AN: Another chapter here.
For anyone reading, there's a warning here of mention of suicide. It's literally just mentioned, but I know some people like a warning for such things.
I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think!
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
"They're sending an escort," Carol told Daryl while he was still in the shower. "I'm going, but you don't have to."
"Do you really think this asshole's going to tell us anything anyway?" Daryl asked. "I mean—half the time when people around here talk I feel like I'm listening to the damn Riddler or something. It's like listening to a damn Rubik's cube."
"Michonne said that he was going to tell us what he could," Carol said. "I don't know what that means, but anything is more than we know and right now the only way that I'd have of finding it out, if I don't go, is trying to listen to Michonne speak in some made up code over the phone. And that puts us all at risk."
"They aren't gonna say shit that they're sending a guard to take us there?" Daryl asked. He pulled back the curtain and Carol handed him the towel to dry himself off. She didn't say anything to him when he shook the water out of his hair in a manner that was somewhat reminiscent of a dog drying itself off.
"Milton requested it," Carol said. "Me, you, and T. As long as Milton requests it, I don't think they question anything. He's—kind of a big deal."
Daryl laughed to himself and finished drying off.
"Yeah, whatever," he said. "I mean—if you're goin' of course I'm going. I'm not letting you go up there alone."
"I won't be alone," Carol said. "Andrea's there, Michonne is there...T is going."
"Like I said," Daryl said, "I'm going. Just—let me get some clothes."
"Are you worried about me going alone, Daryl?" Carol asked. "Because—if you don't want to go, you really don't have to."
Daryl looked at her and made a face like he was somewhat offended by her question of whether or not he was concerned. She wasn't positive if it was in response to the fact that she asked the question or to the fact that he didn't like his worry pointed out to him. She bit her lip to keep from smiling and let it lie. She left him to get dressed while she lingered near the door and waited for their escort.
11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Milton cleared his throat more times than was necessary. Even if he'd been choking on something, he'd have to be free from it by now. Andrea had brought him a glass of water to try to ease things, but she could tell that he wasn't really as thirsty as his excessive throat clearing might lead some of them to believe. It was the audience that was making him nervous. She assumed that, in his line of work, he wasn't commonly forced to speak to audiences. He worked, from what she could tell, alone for the most part. It was almost certain that he didn't spend a lot of his time addressing audiences comprised entirely of Wilds.
Still, he seemed determined to soldier through it and he'd assured her that he had the fullest of intentions to tell her everything that he thought it was safe to tell her at the moment. The rest, he promised, he'd tell her when he felt it wouldn't jeopardize the project.
She, for one, would take whatever he gave her.
Andrea and Michonne had both hugged Carol and Daryl as soon as they saw them. Andrea offered Carol her condolences about the baby that they'd lost, but Carol seemed to have recovered well. She told Andrea that they were very much of the hope that they'd have good news very soon and that, apparently, was what they were focusing on. They'd gotten them drinks and now everyone was settled—Milton seated in front of the semi-circle they formed, almost like a king, in the chair that Andrea frequently used to trap him in—and they waited for him to work up to actually starting his story.
"The earliest assimilation projects started very differently than they're run now," Milton said. "Originally the state of being wild was treated as a temporary psychological state caused by the trauma of everything that happened. Wilds were institutionalized, but they weren't kept in prisons like Region Thirty Three."
"They were kept in mental institutions?" Carol asked. Milton nodded to the whole of his audience.
"There was a scientist by the name of William Kreegan that worked for the government and headed up some of those early assimilation projects. In one of these institutions, he found Wild A," Milton continued.
"What happened to her?" Michonne asked.
"I think he's going to tell us, Mich," Andrea said, elbowing her partner.
"He's going to tell us the story of the creation of the world first," Michonne mumbled.
"I don't care how he wants to tell his story," Andrea hissed back. "As long as he's telling it."
Andrea apologized to Milton for the interruption and he took a moment to start again.
"Kreegan took Wild A as his own special project in the year 5 A.T. He moved her to a private facility. The facility, in actuality, was connected to his own home. He studied her extensively. He recorded everything that he observed about her. It was the most intimate study of a Wild that anyone had done—it's still the most intimate study of a Wild that anyone's done. He studied her twenty four hours a day and he set up a recording device to record her when he was sleeping or couldn't otherwise be present," Milton said.
"So she lived with him?" Andrea asked. Milton nodded his head. "Like I live with you?" He shook his head.
"I have seen Kreegan's home," Milton said. "It's—open to the public. Naturally, when I was preparing my model for Wave Thirty Three, I paid a visit there to study the place where Kreegan kept Wild A. It was—more like a cell."
"There were bars?" Michonne asked.
"Among other things," Milton said. "The barest of necessities. As a wild animal, Kreegan reasoned that Wild A had very little use for material things."
"But we have anything we want," Carol said. "Practically at the touch of a button."
Milton glanced in Carol's direction, but he made no effort to answer her in any way.
"Kreegan believed that Wild A was an animal," Andrea said. "Milton believes we're human."
Milton nodded his head, but he didn't verbally confirm or deny Andrea's guess. It was one of the changes to the model. It had to be. He spoke of a model that he was following often and its modifications. Milton's modifications, no doubt, were changes that he made to Kreegan's original method for studying Wild A. Giving them creature comforts, and getting them out of the cells that they were in, must be one of the modifications—even if they weren't allowed complete freedom yet.
"What happened?" Andrea asked. "To Wild A? What—happened with Kreegan's project?"
Milton shook his head.
"I can't tell you much more than that," he said. "None of you. Kreegan published his findings. He became something of a celebrity. He was the founder of everything that we currently know and believe about Wilds. He also kept private records, which were much more detailed than his private findings, and I acquired those records for developing the model. His public findings, however, are all that's available to the general public. All of society's most firmly held beliefs about Wilds come from those findings and, perhaps, a little media sensationalism."
"Once wild, always wild," Carol said.
Milton offered a nod of the head, though it wasn't as much to Carol as it was simply to his audience as a whole.
"That doesn't tell us anything," Michonne said, some irritation in her voice. "It doesn't tell us why we're here. It doesn't tell us what you intend to do to Andrea or any of the rest of us."
"The Wild population is at risk of being exterminated," Milton said. "Violently. Entirely eliminated from the world in whatever means possible. Because of Kreegan's research, there was already a rising up when people started to hunt Wilds as though they were dangerous animals and even as though they were trophy animals. The government got that under control, but the modern prison system became the preferred way to deal with the Wilds. The prisons are full now and they're expensive to run alongside the costs of government run capture parties."
"So it's cheaper to just kill every damn one of us. A bullet a piece," Daryl offered. He got a nod of Milton's head. "So I'ma ask the damn question, then. If they just want us dead, and they don't believe we can ever not be Wild, then why are we here? Why the hell bring us here and let us think about getting free if we're never gonna be free?"
"Wave Thirty Three was developed to counter Kreegan's discoveries," Milton said. "If you will—Wave Thirty Three will prove that there were flaws in Kreegan's findings and in what he presented to the public. His experiment was incorrectly run and its scientific grounds are—shaky. If I can prove that Kreegan's findings weren't sound, and I can manage to prove that facts were not what he presented them to be, then his findings have to be thrown out. Scientifically speaking, there has to be a new way to perceive Wilds. Every part of this project is designed with Kreegan's model in mind. Nothing we've told you has been a lie. If Wave Thirty Three is successful, you all get your freedom as promised. In addition, the information gathered and disseminated among the general population will make life better for Wilds that haven't been captured and those that will be released from prisons when you've gained your freedom and they can go through similar assimilation projects."
"And if it fails," Carol said, letting her words trail off.
"If it fails, it will result in the mass extermination of all Wilds," Milton confirmed, not that it was news to any of them.
"This is the last chance?" Daryl asked.
"It's the only chance," Milton said. "Society, as a whole, is not overly supportive of something that threatens to change the way they perceive something they believe as truth—no matter how flawed the platform on which they based their original belief system."
"What gives with the babies, though?" T-Dog asked. "If all we gotta do is prove we're human—and it sounds like Andrea could do that alone since she's Wild A's version 2.0—why push the babies so much?"
"It's part of the model," Milton said. He stood up, suddenly, and shook his head. "I can't tell you anymore at this point. Anything more would compromise the project and you would be the ones that would pay for it."
"One more thing," Andrea said, trying to plead with him using her voice. She reached a hand toward him, but she fell short of actually touching him. "Just—one more?"
Milton looked at her.
"If I can," he said.
"Fair enough," Andrea said. "What happened to Wild A? The Weather Channel says it's the year 16 A.T. Kreegan started studying her in the year 5 A.T. That's only eleven years. Where is she? What happened to her? Can you—at least tell me that?"
Milton seemed to struggle with it for a moment.
"Wild A is deceased," Milton said.
"Did Kreegan kill her?" Andrea asked.
"Wild A killed herself," Milton said.
Andrea knew better than to ask Milton why the woman might have chosen to take her own life. He wasn't going to tell her at any rate.
"Am I going to die?" Andrea asked.
"Every precaution possible will be taken against such an event," Milton said.
Andrea swallowed. It was, at least, a little reassuring to know that he hadn't lied. Her death wasn't something he desired out of all of this.
"Did you ever meet her?" Andrea asked. "It—doesn't have to do with the project," she added quickly. "Just a question. Did you ever meet Wild A?"
"I saw her twice," Milton said. "Once when she was alive. We weren't introduced because Wild A wasn't allowed interaction with anyone except Kreegan, her keepers, and a select few that Kreegan chose for the parameters of his project. I saw her again when she was dead. Her—remains—were shown for public viewing. Some were preserved and are kept for scientific purposes."
"She was studied after death, too?" Michonne asked. Milton didn't have to respond. His demeanor gave away the answer. "And you're sure you don't intend to kill Andrea?"
"I'm certain that I have no intention to study Andrea or any other Wild posthumously," Milton said. "It's unnecessary if the project goes according to plan. If the project fails, there will be ample opportunity to study Wilds posthumously. Now—I have to go to bed. You'll call for a guard to see you home."
As the final word on things, Milton left the room without saying a single thing more to any of them. All of them waited until they heard the door upstairs close—closing Milton into his private spaces of the house—to even look at one another.
"I don't feel like I know too damn much more than I started with," Daryl admitted.
"I feel better," Andrea said. She noticed everyone staring at her. "I do," she said. "At least I know that I'm not going to die. That's a relief to me if it doesn't matter to any of you...and..."
She stopped and shrugged.
"And we know that the project really is meant to get us our freedom," Carol said. "We don't know entirely how that's meant to be achieved, but we know—it's going to get us freedom."
"We just have to play by the rules," Michonne said. "That's what they keep telling us. Play by the rules. Be good. Be human. Be positive and..."
"And have babies," T-Dog said. "I still want to know why the kids matter so damn much."
"Milton's not going to tell us any more than he's already told us," Andrea said. "Not right now. I don't know Milton that well, but I know him better than any of you do. I can tell when he's not going to give anymore and he's done. But—that doesn't mean that he won't tell us later. I just have to—jump through his hoops. The more ground I cover, and the more ground we all cover, the closer we come to getting more information."
"What's the ground we gotta cover?" Daryl asked. "He didn't even tell us that."
"Because we already know it," Michonne said. "Go to work when they tell you to go to work. Get along with everybody. Love your life here if anybody asks and—have your babies. Grow families."
Daryl sighed and Andrea saw him wrap an arm around Carol's shoulders and pull her into him. It looked like the most natural action ever. It looked like they'd been married for years—and Carol responded by sinking into him and somewhat rubbing her face against him.
"We do what we gotta do," Daryl said. "Just—keep doing what we're doing."
Andrea hummed in agreement.
It was all that she could do. It was all that any of them could do. They had to simply keep doing what they were doing—learning as they reached each bend in the road where they were going next—and they had to keep their eye on the prize of freedom that they were promised was at the end of it.
She trusted Milton, but she wasn't foolish enough to believe that the story he'd shared with them wasn't just the tip of the iceberg. They had to keep going and every one of them—herself included since she'd almost fallen to it once—just had to be strong enough not to end up like Wild A and seek their own kind of freedom before the government saw fit to grant them as much.
