Dr. Laoton sat on the cold stone bench outside of the airport, one leg crossed over the other with his foot tapping out his annoyance in the air. He was supposed to have a liaison – he shouldn’t have been left at the airport to find his own way to the facility.

He knew it was after hours, that his flight wasn’t at the most convenient time, but sometimes these things couldn’t be helped. It didn’t matter anyway. When you pull a specialist away from his work half way across the country to help you deal with the catastrophic bungling of your job then you damn well send someone to pick him up when he arrives!

On top of the trouble with young Eluria! The girl had, by all appearances, been in a coma for half her life. How had she gone from “comatose” to “extreme security risk” and having seizures in the scant few months since he’d last checked on Facility 4?! Where was Billings, why wasn’t he in charge of Facility 4 and how had the old bag they brought in to replace him cocked everything up so fucking magnificently

Yes, Dr. Laoton was furious. When he got to the Facility, heads would roll and his thirst for vengeance and answers might be slaked if these fools were lucky. No one messed with his children.

Dr. Laoton ran his fingers through his ample black beard while his foot tapped away it’s angry symphony. Fifteen more minutes. Fifteen more minutes and he’d let it go. If he had to make his way to the Facility by himself, they’d see the devil beneath the water.

“So she just came out of her little bedroom with all her trash hanging out?”

Travis couldn’t help, but to smirk at Johnny’s choice of words. So innocuous, but he thought you’d be hard pressed to find a more offensive term for a woman’s tits and ass than “trash”. Cunt might be more vulgar, but he still thought trash would get more of a reaction.

“Yeah, asshole. All of her trash just on display for the whole world to see. Who the fuck does that, man? Like my job isn’t hard enough? Now I got teeny bopper pussy getting shoved in my face?” He whined.

“Oh man, shoved in your face! This is some real Penthouse Letter’s type shit we’ve got here apparently…”

“Well, not literally shoved in my face, but you know like she forced me to deal with that. Either way, it’s still fucked up – she’s fifteen!”

“Can’t keep your story straight. I’m starting to think you went for it and then changed your mind and now you’re trying to cover it up. Now be straight with me here, no bullshit.”

“Fuck, man. You know me. I would have, years ago – everybody would have. I’m old now though. I’ve got a real job, I’ve got nieces and nephews and every time I think about it I just picture some fuckin’ geezer like me taking advantage of one of them. It’s wrong and fuckin’ gross.” Travis spat, vehemently.

“Alright man, one hundred percent straight with me here. I know what kind of man you are, but I’ve still got to ask…”

“Of course. One hundred percent straight Johnny.”

“Does the carpet match the drapes?” Johnny didn’t so much dodge the playful punch Travis threw his way in retaliation as he fell off the stool he was sitting on in raucous laughter. He’d always been his own best audience.

“You’re a fuckin’ scum bag, Johnny. You know that? I swear, if you weren’t my best friend I wouldn’t be able to stand you.”

“Yeah, I know it. That’s a yes though, right?” Johnny smirked, handing Travis another beer. “I’m sure it’ll all get sorted out Travesty. You might end up losing your gucci job in the process, but one way or the other that girl will be back to whatever the fuck murder machines call normal, I’m sure of it.”

“I fuckin’ hope so, man. You can only put so much shit between two slices of bread before you have to stop calling it a sandwich. If this place gets any crazier I won’t be able to take it.”

Johnny and Travis drank the rest of the night away, sitting down in the bunker watching old DVDs like they usually did, blissfully unaware of Dr. Laoton’s arrival and impending rage.

Eluria sat in the middle of her bed, sheets amassed around her in a protective barricaded, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth. Something was wrong. She wouldn’t have done that, she knew it.

She thought Dr. Stein was cute, he was nice to her and fun to be around, but she wouldn’t have thrown herself at him like that. Something was going on here and she was going to get to the bottom of it. The only problem was that she needed Dr. Stein’s help and he was definitely going to be avoiding her for a while if his reaction earlier in the day had been any indication.

She’d just have to wait it out and try to make him see that it wasn’t really her, that something wasn’t right and he had to help her figure it out.

Or… she thought to herself, she could reach out to him directly and explain things. She wasn’t sure how good an idea that would be. She’d never even skimmed below the very top level of his thoughts before, let alone forcibly injected herself directly into his consciousness to speak to him like that.

Eluria decided – he was probably asleep right now, but if she didn’t see him tomorrow on the normal schedule she’d just have to force the issue, as much as she didn’t want to.

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Author’s Note: Really trying to come to a stopping point. The plan is to get Eluria to the pass/fail evaluation and then take a hiatus and work on something else while I let this settle.