BREATH . OF . LIFE . ~ { ReGenisis Chronicles Book I }

Chapter Eight [Part 2/3]: New Arrangements

                      -Griffin King -

As the hours ticked on and I'd finished with a quick patrol outside to make sure there weren't any foul scents nearby, I returned to the gateway to a stronger smell of chemicals than usual. I frowned, moving up the stairs and looking in to the kitchen, no dust, no prints. Garner kept everything meticulous usually anyway, but every smell was drowned out with industrial bleach which burned up my nose strong enough to make me light headed. I checked in at my door, my bedding had been removed, even the mattress. The strong smell present here, too. A little suitcase at the mouth of my door, I assumed all my clothes were in it. Any of my weapons had been removed from the room already.  I picked up the case and kept walking down the hall.

Under different circumstances, perhaps I wouldn't feel as much dread. But the pit of my stomach was carved up with it. I moved on, Garner's room, and Rin's, had been treated the same way. Only no suitcase. I didn't touch anything, I knew what was happening. Going into the lab, a good deal of equipment had been packed up into metal cases. There were still many things out, ringing with the scent of bleach and clean of any prints. The safe was already open, the ReGenisis serums packed up.

Garner appeared from inside the elevator, barely glancing at me. "Got your suitcase with you?"

I didn't respond, except for picking up one of the metal cases in my other hand and placing it down in the lift. "Got the weapons somewhere accessible?"

"Those you may need, yes. Most of them are already in the van." Nicodemus muttered, preoccupied with carrying another metal case over to the lift. I helped him with the last two and we both stood in silence inside the elevator as it whirred down into the Sanctuary.

We moved quickly into the garage, a room within the Sanctuary with our own acquired armoured van and a long tunnel way out. In case we ever had to move location. I helped load up the van, securing the metal cases in place with care. There was still room for seventeen of the Sanctuary's residence to fit in at a squeeze, but the ride would be more than a little tortuous for some of them.

Geoff wouldn't be thrilled to scrunch up amongst the others, a full time baby-sitter who believes he is better than his work, but cannot do much else, having his own hypersensitivity to light. He was the useful kind of useless, fortunately, and as much as he disliked caring for those in need he would no sooner do them any harm. One of the reasons he ended up amongst the unwanted; he disliked getting his hands dirty. For a new and inexperienced lab-coat working in Trinity Science this was not an option. So in one of Doctor Daniels' fits of frustration, he took an incomplete serum to Geoff's neck some seven years ago. But it didn't kill him or shift him into some deranged killer or even a fearful, subservient who would get their hands dirty to avoid more similar situations or having bright light flashed in his face. Geoff became better at stubbornly digging his heels in. He'd experienced enough pain not to care. Instead of kill him back then, he was simply locked away to go insane or lose himself enough to pledge loyalty to T.S. When they realised that it was not going to work, he was tossed into the pile of unwanted ones to be beheaded and burned like disease infected cattle.

 The day we broke with Trinity Science, I hadn't even known his story. I had never met him, as he'd been in solitary with nothing but his own mind and protein pellets to go on with. Yet, I never would have if Rin hadn't started asking questions and making plans. Many of the unwanted, that I had yet to meet at the time, would have had their stories end and then buried six feet deep in lies. Forgotten before they could even be known.

             * * *

Molly greeted us on the way back into the Sanctuary's halls. Her bright eyes glistening anxiously, she hugged me the moment she saw me. She'd likely miss this place, it had been our home for three years. That we hadn't had to move sooner was a miracle.