"How are they doing?" He asked, pointing back down the hall.
"They're fine. Give them some privacy and check on them in a few hours. If nothing comes up, she can go back to her own room whenever she thinks she's ready." Steve was looking at Malachi when Tamar answered, so had to shift his gaze.
"I'd like to thank you. I reviewed the footage of the attack on our old base and couldn't see any of you on it. You weren't there, were you?"
"No, it's kind of hard to do any kind of infiltration work when you look like this all the time." She raised her arm to show her black hair. "I wasn't allowed outside the base. The first time I saw anything outside those walls was when I escaped."
"For what it's worth, I'm glad you weren't there." Steve turned and walked back the way he had come. Malachi and Tamar fell in behind him. "If you had been, there'd be no way I could let you stay here. Those memories are still fresh in everyone's mind." Tamar glanced out of the corner of her eye over at Malachi. He didn't even seem to react to Steve's comments. He had to be curious about what happened, or her role in it. But if he was, he wasn't showing it.
"I guess I should get down to the reason I'm here." Steve stopped and turned towards them. "I sent a three-man team down to explore on the conditions of the next three levels down about four hours ago. Everything was fine until we lost contact with them on the last level, complete communication black out. We haven't heard from them for thirty minutes now.
They all have military level training and were well armed. So we have no idea what they might have run into down there. I was hoping you would be willing to take a look. It would mean a lot to a lot of people here."
"Sure, I'll take a look." Tamar jabbed him in the ribs. "Okay, we'll take a look. Just point us towards the entrance."
Minutes later, they stood before a gently slopping doorway cut into the rock. The light behind them penetrated only a few feet past the threshold before darkness consumed it.
"Ladies first." Malachi swept his hand forward.
"Nice try. I can't see a thing down there. If anyone is going first, it's you."
"I thought cats could see in the dark?" Malachi asked, taking a step through the doorway.
"Cats can see in low light, not no light. This is no light, so I might as well be blind down here."
"I can see just fine." Tamar felt his hand touch hers and squeeze hard.
Her first impulse was to yank her hand away. She had so much feline in her that she had never been comfortable with physical contact. Yet with Malachi, everything seems so easy. Her hand fit perfectly in his. She could talk to him like she'd known him her entire life. Somehow, in a little under a month, he had broken down so many of her walls, and it seemed like he wasn't even trying. So with a deep sigh, she plunged into the black.
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The instant she reached the absolute darkness, she gasped. The entire corridor they were in lit up in a green halo. The walls, ceiling, even the floors shone in the glow of an internal chemical light. Tamar stopped and yanked her hand from Malachi's. In an instant, the darkness closed in, leaving her not able to see her hand in front of her face.
"Why'd you do that?" Malachi asked, grabbing her hand again?
"Just testing something." The instant his hand renewed the contact, the passageway lit up again.
"And I was right." She wrapped her arm around his and they both continued their descent.
"The men are two levels below us, in a room that they've barricaded shut. Of the three, two are injured, and the other seems to be unconscious."
"How can you tell that from here? There's got to be forty feet of rock between us and them."
"I can see through walls." Malachi told her.
"Oh really, how?"
"I can map out an area out to about two hundred feet by emitting bursts of alpha particles. They pass through most objects harmlessly, but just enough of them bounce back for my suit to get a rough layout of what's happening. The only problem is that it's a real power drain, so I can't do it for very long."
"Remember, Steve said the stairs leading downward are two hundred yards straight ahead, on the right." Tamar reminded him.
They walked past doors that hadn't been opened in what looked like years. The dust on the floor was almost an inch think and nothing had disturbed it except the mice.
"I wasn't allowed to come on that mission." Tamar finally blurted out after she could take no more of his silence.
"I didn't ask."
"Why not!" She yelled back. "You had to be curious. Why weren't you curious?"
"Because we've all done things we regret, some more than others. I figured when you felt the time was right, you'd tell me."
"They wouldn't let me go out on any infiltration mission because I couldn't change to full human. It's kinda hard to fit in with normal people when you look like this."
"What do you mean, full human?" Malachi asked slowly.
With a heavy sigh, Tamar continued. "At the beginning of the experiment, there were six of us. Each genetically engineered to be the perfect blend of feline and human, three male, three female. I was the sixth to gain consciousness, therefore I was called Six.
We were made with deep growth acceleration, so we were fully grown by the time we were eight months old. Before we reached that age, each of the others had shifted between hybrid, feline, and human form. I on the other hand, had not. I could change between full cat and hybrid, but I could not shift to human form. The others, with a little concentration, could change their appearance to blend seamlessly in with normal humans.
I couldn't go on any missions that required that ability, and now I'm glad I didn't. The five of my siblings worked their way into a rival military factions' base and slaughtered, from what little tid-bits I could make out, almost two hundred people." She grabbed Malachi's arm a little tighter. "Now you can see why I received such a warm reception when they first saw me. The things that killed so many of their people looked just like me."
"We'll talk about this more when we get out of here. But for now, we need to focus. There are three guys down here that need our help, and something that scared, or attacked them, maybe both."
"Right!" Tamar nodded. Taking a deep, slow breath, she focused her senses on the situation at hand.
Just where Tamar said it would be, they found the stair well downward. Instead of stopping at the first landing, they made their way to the next level down.
"Whatever's down here hasn't registered on any of my sensors, so be careful." He wrapped his hands around Tamar's waist and gave a gentle squeeze. Lifting her as if she weighed nothing, he put her down right in front of him.
"I know you're all chivalrous and all, but I don't think ladies first really applies here. Besides, no one had ever accused me of being a lady, anyway." She told him, tilting her head to look over her shoulder at him.
"You're here so I can keep an eye on you." Reaching with his hand up, he cupped her cheek. It seemed to take forever as he slid his hand down, his fingers leaving little trails of fire on her skin until they at last slipped off her chin. "And to keep you safe."
"I do not need you to keep me safe." Tamar bristled.
"You're so adorable when you do that." Malachi patted her on the top of her head.
"Girls gotta try, right?" She harrumphed, then continued forward.
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