Fighting to keep her breathing even, Clarke carefully drew back from the wild-eyed man strapped to the gurney. Cognisant of the sharp gaze of the person next to her, she fought down her anger and disgust.
"Well?" Clarke nodded quickly, looking up to meet the cold, sunken eyes of Cage Wallace.
"I agree with Dr. Tsing's assessment, sir." Cage was visibly annoyed. Being told that operations needed to halt for the day was never a good thing.
"I don't understand why you were brought in to tell us what we already know. My father -" (Clarke was still unsure if the President of Mount Weather, Dante Wallace, was aware of just how far his son had taken his 'experiments') "-expects results based on this batch of serum. If this one can't proceed, we'll have to dispose of him." At those words, the man began to thrash in earnest. Cage looked dispassionately down and Clarke struggled to form a solution, choosing her words and tone of voice carefully.
"Don't be so dramatic. Tsing probably just started him too early." Cage looked up at her. In the month or so Clarke had been infiltrating the compound, she'd needed to pull at all her knowledge from nursing school, and recall some information she'd gleaned from simply from being in hospitals so much when she was younger and her mother had long shifts.
Clarke's knowledge of the Mount Weather facility, her medical background, and her propensity for getting out of tight spots had made her an excellent candidate for this mission. Of course, she wasn't the only person who could have done it - there were probably hundreds of qualified and able-bodied men and women who might have been sent in. But when Nia Frost was assigned to put a team together to determine to what extent Mount Weather was using true 'volunteers' for trials of their pharmaceuticals, she'd chosen Clarke because Clarke was a person she could manipulate. And Nia had her own agenda that conveniently aligned with the mission.
Clarke gestured to the track marks on the man's arm, then picked up his medical history chart as she started to speak.
"Sir, he probably wasn't completely clean when he was brought in." Cage glanced briefly at the man strapped down before waving a hand in apparent dismissal, not even glancing at the device Clarke offered (Clarke was glad, because his chart said he'd been at the facility for over a month, which was plenty of time to begin testing).
"Take him back to recovery then. I'll be with Tsing when the next one is prepped." He left Clarke in the room without another word.
Clarke waited until the door was fully closed behind him before moving to release the restraints. It seemed that all the struggling had drained the man of his fight, but she kept a wary eye on him as she worked. Her first few days working the lower levels had made her cautious of false meekness - she'd had to reset her own nose and the back eye was just beginning to fade from where a woman (she refused to call them 'subjects') had fought back.
Once the final restraint was undone, she hefted one of the shaking man's arms over her her shoulder and hauled him to his feet. Luckily, he was slight and able to support some of his own weight. As they exited the door and were flanked by two more guards, Clarke heard him muttering to himself.
"Heavenly Father, forgive me my sins and release me from my demons, so that I may…" Clarke tuned him out as they reached the infirmary door. She deposited him on a bed and stepped back as one of the other guards strapped him down again. The man met her eyes again just before she turned around, speaking louder. "I'll pray for your soul." Clarke set her jaw and turned, walking quickly away.
C.G.C.G.C.G.
"Status?" Nia's harsh tone was no-nonsense and made Clarke's skin crawl, even over a phone.
"I still only have level 4 clearance." There was silence for a beat.
"Griffin, you need to up your commitment."
"It takes time to gain trust."
"You have 24 hours to up that clearance." Clarke scoffed.
"That's impossible, it's taken me weeks to get this far. I have full access to the infirmary level, let me…" Nia cut her off.
"Need I remind you what is riding on this mission?" It wasn't a reminder, but a threat. Clarke clenched her fist, feeling her fingernails digging into her palm.
"No." The word escaped.
"Good. 24 hours, Griffin." The line went dead.
C.G.C.G.C.G.
"Rise and shine, Princess." The voice was low and coarse, but not unexpected. She'd been off duty for five hours, ostensibly resting in her room. She was in her room, but she was trying desperately to review all she knew and trying to think of a way to gain a higher security clearance. She glared at the guard.
"Carl Emerson, Mount Weather security detail." He smirked, his eyes brimming with malicious intent. Emerson was Cage Wallace's most sycophantic follower. Clarke had been internally debating whether she despised Cage, Tsing, or Emerson more. Emerson was a mad dog, barely leashed. In the brief time she'd spent with Emori, Clarke had heard awful stories about him: Emerson was the reason Emori no longer had one hand.
Emerson ignored the sarcastic tone of her voice (if he could even tell) and loomed closer. "You're wanted in the control room." There was glee in his voice, which could never be a good thing. Clarke nodded, standing up and walking around him out of the room, causing him to curse behind her and hurry to match stride.
As they walked, Clarke tried to think of any reason she'd be called to the control room - she hadn't been there since she was introduced to Dante as a medical guard. Hearing Emerson's quicker-than-normal breathing, she guessed something big was happening.
"You were right about lab duty," she broached. A pause in his step was his only reaction. She went on, "repetitive and boring."
He didn't answer, which was out of the norm. Emerson loved the sound of his own voice, and he wasn't particularly good at leashing his reactions. She tried again.
"You've been on recruitment, right?" She caught his wide smile out the corner of her eye, but didn't turn to look at him, feigning the disinterest that may get him talking. It worked.
"Just got back with a fresh batch this afternoon." She waited for him to go on, and he did. "You'll get the chance to assess them this afternoon with Tsing." There was a small knot that unwound itself within her at this - seemed that she hadn't been made.
"That's good. Wallace and I were scraping the bottom of the barrell this week. Had a junkie last night." They turned down the corridor to the control room and he sped up his steps to enter through the door ahead of her. It was a challenge not to roll her eyes, but she managed it.
She couldn't school her expression of shock as she entered the control room and found the older Wallace, Dante, being held at gunpoint by his son. She did manage to snap her jaw shut before she spat out words that may get her killed. Cage hadn't looked up as they entered, and Emerson's back was to her as he strode around to flank his boss. Dante did notice her shock, and blinked at her in something like hope.
"Sir?" She asked, looking directly at Cage. Any idiot could see that there was some sort of coup happening, and she needed Cage to trust her, as it seemed he had all of the power at this moment. Both Cage and Emerson glanced at her to verify to whom she was talking.
"Emerson thought you'd fight for my father," Cage stated as he put his pistol away.
"You were the one that hired me." Clarke was impressed that her voice was steady and crisp.
"We were under the impression that your...female tendencies...would align your morals differently." Clarke was grateful she'd heard some version of this - many times, in fact - and was able to quash her knee-jerk reaction.
"No, sir." Was all she said. Cage tilted his head at her before dispassionately pulling the trigger on his father. Clarke briefly saw Finn's face before she forced herself back to the present. Together, she and Emerson dragged the elder Wallace to the morgue (Tsing loved to cut open the dead for 'science'), and that was the simple way she earned her level 5 clearance.
C.G.C.G.C.G.
There was a shift after the coup in the focus of the research at Mount Weather. Most of the staff received the story that Dante Wallace had suffered a major stroke, and had ceded leadership to his son. Cage had crafted his company persona so well that when he announced a state-of-the art new facility, no one suspected that it was a front. Most employees breathed in a moral sigh of relief when they arrived at the new building (all above-ground) and there were no restricted areas. Outwardly, Cage was putting an end to the objectionable rumors.
But there was a shift in the other direction as well, as Cage's most loyal employees remained at the older building, where a new partnership was developed to start work on a drug to enhance performance and loyalty, especially in soldiers.
Clarke had been only moderately surprised to learn that Dr. Tsing had been working on the project for a long time. While most of the building's employees were being 'reassigned', Tsing was overseeing the production of the new drug she just called 'RED'.
On the day that the drug was to be privately unveiled, Clarke was assigned to escort a group of investors down to the labs. When she met the group she was shocked to see Nia Frost in her full Dress Blues. Nia met her eye only briefly, where she sent Clarke a satisfied smirk that immediately had Clarke's stomach nauseous. She had been reporting her initial findings on Tsing's new drug, and Nia had seemed unusually interested.
Cage, who had been spending most of his time at the newer facility for deceptive purpose, met them at the door to the lowest levels.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he started, and Clarke immediately tuned him out, only catching phrases like 'momentous occasion' and 'years of hard work' as she fought to connect everything. She'd known Nia had her own agenda, but being an actual investor? And here in uniform? She couldn't decide whether that meant that the military was actually endorsing this research or if Nia was planning on using Mount Weather for some other purpose. As Cage wrapped up a clearly prepared speech, Clarke decided it was possible that it was a both, and that knowledge did not sit well. They walked through two more checkpoints before arriving at a viewing window into a room that held a large man in restraints. Tsing was inside the room, and nodded in greeting.
"We've been developing and researching RED for two years now, studying the effect that various components have on the human body. This final substance is very addictive, nearly all-consuming, and decreases pain felt by the subject to a negligible level. It also causes them to be able to only process simple commands, and until that command is complete, they are nearly unstoppable."
The shackled man was looking directly up at Tsing, who held a syringe filled with the drug. His eyes were glassy and bulging, and he strained against the cuffs holding him to the wall.
"This subject has been denied the RED nearly to the point of withdrawal - preliminary tests show that the strongest bodies only last about a week before the drug starts to leave their system and they start to weaken."
What followed was Tsing's demonstration. Clarke did her best to block it from her mind. In the end, the man received a new injection and collapsed in bliss, body covered in sweat and blood from the large animal he'd slaughtered with his bare hands. At least two of the investors retched. Nia was not one of them.
As she walked the group back up to the surface (there had been a long question and answer session and a small tour), Nia slipped Clarke a new phone. In her room later that evening, Clarke turned it on to the instructions:
Destroy any previous evidence, photo proof. Clarke had been expecting this for a while. She'd been secretly taking photos throughout her time, trying to build a case from the inside of the atrocious practices of the organization. As her assignment had lengthened, it'd become clear that Nia was less concerned about gathering evidence. Nia may have been threatening her to take the assignment, but Clarke was doing her best to adapt to the situation as it unfolded. Now it was clear that, at the very least, Nia supported the research going on at Mount Weather.
Clarke sent Nia three photos that evening - a photo of the photo library she'd amassed on her other phone, one of the SD card in the phone, and a third of her old phone and the SD card deconstructed beyond repair. Nia need not know of her back-up, nor of the final coded message she sent out - hopefully Murphy got it.
She needed a new plan, and Lexa was looking like her best option.
