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Chapter 35: Unwelcome, Part 1
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FLUX Chapter 36: Unwelcome, Part 2
None of the humans in the room turned to look at her as she and Ellie walked through. They seemed very intent on their jobs. Ellie walked up to an older woman, her brown hair was tucked back into a tight bun. She stood staring at a screen and speaking into a headset."That is what I was talking about." Her voice was deep for a woman and very smooth. It was almost hypnotic. It was the same lady from the photo in the room she had woken up in, only older. Maybe that room was her room.The response came out over the speakers on the control board. The man sitting there turned it up so the voice could be heard. And it was a familiar one."Well, I don't know, it could just be water," Jack's voice rung clearly from the little speaker."Keep looking. We need to know," the woman said and then turned to acknowledge Alex's presence. She extended her hand. "Janice Swift. It's nice to finally meet you Alex."Alex shook her hand. "What do you mean finally meet me?""I have heard a lot about you
FLUX Chapter 37: One of Us
Alex pushed the metal door to the lab open. Jack smiled at her from across the large room. He sat on a patient bed with a white felt tab stuck to his temple. Ellie was behind him looking at the monitors.Alex frowned back at him and made her way over."I thought you would be happy to see me," Jack said.She slapped him on the cheek, soundly but not hard. "What were you thinking? Don't these people have teams that you could have gone with? Why were you down there alone?" Alex's face flushed with anger.He just smiled back at her. "I'm okay. See? One piece." He patted his dirty shirt. Cobwebs hung from his beard and hair. She spotted a few blood stained slashes in his shirt sleeve and a double puncture wound on his left forearm."And what about this?" She grabbed his left wrist and held it up. She pulled back the sleeve to have a better look at the two holes. They were a dark angry purple with red rims. "It looks like poison. What bit you?"Jack pulled his forearm towards him and t
FLUX Chapter 38: The Tour, Part 1
Alex flexed her cramped hands. She had spent hours twitching her fingers at Ellie's flickerboard and now she followed her down the hall towards the cafeteria for dinner. Humans stared as she walked by. The two guards following her kept their distance. Ellie just smiled cheerfully, greeting the people that passed as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Alex's forced smile felt more like a grimace, but she held it, trying to look non-threatening as they walked.Ellie pushed open the metal fireproof door. She smiled and invited Alex in. The room was packed with people, which was expected at dinner time. Their chattering quieted a little as she appeared, but after only a few moments the volume surged upward. Alex was not comforted knowing she was the new topic of conversation. Jack stood up amongst the crowd and waved his arms over his head. He didn't really need to wave so much, he wasn't hard to miss since he was so tall and hairy. Even more so now Jack reminded her of those pictures of
FLUX Chapter 39: The Tour, Part 2
Ellie smiled and bumped shoulders with her. "I've never seen him smile so much."Alex shook her head. "Nah, it's probably just the beer.""Nope, nope. I've known that man a very long time and he can hold his liquor. It's definitely you.""What about Brooke? Didn't she make him happy?"Ellie choked on her sip of beer and spit it back into her glass. "How do you know about that?""You can see it in their faces when they're around each other. And he told me just a little when we were out on the road. How long were they together?""It's kind of hard to say. They dated for a while before he was taken, then a little bit after he came back. He just broke up with her before he left on this trip. So kind of off and on for the last six years."Alex remembered their conversation about the girl he wanted to marry. She still wasn't over him. And now Alex was in the way. She wasn't trying to be, but Jack kept fawning over her and that had to cut Brooke pretty deep."Hey Ellie, you're a scien
FLUX Chapter 40: Back to Work, Part 1
Alex rubbed the sleeping sand out of her eyes. Her head throbbed as if it had been struck by a train. She flapped her arms out with a sigh. Last night was blurred, but not forgotten. She drank a little too much. No. She had been given too much to drink and then interrogated. She felt bad for yelling at Jack, but at least she had not given up her secrets. How could he even try that? That wasn't a way to earn someone's trust.The red numbers of the digital clock read "15:23". She'd been asleep all day. Alex stretched her cramped muscles, feeling lazy, but it felt nice to have some down time. Her next step would be to figure out how to use her new contacts to help find Lexi. There were no leads right now, but maybe they could help, if they weren't too busy interrogating her. Her body ached, but it felt as if it was getting better. Alex rolled up carefully, letting herself fall off the bed on to her feet. She showered and dressed, but took her time since she wasn't sure what to do next.
FLUX Chapter 41: Back to Work, Part 2
Jack had a feeling deep down in the pit of his stomach. It wasn't indigestion or a hangover. It was fear. Fear of what? He was just here flicking up his report on Alex on the flickerboard. Wait, Alex? The Link pulled, it called to him. The fear grew. A flash of a grinning man, one of Jimmy's brutes, popped into his head. He didn't take time to think anymore, he only acted.He jumped from the chair and dashed through Operations almost mowing over three people in the process, sending papers flying and shrieks of dismay in his path. He darted down the hall, past slow walking humans, and around a series of corners, letting the Link reel him in.Jack slid around the corner. Two men lay sprawled out on the floor, one cradling his wrist, and the other his balls. Two more men had been knocked askew and were on their knees in the process of getting back up. He recognized two as the guards posted outside her door. Jack saw Alex over the shoulder of a man holding a knife.?He could feel her fear
FLUX Chapter 42: Back to Work, Part 3
The humans in Operations watched Alex as the party came through the doors. Jack was in front of her, but their eyes drilled through him, almost painfully. She dropped her own eyes as if she was a bad child come to receive punishment. They marched straight through Operations and into a conference room on the other side.Janice waited for them, her arms crossed over her bosom. She leaned back in her chair and gazed over her charges. Jack filed in, then Alex, and finally Jimmy. The rest of the guards stayed outside with the door closed. Alex held the sleeve of her shirt over the gash in her arm."I told you she was dangerous." Jimmy clenched his fists.Janice gave him a look that put him in his place. He hung his head, as if he too, was being scolded."This..." Janice said with meaning, "is unacceptable.""I'm sorry. I will take my belongings and leave. You ca" Alex began, trying to take responsibility."No, this isn't her fault. Sh" Jack took a step forward."She's a hybrid, of co
FLUX Chapter 43: Comfortable, Part 1
The rest of the day was rather uneventful. Ellie patched up Alex's arm and wrapped up her wrist. She was so excited to show Alex and Jack the spikes on the monitoring systems. Something about the Link and their actions were "causing the data points to coincide," whatever that meant.Alex sat with her back propped up with pillows on the bed in the room. She didn't really want to call it her room. It wasn't. It was Janice's. Papers lay scattered across the bed. She flipped through the documents the humans had collected on Henry Truex. There was very little evidence of Alex. It looked like she vanished after the age of twenty one. Her file contained a few pictures and arrests from her early years as a human rights activist, but not a single scrap of information on Lexi. Good.She scanned the pages one by one into her memory, trying to find connections that their computers and analysts didn't see. The Truex Research Center showed up a couple of times in money transfers from personal acco
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