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Uninvited guest
#6
If the task at hand was to forge a police badge or agency id, Laurie would have it in hand by now. 3d printing one of those was easy as pie these days, mostly because the police departments were too strapped of cash in the USA to purchase the technologies for their officers that were standard on plain drivers’ licenses.

Unfortunately, she was trying to impersonate a doctor from Orion Laboratories, and they were clearly up to their eyeballs in high-end technologies. All she needed was a few minutes inside the research space, just to get a glimpse of what was really going on with those kids then get out safely. She didn’t need to linger for days on end, even if they found out she was a fake, she would hopefully be long gone by then.

This meant she had to call in some favors.

But when they rolled up to the school this time, she was wearing a white lab coat. Her hair was pulled up in a bun, and she wore a skirt and heels like a conservative. Xander followed along in a short lab-coat and his typical polo and khakis.
“This is it, Xander. Game face,” she said, window lowering.

She perched an elbow on the open window, smiling up at the ridiculously over-armed guard that hovered at the gate. He wasn’t particularly impressed by Lawrence’s smile. So instead, she handed over the fake NIH badge that supposedly originated from the office of the Director that signed off on the study in the first place. If someone contacted Orion, it would be a little bit of a delay before anyone followed up with NIH to confirm whether or not they actually sent someone to inspect.

“I’m assessing the efficacy of adding additional therapeutic modalities to the ongoing intervention conducted by Orion,” she added.

The guard scanned the ID with a handheld device, and Lawrence breathed a sigh of relief when green flagged her through.

“Thanks,” she said and raised the window. Xander definitely did not have his game-face on. “Just do what we talked about, Xander. Walking in like you own the place goes gets you most of the way there.” He nodded, scowling his brow over-seriously, but at least it was something of an improvement.

She parked and got out, adjusting the coat around her blouse. Her gaze swept the exterior, but the playground was in back. The front offices of the school were transformed to administrative spaces, but only plainly scrubbed staff milled about. “Keep going until we’re stopped,” she said quietly to Xander.

They headed through the main hall, searching this way and that. The interior of the school was completely updated. The classrooms were locked laboratories now filled to the brim with expensive-looking processing equipment. They passed a drug dispensary and work rooms. But it wasn’t until they passed the cafeteria that the first ‘subjects’ were seen.

She stood there at the entrance, Xander at her side. They both stared. The kids were sitting absolutely still, each self-contained within their little space at the table. Nobody talked to each other. Nobody looked around. They just ate robotically. Sometimes someone would dab a napkin at their lips. When the first one carried their tray to the cleaning station, Lawrence was shocked they had that much autonomy at all.
“it’s like they’re robots,” she said, carefully.

One glanced up at her as she proceeded through the room, but the only sound to be heard was the gentle tapping of silverware and the click of her heels on the linoleum. The eyes that flickered up were empty, though, and returned to eating without recognition. A chill crept up her spine. These were Sickness kids, and they were definitely cured. Maybe cured a little too much.

The playground waited outside, and the creepiness did not recede in the sunshine. If anything, it was worse. Kids sat on swings that moved only in the wind. A girl sat on the teeter-totter like Alondra’s granddaughter like she was completely unaware that it was meant to bounce.

Someone spoke up behind her. Xander jumped with surprise, but Lawrence turned with careful serenity.
“Are you Dr. Greene?” A female asked. She was of Asian-descent, probably mid-50s. She also wore a labcoat, but it was embroidered with the name of Orion Labs on the pocket: Opal Von Stein written there.

Lawrence’s smile hid her humor at the identity, “yes, Rachel. Rachel Greene,” she offered a handshake. “Dr. Von Stein, a pleasure to meet you. I’ve read your reports, and Dr. Jenkins sent me to oversee his suggestions.”

“Really?” Mitzui was surprised. “Thank-you for coming all the way from Baltimore, then. As you can see, our serums work quite well, but full restoration of self-spontaneous neural capacities have been troublesome. They follow verbal commands quite well though.”

Lawrence was absolutely winging this, so it was a relief that name-dropping Jenkins worked. She glanced at Xander, wondering about these verbal commands and spontaneous capacities that Opal described were lacking.

The director glanced curiously at Xander, and Lawrence issued her standard response. “He’s my intern,” which in the medical world, actually fit quite well. Opal hummed a response to herself and asked that they follow her back to her office.

Lawrence obliged, glancing one last time at the freaky playground.
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Messages In This Thread
Uninvited guest - by Lawrence Monday - 02-15-2019, 01:47 AM
RE: Uninvited guest - by Lawrence Monday - 03-06-2019, 01:44 AM
RE: Uninvited guest - by Lawrence Monday - 03-15-2019, 12:03 AM
RE: Uninvited guest - by Lawrence Monday - 04-03-2019, 11:44 PM
RE: Uninvited guest - by Lawrence Monday - 04-06-2019, 06:41 PM
RE: Uninvited guest - by Lawrence Monday - 04-06-2019, 07:46 PM

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