After Matt gets tired, we stop playing volleyball and soccer, so Lourdes and I hit the volleyball around for a few minutes. I like to play with her because she's ready good, maybe better than me. But then Lourdes says that she has to get some things together for Sarah's baby shower.
"You should come," Lourdes says to me.
"I don't know, I haven't even met Sarah," I say.
"It's alright, she won't mind. Plus I could introduce you today before the shower tonight," she says and I nod.
"Ok, how about at dinner?" I say and she agrees and she goes inside. She took her book, so I decide to go get the other copy in the library. I pick up my gun and go inside and go to the library. No one's here so I just go to the non-fiction section and start looking for it. I find it eventually and there's another copy too. I guess it was popular. I walk back to my room and start reading it. I get to the third chapter when Weaver walks into to my room.
"Weaver?" I ask.
"Since Dr. Glass is determined to keep the skitter alive, I want you to guard it, so nothing happens to her like Harris," he says.
"Ok, but why me? Is this some sort of punishment because I sided with her?" I ask curious. I really don't object to the guard duty, but I wonder why me.
"It's not a punishment, but I still don't agree with you and Dr. Glass in keeping it alive. I see your point, but I think that the risk far outweighs the chance that we might learn something. And it's because of this risk that I'm putting a guard there and there's no one more I trust that can do it than you," he says and my eyebrows shoot up in surprise at that last part.
"Yes sir," I say and look down to get my gun. He's gone when I look back up.
I've been standing here next to the cage for an hour while Anne tries to communicate with the skitter with pictures. It's not very entertaining on the count that nothing happens. I don't think the skitter really understands what she's saying or maybe it's just ignoring us. Probably the latter. That's when Tom and Hal walk through the door. Anne puts down her pictures and walk over to them.
"What can I do for you guys?" she asks.
"We need to figure out how to kill one of these things," Tom says nodding his head in the skitters direction, "without any noise."
"Without making any noise," Anne repeats pacing in front of them.
"Yeah," Tom says.
"Do you think it's going to be sleeping in some sound proof chamber with its head in a guillotine?" Anne jokes and Tom slightly chuckles.
"Probably not," Hal says almost depressed. Anne's thoughtful for a moment.
"There is one thing," she says looking at the skitter.
"Mike hit him-it, in its mouth the other day; it seemed to knock it unconscious. We know that there's a soft palate. If a nerve center is in there, we know that it's connected the base of the brain stem," she tells us as she pours some water into a metal bowl.
"That means theoretically," she says and she picks up a scalpel and asks me, "Can you open that?"
I don't say anything, but I just walk to the window in the cage. Tom looks at her and she gives him a look back that silences him. I take the lock off and slowly lower the window. Anne carefully places the bowl on the window and picks up something behind her.
"Anne?" Tom asks cautious.
"I'm not going to let Hal risk his life on a theory," she says as I step back.
"Anne, don't-" Tom tries to protest, but is silenced by the skitter screaming from an electric shock. Anne throws the stick down and opens the cage quickly before the skitter can recover. She then grabs the skitter with one hand while sticking a scalpel in its mouth with her other hand. It struggles for a second before it drops to the ground and we all stare. Anne turns around holding her hand up that's dripping in skitter yuck. She drops the scalpel and we stare at her. Tom is disbelief and concern and Hal with shock and a little admiration. And me, I don't even know what I'm feeling about what she just did.
"Ok-k, t-that w-worked," Anne stutters before she rushes past Tom and Hal into the hallway and Tom follows her. Hal looks back at the dead skitter on the floor and I still can't believe she did that. She always seemed like she couldn't hurt a fly, but at the same time it's a wonder how she didn't do it. The skitters killed most of her family. I heard she had a husband and a son that were killed.
"Um, I'll go get Weaver," Hal says, his voice emotionless with shock. I nod and he walks away.