The Changed: Origins

Beginnings

It was dark outside the big windows now and the lights of the city twinkled below us. Our footsteps on the tile floor bounced off the walls and made it sound like we were being followed. I fought the urge to look over my shoulder. I was tired that was all. I was also cautiously optimistic about what had been done. I still expected anger from some people, maybe even people I knew, but I was confident I had done the very best I could. For the moment I would have to be satisfied with that. I missed the others. I wanted to be gone from here.

"There is something I need to tell you Jemma." Her serious tone drew my attention. When I looked her stern face was pinched in thought. "I have been trying to drop hints but you haven't caught on so I guess I just need to come out and tell you." She looked at me and narrowed her eyes. "I could lose my job for telling you this."

"I don't want..."

"It doesn't matter. You need to know." She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than me. "You have a snitch in that big house of yours."

"...What?"

"Someone from inside your group has been feeding us information. And before you ask, I don't know who. I have never been around when the calls actually happen, I just get the information secondhand." She sighed and looked over at me. "I'm sorry Jemma. It's how we knew to set an ambush on the changer Sean and when to show up that first night. We knew some of you were gone. It's how I knew your last name even though you didn't tell me."

"And our abilities?"

She shook her head. "No, we never knew that. Whoever this person is they wouldn't divulge that." We had reached the elevators.

"This is..."  Agent Knoll had stopped and was looking around the hall confused. "What is it, what's wrong?" I asked.

"I don't know, maybe nothing. The power to the elevator is out. Could just be a power issue." She pulled out her radio and tried to raise the other agents. She got no answer. She looked at me in alarm. "Come on, stairs. We have to get outside."

We only made it down a few flights before we heard voices. The echos in the stairwell made it impossible to tell whether they were above or below us. She drug me onto a landing and held her finger to her lips. She drew her gun and held it at her side as she crept to the banister and looked over. She came back quickly.

"There are people down there coming toward us." She whispered.

"Who?"

She shook her head, "I don't know but I doubt they're friendly."

"What are we going to do?"

She looked around. She was obviously worried but still calm. I was very grateful for that. "We will have to find another way down" She finally said. "There have to be other stairs. Maybe they're not all guarded. We will get out here and find another way down." But when she tried the door behind us it was locked. "Great. Ok, back up then."

But every door we tried was locked. I felt my heart sink a little with every door we tried. I thought I could hear footsteps right behind me every time we moved. We finally found ourselves back on the floor where we started. She stopped me again and motioned me back while she cracked the door to look. She pulled the door open and waved me on.

The floor was dark now, we made our way by the light coming through the big windows. We were almost back to the room we had met in when people started to materialize around us. I couldn't see where they were coming from or how many there were. Agent Knoll stopped and directed her gun at the figure closest to us. I inched toward her but I had no ideas how I was going to stop her from getting shot from every direction. The men finally stopped moving but did not move forward or fire at us. The only sound was our heavy breathing.