Edmund Adele

[Cathie]

Edmund Adele


December 2008
Nirka

It was blizzard conditions and the entire facility was on lock-down in Nirka. The “students” had all gone to bed as they were supposed to except for a few, who usually didn't exactly follow the rules. Tonight, Kappa sat in the mess hall, a hat on backwards over his crew cut hair, looking very out of place with his standard issue medical scrubs for pajamas. Across from him at one of the small round tables is Edmund Adele, a member not of the facility itself, but of the AMEA who often guarded the facility. Edmund had been on again, off again, guarding this facility for about 18 years, and knew some of the students there since they had been born. Kappa had come to the facility when he was about a day old. His chart had said he was born with pre-existing leukemia, and that he was dying, so he'd received several treatments that were very hush hush and experimental. Human testing was illegal for medical testing, but this facility seemed to skirt that fact. The outside world had no idea what they were doing. And those within had no real idea of what they were doing. Edmund was one that only had a partial idea of what went on. He thought it was for the good of humanity. Treating rare diseases was impossible at the moment without the use of magic, and the world had become too complacent upon using magic. Then the AMEA came and wiped it out essentially. Now, it was used but not nearly as often as before.

Throwing out two pairs, Edmund grinned across at the boy of 15 who sat there smirking back at him. He would hesitate, waiting, giving his best poker face, and then throws down four of a kind with a grin to equal Edmund's.

“Four of a kind, read 'em and weep.” Kappa chimes out as he pulls a pile of random candies.

“Shit, you can't be serious...you're cheating using your precog. I know you, and-” His words are cut off mid sentence as the power goes out.

The sounds of the fans in the building come to a stop, and he looks around, stands, and gives a stretch. Pulling his flashlight from his belt, he clicks it on and shines it around the room just to double check everything.

“Let's go check out the computer systems. They'll need to be reset so the generators can get working, before we all freeze.”

Kappa stood from the table when Edmund told him to come along with him, and they would both head toward the doors of the mess hall, out into the hall, and follows the hall down to the main office. Pulling out a set of keys, Edmund unlocks the door and looks to Kappa.

“You stay out of things. Just stay with me, hands off of everything, nose out of everything, got it?” Edmund watched him sternly.

“Understood.”

Kappa knew exactly why he was to remain out of everything. This was the main office, where dozens of security cameras were set up (where Edmund was supposed to be right now), and folders were filed away. Not even Edmund had looked in any of the drawers, but, as Edmund steps in and is messing with the fuse box, Kappa quietly eyes some paperwork in a partially opened drawer.

“What exactly is a lobotomy?” Kappa casually asks Edmund.

“What? Where do you see that?” Edmund turns around after flipping all of the breakers, as power starts back up, to see what he's looking at and quickly shuts the drawer. “You can't be looking in there! If they find out you were looking in there, you'll disappear, got it?”

“Ed, they gave someone a lobotomy! Isn't that where they hammer a spike into your head?”

“Well, yes, sort of, it's a blade, but you shouldn't be poking around in there. If they gave someone one, maybe they needed one.”

Kappa pulls the drawer out and grabs a handful of the files, turning away from Edmund as he quickly thumbs through them all. Edmund grabs for Kappa but freezes when he sees his own name on one of the forms. He was listed as the father. Both he and Kappa stare at it a moment, then look at each other.

“You're One's father...” Kappa blankly stared at him.

Edmund was dumbfounded...but he knew that if all of these files went missing, they'd know. So he opens the drawer and shoves them back in, moving over to another cabinet and pulls out a new thumb drive. Going to a computer once the power is running fully, he shoves it into the port, and starts pulling things up on the computer.

“Get me the black binder with the lock on it from the closet. Quickly.” He demands to Kappa and continues what he's doing.

Kappa grabs it out, and brings it over, so Ed can unlock it. Thumbing through, he would find the right page, enters in a password, and opens a series of folders...there were hundreds of them and he wasn't sure if they'd all fit onto this small drive. Selecting everything, he would select the zip command and waits. It was going to take a few minutes. Each minute felt like eternity. Kappa stands there watching, as Ed puts back the thumb drive and looks around, goes to the closet, and digs out an external hard drive. It was all he could think to do...and it would likely go noticed after a while, but this was needed. Plugging it in, he makes sure the device is empty and then once the compression ends, he drags it over to the window for the external, and it would start to transfer. It was an agonizing process. All in all it took, perhaps 10 minutes, but by the end, he has the external and tucks it into an inside pocket, deletes the zip folder, and restores everything back to the way it was before.

“I'm going to look this all over. You have to swear you'll say nothing or so help me...” Edmund's heart was pounding and racing.

“I promise! I swear, geeze...someone's coming...”

“Get back to your room, quickly; quietly.” He tells Kappa and then takes a seat, flipping on all of the monitors for the security cameras.

Kappa would hurry out, and a few minutes later, in would walk one of the higher ups to check on everything. Ed stands. He doesn't salute, since he isn't military but he made sure he had on his AMEA mask, and he gives a nod.

“Just a power failure, I got everything back up and running.” He tells the other who came to check in. The facility coordinator glances around before leaving to continue on his rounds.

He had to get that information, and he knew he could go looking through it tonight once his shift was over and he was at home. He'd take it out of the nation, to a remote coffee shop where he didn't need to worry. He kept a private laptop locked up there where the facility couldn't search. His laptop in his AMEA barracks was searched from time to time. And then he knew who he had to turn to to decipher the information. Jin and Ayama, a married couple who worked in the facility but were more like prisoners. He trusted them, and knew they trusted him, though they'd never seen his face. Only Kappa had ever seen it in the facility. With this information in hand, he'd be able to find out what was really being done to some of these kids, and had a feeling it wasn't good. And if it wasn't, he was determined to get his own child, or perhaps children, out of there, and set the others free.