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

Chapter Nine [Part 3/3]: Unofficial

                      -Kate Andersen-

Lunch was brief, a bright room filled with lab coats and business dressed agents, and officers in black tanks and khaki trousers. The food for most was some kind of bright yellow gruel, apparently rich with all the needs of those eating it. For Scientists and ranking agents, or myself apparently, we had things that resembled actual food. After taking a bite of the dry pork I'd been served, I realised maybe I'd have been better off with the slop everyone else was eating. Especially as I could taste the hormones in the meat, regardless of its long dead and over cooked stature.

Jake explained to me that he wanted me on his team, where he could keep an eye on me and prevent too much information slipping about who had really made me a Nocturnal or why. "I'm also doing some old friends a favour, as it seemed they liked you." He'd said absentmindedly as he pushed around the yellow porridge which he'd taken by choice. "It'll be a few months before you're officially a Unit Zero member, and maybe a little longer before you're approved for active duty. But, you'll slowly be introduced to some of the perks of being a ranking agent long before then. Effectively making you an unofficial member already."

He wanted me to learn how to defend myself. I had to be self sufficient here, I couldn't always rely on others. I had to agree. But I didn't want to learn to kill anyone. He said a good enough fighter didn't always have to. Which put me at a little more ease. But my stomach still churned to the thought of throwing punches at anyone when my fist could easily cause bone breakages now, or theirs could do much worse to me.

"You also need to learn rational ways of getting freedom without risking yourself or others, at least not quite so much." He had tuned into my desire to be without the restrictions I'd grown up with. But missed one thing,

"Right now, I'd rather just go home and give up. If staying means more restrictions and the adage of doing others bodily harm." I complained, pushing the limp spinach on my plate into the mash potato. It was a mistake, as a pool of gravy had gathered on top of the potato and ran down it, the consistency of blood. I shuddered, pushing the plate away from me as I felt my stomach turn over.

He nodded, "you can't go back. But you can go forward, and I'd suggest you learn to. You can turn this into a blessing if you're willing to suck up the consequences of your actions and then move past it." He assured, but it came with a weight I hadn't expected. "Who knows, there may be a way out of here someday that doesn't involve death."

I'd looked at him quizzically then. But apart from filling me in on who his Unit members were and who to watch myself around and a few other details, we sank into a silence the rest of our meal. This gave me a chance to stare out at the cafeteria. A large hall, walls a ghostly white with dark blue lights around their edges and larger florescent tube lights darted everywhere else. The blue lights made the headache I was harbouring buzz a little, but eased the feeling that my nose could bleed at any second. Those lights made me feel pale.

The people about the room didn't seem very happy. Maybe a few were entertained by something. But most of them looked worn or unaware. All simply performing tasks with mechanical movements designed to keep them performing those tasks. They were alive, but most of them were not living. Like my room stuck in time that served as a prison for me, some of them chose this prison and many of them could not see their chains.

          * * *

After lunch, Jake took me back to his office. He kept it dimly lit, unlike the horrid halls, so I could feel the violet film pull back from around my pupils, natural brown left in its place. Finally a comfortable darkness, not alien like pitch black, or painful like the white of the glowing halls that enveloped the inside of this place in a false sense of superiority and purity.