Reaping What Grows

She digs her nails into the palm of her hand. Stay still, stay still, stay still... She still tenses as the doctor comes close again.

 

Well, what do you know, Katters thinks. They do learn.

She puts a hand on the girl’s back, lines up the needle, and stabs her. The needle goes in at a different angle than before, and this time, the click is accompanied by a shooting pain through the girl’s guts.

 

The tears are rolling down her face now as she tries not to react. She makes a small, pained noise from behind her lips, which she'd pressed together so she wouldn't scream. Her shoulders jerk a little underneath the guard's hands.

Please please be over, please be done.

 

Katters removes the needle, smiling. “That should do it,” she says as she puts it away.

She comes back soon enough and sets something new on the girl’s back — but then she’s wiping away the blood and bandaging the wound.

“There.”

The guard lets up on the girl’s shoulders, putting only a little pressure on them until Katters finishes gathering her things.

She chuckles. “‘Does it have kidneys’,” she says, and leaves.

 

When she's finally alone, she curls up on the bed and hugs her knees to her chest, her shoulders shaking as she sobs. When she's finally able to stop, she lies there staring at the wall for a long time.

 

Baines gets to work five minutes early, like a normal person. Katters is already at the workstation, running tests on one of the new samples. She grins at Baines when he arrives.

“I got you something,” she says.

He hesitates. “What?” he asks.

Katters steps away from the microscope and invites Baines to it. She waits for him to look through it before continuing: “Kidney sample.”

“Oh?” he says, confused until recognition passes over him. “Oh,” he says. “So it does have kidneys.”

“We’ve got muscle tissue, too.” Katters leans against the desk. “Hopefully these will get us somewhere — we can’t just go sticking things into its organs whenever we hit a dead-end.” She pauses. “Well, I mean, we can, but we shouldn’t.”

“‘Shouldn’t’ doesn’t belong in science,” Noel says as she walks up. “What did I miss?”

“New samples,” Baines says, still looking at the kidney cells.

“Exciting!”

Katters picks up a notepad and holds it out to Noel. “That’s not all,” she says. “I was doing some research, last night — I think I’ve got some stuff that can help us narrow down our search.”

Baines looks up and Noel starts flipping through the notes. “Great,” she says. “This looks helpful. Let’s get started.”

 

Vivi is sitting on the bed when a guard comes in holding a glass of water. He holds it out to her, and she takes it. She gulps some down, then stops. "What is this place?" The guard doesn't answer.

She sips at the water and asks questions in between. "Where am I?" "What day is it?" "How long are you going to keep me here?" "Why was I brought here?" The guard never answers, but she feels better anyway.

Eventually she reaches the bottom of the cup, and he takes it back and leaves.

 

“Hey, Jones,” Noel says, after a time, and Katters looks up.

“What you got?” Katters asks.

“Well, it is Apiaceae,” Noel says. “Further, it’s Ferula, but it’s not quite matching anything specific.”

Katters stands up and walks over to her. “That’s good, keep narrowing it down. We’ll find it.”

“That’s just it, though — I don’t think we will.”

“What do you mean?”

Noel taps her index fingers on her findings. “I think it’s silphium.”

“Silphium?” Katters chews on the name. “But if you’ve got it — that’s great, what’s the problem?”

“Well, it’s just that silphium is extinct.”

“Oh,” Katters says. “Huh.”

“So I can’t be positive, and if it is silphium—”

“It complicates things.”

Noel nods. “Yes, I think it does.”

 

Vivi waits for something to happen. More time passes, and more cups of water come and go, and the guards never answer her questions. She spends some time trying to recreate a forest in her head, but it always ends up being the one she was caught in, and she has to stop and start over again before she ends up full of "if only"s. If only she'd run faster, if only she'd been able to hide, if only she'd gone into the town, if only...

She mostly stays curled up on the bed. There's not much point doing anything else.

 

There’s an envelope waiting on Katters’ desk the next day, thick and official looking. The contents are complicated, written in the ancient and opaque tongue of Bureaucratic, but Katters gets the gist of it well enough.

Cease testing.

Wait for further instructions.

 

She's not sure how long it's been since the doctor last came. It hadn't occurred to her to count the cups of water until after enough had come that she couldn't be sure of the exact number. But it's been long enough to make her worry.

They found something. They know. They're going to tear her apart and use her.

She feels so very small.

The longer nothing happens, the more anxious she gets. What awful thing are they planning that's taking so long to prepare?

She paces back and forth for hours on end.

 

The weekend comes and goes with no word from Katters’ higher-ups, and she keeps herself busy over the next week doing work on other projects. Projects which do not belong to her, work that is not her own.

Another weekend passes by, and then, that Tuesday, a packet appears on Katters’ desk, even thicker and more official looking than the envelope.

There are a lot of instructions, but the first page in the packet has clear and concise writing, to make certain Katters understands.

CH-FP-3059-B is valuable. Cheiron would find the loss of CH-FP-3059-B unacceptable. Cheiron would rather lose Katters than CH-FP-3059-B.

Katters scratches nervously at a scar on the back of her neck — Cheiron’s “severance package” is buried there.

Deeper in the packet are instructions on what her bosses will find acceptable. What they want.

They want the plant.

They want her to clone the girl.

 

The next guard that comes with water sets down a tray next to her on the bed. After a moment's hesitation, she picks it up and sets it on her lap. There's food on it - a piece of chicken, some carrot slices, a few small chunks of potato. She pokes at the chicken. "I can't eat this."

The guard doesn't answer, as always.

"I'm serious. I can't eat meat. It makes me sick - I can't process it, I'm a plant."

"So don't eat it." It's the first thing any guard has said to her.

She looks down at the tray, and picks up a carrot slice. It's better than nothing. The food isn't particularly appetizing, and there isn't much of it, but she's grateful for it anyway.

When she's done, the guard takes the tray and the cup and leaves her alone again.

They're feeding her. They're invested. As nice as it is to have food, it's a bad sign. She goes back to pacing; it's only a matter of time before the doctor comes back.

 

Katters comes to CH-FP-3059-B’s cell that afternoon with a pair of scissors and a small, plastic bag.

 

Vivi turns to face the door as the doctor enters. She curls her unhurt hand into a fist, but doesn't otherwise react.

 

While the guard follows her in, Katters does not wait for him to restrain the specimen. She wants to get this over with so she can get back to something more interesting and potentially fruitful, like watching paint dry.

She walks up to the girl, takes a lock of her hair between thumb and forefinger, and places the scissorblades around it.

 

The doctor didn't bother to restrict her motions at all, and so she whirls around with her arm raised, slamming her elbow directly into the doctor's face.

 

“FUCK!”

Katters stumbles backwards, dropping the scissors and putting her hand up to her face. Is her nose broken? Motherfucker, her nose is broken.

She pulls her hand away — bloodied, of course it is — and after giving herself a moment to be shocked, she turns her kindling rage onto the girl.

 

Vivi backs away a couple steps before planting her feet firmly on the floor and holding her arms in front of her like a shield. "Don't fucking touch me!" Her voice only shakes a little bit.

 

“Don’t—” Katters repeats, then laughs, harsh and bitter. “Fuckin’ bold words after you broke my fucking nose!” she shouts.

She grabs the girl’s shirtfront and raises her other hand to hit her — but suddenly the guard is behind her and grabbing her arms. He pulls her back, and the girl’s shirt is ripped from her grasp.

“Let me go!” Katters screams. He doesn’t.

Instead, he drags her out of the room, taking a moment to lock the door behind them.