Sorry for the extremely long hiatus on this story. I got so caught up in work and then my schooling that it kinda fell on the backburner. But now I'm trying to finish up some of the stories I have on here so hopefully I'll be able to get this finished soon enough.

Ruby

In the days since they brought Skye back, GENEALT has been as busy as a hive of bees. It seems that everyone here has a task to do and they don’t waste any time as they set about it all. I even do my part, giving information about Stillwell and the government whenever I can.

Now when we have meetings, Callaghan insists that we have them in the hospital wing. He won’t allow Skye to leave there until a majority of her injuries are healing nicely. We talk about going to Stillwell and attacking it. Right now it seems to be the best plan we have as a stepping stone to taking down the government. At the same time that we attack Stillwell, Kendra will be taking down Robarde.

I can only hope that this plan will work. It will require all of us to work together and right now I don’t know if that is completely possible. Tessa still seems to be upset about the whole incident with that government agent; the one we think could be a genetic. And Skye, I don’t know if she will be ready either.

I understand that she can’t feel pain but with her injured it could make it more difficult for the rest of us. And then throw in the fact that she’s still trying to deal with the fact that her brother is still alive and that he has a son…I honestly don’t know how she isn’t yelling at him for all the secrets.

Callaghan still hasn’t told us anything about the other genetics that Brandt has been raising for almost the past two decades. It seems like he isn’t ready to reveal just how many more there are. I guess I can understand why, considering that right now he has every right to be cautious. Someone could be listening in, trying to get more information from us.

On the other hand, I have been getting rather comfortable with almost everyone here. Tessa at least speaks to me now, though I fear that she still really doesn’t trust me. Understandable since I just showed up out of the blue and said I wanted to help with their battle against the government.

“Hey, Ruby.”

I turn and see Gabriel coming down the hall. “Yeah?”

“We have a meeting in ten minutes.”

I nod and smile at him. “Thanks Gabe. It’ll be in the hospital wing, right?”

He shook his head. “No, Skye finally got the best of Callaghan. It will be in the usual meeting room.”

Skye truly does have a remarkable ability to get Callaghan to do whatever she wants him to. It’s rather intriguing. I sigh, wishing I was that close to someone. That is one of my least favorite parts about being raised at Stillwell; they never allow us to really get close to others.

Sure, all of us bonded a little, but that was mostly because of all the teamwork and team-building activities they put us through. I think the closest we ever came to having some semblance of normalcy was when we gave ourselves names, ones other than the numbers the Stillwell people referred to us as.

“Are you all right?”

I blink a few times, looking at Gabe. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You just seemed to be a little lost in thought. Is it anything you want to talk about?”

“I’m just thinking about Stillwell.”

He nods. “Okay, well if you ever want to talk about it, I’ll be here to listen.”

I smile. “Thanks for the offer.”

“Anytime. Now come on, we don’t want to be late to the meeting. You know how Callaghan is about timeliness.”

Yeah, I did know. Callaghan doesn’t allow anyone to walk in late to a meeting. Once it has started, there’s no going back and he won’t re-state everything so he would rather the late people not show up at all. Besides, I wanted to make sure that I got a good seat.

Gabe and I head down the hall, going to the conference room. Once there we sit down right next to each other and I look around at the others. Most everyone is here already.

Then Callaghan walks in and the conversations all die down as we all turn to look at him. Apparently everyone is anxious to get the meeting started. “All right, I have just gotten off the phone with Kendra. She is ready to move on Robarde and is waiting for us to be ready to attack Stillwell.”

I blink a few times. Kendra moves fast for someone who is working alone. Here we are with plenty of able-bodied persons and we still aren’t completely ready.

“Here’s how it is going to go. Jackson, Hope, Matthew, and Jake, you two will stay here and work all the tech for this operation. Tessa, Skye, Gabriel, Ruby, and Vaughn, you will be the ones infiltrating Stillwell. Lani, Brandt, Alec, and Izzy, you guys will be backup, should it become necessary. Chris and Reese, I need you two to be ready, just in case we need your help when we return.”

Everyone nodes as they get their assignment. For the most part it seems like they expected what they were given.

“When are we going?” Skye asks, looking at Callaghan.

“We leave in two hours. Get your things together. Take whatever you think you’ll need. We’ll meet at the garage.”

“And what if that government agent is there?” Tessa asks.

“Then we will deal with it,” Skye answers. “You worry about your job and we’ll handle everything else.”

Tessa sighs but says nothing else. She really does have a sore spot for this agent. Is it just because everyone started talking about helping her since she may be a genetic as well?

What would we do if she was a genetic? In fact, what were we planning to do to the Stillwell genetics? I couldn’t kill them, could I? They were the people I had been raised with. Certainly that counted for something. Sure, they thought they were doing the right thing by following all of their orders and everything but they weren’t bad people.

I have to voice my thoughts, so I do.

Callaghan looks at me for a few moments. “Take them alive if you can. Perhaps they can be convinced to join us.”

I let out a deep breath. Hopefully Will, Jen, Anna, and Dom would listen to us and accept our offer. I don’t want to see them get hurt because of this.

“I don’t want this meeting to take any longer than it needs to so if there are no more questions then we can adjourn.” He looks around the room and no one says anything. “We reconvene in two hours at the garage. If you aren’t there on time we will leave without you.”

We all start to stand up and leave, though typically at different times. I look over at Gabe as he heads out with me, and then I notice Hope and Jackson right there with us. “So, what now?” I ask.

“I don’t know about you guys but I’m hungry,” Jackson says.

“That sounds like a good idea. We don’t want to try this operation on empty stomachs,” Gabe comments.

I nod. “Okay, let’s go to the cafeteria.”

We spend our two hours eating and then going our separate ways to pack up what we think we will need. I don’t really have anything of my own to take there. When I escaped I wasn’t able to take much with me. Hope lends me some of her gear since she is staying here with Jackson to run tech on the operation.

Then the two hours of waiting is over and we all meet out at the garage. Callaghan gives each vehicle a folder with the layout of the facility and we all climb into whatever vehicle corresponds with our group. I let everyone else look at the layout. I don’t need it. Instead I force myself to focus on the task at hand. When we get there I need to be ready. I can’t hesitate.