With a flick of her wrist Rose snapped the folder closed, her face expressionless as she made eye contact with the woman who had delivered the report. The messenger stood motionless in a professional, fitted suit - a clear marker of who had sent her. 

Rose tossed the folder onto the desk at her side, before brushing past the messenger on her way out the door. Behind her the woman sagged, letting out a series of deep, slow breaths to make up for the minutes of prolonged shallow breathing as she had waited for Rose's reaction.

The head researcher strode down the hall of the Facility, leaving the door open behind her. Farheen used to scold her about not locking doors, but stopped once it became clear that no one in the Facility was stupid enough to take the invitation to pry.

The business sector of the Facility had its own floor, and Rose had her arms crossed as she rode the elevator down multiple levels. She tapped one finger against the opposite elbow, barely registering the other occupant--a researcher who leaned forcefully against the side as if to give more space to the tiny woman who stood square in the center of the car.

When the double doors opened Rose stepped out into the hall, walking a straight, unyielding path to her desired door, forcing employees and representatives from prospective clients alike to make way for her. The floor quickly grew quieter as her presence resonated through the halls and suddenly everyone turned attentive eyes to the work in front of them.

Without knocking, Rose threw open the door to her stepbrother's office.

"What do you mean you borrowed the T3 prototype?" she said by way of greeting, stopping with both hands planted on the near edge of his large cherrywood desk.

Gabriel finished signing and dating the document in front of him before looking up, a wry smile splitting his face. He was wearing an especially impeccable black-on-grey suit and tie that followed the lines of his body as if he had been born into it.

"Yes, hello to you--"

"Oh, stuff it. Instead, explain to me exactly what you thought you were doing when you placed our newest prototype in the hands of idiots who have nothing but failure to recommend them."

"In their stomachs, actually, not their hands," he said, his smile deepening, "and don't they seem like a perfect match for it, then, as failures? I believe I heard you say yourself that this particular breed of the T3 was a disaster."

"All the more reason to avoid sending it out! What if it makes the news? Can you imagine the publicity if an unspecified, contagious parasite were discovered?" She clicked her tongue, pushing off the desk and turning away from him. "I thought you were in charge of business strategy." 

"I suppose it comes as a surprise that I did, in fact, think this through," he said slowly, propping his elbows on the desk and resting his chin on his interlaced fingers.

"I assure you," she said, voice steady as she studied the wall, "the only thing that wasn't a surprise about this venture was how much of a disappointment you continue to be."

A muscle along Gabriel's jaw twitched as he clenched his teeth, but he neither tensed from his relaxed position nor let his smile waver as he picked up a file tucked to the side of his desk and read aloud: "The T3 prototype is unstable. It can barely maintain its own shape, much less a mutually beneficial bond with its host. Within ten minutes of the host dying the symbiont denatures, detaches from the stomach lining, and dissolves in the stomach acid." 

He set the file down and looked up at Rose, who had turned to watch him over her shoulder. 

"Is this not true?" he asked. 

She swiveled her body as she turned back to face him properly, resting one hand on a hip as her eyebrows rose. "You sent them in as carriers, as assassins," she said softly, one side of her lips quirking up into a smile as her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

Gabriel tilted his head briefly in acknowledgement, begrudgingly filing away the rest of the speech he had prepared to glorify in this moment since she had caught on so quickly.

"And," he added, when she didn't elaborate, "at the time, O'Lane was there as well. But it appears he is now," he checked a different file, "in Nebraska."

"Nebraska?" She barked a laugh. "It seems he's lost his touch if he thinks he'll find us in Nebraska."

Gabriel frowned, flipping through his report again. "It seems he's investigating a reported sighting of some--Emma Thompson, why does that name sound familiar?"

The papers disappeared before his eyes as Rose snatched them out of his hands, pouring over the report. Before he could dodge she smacked him across the face with it.

"Why haven't I seen this yet?" she said, hands shaking as they griped the file so hard the thick paper crinkled.

Gabriel sat back in his chair, hands coming up reflexively. "It landed on my desk barely a minute before you walked in. In all likelihood, it's waiting for you in your office," he spoke the last few words to himself in his empty office as Rose stalked out. 

Gabriel sighed as the door slowly closed by its own mechanism--a precaution he had added to his floor specifically because of Rose--and rubbed one hand over his cheek. It didn't hurt, but the smack had startled him. 

He gave a small half-shrug as he turned back to his paperwork. All in all, he considered it a pretty successful encounter. 

Meanwhile, Rose read and re-read the report as she walked, as she waited in the elevator, as she made her way to the labs. Farheen looked up when Rose entered the Menagerie and without preamble handed the papers to her.

"This..." Farheen said, at a loss of words after she had skimmed the contents.

"I think," Rose said carefully, her back to her junior as she idled over to the observation window between them and room 509, "that it's time to bring our wayward child home."

She glanced back over her shoulder, and through the one-way glass Farheen saw Victor sitting patiently and still on the bed in his hospital gown. 

"Make sure Pearl knows what to do," Rose said, nodding lightly to Farheen.

~Part II~

"What do you mean there's nothing there?" Officer Takeda asked as he was led out of the temporary isolation chamber he had voluntarily suggested that both he and the surviving witness be placed into. The messenger leaned in against the doorframe, shaking his head in an exaggerated motion.

"There's no sign of anything other than a seriously mangled corpse, and I mean mangled. Half that fucker's body was either liquidized or shredded at some point, and a lot of it happened before or as he was dying," the young man explained with relish, his glasses shining as he shook his head in slow appreciation. "Just horrible. A horrible way to go," he emphasized, his deep-set smile offsetting the words.

Gary looked grey in the corner he had stuffed himself into as soon as he and Takeda were ushered into the room. He kept mumbling to himself, a cold sweat soaking his entire body.

"Like, I mean it was disgusting. They could hardly move the body, it was so wet—"

"Alright, now, that's enough," Takeda cut him off, not feeling too well himself. The young man caught himself, shrugged, and left, leaving the door open for them to exit.

Takeda had a bad feeling about being let out of the room, but without any backup from the coroner's report he had no reasonable explanation for insisting on the isolation. The video feed from the camera in the room, when checked, came back with nothing but static, and records showed the machine had been malfunctioning for days but hadn't been noted by security. 

No video, no brown lump, no evidence other than his and his witnesses' testimony, and even Takeda was willing to admit that, as he was telling the story, he sounded more than questionable.

Takeda walked over to Gary and hooked a hand under his upper arm, dragging him up off of the floor. His hatred of the man was tempered by the strange bond they now shared as they only two people to have witnessed what had happened in that room.

"C'mon, now, I'll get us some coffee," Takeda said, leading Gary out of the room. 

Gary flicked him a looked out of the corner of his eyes.

He sat Gary on a chair in the small break room, keeping an eye on the man as he filled two cheap styrofoam cups with even cheaper coffee. He placed one in front of his witness, and one on the opposite side of the table. He began to sit down behind his coffee but paused, deciding that today he wanted cream and sugar. Normally he liked his coffee strong and unmediated, but at the moment his stomach was feeling weak and he wanted a little more substance to help settle it.

With a sigh Takeda leveraged himself back up. The day's events, coupled with the fact that he still hadn't slept since his shift had ended nearly eight hours ago, left him temporarily absentminded, and he turned his back to his witness as he went to fetch the creamer.

Gary, head lowered but with eyes on the officer's back, slowly began to convulse from the waist to the shoulders in a forced dry-heave. He struggled to stay silent as, on the third try, he felt something solid make its way up his esophagus with the help of his spasming muscles. 

The object made its way into his mouth, and Gary nearly vomited for real as he could feel it probing around the roof of his mouth and his tongue. It tasted of bile, and his mouth burned with the stomach acid it had brought with it. 

He saw Takeda's back begin to turn and hurled forward, nearly gagging into the cup in front of him. 

A small, brown lump slipped from his mouth into the warm coffee, and Gary stared at it with wild eyes before before launching himself forward and replacing the officer's cup with the one in his hand.

By the time Takeda returned to the table with a small container of creamers and sugars Gary was leaning back in his chair with his face to the far wall. The officer sat down slowly, worn down from his over-extended shift. 

Fingers fumbling over the slippery plastic, Takeda tore open a creamer and dropped the liquid into the cup. He measured the swirl of color before peeling a second one open and pouring that in, too. He stirred the concoction with the thin red straw, then reached for a packet of cane sugar and added that as well.

Gary gripped his own cup tightly as he watched the painstaking ritual of the officer's coffee doctoring. He jerked lightly when the man, without looking up, spoke.

"Did they do this? Your employers?" he asked, his voice quiet and contemplative rather than aggressive or interrogatory. It was the first time either of them had broached the topic since that first smattering of blood had hit the table.

Gary stifled the urge to slam the coffee cup on the table, instead taking a deep, slow breath that he'd let the cop interpret as he liked. Rather than replying, he gave a curt jerk of a nod.

Takeda's lips thinned as he watched, letting his eyes drop back down to the liquid in his cup. He studied the swirling layers of chemical creamer and poorly-dissolved sugar before lifting the cup to his lips. 

But before he could open his mouth, a whiff of the sickly-sweet concoction caught in his throat and he set the cup back down with grimace. He offered the offending liquid a stink-eyed glare. 

Gary began tapping his hands on the table, and Takeda looked up to find he was still the object of an intense observation.

"Do you know what it was?" Takeda ventured the question, releasing the cup and reaching for a notepad out of habit.

Gary nearly growled but turned it into a sigh. He made a show of grabbing the cup of coffee in front of him and taking a large, hard swallow.

"It's good," he said with as much enthusiasm as a he could muster, and watched as Takeda paused and titled his head. The officer looked at his own cup, then back behind him to the coffee maker.

"It's never good," he grumbled, willing to buy into the distraction if it got Gary talking.

"You should try it. Maybe it's a new brand."

Takeda looked down at his cup. His stomach rolled as the color of the liquid began to remind him of the lump.

"...Maybe in a minute," he conceded, setting the cup to the side.

A cellphone rang and they both jumped.

Takeda recovered and patted his waistband, finding the offending device and accepting the call. He stood as he raised it to his ear, his "Hello?" sounding strained and tired.

Gary's hand tightened on his cup, the styrofoam giving under the pressure of his grip and collapsing, sending coffee down his fist and across the table. The officer stood in the doorway, keeping an eye toward him as he spoke in a low tone, and Gary could do little under the surveillance other than toss the dripping cup against the near wall and into the open garbage can, a wet splatter marring the off-white paint. 

He pressed his coffee-soaked fist to his mouth as he considered what to do.

Gabriel had said that there was a way to extract the...thing. All he needed to do was pass it on and get the hell out of here, and he'd get the treatment. 

Gary flinched as he remembered Larry's last moments, and he closed his eyes briefly to try to erase the sight of the blood-stained teeth and the staring, accusatory eyes. 

He'd seen worse in his time as a paramedic, much worse, but he had never so clearly stared into the face of his own death before.

Takeda ended his call and walked back to Gary, coming to a stop beside him. He motioned for him to stand.

"We're going to get you to a cell, for now. Someone will be coming by soon who while have a better idea of what questions to ask you," the officer said, grabbing Gary's arm again to help him rise.

Gary felt his heart beating in his throat. "What about your coffee?" he asked as coolly as he could.

The officer looked over at the cup, wiping his free hand across the grimace on his face. "Do you want it?" he asked, reaching over the table for the cup and offering it.

Gary bit his tongue to keep from screaming as he shook his head.

"You sure?" Takeda asked again, looking ruefully at the liquid. "Otherwise, it looks like I may just end up tossing it in the trashcan."

Gary jerked his arm out of Takeda's grip. "I don't want your damned coffee!" he shouted, and Takeda watched him without any change in expression.

"Well, don't say I never offered," he said, throwing the cup into the can as he walked his witness to the holding block.