The Queen Bee Versus The Fountainhead - Part 2

Light. Blinding; glaring white light from a large spotlight mounted on the roof of a building opposite suddenly shone in through the transparent wall at the front of the Rexic Research Institute, dazzling both the security guards at the desk only for a few seconds but just long enough for Constance Everhart AKA The Queen Bee to slip by them unnoticed with her head ducked down low. Inside, the institute building was a winding labyrinthe of white, fluorescent lit corridoors. Constance had little idea where she was going though she’d had a photostat of the plans to the building made but up ahead she could hear a strange noise like a school classroom and, turning a corner she came to a corridor of small laboratory like rooms where children were sitting in rows of chairs wired up to polygraph like machines and watching some kind of movie projected on a small screen at the opposite end of each room. Taking a chance, Constance tried to get a proper look at what was being projected on the screens then, to her horror, she realized that what was being shown to these young children were attrocities; human cruelty so bad that she couldn’t bear to look at it for more than a few seconds and yet the children wired up to the machines didn’t seem to be bothered by what they were watching at all, infact some just seemed bored while others even, shockingly, seemed to be laughing. “Are these children who have been deprived of their altruism?”, wondered Constance, “Could Anya have really done such a thing to young children? Robbed them of their humanity? It’s outrageous!” But then, suddenly, something put its hand upon her shoulder, something not quite human and then, turning round, Constance saw that it was Anya but that her eyes were different, completely black. “You should not have come here Constance”, said Anya, gripping hold of one of her arms, “Because now you have seen this, we cannot afford to let you leave”. Then suddenly, another hand gripped her other arm and she saw Dr. Agon on her other side with those same weird, dark, inhuman eyes. “We are not like your species", said Anya, "We do not feel emotion the way that you do. We do not feel love in the same way and we do not know how to fight against it. You see, altruism binds the human race together, making it harder for us to defeat you. Harder to invade your planet. That is why we must destroy that altruism”. Constance was terrified but she had faced the threat of death many times before and so she had learned to pull out a smile even in the most desperate of circumstances, however Constance had not come unprepared, this time she had an ace up her sleeve because, looking back at that time they had spent on bear mountain she had remembered something that Anya and possibly her alien friend might have a strong allergy to and, reaching into her coat pockets with gloved hands she pulled out two leaf laden twigs from a poison oak tree. Anya screamed and there was a loud and deeper scream in her other ear aswell and then she felt the grip on her arms loosen, just long enough for her to reach inside her jacket and pull out those two snub nosed revolvers that she always kept for emergencies like these. Some of the children in the laboratory beside her turned to look but they were generally unphased by the sight of the two aliens being gunned down and falling in screaming, writhing, hissing heaps upon the corridor floor. Then Oxana came running along the corridor, probably having taken care of the security guards in a more traditional way, being as she was a master of many forms of unarmed combat. “I heard the gunshots”, said Oxana, breathlessly, “Is everything okay?”. “I’m alright ”, said Constance, staring into the faces of the children in the laboratory who had now all turned round to look at the sudden commotion; their eyes, empty of any feeling or spark of humanity, “But some things can’t be put right so easily”.