Chapter 7
Dora didn’t think she was going to regret her decision. She knew she was going to regret it.
There were a lot of rules at the Life Foundation, which only grew more numerous the more involved you became in the work. However, while a list of the official restrictions would probably be as long as the Foundation building was tall, most of the rules you followed under Drake were the unspoken ones. Don’t ask questions about things you weren’t assigned to, don’t try to communicate with the “volunteers,” don’t linger after hours.
Out of all the unspoken rules, however, there was one that would basically be suicide to break. Naturally that was the one Dora was shattering into a million pieces right now, because apparently all her self-preservation instincts had flown out the window and into traffic.
As she walked into the police station, she thought briefly of the reporter, Edie Brock. Most reporters, even if they didn’t have the sense to tread warily around Drake, were a little in awe of the man. He was rich, powerful, good-looking- any one of those three qualities tended to come with an intimidation factor, and Drake had the whole trifecta. Even so, Brock had appeared unaffected. She had looked Drake in the eye and accused him of murder with a smile on her face.
And now? She was probably dead, or at the very least grievously injured, lying in a cave waiting to be devoured by some dark god.
And here I am, following her example. What are you doing, Dor?
Unsure of the answer, she waited at the front desk while people in civvies, suits, and uniforms rushed around, not acknowledging her presence.
“Can I help you?”
Dora flinched, turning to face the uniformed woman at the desk.
“May I speak to Captain Stacy, please?”
The woman frowned, tucking her shoulder-length hair behind her ear. “The captain’s unavailable at the moment. May I ask what the matter is?”
Dora bit her lip. “It’s…not something I’m comfortable sharing too openly, sorry. Do you have any idea when the captain will be available?”
“It’s difficult to say. If it’s a time-sensitive matter you might want to talk to someone besides Captain Stacy. Is there anyone else you’d be comfortable sharing your situation with?”
Skirth shook her head, staring at her toes. “No…I’m sorry for bothering you. Thank you for your time, officer.”
“Of course. Let me know if there’s any way I can help.”
Dora faced the door, walking slowly as her mind buzzed.
Who else can I go to? Captain Stacy would never be on Drake’s payroll, but anyone else here could be. Should I just keep my mouth shut after all?
“Come on, Edie. Pick up…”
Dora twisted around so quickly she nearly fell over. The blond woman at the desk was looking down at her lap, eyebrows drawn together in an expression of concern.
“Why aren’t you answering?” she muttered, absently putting a hand to her forehead.
Skirth walked right back to the desk. The woman sat upright as she saw Skirth returning. As she did, Skirth noticed the name emblazoned on her badge: “A. Weying.”
“Can I help you?”
Dora shrugged. “I heard you say the name Edie. You wouldn’t be referring to Edie Brock by any chance, would you?”
“The one and only. Why, are you a reader of the Brock Report?”
“Actually, I work at the Life Foundation. I was there when Ms. Brock interviewed Mr. Drake. It…left an impression.”
Officer Weying snorted under her breath. “Yes, I bet it did.”
“Is she missing?”
Weying froze, fixing Skirth with a suspicious glare. “Excuse me?”
“You know her. You’ve been texting her, or calling her, and she hasn’t been answering. Right?”
The officer got up from her seat and walked out from behind the desk, gesturing for Skirth to follow her.
She followed Officer Weying down the hallway and through a door with a metal plate designating it “Interrogation Room B.” The room was bare, save for a table with two chairs set on opposite sides. Weying gestured for Dora to sit, and Dora obeyed.
“What do you know about Edie Brock?” Weying asked. Her voice was soft, almost gentle, and her demeanor could’ve been soothing if not for the steely glare in her eyes that was piercing Skirth through to her bones.
Swallowing visibly, Dora forced herself to meet Weying’s gaze. “She’s been kidnapped.”
Weying’s eyes flashed, but the rest of her displayed no intense response to the news as Dora had expected. Her voice turned slightly more brisk and businesslike, betraying none of the anger that was blazing in her stare.
“How do you know she was kidnapped? Did you witness the kidnapping?”
“No. I wasn’t there when she was taken.”
Weying crossed her arms. “Then how do you know what happened to her?”
Dora’s gaze slipped from the officer’s, and she stared at her fingers, guilt knotting up her gut.
“It isn’t a brief story.”
Weying sat down in the other chair. “Then you’d better start talking.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Edie woke up feeling much better than before.
Granted, “before” she had felt like her intestines had been through a meat grinder, and her kneecaps had been answering even the tiniest movements with screaming pain, so that might not have been the highest bar to clear.
Hello, Edie.
She rubbed her eyes and sat upright, stretching as much as her stiff muscles would allow. “Hello to you too. Wait, how do you know my name?”
You told me.
“Oh. Right. Did you tell me yours?”
I did not.
“Okay, so I didn’t forget it or anything. Good.”
It’s Vvnsynstimrm.
Edie stopped mid-stretch. “What?”
My name is Vvnsynstimrm.
“Vehvin…Vuhvensin…sorry, do you have a nickname or anything? Because there is no way I’m ever going to pronounce that correctly.”
They wriggled, and Edie was suddenly aware that Van Sin Storm was settled beneath her skin. She inhaled sharply, trying to not focus too much on the fact that there was a living goop creature with an unpronounceable name currently inside her.
I was given my name after many years of service. No other titles were ever granted to me.
“You were given-? So when your mom popped you out or you hatched or whatever, you didn’t get a name?”
Klyntar are not given names when they are…“popped out.” Some are never given names at all.
“Klyntar?”
My kind. You are human, I am Klyntar.
“Huh. So you’re an alien?”
To your kind, yes.
“And when Klyntar want to talk to other Klyntar, do they just go ‘Hey you!’ and the other one automatically knows who they’re talking to?”
Klyntar do not typically communicate with one another.
“Oh. So when you guys hook up or whatever, it’s like a ‘wham bam thank you ma’am’ one-night stand sort of deal?”
What? What is a one-night…ah. Klyntar do not copulate to reproduce. Offspring are made asexually.
“You clone yourselves?”
The offspring have unique genetic traits, sometimes partially derived from the host of their ‘parent,’ but they are never an exact copy as a clone would be.
“Cool. Have you ever made any kids?”
I have not produced spawn, but even if I had, they would never have been considered children. Klyntar do not mature as humans do. We are born to be shaped by others, molded into tools.
“Plenty of humans can become tools, but I’m guessing that’s not what it means for Klyntar.”
There was a soft chuckle in her head. (The laugh of the goop.)
No. Our entire lives are dictated by who owns us and what they use us for.
“Wait, so you’re slaves?”
We were never enslaved. Klyntar were created to be used- we are not a people who were taken over by foreign entities. Klyntar are living weapons.
“Okay, so Klyntar are artificial life forms that are also slaves.”
Slaves are people. Klyntar are not.
“Uh-huh. Tell me, who told you that your kind isn’t people? I’m betting that info came from your ‘owners.’”
How is the source of that information relevant?
“Because your ‘owners’ probably don’t want you to see yourselves as people. They probably want you to see yourselves as they see you- something to be used- as opposed to individuals with identities and ideas. Ideas like rising up against your masters.”
…Hm. You are very intelligent, Edie.
Edie lay back down. “Thanks, Ve…Vivi…hey, I know you’ve never had a nickname, but now would be a good time to come up with one.”
In your language, Vvnsynstimrm would be translated as ‘Toxin’ or ‘Venom.’
“Venom. Hardcore nickname.”
Edie felt them shift beneath her skin again, as if they were agitated.
“Not a fan?”
It sounds…menacing.
“Is there something else you’d like to be called?”
Black oozed out from her hands. Two white spots pooled in her palms, staring up at her.
What I would like to be called?
“Yeah. You can pick your own nickname if you want.”
Edie is a nice name.
She laughed. They felt a jolt of warmth and partially slid back under her skin, resting a tendril against her esophagus so they could feel the air quiver in her throat.
“I think so too, but it might be a little confusing if you start calling yourself that.”
They redistributed most of their mass so that their form was draping over her shoulder, flowing down her back. What was that you called me?
“You’ll have to be more specific- I butchered your name a couple different ways.”
The last thing you called me.
“Um, Vivi? I think.”
It is not dissimilar from the first syllable of my title, and it is less menacing than Venom.
“Do you want me to call you Vivi, then?”
They swirled around her shoulders, wrapping her in a warm, even weight.
Yes, please.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Anne took a deep breath to steady herself.
“So you’re telling me that Carlton Drake has been volunteering people to a cult as sacrifices.”
Skirth nodded. “He delivers victims to the cult, and the cult disposes of them.”
“And you saw Edie being…disposed of?”
Skirth bit her lip. “She might not be dead. The cult restrained her and put her inside a chamber, but the injuries inflicted by Mr. Pullman weren’t fatal.”
Anne ran one hand through her hair, letting her nails scrape her neck. “Do you know where she is?”
“I was blindfolded when they took me to the location of the ‘sacrifice.’ The cult takes the same precaution with everyone who isn’t a member- even Drake doesn’t know where they operate.”
“Did you see any landmarks or notable features in the surrounding area?”
Skirth scrunched up her brow in concentration. “I don’t think so…it was dark, and I wasn’t really given a chance to look around before they led me into the temple.”
“The temple was underground, right? Could it have been an abandoned mine shaft or something?”
“No, it looked like a naturally occurring cavern. There weren’t any supports or marks from equipment.”
Anne sighed. “So all we have to go on is that it’s someplace underground that’s not a mine or anything that there would be a definite record of. Great.”
“There could be a record of their power usage,” Skirth suggested.
“Power usage?”
“When they opened up the chamber in the temple, the walls had some sort of energy flowing through them. It looked like they were using technology to operate the chamber door. That would require a power source. A power source would expend energy, and that energy can be tracked.”
Anne held her hands up. “You’re telling me that a mystery death cult is hiding a generator in their cavern temple to operate their door?”
“I don’t know what the cult is centered around, actually, but-”
Anne put her hands to her temples. “Right, right, okay. Power source. You can track it?”
“We have equipment at the Life Foundation that tracks energy output. It would take a little adjusting, but yes, I could hypothetically track the source of any energy output from any generator in the city.”
“And how long would this take?”
Skirth frowned. “I doubt Drake would allow me to make modifications to company equipment, especially if he knew why I was doing so. I could sneak in after hours, say I’m working late, but-”
Anne slammed her hands on the table. Skirth could see in Weying’s face that her nerves were stripped raw. She was angry, she was scared, and she currently didn’t care enough to hide it anymore.
“How. Long.”
Skirth clenched and unclenched her fists as she ran through her mental calculations, letting the repeated bite of nails digging into her palms steady her. “Two weeks.”
Weying pushed out a breath through her teeth, sweeping her hair back one-handedly. “Does she even have two weeks?”
Skirth wanted to reassure her, wanted to promise that they could save Brock. Instead, she told her the truth.
“I don’t know.”
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Peter didn’t know what he was hoping to accomplish with this.
He’d begun investigating the Life Foundation a couple months ago, after hearing some rumors that Carlton Drake was involved in extraterrestrial experimentation. At first things had looked promising. Drake was definitely hiding something: why else would there be so much confidential work going on in the laboratories?
The issue was that ‘confidential’ meant ‘not on a need-to-know basis for just anyone.’ Even with the job he’d taken at the Foundation (under the name ‘Ben Reilly’- he didn’t want to risk Drake knowing who he was if things went south), Peter still hadn’t been able to find so much as a tissue with suspicious snot. Certainly he hadn’t found evidence of aliens.
It could be just another sketchy company- lots of secrets, but nothing to do with aliens, he reasoned.
The thought made a weight form in his gut.
It wasn’t that he necessarily wanted the Life Foundation to be experimenting on aliens. He wasn’t hoping for some hapless extraterrestrials to be trapped in cages, waiting to be cut open and studied. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
It would just be nice to find others like me.
He stared in the mirror. The blond wig and glasses didn’t exactly turn him into a different person, but it was an effective enough disguise- Aunt May might recognize him, but it wasn’t her he was looking to fool.
I should be used to wearing someone else’s face, taking someone else’s name. I’ve been doing it for all these years.
The scent of his sweat was suddenly sharp and foreign. His skin prickled. His vision swam. His mouth felt sticky. He parted his lips slightly, choking a little when he saw the white threads threatening to spill out.
Faker. Pretender. Imposter.
He forced his mouth and his eyes shut, breathing deeply. When he looked in the mirror again, everything was fine. It was just him, Peter Parker, another normal human being.
He’d picked ‘Ben’ randomly, when he’d decided to go undercover. Now the name made him think of Uncle Ben. It felt wrong, somehow.
It shouldn’t. It’s just another dead man’s name I’ll be taking.
But Peter hadn’t been a man. He’d been a boy when he’d died.
Absently he wondered what the real Peter would’ve thought of him, walking around in stolen skin, living a life that by all rights should’ve been cut off.
Why would he do this? Peter asked himself.
The answer came more quickly than he’d expected.
Peter would’ve done this to help people.
He wanted for there to be others like him, yes. He wanted to know that someone out there understood how he felt, stranded and desperately alone, even though he was surrounded by people every day. But the important thing was to make sure that the Life Foundation was exposed for whatever wrongdoings it committed behind closed doors. It was why the real Peter would’ve done it.
The weight in his gut lessened, but it didn’t go away.