Find Me a Cure

Chapter 5: Fusion

"What the hell did you put in me?" I inquired, waking.

I was in a different room, which I'd guess was room TU001. It had much brighter lighting and silver enveloping every square millimeter of the walls.

"A drug," the iceberg replied.

"Well, duh!" I exclaimed. "What drug?"

"One that I wish kept you unconscious until 4am," his voice was the epitome of lifelessness. "Besides that, it weakens your powers." He was standing by an elongated white counter that stretched along the wall until it hit the other wall at the end. Just looking at the mess piled upon it gave me a headache. It was either that or another side effect of that evil drug.

My mind stubbornly lingered on one specific detail. "Er, what exactly happens at 4am?"

"Your termination."

Oh. Right. Forgot about that.

I glanced at the clock. It showed 2:34. My death was less than two hours away. I wriggled in under the metal straps that encaged me onto a profoundly uncomfortable chair. A sudden spoke of curiosity provided me with enough courage to ask, "why does the fusion have to take place a precisely four am?"

"The drug will place you at your weakest point at four am."

Oh, great. "So you guys were just going to spring my execution upon me like surprise, it's your death day?"

"More or less so," he said expressionlessly.

I waited for further explanation. None came.

"Well?"

He looked at me as if a bird had more cells in its brain than I did. "You were to be terminated a few months from now."

"Ah, that makes everything better," I chartered, cockily.

"But seeing as you couldn't keep yourself out of Director's office," he continued, ignoring my sardonic comment. "Things had to happen earlier than scheduled."

My eyes raked over the room; there was no one else in the room. No chemists, no security or even any of the many bodyguards that the Front had purposefully hired. Only Everest. This, at first, seemed quite foolish regarding they were planning on killing the Emerald Reese with one measly person. But then, I remembered Traitor Anne's remarkable description of this Everest's 'capabilities', as she called it. That meant, if her illustrations of his nature were true, then putting bodyguards in here would have been as useful as a defenseless lamb.

The following half an hour passed with Everest fiddling with his fancy thingymajigs, that would soon result in my death, and me doing nothing – not that there was much that I could have done, seeing as he caged me to a rather uncomfortable chair with iron belts.

My mind fluttered to the events of the past 24 hours. How everything decomposed in a flash. How friends became traitors and how people with names like 'Everest' became my doom. But why? Why kill me? I bet he knew why they were planning on killing me off.

The first time I asked him he ignored me. The second time, he also ignored me. The third time... he ignored me. But, as if I were going to give up! My life was on the line, and I wanted answers! Finally, the fourth time I repeated the same question, he turned around.

"I don't know," he simply replied.

I've got to say, my heart practically broke at that point; this guy was my only hope of finding out why Director, a man I'd have gladly depended my life with a few hours ago, turned into a backstabbing demon overnight. But, something about the simplicity of the iceberg's "I don't know" begged to differ. Of course, he knew! He was just trying to avoid the question!