A/n: I'm playing around with time and events here, so if I'm confusing you—I think I've confused a lot of people with my latest chapters—I'm really sorry. It just seems like with Jo's state of mind right now which is choppy and frantic—time doesn't move the same for her like it would have if Meg hadn't been kidnapped-- and it might start to make more sense with some history. Maybe. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- She fucked it up. She really fucked it up. "We might have to pull back from this. Oh Jo, that was my only lead on this case." "Do you know if they killed the informant?" She had fucked it up so much and now... "Dammit!" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- There had been a timer on the cage, so after an hour of cursing and kicking and screaming at her bad luck, the timer had kicked in and she was now being released from her prison. Those two had been long gone. They had left and the only thing she could do was curse at their existence and riffle through their things. She found something interesting. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- "It's an address." "To?" "Some laboratory." "It's gotta be a trap." "We have no leads, I'll take a trap over a nonexistent path any day." "Jo, you shouldn't be rash." "Then what the hell am I supposed to do? Twiddle my thumbs and wait for another dickless moron to show up." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- She hadn't meant to yell. She really hadn't. It was just...she was so tired and frustrated. Sei had asked her to go and take a nap. So now she was in her room, and when the knock and the "have a goodnight" was doled out, she turned off the lights and called out her own greeting so Sei would know she was still in here. She waited a minute and then walking over to the window of her hotel room, she'd unlatched it and flung it open. A burst of cold wind hit her in the face and looking down at the thirty stories she had to descend, she realized that this was going to take a while. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The Collis Quirinalis Laboratory was an independent firm with a mysterious sponsor that majorly backed all research material and experiments. These facilities, however had been abandoned six months ago. The reason had not been disclosed to the public, but there was a good chance that the backer had pulled his funding and left the laboratory high and dry. There were six more such facilities all over America. One in Washington, California, Texas, Florida, Pennslyvania and Illinois. All of them had been either abandoned, or already bulldozed. Jo, climbing up the wall and scanning the ground below could clearly see a guard at the entrance. She didn't understand why an abandoned building would need a security system. It seems that her bad luck was finally starting to clear up. She jumped over the wall, and running along the shadows that the thick maple trees had created, she passed by the security guard and pressed herself against the wall around the corner. She could see the ledge of a window above her and using one of those huge maple trees, she was able to make it to the window and jump through to the second floor. There were rows of metal filing cabinets, each neatly separated by colored labels and numbers. There were fifteen in all. This was proabably going to take all night. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Two hours later. It was in the seventh filing cabinet with a green tab on the side that Jo had finally found something worth taking. There was a folder that had a detail by detail account of a brain transplant performed on one Jacob Kailer, a med student who'd been in a car accident a day prior to his surgery. He'd just graduated from Havard. The account was told from the senior two neurosurgeons on the job at the time, a Lucius Bask and a Maya Tsukimura. They'd gone onto explain that the surgery had been a failure due to too much trauma inflicted during the accident. He died on the operating table at 8:04 am on the 23rd of March. The year had not been given. Jacob Kailer had died, but that wasn't what had caught Jo's attention. It was the fact that he had arrived at the hospital dead and was reanimated after for two whole minutes by foreign brain matter, before passing away again. The doctors had called it a failed experiment. They'd even gone on to critisize the man's education. Calling him nothing but a "sheep" and a "vegetable." They'd even wrote something about his higher education, how he had been noted as a genius in the field of cardiosurgical procedures. They'd even written that his knowlegde should have spared him. That his brain had plenty of room to evolve, but the medicine and the sample had not taken to him. He was disposed of immediately. There were also information on another project. A project that was proclaimed as a success by other unfamiliar doctors and scientists. They kept refering to it as the Genocide Angels Prototype. There was genetical engineering involved. The DNA of hundreds of girls were specifically tweaked. Some had died in the process, some had "evolved" and others had completely gone insane. This was the overall analysis of the project. Ave Maria, our blessed Virgin has surpassed our other candidates. She is the vessel in which our hopes and dreams are carried. The Angelic Salutation is currently being withheld however due to complications on the final judgement. She will be our martyr. There were biblical context such as this popping up from time to time throughout the summary. It was most likely a coded system. Jo couldn't really tell, since this was not her forte. She would have to give this to Amy or Sei and have them figure it out, but by the mean time she had to collect more data. When she went to pick up another folder, what looked like a leather bound book had fallen out and plopped dustily down on the floor. She picked it up, inspected the old, tanned cover, unpolished and rough to the touch. It smelled like cigarettes. She played with the thin buckle that opened it before she leafed through the pages, noticing that these were all journal entries. They were logged in by a superficial method of month and date. There was still no sign of a year. On the front inside cover, there was a little note scrawled in fancy charcoal cursive lettering. It said, "To my Dearest Lucius, from your Moon Flower." 02/23 Each scientist pair is allocated the girl in which they're own genes have been placed. Testtubes will be the ideal raising conditions. They do not want the Angels to be given live birth for fear of contamination by the human mother. The testtubes will be safer. 02/25 Subject 011 and subject 013 are showing signs of albinoism. Both hair and eyes have taken on lighter pigments. 013 seems to be more affected. I did not know that we had the potential recessive genes for this trait. She is also showing potential signs of dopamine fluctuations, which is directly effecting her memory and attention span. The Professor has upped her dosage. If this is not corrected her brain's motor loop and all the nerves that move the spinal column will be in danger. She might be terminated as a possible candidate. 03/16 013 is one successive miracle after another. The Professor has ordered that she be put in isolation. Her healing and adaptive capacities are far superior than any of the other Angels. Her dopamine fluctuations still pose a threat. The doctor is pumping her diet with L-DOPA. It's up to her metabolism and central nervous system to correct her unbalanced Dopamine levels. But within a week, I believe she will put through. 05/01 I'm starting to have doubts about this project. Glenford visited us today. He was on one of his usual tirades. He doesn't understand how special 013 is. He focuses completely on Ave Maria. He's a fool. I see he's also taken a liking to Maya. He wants her to come work for him. I wish she'd just tell him to stop coming around. I'm a fool with a loose tongue. Today I accidently called 013 by the name I'd wanted to give her. The Professor said that was incredibly unprofessional and that I was in danger of losing my job if this kind of behavior persisted. I don't understand what's so wrong with wanting to give...she's practically my daughter for goodness sake! She came from Maya and me. Why shouldn't I want to give her a name? 05/23 It's barbaric what they do to these girls. I'm a monster. Maya wants to run away, and she wants to take her with us. She's suffering from the dosage. She lies comatose in bed sometimes, but she gets up by sheer will power when the drill bell sounds. It's not right. 05/30 She does not cry. I don't think she's capable of it. I've witnessed the other girls in solitary confinement. They understand there is something lacking within them and even though they have not been exposed to a normal environment in which a teenage girl should be raised, they understand they are deprived of it. They are deprived of something essential. I wonder if the Professor has a drug for this. He probably does. She, however does not recognize this feeling like the other girls. Her and 011. They do not cry like the other girls. 06/21 Maya's had a mental breakdown. Glenford the conniving snake has taken her out of the department on the excuse that it is too much for her. That is preposterous. This is a medical facility. This is the best place to treat her. He is such a fool. 07/15 Today is the day. The final judgement. Maya is at rest in a hospital in NYC. Glenford has plans to make her his secretary. How quaint he is. 013 is still suffering from her dosage levels but I know she will push on. She's like a robot. She isn't human. I finally understand that. I should have never tried to give her name. It was foolish of me...to dream. It was a pretty name though. I thought it suited her. I thought she would answer to it. I had called her by it when we were preparing them to leave for the last exercise. However she did not raise her head when I had called her Cerise. She had only stared at me blankly. I am a fool. 07/16 She is dead, but Ave Maria is neither the victor nor the loser. She is crazed. That child is so starved for affection and it's so apparent. Why does the Professor keep her on those drugs? She is bi-polar. Doesn't he see that? He's giving her the wrong drugs, and I believe he's doing it on purpose. 09/01 Ave Maria has killed a man named Carl Tekas, the doctor who is in charge of her diet. She slaughtered him in the bathroom. When we checked her room, we found another doctor, a Selena Dale, the woman had been tortured to death and was thrown under her bed. Ave Maria is insane.. She closed the book with a final sounding thump. That had been...weird. This doctor...Lucius. If she found him, she knew she would get the answers she needed. She needed to find this man. She needed to find the woman too. Finally a lead. Jo, grabbing what she needed from the cabinets, she tucked them away in her jacket, left the laboratory through the window and headed back to the hotel so she could get Amy and Sei on this pronto. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A/n: short chapter. Gomen. Just tired. I need to pass out somewhere. All the definations taken off of Wikipedia, because I'm lazy. 1)Ave Maria, another name for Mary, the mother of Jesus. I really believe that's what they named her after, because of the whole angel concept and also the play on another trinity in this story, Jo, Maria and that other girl with the black hair. For the life of me, I can't remember her name. Somebody help me out here. Was it Angelique? 2)Angelic Salutation-the Hail Mary prayer, from latin Ave Maria (Salutatio Angelica). The Catholic and orthodox prayer calling for the intercession of Mary. 3) Collis Quirinalis-one of the seven hills of Rome. They stand for the state bureaucracy. Named after Quirinus, his name derives from co-viri "men together"; as such, he embodied the military and economic strength of the Roman populus collectively. He also watched over the curia "senate house" and comitia curiata "tribal assembly", the names of which are cognate with his own. I'm making a parallel with someone.
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