Silence
Deafening silence was what surrounded us in that very moment.
Bridget had just exposed herself, confessed, and nobody could believe their ears, myself included.
One of the old women gasped and the other fell to her knees and started crying. She was almost hyperventilating.
"How could you do this to us? How could you put us all in jeopardy, you've ruined us all!"
Bridget stood there still, quiet, holding back tears.
"So you mean to tell me that everything we've faced here is your fault?! You caused this?" Paul yelled.
Bridget still didn't move a muscle or say a word.
Klahan just stared, too weak to speak.
"It wasn't her fault," Antonio spoke up "Dr. Bridget Carter never meant to do any of this–"
"Former Dr. Bridget," Bridget mumbled quietly, interrupting him.
"So you're still able to defend yourself?" The young man with the old women rushed towards Bridget, and before I could move, Paul intercepted whatever the young man planned on doing.
"No matter what, you don't touch a woman," Paul quietly told the man and he huffed and then walked away.
"It wasn't former Dr. Bridget's fault, she did everything she could to stop it—"
"I don't need you to defend me," she cut him off. "When I needed the few good people, you hid."
"Isn't that what you did?" I asked her, my mouth moving before I could stop myself.
I lifted my head and our eyes locked. I don't know why I felt pity for her.
She had a hand in this no matter how you look at it.
"I hid to protect myself and Katie. I did everything I could, I fought, I erased what I could. But I guess it wasn't enough."
"Yeah, it wasn't," someone in the room said.
Klahan finally spoke. "Blaming him or blaming her won't take us back to the past and change anything. What has been done has been done. What we need to do now is figure out a solution to all of this."
"He has a point," Paul supported.
It was silent for a while, then Antonio shuffled off the floor.
"Ms. Bridget Carter, I swear if I knew this was how things would turn out, I would never have taken that decision of keeping my mouth shut that night."
"How else did you think it was going to turn out, huh? They wake up one morning and decide to play the good guys?" Bridget questions him.
It was Antonio's turn to be rendered speechless.
"This…." She gestures around to the disaster surrounding us. "This is what they do, what they stand for, and yes, I accept it was foolish and naïve of me to believe them — and believe it or not, I'm paying dearly for my fault."
"The only way we can believe you actually regret what you did or even trust you right now is by telling us exactly how to put an end to all this."
"Yes, just tell us."
"Yes, they were my DNA matrix, my codes, and my engineering — but twisted wasn't my plan. This wasn't the end product on my end.
This is completely different."
Everyone stares at her, confused.
She sighs and looks around.
She picks up a piece of paper, staples, and pen holders.
She places them all on the paper, arranging them in a specific pattern: two staples, a pen holder, and then one staple. Again, two staples, a pen holder, and then one staple till it reaches the bottom of the piece of paper.
"Now this—" she points at the paper, and by this time everyone was sitting, watching her closely.
"This is my coding and matrix. If I needed to rearrange, I could because I know the base and end product. I created everything." She looks around.
And now, in one swift movement, she rearranges everything — no specific pattern, nothing, just random numbers of staples and pen holders.
"This is what it is, or rather what it feels like to me. I'm completely blind and deaf. I can't even try to read their comings, even if I had the equipment to."
"I'm completely shut out, my codes were rewritten and rearranged." she groans.
"But they're still your codes?" the young man asks. "Aren't they?"
Bridget sighs. "You're not getting me.
The only thing I own is the formula to the math problem. How they solved it to derive their answers is all them, not me!" she states, frustration leaking out of her voice.
"Let's just all calm down," one of the old ladies says.
"So what you're trying to say is you can't help us."
"I cannot," Bridget confirms.
"Fuckkk," Paul flips.
"I can't fucking believe this. We get one glimpse of hope and then it gets snatched away — another and it vanishes.
"We're all going to fucking die."
"Can I say something…."
"She created them but she can't uncreate them…."
"I have something to say…."
"Jesus, what are we going to do?.."
"If I can just get your attention…."
"It's like saying God created the universe but he can't take any life he wants…."
"EVERYONE! IF I CAN JUST GET YOUR ATTENTION!!" I yell, and everyone finally quiets down.
I gesture for Antonio to move into the unconscious circle we all formed, since he seemed like he had something to say.
"Thank you," he clears his throat.
"I started working in Nova Genesis Institute as an intern six months after doct– former doctor Bridget Carter started her program—"
"Exactly, HER program," the young man cuts him off.
"If you'd just let the boy speak!" one of the old ladies says, smacking the back of his head.
Antonio continues,
"And after she dropped out of the program, I was the next best thing.
I was the one who reengineered everything, with the instructions they gave me, of course."
"So not only did you know what was going on, you were in on it." Bridget asks. But it felt more like a statement.
"No, no, you have me all wrong. I only found out about everything the night you confronted Mr. Jasper."
"And you stayed?" the conversation between them continued.
"I didn't have a choice. I had everything to lose—"
"And I had nothing. No family, no loved one, just me and my hunger for success."
"Exactly. So I couldn't just leave. I gave them everything they wanted and I have the current matrix and codes."
"You do?!"
"Yes, but it's not here with me. It's back at headquarters."
"And where exactly is the headquarters?" Klahan finally speaks.
"Their birthplace," I say as a clicking sound echoes through the walls. "Nova Genesis Institute."
"And it's back to square one," Bridget sighs.
"We wouldn't even be here if it weren't for you and this scrawny-looking kid over there," the young man says.
I'm getting sick of his bullshit now.
"What's your name?" I question him.
"Matthew," he replies.
"Do us a favor, Matthew, and shut the fuck up. If you can't think of a solution or a way out, then you're just as useless."
He stares at my face and then at my badge before walking off.
I gotta keep my eye out for that guy. He has a terrible temper.
"It's not exactly back to square one."
Everyone turns to Antonio.
"Think about it. I have the new codes and you have the base. If we can get to Nova, we can derive a weapon that would work against them."
"I have a question," Klahan interrupts.
"Why can't we just bombard them? I mean they're still flesh and bones. If guns don't work, tanks sure as hell won't fail."
Antonio grins and walks to the corner of the room.
"If this work didn't backfire, it would have been the best thing man—"
"Woman…." Bridget corrects.
"—woman ever created.
You don't get it, do you?
They weren't just engineered to scare you or move fast. They were constructed to adapt, to grow, regenerate, to impersonate.
If they were created with your usual DNAs then there wouldn't be anything special about them."
"They were created with the rarest and most complex DNA known to man," Bridget took over.
"They superseded everything you can think of.
No matter how hot, cold, fast or heavy a bullet is, they were made to absorb and regenerate.
Hit them a hundred times and they regenerate a thousand times faster."
"It's the ultimate weapon," Antonio concludes.
Klahan's head falls between his palms and he exhales like he had been holding his breath.
Paul presses his hand over his face and groans a silent "fuck."
"But…"
Bridget shoots up from the chair she was shaking in.
"If I can get those new codes Antonio keeps talking about and compare them to my base matrix, I can find out what exactly went wrong in the genetic coding and use those loopholes to our advantage."
"Yes, you're right! If they tweaked out like this, something might have caused it — and if we can find that cause, we can amend it and use it against the Chimeras. Oh my God, Dr. Bridget, how much I've missed being around your workspace."
Antonio chimes.
He seems a bit too excited in this life or death situation.
I could see a ghost of a smile forming on Bridget's lips and could obviously tell that she had definitely missed her workspace too.
But now it's loud — not because everyone's talking, but because we can all hear our thoughts.
Everyone's thinking one thing…
"So how do we get there?" Paul asks.
And I feel the baton of authority return to me once more. I felt utterly useless when it came to the chemistry and biology aspect, but now when it comes to deductive reasoning and leadership, I feel I can pick up the pace from here.
I finally stand on my feet, my legs feeling like a thousand pounds when I lift them up.
I walk to the whiteboard just a few feet away from the entrance of the control room and draft out an escape route.
In the middle of my plans, Bridget cuts me off.
She looks around frantically, lifting chairs and pushing desks.
It takes me a minute to realize what she's searching for.
"Where's Katie?" she asks no one in particular.
Everyone turns to where she was once seated while dozing off.
And I notice what nobody else did.
"And where's Matthew?"
Silence.
"Fuck."