I skidded to a stop in front of the Syndicate's house, Christopher not far behind me. I jumped up some steps and knocked on the door in a continuous frenzy. There was no answer and I continued to knock on the door. Were they asleep already?

I eyed the biometric key pad before slamming my palm on it, hoping my handprint was still in the system. To my surprise, and relief, it was and the door clicked open. I pushed the door open and stepped into the house to see Vanessa stepping off the last step of the staircase, rubbing her eyes.

She paused for a moment, just staring at me before she completely exploded. "Amelia?" Before I could open my mouth to talk, or even take another breath, Vanessa was in front of me, holding at arm's length.

"Are you okay? I've been so worried about you. You didn't even keep in touch with us. Did something happen? Are you okay? Oh my goodness, Amelia, are you okay?"

She raised each of my arms to inspect them and then leaned closer to inspect my face. "Amelia, why do you look like you haven't gotten much sleep? You're getting so thin again. You were already too thin to begin with so this is not a good thing. Have you been feeding yourself properly?"

"Vanessa –" I tried to cut in only for my words to go right over Vanessa's head. I glanced backwards to check on Christopher, to see him leaning against the door looking pale and breathing heavily.

I remembered about his wound and tried to get Vanessa's attention again, "Vanessa, you can fuss over me later but Christopher needs to get rebandaged." I looked back at Christopher and tilted my head inwards motioning for him to come in.

He stumbled in, clutching his abdomen and collapsed onto the couch with a sigh.

"Here's the medical kit." Kyle walked in holding the box and handed it to Christopher who immediately got to work.

"Wait, Amelia, did something happen? Why are you guys here?" Vanessa asked, finally noticing the situation at hand.

"I discovered something that you guys need to know about. I... I got myself into something stupid."

Vanessa placed a soothing hand on my shoulder. "Let's wait for when Hugh comes back from his night patrol. We can talk in the morning. You and Christopher should get some rest. You both look like you need it."

Though her tone was soft, it was stern. There was absolutely no arguing with her.

I nodded reluctantly. She gave me a calm smile, "you can use your room. We didn't do anything to that room. Just cleaned it once a week so it doesn't get dusty."

I smiled back at her. Even after I had left them because of my own selfish reasons, they still cared for me. My heart feels heavy.

Sleep came easily. Vanessa woke me up in the morning and the five of us sat on the sofas after breakfast, the other four looking at me expectantly. I took a breath before I began to tell them what happened, starting from when I first signed up for the training sessions after the death of Max and Cossette.

I described the training sessions and what I had to do in each of them. How I felt after each of them, my dizziness, my vision going red when I go out of control. They stayed quiet as I spilled it all, but their facial expressions gave away their thoughts.

"Yesterday, I found a hidden room and I went in to see what was in there. It was a room filled with paper. I went through the paper and the first thing I saw was a paper with my name, full body picture with statistics, health levels, and a percentage labeled compatibility level. There was a report on the bottom of the paper saying how the experiment was going nicely."

I paused to lean my head against my palms. "I had been the test subject of this experiment for so long without even realizing it."

"I went back to the room to find more information. I took pictures of what seemed to contain the more important information so you can look through my tablet later. A lot of it was just details of the experiments they have been performing on me. Their plans and suggestions as to what to do next. Details of the experiments..."

"Before I left I found another piece of paper." I paused, lifting my head off my palms and looked at the others. "I'm not the only one they are experimenting on. The Syndicates, are all subjects for the experiment."

I let the information sink in for a moment as confusion shone through their faces. "Amelia, what do you mean by that?" Kyle asked.

"I am their guinea pig. Once they have reached whatever goal they want with me, it will be used for every single Syndicate member."

"And their goal is...?" Hugh asked carefully.

"An immortal army." I stated. "That's the best way I can describe it. They're trying to find ways to transfer our consciousness to a robotic clones of us, preserve our real bodies while we continue our lives as robots, essentially. Our real bodies won't age, and our robot forms don't die. Whoever is behind this, is trying to build an army."

I paused again, still slightly confused about this myself. "It was titled the Virtuals Project. I also found the contract I had signed when I first started the training sessions. I didn't read it and one of the things I had agreed to when I signed it was agreeing to be a subject for the experiments."

I heaved out a sigh, "I was so stupid."

It was silent for a moment before Vanessa said slowly, "I'm still not quite understanding the full situation, but I get the gist of it."

Kyle nodded, "The most important thing right now is to make sure they don't get their hands on Amelia."

"Because if they don't have Amelia, they can't continue the experiments. Right?" Hugh joined in as well.

I bit down on my lower lip and nodded. Even though that made sense, I still did not feel at ease with it. "I'll stay hidden for now. You guys continue to act as normal."

The other three nodded in agreement. "I'll send you the images of the papers so you guys can take a read for yourself."

"You can stay here while we figure this out." Vanessa said. I shot her a glance and nodded slowly.

"Thanks."

Christopher spoke up for the first time, "I'll continue working at the lab area as usual. If I hear about anything I'll let you guys know."

I forced a smile on my face as I nodded in agreement. The feeling of dread did not fade.

~*~

The next few days went by peacefully. Christopher mentioned that the people in labs were in a state of panic when they couldn't find Amelia but have calmed down and there has been no progress in the experiments.

Hugh mentioned that he's seen several people wandering around the city asking around multiple people if they're seen "a teenage girl with white hair". Vanessa and Kyle said that they had seen that happening around the Sectors as well.

The entire time, I stayed in the house, resting, reading and rereading all the papers I had taken pictures of. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I would leave the house with Vanessa and head to the Syndicate Management Building.

I tried getting back into the room by going through the air vents I had escaped by, but found that the vent's exit into the room was now locked in place. It probably now required some sort of security key to unlock if someone wants it to be removed.

We relayed the information back to Christopher, Kyle, and Hugh, who had begun to draft out a map of the Syndicate Management Building and we started to plan out what we were going to do about the situation. We weren't sure if the government knew what was going on in the labs, but since this room was hidden away and was not recorded digitally, we assumed that it was hidden.

But, every other night, I would dream that I was back in the Syndicate Management Building continuing my experiments. They would be just like my virtual training sessions. In my dreams, I would be in the training room fighting an opponent. Realize that I had won and then gone out of control, before waking up with a massive headache. However, the headache and dizziness goes away after a few minutes, and it's like nothing had happened.

Nearly a month has passed before we finally decided on a plan.

"Tomorrow night." Kyle confirmed.

I nodded.

The foreboding feeling still has not disappeared.