Countd0wn

Chapter 24: The Grand Plan

I didn't sleep at all for the rest of the night. I mean, how could I? Every time I shut my eyes, I could see the corpses reaching out for me, and every time I took a breath, I could still smell the lingering taste of smoke in my throat. So, I just lay there, in a constant state of limbo, not quite awake, but not quite asleep either.

Then, I heard a knock on my door. I instantly bolted upright, thinking I was still asleep. I didn't feel like I was, but then again, I didn't feel asleep when Gerrard tortured me either. So, as quietly as I could, I slid out of bed and over to the door, a ball of plasma waiting in my hand.

Like a hotel, the door had a peephole to the outside, and I peeked through to see if I could see anything. To my surprise, I recognized the face on the other side. It wasn't Ivy, Mossberg, or some other kind of torture that looked back at me. It was the man in the tweed jacket whom I had seen several times, yet still had no idea who he was.

As I was looking at him, he almost seemed to know I was there, and stared right back at me through the peephole. "Mr. Sawyer? I know you're in there. Don't worry, this isn't a trick. I merely want to talk. Please open the door."

I didn't trust him as far as I could throw him. If he was as bad as Mossberg, I didn't want anything to do with him. But something inside me told him that I could. That he wasn't as bad as he seemed. It was like there was some kind of voice in the back of my mind...After a few minutes of contemplation, I unlocked and opened the door.

The man was shorter then I expected. A couple more inches and I would have dwarfed him. He was wearing small spectacles on the bridge of his nose, along with the trademark brown tweed jacket, dress pants, and a small blue tie. His head was mildly balding, but still had a few traces of hair. He looked more like a college professor than anything else.

He walked into the room and stared up at me. "Thank you. I don't think we've been properly introduced. My name is Dr. Joshua Howell. I'm the expert medical doctor at Reservoir. We've met a few times before. Do you remember that?"

I looked at him and nodded warily. He didn't give off the same aggressive vibe that Mossberg did. He was more tame, relaxed, less like a psychiatrist and more like a family doctor. Someone I could count on. Again, I found that small voice in my head telling me all of this.

I sighed, and stared at him. "Alright then, Dr. Howell. What exactly are you here for? You gonna put me back inside that tank with that healing goo? Cause I'm gonna pass on that." He didn't seem to react to my comment, and instead motioned to the table in the sitting room.

I walked over to it, and he sat across from me, a soft look on his face. "First of all, Mr. Sawyer, you can call me Joshua if it makes you feel more comfortable. And second, I'm here to talk to you about something we've wanted to talk to you about in detail for a long time. Namely, your dreams."

I instinctively straightened up in my seat, and took in a deep breath. I knew they had to have been monitoring me the night before, and whoever the telepath was had been watching my dreams. They had seen everything I had done. I tried to keep a neutral expression. "What's there to talk about?"

Joshua leaned forwards a small bit and stared into my eyes with what looked like compassion and understanding. "I'm so sorry, Wren. It must have been hard to go through something like that, especially at your age." The fact that he finally used my first name was something. The fact he was actually apologizing to me was something else.

He must have seen the confused expression on my face, because he sat back and straightened his tie slightly. "Look, we're not monsters, Wren. You may think we are, but we're doing this for a good cause. I can assure you of that. We're not trying to use you as our subjects while the world burns. On the contrary, actually. We're trying to save it."

I looked doubtful, but Joshua kept talking. "I know it may seem hard to believe, but you and your kind are the key to humanity's survival. The human race is becoming an endangered species. Those creatures you saw will soon inhabit this earth. But the only one who can stop them is you."

I scoffed a little bit, despite myself, and shook my head. "So...what? You're saying you capture and contain people like me against my will, just to turn us into soldiers for your so-called "noble cause"? You have no idea of the powers that you're dealing with."

Joshua seemed to flinch a bit when I mentioned containment, and then sighed and cleaned his glasses absentmindedly. "I do have to admit, I find Dr.Mossberg's methods of experimentation to be a bit...extreme. But if it is for a greater goal, then sacrifices must be made."

I was getting angry now. I stood up in my chair and looked at him. "Sacrifices?! You're talking about human lives here! You can't just treat them like lab rats! And keeping those creatures in here is tempting death! If this is your greater goal, I'd like to actually know why I have to be here. Why I have to go through all this."

Joshua stared at me, then did what I had seen Mossberg do a hundred times now. He cocked his head and listened for something. He looked a little confused at first, then his face relaxed, and he made a barely perceptible nod, then looked back at me. "You're right, Wren. It's time you found out. Follow me."

I was stunned for a moment by the bluntness of his words, but soon he had already opened the door and was motioning me out. I followed him, ready for anything, but got interested when I saw there was no guards anywhere to be seen. We walked down the hall to the elevator, then Joshua used a keycard to open a secret panel with a button. After pressing down on it, it scanned his fingerprint, and he spoke his name into a microphone. "Howell, Joshua."

A green light beeped, and the elevator began to move down, much farther than I had ever been before. Judging by how long it took, we were going way past the Zoo. Once we stopped, the doors opened to reveal a short hallway with a single door at the end. Joshua stepped out and motioned to it. "In there, you'll find all the answers you need."

I looked at the small door, made out of a blueish-black steel, that had a simple door handle on it. There were no markings or anything. I walked past Joshua and went up to it. I could feel something behind it. I didn't know what it was, but it felt...alive. Like it was making it's presence known to me. I reached out my hand, grabbed the lever, and opened the door.