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Description
SOROR CALIGINIS
(Sister of Darkness)
A Pokèumans One-Shot

Patricia was having a very unusual Monday.

No, "unusual" was too much of an understatement. Perhaps "insane" would work better- no, no, that implies complete defiance of logic, and while there was certainly some logic-defying going on, it wasn't a complete mind-wrecker. Maybe "unexpected?" No, that would be stating the obvious. What about "unique-?" Wait, that's just another understatement. Let's see... what could be-

Ahem.

The point is this: this Monday was not "normal." For that matter, Patricia's past weekend could not in any way be considered "normal." Nothing that had happened to her over the past forty-eight hours could have ever been possibly predicted by a sane, rational human being, and the few that could have done so would have been laughed out of even the metaphysics community so quickly that they would hear the laughter through a doppler effect.

It was funny, in a way. A strange, wild, schizophrenia-and-pixie-stix-induced way. If she had been told that she would be in this position in two days time, she would have laughed herself silly- while running away and calling the straitjacket patrol, of course. After all, what madman could have imagined that she would be like... this now?

And yet, there she was, sitting in a bunkbed in an apartment-sized room lined with spartan furnishings and simple, budget-limited wallpapers. That alone was not surprising- she had once, when she was a little girl, had a sleepover at a friends house with designs that were much the same. In fact, she sort of liked the design; it was simple, practical, and- without a doubt- as far from wasteful as one could possibly be.

So what did she find strange, you might ask? That is a fairly simple question, with a not-quite-so-simple answer; that spartan room was one of hundreds in a gigantic, five-mile-wide complex. That complex, which sported much the same style and personality of practical need over all else, was constructed on top of a flat, unbelievably wide stretch of stone. And that stretch of stone... well, that was where things got interesting, because that stone happened to reside somewhere that most people would consider impractical and impossible:

At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Not the true bottom, mind you- no, that title belonged to the depths of the famous Marianas Trench, a chasm in the ocean floor so deep that the water pressure could crush any craft to venture down as one would a tin can- crumpling it like tinfoil into a jagged bundle of metal. Supposedly, this place possessed some extremely strong submarines capable of surviving such depths, but she had yet to see them.

At the same time, though, it was deep enough to deter divers and freelance submariners from getting anywhere close- if they did, then there was a very good chance that it could be discovered, and there were virtually no defenses viable for use at such a depth. It is fortunate, then, that there had not been a single close encounter between the underwater complex and the outsiders beyond since the facility was first built; after all, the ocean was a vast and wide place, and the chances of some random diver ending up in that particular spot were a one-in-a-billion, and that would be putting it generously.

But what, you might ask, what was the purpose of building something as complex and ridiculous as a facility at the bottom of the sea? What possible use could it serve- besides providing very high-quality seafood, of course. After all, could any research completed at the bottom of ocean not also be completed above the surface? There were no major resources under the sea, save for oil supplies, and such a base would not be properly equipped to harvest the few resources that did exist so far down.

The answer is quite simple; deceptively simple, really. Nobody short of a select, open-minded, unique few would think of it, so ridiculously simple an answer it was: A relay. That's right, a relay. The Deep Pacific Base was one gigantic pit stop for any wishing to travel to the Deep Pacific's older brother, the Marianas Research Facility.

Marianas was, as the name would obviously suggest, built partway down the Marianas Trench, the single deepest point under any sea. The Marianas Research Facility was one of the single most advanced places on the entire planet, churning out technologies and research data that most scientists would consider mere fiction for at least another century. For a researcher (or simply someone in the field of science), Marianas was nothing short of heaven. And yet, like all things, there was a problem: the water pressure alone down in such a place is high enough to crush any approaching craft into a mangled mess of steel, not to mention what would happen if an actual living being tried to dive down to such a place.

Therefore, Deep Pacific was constructed to act as an intermediary between Marianas and the rest of the world. Anyone wishing to travel to the Marianas Research Facility would need to go through the Deep Pacific Base first, where they would checked, double-checked, triple-checked, checked once more for good measure, and then finally sent down to Marianas in a specially built submarine. These special submarines were completely unavailable to the rest of the world for a number of reasons, the biggest being security; if anyone else got ahold of one such craft, they would be able to bypass standard security procedures and travel directly to Marianas, which would set off a whole troubling chain of events likely concluding in espionage charges and a lifetime jail sentence.

Ah, ah, ah. I can tell what you are thinking. You are thinking that what made Patricia's weekend "unusual," for lack of a better term, is the fact that she was now staying at this Deep Pacific Base. Well, whoever you are that is reading this (and I don't know why or how you are reading this- I'm just the narrator, after all), you could not be more wrong.

Admittedly, spending the past few days in a previously unheard-of civilian base at the bottom of the sea was not something Patricia was used to, but it was not the primary reason why she was confused. If anything, she found her situation regarding the Deep Pacific Base quite amusing and had to forcibly stop herself from comparing it to a new Atlantis- science-fiction had always been one of her interests, after all. So, if it was not, in fact, her location that was unusual, then what exactly was troubling her so much? Well... that would be the reason why she now resided in an underwater base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean:

Hm... how to say this... There's the elegant, fancy way- but that would downplay the seriousness of the event. There's the simple, blunt way, but that might make it seem as if the situation was detached from reality. Hm... what if... no, no... Oh, fine. I'll just say it:

Patricia was no longer completely human.

Yes, yes, you read that correctly (unless you didn't, of course). Patricia had, through some freak coincidence of nature, undergone something of a... transformation late Friday night and discovered the early stages and effects on Saturday morning. It came as quite a shock when she awoke and looked in the mirror to find a small patch of purple, unnaturally smooth skin running down the underside of her right arm. Upon further inspection, she found a similar spot around the lower-left side of her belly and a third small patch of violet under her left ear.

Originally, she had been quite... disturbed, that's the word for it- disturbed by the changes. Was she suffering from a mutated strain of Leprosey, perhaps? Or... maybe she had suffered a strange, undocumented relapse of childhood chicken pox?

She shook her head at both suggestions. Even by her standards of strangeness, such an event would be unprecedented and absurd. Perhaps... perhaps she had been drugged, and was suffering from an alergic reaction? It's not the best explanation, she reasoned, but I don't really have a better one. In that case, it would probably be a good idea to get dressed, skip breakfast, and immediately drive to the nearest hospital for treatment.

But, Wait! she thought, stopping herself midway through putting on her pants, What if the government finds out and thinks I'm some sort of mutant? Admittedly, this was a slight leap of logic, but it was, nonetheless, sound to a certain extent. If the government overreacted- or, worse, was originally responsible for whatever was happening to her- then going to a public facility such as a hospital would be about the worst thing she could possibly do. And who knows what would happen to her then?

No, no. Patricia decided. Even if the government didn't do... this to me, they might react badly anyway. Best to just stay home. Having decided not to risk it, Patricia went to the medicine cabinet, downed an antihistamine pill (just in case it really was an allergy), and went downstairs to eat breakfast. Quietly, doing her best to ignore the strangely colored patches across her body, she poured herself a bowl of cold cereal and a glass of milk, then sat down to begin eating.

However, she would not get to actually eat her breakfast today, because that would be far too... ordinary- yes, that's the word. It would have been far too ordinary for her to be able to enjoy her breakfast; I mean, really, when would something as unique as sudden possible mutation ever be followed up by a calming, usual event? It just isn't something that happens! The universe simply won't let it!

Therefore, I think we can all safely agree that something would have to interrupt her. If you did, in fact, think this was the case, then you would be right! If you did not... then why are you even reading this? Clearly, you are not cut out for the rigorous madness of science-fiction.

But I digress. As soon as she sat down to enjoy a bowl of brand-name cereal that will not be named for copyright reasons, a loud ringing echoed through the house- the doorbell! Oh, that horrible noise! A haunting, foreboding sound to anyone with even the slightest understanding of plot design!

However, Patricia did not suspect a thing and, not understanding the significance of such a terrible omen, she simply sighed in annoyance at the interruption and got back up from kitchen table to walk over to the front door, suppressing a yawn as she did so. "It is way too early to deal with Jehovah's Witnesses." She grumbled to herself, recalling the memory of the "visitors" she had had only a few days earlier, albeit at a less agonizing hour than 7:04 AM. "I swear, if it is another one of those idiots, I'm gonna take that miniature Bible of theirs and shove it so far up their asses..." She just let the threat hang in the air, seeing as continuing it would serve no purpose without someone to actually threaten.

Alas, Patricia would not get the satisfaction of warding off the door-to-door pests today, for, as she opened the door, she found herself staring at a pair of very tall, cold-faced men wearing sunglasses and black suits. That final item immediately set off every alarm bell in Patricia's head, as the only reasons any sane person would wear a black suit would be if they were attending a wedding (which was most certainly not happening at her apartment), if they were attending a funeral (which she hoped was not happening at her apartment), or if they were government agents. Given the circumstances, the most likely choice was the third option, and there was little doubt in Patricia's mind as to the reason for such a visit from a covert agency.

For a second, she simply stared at the black-suited men, with them staring back at her. This single second, however, seemed to stretch on for hours on end. Out of the corner of her eye, Patricia noticed that both agents each had a small, purple-tinted aerosol can (most likely some sort of non-lethal suppression chemical) on their belts, as well as a slight bulge underneath the right side of their suits, near the stomach area- a concealed handgun, no doubt. While she was performing this instantaneous look-over of the mysterious black-suited men, it occured to her that these were quite possibly the most obvious government agents in the history of the world.

The man on the right opened his mouth to speak- but his voice was instantly overshadowed by the loud slam of the door being thrown shut in his face. Patricia wasted no time at all in throwing each and every lock, managing to engage both sets of deadbolts and the chain lock before the two agents began their attempts to beat down the door. Another five seconds saw the final deadbolt thrown closed and a desk chair wedged under the doorknob, effectively sealing the door. Ignoring the muffled voices of the black-suited agents as they continued to fail miserably in breaking down her front door, Patricia quickly ripped her cell phone out of the wall charger and slipped on a pair of running shoes, then ran over to a wall safe and carefully dialed in the combination, opening it to reveal...

One high-quality, well-constructed, Glock-17 semi-automatic handgun. Despite her older brother's protests, she had gone ahead a few months after her eighteenth birthday and gotten a concealed weapons permit for herself, followed shortly afterward by the ceramic nine-millimeter civilian pistol before her. After a slight moment's hesitation, she reached into the safe and pulled out both the handgun and the permit underneath it, placing the latter in her pocket but keeping the former in her hands and at the ready.

Slowly, with a measure of practiced grace, she pulled the slide of the Glock back halfway, checking for a chambered round, and, satisfied that there wasn't one, pulled it back fully and released, chambering a live bullet and effectively arming the weapon. A flick of her thumb turned off the safety mechanism, the sharp click signalling that the deadly weapon was now ready to be used.

An instant later, Patricia jumped to her feet as a sharp crack from the front hall echoed through the house. There go the door hinges... She thought, deftly grabbing a light purple jacket off the coat rack, tucking the Glock-17 into the inner pocket of the jacket, and running over to the window of her apartment. Carefully, she pushed the window up a few feet, then swung through the gap and landed feet-first on the third-story fire escape. Behind her, Patricia heard the telltale metallic crack of the second door hinge snapping free of the wall, followed almost instantly by the door being kicked off its frame. Now or never! And with that thought, Patricia scurried down the fire escape to the ground below.

As soon as she reached street level, Patricia found herself faced with an interesting dilemma; she could run for her life, abandoning stealth for the sake of getting as far away from these agents as possible, or she could attempt to blend in with the early-morning crowd and try to blend in, then simply go with the flow until she was out of danger. The second plan was obviously riskier, what with her slight mutation and all, but the mutations weren't exactly obvious now that she actually had clothes on. In fact, the only difference that was even remotely visible was the patch of violet under her left ear, and a quick adjustment to her hair hid that quite easily.

Finally, she decided on her course of action and stepped out onto the sidewalk, quickly blending into the cramped hustle and bustle of businessmen and assorted college students. She recognized none of the latter, save for the occasional glimpse she had seen of them walking from class to class, but their presence made it infinitely easier to blend in with the rest. Before she even reached the first intersection, she was already making conversation with them, appearing for all the world as if she were a normal teenager.

After walking a couple of blocks with this group, Patricia dared to glance over her shoulder and paled slightly as she spotted a familiar pair of men in black suits walking about half-a-block behind her, checking alleys and searching the vast crowds for any sign of their target. That's not good... She thought, turning back to her fellow students and continuing their conversation, albeit with considerable effort. Forcing herself to remain as calm and collected as possible, she continued walking along until they reached a long, wide alley, where she amicably dropped out of the conversation and darted inside, taking cover behind a nearby dumpster.

Patricia waited. And waited. And waited some more. Then realized that what she had thought was ten minutes of waiting was actually only ten seconds and continued waiting in silence. Finally, the two men that had raided her apartment went walking by the alley... and passed it by. She let out a sigh of relief-

Which was quickly stifled as the agents doubled back into the alley, one of them checking what appeared to be a cell phone before putting it back into his pocket. Trackers. Patricia thought with a hint of terrified disbelief, You've gotting be kidding me! When did they tag me with a tracer?! At that moment, a thought occured to her- the purplish spots on her body. Could they possibly be emitting a low-level energy signature, not enough to be felt by the average person but more than enough to be detected by the proper equipment?

Carefully holding her breath to remain silent, Patricia cursed herself for her stupidity. Dammit, Pat! She thought as the agents' slow, unnaturally light footsteps drew ever closer, Of course they have a way of detecting stuff like this! How else would they have found me in the first place?! The footsteps were getting too close for comfort now, and the girl felt a slight chill run down her spine. Deep breaths... She thought, forcing her breathing process to slow and become an almost imperceptible sound. Breathe in... breathe out...

Breathe in... The closest agent was only a few steps away now...

Breathe out... Just a little longer and she would undoubtably be seen...

Breathe in... A pale hand and a black sleeve grabbed onto the edge of the dumpster-

NOW!

In an instant, Patricia leapt up from her hiding spot, appearing suddenly enough to cause the agent to rear back in surprise. Her left hand pulled away from the handle of her gun, grabbing onto the agent's left shoulder and holding him steady. A few feet away, the other agent similarly jumped back from the near-instantaneous appearance of the girl they were hunting for. Both agents reached down to grab the aerosol tins on their belts-

As Patricia violently forced the barrel of the Glock into the belly of the closer agent and pulled the trigger.

Now, in most stories, these days, the result would be about as predictible as our two government agents. The gun would go off, killing the closer agent, then Patricia would kill the other agent and walk away, none the worse for wear with nobody questioning anything. Many stories have done it before, after all! In video games, in movies, in books, this would be an almost commonplace occurance. Therefore, obviously, such an event would proceed as these sources would suggest.

However, this was not a video game.

This was not a movie.

This was not a book.

This was reality.

And reality works, in fact, much differently than most works of fiction.

Therefore when the gun did, indeed, go off, the aftermath was very different from what the average person would expect, given what popular media suggests.

From the small handgun pressed into the closest agent's stomach, a thunderous bang erupted, deafening Patricia from the sharpness of the noise in such a close proximity. The flash from the muzzle blinded her for an instant as if she had been staring into the sun, causing her to flinch and squint slightly as the bullet traveled out of the barrel and tore into the man's gut. The slide kicked back harshly, forcing Patricia to stagger a step backward from the force as the man, clutching his wounded belly, fell to the floor.

Patricia's whole world was obscured by a haze of adrenaline, rattled by the near-painful ringing in her ears, and blended together by the faint noise of screams and panic coming from both ends of the alley. And there was also a bit of... confusion as to why her hands suddenly felt... wet. Slowly, she looked down to see that both of her hands, plus the Glock that she was gripping dangerously tightly, were covered with a spatter of blood, ejected from the man's body by the lethal shot. She couldn't think, couldn't react, only stare in shock and horror at the crimson liquid staining her hands.

Then, movement caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. The other agent, who had been staring in shock at his fallen partner, had finally come to his senses and was fumbling for the handgun in his coat pocket. To Patricia's adrenaline-fueled mind, there was only one course of action- in an instant, the bloody Glock was raised again and let forth its terrible, echoing thunder once more, planting a bullet firmly between the man's shoulder blades and sending him stumbling back into the wall. A second later, he limply, slowly, slid down to the ground, a streak of red following his movements.

Oh my god. Patricia thought, her breathing becoming fast and erratic, her thoughts becoming more and more disorganized by the second.

I just killed two people. Somewhere, far away from the sound of it- down a tunnel, perhaps- Pat could hear a police siren echoing through the streets. The siren was quickly joined by another, then another.

I just fucking killed two people. Her eyes were riveted to the gruesome scene before her, one body lying on the ground with a pool of thick, dark red liquid expanding from beneath it, the other leaning limply against the brick wall with a crimson trail above him like a bloody silhouette.

I just shot and killed two men. Slowly, Patricia's eyes drifted down to her dripping, bloodstained hands, both with a deathgrip on the now-red-and-black Glock-17. Slowly, she removed one hand from the pistol, flexing it carefully to confirm that it was, indeed, hers.

And then, like a bolt of lightning, the reality of what she had just done hit home.

With a shriek, Patricia dropped the Glock, the ceramic handgun clattering against the concrete below as she stumbled back into the wall, sliding down it with wide eyes. She could feel herself hyperventilating, could feel herself slowly going into shock as she sat there, her bloody hands hugged tightly around her in some vague attempt at self-comfort.

I killed them! She thought, tears beginning to run down her face. I fucking killed both of them! Faintly, she heard a pair of voices, running into the alley, and yet she did not seem to care. I killed them without a second thought! The two voices, who seemed far too young to be police officers, quickly grabbed her arms and pulled her to her feet, where she stood limply.

I killed them... Was the last thing she thought as she passed out then and there from shock.

Blinking herself back to the present, Patricia looked up from her lap and around her room. It was strange... her eyes felt weird and there was a very distinct blur over everything... She blinked in confusion and immediately realized the cause for such things- tears. With a ragged sigh, she wiped her eyes dry and leaned back against the wall.

The events of that day had been haunting her almost constantly. Wherever she looked, she would see the two broken, bloody bodies, life fading from their eyes with each passing second. Every sudden noise echoed like the thunderous bangs of a Glock, ringing in her ears and disrupting her train of thought. And, no matter how hard she tried, she found that each and every time her thoughts drifted away from the present, she would wind up right back in that horrible alley, staring in terror at her macabre handiwork.

And the dreams- oh, the dreams! They were perhaps the worst of all! Since that infamous Friday night, Patricia could barely manage to get an hour of sleep here and there, because each and every time she would close her eyes, her subconcious, fraught with guilt, would spend each and every second torturing her. The nightmares haunted her like ghosts- worse, even, because even ghosts would not be quite so merciless.

Fully aware of this fact, Patricia was careful not let her eyes droop closed from sleepiness as she gazed about the room once more. It had turned out that those two who had picked her up from the alley had not, in fact, been police officers- for that matter, they did not even have any real authority in the everyday world. They had been like her, once, people with normal lives and normal dreams until one day they found themselves afflicted by unusual changes to their bodies. They were rescued from their pursuers, the same ones that Patricia had so painfully dispatched, and ended up in much the same situation as she was now. These survivors, these fugitives from those that would see them harmed, called themselves the Pokèumans.

The Pokèumans organization had a very complicated backstory, stretching back an extraordinary amount of time. However, to be perfectly honest, Patricia realized quite quickly that she honestly could not care less how the organization had formed, nor why she was here. In fact, the only things she really cared about during the entire introduction could be summarized in two words: form and family.

First of all, Patricia wanted to know what the... ahem. I believe she phrased it "what the ever-loving fuck is happening to me?" A valid question, brought about by valid reasons. It turns out that a very, very long time ago, one of Patricia's ancestors had had a child with a being known as a Mismagius. Those passive genes, over an extreme span of time, had been passed down to her and, through random, subtle radiation spikes, had spontaneously become active. With these genes set to active her body was now transforming into that of a Mismagius.

Obviously, Patricia found this quite concerning. After all, she had actually had a rather enjoyable, normal life as a human and did not want to end up looking like what she called "an anime witch with a serious meth addiction." However, unfortunately for her, there was not a single damn thing she could do about it, and that annoyed Patricia to no end.

Looking down at her hands once more, she saw the purple, almost ethereal mass that they had become, the changes tapering off back into human skin just past her elbow on her right arm and slightly below her shoulder on her left. The transformation would take the better part of a week or so to complete, meaning that Patricia would get them exquisite pleasure of slowly watching herself mutate into another species entirely. If only her older brother could see her now...

And that brought her to her second concern: her family. One of the first things that Patricia had been told upon waking up at the Deep Pacific Base was that there was a very, very good chance that she would never see her family again. Quite honestly, I do not believe that my skills in narration are anywhere near what would be required to accurately portray how much this thought scared her. Pat had always been close to her parents, and regularly called to wake them up on weekdays simply as playful payback for all those years of them waking her up at five-o-clock in the morning for high school.

But, while she was anxious about never seeing her parents again, what scared her the most was the thought of never seeing her older brother again. The two of them had been extremely close, to the point where the two of them would regularly meet on weekends simply to hang out with each other. Occasionally, the two of them would engage in prank wars, which would generally send anyone within a mile radius scrambling for cover. And even once the cataclysm of jokes was over, the two of them would be laughing heartily at the ridiculousness of it all. The thought of never seeing him again...

Patricia took a deep breath and closed her eyes, accepting even the haunting visions of her two victims over the terrible nightmare of that possibility. As soon as she heard about that, she asked her roommate, a Sligoo named Lucas Oriano, if he could possibly find out whether her brother had transformed as well. It was a slim chance, almost infinitesimally small, but she simply could not stand the thought of being isolated from her brother for the rest of her life. Pat simply could not imagine how she would cope with-

A sharp knock on the door snapped Patricia out of her thoughts. Who could that be...? She wondered, looking up her lap towards the door. Is it Lucas...? He can't be back that quickly... Slowly, Patricia stood up from her bunk and walked over to the door, her brow slightly contorted in confusion. With a careful tug on the doorknob, she slowly opened the door to see Lucas standing there with a pair of PRT members standing behind him.

Lucas, Patricia noticed silently, was acting very nervous, his liquid mass twitching in a way that could almost be associated with... fear. The two PRT agents, a charmeleon and a bellossom, were, for their part, doing a very good job of remaining stoic and calm, although Pat could see that even they showed a slight nervous twitch. "H-Hello?" She asked, her head quickly filling with a whirlwind of thoughts, not the least of which being "who are these people?" and "why are they visiting me?"

"Hello." The charmeleon replied without missing a beat. "We heard you were looking for information on your brother, miss...?"

"Patricia." She replied warily, very disconcerted by the arrival of these two mysterious people. For a second, she could've sworn she saw the charmeleon's expression darken momentarily, but she dismissed it just as quickly. Slowly, she opened the door and let them in, Lucas remaining outside and shutting the door behind them. "So..." she said, sitting down on her bunk again, "Who are you?"

The charmeleon and bellossom looked at each other for a moment, then back at Patricia. "Call me Scarlet."

"Call me Harvest." The two answered respectively. Patricia raised an eyebrow at their supposed names- nobody had names like that, at least nobody she had ever heard of.

"Miliary callsigns?" She asked, looking at the charmleon with suspicion.

"That's classified." He responded, but his slight smirk for a fraction of a second told all. However, that smirk was gone fast enough that Pat almost missed it entirely. "However, we do have some information for you regarding your brother."

Her eyes widened. "You do?! Is he okay, is he-?"

The charmeleon held up his hand to cut her off. "That's rather complicated, miss."

"Well, then, uncomplicate it!" Pat growled, leaning slightly forward on her bunk. She was not about to let backroom politics keep her from seeing her brother again. "If you think I'm just gonna sit here-!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" The bellossom, Harvest, said, cutting Pat off mid-rant. "No need fer any o' that!" Slowly, seething a bit, she forced herself to remain quiet. "Ma'am, we're not tryin' to keep ya from seein' your brother, it's just..." He sighed. "It'd be a bit difficult to do so."

That sentence alone set off countless alarm bells in Pat's head. "Wh-what do you mean?" She stammered, now even more worried than before. "Did something happen to him?"

For a moment, the room was silent save for the quiet breathing of its three occupants. Then, Scarlet sighed. "Miss... Patricia, what do you know about the Marianas Base?"

Pat froze. There had been rumors going around recently, about some sort of disaster at Marianas. Thousands dead. Some sort of black-box files floating around the inter-base network for all to see- although she herself had yet to see them. Making a mental note to look for such files later, Patricia worriedly replied "Y-yes...?" He couldn't be... was he...?

Scarlet opened his mouth to respond, but stopped just as quickly and sighed again. "Let's start over." He said, an evident tinge of guilt in his voice. "Just for the record, miss, could you state your name? Your full name?"

An odd request, Patricia thought, but somewhat understandable. "O-okay. My name's Patricia."

"Patricia Cohen."

Description
SOROR CALIGINIS
(Sister of Darkness)
A Pokèumans One-Shot

Patricia was having a very unusual Monday.

No, "unusual" was too much of an understatement. Perhaps "insane" would work better- no, no, that implies complete defiance of logic, and while there was certainly some logic-defying going on, it wasn't a complete mind-wrecker. Maybe "unexpected?" No, that would be stating the obvious. What about "unique-?" Wait, that's just another understatement. Let's see... what could be-

Ahem.

The point is this: this Monday was not "normal." For that matter, Patricia's past weekend could not in any way be considered "normal." Nothing that had happened to her over the past forty-eight hours could have ever been possibly predicted by a sane, rational human being, and the few that could have done so would have been laughed out of even the metaphysics community so quickly that they would hear the laughter through a doppler effect.

It was funny, in a way. A strange, wild, schizophrenia-and-pixie-stix-induced way. If she had been told that she would be in this position in two days time, she would have laughed herself silly- while running away and calling the straitjacket patrol, of course. After all, what madman could have imagined that she would be like... this now?

And yet, there she was, sitting in a bunkbed in an apartment-sized room lined with spartan furnishings and simple, budget-limited wallpapers. That alone was not surprising- she had once, when she was a little girl, had a sleepover at a friends house with designs that were much the same. In fact, she sort of liked the design; it was simple, practical, and- without a doubt- as far from wasteful as one could possibly be.

So what did she find strange, you might ask? That is a fairly simple question, with a not-quite-so-simple answer; that spartan room was one of hundreds in a gigantic, five-mile-wide complex. That complex, which sported much the same style and personality of practical need over all else, was constructed on top of a flat, unbelievably wide stretch of stone. And that stretch of stone... well, that was where things got interesting, because that stone happened to reside somewhere that most people would consider impractical and impossible:

At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

Not the true bottom, mind you- no, that title belonged to the depths of the famous Marianas Trench, a chasm in the ocean floor so deep that the water pressure could crush any craft to venture down as one would a tin can- crumpling it like tinfoil into a jagged bundle of metal. Supposedly, this place possessed some extremely strong submarines capable of surviving such depths, but she had yet to see them.

At the same time, though, it was deep enough to deter divers and freelance submariners from getting anywhere close- if they did, then there was a very good chance that it could be discovered, and there were virtually no defenses viable for use at such a depth. It is fortunate, then, that there had not been a single close encounter between the underwater complex and the outsiders beyond since the facility was first built; after all, the ocean was a vast and wide place, and the chances of some random diver ending up in that particular spot were a one-in-a-billion, and that would be putting it generously.

But what, you might ask, what was the purpose of building something as complex and ridiculous as a facility at the bottom of the sea? What possible use could it serve- besides providing very high-quality seafood, of course. After all, could any research completed at the bottom of ocean not also be completed above the surface? There were no major resources under the sea, save for oil supplies, and such a base would not be properly equipped to harvest the few resources that did exist so far down.

The answer is quite simple; deceptively simple, really. Nobody short of a select, open-minded, unique few would think of it, so ridiculously simple an answer it was: A relay. That's right, a relay. The Deep Pacific Base was one gigantic pit stop for any wishing to travel to the Deep Pacific's older brother, the Marianas Research Facility.

Marianas was, as the name would obviously suggest, built partway down the Marianas Trench, the single deepest point under any sea. The Marianas Research Facility was one of the single most advanced places on the entire planet, churning out technologies and research data that most scientists would consider mere fiction for at least another century. For a researcher (or simply someone in the field of science), Marianas was nothing short of heaven. And yet, like all things, there was a problem: the water pressure alone down in such a place is high enough to crush any approaching craft into a mangled mess of steel, not to mention what would happen if an actual living being tried to dive down to such a place.

Therefore, Deep Pacific was constructed to act as an intermediary between Marianas and the rest of the world. Anyone wishing to travel to the Marianas Research Facility would need to go through the Deep Pacific Base first, where they would checked, double-checked, triple-checked, checked once more for good measure, and then finally sent down to Marianas in a specially built submarine. These special submarines were completely unavailable to the rest of the world for a number of reasons, the biggest being security; if anyone else got ahold of one such craft, they would be able to bypass standard security procedures and travel directly to Marianas, which would set off a whole troubling chain of events likely concluding in espionage charges and a lifetime jail sentence.

Ah, ah, ah. I can tell what you are thinking. You are thinking that what made Patricia's weekend "unusual," for lack of a better term, is the fact that she was now staying at this Deep Pacific Base. Well, whoever you are that is reading this (and I don't know why or how you are reading this- I'm just the narrator, after all), you could not be more wrong.

Admittedly, spending the past few days in a previously unheard-of civilian base at the bottom of the sea was not something Patricia was used to, but it was not the primary reason why she was confused. If anything, she found her situation regarding the Deep Pacific Base quite amusing and had to forcibly stop herself from comparing it to a new Atlantis- science-fiction had always been one of her interests, after all. So, if it was not, in fact, her location that was unusual, then what exactly was troubling her so much? Well... that would be the reason why she now resided in an underwater base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean:

Hm... how to say this... There's the elegant, fancy way- but that would downplay the seriousness of the event. There's the simple, blunt way, but that might make it seem as if the situation was detached from reality. Hm... what if... no, no... Oh, fine. I'll just say it:

Patricia was no longer completely human.

Yes, yes, you read that correctly (unless you didn't, of course). Patricia had, through some freak coincidence of nature, undergone something of a... transformation late Friday night and discovered the early stages and effects on Saturday morning. It came as quite a shock when she awoke and looked in the mirror to find a small patch of purple, unnaturally smooth skin running down the underside of her right arm. Upon further inspection, she found a similar spot around the lower-left side of her belly and a third small patch of violet under her left ear.

Originally, she had been quite... disturbed, that's the word for it- disturbed by the changes. Was she suffering from a mutated strain of Leprosey, perhaps? Or... maybe she had suffered a strange, undocumented relapse of childhood chicken pox?

She shook her head at both suggestions. Even by her standards of strangeness, such an event would be unprecedented and absurd. Perhaps... perhaps she had been drugged, and was suffering from an alergic reaction? It's not the best explanation, she reasoned, but I don't really have a better one. In that case, it would probably be a good idea to get dressed, skip breakfast, and immediately drive to the nearest hospital for treatment.

But, Wait! she thought, stopping herself midway through putting on her pants, What if the government finds out and thinks I'm some sort of mutant? Admittedly, this was a slight leap of logic, but it was, nonetheless, sound to a certain extent. If the government overreacted- or, worse, was originally responsible for whatever was happening to her- then going to a public facility such as a hospital would be about the worst thing she could possibly do. And who knows what would happen to her then?

No, no. Patricia decided. Even if the government didn't do... this to me, they might react badly anyway. Best to just stay home. Having decided not to risk it, Patricia went to the medicine cabinet, downed an antihistamine pill (just in case it really was an allergy), and went downstairs to eat breakfast. Quietly, doing her best to ignore the strangely colored patches across her body, she poured herself a bowl of cold cereal and a glass of milk, then sat down to begin eating.

However, she would not get to actually eat her breakfast today, because that would be far too... ordinary- yes, that's the word. It would have been far too ordinary for her to be able to enjoy her breakfast; I mean, really, when would something as unique as sudden possible mutation ever be followed up by a calming, usual event? It just isn't something that happens! The universe simply won't let it!

Therefore, I think we can all safely agree that something would have to interrupt her. If you did, in fact, think this was the case, then you would be right! If you did not... then why are you even reading this? Clearly, you are not cut out for the rigorous madness of science-fiction.

But I digress. As soon as she sat down to enjoy a bowl of brand-name cereal that will not be named for copyright reasons, a loud ringing echoed through the house- the doorbell! Oh, that horrible noise! A haunting, foreboding sound to anyone with even the slightest understanding of plot design!

However, Patricia did not suspect a thing and, not understanding the significance of such a terrible omen, she simply sighed in annoyance at the interruption and got back up from kitchen table to walk over to the front door, suppressing a yawn as she did so. "It is way too early to deal with Jehovah's Witnesses." She grumbled to herself, recalling the memory of the "visitors" she had had only a few days earlier, albeit at a less agonizing hour than 7:04 AM. "I swear, if it is another one of those idiots, I'm gonna take that miniature Bible of theirs and shove it so far up their asses..." She just let the threat hang in the air, seeing as continuing it would serve no purpose without someone to actually threaten.

Alas, Patricia would not get the satisfaction of warding off the door-to-door pests today, for, as she opened the door, she found herself staring at a pair of very tall, cold-faced men wearing sunglasses and black suits. That final item immediately set off every alarm bell in Patricia's head, as the only reasons any sane person would wear a black suit would be if they were attending a wedding (which was most certainly not happening at her apartment), if they were attending a funeral (which she hoped was not happening at her apartment), or if they were government agents. Given the circumstances, the most likely choice was the third option, and there was little doubt in Patricia's mind as to the reason for such a visit from a covert agency.

For a second, she simply stared at the black-suited men, with them staring back at her. This single second, however, seemed to stretch on for hours on end. Out of the corner of her eye, Patricia noticed that both agents each had a small, purple-tinted aerosol can (most likely some sort of non-lethal suppression chemical) on their belts, as well as a slight bulge underneath the right side of their suits, near the stomach area- a concealed handgun, no doubt. While she was performing this instantaneous look-over of the mysterious black-suited men, it occured to her that these were quite possibly the most obvious government agents in the history of the world.

The man on the right opened his mouth to speak- but his voice was instantly overshadowed by the loud slam of the door being thrown shut in his face. Patricia wasted no time at all in throwing each and every lock, managing to engage both sets of deadbolts and the chain lock before the two agents began their attempts to beat down the door. Another five seconds saw the final deadbolt thrown closed and a desk chair wedged under the doorknob, effectively sealing the door. Ignoring the muffled voices of the black-suited agents as they continued to fail miserably in breaking down her front door, Patricia quickly ripped her cell phone out of the wall charger and slipped on a pair of running shoes, then ran over to a wall safe and carefully dialed in the combination, opening it to reveal...

One high-quality, well-constructed, Glock-17 semi-automatic handgun. Despite her older brother's protests, she had gone ahead a few months after her eighteenth birthday and gotten a concealed weapons permit for herself, followed shortly afterward by the ceramic nine-millimeter civilian pistol before her. After a slight moment's hesitation, she reached into the safe and pulled out both the handgun and the permit underneath it, placing the latter in her pocket but keeping the former in her hands and at the ready.

Slowly, with a measure of practiced grace, she pulled the slide of the Glock back halfway, checking for a chambered round, and, satisfied that there wasn't one, pulled it back fully and released, chambering a live bullet and effectively arming the weapon. A flick of her thumb turned off the safety mechanism, the sharp click signalling that the deadly weapon was now ready to be used.

An instant later, Patricia jumped to her feet as a sharp crack from the front hall echoed through the house. There go the door hinges... She thought, deftly grabbing a light purple jacket off the coat rack, tucking the Glock-17 into the inner pocket of the jacket, and running over to the window of her apartment. Carefully, she pushed the window up a few feet, then swung through the gap and landed feet-first on the third-story fire escape. Behind her, Patricia heard the telltale metallic crack of the second door hinge snapping free of the wall, followed almost instantly by the door being kicked off its frame. Now or never! And with that thought, Patricia scurried down the fire escape to the ground below.

As soon as she reached street level, Patricia found herself faced with an interesting dilemma; she could run for her life, abandoning stealth for the sake of getting as far away from these agents as possible, or she could attempt to blend in with the early-morning crowd and try to blend in, then simply go with the flow until she was out of danger. The second plan was obviously riskier, what with her slight mutation and all, but the mutations weren't exactly obvious now that she actually had clothes on. In fact, the only difference that was even remotely visible was the patch of violet under her left ear, and a quick adjustment to her hair hid that quite easily.

Finally, she decided on her course of action and stepped out onto the sidewalk, quickly blending into the cramped hustle and bustle of businessmen and assorted college students. She recognized none of the latter, save for the occasional glimpse she had seen of them walking from class to class, but their presence made it infinitely easier to blend in with the rest. Before she even reached the first intersection, she was already making conversation with them, appearing for all the world as if she were a normal teenager.

After walking a couple of blocks with this group, Patricia dared to glance over her shoulder and paled slightly as she spotted a familiar pair of men in black suits walking about half-a-block behind her, checking alleys and searching the vast crowds for any sign of their target. That's not good... She thought, turning back to her fellow students and continuing their conversation, albeit with considerable effort. Forcing herself to remain as calm and collected as possible, she continued walking along until they reached a long, wide alley, where she amicably dropped out of the conversation and darted inside, taking cover behind a nearby dumpster.

Patricia waited. And waited. And waited some more. Then realized that what she had thought was ten minutes of waiting was actually only ten seconds and continued waiting in silence. Finally, the two men that had raided her apartment went walking by the alley... and passed it by. She let out a sigh of relief-

Which was quickly stifled as the agents doubled back into the alley, one of them checking what appeared to be a cell phone before putting it back into his pocket. Trackers. Patricia thought with a hint of terrified disbelief, You've gotting be kidding me! When did they tag me with a tracer?! At that moment, a thought occured to her- the purplish spots on her body. Could they possibly be emitting a low-level energy signature, not enough to be felt by the average person but more than enough to be detected by the proper equipment?

Carefully holding her breath to remain silent, Patricia cursed herself for her stupidity. Dammit, Pat! She thought as the agents' slow, unnaturally light footsteps drew ever closer, Of course they have a way of detecting stuff like this! How else would they have found me in the first place?! The footsteps were getting too close for comfort now, and the girl felt a slight chill run down her spine. Deep breaths... She thought, forcing her breathing process to slow and become an almost imperceptible sound. Breathe in... breathe out...

Breathe in... The closest agent was only a few steps away now...

Breathe out... Just a little longer and she would undoubtably be seen...

Breathe in... A pale hand and a black sleeve grabbed onto the edge of the dumpster-

NOW!

In an instant, Patricia leapt up from her hiding spot, appearing suddenly enough to cause the agent to rear back in surprise. Her left hand pulled away from the handle of her gun, grabbing onto the agent's left shoulder and holding him steady. A few feet away, the other agent similarly jumped back from the near-instantaneous appearance of the girl they were hunting for. Both agents reached down to grab the aerosol tins on their belts-

As Patricia violently forced the barrel of the Glock into the belly of the closer agent and pulled the trigger.

Now, in most stories, these days, the result would be about as predictible as our two government agents. The gun would go off, killing the closer agent, then Patricia would kill the other agent and walk away, none the worse for wear with nobody questioning anything. Many stories have done it before, after all! In video games, in movies, in books, this would be an almost commonplace occurance. Therefore, obviously, such an event would proceed as these sources would suggest.

However, this was not a video game.

This was not a movie.

This was not a book.

This was reality.

And reality works, in fact, much differently than most works of fiction.

Therefore when the gun did, indeed, go off, the aftermath was very different from what the average person would expect, given what popular media suggests.

From the small handgun pressed into the closest agent's stomach, a thunderous bang erupted, deafening Patricia from the sharpness of the noise in such a close proximity. The flash from the muzzle blinded her for an instant as if she had been staring into the sun, causing her to flinch and squint slightly as the bullet traveled out of the barrel and tore into the man's gut. The slide kicked back harshly, forcing Patricia to stagger a step backward from the force as the man, clutching his wounded belly, fell to the floor.

Patricia's whole world was obscured by a haze of adrenaline, rattled by the near-painful ringing in her ears, and blended together by the faint noise of screams and panic coming from both ends of the alley. And there was also a bit of... confusion as to why her hands suddenly felt... wet. Slowly, she looked down to see that both of her hands, plus the Glock that she was gripping dangerously tightly, were covered with a spatter of blood, ejected from the man's body by the lethal shot. She couldn't think, couldn't react, only stare in shock and horror at the crimson liquid staining her hands.

Then, movement caught her attention out of the corner of her eye. The other agent, who had been staring in shock at his fallen partner, had finally come to his senses and was fumbling for the handgun in his coat pocket. To Patricia's adrenaline-fueled mind, there was only one course of action- in an instant, the bloody Glock was raised again and let forth its terrible, echoing thunder once more, planting a bullet firmly between the man's shoulder blades and sending him stumbling back into the wall. A second later, he limply, slowly, slid down to the ground, a streak of red following his movements.

Oh my god. Patricia thought, her breathing becoming fast and erratic, her thoughts becoming more and more disorganized by the second.

I just killed two people. Somewhere, far away from the sound of it- down a tunnel, perhaps- Pat could hear a police siren echoing through the streets. The siren was quickly joined by another, then another.

I just fucking killed two people. Her eyes were riveted to the gruesome scene before her, one body lying on the ground with a pool of thick, dark red liquid expanding from beneath it, the other leaning limply against the brick wall with a crimson trail above him like a bloody silhouette.

I just shot and killed two men. Slowly, Patricia's eyes drifted down to her dripping, bloodstained hands, both with a deathgrip on the now-red-and-black Glock-17. Slowly, she removed one hand from the pistol, flexing it carefully to confirm that it was, indeed, hers.

And then, like a bolt of lightning, the reality of what she had just done hit home.

With a shriek, Patricia dropped the Glock, the ceramic handgun clattering against the concrete below as she stumbled back into the wall, sliding down it with wide eyes. She could feel herself hyperventilating, could feel herself slowly going into shock as she sat there, her bloody hands hugged tightly around her in some vague attempt at self-comfort.

I killed them! She thought, tears beginning to run down her face. I fucking killed both of them! Faintly, she heard a pair of voices, running into the alley, and yet she did not seem to care. I killed them without a second thought! The two voices, who seemed far too young to be police officers, quickly grabbed her arms and pulled her to her feet, where she stood limply.

I killed them... Was the last thing she thought as she passed out then and there from shock.

Blinking herself back to the present, Patricia looked up from her lap and around her room. It was strange... her eyes felt weird and there was a very distinct blur over everything... She blinked in confusion and immediately realized the cause for such things- tears. With a ragged sigh, she wiped her eyes dry and leaned back against the wall.

The events of that day had been haunting her almost constantly. Wherever she looked, she would see the two broken, bloody bodies, life fading from their eyes with each passing second. Every sudden noise echoed like the thunderous bangs of a Glock, ringing in her ears and disrupting her train of thought. And, no matter how hard she tried, she found that each and every time her thoughts drifted away from the present, she would wind up right back in that horrible alley, staring in terror at her macabre handiwork.

And the dreams- oh, the dreams! They were perhaps the worst of all! Since that infamous Friday night, Patricia could barely manage to get an hour of sleep here and there, because each and every time she would close her eyes, her subconcious, fraught with guilt, would spend each and every second torturing her. The nightmares haunted her like ghosts- worse, even, because even ghosts would not be quite so merciless.

Fully aware of this fact, Patricia was careful not let her eyes droop closed from sleepiness as she gazed about the room once more. It had turned out that those two who had picked her up from the alley had not, in fact, been police officers- for that matter, they did not even have any real authority in the everyday world. They had been like her, once, people with normal lives and normal dreams until one day they found themselves afflicted by unusual changes to their bodies. They were rescued from their pursuers, the same ones that Patricia had so painfully dispatched, and ended up in much the same situation as she was now. These survivors, these fugitives from those that would see them harmed, called themselves the Pokèumans.

The Pokèumans organization had a very complicated backstory, stretching back an extraordinary amount of time. However, to be perfectly honest, Patricia realized quite quickly that she honestly could not care less how the organization had formed, nor why she was here. In fact, the only things she really cared about during the entire introduction could be summarized in two words: form and family.

First of all, Patricia wanted to know what the... ahem. I believe she phrased it "what the ever-loving fuck is happening to me?" A valid question, brought about by valid reasons. It turns out that a very, very long time ago, one of Patricia's ancestors had had a child with a being known as a Mismagius. Those passive genes, over an extreme span of time, had been passed down to her and, through random, subtle radiation spikes, had spontaneously become active. With these genes set to active her body was now transforming into that of a Mismagius.

Obviously, Patricia found this quite concerning. After all, she had actually had a rather enjoyable, normal life as a human and did not want to end up looking like what she called "an anime witch with a serious meth addiction." However, unfortunately for her, there was not a single damn thing she could do about it, and that annoyed Patricia to no end.

Looking down at her hands once more, she saw the purple, almost ethereal mass that they had become, the changes tapering off back into human skin just past her elbow on her right arm and slightly below her shoulder on her left. The transformation would take the better part of a week or so to complete, meaning that Patricia would get them exquisite pleasure of slowly watching herself mutate into another species entirely. If only her older brother could see her now...

And that brought her to her second concern: her family. One of the first things that Patricia had been told upon waking up at the Deep Pacific Base was that there was a very, very good chance that she would never see her family again. Quite honestly, I do not believe that my skills in narration are anywhere near what would be required to accurately portray how much this thought scared her. Pat had always been close to her parents, and regularly called to wake them up on weekdays simply as playful payback for all those years of them waking her up at five-o-clock in the morning for high school.

But, while she was anxious about never seeing her parents again, what scared her the most was the thought of never seeing her older brother again. The two of them had been extremely close, to the point where the two of them would regularly meet on weekends simply to hang out with each other. Occasionally, the two of them would engage in prank wars, which would generally send anyone within a mile radius scrambling for cover. And even once the cataclysm of jokes was over, the two of them would be laughing heartily at the ridiculousness of it all. The thought of never seeing him again...

Patricia took a deep breath and closed her eyes, accepting even the haunting visions of her two victims over the terrible nightmare of that possibility. As soon as she heard about that, she asked her roommate, a Sligoo named Lucas Oriano, if he could possibly find out whether her brother had transformed as well. It was a slim chance, almost infinitesimally small, but she simply could not stand the thought of being isolated from her brother for the rest of her life. Pat simply could not imagine how she would cope with-

A sharp knock on the door snapped Patricia out of her thoughts. Who could that be...? She wondered, looking up her lap towards the door. Is it Lucas...? He can't be back that quickly... Slowly, Patricia stood up from her bunk and walked over to the door, her brow slightly contorted in confusion. With a careful tug on the doorknob, she slowly opened the door to see Lucas standing there with a pair of PRT members standing behind him.

Lucas, Patricia noticed silently, was acting very nervous, his liquid mass twitching in a way that could almost be associated with... fear. The two PRT agents, a charmeleon and a bellossom, were, for their part, doing a very good job of remaining stoic and calm, although Pat could see that even they showed a slight nervous twitch. "H-Hello?" She asked, her head quickly filling with a whirlwind of thoughts, not the least of which being "who are these people?" and "why are they visiting me?"

"Hello." The charmeleon replied without missing a beat. "We heard you were looking for information on your brother, miss...?"

"Patricia." She replied warily, very disconcerted by the arrival of these two mysterious people. For a second, she could've sworn she saw the charmeleon's expression darken momentarily, but she dismissed it just as quickly. Slowly, she opened the door and let them in, Lucas remaining outside and shutting the door behind them. "So..." she said, sitting down on her bunk again, "Who are you?"

The charmeleon and bellossom looked at each other for a moment, then back at Patricia. "Call me Scarlet."

"Call me Harvest." The two answered respectively. Patricia raised an eyebrow at their supposed names- nobody had names like that, at least nobody she had ever heard of.

"Miliary callsigns?" She asked, looking at the charmleon with suspicion.

"That's classified." He responded, but his slight smirk for a fraction of a second told all. However, that smirk was gone fast enough that Pat almost missed it entirely. "However, we do have some information for you regarding your brother."

Her eyes widened. "You do?! Is he okay, is he-?"

The charmeleon held up his hand to cut her off. "That's rather complicated, miss."

"Well, then, uncomplicate it!" Pat growled, leaning slightly forward on her bunk. She was not about to let backroom politics keep her from seeing her brother again. "If you think I'm just gonna sit here-!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" The bellossom, Harvest, said, cutting Pat off mid-rant. "No need fer any o' that!" Slowly, seething a bit, she forced herself to remain quiet. "Ma'am, we're not tryin' to keep ya from seein' your brother, it's just..." He sighed. "It'd be a bit difficult to do so."

That sentence alone set off countless alarm bells in Pat's head. "Wh-what do you mean?" She stammered, now even more worried than before. "Did something happen to him?"

For a moment, the room was silent save for the quiet breathing of its three occupants. Then, Scarlet sighed. "Miss... Patricia, what do you know about the Marianas Base?"

Pat froze. There had been rumors going around recently, about some sort of disaster at Marianas. Thousands dead. Some sort of black-box files floating around the inter-base network for all to see- although she herself had yet to see them. Making a mental note to look for such files later, Patricia worriedly replied "Y-yes...?" He couldn't be... was he...?

Scarlet opened his mouth to respond, but stopped just as quickly and sighed again. "Let's start over." He said, an evident tinge of guilt in his voice. "Just for the record, miss, could you state your name? Your full name?"

An odd request, Patricia thought, but somewhat understandable. "O-okay. My name's Patricia."

"Patricia Cohen."