"There's two ways to deal with mystery: uncover it, or eliminate it." -Andrew Ryan

Part Six - Discovery

"We need you back here right now."

That was the sentence that got me to come back a week early from our trip to England. Kasie'd been vague about the reason for me to get back but insisted it was urgent. Knowing her, it probably was.

My speculations were proven to be true when a supervisor notified me that something needed my eyes before making any further advances in the investigation.

Alright, let's go back...a week early of my time; Vacation days I'd already taken off for. I'd better get those returned to me soon! Kasie picked me up from the airport as Diane instructed me to keep the truck at the airport for them to drive home. Alright, whatever floats your boat, it's money comin' out of your pocket for the daily parking fee. Those add up fast!

"Sorry to ruin the vacation of yours," the young intern smiled in embarrassment. "You can probably get away with playing hooky after today, you're still down on the calendar as gone."

"Knew it," With a roll of my eyes, I leaned my head back on the headrest and rubbed my weary temples. "Even after telling them to mark me off, and being confirmed that I was...Just as dysfunctional as I remember, huh?"

Kasie shrugged with uncertainty, "I wouldn't say that...they're just..."

"Functioning differently? It's alright, sweetie, we all know the receptionists don't know what they're doing."

"They're trying their best...despite doing this a few times before."

There was a pause of silence between us as she sped up on the onramp (in terrifyingly quick time, might I add) to merge onto the freeway. The only sounds that occupied the air were the rapid sputtering of her engine and the faint background sound of radio music...something popular probably. Never really kept up with that the kids listened to these days.

"I hope you had a good time there, at least," Kasie meekly interjected through the verbally silenced atmosphere between us. "Sorry if I kinda cut that short."

"If something's important enough to call to my attention, then it probably's gonna be significant; No big deal." Despite the ragged sensation of fatigue overcoming me on the drive back, I offered a smile to the embarrassed girl. It was the least I could do; that really was out of her control, she's really just the messenger. You shouldn't ever shoot the messenger. "At least I got a week's worth in."

"Is it really as pretty as people say?"

"The English countryside?" Kasie nods to my question. "Eleanor took us on a leisurely drive, and we stopped a few places...I'd say it's definitely a change of pace from here- so yes, it is nice. Pretty refreshing...you don't really see that stuff around these parts here."

The young woman wistfully gazed forward at the road. "I wish I could visit outside of the country...one day. One day I will."

I lifted my head from the headrest and looked at her, quizzically, "Wait, you mean you've never left the United States?"

She shook her head, "I don't even own a passport."

"You said your father was in the Air Force...you never went overseas?"

"All US assignments...for whatever reason. You'd think I would."

I fell short of words for a moment and slowly leaned back into the seat. Honestly, I was a bit caught off guard by her statement. Maybe it's because I never really had any friends that were in the military, or grew up around it, but you'd think with the current state of affairs...nevermind.

More silence, she turned to exit from the highway. The plastic ticking of the turn signal seemed to filter out of my brain for a while; she cursed as someone wouldn't let her over to the far lane to exit the freeway. "Damn it! Come on!"

She missed the exit and offered an apologetic look on her face, though she never looked over at me. Even though she's a kind of scary driver, I can at least respect the fact that she keeps her eyes on the road. Far too many times have I seen kids like her take her eyes off of the drive for something...and end up horribly. I was on the receiving end of that horrible result several years ago; I can only thank God for surviving that.

Kasie cleared her throat awkwardly as she finally managed to pass into the lane needed to exit. "S-Sorry for that outburst."

"I've heard worse," I dismissively responded in an attempt to make things less...awkward.

She nods, "Right. so," an attempt to change the subject, "Got any souvenirs?"

I shrugged halfheartedly. "I got a magnet at the airport."

The young woman sighs and shakes her head, "No! Like...any rocks? From the countryside?"

"What do I look like, a geologist? No, I didn't...though one of my sibs probably will take some home." A cold sweat swept over the back of my neck upon remembering the box, sitting in my luggage, safely tucked away and padded with clothes and a pillow.

The box with the thing that turned us into, well, us; The very item that led us to the lives we live right now. To be fair, it's a bit hard to fathom that my sisters and I were raised by a geneticist and a genetically engineered man- that was made the way he was by the geneticist. In short words, Tenenbaum created our destiny. Kind of big to wrap your head around, if you think about it.

I sometimes wish that Jack was here so we could just...talk. Talk about life. Though he usually was a man of simple words, if you got him going, he really could talk your ear off. A conversation could be held for hours on end when he talks about things that interest him. Maybe he really only had Tenenbaum and us to talk to?

"Doesn't a sister of yours like to collect rocks?"

"Yeah," I acknowledged, "She likes to collect 'em and put the rocks in a makeshift fountain of hers. Amazing, if you saw it in person, you can probably find even a moon rock in there."

Kasie's eyes glittered with childlike bewilderment, "Really? She must have a big fountain then."

"Nah, not really. They're just small rocks in a black plastic tub with a pump that recycles water, which is in a firepit."

"Oh," she seemed to be somewhat disappointed. "Which sister did you say it was?"

"Rose Mary...now I'm stuck with the fountain."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

I dismissively gesture, "It's in the past. My sister lived a good life." As there was that damn silence again, the subject was quickly changed. "Give me info on what happened at the morgue."

The young brunette's grip tightened on the leather steering wheel as if to flex her fingers. "It was...uh...really bizarre. I don't think you'd believe it."

"Honey, bizarre is my middle name. Now, c'mon, spill it."

"Well..." She came to a gentle stop at a stop sign. Only giving a fleeting glance around at her surroundings to assure no one was waiting on her, she leaned back to dig out her cell phone. Quickly she queued up the pictures and handed it to me and continued on with driving. I carefully moved through the photographs; my eyes became increasingly narrowed while feebly attempting to make out the details.

"What am I looking at?"

"It-..." Kasie sighed and turned the phone, right side up. "It's upside down."

"Damn it," I uttered in frustration, "They need to make it obvious which side is the right side up."

Old woman things, apparently. Tech's getting newer, and I'm getting older...the two don't correlate very well.

It seemed to be a photograph of the suit's weapon lying on a shelf...I didn't see much wrong with it at first. "What's wrong with it?" Not so observant, apparently.

"That jar thingy is gone from the valve it was attached to. Someone broke in, and stole it. I mean, who would do that?"

Really, who would do that?

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as the realization reminded me that I had the very thing that was stolen in my luggage bag.

Playing along, I cleared my throat and moved through the pictures. "Why would anyone want it?"

"Who knows...probably for some stupid stunt or something."

Yeah, a stunt.

I made sure to get the briefing done as soon as I could so I could go home and comb-over everything that just happened within the past month.

"Let's get this show on the road," A deep and begrudged sigh escaped my chest as I took a seat at the conference table.

The two whom I've previously known, Kasie and my supervisor, were the only ones in the room along with me. The blinds were drawn, and the room was dark, and the only thing illuminated was the projector against the far wall with a blank black screen. Anxiety bubbled up in my gut...something I haven't felt since I was in high school. It felt like I was in trouble, but I wasn't.

This wasn't going to be pleasant, but was there really any way I could get myself out of it? This is my case, so I need to face the music whenever obstacles like this happen.

In all of my years working for the NCIS, mishaps have certainly happened in my cases I've taken on; I learned to become unfazed by them.

But this? This...this was different. A whole different beast.

This would be Kasie's first theft in a case...but certainly not my supervisor's.

Ah, my supervisor: Jameson Okafor. For someone that was a child of Nigerian immigrants, served in Iraq, and chose this hellish job, I had a lot of respect for the man.

Kasie, on the other hand, came from an Oklahoma college on a scholarship of forensics. She was in the know, but not experienced enough to experience the real world things- the nitty-gritty. Poor thing is stuck with serving coffee to the detectives.

Okafor's thick frame rose from his chair to greet me with a handshake as I walked in. "Glad you could make it on such short notice, Julie."

The poor girl was intimidated by him, she clutched her files to her chest. "I already showed her a preemptive recap of what happened, Mister Okafor."

"Great, we're off to an easy start then...I won't need to explain things as much. Take a seat, won't you two?"

Exchanging glances as we took our seats, Kasie slowly placed the folders and slid them across the table. Jameson caught them and thumbed through them briefly before turning to his laptop and bringing up several images. As they were brought up, several files were too opened, as well.

The war-weathered man briefly skimmed over the notes jotted down and other things in the top folder. He clears his throat. "At about two-thirty o'clock on the third of October, the security cameras around the east part of C. L. Page Mortuary's building went offline for ten seconds all simultaneously."

Maybe just a glitch in the system, if anything.

He continues with his explanation, Kasie listening with her expression continually growing more attentive with each of his sentences. I glanced a few times at her, though she did seem quite interested. That's good, at least, that she has an interest in mystery, especially this kind of...thing. Anomaly, maybe? I don't even know anymore.

All I could think of during this time is the container of ADAM. Funny thing, how as much as a word can send a flash flood of memories to your brain, almost as if it was a trigger phrase. I can't speak for my sisters, but I can for myself at least; The memory of feeling and, uh, tasting the stuff is still evident in my brain.

It was a viscous, slimy feeling- wet, but not liquid. Almost like it was gelatin- though from person to person, it varied between solidity. It seemed like Jell-O (which was practically impossible to get into the bottle through the needle) sometimes were more...watery other times. It was disgusting, now that I think about it, and I can't ever look at red gelatin the same again.

That taste was unlike anything I've had, even to this day. Too unique for me to describe.

"Glitch?" I question Okafor with a cocked brow. "Happens all the time with our cameras, maybe just need to be fixed, loose wire probably."

He lifted a hand to pause my phrase, "Five minutes later, the Phillips Mortuary cameras went out too. Then Weston Mortuary's system was down thirty seconds later. Seeing the pattern?"

I shook my head slowly, combing over the possibilities in my head. "Hacking scheme?"

"All of the morgue camera systems in Jacksonville went down for some short amount of time on some part of the building...usually in the same area where the body drawers are." Kasie idly tapped her pen on a pad of paper as she was jotting down notes. "There's gotta be a pattern, right?"

"So," I sat back and exhaled, "What are we lookin' at here? A hack?"

"A theft," Okafor corrected, "Part of that suit was stolen, the robbers didn't leave a trace. Not sure how they got in and left without breaking and entering."

"Even getting past the security systems?" The idea seemed all too incredulous to me.

Kasie nods, "Security systems, too, yeah."

We spent the next small amount of time trying to figure out how this happened. Kasie proposed the theory of some twisted, sick teenagers deciding to try to vandalize the morgue...which was quickly shut down by Okafor. I tossed the thought in the air that we could be dealing with whoever 'murdered' the Big Sister, or a proxy of the murderer. A key piece of evidence could have solved the entire case...gone.

I felt that the damned nauseating feeling of guilt creep into my gut once more. I had that evidence, tucked away, buried at the bottom of Tenenbaum's bin of 'artifacts'. If they found out I had it...I could have some severe shit thrown on me.

No one really has to know, don't they? It's not like my house is gonna be raided by a SWAT team any time soon.

I cleared my throat and shifted my conscious back to the present in an attempt to fend off the invasive thoughts that entered my mind at the time.

"Someone really doesn't want to find out about the body it seems," I commented out loud. "Why not take something more important rather than just a jar of something?"

"They were prepping it to take a sample, the container was already off of whatever it was attached to." Kasie idly doodled in the margins of the paper.

"Well, ain't that the fault of the mortician then?"

"Partly, I guess, but they still stole it right from the holding container."

"Hmm," I idly hummed, and the room settled in contemplative silence. I sat forward in my chair and scooted up further to the polished conference table, "Show me whatever you got from the cameras."

A series of images was brought up, not as much video footage as I thought...except one four-second clip. They all weren't the highest definition; though this was a security camera we're talking about, nothing is ever high definition for heavy-duty corporate cameras like those. Not yet, at least. These models were a bit outdated, to say in the least.

The first image was the ADAM in the suit's container on the counter. It sat in a box, which the lid was open, almost as if it was about to be shipped off to some lab for analyzation.

"What kind of idiot just leaves it out here?"

"Detective Wynand," Okafor looked at me in a warning.

"Sorry."

"We, however, don't know why the mortician left it out. Merely human error."

Another image of the same thing, though now, the ADAM was being lifted from the box.

"Hold on," I lift my hand for him to pause from going to the next picture, leaning forward further, I slip my reading glasses from my pocket and put them on to see better. "Get closer on the hand."

The action was done upon my request. I squint to make out the details of the hand, spotting material wrinkles and the rolled down rim of a latex glove on the man's wrist, just barely peeking out from the sleeve of his blazer. "He's wearing a glove," I nearly catch myself from saying 'they're,' as in referring to his counterpart as well. "Looks like a regular sanitary glove."

"Latex, probably. Either brought their own or took it from the morgue's supply."

Kasie scoffs halfheartedly, "Imagine not bringing your own supplies...What kinda thief would you be to do that?"

"A lousy one," I comment with a smirk...Okafor didn't seem amused. Our smiles quickly faded.

Okafor folded his hands, "The real question is, why would someone want to steal something like that?"

"Maybe it leads to something important in the investigation," Kasie remarked.

Upon thinking about it, maybe those gingers did take it for a good reason...knowing that ADAM could probably be found again somewhere and brought to the surface...no good. Now, with that idea in my head, I think I'd prefer them to not know whatever the hell that red stuff is.

"Whatever it was, it's up to you two to find out who took it and get it back if possible. We can't let this get any worse. This is a peculiar case, we're not entirely sure why the PD turned it over to us, but it's our job to find out who the victim and cause of it was."

"Next photo, please," I glance at my watch.

We went on to several other unimportant photos. For the sake of analyzation and Okafor, we went along with picking it apart...I did lose track of what we were doing, though.

My mind kind of left and went to other places. That moment that I received the ADAM in that rough wooden box played over in my mind like a broken record; I could not stop thinking about it. Those two that gave me the box were peculiar as well...though I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

Yeah, maybe it's just my bias against most gingers. Something was really off about them.

"Detective Wynand? Wynand!"

I was quickly snapped out of my thoughts and shook my head, "Sorry. I'm a bit tired."

"We've gotta have our A-Game for this, there's coffee in the lobby."

"Wait, Okafor- stop at this picture."

"I knew it'd catch her attention," Kasie snickered.

It was a grainy picture of a whiteboard that sat in the corner of the mortician's office. There was visible writing on it, though a large chunk of it was erased, and something was written in red. The wall lamp was on, and the silhouette of two individuals was cast on the walls.

The young intern held out her phone, to which she took a photo of the writing of the whiteboard. I carefully took the device and looked closely at the writing, which turned out to be a set of numbers.

'63° 2' N, 29° 55' W'

'The Answer'

Right...my heart dropped this time, reading the coordinates and the words written in perfect cursive.

Maybe my fear of them discovering ADAM is now moot, as they can probably go to the damn city and find whatever's left of it themselves.

"We plugged in the coordinates, and it was just in the middle of the ocean," Kasie commented apprehensively. "It's roughly 430 kilometers from Reykjavik, Iceland. Maybe it was just some vandals trying to mess with the poor old mortician."

Silence.

"And this was at the same morgue that the body's at?"

"Correct, Wynand, at C.L. Page's."

"That cursive's too perfect to be vandalism," I conclude. "We should look further at this."

"Woah- if we did that, we'd be heading into international waters." Okafor shook his head, "That's a little far fetched to be sending a team out for most likely nothing, Wynand."

I felt a spark of indignation ignite in my diaphragm and bleed up to my head. "How do you know there isn't anything under the water? Didn't you look at the 'Something in the Water' files?"

Okafor cocked a brow at my challenge, to which he leaned forward, "It's not plausible. You think there's a city under there or something? No. Let's be logical."

"What's logical is that we get a small Icelandic crew to scope it out for us, then we can bring a drone over there. Little cost, and could root out where the hell the suit came from. Does that look like any mariner diving suit that you've seen? Encrusted with barnacles and looked like it's been at the bottom of the ocean for-"

"That's enough," Okafor promptly cut me off. Kasie watched with wide, shocked eyes. "We'll talk about this later."

I felt a break in me.

Something in me said that Rapture needed to be known.

I nearly told of Rapture and my experience with the underwater city. Though...that probably wouldn't be a good position for me. I don't think I'd be held in the same regard as I did before, whether that's good or bad.

"Please, sir, I insist on this. It will be your worthwhile, I promise. If it isn't," I folded my hands and searched his expression, "I'll provide my position to someone else."

The skin of Okafor's left brow bone quirked at the comment, his mouth parting open slightly in surprise. "You're going to...?" He dismisses his shock, "No. You're not going to try to fire yourself."

"Watch me," I challenged.

Kasie looked in horror between our exchange...poor girl.

The relationship between Okafor and I was...a bit strange, to say in the least. At times we'd banter, and other times we'd be cold, professional, or a weird in-between mix. She's got a lot to learn.

"Get the team yourself, and we'll talk," the ultimatum caused a smile to come across my face. "But first, let's focus on identifying our thief; surely, they're a moving part of this whole scheme too."

The twins contemplatively stood at a glass wall that overlooked the crumbling underwater scene before them. Most signs that were illuminated in the mid-twentieth century now have long been drained of power and only remain as a decaying image of the city's downfall atop the scrap piles that were formerly structured. The structure of several buildings crumbled to the seafloor, now becoming a barren wasteland of rubble. Only did a few structures still stand, though, in disrepair, one building remained not swallowed by the sea's gaping maw.

The female clicked her tongue distastefully at the standing seawater that thinly puddled on the floor beneath them.

"Rosalind?"

"Robert?"

"May we conclude this experiment as a success?"

"With absolute reasoning."

More silence, other than the occasional drip of some crack in a wall, and the stressed moan of the building's structure. A school of fish swam past the dirty panes of the window. The two watched as it passed by.

"It was quite the anomaly of the woman to not report us, I must say," Robert observationally commented and broke the silence.

His counterpart hummed in response, moving to fold her arms behind her back. She inclined her head somewhat curiously at a starfish that slowly crept up the side of the glass. "She is a Gatherer. If they found out her true past, then they indefinitely would be able to track the theft of the ADAM back to her true intentions."

"Curious, these generations are."

"Which generations?"

"The recent ones."

"Ah. Yes, those generations are peculiar; it merely is the fact that they are different than our time. Especially the woman."

"I concur. Perhaps the access to knowledge through their technological developments has made them dull to deeper emotional reception."

"One can be certainly doubtful about the outcome of this, given the unique situation at hand."

"Perhaps with our controlling of the experiment, it changed the outcome drastically."

"Controlling the experiment, you say?" Rosalind cocked a brow, "Perhaps merely altering a variable of it was our doing."

"Curious."

Rosalind turned her head to observe a skeleton hunched in the corner; It seemed a terrible death. The slimy green bones appeared to be warped in areas, and the frame was misshapen, perhaps due to the excessive splicing that was done to themselves.

With a grimace, she turned her penetrating gaze from the scene to her right, where a Big Daddy bouncer suit lay; it was on its side, the numerous 'eyes' on the helmet either fogged over or cracked entirely. The drill seemed rusted beyond recognition.

"An utterly dreadful state of affairs," Rosalind remarked.

Robert concurred, "Indeed so. They will find everything they need here...if they can enter without the entire building collapsing."

"It seems as if we led them to a dead end."

"A dead end?" queried Robert. "I would not entirely agree that the end was cut short, rather than they have entered a difficult portion of the investigation."

The two watched as an underwater drone swam through a school of fish then entirely stopped in front of the window. It seemed to turn around to some angles, perhaps getting a view of the scenery around, before the camera lens focused directly through the window. The lights that were affixed both sides of the drone's body shone into the disgusting interior, and directly on the twins.

"Might you say this experiment was a success?" Rosalind looked directly at the camera, unblinking. The both of them, despite the sudden exposure to the Icelandic crew through the lens of the drone, remained motionless and watched the device moving slightly askew due to a rogue current.

The glass on the other wall could be heard as a large crack began to spiderweb across the surface...perhaps it seemed to cave in at any moment. The two turned to look back at the glass before looking at the drone.

"Why, yes, I do think it turned out more successful than we thought. An outcome that defied our logic."

"Onto the next one, brother?"

"Onward."

The lights of the camera momentarily shorted out as the Lutece twins disappeared before the crew's eyes. After some short moments, less than a few seconds, the lights returned to full power; As they returned, however, the glass burst and water has filled the interior of the building.

It's been weeks since I initially got an Icelandic sea crew to survey the area. Finally, this week was the week that I apprehensively waited for results on the dive.

By apprehensively waiting, I drank several glasses of scotch while watching endless reruns of the Lucy Show in my hotel room. Apprehensively, of course.

Tonight I was going to bury that damn ADAM. Throughout that time, since I'd received it, I couldn't keep it off of my mind, becoming utterly paranoid that the feds would somehow find out that I had it. If those gingers framed me, I'd have the evidence as clear as day...but not if it's buried somewhere far away.

Some hours later, I set down my empty crystal glass and grabbed my purse that had the container.

It was a bit painful, I'd admit, returning to the old house that Jack got to raise us as healthy kids. We were far from ordinary...we just wore the facade that we were the typical family.

Jack was a widower, we were his children, and Tenenbaum was a dear friend. We moved to the peaceful state of Maine to find a better life after our mother's death...that's the story that was drilled in our heads endlessly to the word for anyone who asked who we were or where we were from. We, of course, used our real names, yes, and Jack's surname.

For a short time, it did feel like we were finally a typical family...somewhat. We would have regular 'familial' outings to the park and he would often take us to the cinema to see whatever was playing on the big screen at the time. My personal favorite was 'A Hard Day's Night.'

I slowed my car to a stop in front of an old and vacant house. No lights were on, several windows were boarded up...and several broken windows as well. Storm shutters were broken off and rusted. The paint on the side of the house began to peel, and the wood rotting- a real shame that this house couldn't have been kept up. Now it remains in disrepair, waiting for the release of death by a strong gust of wind to cause it to collapse.

The framework was sturdy, so collapsing may have been unlikely. Perhaps the house already had it's death once we lost ownership of it?

I put the hood of my jacket over my head as I climbed through the blown-out porch window. The shards of glass scattered across the bare concrete floor crunched under my shoes, and the only sound I heard was my own breathing.

My heart squeezed as I continued further into the shell of a home. The stairway, the walkway that overlooks the kitchen, memories flooded into my mind that I haven't thought about in many many years. Bitter memories...good memories. Sad memories.

As soon as I knew it, I was silently weeping like a baby when approaching the kitchen. I looked out the window that overlooked the water, now the sun setting and illuminating the sea in a beautiful golden glow.

I set my bag down on the counter and took out the container. It took a struggle to open from the seal that was put on it, but eventually, it popped open, and the vile smell of ADAM stung my nostrils.

Another feeling I haven't felt in so long...maybe even considered a relapse in a sense. A strong compulsion was felt to taste the viscous liquid. As soon as I know, the thing was tilted, and I scooped out a little bit on my finger. The taste was the same, just as vile and bloody...I quickly stepped outside to cough it back up; my body rejected it as soon as I swallowed it.

Some time passed before I felt well enough to go back inside and close the thing. All during this time, I had my head deep in the sands of my memories while making my way to the backyard to bury the damn thing.

To end this nightmare once and for all.

I didn't even bring a shovel, I only used my bare hands, soon wiping them on the interior of my jacket when I was done.

I broke.

"I miss you, Jack..." I wept to myself and looked up to the sky, "S-Say hello to Rose Mary. Tell her the kids are fine, and everything's normal for once in our wayward lives."

The rest of the time I spent inside the house and wept in the kitchen. I mourned my past and those I lost; I mourned Jack and Miss Tenenbaum. I mourned on behalf of my sisters for Rose Mary. The few young girls that remained undiscovered by Tenenbaum. I sat on the ground against the kitchen island and looked at the doorway. On the wall next to it were faint markings on the wall, black marker, of lines with heights and names.

Our names.

Unlike the Big Sisters, we grew to be normal humans with standard heights. Judy was the tallest, and Diane was the shortest. Anne stayed the same height when she got to the age of seventeen: five feet and seven inches. I still fondly remember Jack attempting to figure out how to use the tape measurer...we all laughed until he gave up and wrote our names for the time being. Later he went back to measure the notches and mark it down.

Those were the days...I lowered my head onto my knees and deeply wept.

I heard my cell phone ring in my bag. Slowly getting to my feet, I reached for my phone and answered the incoming call. Mustering up all the strength I could to neutralize the emotion in my voice, I sniffled and lifted the phone to my ear.

"This is Detective Wynand speaking."

"It looks like you were right."

"Okafor?"

"I need you in as soon as you can. We've got evidence to discuss."

Despite my heavy sorrow, a smirk was evident across my lips.

"I'll be there in three days."

This is how Andrew Ryan's biggest fear finally came to fruition; the underwater city was brought into the peripheral vision of the United States government.

My name is Julie Wynand. Me, along with my sisters, are former Gatherers of Rapture.

i think i can say that this story can finally be marked as complete! thanks guys for sticking with it and my terrible time between updates. special thank-you to reviewer merendinoemiliano for reviewing all my chapters and giving me feedback on things, it's really appreciated and gave me motivation to continue this story!

i have another story (albeit a one-shot) that i plan to write in the near future :))) i'm excited to write it!

also hello to everyone on amino to which i advertised this story on here :)

thanks guys so much for sticking with this wild ride of a story. i really appreciate it. if you have any suggestions, please let me know in the reviews!

-rtr