Content with her social interaction for the day, Gabriele had blown off the rest of the tour in favor of getting in a decent amount of sleep, instead of living with the twenty minute nap she earlier. She was well above of the amenities present in the large concrete building and anything she didn't know could wait until the next day. She had slept through the entire afternoon and into the night before being thrown awake by memories of the past. No longer tired, Gabriele climbed out of the small simple bed and didn't bother to put shoes on or change out of the grey sweatpants or black tank top she had slept in before leaving the nondescript bedroom located on the second floor.
She patted her messy hair down as she walked through the halls, headed towards the elevator. Her bare feet made little sound against the tile floor as she pressed the down button more times than necessary. As the arrow lit up, she heard more footsteps headed her way. She pressed the button more times, hoping the door would open and she could disappear inside before anyone saw her. What if it was Bridge? She held the button down. But the elevator was too slow.
First, she spotted Charles appear from the hallway to her right. But motion to her left drew her eyes away to the hallway on the left side of the elevator where Erik had appear. Both men were still dressed in the same clothes they had been wearing earlier and each had been walking in the opposite direction. The three of them stared at each other in silence for a moment.
"Where are you going?" Charles finally asked, through Gabriele didn't think the question was necessarily directed at her. The elevator still had not arrived.
Erik nodded in the direction he was headed. "The gym."
"The gym's that way." Charles said, pointing the way Erik had just come from.
"Where are you going?" Erik fired back. Gabriele was tempted to take the stairs.
Charles shrugged. "I was going to make a cup of tea."
"But the kitchen's that way." Erik corrected, pointing at the hallway behind Charles.
Finally, the elevator doors dinged open and Gabriele dashed inside, but not before departing some clarify information on the men standing awkwardly in the hallway. "The gym is downstairs!" Safety alone inside the elevator, she calmly pressed the button for the basement, where the division's small shooting range was located.
After running into Charles in his attempt to sneak out, Erik decided to double back and wait. He wondered the building, half in search of Gabriele, until he found himself in the basement. The room was narrow but ran the length of the entire building. The farthest wall was sloped to help absorb the oncoming bullets. The shooting line was made for five but none were occupied except the station in the middle where Gabriele reloaded a small pistol before sending the paper target zooming down the track that ran along the ceiling until it was her desired distance.
She was dressed in a pair of grey sweatpants and bare footed. The tight black tank top left her limbs exposed and judging by her hair, which was untidy and stuck out in all directions, Gabriele had just gotten out of bed. She didn't wear any eye or ear protection, not that she really needed any, Erik figured. He leaned against the wall as she pulled the trigger in quick succession ten times. He felt the pieces of metal spin through the air, cut through the thin paper before colliding with the far wall.
Gabriele pushed the empty magazine out of the gun and tossed it aside before turning around. "Can I help you?" She asked, sounding almost like an annoyed flight attendant. Just then, elevator dinged open and Charles joined them. Gabriele's already sour face worsened. "Shouldn't you two be sleeping?" She asked, but more softly this time.
"Says the woman shooting guns at one in the morning." Erik noted, dodging her question as Charles walked further into the room and took a seat at one of the tables in the corner.
"I have a very irregular sleeping schedule." Gabriele stated before pressing the button to bring her target back to the shooting line. Erik could make out three holes in the target's chest, just above the heart, while an indistinguishable amount had cut through the head area. "This is neither the gym nor the kitchen. What do you two want?"
Erik had questions. The past day had been chaotic and exhausting and he should have been darting out the door with his stolen files in search of Shaw. But instead he was in the basement, starting at a fellow mutant and Holocaust survivor. "How did you come to be here?"
The woman quirked an eyebrow. "You mean as a mutant employed secretly by the United States federal as a spy?" Erik nodded. Gabriele bowed her head before hopping up to sit on the shooting line counter, her gun forgotten beside her. "Sit down. I'm only saying this once."
Gabriele treated the story the same why she would treat a dislocated shoulder. Just deal with it quickly, endure the short lived pain and then move on. Erik finally moved away from the way and took a seat, as far away as possible for Charles, she noticed. She lowered her eyes to the floor before beginning. "They put me through the gas chamber three before they gave up. The first time was with my mother. She was the only family I had left. My father and brother had died on the train to the Belzec death camp. I held my mother's hand as we were ushered into the showers. She never spoke a word or even looked at me. She had died a long time before the Nazis started pumping their poisonous gas into the chamber."
"But I stood in that room unharmed, physically at least, and watched as my mother died, suffocated on her blood. After a few minutes all the screaming stop. The next two times were just the same. Screaming, coughing and then silence. While I cowered in the corner, eyes turned away from all the bodies, wishing that God would let me die with them. After the third time, they put me in front of a firing squad. When that didn't work, they sent me to the doctors. And then to Mauthausen in Austria. I got my own private train compartment that time."
"At first my mutation was simple. Rapid healing and cell replacement. But after all the abuse and experiments by the Nazi doctors, my genes adapted. If no one could touch me, then no one could hurt me. I guess evolution couldn't foresee the use of gloves." Gabriele gave a soft, hollow laugh but still didn't remove her eyes from the floor.
"Eichmann oversaw everything they did to me. He was nearly obsessed. I never really figured out why. But he let me sleep in a small private bedroom away from the rest of the prisoners and he gave me books to read and it almost made things bearable. Almost. But when the Americans liberated the camp, I was allowed to leave my comfortable cell and I finally remained of what Eichmann and the Nazi's had done to my people."
"I had nothing. My entire family was dead. The Nazis had confiscated all our property before sending us east to the camps. There was nothing left in Germany for me. The country itself was broken. So, after the Americans found my files and learned the truth about me, they offered to take me back across the Atlantic with them. So, I agreed. I changed my name and after years of training and schooling, I'm here."
