16: Law of Entropy

Olivia didn’t get to leave her cell the next day. She got a fresh change of clothes and three meals, but no space to stretch her wings or walk around or do almost anything. Stay safe, stay strong.

Day two. They let her out again. Right as she got excited about that, the guards took her to Dr. Dabrowski. Thankfully, she kept the inane questioning to a minimum, but then came a barrage of different tests. Tests for strength, vision, hearing, and reflexes. They took a few more blood samples and never answered her when she asked what happened to the last one. Stay safe, stay strong.

Day three. They kept her in the cell again. A familiar scent caught her nose as the AC kicked on. A bare whiff, gone before she could grasp it. Stay safe, stay strong.

Day four. More testing. Some the same, some different. Dr. Sullivan was even there for one of them. “Do you recognize this object? What does this picture mean to you? What do you associate this word with?” Over and over. Dr. Sullivan assured her there was a point to it all, though Olivia couldn’t see it, and they shuffled her off before she could ask. An ears, nose and throat doctor looked at her ears and told her they were healing as best they could. Stay safe, stay strong. 

The weekend came. Olivia paced, ate, read, and listened to music, cycling through those activities in a random order when not out of her cell. They’re coming. My friends are coming. I haven’t heard anything beyond that first message. Could I get out myself? Getting shot a bunch is not fun, and they’re always watching.

They’d added a light switch and a bookshelf to her cell the fourth day while she was away. They made sure to tell her they could override her light switch at any time, but she could still dim the lights to sleep should she so choose. Turning them completely off was not an option, the complete absence of any light freaked her out. Can’t see. I hate it when I can’t see.

Day seven. Another visit to Dr. Sullivan. This time, no Ortega, only two Clones. The Clones took her to the elevator, and this time accompanied Olivia instead of taking their own elevator ahead of her. 

Dr. Sullivan greeted her, then they settled down and began. Small talk, but better than anything Olivia had heard all day.

“What was the point of all of that stuff last week when you were there?” Olivia asked during a lull in the conversation. I’ve been trying to figure it out, it’s been bugging me all day.

Dr. Sullivan smiled. “They’re trying to narrow down who you are.”

“Like, me now, or me before,” asked Olivia. They’re really working on that?

“Yes. I don’t know what the scientists were doing, they’ll probably get around to telling you later. But so far as I’ve been involved, it has all been trying to piece together what you knew from before to build your psychological profile. For example, someone from a farm may know farm terminology better than someone who has spent their life in a city or suburb.”

“Oh. Wow.”

Dr. Sullivan nodded. “They are still narrowing down the list, but we should have it for you within the week.”

Olivia blinked. “A week?”

Dr. Sullivan nodded again. “Say what you will about law enforcement, they’ve gotten good at tracking people who don’t want to be tracked. Goes with the rash of masked villains of late.”

“Wow. Thank you so much!”

Dr. Sullivan smiled again. “I have a surprise for you, too,” she said, getting up from her chair. She motioned for Olivia to follow. Surprise? I can’t think of a surprise I’ve liked so far. The Clones jerked to attention as they left the office. “Did Mr. Walker inform you of today’s plan?” Dr. Sullivan asked the two Clones in passing, in a tone remarkably less friendly than the one she used with Olivia.

“Yeah, thought you’d be a bit longer,” Clone grunted in return. They followed them as Dr. Sullivan led Olivia down the hallway.

Dr. Sullivan ignored him and addressed Olivia, “Alright. We’re going to the next building over. Let’s get some fresh air” 

Fresh air? Fresh air! After Dr. Sullivan and a Clone, Olivia walked out into a hallway. The setting sun beamed in through the skylight above her and a window down the hallway. Olivia felt a small smile form on her face as she followed Dr. Sullivan. The sky! I missed you, sky.

They took a right at a junction and came to a large conference room. As with Dr. Sullivan’s office, the Clones stood outside instead of following. Olivia looked out of the window as Dr. Sullivan shut the door behind them. 

From her ground floor window, Olivia saw at least four spacious, open air enclosures, complete with trees and running water. A huge, bloated brown thing with six legs munched on some grass in one of them. All around, though, Olivia saw a tall, dark grey wall. Olivia thought she caught the familiar scent again, though Sullivan broke her concentration.

Dr. Sullivan joined her by the window, wrenching it open. The humid air still threw Olivia off, but it still beat the stale indoor air of the rest of her prison. “I am sorry your experience here has been so confrontational,” she said.

“No tiny cells?” asked Olivia. No fair.

“No. Some herbivores are actually fairly peaceable once removed from hostile situations. Most ferals do tend to calm down, but are easily agitated. The ones up here are approachable. Where you have been, the lowest level, is basically supermax prison for ferals. There is much more to the institute than you’ve seen.”

“Oh. Could, um, maybe, um,” began Olivia, trailing off.

“Yes?” prompted Dr. Sullivan.

“I, um, I’d like to fly again.”

“I’m sorry. But I think they’re concerned you’ll flying off and not return. Not that I’d blame you, so far. Underground is not a good place for flyers, I assume.”

“I… yeah.”

“Don’t worry about your cell too much longer. I think they’re talking about moving you to one of the wings up here.”

Olivia brightened up immediately. “Thank you so much!” she said, trying hard not to bounce on her toes.

Dr. Sullivan smiled. “It’s still a frustrating couple of debates away, but most of the staff here agree.” Most of. What about the others?

They contemplated the view for a while, filling the time with idle chit chat, until Dr. Sullivan checked her watch.

“Do you have anything else on your mind, Olivia?” she asked.

“I, um, no. But thank you. Thank you so much.” I get to get out of that awful cell soon!

“Don’t thank me, they should have been doing this in the first place. But you’re welcome.”

They waved each other goodbye, and the guards began escorting Oliiva back to her cell. “Is Ortega alright?” she asked as the elevator began to descend.

“Huh?” replied one of the Clones. “He’s just at a doctor’s appointment today. He fucked up his knee a few years ago right before he got out of the army. Why?”

“Well, he’s usually here. And he seemed really worried when we met Dr. Grey last week.”

Clone nodded, though he couldn’t quite disguise the worry in his face from Olivia’s eye. “Yeah, don’t worry about that.”

“He seemed worried?”

“Yeah, he’s jumpy about Overlord. Fought his bots a few times in Iraq.” The elevator came to a stop. Olivia and the Clones began the walk back to her cell, neither in any hurry.“He said something about the eyes looking familiar. Don’t know what he’s talking about, there’s nothing high tech here for Overlord to care about. Walker said he’d look into it, but that’s the last I heard.”

It’s not that weird. Wait, it doesn’t sound like he knows about the tracker. How does he not know? Wait again! Only the scientists were there with me. The guards and the scientists really aren’t talking?

“Did no one tell you guys about the tracker?”

Clone’s eyebrows shot up. “The what?”

“I was fighting an Overlord robot and it put a tracker in my neck,” explained Olivia.

Clone stared up at her, mouth ajar. “Why on earth were you fighting an Overlord robot?” he asked.

“That’s what Dr. Dabrowski said.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Clone, both of him coming to a dead stop in the hallway. “The white coats know this?”

“Yeah, they saw it on the X-ray thingy. I explained it to them.”

“Motherfuckers didn’t say shit! Alright.” The non-speaking clone broke into a jog back towards the elevator. “We’ll keep you safe, alright. Let’s get you back.”

It was just one robot. Nothing has attacked me yet. Why does everyone act like I’m being shot at right this moment?

***

The next day, they brought her up to the surface again. Sunlight! There’s still that smell, though, it’s driving me crazy. Dr. Ruskov greeted her in a much larger and fancier version of his office in the lower level, along with Dr. Dabrowski. No tiny corridor to crouch in outside. This is so much better. They took yet another blood sample.

“There we are. You have very interesting blood, they keep asking for more,” said Dr. Ruskov, placing the needle in a small refrigerator.

Olivia just sighed.

“Now,” said Dr. Dabrowski, before Olivia could ask what exactly they were doing with it all, or what exactly was happening with Dr. Grey. “There are some matters we thought you’d like to hear.”

The two doctors put up a couple X-rays on a lit up wall panel. That’s me, unless there are other people with wings I haven’t met yet.

“There were a couple interesting things we’ve found beyond the tracker,” said Dabrowski.

Ruskov pointed to a blurry white spot on the picture next to her heart. “That concerned us for the longest time, but after a while we figured out it’s an extra gland. It’s too smooth and uniform to be a tumor. What it governs we don’t really know, but due to the type of interference involved there is a good chance magic is involved.” Of course. Magical nonsense.

“We’re talking with a handful of medical mages,” said Dabrowski. “If we can bring one of them in, they’ll take a look at you and we can find out what exactly is going on. We might also get that tracker out of you while they’re here.”

“OK,” said Olivia.

“Your bones are not nearly as dense as was expected, considering their estimated strength. But they are not as hollow as we would have thought, considering you can fly,” said Ruskov. “Your back is densely muscled, no surprise there. Those muscles need to be strong enough to provide you with lift. Other than that, everything seems to be connected appropriately.”

“Oh, that’s good, right?”

Both doctors nodded. “No real medical problems that I’ve been able to find,” said Ruskov.

“The bloodworks told us a lot of interesting things about you,” said Dabrowski. “You do have a couple extra chromosomes.”

Olivia blinked. “Um, what does that mean?”

“In practice? Nothing. For us, it means we’ll be spending a lot of time mapping your genome,” said Dabrowski.

“The number of chromosomes is fairly meaningless except for reproduction,” said Ruskov. “But that isn’t a problem for you.” Hey! Or is it because of something else?

Olivia’s brow furrowed. “Why?” Do I want to know?

“You didn’t explain this to her?” he asked Dabrowski.

“I was going to ask you the same question,” she responded. Now what?

Ruskov sighed at her response. He turned to Olivia and said, “Well, Olivia, you cannot conceive.”

She blinked again. “Um, what?”

“During a feral trigger, all gametes are destroyed. Any that are produced later are sterile, but that doesn’t… pertain to you,” explained Ruskov.

“Gametes?” Is that something else I should be concerned about?

“Ah, sorry. Sex cells. Sperm for males, eggs for females,” clarified Ruskov.

“You considered having children before?” asked Dabrowski. Olivia felt her face flush.

“No. I guess I… I’d never thought about that, you know, before. But, you know, it… it would have been nice to have had the choice,” she said, staring at her feet. So many stupid things wrong with me.

“You won’t have periods. From what I understand, those aren’t fun,” joked Ruskov.

Dabrowski glanced at him before saying, “There are other things we must discuss first.”

Olivia nodded. Yeah, let’s get this over with. They’re just throwing a bunch of stuff at me.

“You really are about fifteen years old or so, based on your psychological profile and the blood samples,” said Dabrowski. Olivia looked back up. That’s promising.

“What else did you, you know, find out?” Like, who I was? Narrowing it down?

“Well, you’re still growing,” said Ruskov. Not what I wanted to hear.

“Um, what?” said Olivia after a quiet moment. No. Please no.

“You still have growth plates on your bones. And looking at the level of hormones in your blood and how tall you are now, you are going to gain about four inches, minimum. Between four and fifteen inches. That is a huge range, though, we’re not very confident on those numbers yet,” explained Ruskov.

Olivia sighed. Oh, for the love of God. “Wha… Bu… How?”

“You seem to be in mid-adolescence, both human and dragon. Feral development, like everything else, is a combination of human and the second species,” said Dr. Dabrowski. “The vast majority of animals reach maturity in a couple years, so even young teenage feral triggers are full grown, or at the very tail end of adolescence post trigger. A fifteen year old human is not the same as a fifteen year old lion, age wise.”

“You don’t, um, you don’t seem surprised by this, though.”

“Well, ferals generally suffer from gigantism, so this isn’t unexpected,” said Dr. Ruskov.

“You said your friend who looked at you was a bone mage, correct?” asked Dabrowski. Olivia nodded. “How old is she? How well does she know magic?”

“I never asked. She’s a few years older than me. And I don’t know, she knows more than me.” 

Dabrowski sighed. “Self-taught mages,” she grumbled under her breath.

Olivia hung her head. Gigantism. Great. I’m going to get taller, and still have a tail and wings and claws and everything. Great. Wonderful. And there’s still a bunch of stuff they don’t know, and I could get cancer or a bunch of crazy diseases, and my reproductive system is all messed up, and it’s never going to end, is it?

Dabrowski opened her mouth, but Ruskov cut her short with a nudge. After a moment, he said, “I think that’s enough for the day. We’ll talk more tomorrow, OK?”

Olivia mutely nodded. Something caught her attention on the way back, breaking her out of her reflections. What was that? She looked around as they reached the elevator. That smelled really familiar. That was Chris? Chris! What is he doing here? Wait, dumb question. How did he get in here? The elevator doors shut.

***

Olivia paced instead of sleeping. That message from Amanda. And Chris is here in the building. I don’t know how, but he is. What if they’re going to try to break me out tonight? Should I stay awake? What if they need help? If I need to do something I’ve gotta be ready. 

She paced right up until breakfast arrived. Oh. It’s just another day. Soon after, the doors opened and Ortega stood before her.

“You alright?” he asked.

Right. I should have slept last night. “Um, hi?”

A corner of his mouth curled up in the beginnings of a smile. “Hi. Dr. Dabrowski wants another meeting with you.” He indicated the direction, and they began walking side by side.

“Are you alright?” Olivia asked. “Clone said you were at the doctor yesterday.”

“Oh. Yeah, I’m good. Just a checkup,” he said with a smile.

They came to a stop near the main elevator. Ortega pushed a button, then frowned as he realized the button didn’t light up. Hitting it again changed nothing. Ortega froze as red lights began to flash and a blaring alarm began to sound.

“A feral’s loose. Get back to your cell, now,” he said with urgency. He pressed a button on his radio. “Fuck.”

“Wait, what?”

“Radio’s not working. I don’t want someone accidentally shooting you. Trust me, get back. I need to get to security.”

Ortega confirmed she was moving, then ran off. Olivia retraced her steps back to her cell. Boot steps echoed from around the corner of a side passage before she reached her cell. Please no one shoot me, please don’t shoot me. She looked for a place to hide. Wait, I smell something. Instead of hiding, she swung around the corner and nearly collided with Chris.

“Chris!” she blurted out, wrapping her arms around him in a bear hug. He immediately shifted to liquid form and pushed off of her.

She froze. What? What’d I do? Chris reformed back to human and staggered against a wall, rifle in one hand pointed at the ground. Is he hurt? Did I hurt him? Why is he wearing a guard uniform? “Nearly gave me a heart attack there, Olivia,” he said.

“Oh no, sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean-”

He smiled and stood fully upright. He wrapped his free arm around her waist and squeezed for a second. “No worries. But we should get out of here first.”

“Oh, yeah. Right. I don’t, um,” said Olivia, failing to suppress a smile. Chris!

Chris cut her short. “We’ve got an exit strategy, don’t worry,” he said, taking the lead.

“Right, sorry,” she said, following. “But I don’t think there’s a way out this way with all the elevators not working.”

“No,” said Chris. “But there are a couple service elevators this way that Delta didn’t mess with.” She tried to get control over her smile. Chris! And Amanda!

They rushed down the abandoned corridors. Bad. She grabbed Chris by the shoulder. “Wait,” she whispered. Soon he heard it too, the clatter of dozens of metallic bands twisting against concrete.

“What?” he whispered back.

“Slinkey.”

“What?” he repeated, baffled.

“Another feral. That’s the one you guys let out as a distraction?” 

“No, we let out a couple of the smaller ones on another level.”

“Well, it’s moving. I hear other doors opening too. Did you let out all of them?”