"I admit, it's our fault the filth ever came here", the man said. "But forgive me. I'm getting ahead of myself. My name is Benoit." He wore a blazer over a white shirt, belted trousers and leather shoes. He looked like he went through particular effort to keep his shoes shined and his clothes clean in the middle of all this muck.
Peter grit his teeth at the casual introduction, still caked with the muck from the filth guardian. As if this guy doesn't have his goons watching our every move. As if he didn't stick us in the janitor closet of a secret underground operation.
But it was Joe who voiced his frustration, as well as Peter's. "Forget this, with the handshakes and the how are you's," he bit. "I don't care what your name is. Who are you?"
Benoit fixed Joe with a stare, but he smiled nonetheless. "Who, me? Or us?" he asked. Joe didn't answer.
"Saying 'you' wouldn't really help specify, would it," Florentine said from the back corner of the little closet. The group's captor gave a snigger, and stepped back so they could look into the room.
The small doorway opened into an improvised lab, just as pristine as the railroad tracks outside had been. A few tables had been brought in, arranged in neat rows. Measuring equipment, containers with various liquids and gases, a couple of bunsen burners and general lab equipment Peter didn't recognize were strewn about the place. A couple of the tables also had a small plastic cube with a sample of writhing filth in it. In the corner, a larger cage sat, with the larger strand of filth caked against the walls. It looked like it was ready to burst. The pseudo-scientists, unwashed men and women in grimy white labcoats with tired expressions, didn't seem worried by it. The armed enforcers they had brought with them seemed all the more nervous.
"Our little collective doesn't really have a name. My assistant has taken to calling us 'The Brotherhood', but I feel that's a tad overdramatic", Benoit said. "Agreed", Peter said.
"Collective... That might work", Benoit mused, absent for a moment, before he shook his head and continued. "We come from everywhere. Mostly the big three, some Phoenicians and even some people from the Council of Venice. Some of our names will ring bells to people who don't like to remember their mistakes. We take rejects, deserters, drifters and exiles. By-products of the maelstrom of carnage the secret war leaves in its wake."
The conviction in Benoit's voice sounded like that of a man who had fed himself marketing garbage until he believed it. Thoroughly, passionately believed it.
He knelt down onto his haunches so he was more or less at eye level with Peter, Joe and Florentine, who were leaned against the closet wall with their hands tied behind their backs. "We're the ones who got away. We're the ones you forgot, or tried to hide."
There was a brief silence as Benoit stood up. He appeared smug that he had gotten the three wise asses something to think about.
After a few moments, Florentine was the first to recover. "That's all very poetic and all, but high ideals and fancy words don't make an excuse for mass murder," she said. "It was you, the killings on those stairways, wasn't it? The filth, and letting it loose into this town?"
Benoit paused a moment, taken aback by the accusation, but then he grinned. "That was us", he confirmed. "They were homeless, worthless people, and they were in the way of progress."
"You beat them up!" Peter interrupted. "You tortured them. You let the filth loose on them. You gave them the worst deaths imaginable!" He tried to lurch forward, but the chain attached to his binds gave little leeway. The shelfcase he was tied to gave a little ground, grinding over the dusty ground of the unused walk-in closet, but then stopped him.
"Ahh, sometimes we get a little carried away", Benoit shrugged. "Who cares. Besides, we didn't let the filth out into town on purpose. You might have worked out we're developing things here. The filth, we're making it better. We can make it listen," he went on. "Wouldn't that be great? An unstoppable infection, listening to your command." His grin was almost maniacal.
"We almost had it. Those homeless degenerates were our first open field tests in an uncontrolled environment. It went great. Until it ran out of victims to kill. It turned on our soldiers. And then it escaped, out there. We cleaned up our people, of course, but we didn't bother with the hobos." Benoit smirked, knowing this information would rile up his captives even further.
"The guardian at our door has been growing restless too," he admitted. "Getting out through the ceiling. Maybe it thought we hadn't noticed. Anyway, I should thank you for getting rid of it for us. We would've had to do it ourselves before long."
"You're welcome", Peter grumbled. "Now can you at least let me wash off some of this grime?"
The conversation was interrupted by an orderly with a clipboard. He was young, in his early twenties, with a slightly freckled face and spiky dirt-blond hair. He wore comfortable, informal clothes and sneakers under his lab coat. "Mr. Leclerc, I've got the results from yesterday's testing", he said.
"Hold on a moment, Anthony. I'll be with you in a second", Benoit Leclerc said, waving the young man away.
"If you'll excuse me, my assistant needs me", he said to the trio tied up in the closet. His tone was casual, but the look in his eyes spoke murder. "I'm afraid your wash will have to wait. But I don't think it matters much, seeing as I'm going to have you killed anyway."