Chapter Text
Dallas knows this facility. Or, at least, a similar innocuous clinic in the front with a laboratory in the back. However many of those there are in Gulch. Something in the air smells familiar, though—not the antiseptic. Too generic. The air freshener? Strange, the things she remembers after one year away.
She walks the white-tiled floor, her boots tapping at every step, and she can’t help feeling that she belongs here. She did, once. She’s sure someone would like her to be again.
Who? Well. That’s what she has come to learn.
She wears black now instead of clinical white that would match the walls, the floor, the lights. Doesn’t care that she no longer matches. She never liked hospital garb anyway. These clothes fit close—everything but the scarf that billows from her shoulders. It distracts anyone who’s looking from the rifle slung over her back.
Her fingers itch toward it now. She suspects the security guard ahead might object, though. He’s been watching from his desk at the middle of the hall since she came in from the main clinc. “I’m sorry, you aren’t allowed back here,” he says.
“It’s okay. I’ll be quick.” She strides around the desk, helmet poised on her hip away from him.
He reaches to stop her. “Miss, I—“ She grabs him and throws him to the wall. Smacks his head against it once more for good measure. He falls limp. She rolls him over and checks his jacket for ID. He has it attached to his lapel, but it’s a low-clearance card. Fine then.
“Thanks for giving up your seat,” she says. Sidling behind the desk, she sits at the computer to queue up the identification program. A few quick keystrokes and she has an ID card activated—only a visitor’s card, considering she doesn’t have the passwords for it. It’ll have to do. Better than the guard’s ID, which only works in emergencies. She tests this one on the double doors at the back. The scanner pings and the lock clicks open.
“Perfect.” She slips into another white hallway, this one far skinnier than she remembers. The air smells less sterile here, heavier with a chemical musk to it. Her lip stings where it touches her split lip from yesterday. Frowning, she fits her helmet in place.
The hallway here splits in three directions. To her left and right, the doors match the simple white ones out in the clinic proper, down to the round doorknobs and plain ID scanners. According to the signs, the last two are staircases. Dallas tests her card on the first door to the right. Nothing. At least it doesn’t set off any alarms.
But in the middle hallway, the four doors are stainless steel with thick bolts, bulky as airlocks. Do any of them lead outside? She doesn’t remember. Considering the glowing ports of holographic locks beside the bolts, though, she doubts it. A visitor’s pass isn’t going to get her through either.
That doesn’t stop her from going to the first of the doors and touching the seal. She knows what’s beyond the door. Why can she not remember?
A door clicks open. Rounding the corner, she catches a doctor emerging from one of the rooms. Dallas grabs the woman by the collar. “Who’s in charge here?” she demands, pitching her voice intentionally deep. The doctor might not remember a scared little girl, but Dallas would rather not take that risk.
“I—I am.”
“Then who’s in charge of you?” She pulls the woman’s helmet up to hers.
“The Director!”
The name reverberates in her ears. A flaw in the sound system? “Director who?” she asks.
“He doesn’t give his name,” she says.
“Don’t lie to me!”
“I don’t know!” she insists.
Dallas groans. “I don’t have time for this.” She’ll find more information in the office. Snarling, she grabs the doctor’s arm and hauls her inside.
The illumination in here comes not from the ceiling but from the back wall. Light filters in through translucent glass. In the glow, Dallas spots a desk, a bank of computers, a chair just to the right of the door. She shoves the other woman into it.
Dallas is about to order her to sign into the computer when she glimpses something in the other room. Nothing moves. Nothing’s in there, just a hospital bed at the back.
No. There it is again. A shimmer in the glass. The reflection of the woman moving. Too late Dallas catches her triggering the alarm. Sirens blare before she can get her hands on her rifle.
“You!” She punches her hard enough to splinter the visor. Doesn’t stop to check her vitals, just runs before guards come flooding out of the basement. She could fight her way out. She knows it. Yet her instincts at her scream to flee.
Because she remembers this. The claxons in the ceiling, frantic footsteps on white tile. Men with guns who won’t shoot her. No; this time they will. She’s not a child. She’s a threat.
And, despite having finally broken in, she still doesn’t understand why.