An entire squad of security guards showed up, each one armed with a shotgun. While the team slowly swept all the rooms connected to the hallway, the leader came over to Pam. Although I couldn’t hear what they were saying, I couldn’t help but notice that they both glanced towards Olivia and me multiple times. I had a sinking feeling in my stomach.

  “What are your friends doing right now?” Olivia asked excitedly. “Are they with us now?”

  “No… As soon as the Rupture closed Angelica floated down the hallway, and I haven’t seen any of the others come out yet,” I explained.

  Olivia gave me a wide-eyed ’ oh’ expression. She had no idea what I was talking about.

  “Angelica is a jellyfish; she’s the one who carried us out of danger. There’s also Hairy, a highland ox, and Tyberius, he’s a segmented mechanical centipede-like creature,” I explained.

  “Kind of like those centipedes?” Olivia asked.

  “Kind of, but much, much bigger,” I admitted. He was kind of like those centipedes, now that she mentioned it.

  While we were discussing, Pam and the team leader finished their conversation. The man carefully picked up the crying girl and carried her into the intake area, away from the scene of the carnage.

  Pam started heading our way, but before she could, the reception phone rang. She frowned and redirected to pick it up. She was only there for a minute or two before hanging up and moving over to where Olivia and I were sitting.

  “Are you girls alright?” she asked.

  “Well, Olivia doesn’t seem to be doubled over in pain, and I’m no longer having a panic attack, so yeah, I think we’re good now,” I replied smartly, receiving a snort from Olivia.

  “Good,” Pam replied. She actually seemed relieved by the news. Actually, now that I looked at her, she seemed way more relaxed, and a lot more affable. She’d dropped her uncompromising attitude at the end of the emergency and returned to the calm, easy-going demeanor I was more familiar with.

  “I heard what you said back there, and I know you’re both late for orientation, but would you mind waiting just for five more minutes? I promise that I’ll vouch for you, and you won’t get in trouble,” Pam asked politely.

  Olivia and I exchanged a glance, and I shrugged.

  “Sure. I assume it’s because you need us to make a statement or something,” I said.

  “Not quite,” Pam replied with a slight wince. “After calling Dr. Michaels to let her know what was going on, she decided to watch the situation on the security cameras. She wants to see you both.”

  “Right now?” Olivia asked, surprised. “Last time I was there, I was told all appointments had to be booked weeks in advance.”

  “That was before,” Pam said. “Now you’re both being bumped up to the high-priority research candidates.”

  “I don’t know if I like the sound of that,” I muttered.

  “It’s not bad,” Pam said quickly. “It just means that your powers are unique enough that you’ll get priority status at the lab. If you think you feel a Rupture forming and you're close enough to the lab, they’ll clear all appointments to try to record what you’re experiencing. They may figure out how to make the experience less uncomfortable for you.”

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  “That’s all I needed to know,” Olivia exclaimed, jumping out of her seat. “Let’s go!”

  I climbed to my feet much more slowly. “Alright, I understand why the doc would want to see Olivia, but why me?”

  “Unfortunately, I’m not sure about that. I assume it has to do with your unique powers,” Pam said. “I’ve seen a lot of Empowered over the years, and I’ve never seen someone deal with a Rupture in such an indirect, yet effective way before.”

  “Yeah, well… You wouldn’t think my powers were that special if you saw what I went through at the last Rupture,” I said, flashing the bandages wrapped around my palms. “I almost died.”

  “That must have been some rift,” Pam muttered. “You shouldn’t beat yourself up about it, you just awakened, and your powers aren’t a match for someone that’s more developed, or the Ruptures they leave behind. You should be proud that you survived a situation like that.”

  “If you say so…” I muttered. “So, where is this lab? I know I was supposed to get an appointment to visit it soon, but I haven’t been yet.”

  “Oh, it’s not that far. Follow me,” Pam declared.

  Instead of heading for the front doors, she led us to a set of heavy, locked double doors located on the opposite side of the reception area. This wasn’t where I’d come to register or complete orientation; it was a completely different part of the building.

  Before leaving the lobby, I glanced down the far hallway, hoping to signal to my friends that we were going. Except, they weren’t there. The security team was still there, sweeping the rooms, but there was no sign of my friends.

  I frowned. Even though I wanted to run down there and look for them, I knew Pam would never allow it. The Rupture might have closed, but it was still an active combat area. If I asked Pam to wait, there was no guarantee they’d wander back anytime soon. This wasn’t the first time my friends had disappeared. They always showed up again later, and they never told me where they’d gone, just that they’d had ‘business elsewhere’.

  Now that I knew they weren’t just figments of my imagination, I wished I’d insisted on knowing where they had been.

  Biting my lip, I followed Pam and Olivia into a short hallway that seemed to contain only a pair of elevators along one wall and a set of stairs leading down. Pam led us down three flights of stairs before ending at another locked door.

  Beyond that was another landing, nearly identical to the one upstairs, but the style down here was a lot cleaner. More clinical. Pam stepped over to the scanner next to the security doors at the end of the hallway, and they popped open, revealing… a hospital?

  I knew it must have been the lauded lab area, but it looked like some sort of state-of-the-art medical clinic. We walked past a handful of traditional examination rooms, empty but open so I could see inside as we approached what appeared to be a hospital reception desk.

  Well, almost a typical hospital reception desk. The nurses sitting there were pretty standard. The pair of guards standing behind them in flak vests and carrying assault rifles were not. I turned to look at Pam in alarm.

  “Relax, since the labs contain some of the most advanced tech, and some of the BEI’s top scientists, the security team always sends someone to lock down the area, and prevent any abnormalities from breaking in. Many of the machines down here emit a low level of instability. Not enough to allow Ruptures to form, but they’re more than enough to attract the attention of unwanted visitors,” Pam explained as she wandered up to the desk.

  “Agent Lawson? I thought you’d left already. Did you forget something?” one of the nurses asked, a mousy brunette with thick glasses.

  “Hey Genine,” Pam replied, leaning on the counter. “Unfortunately, I only managed to get as far as the lobby before that Rupture started forming. Thankfully, we got a little bit of warning before it opened, and a little help containing it; things could have turned out much worse.”

  When Pam threw a thumb my way, I couldn’t help but blush slightly. I wasn’t used to people appreciating me.

  Apparently, the doc Michaels was watching the entire thing, and she wants to have a word with these two. Would you mind buzzing us in?”

  Genine nodded, and the heavy doors to my left clicked. As we stepped through, I did a double-take. If the front area looked like a medical clinic, this area looked more like a science lab. Nearly every room either had some high-tech machine or looked more like a testing area.

  There were a couple of rooms that looked like they had extra insulation and heavily padded walls; there was even one that had a thick, heavily pitted metal plate bolted to the wall.

  “This place gives me bad vibes,” Tyberius muttered, making me jump.

  “Where did you guys go?” I hissed. “You seemed to disappear right after that Rupture closed. I was worried about you.”

  “We had business to take care of!” Hairy exclaimed jovially.

  “Yeah, well, that was a valid excuse when all you guys could do was keep me company. Now that I know you can fight interdimensional invaders, I want a little more information,” I hissed.

  It took me a moment to realize that our group had stopped, and both Pam and Olivia were looking at me. “Your friends back?” Olivia smiled.

  I felt my cheeks heat up, and I nodded woodenly. It had been a long time since I’d talked to my friends so blatantly in public, and even longer since I was caught doing it.

  “Well, I’m not quite sure what you two are going on about, but this is the doctor’s office,” Pam said, looking me over. “You ready to introduce yourself?”

  “No,” I replied, smiling weakly. “But there’s no point in putting things off. Let’s meet the doctor.”

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