Galatea 2 - Chapter 27 (Patreon)

CHAPTER 27: BREACH OF CONDUCT

Vanessa followed the trail of blood droplets, stopping right before the redness turned a corner on the other side of the interrogation room. “He can’t be far. Then again, I can’t hear him. He must’ve known I had escaped. Kevin’s camouflaging his movements, the slippery little bastard. If only I had a direct line of sight with him, I could probably read his thoughts.”

As the buxom raven-haired demi-goddess contemplated her next move, Audrey set her boyfriend down to inspect the fresh corpse of the man in black. Her obvious discomfort was verbalized with several “ugh”s and “eewwww”s.

“Audrey, what are you even searching for?” Brian asked, backing up out of the irrational fear that the man in black was faking his death.

“I dunno, a key card or something? This G-man is probably pretty high-ranking, his pockets are the highest chance of containing our ticket out of here!” Pretty soon, the contents of his suit were splayed out upon the floor, Audrey frantically searching through the objects to make sense of various codes and symbols that meant nothing to her by design. “C’mon, there’s gotta be something here!”

“Babe, it’s okay if there’s nothing. We’ll find some other way out,” Brian said, reassuring his girlfriend. “We might not even need anything from this guy.”

Audrey wasn’t listening. She appeared obsessed with discovering a solution that might’ve not even been present. Her face adopted a scowl as she grew increasingly agitated at her perfect blonde tresses falling in front of her face, constantly brushing them out of the way as they interrupted her concentration.

“Rrrrggg! Why. Isn’t. There. Anything!?” The blonde exclaimed, her lithe fingers tearing through paper, hard plastic and metal as if they were all one in the same.

“Audrey, babe, it’s okay! Really!” Brian assured. “I know this is a high-stress situation, but you don’t need to prove yourself here or something like that.”

Audrey stopped what she was doing, but she didn’t look back at Brian. She let her head fall forward in defeat, taking a deep sigh. “But… but I want to prove myself. I need to. I’m… a mistake. All this grand government cover-up stuff, being surpassed by my own roommate…”

She said it as if Vanessa wasn’t in the room with them, not that the raven-haired stunner seemed to mind. Still scanning every inch of the place for any signs of the former professor, she wasn’t in a rush to get a move on.

“...I only got this power because of an accident involving sweaty gym clothes. I’m not special, if I want to prove I’m deserving of the next step for human evolution, I need to actually prove it!”

“Oh, don’t you worry, little lady. I’ll give you plenty of chances to prove it if you both come with me,” came an oddly familiar voice that wasn’t Brian’s. Both Audrey and Vanessa whisked around, only to see General L’Enfant’s imposing body, his arm wrapped around Brian’s neck with his pistol pointed directly at the college student’s skull. Brian attempted to break free of the headlock, but even his impressively athletic body was no match for the absolute unit that was the General. “If you value your little boyfriend's life, you’ll do exactly as I say.”

The two enhanced women froze in place. They both needed Brian for their own reasons, and L’Enfant certainly wasn’t one to bluff about pulling the trigger—Vanessa didn’t even need to read his mind to figure that one out. The General smiled a shit-eating grin, happy that his human bargaining chip was proving fruitful.

“Alright, now listen up you two, even though you’ve mowed through a good chunk of the guys here, it’s not too late for you to get back into your cells. I’m in charge here now.”

There was no response. Audrey was stunned with fear, Vanessa simply possessed an impeccable devious poker face that never once betrayed her emotions.

“Are you assholes listening to me? Do you want your little piece of man-meat to die!? Do as I command! On your knees, now!” The General was growing more unhinged by the second.

The two women did as they were told, falling to their knees and Audrey even raising her hands up. Satisfied, General L’Enfant loosened his grip slightly around Brian’s neck. The college student wasted no time blurting out a crucial piece of information he recalled from earlier.

“A-Audrey! H-his nameplate! It’s not real gold! It’s filled with sand!”

“Aw, c’mon, that’s low!” L’Enfant replied, turning his attention to Brian. “Are you trying to get popped in the head early? Maybe that demasculinization’s finally getting to you and now you feel like you need to take it all out on me!”

To anyone else, that remark would have rung as hollow as the General’s nameplate. However, for Audrey, she saw an opportunity and did not wait to seize it. Locking her focus in on the unmissable display of arrogance, a flick of one finger was enough to channel her psammokinesis and shift it vertically on his vest. By the time General L’Enfant had noticed, it was too late. A flick of two other perfectly manicured fingernails and the gilded plaque, guided by the silica within, flew up from his suit. It pierced between his neck and jaw like a fifty caliber bullet.

The General coughed and sputtered, dropping the gun to grip his bleeding neck in agony. He was already as good as dead, but as soon as the gun left the side of Brian’s temple, Vanessa had sprinted to the other side of the room in less than a second, grabbing his pistol before it had even touched the floor and crushing it into scrap metal with her bare hand. She effortlessly lifted the fridge of a man over her head and brought him violently down upon her raised knee, shattering his back with a brutal CRACK! that echoed throughout the silent halls of the facility. Audrey cupped her hands over her mouth at the sight of it all.

Vanessa had just ensured L’Enfant was dead.

Audrey and Brian embraced one another, holding themselves tight with fright as they scrounged what little comfort they could still find from this place within each other. After such a traumatic event the two lovebirds wanted nothing more than to bask in the embrace of one another, falling to their rears as they huddled together like they were camping in the cold. Vanessa, however, would not afford them such a luxury.

“Alright, we need to go now. There’s potential adversaries around every corner. We become sitting ducks the longer we wait here.”

But her comments about the situation didn’t stop there.

“Also, good job you too. Cleverly using your unique skills and knowledge to take out a foe.”

Hearing a genuine compliment leave Vanessa’s mouth was so shocking to Audrey and Brian that the PTSD of the moment was simply lost on them at that moment. They both looked at Vanessa, curiously wondering if the old her was still somewhere within, deep down inside somewhere. Audrey knew she wouldn’t get an answer here—certainly not now—but hearing a compliment from her former best friend made everything feel alright again.

Better yet, Vanessa offered her hand out to Audrey, waiting motionless for her to grab it so she could hoist the blonde up. Like a frightened animal, it took Audrey a moment to actually accept the offer, but she was hoisted up all the same.

“So, where do we go now?” Brian asked, expecting Vanessa to lead the way. Audrey appeared to echo this sentiment with her curious, blue eyes.

“Northwards. I can hear the sounds of the sea closest in that direction. That’s where we’ll have the easiest time finding a dock to depart from.”

“That means we’re not tracking down Giles then?” Audrey asked, checking behind her on instinct now that he was back in her mind.

“No. Spending more time in this facility is too risky. After all, I don’t wish to see either of you brought to unnecessary harm.”

Audrey smiled at the sound of her being included in Vanessa’s concern. Maybe there really was some semblance of the old Vanessa still in there, somewhere deep down and long forgotten…