What Are You Hiding? | Henry Creel / Peter Ballard / 001

Part 4 - Uncovering Secrets

"You've been handling this whole tour pretty well, Jules," Dr. Brenner comments as we reach the security room. He stops at the door, his hand landing on the doorknob.

I stop beside him, doing my best to put on a smile as I nod. Before we set off on the tour, Peter told me one thing: Do not ask Dr. Brenner any questions that would make him think I disagree with his research methods. I am free to ask Peter afterward, but I am not to ask Dr. Brenner unless, as Peter previously said, I want to get kicked out of the lab.

"Do you think you're ready to see the largest problem facing us right now?" Dr. Brenner asks, hand already having turned the doorknob as he is expecting a yes.

"Of course," I nod.

He gives me a small smile, one of somebody who knows they're about to surprise someone, as he opens the door. He leads me into the room, revealing tons of little screens of security footage. The screens look absolutely normal, nothing out of the ordinary.

"Uh... I don't get it. They're all normal."

"Yes..."  He reaches towards the panel and presses a button labeled basement. Suddenly, half the screens switch to shots of the basement of the lab - however, there's nothing normal about the basement. Flakes of some strange matter are floating around and the air appears foggy. As I work my way down the monitors, I notice one room that has a gaping hole in the middle of it, strange black tentacle-like structures growing out from the hole.

"Holy shit," I mutter as I lean in closer. "What the hell is that?"

"That is the reason why it is so hard to get into here without a clearance." 

I just shake my head, continuing to stare at the monitors in shock.

He continues, "We aren't quite sure what it is. We've been calling it the 'other world.'  From our very limited interactions in it, we believe that it is an alternate version of our world - a sinister one at that."

"How long has it been here?"

"Four days."

Four days ago was when we found El. I quickly ask, "Do you have any idea how it happened?"

"Peter said he told you about our child that ran away. She caused this occurrence, got scared - reasonably so - and ran away during the commotion. Obviously, because of the nature of this occurrence and the manner in which she was treated during her time here, she has been hiding from us. I'm trying to find her and assure her that here with us is the best place for her. It's my belief that she is the only person who holds the power to close this hole between worlds."

"You really think she is powerful enough to do that?" I ask (he explained the whole children with powers thing on our tour, and although horrified, I played along and acted chill about it).

He nods firmly. "If she had the power to create it, she must have the power to close it. My goal is to close this as soon as possible before anybody else finds out. The last thing we need is the public finding out."

"Hence all those insane confidentiality agreements."

He sighs. "Yeah, sorry about those. You and I, we are scientists; we separate logic and emotion. We understand when humanitarian sacrifices must be made for the good of the world. However, most of the world is not like us. They would see these children and think us inhumane and unethical for our treatment of them. So, you must be bound to secrecy and everything so that this information doesn't fall into the wrong hands."

"I understand."

I do not fucking understand. This guy is batshit. Even science has ethics, and he has gone well past those.