Chapter: 18

"That's it, that's her."

They stopped shuffling the pages and stared at the picture of the girl. Sian read the notes under the picture.

Experiment No.: 000201

Human-avian hybrid

Status: Failed

"She was a failed experiment." Sian whispered.

"Most of them are." Agent Grey waved the paper in his hand. And he was right.

After Sian showed up in the diner and Grey came out of his oh-my-god-I'm-so-happy-she's-going-to-do-it phase, they got to work. They decided that it was better to have their meeting in the diner than in any of their houses, because it was safer.

The papers were mainly lists of experiments. There were at least two hundred experiment profiles with photos. It took them about half an hour to go through them and Grey was right. Almost all of the experiments were failed.

"I don't get it." Sian finally said after going through them, "Why are they doing this? Almost all the experiments here are failed. If they're failing like this, why are they keeping it up, because it seems to me that they're useless? It's not helping them."

"I think they believe in the motto keep moving forward." Grey said. "And it's not like they always fail. They do have some successful experiments."

Sian furrowed her brows at him. "Are you backing they up?"

"No Sian. I'm just trying to figure out how their minds work."

Sian sipped her coffee and tried grasp at everything. All of these seemed too weird to be true. But then something crossed her mind.

"Wait. You said you need proofs to stand against them, right?" Grey nodded. "Then what about these?" She nodded at the papers. "There are like two hundred experiments in here, can't you use them?"

Grey shook his head. "No, Sian. These aren't enough. We need something more strong."

Sian groaned and fell back in her seat.

Grey stared at him. "Look, I…I know what I'm doing isn't right. I can't force you into doing something like this. It's too dangerous even for someone like me, a FBI agent. And I'm forcing you to do this."

"No Grey it's fine. I'm doing it in my…"

"No, listen to me first." Grey stopped her. "May be you're thinking that you'll be working with a FBI agent so you'll be fine. But that's not true." He took a deep breath before he continued. "I can't help you much because if Agent Rhodes find out I'll be dead. The best I can do is that I can give you a heads up. After that there isn't much that I can do. " He stared at her for a moment to see her reaction. "This is dangerous work Sian. You can even get killed. You as well as your family will be in danger."

Sian stared at him for a moment. "Why do I get the feeling that you want me gone?"

"I don't want you gone, I don't. Right about now, I trust you more than anyone else. But that doesn't mean that I can rule your life. You can walk away anytime you want. But I'm not giving up even if you do. I've been waiting for this chance for ten years. And now that I've got it, I'm not giving it up. If you don't do it then I'll do it even if it means that I'll get killed."

There was a long silence after that. They stared at each other for a long time, trying to figure out what the other was thinking.

"Why did you wait these long?" Sian asked finally. "Why didn't you do it before?"

Grey stared at his hand when he answered her question. "I made a promise to someone that I'd never do anything about it. I'd just wait."

"Then why are doing these now?"

"Because I'm tired of waiting." Grey looked up and looked right at her eyes. "I'm tired of sitting around and I want these fucking thing to end."

Grey was a very interesting character. Sian couldn't help but feel that there was more to him than this.

Well, duh! She thought to herself as Grey explained the layout of the building of an Itex branch. That dude is working behind the freaking FBI. Well, at least behind his boss.

But he wasn't much of eyesight. He had curly dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. He wasn't breath taking handsome, but he was good looking. He looked like he was around thirty. Over all, he looked like any normal man. But Sian couldn't help but feel there was more to him than that. He had a shady past. And he was hiding something big from her.

Sian didn't know where the feeling came from, but she was sure of it. Agent Daniel Grey was obviously hiding something from her.

But she decided to think about it later. After all, she hadn't even known Grey for one whole day. As long as he wasn't hiding something related to their work, she was fine with him.

Right now, she had to think about the breaking in plan they were doing.

They had decided that Sian was going to break in into the Itex's facility. Yep, it was a very nice move. Sian loved breaking in and trespassing. Note the sarcasm. If her mother were alive she would've had a heart attack.

"…And this is the main office." Grey tapped his finger over a rectangular area on the paper in front of them. It was a lay out of the building. "This is your main target. Get in. Get enough information to flank them. If not possible, then at least get something that you can work with. And please don't get caught."

"What if I get caught?"

"Do you want the truth or do you want me to reassure you?"

"The truth."

"You'll get ripped to pieces."

"What?" Her eyes widened.

"Yes." Grey said it like it was a simple conversation about the weather. "So, don't get caught."

Sian rubbed her eyes tiredly. She needed to be in the office in an hour. "When am I going in?"

"Anytime you want. Just give me a call before that. I'll be around."

To be honest, Sian was very good at breaking and entering. In her teenage life she was a wreck and she wasn't proud of what she did. She did everything and anything a teenager can do wrong. Well, almost all of them. She had broken in and trespassed a several times. One of the times she got caught. She had broken in and egged her school that one time and she got arrested for that. Yep, she had criminal record.

And now when she was twenty-three, she still had this pull towards bad things. But somehow she managed to distract herself with work and family and friends. She tried her best to be a good girl, because she promised her mom that she would be. She hoped her mom wouldn't be mad at her for this. It was part of the job, right? She had to do this.

But her experiences of teenage life did help when she was breaking in again after five long years. The last time she did this was when she was eighteen. She was quiet surprised to see that she still remembered everything perfectly. Grey had said that it would be easier for her, because most of their security were against inhuman beings.

Sian didn't understand what he meant at first. Then Grey just stared at her.

"Do you think this is the only time that some experiment has escaped?"

"There were more like this? But wait, if they had escaped then why would they want to come back."

"It's…it's complicated. I'm not clear with the concept either."

Grey worried her. Clearly he was lying. There was something he was hiding that she needed to know. But she had a feeling that it was connected with his past. And besides, how the heck did he know so much about them? He knew the way to their building; he knew about the security, he knew how hard was the security. But how?

He did say that he's been working over this for ten years. She tried to reason out.

She needed to concentrate in her work.

She was in in no time. She knew it wasn't right, but she couldn't help but feel smug that she was still so good in these.

No. She thought. Focus Sian.

She got in through the entrance of the ventilation system of the building. It wasn't hard really. She had a copy of the layout. So she followed it until she was over the main office. Then, she just opened the vent of the room and got in. it was night and no one was in the room, but there was obviously security guards. So she kept quiet.

There were a few computers in the room. She opened a computer and sat on the chair in front of it. Thank god there wasn't a password, so she just dived in and started to go through various files. For the first fifteen minutes she didn't find anything useful. Clearly they didn't hold anything important in this branch. Then she started to go through the experiment types again. She was about to close it off when her eyes caught something.

It was just another experiment.

Experiment no.: 000333

Human-avian Hybrid

Status: Successful

Location: Unknown

Unknown? What's that supposed to mean?

Sian looked at the photo above. It was a girl with blond hair and brown eyes. She looked about 9 or 10. Sian scrolled through the rest of the pages and with jolt she realized that after the first one five more experiments in a row showed the same status. All of them were successful and all of their locations were unknown.

Does it mean they escaped?

Sian decided that this was important. And that's when she realized her first mistake. She didn't bring any pen drive.

Really? How lame is that?

So she started to print out the pages.

She went through other files but didn't find anything until again something weird caught her eyes again. It was the name of the experiment that caught her eyes.

Experiment no.: 000401

Second generation (experiment 000333 & experiment 000390)

Status: Currently Discontinued

Location: Unknown

Okay. This one was even more confusing. There wasn't any picture of the experiment either.

She clicked on the file and there was a muffled Bing. An icon came up and showed her that she needed to type a password. Sian cursed under her breath. What was she supposed to do now?

Sian should've left it. She should've taken what she got and walked out of there. But instead she decided to give it a try.

What could possibly go wrong?

It was a six-digit password. She let her instincts take over and typed whatever she wanted to. There was a loud Bing this time and then the screen blacked out and the computer shut itself off. Also, a screeching alarm went off which generally let people know that there's intruder inside. In this case, it was she.

Well, apparently everything could go wrong.