(REWRITING) The Skylar Experiment : Coveting

Chapter Thirty-Five - Evolve System Dynamics

EMMA

MY EYES HAD TO ADJUST to the harsh brightness of the hall beyond. Our footsteps echoed off the vinyl floor. Even the delicate rustling of our clothes sounded too loud. There were heavy doors on either side of the eerie, whitened corridor, all locked with a keypad or an eye scanner. We were alone, it seemed.

"First of all, our goal isn't to kill mutants for fun or even for their abilities. Few of us do absorb a mutant's abilities in order to even the terrain a little," Miles said as we progressed forward. My eyes roamed all over the place, but there wasn't much to detail. The sober hall was vacant, displaying only the doors and track lighting.

"If it doesn't work, you get terribly sick in the first weeks," he explained. "And you slowly deteriorate until you die."

"You mean only the desperate actually try it." After all, who wouldn't want to control energy at their will? Technically, you could do anything as long as you didn't tire out. "Why does it work in some cases and in some it doesn't?" I asked as we turned a corner. It was a whole lot more of the same, muted. Inactive.

"No one knows for sure. Doctors and biochemists we work with think it depends on the individual's tendency to withstand the mutations that happen in the body after assimilating energy, sort of like radiation victims. Some survive, others don't. Most of them don't."

I knew mutants originated from their labor, but I didn't expect them to still have knowledge of the experiments decades later. How many scientists today are collecting information?

"And how are they changed after the mutations? Do they become..."

Miles shook his head and took a narrower hall at his right. "No. They tire out quicker or aren't as strong and fast. It's impossible to manipulate the abilities like their previous owner could, but it's pretty close."

Previous owner. Like power was just passively handed over to someone else as a gesture of good will. How could they live with the idea of robbing a mutant of their abilities? It was like stealing their skin and pretending to be them.

A disturbing thought came to mind. "You do this with Wanderers, too?"

"God, no," he responded instantly. "They're too unstable for that and can self-destruct. Mutants are the only beings perfectly built to sustain the energy they generate."

Miles visibly knew way more about mutant biology than mutants themselves. We walked, and I stopped asking questions, the words energy and mutation floating in my brain. All of his explanations formed one tangled, confusing knot. Was any of this supposed to make me understand the supposed truth he wanted to reveal to me?

Eventually, we came by an industrial elevator—also empty—and he pressed the fourth-floor button. The shaft grinded into movement, smoothly rising up. I upgraded Riley meanwhile. No red flags for the time being.

When the elevator doors slid open with a soft ding, everything looked drastically different from the underground tunnel. The vast corridor was walled in a harmony of white, grey and black concrete, unsullied by stains or dust. The foul smell of antiseptic invaded my nostrils, reminding me of my days spent in the hospital.

I reluctantly stepped out of the elevator, watching dozens of people milling around in lab coats. Some held clipboards and charts while others transported trays with syringes, gloves and more medical equipment I didn't recognize.

A few were dressed in formal and accompanied a nurse or a technician. Posted at fixed spots across the hall were men covered head to toe in military gear, their faces hidden by a dark helmet. They scanned the place, one hand hovering over their belt which bolstered a variety of revolvers or sheaths. The closest one to us noticed our arrival. Miles nodded at him.