Sayumi Michishige
Compound, Block D (Hall)
October 9, 9:28 PM
They stood in the bright corridor at the center of D block,
silently listening for a sound that would tell them Hitomi had come. From their position, they should be
able to hear any one of the three external doors being used.
After securing the building and finding the
test room, Sayumi and Reina had chocked open all of the passages that led to the block’s exits.
Sayumi checked her watch and then rubbed her eyes, feeling a bit worn out from all of the night’s events, and still
sickened by what they’d found in room 101. Even Reina seemed unusually subdued, and definitely quieter
than normal.
Reina hadn’t cracked a single joke since they’d walked back to begin their wait. Maybe she’s
thinking about the gurneys, fixed with bloody restraints. Or the syringes. Or the surgical equipment
heaped in the sink....
They’d found the test room first, a large chamber filled with little tables, each marked with numbers
between five and eight; Sayumi had been somewhat disappointed to see that the blue series number seven
was just a handful of colored tiles with letters on them, half of them upside down and unreadable. All the
colors corresponded to a rainbow’s, though there were two extra violet tiles in the heaped pile. Since
they couldn’t risk messing with it until Hitomi had completed the first test, she’d reluctantly turned away,
suggesting that they check out the rest of the block.
They’d gone through a couple of offices, empty, and
a cluttered coffee room, where they’d found a box of incredibly moldy donuts and little else. It had been
the chemical lab that had told them the most about what kind of place Niita had created—and
although Sayumi didn’t believe in ghosts, the room had given her a feeling like nothing she’d ever
experienced before; it was haunted, plain and simple, haunted by the misery of fear and the cold,
nazi-esque precision of scientists committing atrocities against their fellow man—
“You thinking about that room?” Reina asked softly. Sayumi nodded, but didn’t say anything. Reina
seemed to sense Sayumi's unspoken desire not to talk about it, for which she was thankful.
The weight of the grenade, tucked in her pocket- a good luck charm, and it was the only other comfort she felt at the moment, and she longed to take it out, to feel
reassured by the explosive. Anything to take her mind off the lab room....
The outer door to 101 was clearly marked with a biohazard symbol and they’d briefly
discussed not going in at all, Reina arguing against entering a possibly contaminated environment. Sayumi
had pointed out that neither of them had any cuts or abrasions, and that they might find something about
the virus to take with them. The truth was, she couldn’t stand to let such an opportunity pass; she
wanted to see what was behind the closed door, because it was there. Because leaving it unopened
would get under her skin.
Reina had finally agreed and they’d gone in, stepping into a small entryway that was draped with sheets of
heavy plastic. There were shower nozzles overhead and a drain set into the floor; a decon area. A
smaller second door had opened up into the room itself, leading them into a mad scientist’s dream. Glass,
crunching underfoot. A tired smell of anxious sweat beneath the acrid odor of bleach. ...
Reina found the lights and even before the large room snapped into view, Sayumi felt her heart start to pound. There was a
dark tension that filled the air, a sense of foreboding that radiated from the very walls. Her father is a researcher for Ube, a chemical company- it looked like the countless lab facilities her father worked in; counters and shelves, a couple of metal sinks, a large, stainless steel refrigeration unit in one corner with a lock on the handle. And somehow, that was the worst—that the environment was so familiar, a place she’d always felt safe at when she visited dad at work.
The few differences were dramatic ones. The room was dominated by a stainless autopsy table, fitted
with velcro restraints—and there were two additional hospital gurneys next to it, likewise fitted. As she
walked over to look at one of them, she saw the dark, dried stains at either end; the thin pad was soaked
with blood from where a man’s ankles and wrists would be.
In the back of the room was a cage the size
of a large walk-in closet, heavy bars surrounding an unpadded bench. Next to the cage, several slender
poles leaned against the wall, each a meter or so in length—and tipped with hypodermic needles. They
were the kinds of instruments used to drug wild animals, allowing the person operating them not to get
within reach. Sayumi looked down at the gurney, lightly touching the long-dried stain, wondering what
kind of person could have willingly participated in such an experiment. The crust of blood was old,
powdery, and filled her with thoughts of what the victims must have endured, waiting in the cage, perhaps
watching as some gloved madman injected a toxic, mutating virus into a helpless human being....
It was a bad place, a place of evil deeds. They’d both felt it, both been affected by the realization of
what had gone on there—
Sayumi’s right eye itched, distracting her from the terrible remembrance, drawing her back to the
present. She rubbed at it, then looked at her watch again. It had been only twenty minutes since the
team had split, though it felt longer—
There was a sound of a door opening, followed by Hiotmi’s excited shout through the corridor. She’d
come in through the west entrance.
“Sayumi, Reina!”
Reina grinned at Sayumi, and Sayumi felt a wave of relief;
Hitomi was okay.
“Here! Keep walking!” Reina called back. “Take a right at the tee!”
Hitomi's footsteps pounded through the hall. In a few seconds, she appeared at the comer and jogged toward
them, her face tight with concern.
“Is everything—“ Sayumi started to ask, but Hitomi cut her off.
“Did you find the laboratory room? Room 101?”
Reina frowned, her smile fading. “Yeah, it’s back the
way you came—“
“Did either of you touch anything? Do you have any cuts, any small wounds that might
have come in contact with anything?”
Their confusion must have shown. Hitomi spoke quickly, looking back and forth between them.
“We found a journal, naming it as the room where they were infecting the Trisquads.”
Reina smiled again. “Well, duh. We figured that much out in about two seconds.”
Sayumi held out her hands, turning them over for Hitomi to see. “Not a scratch.”
Hitomi exhaled sharply, her shoulders sagging. “Oh, thank God. I had the worst feeling all the way over
that something had happened. We found the researchers in block A; Matsuura's note at the boathouse was right,
she killed them—and our ‘she’ has a clear identity now. Ai seems certain that it’s Tomoko Niita. She was the one
Ai recognized from the list, and she has a rather sordid history, she can fill you in when we regroup. . .”
She shook her head, a wavering smile on her lips. “I just—I suppose I let my imagination run wild for a
moment.”
Reina smiled wider. “Jeez, Hitomi, I had no idea you cared. Or that you thought we’d be stupid enough to
stick ourselves with dirty needles in a place like this.”
Hitomi laughed, a soft, shaky sound. “Please accept my sincerest apologies.”
“Where are Koharu and Ai-chan?” Sayumi asked.
“Probably in the next test area by now. I saw them
safely off to block B before I came here ... did you find test seven?”
“This way,” Reina said, and as they started down the hall, Reina began to recount their run-in with the
Tri-squads.
Sayumi followed, rubbing at the maddening, elusive itch in her right eye. She must have irritated it with all
of the rubbing, it seemed to be getting worse. And to top things off, she felt a headache coming on. She
wiped at her eye, sighing inwardly at the timing. She never got headaches unless she was coming down
with something. The swim in the ocean must have set her up nicely for a cold—and from the building
throb in her head, it was going to be a nasty one.
Topic: Eri Kamei vs. Morning Musume (Read 101721 times)