To Be A Killer

Chapter 58: We're Needed

"Runner Five, Paula and I have a very important mission for you today," The doctor says with a cough. I frown at how drowsy she sounds, but I keep up my pace.

"Yeah... are you sure it's a good idea for you to be out of cryo-sleep right now, Max? You've only been back about a week-well, over a week-but still."

"I'm fine. I'll only be out for this mission anyway."

"We're sorry for not briefing you in advance about this mission," Paula cuts in, "But you know how Janine is about security, especially with everything that's happened. But of course, we wouldn't have woken Maxi up if it wasn't important."

I raise a brow. "And what is it that's so important, exactly?"

"We've identified it, with the help of the Ministry, as a possible site for one of Van Ark's labs."

"I thought we'd, you know, dealt with Van Ark," Sam says as I gulp, my blood suddenly starting to burn, my veins turning to fire. I feel the pinch of the injection of a needle into my arm-my neck.

I have nightmares about it, sometimes. I dream I'm back there in that lab, being experimented on. Sometimes I wake up crying, even bleeding as I've scratched at my wrists in my sleep, trying to get out of the handcuffs that keep me on the treadmill...

I don't think I'll ever be able to escape the memories of what he did to me.

"Well, we had hoped," Maxine replies, pulling me out of my mind. I'm thankful. I don't want to think about that.

"He was always a bit of a control freak boss," Paula says, sighing. "But at the time... it felt like we were doing such important work. We really thought we'd be able to heal critical illness and catastrophic injuries. We were able to regenerate limbs... It felt like such a good thing."

There's a moment of silence, and sadness.

"I know, honey."

"He was obsessively secretive," She continues. "He left his research notes in zombie guarded dumps all over the place, and in parts so that I wouldn't have access to all of them. He never trusted me."

"Yeah, whereas I never doubted you."

I give a half smile at her words.

"The Ministry has had contact with people at Hamland Airfield who confirm that the infirmary there was part of Van Ark's network. The Ministry is very keen to establish contact with them. They're sending out one of their own operatives to work with you in the field, Five."

I purse my lips. That doesn't make feel any better, although I won't tell Sam or Maxine or Paula that. They have enough to worry about, but truth be told, I don't exactly trust the Ministry. I'm not sure why, but I just have a bad feeling about them. They're just... sketchy.

And I don't like sketchy.

"That lab might hold the secret to the vaccine against the zombie contagion, or possibly even have some insight into whatever it was that Van Ark injected you with, Five," Maxine says, and my shoulders tense. Do I want to know what he put inside my body that day? I mean, it made me have super strength when my adrenaline is running high, and I don't get sick. What more do I want to know?

I don't get to think on it too much since Sam starts to speak and brings me back to the present.

"Or even, since we never found out where he made that stuff he injected Albert with-well, maybe a cure for Maxine and F-" He stops suddenly, and I hold my breath.

"And?" Paula prompts.

"Uh, Flynn. Flynn Reese. You know, Runner Twenty-one. A lot of people are uh, missing him."