Spilling Guts

Part 72 - Moving Bodies

Louis foxhole crawled to the end of the suffocating tube, away from the frantic heartbeat that was slowing down. A push of muscle, finally going in the right direction, propelled him on. His tiny body fell bruised and weary on the slick folds of Will's stomach. He rolled into a pebble, very aware of the continued rippling motion under and around him.

It would happen again, the pressure of stomach walls trying to shove him up and out. He was sure of it. And there was nothing he could do to stop it. Trapped in this place.

He was inside Will. He was supposed to be safe.

Waiting for the paralyzing frost in his mind to melt felt like an eternity. He anticipated the worst from the flesh moving like an slow wave around him. Then he could hear Rachel, frantic.

She commanded through the SkySprecht and from beyond the walls of the stomach, as if yelling with her mouth to Will's belly.

"Agent Patriarch! Status!"

Louis was being yelled at. Caught in a death trap and he was being yelled at. Like he hadn't just gone through the equivalent of a flesh hurricane. Of course it made him angry. He hung on to that kernel of anger to find something stronger than the residual claustrophobia.

"What. The. Fuck?"

Rachel sighed. "Status."

Louis uncurled just enough to fit a dime through his arms. "I just had Will's stomach try to push me through a tiny tube the wrong way, what do you think my status is!?"

"Any broken or dislocated limbs?"

"I don' t think so." Louis uncurled more, like a wary armadillo. His limbs ached, but not to a debilitating degree.

Yay, I win this round. Will's body, zero. Myself, one.

Louis suddenly silenced and listened, making sure the body around him still had a heartbeat. It did. Slow and stubborn.

"What the fuck happened?"

"I have no idea."

***

"Was he seeing things?" asked Louis.

Rachel cleaned the blood off Will's face with a tissue. Though heavily sedated, she kept Will in the recovery position. "I couldn't tell. We'll find out when Will wakes up."

"This can't be a coincidence," pleaded Louis. "Has he been sleeping badly?"

Rachel shook her head. Of course he would bring that up. The mistake she made and was reminded of every time she glanced over at Louis' report on her desk. And, despite his exam before the test being adequate, Will had looked haggard lately.

"You're thinking about the Devil's Neckbrace; that the effects are delayed."

"Yes."

Rachel wanted to protest that Louis' theory, though fitting many symptoms, was a stretch. But even she couldn't remain blind.

She looked at the tangled cords, the fallen tripod, and vomit on the floor of the BT. She would have to clean all this up herself. She had to turn the BT-10 off. Tell the Hive to watch the electrical grid. Process all the scans and video footage. And then try to scrape together data from an incomplete test to appease Harrison.

She couldn't edit evidence to make a preferred outcome, even if it could get Watch One off her back. And, of course, they had their screw up on high-speed camera from four angles. They would know she hadn't gotten the test done.

The test she had been so keen on because it might have gotten more support to research and evaluate the Devil's Neckbrace. And the Devil's Neckbrace likely screwed the test subject.

Alanis Morissette wrote a song about this.

Will shoulders twitched under Rachel's hands. Was he dreaming?

Screw Harrison's shitty test. This is more important.

"I'm thinking you're right."

***

Cetz glared at the disaster duo of Agents Beni and Reese as they attempted wielding a handheld vacuum to pick up the confetti and glitter from on and around Will's desk. Footprints already trailed glitter past the boundaries of Main Tech, like a plague.

At least Beni and Reese looked guilty.

When Megan and Teegan came by to check in at their desks, they took one look at the chaos, smirked, and left.

A puff of blue glitter had settled on Louis' desk. Beni and Reese attacked it as if Louis would show up behind them like a horror villain. Beni swept the nozzle over keyboard, drawer handles, and screen while Reese used a ball of putty to pick up any leftover debris.

The stack of patent files, leaning tall and proud like the hubristic tower of Babylon, toppled. Files spilled over desktop, chair, floor; some even glided to the edge of Main Tech. And landed at Cetz's feet.

"Fuck," hissed Beni.

"For the love of Mary and all the whores of Sodom!" grumbled Reese.

Cetz was tempted to wash his hands of the mess and say "you spill it, you input it!" He had a Hive and it's slumbering leader to check on.

Instead, his headset beeped.

Rachel, sounding bleak and flat as a desert. "Cetz?"

"Hi. Test done already?"

"I need your help moving a body."

Oh no. Cetz turned away from Main Tech. "Is everyone-"

"Alive, mostly fine, but Will is unconscious and I need help putting him on a gurney. And I can't call in an orderly."

He nearly asked if Louis couldn't help her, then he remembered where Louis could be during a Test Day. He walked away from Main Tech, a beat of "hurry the fuck up" in his step.

"Be right down."

Rachel sucked in a breath, hesitating. Then, "Bring Balcuwitz with you."