Disclaimer: I neither own the Gundam Enterprise, nor will I ever. I do, however, own this story and any and all characters of my own devising.
The Line Between
All cats seem grey in the dark.
-Anonymous
Prologue: All Cats are Grey
Night was falling fast, and the majority of the employees working at Syntax laboratories had already left for home. Even the most stolid of workaholics were securing their experiments until they could resume their research in the morning. Manuella Santos watched from the door to her tiny cubicle as they scurried past. Their like ants, always rushing, always moving, but never really looking out for what's ahead. Work, work, work, for the good of the colony. The individual can go screw itself. She shook her head.
A wave of bitterness arose inside of her. Six years of working the graveyard shift and what do I have to show for it? A measly paycheck every two weeks, for what I have to go through night after night I should be living the good life right now. Lounging on some pink sand beach somewhere next to my multi-million dollar mansion. Her smoker's lungs convulsed in what should have been a laugh but somehow ended up as a hacking cough.The bluish bruises beneath her squinty eyes made her eyes seem like wrinkled raisins peeking out of her sagging face. She shifted her heavy bulk from one foot to the other. There was a time when she would swear to herself that she'd lay off the fried chicken and fast-food mush. Somehow it didn't matter nearly as much to her now that she was almost always alone at nights. Day-dreams of hot and sweaty flings with a faceless cabana boy had eased into frustration and the pretense that she couldn't care less. She watched another tall neatly dressed executive swipe his card and stride through the revolving doors to a sunset drenched freedom.
A shuffling behind her reminded her that she was not alone. Dammit Farnsworth. Fuckin' prick leaving me to look after the fuckin' students. She wanted to scream. I'm not a goddamm baby-sitter. Instead she turned around to glare at the three interns who were to spend the rest of the night observing her. Her thin mouth tightened into a grimace.
"Since we're gonna be spending the next eight hours together, I might as well have your names." Her callous introduction left the three young people in front of her stunned into silence. "You, girl," The girl looked up, eyes wide and startled. "Your name, what is it?" She fumbled with her glasses for a moment before stammering, "Meredith Gianno, Ma'am."
Manuella turned her icy gaze to the man standing beside her. He made a pathetic picture. His hair was plastered to his skull with god knows what sort of gel, squinty eyes of an indefinite color were magnified to a bug like size behind his coke bottle glasses, and the legs of his pants were far too long for him and rolled up twice so they wouldn't be dirtied by touching the pristine floor. "Malcolm, M-Malcolm Boudreaux." Panicky hands flew immediately to straiten his hopeless rag of a tie. His forehead was already drenched with sweat that he mopped up quickly using a yellowed handkerchief. His entire body slumped once her gaze had left his, he was clearly uncomfortable.
She turned to face the last intern, giving him a look that said that he wasn't worth the gum stuck to the bottom of her grey tennis shoes. He glared right back at her, unflinching, obviously used to being in a position of power. "My name Ms…" He glance at her badge, "Santos, is Henry Irving Wallace Pembroke the fourth. Surely you've heard of my family, as we host the annual Christmas ball for Syntax Enterprises every year. My father is on the governing council." Now to be completely truthful, Manuella had never heard of the Pembroke's before, and she had never been invited to the Christmas ball either. Both of these points irked her, but she would die before some snotty nosed runt would think her impressed by the sheer length of his name.
There was another thing that bothered Manuella. All three of them were graduates of Ivy-League schools from across the nation, "And", she thought, "They would have had at least a dozen offers of promotion given several months time. They'll be getting the big money while I'm still here, at the bottom of the food chain." She laughed, if you could call it that. In all reality it was a heaving of her pronounced bosom accompanied by a sort of rasping cough. She ignored the odd looks the interns gave her. She sneered at them. Sure they might become big-shots soon, but for now…now they were beneath her. And knowing that fact, made Manuella feel very, very, powerful.
"What are you three staring at? Its seven forty-five," She checked her watch, "Seems to me you three are late getting to work."
"B-but Ma'am you never tol-"
A bone chilling scream cut off all conversation. Manuella's face turned a sickly green, and sweat oozed like oil from her forehead.
The intern, who seemed to be so proud of his name, stared at Manuella, his brow furrowing in worried lines. "What was that?" He demanded.
Instead of answering Manuella hurried her bulk to her desk, jerked open one of the drawers and grabbed her ID tag with her pudgy fingers and hurried to a stainless steel pair of doors. The interns followed her like sheep. Above the doors, painted in wide letters the sign read "Paranormal Studies: Experimental Sector One." The hoarse screams were reverberating off of the spartan walls. A beep signaled the opening of the doors, and the screaming grew louder. The sound of their heels clicking on the newly waxed floor meshed with the other, assaulted their ears. The fluorescent lighting above their heads flickered.
"Is it an animal?" Meredith asked as she tugged on a lock of her white-blonde hair nervously.
Manuella turned down another hall way and paused in front of a medicine cabinet. Once again she swiped her card and with a click, the glass door opened. Her hands shook as she rifled through the experimental medication until she found what she needed. She grabbed a syringe and filled it completely with the liquid tranquilizer she was holding, emptying the bottle. Once done she turned to face the group finally answering the girl's question. Disgust showed on her face. "No, but it might as well be. It's experiment X96203. Now, don't move. None of you have clearance to pass beyond this point."
She walked down the hall to a door that was secluded from the rest. Once again she swiped her card, as the heavy metal door swung open the ear-splitting scream rose up in a wave forcing the three to cover their ears, their screams joining with the first. Red blood oozed through Malcolm's hands. The building shivered, and the window to the glass cabinet behind them exploded into dangerous shards. The door swung closed again, and the lock clanged into place, and still they could hear the screaming as well as the stocky nurse's rasping voice. Then, just as suddenly as it began, the horrible screaming stopped and complete and utter silence fell like a heavy curtain on the corridor. Malcolm sobbed quietly, as the other two tried to help him to stand again. The lock turned slowly and the tumblers fell into place with a metallic clank, and Manuella emerged. Her face was now slick with sweat, and a dark grey-green color. Her huge chest heaved with each breath, her heart was racing. She looked at them blankly, then, slowly the embittered soul returned, but this time she was somehow colder, more distant.
"I'm afraid," she intoned calmly, "that I am going to have to call my supervisor. And as of now I think it is safe to say that we no longer have any need of you at the moment, your internships will be officially revoked in three days time. Until then, you are not to return to work here, nor are you to tell anyone what you have seen or heard. If you do, we will hear of it, and I can assure you that you will have great reason to regret what you have done."
The implied threat still hung in the air as she turned her back and walked haltingly back down the hallway.