As soon as Christine emerged from the decontamination zone, she was approached by the General's secretary. He wanted to see her immediately and, no doubt, discuss what they had found and brought back to the underground city. Pinning back her hair back, the woman walked behind Louise. She didn't want to waste any more time. She just wanted to get to the lab and test the Mutated man's blood. Perhaps he had proteins and cultures that could help them find a vaccine. Perhaps they could find a cure for the Infected or a much more humane way to put them down. Lost in thought, the Doctor bumped into the plump older woman and apologized quickly before opening the door to the General's office. "You wanted to see me?"
Standing behind a large wooden desk, back towards the door was the General. "I did. Louise, please close the door. We need to speak privately." When the older man heard the door close he looked over his shoulder at the Doctor, his expression giving nothing away. "I hear that you've found something quite interesting topside."
"We have and if you hadn't been in such a rush to check in on me, I could be in the lab as we speak. I could give you the answers that you're itching to ask." Christine placed her hands on her hips and muttered a quiet curse. The General turned to look at her fully, his ageing, stoic face changing into a slightly less so stoic face.
"You're just like your mother, Christine. Always searching for the answer to questions no one has asked yet." The older man took a few steps towards the younger woman.
She rolled her eyes. Of course, she was like her mother. There was no way in hell that she was anything like her father. He was cold, detached, ruthless, and a pain in the ass. "Are we finished?" She asked tossing her hands into the air, "As you can see, I'm fine. I came back in one piece." The General shook his head and sat at his desk instead of approaching the woman. Christine waited for a formal dismissal before exiting the office and making her way to her room. She felt grimy and needed a shower before entering the lab. It would help her focus on the task before her. Pulling her ID badge from her cargo pant pocket, she placed it on the scanner outside of her room. At the sound of a familiar beep, the Doctor trudged into the small room and sat on her minimalist bed. "Who the hell does he think he is, pulling me aside like that when he knows I have work to do." She complained to no one. Bending down, she unlaced her combat boots and tugged off her clothes before storming into the equally small bathroom. "God, sometimes I wish…Urgh!" She exclaimed when the cold water hit her skin, "Wrong tap!" Christine shook her head at herself and threaded her fingers through her damp hair. You really need to stop talking to yourself, it's not healthy.
Finally feeling like herself, the Doctor made her way through the military part of underground New York and into the section designated to the sciences. She shoved her hands into the large pockets of her lab coat and entered her comfort zone; her lab. "Hey, Bruce. Did you get any samples from the Mutated?" She asked coming to stand next to the man whom she shared the lab with.
The greying brunet jumped away from his station. "D-don't do that! You startled me." He adjusted his glasses, "I did and you will never believe what his results look like." Standing, Bruce reached for a black tablet and handed it to the woman, a smirk on his lips.
"This can't be right." She started, "Are you sure these are his? They're completely…"
"Normal." Dr. Banner finished shaking his head and ripping off his glasses, "They are completely normal. It's as if he remained unchanged by the pathogen."
Christine gave her lab partner a look of confusion and determination, "That can't be. The numbers from the specimens, in the Beginning, are drastically different from control samples. Run them again. There has to be some…"
"Dr. Giordano, I have. I've run them half a dozen times and each time the result is the same. Either his body has adapted to being topside or…." He didn't have to say it because she was thinking it.
"The numbers from the Beginning are wrong. Someone doctored them, why?" Her grip on the tablet tightened, "Why would someone do that?" Without a second thought, Christine quickly left the lab. Despite Bruce calling for her to come back, she continued to hurry towards the observation cells. She needed to see him. She needed to get some answers. There were too many thoughts rushing through her mind to be of any use in the lab. Dr. Banner could handle it without her. He was much better at quieting intrusive thoughts and theories.
"Doc, we haven't fully cleared him yet." Commander Thomson said as the woman approached a large door. "Doc, I can't let you in there…Doc!"
She held her ID card to the scanner and when the door opened with a whir, she stormed into the observation room. "You can lecture me later on protocol, Thomson. I just need you and your men to leave." When the Commander gave Christine a disapproving look, she held up her tablet. "I need him to answer a few questions and he looks like the type to not do so in the presence of military men." Commander Thomson opened his mouth to object, but was cut off by the woman sighing, "Look, as long as he remains inside of the cell, I'll be just fine. Watch from behind the mirror if you must. But Jared, I need you and your men to leave us alone."
Clearly uncomfortable with the situation and the informal use of his first name, the Commander motioned for his men to vacate the observation room and then began to leave, "I'll be right there, Doc, and I'm coming in if I don't like how things are progressing. Understand?" He said, pointing to the two way mirror on the left side of the room before the door closed with another whir.
Christine took a deep breath before moving closer to the clear containment cell. Steve was pacing back and forth. Like a caged animal. She thought. Stopping a few feet away from the man, the Doctor cleared her throat, "I hope the cell is comfortable. It's hardly been used."
"It's just fine." He growled, "If you like being trapped." He didn't stop pacing. He couldn't. It was the only thing keeping him from losing control. Steve had woken up in the see-through cage, disorientated and feral. They had drugged him. They had stripped him of his defences and it pissed him off. How was he supposed to protect his family? Yes, the pack had more than enough alphas to make sure that they were safe from the Damned. But that didn't mean they didn't need him. He was one of the only prime alphas; the true leaders of the pack; the strongest. Again he growled. Steve hated that the beta male had a quick trigger finger. Otherwise, the strange woman would be dead.
He finally looked towards the newcomer and stilled. It was her. The woman who placed her muddy scent on Hannah. He surveyed the woman. She was smaller when she wasn't wearing the bulky hazmat suit and she looked like a real Doctor in her teal scrubs and lab coat. That's what the soldiers had called her, 'Doc'.
"If it's alright with you Mr..."
"Rogers." She was baiting him. Trying to make herself seem like less of a threat. But it wouldn't work. It would never work.
"...Mr. Rogers, I'd like to ask you a few questions about your condition." She continued, not missing a beat. "How long have you been topside?" Christine wanted to say different, but according to his labs, he wasn't, necessarily, different.
"Since the Beginning." Steve snorted in disgust, "How long have you been underground, Doctor..."
"Giordano. Dr. Giordano and if you don't mind, I'd like to ask the questions not answer them." The woman stared at the man behind the plastic wall of the cell, her expression neutral. "Now, what can you tell me about your condition? How did you survive the contagion and not become one of the Infected?" She couldn't help bombarding him with questions. It's what she had been forced to do growing up in her mother's lab. Ask questions until the solution had presented itself. She had hoped that he would give her what she wanted, an answer to everything. But what she didn't expect was the annoyance that flashed across his otherwise unreadable features.
Steve shook his head in disbelief, "You think this," he placed a hand on his chest, "is some sort of..."
"Contagion, you're correct." The woman standing in front of him finished for him, her eyes never leaving his form.
"You've got to be joking. You're joking right?" Steve ran a hand through this hair and heaved an irritated sigh, "That's all you scientists ever think about. That there has to be some other, tangible explanation for what has happened. But there isn't. It's evolution."
At this, Christine scoffed. "I can assure you that it is most definitely not evolution." She argued.
"Why? Because your DNA hasn't changed?" He was starting to get angry now, so angry that, had there not been a clear wall between them, Steve would have pulled the tablet from the woman's hands and smashed it against the nearest concrete wall.
"No, because theirs hasn't." Looking down briefly, the woman began to tap furiously at the tablet in her hands until the wall of his cell was covered in videos and pictures of the Damned, their faces long and gaunt, jowls sagging and teeth blunt, stained grey. Technically, the Infected were still biologically human. But everything that made a human, well, a human was gone. "You see, though they appear something less than human, their DNA has the same markers as ours, or rather mine and everyone in this underground city." Christine watched as his face contorted into disgust and sheer anger. "We know that the viscous liquid that pours from their mouth and nose contains some sort of virus, infecting any and all that come into contact with it. But you already knew that, judging from your expression. A smear on the skin won't cut it, no it needs to enter the bloodstream. Whether that is through a break in the skin, a mucous membrane or…" The woman paused for a moment, "Or through other nefarious means."
He was forced to watch, to listen to, groups of his people being attacked by the grotesque creatures, their maws oozing black, viscous goo. He was forced to watch as the once human entities slaughtered dozens of men, forcibly took women, and violently turned children, spewing the black goo into their faces. "What does that have to do with me and my pack." He asked clenching his fists into tight balls.
"You and your 'pack' managed to avoid this fate and you continue to do so. You seem like a smart man, Mr. Rogers. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this." Christine gave the large man a few seconds to respond and when he didn't, she sighed and continued, "Clearly, whatever caused the Infected to change happened to the rest of the people topside, just on a lesser scale. Perhaps it's a different contagion or virus…" Her eyes flickered to the gruesome videos and then back to Steve. "What we want to know is why? Why are you and the others so different from the Infected?"
Steve turned away from the videos. It made him angrier than he was before. Knowing that these beasts were killing and taking his family set him on edge. Which is exactly what the woman wanted. She wanted him to feel weak, powerless. His nostrils flared and his muscles begged for the stretch that only the hunt and kill could give. He had to focus. He couldn't lose control; couldn't give her a show. Taking a deep breath, the alpha male unclenched his fists and looked over his shoulder. Making eye contact with the Doctor, Steve said, in a low and guttural voice, "Enough."
Christine would never admit, nor would she let it show, that he frightened her. She didn't have to be one of them to feel the anger and irritation rolling off of him in waves large enough to capsize a boat. With trembling fingers, she muted the videos. "Tell me again that this has nothing to do with a contagion." Steeling her nerves, the woman walked closer to the large see-through cell, the tablet held tightly against her chest.
Steve watched her intently, barely noticing the tremor in her hand. He smirked before turning to face the woman completely. "It's. Not. A. Contagion." With each word he spoke, the alpha took a step closer to the woman on the other side of the wall. Each time he did so, Steve noticed, she involuntarily flinched. He knew she was frightened of him. He could smell her fear through the plastic walls that separated them. "Is this what you really wanted to know, Dr. Giordano or is there something else you wanted to know?" Inhaling deeply, Steve's mouth twitched in understanding. "How are your birth numbers, Dr. Giordano? Low I suspect?" He spoke before she had the chance to.
"What does that have to..." To say that she was shocked was an understatement. How did an outsider, a Mutated, know about the decrease in birth rates?
"That's why you've brought me here, isn't it? To see if there is an issue with our fertility." Steve smirked when her eyes grew wide with confusion. "Well, I can assure you that there is nothing wrong with me." Sure, he was getting cocky, but how could he not? They had taken him, knowing that he was a prime alpha—that he was top shelf material. "But that doesn't mean we're not suffering. Our last pup was born 5 years ago." Placing his hands on the clear wall, Steve leaned in close to the woman, "When was yours?"
Christine nearly dropped her tablet and unconsciously placed a hand on her abdomen. Did he know? Of course, he knew, he was a Mutated individual and they always knew. She didn't miss the primal look in his eyes as they flickered from the hand pressed to her womb to her shocked face. She definitely didn't miss the grin that spread across his face when she stumbled backward, tripping over her own feet as she hurried to leave the room.
"Does he know?" Steve yelled at her retreating form, clearly pleased with the reaction he had pulled from the Doctor. He was surprised when she stopped suddenly at the door to the room, her hand hovering over the card reader.
"He's dead." Christine willed her voice not to crack as she spat out the words. She didn't look back when a low growl came from the man behind her, instead, she pressed her ID badge to the scanner and exited the white room, clearly shaken.
Pushing off of the wall, Steve sauntered towards the built-in plastic bed. He forced himself to sit down on it. He should have known. He should have used that information against her when she had Hannah in her grasp. He should have bargained for their lives over hers. But he hadn't known. He was so riled up that the pungent smell hadn't broken his defensive mindset. Steve had been so focused on protecting the child that he hadn't noticed that the Doctor was a woman until she had spoken and took hold of his niece. Though Hannah wasn't actually his niece, all of the children in his pack called him uncle. They were a family after all.
Looking around the cell, Steve noticed that it was pretty well furnished. It didn't have the worn comfort of home, but it had all of the necessities. To his immediate right was a wall that separated his cell from another, identical one. Every piece of furniture in the clear box was transparent and built into the walls. Everything except the walls that surrounded what Steve imagined to be a small bathroom. They were opaque offering the smallest amount of privacy.
It wasn't until the door to the room outside of his cell opened that Steve realized that he was still in the clothes he had been captured in. The alpha stood and stalked towards the front of his cell, jaw clenched. Before him, stood one of the military men from before, the one he had assumed was in charge of the battalion. Judging from the look on the beta male's face, he was just as angry as Steve was.
"Place the clothes you're wearing in the drawer in the bathroom and change into these." Commander Thompson said as a small hatch opened in the wall of the cell. He slipped the folded grey pants and white shirt into the hatch before continuing. "You won't be getting them back. They'll be burned with the rest of your contaminated belongings." The man smirked when he saw the Mutated man's nostrils flare. Thomson began to walk away, stopping briefly to look over his shoulder, "Oh and one more thing." His face became void of all emotion, "If you ever try to touch the Doc again, I'll put you down myself and it won't be pretty."
Steve growled as the beta crossed the outer room and exited. The bastard wouldn't have the chance to shoot him again. Steve would be the one to put the other man down and it would definitely not be pretty. Slamming his fist on the front wall of the cell, the alpha male grit his teeth. He needed a plan. He needed to get out of the underground city. Reaching for the now unfolded set of clothes on the floor, Steve walked to the small bathroom and pushed open the handless door. It was just as small as he thought. Across from the door was a small, see-through sink, to the left was the toilet and facing that was the shower. Each amenity was built into the wall and smaller than what he was used to. Dr. Giordano had said that it was hardly used but it looked brand new. Steve wondered if he was the first to be held in the cell, there was no way that something this new had been in use since the Beginning. There would have been dust and obvious signs of wear and tear. But there wasn't. Every surface was pristine and it set the man on edge. It felt clinical. Sterile. Steve thought as he placed the set of clothes on the lid of the toilet and crammed his large frame into the small cubical.