Chapter 3

As Abel hurries outside of his house he notices the tram leaving the stop. He starts running as fast as he can and manages to catch the last cart on the next stop. His face twists into a slight grimace as in his calves begins an intense burn from running too long and too fast. He sits down in a free seat after scanning his ticket and tries to ease the pain by rubbing the muscles where it's the most intense.

He grabs a small notebook sealed in a plastic box from his purse as soon as the pain begins to fade. 'I know you don't know me, but there's something you need to know. It isn't safe in there. Your lives aren't yours', he writes in it. 'You need to get out of there. I've prepared an escape route. Tonight at 11pm, get to the Eastern door. Behind it, there's a hallway that leads to the fire exit. I've put two sets of new clothes and tram tickets in there. Get to the King's Town Station. I'll be there, wearing a black leather jacket and a red scarf. Trust no one else. I'll explain everything once we're in the clear. This note is water-soluble'.

"I hope this works", Abel thinks to himself. He's been the Head Scientist in the Genetics department of what's officially known as Medical Research Labs for ten years, ever since the previous Head Scientist retired. "I can't bring Cass into this. I've been working on this by myself for too long. She'd be in serious danger if either one of us was found out".

He's so deep in his thoughts and worries he almost misses his stop. He manages to jump off as  the trams speeds up. As soon as he realizes Cassandra is waiting for him in front of the lab he hides the note in his pocket and hopes she didn't notice it. Fortunately for him, she's too concentrated on the portable game console she brought with her to see anything else.

"What are you doing here, Cass? Shouldn't you be inside?", he asks, and tries his best to look puzzled.

"Don't judge me, Abs. I don't want to be around those obnoxious people any longer than I have to", Cassandra snaps back as she quits the game and puts it in her pocket.

"Abs, huh".

"Yeah, so? Let's just get in there before we're late". She grabs Abel's arm and practically pulls him with her through the door, even though he's much larger than she is. "It's eight already? Shoot, the twins must be up already. Get the damn breakfast ready for them, I'll turn the cameras on".

Abel never liked prying into someone else's personal life, let alone monitoring them around the clock. But after doing it to the same people for seventeen years, even since they were born, made it somehow easier for him. Until recently he'd considered it part of the job.

He sets his bag down on a table next to him, opens the fridge and pulls two plates of food out of it. He removes the plastic wrapping and puts them both in a grand microwave to heat them up. He isn't sure what each of them contains, all he knows for sure is that it's supposed to have as little effect on their research as possible.

Once the microwave starts beeping as a sign that it's done heating the food, he sets the plates on a tray, slips the note he'd put in his pocket under one of them and grabs two sets of cutlery from a cupboard.

"Cass, mind opening the door?", he asks, and gets a slight nod as a response. He steps through a sliding door into what looks like a dining room and puts down each of the meals nicely in front of two lone chairs. He hears laughter from behind the locked door farthest from him. He stares at it for a moment, sighs and prays he's doing the right thing before going back the way he came to the research area.