Numbers

The next night I went to Paul’s room first again, then Cynthia’s, and finally to Luke’s. All four of us were in the hall and looking at each other in a matter of minutes. Suddenly Luke started to laugh, “Look at us! Afraid to do what we’ve already done, this is just silly!”

Just like last night he was there to defuse the tension, I immediately let out a sigh of relief and smiled up at him, “It is,” I chuckled.

Paul smiled down at me, “which number was it?”

“872,” I muttered scanning the hall way for the correct door.

I walked down the hall towards the correct door, glancing over my shoulder to make sure they were all still behind me. I typed my code into the dial pad and waited for the door to slide open. The body jump up off her bed and backed into a corner. Her eyes were wide with fear and her white gown hung about her in wrinkles from sleeping in it. I tensed as I slowly entered the white room, “It’s alright,” I said as pleasantly as I could, “My name is Olivia. I just want to talk to you.”

The body shook her head, “No you don’t…you want to experiment, you want to cut me!”

“Oh shut it,” someone snapped from behind me.

The body, 872, jumped and looked around. Cynthia stepped forward; hands firmly planted on her hips and placed herself squarely in the center of the room, “She’s not going to cut you! You can stop shivering now.”

I thought 872 was going to faint for a moment but then she slowly made her way to her bed, sinking down onto the mattress and looked from me to the rest of the bodies. Cynthia nodded her head, satisfied, but Luke sniffed from behind me, “That is no way to treat a lady,” he quickly stepped forward and plopped himself next to 872, “Now tell us, honey, what is your name.”

872 looked up confused at Luke, “I…”

“I think,” Paul cut in softly, placing a hand on the small of my back as he made his way into the room, “what everyone is trying to say is we are here to ask you a few questions.”

“Aren’t you…like me?”

Paul and Luke chuckled, “Honey, we all are. Well all of us but Doctor Olivia over here,” Luke pointed to me as a last thought.

872 shifted on her bed and looked at each of us levelly. Finally she nodded, “I’m Rose.”

“I’m Luke, this is Cynthia and Paul and you already now Doctor Olivia here.”

“Why are you here?”

She looked at me when she asked, I knew it was directed at me I knew that I should answer. But I didn’t know what to say. How could I tell this person the true reason that I started to do this? Should I tell anyone the true reason? I went with what I had said the previous night, “My supervisor only allowed six of you to live through the first phase…I need to know what is different about the six of you.”

“And you can’t ask them?”

I chuckled, “Not my supervisor.”

“So,” Luke jumped in excitedly, “What is the juice? What’s rolling around in that brain of yours?”

Rose smiled, “What do you want to know exactly?”

I shrugged, taking the advantage to pick a place on the floor, motioning for both Paul and Cynthia to do the same, “Why don’t we start with what did you do?”

“I was a reporter at the New York Times.”

“Really?” Luke squeaked, “That is fabulous!”

Rose laughed, “It probably was until I decided I wanted to interview gangs in an informational article…that didn’t turn out the way it was supposed to?”

I felt my eyes widen, “you were in the middle of a gang fight?”

“I wasn’t just in it, I took a bullet. Bled out on the sidewalk while waiting for the ambulance.”

My mouth fell open, but everyone nodded in understanding. “Same thing happened to me, Honey,” Luke started, “it was fashion week, all those wonderfully gorgeous models were strutting their stuff. I was on the phone taking coffee orders then BAM! Got hit by a car, died waiting for the ambulance,” he shrugged, “It happens so I’ve heard.”

Then Paul and Cynthia jumped in with stories of their deaths, their families or other loved one’s they either had or didn’t have. I sat there and watched, I couldn’t believe what was happening. Stories were exchanged; they laughed and joked one minute only to cry another. Then came the subject that fascinated all of us, “So Rose,” Cynthia leaned forward with a mischievous grin on her face, “What can you do?”

Rose looked at her skeptically; she was in a much better mood since the talk had swayed in a comfortable direction, “Whatever do you mean?”

Paul snapped his fingers and a flame appeared in his hand, he smiled over it at Rose, “We do mean what we say most of the time.”

Rose smiled, “well,” she purred as she held up her hand, palm facing the ceiling, it took all of a second for a glowing purple ball to appear, “I might have a few tricks up my sleeve.”

I leaned forward, peering at the glowing ball as it bobbed up and down on her hand. Every once in a while it would give a sharp flash, but mostly it stayed the solid purple that it was. “What is it,” I managed after inspecting the object for several minutes.

“I’ve come to think of it as a glowing ball of energy…but it’s most likely electricity.”

Luke scoffed, “I thought they were the same thing.”

Rose shrugged, “I’m no physicist.”

I glanced at Luke for only a second, “They’re not the same.”

“I hear ya,” he huffed, “but I don’t have to be happy about all this science stuff.”

“You’re in a government institution,” Cynthia cut in, “What other stuff is there going to be?”

Luke shrugged, “I don’t know…politicking at its finest?”

“I wish,” I murmured, I blinked as the glowing ball winked out.

Rose turned to the others, “What about you guys,” she asked, “What can you guys do?”

As usual Luke displayed his first, smiling broadly as he did the night before until he disappeared into thin air. He reappeared only seconds later, not one of us blinked just looked on in observation. Paul was the next, even though he had already shown Rose, he snapped his fingers and the flame appeared yet again. Cynthia was the last. She morphed into the creature from yesterday with the giant teeth and the snapping jaws, if Rose was completely taken aback but someone’s abilities she was definitely blown away by Cynthia’s. “Well,” Rose began, “that is certainly…interesting.”

Cynthia quickly changed back, “It’s not the prettiest of things but it’s what I have.”

“But what can it do?”

“I’m not sure yet, I haven’t exactly had the chance to test it out.”

“So what are we going to do,” Rose shifted her gaze to me, “do you really expect us to stay here until they decide to kill us? We are people too.”

I shook my head, “No one is saying anything about killing. I’m working on it as fast as I can.”

“So you have no idea what to do?”

“Well I-“

“Honey,” Luke broke it, “You just need to get your hair unknotted. No one likes a sour puss and besides, Jodie Foster over here didn’t have to come to us. She didn’t have to ask us questions but she did. Now you should wait patiently for what she’ll do next.”

“As I was going to say,” I began slowly, eyeing Luke, “I don’t have enough evidence to do anything.”

“Evidence,” Rose squeaked, “If I was still alive I would be able to find enough evidence in here to fill my column for a month! Maybe even a year!”

“Maybe in the Tabloids,” I shook my head slowly, “No one would believe it in the actual papers. And there isn’t evidence enough to show that can’t be taken away at a moment’s notice. If someone came through those doors tomorrow morning all it would take is someone stalling those individuals so they could kill the six of you. Then it would only look like we were running genetic testing on animals, there would be no more proof. All my so called evidence would be gone.”

“So…you’re here to try and find more evidence? I think you’re looking in the wrong place, Doctor.”

I sighed, “I’m not looking for evidence when I come here…I’m looking for something else.”

That gave everyone pause. I couldn’t take the risk of telling them, I couldn’t risk getting their hopes up for a wild chance that my plan might work. I wouldn’t let myself. I inhaled deeply, “I need you to trust me.”

Rose looked at me for a long time, chewing her lip in thought, then finally she said, “I’ve just met you…I thought you were going to cut me-“

“I know,” I broke in, “I know all of that. I know you have no reason to trust me other then my word, but I ask you to do it anyway. I won’t harm you…but I can’t tell you why. Not right now.”

“That seems like a one sided deal, Doctor.”

I sighed, “Its Olivia…you don’t have to call me Doctor here.”

“I trust you,” came a familiar deep voice from behind me. I turned to see Paul smiling over at me, “I trust you. I’ve known you for longer than the others. I will put my trust in you.”

I smiled my thanks. Luke leaned forward, “I like you Jodie,” he said with an eerily straight expression, “I liked you sense I met you. All 24 hours have been great, I’ve no reason to believe more hours with you will be worse. You have my trust…I’ll even let you borrow my moisturizer should you need it.”

Cynthia followed suit, “Rose, there aren’t a lot of people in this institution I would trust with anything. It may be true that this place is filled with genius’ and the like, but that doesn’t change the fact that they did or are doing horrible things. Still…I would trust the Doctor with my life…or whatever this is.”

Rose smiled, “Are you sure you’re a dancer?”

Cynthia’s cheeks reddened, “Dancer doesn’t always mean stupid.”

Rose laughed and turned back to me, “Well you somehow seem to be able to claim everyone else, so I guess I have no choice. I trust you, Doctor Olivia; I just hope you know what to do with my trust.”

Truthfully I hoped I did too. I hoped I could give these people, these people that I had wronged something back. But that night I smiled for all I was worth and talked with them. I had a plan, I had a plan that I hoped would work. Yet I had no way of knowing if we were on the right track and a bad feeling was growing in my gut as I laughed with the others well into the night.