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 Posted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 2:59 am
Angelina wished she could have slept through all the plane travel. Between the buss to Boston, t he plane ride from Logan International Airport to Miami, and then being boarded onto a small helicopter and flown out to some unknown location was already making this the longest day in her life. She had been up since four o'clock that morning and had to deal with all the usual headaches of air travel.
But on top of all that, was the tight ball of worry, excitement, and fear, that was balled up in her chest. She was going to see Ambrose! He was alive! And that along spoke volumes. But something shading was going on with Feral Labs and she was fairy certain it wasn't completly legal. They were hiding something, and something pretty big she was guessing from the seven-figure non-disclosure settlement they offered her. But even since she agrees not to go to the press, they seemed to be pretty honest.
Ambrose was sick. At least, he had been exposed to something. While they now had a vaccine that would protect herself, they had told her giving the vaccine to someone who had already been exposed could be deadly, so Ambrose would not be allowed to come home for a while. But he was healthy - they assured her - and she would be able to go and see him!
She clutched to her duffle bag so hard her knuckles were turning white when she spotted a green and brown chuck of land jutting up from the ocean. And island! There is was..
..it would be long now.
Sabin, meanwhile, had found himself playing escort duty again. Moreau had been quite busy recently, besides with the exception of the arrival of the girl who he had hand-picked to be the subject of his uber-secret research project. But, some strange part of Sabin was beginign to get a morbid enjoyment out of bringing in the new victims. As he sat on the hood of the jeep at the perimeter of the helipad, he opened the file, and his eyes nearly fell out of his head. He had seen the face before several times while on monitering duty. In particular, in a small framed photograph on the bedside table of duplex #1.
Sabin flipped through a few more pages of the file, his eyes skimming the text. She, the documentation said, had not given up as easily as had been predicted when Ambrose was selected for the study. While they were not engaged, she had bitten onto Feral Labs and refused to let go, getting to the point of threatening to go to a big investigative report on prime time television. So they had given her what she wanted... Ambrose. With a catch of course, that she wasn't aware of just yet.
He took a breath, looking up as the black helicopter drew closer and closed the file, unsure of quite how to feel. Some part of Sabin that had been becoming more and more repressed tugged at his chest. What was written between the unfeeling lines spoke of a perseverence only carried by a deep love.
Sabin adjusted the dark shades on his nose as the helicopter touched down on the tarmac, getting to his feet to greet the young woman.
Angelina hopped off the helicopter, her eagerness/aprehensive combination making her restless at the very least. And spending hours cramped in a helicopter didn't help. A few raggidy magazines where clutched in one hand (though she was way too nervous to read any of the articles, she looked at the pictures to pass the time), and she hefted a duffled bag up on her shoulder. She was a small-framed girl, with a boyish figure. She wore a tee shirt and demin black skirt with fishnet stockings and bulky knee-high boots. Her hair was medium brown, soft and straight. She wore a bit up lipgloss, eyeliner, and mascera, but other than that she was sans much fancy make-up.
"Hi, I'm Angelina," the young woman said, walking quickly over to Sabin.
Sabin let a warm smile pass over his face, speaking up to be heard over the spinning rotors. "My name is Sabin Duvert. I'm here to escort you to the main labs!" He gestured to the jeep. "Hop in and we can talk better there."
Angelina took a look at her surroundings. They looked liked they were in the middle of the freaking jungle - and she could help but feel a bit like she had stepped into Jurassic Park. She tossed her dufflebag into the back of the Jeep and hopped in, buckling her seatbelt. She turned and examined Sabin closely - intrigued by his nonnormal appearance. "I ike your hair," she said, with a nervous smile. Upon closer inspection her eyes were a bit red, a tiny bit puffy, and her mascera smudged slightly, as if she had been on a constant verge of tears for hours. She tried to keep her voice of trembling too much.
Sabin lifted a brow as he helped her situate her bags into the back and hopped into the driver's seat. "Really? You're the first person who's said that..." Sabin said offhandedly as he shifted the jeep into the gear and set off down the dirt road like a racehorse out of the starting gate.
As the bounced down the road, the leaves whipped by them, some alarmingly close to the open-topped vehicle. Screeches of monkeys and birds could be heard as the jeep flew by their roosts.
Angelina looked surprised. "Really? But its solid white! I mean, you don't look very old or all. Is it natural or a seriously well done bleach job? I like non-natural haircolors.. I dye sometimes." She fiddled constantly with her necklaces and bracelets, looking ahead of the road, craning her neck to see where they were headed. "WillI get to see him soon? When? Tonight?"
Sabin grinned. "It's a long story.." he said cryptically when interrogated about his hair color. "But... suffice to say I've grown to like it."
He glanced over his glasses to her momentarily before back to the road. "And tonight, most likely. Assuming that everything is in order."
After just a few minutes of drive, the tall, mirrored laboratories rose into sight from over the treeline, rising up on them like a behemoth. Soon enough, the big gate with the Feral Labs logo was swinging open before them automatically to reveal a small dirt parking lot with a couple other jeeps.
"Oh, okay good." She said, fiddling more. "I signed all the papers and everything already. And, you know, I promise not to say anything. I just want to see him.. honest. Please? I've waited over three months.."
Sabin nodded, pulling to a stop and parking the jeep. "That's right. There's just the matter of the inoculation. It... really is unfortunate.." Sabin said sadly. "But at least the research team was able to come up with a vaccination pretty quickly."
"Well... how long will I have to wait from getting the inoculation and seeing him? She let herself out the Jeep and went to grab her bag.
Sabin smiled, a part of him sympathizing with the longing to see a certain someone from his life again. No matter how long the wait, if minutes remaind between their seeing eachother again, those minutes would be the villains.
"It shouldn't be long - just long enough to make certain that you don't have a reaction to the serum. You might feel a bit woozy tonight as your body reacts to it, but nothing that would keep you from him if you don't want to wait."
She pulled the large duffle bag out and stumbled back a few steps. But her eyes were already brighter. "Really? Oh, thats awesome! And like, I won't have to worry about him getting me sick, right? Even if we kiss...and stuff..."
Sabin laughed lightly. "No. The vaccine is quite effective. Nothing should pass between the two of you no matter... erm... how enthusiastic your reunion." He led her towards the large front doors that slid open as they approached, leading into a lavish waiting room.
Angelina blushed but could help but put on a huge smile at the thought. "Okay... well, awesome. So, uh.. " she looked around the impressive lobby. Between this and the Feral Labs office building she had visited several times over the last few months, she wondering just how lucrative this business must be. "Well, I'm ready. Whenever...now.. I reall do want to see him ASAP."
Sabin laughed again. "Well, just follow me on up, and we'll get you situated." He waved her to follow him as he went through a double-doors at the other end of the room, leading her down a white sterile hallway and to a buttonless elevator door, that also opened at their approach.
"Floor 8" Sabin spoke to the metal walls, and it lurched upwards.
Angelina shifted her bag to her other shoulder and enthusiatically followed him. "So, must be nice working in a place like that this... even if you are qaurentined, huh?"
Sabin winced. "Here, let me get that for you.." Sabin commented, shouldering Angelina's duffle bag that looked like it might form a sizable percentage of the young lady's body weight. "And it is, really. Lots of cutting edge research."
The elevator came to a sudden stop, opening to an examination room. Sabin stepped out, setting the bag on the floor near the cabinets.
"Just have a seat." He smiled to her.
"Ah, thank you," Angelina looked relieaved.. she'd been dragging that damned thing around all day.
She walked quickly into the room and hopped up on one of the exam tables. No one really liked getting shots, so even though she didn't have a specific fear of needles, she shifted around nervously. She knew some inoculations were big and painful. But she tried to quell those thoughts by thinking of Ambrose.
Sabin walked to the cabinet, which opened obediently to his touch, and peered at the selection of vials inside.
Such a variety of choices... and such a meaningful choice on the part of the subject. The devilish side of Sabin stepped forward first, and his hand darted towards the mantis serum. However, as he was about to take the bottle, that irritating painful feeling in his chest surged upwards, flashing an image in his mind of stern green eyes, and a head of lavish brown curls, and his hand hesitated.
... what was becoming to him on this island...? Surrounded by peoples' lives with which he could play with... manipulate... scare...
He withdrew his hand entirely for a moment before darting back into the shelf.
Swan...? He thought of her last name, and the imagry of the idealized swan before his logic reminded him of how large waterfowl really acted.
Then he looked for other canine serums, feeling sympathetic... only to find that they had been used - between Ambrose, Madison, Vasile, and Pyroth - there were no extras available at the moment.
He almost went to the second stock answer: A feline, before thinking of the obvious odds between a dog and a cat. He rustled through the bottles before his hand paused on a small bottle near the back, and a smile crossed his face. That should work. That should work nicely.
Finally, after lots of bottle clinking, and probably looking like he was missing something, Sabin was unwrapping a syringe, and filling it with a murky liquid from a small bottle.
Angelina, oblivious to the weight of the decision he was making, sat blissfully ignorant on the table, swinging her legs back and forth. "Everything okay?" she asked lightly, her tone curious as opposed to accusatory.
Sabin smiled to her, approaching with a needle in one hand and a cotton swap in the other. "Just fine." He reassured. Trust me, you'll thank me later He thought to himself. "Roll up your sleeve and we can get this taken care of." He smiled.
Angelina pushed up the sleeve on her teeshirt, exposing her shoulder. "That needle doesn't look too bad," she assured herself.
"It's not really" Sabin commented, swabbing an open area of skin on the back of her arm, and then injecting the needle underneath the swab. There was a small pinch as the liquid was pumped into her bloodstream, and a warm feeling that traveled down to her fingertips, and then the needle was out, and being tossed into a recepticle.
"All done!" Sabin smiled. "That wasn't so bad, no?"
Angelina steeled a smile on her face as a wince, then patted the area gingerly. "Nope. So can I see him now?"
Sabin laughed, patting her on her other shoulder. "Easy, tiger. How do you feel? And no beating around the bush. Be honest with me."
Angelina took a deep breath and tried to seperate anything she might be feeling from the shot and feelings she was feeling from being jet lagged and physically and emotionally drained. "Uhm, well, my arm tingles. And its warm. But other than that - I'm tired, but I've been up since 4 am EST."
Sabin nodded, listening carefully. "Sounds normal enough. I'll carry your bag back down to the jeep, and you let me know if you start to feel woozy or anything along the way."
He picked her bag back up rather effortlessly and continued. "Your return flight is scheduled a week from today.... and we've set aside one of the rooms for you and your things... if you want to use it...."
"Okay!" She said, eagerly jumping off the table and following Sabin. "Oh, well, thats nice. But I'll probably be staying with Ambrose unless he's not feeling well. But you said he's healthy." A thought occured to her. "Hey, uhm... does he even know I'm coming??":
Sabin walked her back down the route that they came. "Understandable. But if either of you needs your space, you'll be in number 29" Sabin fished for a set of keys while balancing the duffle bag on his other shoulder. "And.... no - we didn't want to get his hopes up if something fell through.
"OMG how exciting!" Angelina exclaimed. "Wow, I wish I had brought him a present or something... everything happened just so fast... "
Sabin grinned. "Well, it will be a wonderful surprise for him, that's for certain." Sabin commented. "And I'm sure that he'll be happy enough just seeing you."
Before she knew it they were walking out of the lobby and back to the jeep, where Sabin deposited the dufflebag.
"Do you want me to take you by your room first to deposit your bag, or just straight to his room?"
"Just straight to his room, please. I don't want to waste any time!" She basically skipped into the Jeep and buckled herself up quickly, looking to Sabin expectantly
Sabin, the smile not leaving his face, kicked the car into gear and sped into the village, heading for duplex number 1....
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Posted: Fri Jun 02, 2006 12:16 am
It's been months. Over six of them to be precise. Six months of waiting on pins and needles waiting for it. It's been that everpresent promise on the horizon. It's happened to EVERYONE else that you've met. You've seen people, new faces since your arrival fall prey to the labs' changes, degrading more to beasts as you see them in and out over the months. People that came after you. Even your own boyfriend has fallen further along that path since your arrival. And through it all you've remained untouched. No fur has graced your arm, no scale or feather. For a while, you almost throught you had beaten it. Then you started to get sick. Sick from not changing, they had said. They'd even pulled you into the labs to try to figure out what was wrong with you, only to have inconclusive results, and telling you nothing, other than to call you back again and again. There was guilt, guilt that you would be the only "normal" one... as beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all - would the others think that you were one of THEM? One of the staff? Or would they just secretly resent you, be jealous of you? As they watched their own reflections mirror back those of beasts, you remained the sole human. Until tonight. It starts with a nauseus feeling... you feel off-center... ill. A headache. Maybe a reaction to all the various injections and treatments that they've been giving you.... but then with another wave of disorientation, you look down and.... something's different. Your fingernails have grown. You almsot doubt your eyes - it has been a while since you trimmed them... but then your ears feel funny, patterns begin to spread over your skin, at your shoulders, down your back. All the while, tiny, prickling sensations as peach-fuzz like fur grows in the same areas. It's almost unnoticable, but the areas of skin feel... strange, sore as the melanin collects ... around your eyes... the tips of your ears.... which then begin to hurt as they stretch - it feels as if there were clamps tugging at them, lengthening them. At the same time, your teeth - your canines to be specific ache as if you had just gotten back from a nasty root canal as they begin to lengthen and sharpen as well. Then, as if it almost seems like it's over.... a pain collects at the base of your spine, you can feel throughout your whole body the grinding as the bones in your coccyx unfuse and lenthen, push out as the mass of bone divides into distinct vertebrae, and push out as a bony protrusion which itches and hurts.... and then thick grey and black fur blossoms over it all the while it grows. Finally the changes settle, and leave you .... one of the rest of them. 
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Sabin Duvert Vice Captain
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