InsaneJournal

Unsetlling
Even with having to wait for Dr. Espinoza to meet with her, Jill couldn't hide the smile on her face. After all, it wasn't every day one got to see the United States military in action, taking down a large fire-breathing monster with a swiftness and efficiency unlike anything the agent had seen from someone who wasn't gifted with supernatural powers. The more Jill learned of the reality on the other side of the Lincoln Park barricade, the more she was starting to get a sense for what the FBI wanted her to do.

It didn't make that job any easier, but at least Jill now knew what that job was.

The agent waited in one of the lobbies at Argonne, knowing Dr. Joaquin Espinoza would meet with her and maybe show her one of the specimens being held in captivity. Seeing some of the mutants "in the wild," so to speak, had been an eye-opening experience, and Jill wanted to know just what the military and its scientists did with the ones they captured. Jill already knew the cause; now she wanted to see the effect.

Even if it meant seeing some potentially grotesque and scary things. That thought didn't really bother Jill; a lot of things didn't seem quite so scary anymore after the agent spent nearly a decade with Wolfram & Hart. She stared David Gregor in the eye twice and cut him down, so as far as Jill was concerned, some monsters weren't going to make her shake in her incredibly expensive shoes.

Joaquin Espinoza was a genius.

Born in Havana, he emigrated to the States as a toddler when his parents fled Castro's regime in a barely-seaworthy tugboat. Landing in Florida, the family was detained by the government while they applied for and were granted asylum. He became a naturalized citizen at the age of four and got his education in American schools. Intelligent and curious, he made his early mark in science courses, and once he graduated from high school he was offered a full scholarship to attend Northwestern University. Upon graduation, he accepted a job with the Pentagon, researching the effects of both natural and unnatural medical conditions inflicted on the human body.

Plainly put, mutations.

The Lincoln Park incident had attracted quite a lot of attention, and when Espinoza got word that he was to be transferred to Illinois to head up a long-term research project on the outcome of a mysterious portal opening up and infecting a large portion of the residents, he considered it to be the jewel in his crown. Not only was he given free reign to recruit the most promising technicians and lab workers for his staff, he didn't report directly to anyone except for a few highly-placed military personnel. Even when the hard data started to dry up, what with no one being allowed within the quarantined zone to investigate, the doctor continued his work doggedly.

Espinoza was a small, neat man with short-cropped dark hair and a mustache he was always smoothing with his index finger. He was currently sitting in front of a computer terminal, recording some of the results from his latest round of tests. The keys on the high-tech machine were almost silent, the screen flickering softly as he typed. Only the best money could buy for the brightest star on staff. Given time, he'd be able to publish his work, at least in certain quarters. Theories were all very nice, but this was the real deal.

This was science.

"Dr. Espinoza is busy entering data into the database," a blonde woman behind the receptionist desk told Jill. "You can go back. Should be the first door on your right."

"Thank you," the agent said with a pleasant smile as she rose and passed through the door that opened for her. Jill noticed the console to the right for a keycard, wondering if her FBI clearance would be enough to get her through these doors on her own. Probably not, if the receptionist had to open them for her; Jill would have to look into having that rectified the next time she spoke with Maureen.

The walls were incredibly drab on this side of the doors, which Jill guessed wasn't a shock. She knew she was entering a laboratory of sorts, complete with white lab coats and plain white walls and lots of incredibly smart-looking people staring at things and nodding. Dr. Espinoza was apparently one of the brightest minds in the United States when it came to mutation, and his notes located in the file Jill read were the reason she wanted to speak with him.

Recognizing the moustached man from the picture in the file, Jill took that first right, approaching the computer without wanting to intrude. "Excuse me," she said with a cringe, extending her hand. "Dr. Espinoza? Jill Andersen, with the FBI."

"One moment, por favor."

Espinoza's voice still contained more than a trace of an accent despite his years in the United States, and he glanced back at the notebook he was transcribing from before typing out the last few sentences in the paragraph he'd started. Once he'd begun this sort of work, it was better to keep it up until he'd reached a findable stopping point or else he'd forget what he'd last recorded.

Satisfied with his progress, the doctor pushed his wheeled chair away from the desk a bit, then rubbed his eyes with one hand before accepting the agent's handshake. "Good ... morning? Afternoon? My apologies, Agent Andersen, I do not wear a watch or keep a clock down here because I find that it distracts to constantly be checking the time. Dr. Forbes told me you would be visiting. I hope you didn't have any trouble getting past the many security points outside."

"No trouble at all," Jill answered with a grin. "The benefits of military escort. Pretty much get in wherever you want."

The agent glanced around the office, noting how it was about as drab -- if not more so -- than the halls leading to it. Maybe the doctor's explanation about distractions extended to office decor; Jill knew she could never work under such colorless conditions. Then again, she wasn't one of the sharpest scientific minds at the country's disposal, so she figured she could get away with picture frames, flowers and her faded Orioles cap -- things she now treasured above nearly all else, as they tethered her to the realm of humanity. Now that Jill found her way back to it, she never wanted to leave again.

"I was told you have some specimens from Community Area 7 held here. The FBI put me on the Lincoln Park case, and I'd like to see them, if you don't mind."

The Cuban's reserved smile warmed, became more open. He touched his mustache lightly, smoothed it down, then got out of the chair, which squeaked a little when he removed his weight from the seat. Of all the things he loved about his adopted home, the ability to truly explore his chosen field was at the top of the list. He closed his notebook with one hand, eyed the computer screen before shutting the terminal off. He never knew how long he'd be away when someone requested to see the other side of his work.

"One of them died last week," he told Jill in a low voice, stepping around her to get to his identification badge, which he'd set aside because the plastic casing rattled annoyingly against the keyboard while he was trying to type. "I have suggested that an excursion be made into the quarantined area to extract more specimens, but I cannot get the military to agree. So much time has gone by, they do not know what they would be dealing with. Still, it does make some things more difficult."

He put the badge on his spotless white coat, led the agent down the hall to an inner door. As the senior man on the project, he had clearance to come and go as necessary, and as he and Jill passed over the threshold he said, "I must caution you to stay away from the cells. The subjects are ... unpredictable at best. We keep most of them under sedation unless we are actively working with them."

Jill didn't have to be told twice. Already aware some of the mutants were aggressive, Jill figured she should be careful when seeing the specimens -- even in such a regimented, controlled environment, all it took was one creature to do something unexpected to throw a monkey wrench into everything. The agent frowned, realizing her years at Wolfram & Hart were coming in more and more handy in this job by the day. As much as Jill wanted to put all that behind her, there were certain things she'd never be able to shake.

"The commandos shot down a large one today in the quarantine zone," she said. "A fire breather. I figured they'd bring the remains here for research, but they said they just leave them out there."

Where to start with the questions; Jill had so many. Where all the mutants human at one point? Was it possible to determine whether those who were human were male or female? Could age be determined? Was it possible to convert any of them back to their human state? The last one was highly unlikely, but the question needed to be asked, regardless. If the answer was yes, then Jill wanted to know how they might go about that -- and if the answer was no, then Special Agent Reynolds' assertion that Lincoln Park could one day be inhabitable again was more far-fetched than she originally thought.

"What can you tell me about the one that died?" she asked.

"I do not work with deceased specimens," Espinoza said with a touch of condescension. "It is the ones who are still breathing that can possibly give us answers, not the ones who die." They came to the end of the short hallway, and he punched in a security code while shielding the keypad from view with his body. The sliding door whooshed open, then whooshed close once the two of them were beyond it.

"The cause of death was respiratory failure," the doctor continued as he and his companion walked. "Many of the subjects have become so mutated that they cannot survive in our climate, their bodies simply cannot adjust to the physical changes. We keep them in sterile conditions, of course, provide the absolute best environment we can so we can study them, but sometimes something simple like a common throat infection can kill them. They can be oddly fragile."

There was a second door, this one marked 'Authorized Personnel Only' in red letters, and the Cuban keyed in a different code to open it. There were cells to either side of the hallway, both metal grids and plexiglass keeping the occupants inside. Espinoza turned to face Jill, an inquiring expression on his face as he touched his mustache again.

"Is this a general tour, Agent Andersen, or was there something specific you wished to see?"

"General," Jill answered, frowning at the news of how fragile a lot of the specimens were. It was odd to think of them as specimens, since many of them used to be people, and the agent felt sorry for those whose lives took such a dramatic turn. To go from living one's life to being mutated beyond all human recognition and eventually become little more than a lab rat who could die from the common cold was the worst thing Jill could think of. Whereas cancer was the big scare in the 1990s, and terrorism in the 2000s, this seemed to be the current decade's menace.

"Are you able to determine human characteristics post-mutation?" the agent wondered, mentally preparing herself for some scary sights. The grainy photos in the file -- while not the best -- gave Jill some idea of just what was on the other side of these doors. "Like age, sex, race -- things like that?"

"Sometimes. As I said, some of them became so genetically twisted by the effects of the portal that it is impossible to tell who they were before, except through some rare cases of identification being discovered, but others are different. When this facility was first opened we had many more specimens, but quite a few of them have died over time. The ones who remain are the hardier ones."

The doctor stopped walking when he arrived at one of the enclosures, taking down a clipboard where it hung from a plastic peg on the wall. "This is one such identified case," he said, studying the pages before turning to look at the agent. "Andrea Turnbull, twenty-seven year old Caucasian female, five-seven, one hundred and eighteen pounds. She was discovered hiding in a looted electronics store in one of the last sweeps that was made, just before the quarantine was fully established. They had to sedate her with enough tranquilizers to bring down a large horse. She was ... maddened."

The Cuban shook his head, replaced the clipboard. "We only found out her name later. Some records were discovered that gave us the identities of some of those who were rounded up, and she was one of them. But we knew that she was female even when she was first brought out of the affected zone."

Espinoza looked through the tiny peephole of the cell's door for a moment, then pulled back to look the agent full in the face. His expression was unreadable.

"She was heavily pregnant at the time she was infected."

The frown on Jill's face returned, deeper than before. Just when she thought she'd heard the worst of it all, Dr. Espinoza proved her wrong. That reality led to a slew of other questions, almost all of them revolving around the fetus growing inside of Andrea Turnbull. The agent took a deep breath to steel herself for whatever sight awaited her on the other side of the door; she may have been used to some grisly things, but she learned long ago that the worst thing she ever saw wasn't the worst thing that existed.

It helped to expect the worst. It kept shock to a minimum.

"I guess it'd be unrealistic to think the fetus was unaffected," she mused with a hint of dread in her voice.

"Physically the child was healthy," Dr. Espinoza said, his accented voice almost obscuring the beep-beep-beep of the last code being keyed in. "Strong of body, almost an unreal determination to live despite the fact that its lungs were underdeveloped. We placed it on a respirator until it was able to breathe on its own, monitored the progress almost every hour in case the infant should expire. At the end of three months, it was determined that the baby would live, quite possibly outlive its mother."

The Cuban fingered his mustache, his expression still inscrutable. "It lives in the cell opposite from Andrea's. We had to take it away from her. You shall see why in a moment. It's quite a riveting subject for study, actually. The circumstances are tragic, of course, but scientifically it's quite the marvel."

The doctor's enthusiasm didn't phase Jill; she was used to scientists being fascinated with things that were tragic and less-than-normal. There was a reason hardly anyone who worked within Wolfram & Hart's main halls went to the lower levels into the Science and Research Department. There were things in those labs that would put a lot of the creatures in the quarantine area to shame. Hell, it wouldn't surprise Jill if she were ever to learn the firm had something to do with what happened at Lincoln Park. She doubted it, and there was no evidence to suggest it, but it still wouldn't surprise her.

Truth be told, though, it sounded as if the baby was better off than originally thought. Jill couldn't help but smile at that.

"You think Andrea shielded the baby from much of the energy?"
"My theory is, the womb did what it could." Espinoza smiled a bit as the solid partition began to slide back, leaving the thick plexiglass in place to keep the cell's occupant inside. "I do not know precisely what occurred, of course, but I have my ideas. The birth was filmed for the sake of research. If you should like to see the tape once we're done here, I can arrange that."

Once the two of them had a visible view of the inside of the cell, the lone figure inside stirred slightly. It was vaguely female, lying prone on a plain cot that was bolted to the floor. No blanket, but a thin sheet had been provided. The hairless skull rested on the mattress, a pair of surgical scrub pants and a shirt of the same color bagging around the thin frame. When the partition made its soft whooshing noise, what had once been Andrea Turnbull rolled onto her back and opened eyes the color of radioactive mud. She and Espinoza studied one another through the transparent surface, and the mutant bared a set of stained, broken teeth in a drugged fashion.

"She just had her latest round of tests," the Cuban explained to Jill. "The sedatives have not yet worn off. I tell myself she doesn't know who I am, but every now and then she looks at me as if she does. It is very disconcerting."

There was a pause, and the doctor shook himself slightly. "I can give you details of her physical condition, if you would like."

Disconcerting was a good word for it.

Jill had spent a lot of her life surrounded by monsters; demons of all shapes, sizes and levels of sliminess -- not to mention vampires and all manner of human who just barely fit the description. But this, the one who used to be Andrea Turnbull? Usually one to have a strong stomach, Jill had to take a moment to compose herself. The sight itself wasn't necessarily what bothered her, but the apparent enormity of her circumstance. A couple deep breaths allowed the agent to regain her composure, but she couldn't keep her gaze off the figure, no matter how much she wanted to.

"Please," she said, her brow furrowing as she folded her arms. There it was, right in front of her. The human element of the Lincoln Park tragedy was staring her and Dr. Espinoza in the face, muddy eyes and rotted teeth but examples of just how horrible that portal opening was. The opening itself had been brief, but the effects were obviously much longer-lasting. Jill couldn't help but shake her head, wondering what color Andrea's hair and eyes had been, who she was -- who cared about her.

"How is she?"

"We keep her comfortable," Espinoza said. "There was some threat of a renal infection a few months ago, but she responded to antibiotics and there hasn't been a second outbreak. She often gets sores on her arms and legs, a likely residual effect of the energy from the portal. The hair loss, I assume, is a by-product of the same. When she was first brought in, she was badly undernourished, but since then we've managed to stabilize her weight. She's surprisingly resilient, all things considered."

The doctor fell silent, looked over his shoulder at another shuttered door. When he turned back, the figure on the bed was stirring more alertly, and the lightweight sheet was thrown onto the floor in a wad of cloth. The Cuban stepped back from the plexiglass instinctively, his fingers plucking at Jill's sleeve to pull her back as well.

The mutant's gait was shambling, knees almost refusing to lock due to the tranquilizers still swimming through her bloodstream, and drool escaped from her slack mouth as she swayed in the direction of the door. The sores Espinoza had mentioned dotted the creature's right arm all the way up the the wrist, but the left sleeve of the scrub shirt hung slack and empty at the elbow, the rest of the limb missing. She doddered towards them like a child that was still learning to walk, and there was a quiet thump as her forehead bumped into the thick wall of plexiglass.

Even with the plexiglass between them and Andrea, Jill couldn't help but jump a little when her forehead hit the barrier. The thump rang in the agent's ears long after the sound itself had passed, the impact of the moment stuck with her. As disturbing as the sight of the mutant was when she was lying on the cot covered by the sheet, staring at it, seeing the sores and the missing arm and -- well, everything -- a truly tragic event finally sank in for Jill.

This was Lincoln Park's horrible, tragic, disfiguring legacy.

"Oh, my God," was Jill's only reply, her eyes wide and her head shaking, seemingly on its own.

"There is more, if you have a few more minutes."

Espinoza's voice was even, and he watched Andrea shuffle away from the door to sit back down on the cot. There had been a time when he had also been horrified by the condition of the specimens he dealt with every day, but as a man of science he had become inured to the human side of things, seeing it as an educational opportunity. If he was ever able to publish his research, a Pulitzer could be well within his grasp, perhaps even a Nobel Peace Prize. He had worked all his life for this.

"As I said, the child is across the hall." A motion of the Cuban's head indicated the opposite cell, and he added, "There was an ... incident, and they had to be separated." Dark eyes studied the agent's face. "Would you care to see?"

The agent managed a nod, feeling her heartbeat steady once more. The doctor's calm demeanor didn't surprise her, considering how often he had to deal with Andrea and the pther specimens at Argonne. This was Jill's first up-close look, a far cry from seeing everything overhead in the helicopter earlier, so naturally she was a little jumpy when the mutant banged against the glass.

For some reason, at that exact moment, Jill thought of the movie I Am Legend, and those creatures Will Smith's character researched and ultimately succumbed to. Hopefully, no such fate would befall anyone here, but the similarity was a little jarring.

"She hurt the baby?" Jill theorized with a frown, her right hand clasping around the silver cross hanging around her neck, giving one last glance over her shoulder at Andrea -- or, rather, what was left of her.

The doctor gave no reply at first, smoothing his mustache as he crossed the hallway to the opposite cell and keyed in the code to open the solid metal partition. "You must understand, Agent Andersen, what were once people are very different now. Many of the specimens have lost the ability to speak, to think clearly, to even keep themselves clean. We do what we can for them, naturally, but this is a research facility, not a hospital."

The metal door began to open, revealing an identical room to the one Andrea resided in, and the little Cuban said, "The child has no name, but one of the technicians who fancies himself a humorist calls it Cain." Espinoza shook his head, his expression clearly saying he didn't approve of the attempt at a joke. As the cot came into sight, it became clear that the sheet had been torn off of the bed and ripped to shreds, the mattress removed and flung across the tiny room. Espinoza sighed loudly.

There was a blur of motion, and a figure scuttled under the bed, muted scraping sounds audible even through the thick glass. "Wide awake," he said to Jill, sounding unsurprised. "We have tried to sedate it, but I have come to believe that the effects of the portal have altered its body chemistry to the point where drugging is almost impossible."

The agent's frown deepened. So apparently, the child was healthy, but more energetic and aggressive than its mother. The shreds of sheet were disconcerting as well -- as young as this child apparently was, it was hard to fathom it already being strong enough to tear fabric, no matter how thin it might be. Jill shook her head, closing her eyess for a moment to fight the burning that threatened the edges. Opening her eyes once more, Jill resisted the urge to kneel and get a better look; she didn't want to agitate the creature.

"Or maybe the child attacked its mother," she surmised, though Jill was still guessing at this point. No matter what the truth was, this was a story that became more heartbreaking by the minute.

"It chewed her arm off at the elbow," Espinoza said. "We managed to cauterize the wound and keep it from getting infected, but re-attaching the limb was impossible." He looked at Jill again, wondering if she might not need a drink after this was over. "It had eaten part of it by the time we were able to use the tranq gun."

There was another blur, and a heavy thump caused the plexiglass to vibrate a little as a pygmy-sized creature caromed off of it with a snarl. "Hello, Cain," the Cuban said somewhat dryly. "I see you're as charming as ever."

From the neck down, the mutant looked normal, despite the stubby quality of its legs and the way it propelled itself forward on its palms, like a hairless gorilla. At first glance, it might have been easy enough to believe the child was simply large for its age.

The face, however, brought any hint of normalcy to a dead stop.

The features were as skewed as any Picasso painting, the mouth so deformed it couldn't close. The eyes were green and blazing with an animal intelligence, but they seemed unable to focus, one aimed one way while the other stared straight ahead. There were knots of flesh protruding from the thing's bulbous brow, sores competing for space. There was another wordless noise, the mis-shapen lips pulling back to expose tiny teeth, and then the mutant called Cain disappeared again, crawling under the bunk to tuck its legs against its chest.

"Mutated in the womb," Dr. Espinoza said unnecessarily. "There was supposed to be a second child, a twin. I found the remains among its mother's afterbirth. Never saw anything like it." His tone left it unclear as to whether or not he'd like to see it again.

"My God," Jill said again, because it was really the only thing she could say. Suddenly, the large fire breather didn't seem so bad. At least that wasn't something allegedly resembling a human who then turned around gnawed its own mother's arm off. It was a disgusting sight, Jill had no qualms of thinking as such. She folded her arms over her chest and shook her head, almost to the point now of not believing what she was seeing.

This was beyond sickening; it was depressing, in just about every sense of the word. The files were bad in and of themselves; the language used to describe the events in Community Area 7 dark and foreboding. Even the pictures showed a blurry land of decay and mutation. But to truly understand the effect of the Lincoln Park incident, one would have to walk through these halls and see these cells. They would have to see Andrea Turnbull and Cain.

Not that Jill would ever wish that on anyone.

"This one attacked the other one in the womb?" she asked, not really wanting to know.

"Why do you think they call it Cain?"

Espinoza keyed the code in a second time, and the metal partition slipped closed again, leaving the youngest mutant residing in the facility to itself. Across the hall, he also closed the sight of Andrea Turnbull off from view, then motioned up the hallway with a hand gesture. "I'm sorry if this has been upsetting for you, Agent Andersen," he said somewhat stiltedly. "I have become accustomed to dealing with how things are behind the lines, so to speak, but as an untrained observer, you must find all of this quite shocking. Please, return with me to my office."

The two of them began the trek back through the coded doors. "What will you do now?" the Cuban inquired. "Dr. Forbes did not inform me of your plans, what is your intention?"

"It really depends on what my superiors' intentions are," Jill admitted a bit sheepishly.

A meeting with Maureen was definitely in order, now that the agent had seen everything. Jill was very much in an information-gathering phase, which largely meant she didn't exactly know what she was going to do with all this information yet. If nothing else, it was an emotionally exhausting day. The high of seeing the military take down one of the largest and most dangerous mutants was almost forgotten, replaced by the emotional and physical low of seeing what became of a woman expecting twins -- and what became of the children themselves.

She offered Dr. Espinoza a warm smile, grateful for his apology. "Thank you," she said. "It wasn't so much unsettling as ... unexpected. I'm afraid files and black-and-white photos don't really prepare you for all of this."

"If there is anything I can do to help you, please call on me. I do not know if you intend to make another visit down here, but if you require more information, I will be glad to assist you. I believe this work is important, but the secretive nature of it doesn't lend itself to party conversation."

He escorted her back into his private office, took his seat at the computer terminal again. "I'm afraid I drank the last of the coffee before you arrived, but I can offer you water. Would you like some refreshment?"

"No, thank you," Jill said with a smile and a shake of her head. "I have to get back to my office now. It's been an ... informative day."

Shaking Dr. Espinoza's hand, Jill made her way back down the blank hallway, leaving the complex much the way she came. She clutched at the cross on her neck again, shaking her head and feeling the tears building in her eyes again. The agent had done a remarkable job to this point of holding back her emotional response to what she had seen, but now that she was on her own and back within the realm of her private thoughts, Jill felt no such need to hide the way she felt anymore.

Within minutes, Jill had gone through the necessary channels and security protocols to leave the Argonne complex, returning to the civilian side of the city. Before starting the engine to her car and heading back to the office, Jill closed her eyes and rest her forehead atop the steering wheel, gripping the sides with her hands. One tear became two, which turned into three, until the agent wound up sobbing quietly in the confines of her vehicle. She couldn't get the image of Andrea Turnbull without an arm out of her head, and it really hurt knowing what happened to that arm.

After a few minutes, Jill wiped her eyes and glanced at her reflection in the rear-view mirror. Going to the office looking like this would do her no good; Jill retrieved a napkin from the glove box and dabbed under her eyes, sniffling and wiping away the last few tears that managed to fall. The agent shook her head, finally starting the motor and buckling her seatbelt.

The office could wait. First, Jill needed to get to church -- she wanted to pray for Andrea and Cain.


[NPC Dr. Espinoza was written by Stargazer.]