Chapter Eighteen
Spider and Snake
Sitting in her office, Bluue was pouring over the newest developments in her new project. His specs were amazing, the altered DNA never unraveled, and he seemed in perfect health. Having gotten the wound stitched up, and the bleeding stopped, she had sent him in for testing. Having never gotten home, Bluue had stayed up all night looking over every last bit if information they had attained.
"Four extra ribs." She smiled. "That would explain his elongated spine and torso. Hollow bones, just like a bird. Oh! Explains his weight, and his movements! " Quickly, she scribbled a small side note on the piece of paper, probably to remind herself to do another set of tests later. "Thank the heavens for Lazarus or we would have already lost him." she grinned to herself.
Just as she turned the page, she heard a commotion outside her office. Georgia, her secretary was trying to get some one to leave, but was having no such luck. A moment later both doors swung open, and Briar stood before her. Looking ready to kill, she stormed in and walked right up to the desk. Briar slammed the clipboard she had ripped from the young man in the elevators hands onto the table in front of Bluue.
Looking up, mildly surprised, Bluue greeted the angry girl. "How are you feeling Briar?"
"How am I feeling? Well, ma' am, I feel just fine." she plopped herself into the seat across from Bluue. "I woke up this morning though and one of your people told me something very interesting."
"And what would that be my dear?" Setting herself into the bureaucratic Silvia Bluue that had worked her way to the top of the ladder, she acted as if she knew nothing of Briar's plight.
Briar said nothing, only set herself closer to the edge of her seat. Suddenly her fist hit the table very near Bluue's notes. "This is the problem! My friends name is nowhere on here! The man told me I came in here by myself!"
"Must be a mistake darling." Bluue picked up the clipboard, and leafed through the pages. "Mmmmm. What did you say your friends name was?"
"Dais."
"Dais...? What is his last name?"
"De Beaumont." Briar looked down for a moment. "At least that is the one he gave me."
Bluue nodded, looking at the chart but not seeing it. Maybe she should let the girl in on the experiment. After all, she was retiring in a few months. No need to play by the rules anymore, not that she had ever really played by the rules.
"Where did you meet him? If I may ask." Putting down the clipboard, she looked at her over her small frame less glasses.
Briar swallowed. What was this woman's interest in Dais, and how could she tell her that she had met him in the sewer beneath the city? People didn't even believe that crocodiles lived in the sewers, how could she convince this older woman that a six foot and some odd inches tall creature had lived, no thrived, beneath the streets? That he was something unexplainable, and yet something so kind? Settling herself to tell the truth, she looked over at Bluue.
"He was living in a sewer not too far from here."
As the girl contemplated her answer, Bluue had busied herself flipping through the papers on the clipboard, pretending to be looking for something, anything to make her look as if she was going to be of some service to Briar. At the word sewer, she started. A sewer not to far from where she was sitting? A memory flashed into her head.
She stared at the semi-transparent goo settling around the growing fetus. A glass tube attached to the ceiling, allowing the fetus to grow larger and larger till it hit full term. Beside her stood a young aloof, bored looking couple. The woman had bleach blonde hair, and a permanent look of disapproval on her pointed face. Her husband kept looking at his watch, then staring at her, his blue eyes peering over his large upturned nose.
"How long is this going to take?" he asked, voice drawling on in a most rude manner.
"Not much longer sir." she noted mentally to herself to never deal with these people personally again. "Just a few things to cover."
"Hurry it up, will you?" the woman whined, her voice nasily and peircing. " I have got a hair appointment with Georgio in an hour, and if I don't make it I will have to wait six months to book him again.."
Bluue rolled her eyes, slightly, looking over at the tube once more to hide the fact. "Everything came back fine. The donor egg took well, and your fetus is perfectly healthy. Just one little notation to mention.."
"Notation?" the woman asked, staring at Bluue like she was something beneath her shoe.
"Yes. The child's DNA shows that he will be born an Albino. This means his skin will have no pigmentation.. Of course, this is nothing too serious, and the child will live a completely normal life. Now about the payments for the fe.."
"Hold on!" The woman's sharp snarl cut through the air. "An Albino?!"
"Yes." Bluue plastered on a smile. "But that is only a small problem."
"No. No it's not. That is a HUGE problem." she dragged out the U sound to emphasize how much of a problem she really thought it was going to be. "Howard, I do not want an albino freak for a baby! What will the neighbors think?"
"We want to cancel our contract here. There is no way we will take a disfigured baby." Howard spoke up, not even blinking as he dismissed his child's life.
"We would have to buy new furniture to match his skin and everything." the woman pouted. "So kill it or what ever it is you guys do to such...things."
"But, but but!" Bluue was speechless. The gull of these people! From behind her she heard the quiet sob of one of the scientists. She knew the voice well, it was the woman who had donated her egg to this couple who had seemed to so want a child of their own.
"No buts, Pookie said she no longer wants the thing, so I will not pay a red cent for it. Get rid of it." Howard spoke harsher, his wife looking at him with a sneer on her face. Both of them turned to walk away, when Bluue called out.
"Wait!" They stopped and looked back at her, annoyance written across their faces. "If you are not going to use the bab...the fetus," she corrected herself . " then we could use it in a certain project this company is working on."
For a moment, neither of them spoke, then Howard turned around, sighing. "Fine, whatever, do what you will with the damn thing." Bluue quickly flipped the clipboard to one of the pages she had been working on earlier.
"Sign here sir." He put down his John Hancock, and turned, slipping his arm into the crook of Pookie's arm.
She smiled, it seeming almost reptilian to Bluue. "It is no longer our problem." With that they both walked off, Pookie could be heard in the distance. "Howard, how about we adopt a nice oriental child? I hear those are in fashion now." She chuckled, and the rest of their sadistic conversation was cut off as the door slammed behind them.
Bluue stared at the space where the couple had just stood. Slowly, she turned to the tube. "I am so sorry. It would have been cruel to give them to you. I didn't want you to be in this program, but if I didn't do something, then you would have been eliminated. At least this way you have a fighting chance." She put her hand against the tube, staring at the fetus, and a large sense of purpose hit her. "I am so sorry 5434685623465. I am so sorry." She turned from the tube, and shuffled her papers, trying not to cry.
Months later, the fetus had been moved to the lab handling the special project. After all of the genetic experiments and alterations it went under, it was the only one left. All the other fetus's had died, not being able to withstand the experimentations. He stood alone, now past full term, and going into his first year outside the fake womb of the goo. All of the experiments had worked, and Bluue was both proud and saddened. She had saved the baby from death, but had perhaps damned him to something worse.
That was until one night, the alarm went off. Bluue was in her office at the time, going over paperwork. She had just been promoted, and was just getting used to her position. Being in the vicinity of the crime, Bluue got there first.
A mess greeted her. The glass room in which they kept the infant was smashed, the baby missing from inside. Panic filled Bluue, and she looked about for the child. Small drips of blood caught her attention, as they led across the floor and into the hallway. Rushing forward, she slammed through the doors. A cry met her ears, child like, but still oddly non-human. Someone tried to hush the child, and Bluue's head snapped to the sound. There in the distance a figure hobbled around a corner. As quickly as she could she rushed off after the figure. She skidded around the corner, just catching sight of the figure getting into the elevator. A scared face stared at her, tear stained. From the woman's arms stared a set of blood red pupil-less eyes.
Briar called out, just as the door shut. The elevator hummed, sending the woman and the baby to the ground floor. She slammed her way into the staircase, running up the stairs as fast as she could. Flinging her heels into the air, she ran in her stockinged feet, trying to catch the woman.
Bluue's heart beat a war drum in her chest. She knew that face. It was the tear stained, fear pinched face of Genevieve Robenson. The woman who had donated the very egg to the soulless parents of the child now in her arms. God only knew what she was going to do with the child.
Reaching to the top of the stair case, Bluue got there in time for the elevator doors to slide open. Genevieve made a dash for the door, just as Bluue did. With a shove, Genevieve reached the door first, giving Bluue a glance before heading out into the rain soaked night. Bluue gave chase, trying to get to the child. She chased her across the street, rain soaking into every inch of her body. Still she kept running, just staying in sight of her target.
Turning into the alley, she came face to face with Genevieve. There she stood, the child in her arms, staring at Bluue, unblinking. Oh, how those eyes could peirce the soul Bluue tore her eyes from his face, to hers.
"Give him back." she stated, breathing hard.
"No." Genevieve's voice quivered. She clutched the child tighter.
Seeing the look of determination on the woman's face, Bluue launched forward, trying to take the child from her arms.
Both of them wrestled in the rain, each trying desperately to get a hold of the precious child. They moved across the street, each one slipping and falling only to get back up time and time again. Finally, with a well placed kick at Genevieve's shin, Bluue fully yanked the child from her grasp. Staggering back a little, Bluue turned to race back to Recom Tech. Shoes long gone in the storm, she ran barefoot down the alley, watching as the light from the building grew larger and larger. Almost there, she passed a large man hole open to the air, water rushing into its black abyss. Suddenly, something hit her from behind. Her entire body jerked forward, unable to correct itself on the slick concrete of the alley.
Almost in slow motion, Bluue felt herself fall to the ground. Her leg gave away, then her whole body crashed. As she slid to the wet concrete, the child flew from her arms. With a strangled cry, he slid across the ground, pushed by the small torrent of water and straight into the open sewer grate. With a wet plop, the child disappeared from both of their sights.
With a strangled scream, both women scrambled over the sewer grate. Nothing but inky swirling blackness met their eyes. Bluue called out, begging for the child to reappear. Yet, there was nothing except the sound of moving water. There she lay against the wet cement, hand stretched into the dark of the tunnels in vain, rain dripping from her hair and tears from her eyes.
Genevieve was arrested shortly after, still sobbing about losing her child. Bluue looked over her shoulder to the grate one more time, pulling the blanket she had been given closer to her body. With a stifled sob, she said a silent goodbye to the child.
Snapping out of her reverie, suddenly she spun around, and launched herself at a file cabinet behind her. Pulling out a large roll of blue paper, she laid it out on the ground.
Briar looked over at the elder woman sitting on her knees pouring over a large blue print. Lines connected all over the place, making a large labyrinth of pipes and tunnels. She knew what it was instantly. The large paper was a blue print of the old sewer pipes.
"That must be it." Bluue clapped her hands together, for the moment forgetting that Briar was sitting next to her. "They shut down that section of the sewer about fifty years ago. The new system runs beneath it now. So that's what happened that night, he must have gotten away from the current, that's where he has been!" She stood, rushing off to her desk.
Grabbing her papers, she turned to Briar, and smiled eerily at her.
"Did you want to see your friend?" Something in her voice made Briar shiver, then she swallowed the lump in her throat.
"Yes. Oh god yes." She nodded slightly, letting herself be pulled from the chair by Bluue's strong hands.
"Well then sweetheart, you are going to have to follow me then." together they headed out toward the doors at the end of her office. " There are a few things I have to tell you about your friend."