You came to Protean Industries for a reason, and you will be damned if you don’t finish what you started. You take a moment to dry your eyes and fix your make up – you don’t want to draw any more attention if possible. Then you walk out the rest rooms, submerging yourself inside the Jillian personality you hold within yourself, matching your gait to hers.
The lab you share with Jillian, number seventeen, is directly opposite the restrooms on this floor. Steeling yourself, you walk back inside and try to figure out where to pick up Jillian’s investigations. The test results are spread messily over a workbench to one side of the room. Jillian had looked through most of them already, without much success.
You sift your mind through Jillian’s mind, trying to work out where she would have gone next. She still wanted to examine a couple of the tests more closely, but her next major avenue of exploration would have been Darcy herself. The real Darcy, to check for any adverse effects as a result of her absorption.
That’s a course that isn’t without risks of its own: who knows how much Darcy might remember from her time inside you. You trust Jillian’s insight, however. Releasing Darcy again is the next logical step.
You concentrate on the sick to the stomach feeling that you had before you ejected Darcy earlier. You feel your insides rumble and quiver. Moments later, the grisly spectacle of you vomiting up Darcy repeats itself. It takes less than a minute but leaves you feeling shaken and drained.
Darcy is unconscious but breathing shallowly, just as she was before. You reach down to take her pulse, suppressing any thoughts about reabsorbing her. It is weak but steady. You place her in the recovery position before returning to the test results.
You figure you can review the last of this morning’s tests whilst waiting for Darcy to wake up. Unfortunately, the last few pieces of paper prove to be dead ends as well. There simply seems to be no way to tell that the person you were this morning was anyone other than Darcy Whitehead. Even the DNA test was an exact match and there was no sign of any toxins or foreign substances in any of the tissue samples collected.
“Ugh,” comes an unsteady voice from the floor.
“Darcy,” you reply, walking over and kneeling down by the prone girl. “Are you ok, you just kind of… Folded.”
“Jillian,” asks the student, sounding surprised. “Where am I, how did I get here?”
“You’re at Protean, don’t you remember,” you improvise. “You were at the house this morning and you felt faint. You came with me this morning because I wanted to test if you were exposed to something in here by accident.”
“I hope not,” comes an assured sounding voice from by the door to the lab. You stand up and spin round to see Levi Rosenstein, the director of research at Protean. “We’d get terrible press if we went around irradiating interns. That was a joke Doctor Harding.”
“My test,” exclaims Darcy. “I’ve missed my History test.”
“Tests can wait,” replies Rosenstein, walking over to Darcy. He leans down and helps her up off the floor. “Your health is much more important.”
“Right,” says Darcy coldly, pulling her hand free of Rosenstein. “Who is this Jillian?”
“You remember Director Rosenstein,” you say with a brittle smile. “He approved your internship.”
“Oh, of course. Sorry”
“No need to apologise young lady,” says Rosenstein with a smile that suggests precisely the opposite. “But I am concerned with your health. I would be upset if something untoward happened to you on my watch. And if you have accidently been exposed to something, I simply must help you resolve the issue.”
There’s something about Rosenstein’s manner that you find off putting, even more so than usual. For all his bonhomie, both you and Jillian profoundly distrust the man. It’s almost like he seems eager for something to have happened to Darcy.
“Thank you for your concern,” however, is what you actually say, wondering what he is looking for.
“Perhaps a full round of tests,” he suggests nonchalantly. “I would be happy to look over them for you.”
“I already carried some out, they were inconclusive,” you explain, trying to dissuade him.
“Really, then perhaps you could forward the results to me,” he says smiling wolfishly.
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try again,” you backtrack. Far better for him to be looking at results from the genuine Darcy than from your SX-3 fuelled imitation. “That is, if Darcy doesn’t mind.”
Then it strikes you: Does Rosenstein know about the SX-3? Perhaps he thinks Darcy has been exposed to it. There’s a far more sinister question lurking under that though: Why is it so important to him?
“If you think so,” says Darcy, interrupting you chain of thoughts, sounding uncharacteristically unsure of herself.
“It can’t hurt,” you say. “Maybe we missed something earlier.
“Splendid,” says Rosenstein cheerfully, walking towards the door. “I shall expect a copy of the results on my desk tomorrow morning. Farewell for now ladies.”
“What a creep,” shivers Darcy once Rosenstein is out of earshot.
“No arguments from me,” you reply. “Lets get those tests done, if only to keep him off our backs.”
“I… Uh…” Darcy hesitates for a moment. “I’m scared Jillian. I don’t remember anything from this morning. Rosenstein seemed too keen.”
A terrible thought filters into your mind. You’re not sure if it is your own or something from the Jillian persona you are channelling, and you feel a little bit guilty for not discarding it immediately: What if you set up Darcy as a diversion? Falsify the test results to make it look as if she had been exposed to SX-3? That would distract attention from yourself long enough to complete your own research.
You can hardly believe you are even thinking of doing that though. It would be monstrous, and a betrayal of the trust that Darcy has shown in both you and Jillian. You really should protect her from the fallout of yesterdays spillage.
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