Skinwalker

In the back of the library are private, soundproof rooms where groups of people schedule meetings. I find my way to a vacant room that isn’t booked until later this afternoon and sign all the slots leading up to that reservation. I have a lot of work to do and the information that my latest’s hosts has provided is buzzing around, unconfined.

The library table is large, there are drawers under it stocked with any supply a lawyer would ever need or want. On the wall there is a giant, white post-it note pad. I tear off a page and stick it to the table to be written on. Markers, pencils, and ink pens get removed from their hiding places, along with reasonable sized post-it notes, and two rulers.

Alone, I begin drawing out what Genetics Incorporated looks like according to Brittany. Making the floor plan I start out at the entrance she always arrives to work through. There’s a glass atrium, a hallway that only goes to the right, and at the end of the hallway is the lab she works in. As I draw the rough blueprint, I add everything she knows including where the breakroom is, where the two medical bays are, and a vast void of space that are where the cells are located.

Going through all of this puts people’s names into my mind that get scratched onto a normal sized note and stuck to the side of the blueprint. The list is short but it’s the beginnings of the subhumans she has worked on in the past or is currently studying. She knows of Logan, she’s worked with Catherine on occasion, and she was assigned Levi’s intake. The only person I can’t pull from her memory that she’s had any direct contact with is Cassandra.

On a new note, all on its own, I write down the name Annamarie when it comes to me. This is her lab partner. While her opinions of the girl aren’t very high, they work well together, and have a working relationship that begins and ends at the entrance to the facility. This is a person I’m going to need to know more about. She’ll be the person who notices I’m not Brittany before anyone else does.

The more documents I make, the more chicken scratch I write, and the further into the day it becomes the calmer my host gets. Everything I’ve needed from her so far, I’ve been able to collect with ease. There will be things that will come later, in the heat of any given moment, but for now the stacks of papers and documents I’ve created have helped settle both our minds.

There’s a tap on the window of the door before it’s pushed open.

Leona enters the space with a few things in her hands, a grocery sack, a file folder, and what appears to be the small black box I saw on the queen’s desk during our negotiations.

“What’s all that?” I inquire.

She peers at the documents I’ve created. “What is all of this?”

“Genetics Incorporated”.

Leona flips through some things. While the map is easy to make sense of, the random notes of people’s names, random codes, and usernames and passwords don’t. When she’s finished, she sets the small box in front of me and opens the lid exposing two flash drives. One is white and the other is red.

“Insert this into a computer on their network and follow the prompts.” She points to the white one. “When it’s finished, eject it, and insert the other one.”

“What are they?”

“Copy. Delete.”

White is good and red is bad; I tell myself this in hopes of committing it to memory. “What if I do them backwards?”

“Don’t insert them backward.”

Helpful.

“There isn’t a less conspicuous way to do this?”

Leona shrugs a shoulder. “You know Queen Scarlet.”

We both know the woman is always about fifteen years behind when it comes to the technology she knows how to use. I have no doubt that somewhere buried in the government there’s a team of techie types who could have provided her with something much more state of the art than a set of flash drives.

“How long will this take?”

“The first one can take up to five minutes, about a minute to eject it properly, and then the second could take up to four.”

“I have to bring back the virus drive?”

“Preferably.”

Ten minutes. “She’s going to get me caught,” I murmur.

Leona puts the lid back on the small box and dumps out the grocery bag she brought with her. Scattering across the table is a driver’s license, a credit and debit card, a cellphone, a set of keys, an ID badge clipped onto a lanyard and some sort of thick grey card. My host recognizes it which means I now know it’s a security access card that lets me through the gate, into the building, and into restricted areas. It’s also necessary to leave. These are things Brittany would keep in her purse. All things necessary to pretend to be her.

“Here.” She then hands me the last thing in her possession, the file folder.

Inside there are forged documents including her birth certificate, social security card, high school diploma, and college degrees and certificates. There is a wedding license and certificate, birth certificates to both her children, and small packet of information about her current divorce battle. I even find a deed to her home and the title of her car.

Looking through all of this, I’m in a state of shock. The queen has procured anything I could need if I ever have to prove I’m Brittany Allen. I could literally be this woman. Everything I need to replace her is inside of me or sitting on this table.

“Her shift begins at 9AM; you start in the morning.”

I know that’s when Brittany is expected to be there, I also know that isn’t her behavior pattern. While I thought I arrived at places early, she gets the worm. It’ll be closer to 5AM when I walk through the doors of Genetics Incorporated tomorrow and resume my hosts life for her. Hopefully the planning I’ve done today and the things I learned, will help me be successful.

“Are her children here?”

Leona nods. “You’ll do fine.”

God, I hope so.