Chapter 10: Blue Folder Reaction
"I can't understand any of this, Tana," Quinn shook her head. She rubbed her eyes before focusing back at the jumble of papers in front of her. 4 AM and I'm reading research papers. Oh, how far the mighty have fallen. There must have been stacks and stacks on the desk, even more in the underground safe.
On top of the papers, there were a mess of pictures of young Santana. Santana with her parents at Disneyland, the trip they took when she was four. On the swings at the park. In a pumpkin costume on Halloween. There was one of her, waving adorably from the boarding call room at an airport, pink backpack strapped on her, a small doll of a panda in her hand.
Santana slid a finger affectionately across a picture of her parents tickling her, a screaming laughter escaping young Santana's mouth that she could almost hear. We were so happy then, Santana remembered sadly. How different things were now. She cleared her throat when she snapped back from her moment of recollection, feeling Quinn's curious gaze on her.
Quinn took a step closer.
"Gaaahh," Quinn yelped. A splinter from the torn floor stuck to her foot. She leaned against the desk to pick it out carefully with her fingers. One bead of blood gathered at the pricked skin. "This shit better be good, S. My toes aren't bleeding just for anything, you know." Santana smiled; Quinn could make even this strange mess seem funny. She held up the papers she was looking at.
"I don't get why this would be hidden; most of it is research on animals with a focus on specific traits." Santana brought one sheet to the front. Her eyes quickly scanned through the abstract and a few graphs. "Like this one is on bird flight, the hollowness of their bones. This paper proposes the different elements of birds and how they would be adjusted to accommodate flight."
She pointed to a line. "See, this part talks about hollowed bones and the extraction of specific bones to eliminate weight. It talks about applying these concepts to different mammals, how maybe some animals could be altered to take on new abilities, like flight." Quinn felt chills run down her spine, the fine hair rising on the back of her neck, when she heard that.
Her hands flipped through another folder. "This examines feline DNA. Feline reflexes, cat heat, flexibility, bone structure. You know, mating cycles and shit." She remembered this about cats, their mating cycles, when they still had Buttercup. Santana got Buttercup, the small white kitten with a tuft of black fur, when she was nine years old. Buttercup always acted erratic and disappeared for a few days when she went in heat. Horny cats, Santana smirked. Buttercup disappeared altogether when she turned 14, losing the only good company in the house. It seemed the paper pointed to the same observations: mating cycles, erratic behavior, disappearance.
Quinn kept glancing back at the pictures of Santana, the only things on the desk that still made sense to her. She picked up one picture, looking at the unfamiliar expression of glee on the little girl's face. I can't even recognize her, Quinn gazed at little Santana. It must have broken Santana to watch her family fragment pieces scattered across the world. For all the hundreds of pictures of baby Santana, she couldn't find one of Santana any older than thirteen years old. What happened?
Quinn's eyes flashed around, trying to catch up to Santana's speedy reading, jumping from research paper to research paper.
Reptiles, lizards, regeneration, ectothermic regulation.
DNA slicing.
Maturing in mammals.
Nocturnal behaviors of tigers.
The unpredictability of human puberty.
Santana was reading frantically. Paper after paper, the stacks of folders she was pulling out seemed endless. What is this? Where are these from? And why are they hidden? The questions threw her life into question. Why am I here? Why are there so many pictures of me? The pile of her pictures shifted with each paper she yanked from under it.
Her agitation built with each paper. She couldn't make the connection, the pictures, the papers.
The pictures of her.
The papers about this.
The pictures of her.
The papers specifically about things that she can do.
The pictures of her.
And the papers about altered genes.
Controlling the discovery rate of genetics resea— Regression method for mapping traits in cross genet— Wide spectrum of genetically determined regenerati—critical for survival and sensitive to genetic disruption—
Smack.
"Hey!" Quinn slammed her hand down on Santana's frantic flipping with a sharp smack, stopping her mid-page and catching Santana off-guard.
"You need to take a breath," Quinn demanded. Santana paused in her panic, nodded, inhaling and exhaling slowly.
"Calm down," Quinn said more evenly. "We'll start again."
Santana nodded at the command, immediately acquiescing to the blonde's words. She's right, she told herself. It won't help to skim these. She needed to tread carefully. She started shifting papers around, searching for something other than research papers. No one would hide these if it was just research. A line from a paragraph stood out from a paper peeking out of the corner of the desk, close to falling off.
"In genetic experimentations, the human hormonal system produces unpredictable results. Though humans are slower in adapting for survival, their genes are wildly unpredictable at this stage. ECC-G-25 adapted to the underwater exposure in Hormonal Growth Expedited Circumstances (HGEC). ECC-L-12, ECC-S-22, ECC-Z-56 failed to complete minimal expectations and were terminated immediately. ECC-G…"
Santana pulled out the paper, pulling out the thick blue folder it was attached to, almost slipping off the table all together.
Quinn felt Santana suddenly stop, the papers flying coming to settle down. The blonde glanced over to find Santana peering through one folder with intensity.
The file she had in her hands was tinted dark blue. Santana's hands gripped tighter, the plastic crinkling under her grip. Her forehead creased with something like disbelief.
"Hey," Quinn let out softly. She scooted closer to Santana, sliding her arms around Santana's waist from behind her. Santana's shirt rode up a little, Quinn's arms brushing parts of her bare skin. "What is it?"
She tucked her chin on Santana's shoulders, resting just above her collarbones. She peered over Santana's shoulders, feeling her breath become shallower and faster. Quinn's chest felt Santana's heart race. The heat of their close bodies rose ten degrees, just being in such proximity. Santana felt her senses heighten, so aware of Quinn's steady rise and fall of her chest against Santana's back, her arms wrapped loosely around Santana's waist. She couldn't tell if it was from the flutters Quinn was starting to give her whenever she came closer or the apprehension she felt about what this folder contained. Quinn had a better view of what Santana was looking at from this angle. She could see Santana's trembling hands.
The blue folder had a label with thick black letters: ECC-O-42. In the corner of the label, someone handwrote "ECHO" in blue ink, small caps under the letters. It was faded, like the person wrote it a long time ago. Right under it, in a layer of fresher ink, it said "SANTANA" in the same handwriting.
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