Chapter 9

The loud sound had been the door being opened rather abruptly, making the hinges creak and grown under the strain. 96 laid very still pretending to be asleep keeping one eye open, the voice hid in behind him unseen. He could see George entering the room along with another man that 96 did not recognize, the man looked at him with indifference "So I see one of yours actually managed to survive, though it looks like it is most likely a failure. See ? No visible mutation, put him with group C" and with that the man turned on his heel and left the room to inspect the other rooms. George came into the room looking around rather confused he could not see the basket anywhere, and then he noticed the flagstone in the corner. Once the other man had left 96 quickly grabbed and concealed the needle that he had once again taken from its tube while George was occupied by the flagstone, once he had done so he sat up as though he had just woken. He looked blankly at George who had turned around due to the noise but George avoided eye contact, he insisted walked over to the flagstone and with some effort he was able to knock the flagstone out of the basket.

He took the basket over to 96 and placed him into the it along with his blanket, the voice had coiled itself around 96 in such a way that George could not see it.

George carried the basket to the end of the hall into the common area were the other baskets had been split up into three groups, passing by the first group 96 noticed the child with the third eye, it had seemingly recovered, he also noticed that the groups were divided on how mutated they were, group A had fully mutated children, group B had mild mutations, and finally group C had the ones who showed no signs of mutation. 96 was taken to the last group, the children there were all still sleeping, 96 took the opportunity to allow the voice to leave the basket and find a better place to hide. Group C consisted of twelve children, each of which seemed to be rather well fed and safe. 96 really had to wonder what had been the point of the traps in the rooms, what porpoise could they have had, did they want the children to die off or not? He desided that he would think about that later and instead made sure that the needle was in an easily reached location, he did not really like the fact that they had been split into groups as they were, it did not seem right somehow, and 96 had an uneasy feeling about the whole thing.

After about a half an hour the man who 96 had seen before with George walked into the center of the room fallowed by a group of hooded figures who were carrying a rather large stone with inscriptions ingraved onto its surface. The man who had walked in first had a white coat with gold inscriptions on it and he a small pair of glasses that were sliding down his face, 96 did not like this man in the slightest but he stopped his face from showing it, he had the feeling that he should mimic the others and not stand out becouse that would ruin everything, he did not understand why he thought that but he could not help it.

His thinking was interrupted by the man with the glasses "As you all know, the first week of the experiment has not gone entirely as planned" he frowned at a someone with a look of distaste "but do not lose heart of the fifty surviving specimens only thirteen were failures." For the first time 96 noticed the group of people in white standing near glasses nodding in agreement. "I have informed the king of our plight and he has benevolently granted us with a peice of the ancient in order to rectify this error" he gestured tword the stone slab which had been placed on a petistul, 96 felt like the hunger was starting to resurface but he stopped himself from moving by poking himself with the needle, not hard enough to break the skin but enough to snap him out of his daze, he had missed the rest of the conversation but the people in white had turned to the baskets and each stood near two of them, 96 noticed that George was at a different group and wondered what that could mean. "and now we will commence with the calling" glasses man raised his hands toward the ceiling and began reciting something in a language that 96 was unfamiliar with, all of the others in the white coats did the same it was to 96 quite the repulsive display but he could not tell why. Once they had finished the ritual all of the people in white picked up their respective baskets and stood in a strait line, 96 was the last in the line and had ample opportunity to see what was in store for him.