Chapitre 39: Devil's Show
It had been a long, exhausting night, but that was par for the course. I didn't often sleep well, but I was used to it by now. The nightmares were far less frequent than during my teenage years, so it wasn't that keeping me up.
Mostly it was just the fact that I had grown so accustomed to sleeping the bare minimum to study or work. All so I could get this job.
I was officially an FBI special agent.
Well, technically, I'd been an agent for six months already, but today was the day
The day I got to seen three xenomorphs.
That was their not-so-official name for the alien parasites that had taken everything from me when I was seventeen. They had a scientific name for it, but I could never remember it.
Too much Latin.
I'd slept even less than normal because of the turmoil those things were causing me. I was finally going to be able to see them, and though that was the whole point I'd worked my ass off for, it was a little nerve-wracking.
How was I going to react? Would I be able to handle facing them again after all these years?
I wasn't even sure what to expect, but I walked confidently into work all the same, a tall cup of coffee in hand.
"Good morning, Nichole," my partner greeted me with a perky grin as I headed into the office to find my desk.
Devon Hart, my assigned partner. Like me, he'd been a police officer before transferring.
Unlike me, he'd only experienced a close encounter of the first kind: witnessing an alien. Still, it had set him on the path of becoming an FBI agent as well, if only to learn more.
He had been with the FBI about a year now, though. I wasn't sure how he'd come to be my partner, but I suspected his old one either transferred out or was promoted.
I barely spared him a passing glance as I sat down, exhausted and grumpy. Somehow, though, I managed to grumble a barely coherent greeting. I drank my coffee a bit too fast and burned my tongue.
Definitely a less-than-okay morning. At best.
"Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as ever, I see," Devon observed, sitting at his desk. It was pushed up against mine so we were facing each other.
"Whaddya want?" I huffed.
"Just saying good morning," he said, one brow raised. "Rough night?"
I grunted a response and leaned back in my chair, eyes closed.
"Well, we have an easy day ahead so no pressure," Devon said, flipping through some paperwork.
Our first mission had been investigating a pizza ria that had turned out to be haunted. They'd thought a former employee was coming and murdering security guards.
Nope. It was ghosts.
Because of course it fucking was. Aliens, ghosts, what was next, the Loch Ness Monster?
I'd already finished all of my paperwork, but Devon was taking his sweet ass time.
Sighing, I just nodded my head. Easy day, right. He did know where we going, right? He'd all but begged to come see the xenomorphs with me. Devon often accosted me with questions about "the incident".
"You wanna talk about it?" he asked me.
"Uh-uh."
He chuckled and scribbled a few things down in pen. "You, milady, are the most eloquent person I know at eight in the morning, you know that?"
"Did you really just say 'milady'?"
"Yeah, 'cause I knew it'd get you speak instead of grunt like a cavewoman."
I shot him a glare.
He raised his hands in defense and said, "Hey, it worked. Can't blame me for that."
Rolling my eyes, I returned my attention to my coffee. After a few more sips, I felt awake enough to sift through some files piled up on my desk.
Most of it about the xenomorphs. Reports, lab findings . . . I didn't understand a lot of it.
"So, are you looking forward to it?" Devon asked after a few minutes of silence.
I glanced up at him and said, "Forward to what?"
"You know. Seeing those aliens?"
Before I could answer with some vague response, a voice called out to us. "Shain, Hart!"
It was our boss, Chris Dixon, former director of public relations. A couple years before I'd gotten the job, he'd made the switch to running our "x-files" department, as Devon liked to call it.
"You ready to go?"
I stood halfway out of my chair. "Ready? To do . . . you mean—" I couldn't form the words: my throat had run dry.
Devon picked up where I left off. "To see the aliens? Heck yeah we've been waiting months."
Dixon smirked. "Yeah, yeah. There was just the issue of clearance. Well, c'mon. I'll take you downstairs to see them."
We left our desks to follow the boss. Devon glanced at me and asked, "Hey, you alright?"
My hands were shaking, so I clasped them together to make it stop. "Yup. I'm good."
"Cool as a cucumber as always."
In front of us, Dixon was rattling off some ground rules. "I'll give you the access codes so you can visit as you like, but don't get in the way of the specs and don't loiter. I still expect you to meet deadlines and solve cases as normal."
"Of course," Devon and I said at the same time.
As we reached the elevator, another agent came running up to Dixon and pulled him aside. They spoke urgently for a moment, then our boss gave us a sheepish look.
"Sorry guys, you'll have to go without me. Something's come up," he told us.
He pulled a pen out of his pocket and when he couldn't find scrap paper to write on, Devon offered up his hand. That earned him three incredulous looks—one from me, another from Dixon, and a third from the other agent.
"Oh just write it on my palm," Devon huffed.
Shrugging, Dixon did just that. "That code should get you access to the fourth basement, and this one should get you through the door."
"Thanks," I said.
"Enjoy," Dixon said without humor, trotting off with the agent to take care of business.
I turned to Devon and indicated to his hand. "Don't sweat that off."
"I'm not gonna!"
We waited for the elevator, watching the floors tick down as it came from above us. I couldn't stop trembling. I could barely breathe.
The thought of seeing them again, hearing them again, and learning what they'd been up to—I couldn't tell if I was terrified or electrified with excitement.
"You sure you're good?" Devon asked.
"Yes. Just a little nervous."
He rolled his shoulders and pushed the call button a few extra times, as if it would hurry along the cab. "Me too, honestly. They've got other aliens down there, too. I wanna see all of them."
"Yeah," I muttered, bouncing up and down out of impatience.
Devon watched me from his periphery. I could feel his eyes boring into me the door opened. We stepped inside and Devon punched in the code, then the button for the fourth basement.
The doors closed and we were on our way down. Seven floors to go.
Devon's mouth worked for a moment, and then he sniffed. "Anything you can tell me about your aliens so I'm not blindsided when I meet them?"
Crossing my arms over my chest, I said, "They're ugly, mean, and loud."
"Sounds like some neighbors I had once."
I shot him a sour look and he quickly backpedaled. "I was kidding! I had very lovely people living in my neighborhood."
Rolling my eyes, I huffed. "Yeah, whatever you say."
He shifted his weight uncomfortably and watched the floor numbers fall.
After a few heartbeats, he asked, "What are you looking forward to the most about seeing them again? If anything at all."
"Just wanna see them caged up," I said.
"Makes you feel vindicated?"
"Something like that."
I couldn't tell him that I wanted an opportunity, wanted to scour the security and try to figure a way to destroy the abominations they were keeping caged.
The elevators descended into the basements. There were a few different ones, each dedicated to its own labs and teams for a handful of departments. Extraterrestrials, the supernatural, normal forensics labs . . .
I was only interested in the xenomorphs. And, of course, I wanted to find out what they had on Wolf's kind. The interstellar warrior species that came to Earth to hunt humans for sport.
They called them "predators".
An entire taskforce was dedicated to finding them: every decade or so they showed up to hunt and kill humans they deemed worthy as trophies. They had to have a lab somewhere in that basement.
Even knowing all that, I couldn't bring myself to fault Wolf. He had saved my life when he could have left me to rot or killed me. He'd helped me help myself, and even when I was broken, he had come for me.
Even after seven years, there was never a day that went by where I didn't think about him. Wonder what he was doing, how he was doing, and if he still remembered me.
If I still belonged at his side. I held my scarred wrist with my other hand, thinking back to when I'd recieved the mark.
Even if I didn't belong anymore, I'd earn that spot back by eradicating the xenomorphs.
"I bet they've learned a lot about them by now," Devon said, trying to fill the silence. All he did was startle me.
Recovering quickly, I said, "I'd hope so, after all this time."
"Bet you have a lot of questions."
Shaking my head, I said, "I guess. There's a lot I already know. I know they're dangerous. I know they all deserve to die."
/Careful, Nichole./
"You scared they gonna get out at all?" I couldn't tell if he was kidding or being serious.
I gave him a sidelong look but didn't deign to respond. Admitting my fears would be too much at the moment.
Our ride finally ended. The elevator opened to a single, straight hallway barely lit by a few overhead lights. Each side of the hall had two doors marked with a single letter each.
"So, which one is it?" Devon asked.
We checked each door before deciding it had to be the one marked with an X—for xenomorph. The other three were baring the letters R, G, and N. None of those made sense.
There was one last door at the end of the hall, but we didn't get that far.
Devon glanced at his palm and entered the second code written there. The light turned green and the latch unlocked with a metallic noise. Devon opened the door and motioned for me to head in.
There were a couple of different corridors, but there weren't that many separate rooms.
"So, where do you reckon we go from here?" Devon asked.
Licking my lips, I paused and looked around. "Hmm, I'm sure there's an observation room. They should be labeled."
Devon shrugged and opened the first door on our right without looking. There was a person inside, organizing some shelves. They looked up in bewilderment at the intrusion.
"Yo, we wanna see the bugs," Devon announced.
Frowning, the guy asked, "Are you even allowed down here?"
Devon nodded. "Dixon said we were allowed to come take a look. Even gave us the codes." He presented his written-on palm.
Sighing, the guy indicated vaguely "Third door on the left is Observation, the one after that is access to the holding cell lab. You look like field agents, so I'd recommended Observation."
Though Devon had the presence of mind to thank them, I was already on the move.
"I've never seen you so intense before," Devon observed, falling into my pace. "I mean, you're always pretty intense but the look on your face is a little scary."
"What? This is just my face."
"I mean, I guess it kinda resembles your face."
"Can we stop talking about my face?" I rolled my eyes.
His blasé attitude should have bothered me more than it did. As it stood, I could understand it, and he was normally like this, anyway.
He had no way of knowing just how bad they were. Soon enough, though, he would.
I entered the third door on the left and held it open for Devon. A lone worker glanced up at us but paid us no mind otherwise.
Observation had a single row of up-to-date computers on a wooden work desk. The front of the room was made completely of glass, overlooking the large lab. Above the wall-sized window, three flatscreens were mounted to show the cage's interior.
Only a section of the lab below was for equipment and tables—lined with test tubes, filing cabinets, work computers, and containers with weird chemicals—while the majority was taken up by a large cage comparable to a two-story house.
It, too, was made mostly of glass, or a similar material. There was a handful of scientists milling about inside the lab, watching and recording info on hand-held tablets.
I could hear the aliens from the live feed.
Their screeches reverberated through the air, slightly warped due to the quality of the microphones and speakers. Each individual noise made the hair on my arms and neck stand on end.
Without the live feeds above the window, I never would have been able to see inside. The aliens within had completely covered every wall of their cage with the hard, resinous substance that I remembered so acutely.
Without realizing it, I had grabbed the front of my shirt so tight I could feel my nails digging into the flesh of my palm.
My eyes were glued to the monitors above, waiting for one to come into view.
"Where are they?" Devon asked, backing up so he could scrutinize the screens from a better angle. "They sure are making a racket."
"They're in there." The words weren't spoken so much as they were a single breath.
A camera was mounted in each corner, it seemed. At least that ensured that the xenomorphs never went unobserved. I figured that the lady sitting quietly at one of the computers was on duty, watching for anything weird.
"They just have you in here?" I asked her. If there was only one person in the room at a time, that would be better for me.
I could over power one person.
She barely glanced up from her screen. "Right now, yes. There's no big experiments going on right now, so it's just me."
"Must be boring," Devon remarked.
"Oh no, not at all," she said with a smile. "I love coming here and watching them, listening to them. They're fascinating, if a little inactive right now. It's soothing, sometimes, like watching an aquarium."
Her comments didn't settle well with me, but the few "specs", as Dixon called them, I met had all been a little strange.
Maybe it was just because I hated these things so vehemently it was asinine to think someone felt differently.
Devon and I returned out attention to the screen above the viewing window. Their screeches had turned into strange thumps. I held my breath, waiting for them to appear. The live feed shook, and I leaned forward.
A sleek black shape darted beneath the cameras, just barely in sight. A shiver went up my spine and I swallowed hard. Two more followed after it, hissing as they disappeared as quickly as they had come.
"Well that wasn't very—"
Another one cut Devon off with a squeal. It had leaped up from just out of the camera's range in the farthest right TV screen. It's head and jaws took up the entirety of the feed now, latched on to the camera's protective shield.
It slammed its head against the dome, claws scraping and teeth gnashing.
Devon leaped away from the window, uttering a swear. I was following suit right before him, jolting back with a surprise and drawing my sidearm without another thought.
More xenos did the same, one jumping up to test the camera's security dome. They battered themselves against the thick sheilds three more times, one right after the other. Each time had me flinching as if they were hitting me.
"What the fuck," Devon uttered.
Behind us, the woman chuckled with relief. "Oh, yes, they take me by surprise, too. They must known there are strangers here . . . they don't often act like this."
I glanced at my partner; his eyes were wide and his jaw was hanging open. He noticed my gaze and turned toward me, his brow furrowing. He was looking at me like he'd never seen me before.
I let out the breath I'd been holding and holstered my weapon. My fingers were still shaking. "Told you. Ugly, mean, and loud."
"What are they doing?" he asked at last, relaxing as he took a step to stand next to me.
The lady answered. "Testing their boundaries. They've been a little restless in that confined space." She sounded almost pitying.
Though there were only a few we could see, I knew there had to be more. They had to be scrambling around the darkened edges of the tempered walls confining them.
When the shields around the cameras didn't give, they moved to hurtling their bodies against the walls of their prison.
"What do you do if they get out?" I asked over my shoulder.
The woman motioned toward a stand in front of the window, just to my left. It was black with yellow stripes and had a single button encased in a plastic lid.
"Someone would hit that button, I suppose," she said with a frown. "Would be such a waste, though, burning them all."
I stared at it, my hands balling into fists. Would it really be that easy? Would all I need to do is hit that one button and everything would be over at last?
/Give me a reason. Any reason,/ I begged them.
Another drone slammed against the wall, then dragged its claws down the glass with an ear-splitting ring. Devon and I both flinched; the sound set my teeth on edge.
I'd only need a real reason to do it if there were witnesses. If I could come up with an exit strategy and find a time when there wouldn't be anyone but the one spec in the room, I could just do it and be done with it.
I had the codes.
I had the resolve.
Now I had a means. All I'd need was a plan and an opportunity.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone