy to have the food, the experiment he was being put through was different from Tom's and Dick's and unfortunately very cruel.

There were three screens attached to the cages, displaying the vital stats of all three mice, letting Doc know the health and mental stability of all three mice.

Meanwhile; on the other side of the facility, Tom was busy pumping Iron; performing bench press with a hundred pounds. "Ninety...seven" Tom breathed out "ninety...ugh... eight, ninety.... Nine; Gahh" Tom placed the barbell back at its placeholder. Tom lay on the bench silently, his chest heaving deeply.

"So close" Tom bemoaned internally "So fucking close" tom could press one hundred pounds ninety-nine times without a break.

"Still" Tom mused "these are pretty good results for me" but as he got up from the bench, tom's eyes fell on a certain blue mat. "Strength doesn't mean shit unless I can land a hit" Tom reminded himself.

Being a smart man, tom decided to multitask, mulling over his escape plan while he took a shower and ate breakfast, unfortunately he wasn't smart enough to come up with a solution quite so quickly.

As Tom sauntered over to the main hall, he noticed an ambulance pulling back into the facility. "What up?" Katie popped out of the ambulance.

"What's with the ambulance?" Tom greeted back.

"best way to transport a patient" Paloma appeared from behind the ambulance "now come, give us a hand" she popped open the back doors of the red and white van.

"Sure" Tom shrugged, as he walked over to help Katie and Paloma.

"where's Isaiah?" Paloma questioned as she wheeled the subject off the ambulance and down the ramp.

"At his workstation; still sulking" Tom filled her in.

"y'know he might get over it if he saw you and doc make peace" Katie suggested to Tom, she didn't like the idea of Isaiah harboring intentions to turn away from the facility.

"yeah; as if his anger is on my behalf" Tom chuckled.

"it's not" Katie admitted "but seeing you get over your issue should help him get over his"

"...fine!" Tom relented.

"great! That's decided" Paloma lowered the gurney to the ground "now one of you help me wheel him in and prep for surgery, the other fetch Dr. Boucher"

"I got this" Tom grabbed the other side of the gurney "let's go"

"do you even know what prepping for surgery is?" Paloma asked him as they wheeled the patient away

"I'll learn"

"Goddamit" Paloma and Tom headed to the operation theater and Tom was able to help Paloma enough to prep the subject. Soon enough Doc arrived in full scrubs to begin operation, making Tom take his leave.

"alright" Doc gave a smile to Paloma, let's get this started.

XXXXXXX

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Tom fired three shots consecutively at the cardboard target. "rat bastards" he silently cursed Katie and her bosses, they had replaced all the bullets in the gun range to rubber bullets, leaving Tom without a proper weapon to plan his escape, especially if Katie had live rounds stashed away.

"but still... they got the new guy" Tom pondered, "if his transformation is successful as well, my importance would drop significantly, I wouldn't be the only guy with their top technology" a feeling of hope bloomed in Tom's heart. "I might actually be able to get out of here officially"

Tom happily dismantled his gun as he dreamt of officially leaving this facility; and then a hand suddenly tapped his shoulder

"Huh!" Tom jumped, having been caught off guard.

"easy there, tiger" Katie laughed "Just wanted to say hi"

"Hi" Tom felt his face turn warm "y-you just caught me by surprise"

"my bad" Katie supressed her smile as she popped her gun pouch onto the table. "I guess we both had the same idea, pop a few bullets into cardboard to relieve stress"

"Yeah" Tom laughed; cleaning his gun while Katie began her firing. "your aim is so good" Tom complemented her "for me shooting these rubber bullets is like shooting sponges, it just throw's my aim off"

"well, you'll have plenty of time to practice now" Katie took of her sound mufflers "I had to get these one's instead of live ammo; my bosses are on my ass about controlling the spending here"

"of course," Tom nodded, when another thought struck him suddenly "you must be an exceptional woman to become the head of such a facility at our age"

Katie's next bullet hit the edge of the target "that's what happens when your godfather is an undersecretary in the army R&D department"

"undersecretary in the army R&D department" Tom recited mentally "don't know what the fuck that is, but now I can't hurt her while escaping or half the army will come after my ass"

Tom let out a low breath "as if escape wasn't hard enough"

XXXXXXX

The sun was headed to the west when Doc and Paloma emerged from the operating theatre.

"Well...?" Tom and paloma both were present outside, waiting for the news.

"he didn't make it" Paloma looked numb; eyes glassy "I really thought we could save him like we saved Tom"

"I know dear" Doc patted her back "I know"

"So, what next?" Tom asked the group "what do we do now?"

"persevere" Doc sighed magnanimously "we shall persevere, and continue trying to save lives when we can"

"of course," Tom nodded "I'll see you guys tomorrow" he took his leave from the group. "persevere" Tom repeated in his head "persevere" Tom had walked away from the group so quickly because he was shaking.

Doc's gaze gave Tom a deeply unsettling feeling, like someone was walking over his grave, someone else had a knife by his throat, and a third was staring Tom down the barrel of a gun, all at once.

Tom was afraid, and he needed to speed up his escape if he didn't want whatever bad the doc was planning to happen to him.

XXXXXX

Doc entered his study, tired to the bones from today's surgery. "I guess in the end, we're all slaves to god's whims" doc sighed as he poured a drink for himself.

Doc had been truly excited for today's operation, if he could have saved Mr. Vincent Davis, Doc would have had an extra option for his plan, a backup. "Tom already has his suspicions and doubts" doc took a sip of his whiskey "I'll have to speed up my plan if I want things to go through smoothly"

Placing down his glass, Doc approached Tom, Dick and Harry. Giving a pat to Tom and Dick's heads with a finger, doc pulled Harry out of his cage.

"I'm sorry kid" Doc apologized to Harry, he then pulled out a thin pin which he used to stab Harry; once, twice, thrice, doc kept on stabbing the screeching and crying rat, Harry had been starved since the beginning of the experiment, and now he was being tortured, breaking his mind.

It broke Doc's heart to see what he was putting an innocent rat through, but this was what he needed to do, not just for the project, but for his own life. As so Doc stabbed Harry, and his own heart as well.