Turning around so he could cast his gaze over the other hostages, he nodded toward a bucket I'd noticed in another corner, next to the door.
“You missed my briefing from before, so I'll repeat the essentials for you. I don't give a fuck about what you think about what we're doing here, but it is in our best interest to treat you as humanely as possible. There's bottled water to keep you hydrated, you will be fed, and my men have strict orders not to use excessive force unless warranted. If you hunker down, don't make trouble, and do as you are told, you'll get out of here relatively unharmed. Try to screw with us, and all bets are off. Capisce?”
He waited until I nodded before he went on, but I got the impression that he was talking less to me personally and more to the hostages in general.
“It is also in your best interest to try to uphold the moral laws of society as you are used to them under less strenuous conditions. This is not some badly scripted Hollywood action movie. In this scenario, there will be no heroes. In real life, heroes get executed, and they make conditions worse for everyone. I would also advise you not to act like egotistic douchebags, but that's up to you to decide. I will hold you all accountable as a group; if you force us to take actions, our response will be swift and brutal. If this makes things more bearable for you, see this as a social study. How long does it take for one or all of you to go nuts and go for each other's throats? The fact that you are working for this company means that your intellect is well above average, and you should be able to staunch any impulses that will lessen your chances of survival. Nothing speaks against all fifteen of you making it, provided you don't force our hands. The rest is up to you.”
He let those words sink in, then turned to me one last time.
“You should have drank that coffee fast when I told you to.” He didn’t need to glance at the reddish burns at the back of my hand for them to flare up anew. “Maybe that will be a lesson to you in the future.”
His previous statement had intimidated me enough to make me hunch my shoulders and pull my knees closer to my chest, but maybe it was because of that tension that my temper snapped.
“You think? Well, if I'd imagined in my wildest dreams that you would bring down half the building on us, I might have chugged it down in one go. But if I'd suspected that might happen, wouldn't it have been smarter to just walk out of the building in the first place so some deranged criminals couldn't lock me up inside a glass cube?”
Nothing I said fazed him, but then I hadn't expected it to. He left without saying another word, but not without gracing me with one more terribly amused grin. A direct threat to my life would have rattled me less.
Tension drained from my muscles as I forced myself to relax and settle into the wall at my back. Letting my head sink against the cool glass, I stared up into the dome of the cathedralesque atrium above, barely visible in the gloom. It was only then that I noticed the utter silence that had fallen inside the cube. Before, when Thecla had inspected my hand, there had been murmurs and quiet conversation, but when I looked back down, I found everyone staring at me.
“What?” I ground out, glancing at Thecla for support, but she was wearing an equal expression of bewilderment and suspicion.
“What was that about coffee? You know that guy?”
Her voice was a dry, pressed rasp, and suddenly I understood what she was getting at.
“What?” I echoed eloquently. “No, of course not!” The disgust inside of me made that lie sound somewhat convincing.
Before I could explain, Greene piped up from across the cube.
“Didn't look like that when you were cozying up to him at the vending machine. Rather convenient that no one could overhear you then, and five minutes later, half the building lies in ruins.”
I glared at him, then straightened, doing my best to appear dignified, or as dignified as possible with my legs now tucked underneath me.
“Excuse me? The only reason why I was down in the atrium is that you and your company are too cheap to provide vending machines for each floor, and the coffee machine in our kitchen has been out for weeks. And why I was even still in the building is because I have a deadline to meet next week, and your CFO put so much pressure on my group leader that he pretty much forced me to work eighty-hour weeks to get enough results so we would get enough funds to keep the project running until we were ready for publication. Meanwhile, you and those other two were waiting for them, greeting them with open arms. Doesn't that sound ten times more suspicious?”
Greene looked as if I'd slapped him, but then shook my accusation off.
“That's a convenient alibi, but you were talking long enough to exchange instructions. I know that we're paying you geeks well, but apparently some people aren't above corporate espionage. My father is a fool to still trust the loyalty of his employees.”
My first impulse was to get up and slap him, but I'd never physically attacked anyone in my life, and remembering Nate’s speech quenched the last bit of aggression.
“It was just coincidence. Believe me, I wish I hadn't gotten that coffee.”
Greene looked downright disappointed that he hadn't gotten more of a rise out of me, but then something else occurred to him, making his face light up with malicious glee. I'd never liked him, but he was quickly becoming my least favorite person, and considering who milled around outside the cube, that was saying a lot.
“So they chased you through the building for three hours? Sounds like a lot of bullshit to me. A pudgy thing like you shouldn't be able to do a single push-up, let alone get into an air duct. Do they even make them wide enough that you'd fit inside?”
I had no idea when I'd hopped onto the body shaming express, but that insult struck me hard. I hadn't been able to protest Nate’s assessment of my overall physical fitness and muscle mass, but Greene's comments were way out of line and completely unfounded.
Why I had to not only swallow the bait but also add fuel to the flames was beyond me, but I was incapable of not biting right back at him.
“You'd be surprised what I can do with my body. I like to be on top. I can support my entire body weight on one arm for way longer than just a single push-up.”
His triumphant smile in return told me that, yup, he'd definitely scored that point, and before I could add anything to amend the steaming heap of crap that I'd just barfed up, the HR hag came to his rescue, of course.
“Miss Lewis, I would like to remind you of the general rules of conduct that are in effect for all employees? And your shirt is definitely not approved according to regulations.”
I knew when I'd lost and when it was best to tuck tail and shut up, so I did just that, although it made bile rise in my throat to look away first. Saying that he'd started it would have made things worse, so I dropped the subject altogether when everyone seemed ready to move on.
This time when silence settled it was no longer as strained, but people seemed to have run out of conversation material. I busied myself with staring at my bandaged hand for a while, then looked over my shoulder toward the monitors. Last time I'd seen them from above, they'd just started to set up feeds from security cameras, but now the system looked fully operational. More than fifty small windows showed ever-changing angles of corridors and labs. Only a single one on a separate screen remained the same, and when I realized what it was, I felt a new shudder of dread race through me.
Turning to Thecla, I didn't wait for her to acknowledge me before I gushed, my voice shaking ever so slightly.
“Do you know what happened to the L4 lab? Was someone down there working when they set off the charges?”
What I didn't ask was whether she thought that the airlocks had been breached and we were right now breathing air full of one virus or another that might kill us within the next weeks.
Her brows drew together, but the absence of fear on her face was already easing my rising panic.
“Not as far as I know. We shut everything down Wednesday night. Scheduled maintenance, you under
stand?”
I didn't need her to glance pointedly at a knot of fatigue-wearing people who had all belonged to the janitorial staff to get her drift. I was sure that they specifically lacked the special training to do maintenance down there—we had service contracts with external businesses for that—but what she wasn't saying came across loud and clear.
Of course, when you had the foresight to infiltrate every possible branch that would make your operation go more smoothly, including the local police, you wouldn't risk accidental exposure to agents that required the highest level of biosafety regulations. It had likely only taken undercutting the competition’s offer to land the job.
“Did you manage to call Sam?” Thecla asked, drawing my attention back to her. The question surprised me, mostly because it was so personal. We'd never really discussed details of our lives outside of work, and I hadn't realized she was aware that I was in a relationship, let alone with whom.
“No, the phones weren't working. Not even the emergency services. Guess that was the first thing they did, cut us off from the outside world?”
Thecla shrugged and started sharing what little information she'd gathered by overhearing conversations over the last three hours.
As I'd suspected, the party of “visitors” made up the core command group, and the first thing they'd done was grab their three-people welcoming committee directly after detonating the charges. As no one from the other high-level security labs was with us in the cube, we didn't know what had happened there, but Thecla assumed that they had been offline for maintenance, too. It made sense to do all that work in one go, of course.
The infiltrators had started rounding up people immediately, first under the pretense of establishing a triage station in the atrium, then to make sure that no one was buried under the rubble, but ultimately to sort through the personnel and single out this select group of hostages.
Looking around, I could understand why everyone was here except for me. Thecla was the head of the L4 lab, five of the other scientists were the group leaders with the biggest, most productive labs attached, and the others were in charge of other high profile projects. Greene likely had had the bad luck of being the only man with anything close to corporate decision competence who'd still been in on a Friday afternoon in the midst of a flu epidemic.
Me? I was a nobody who'd maneuvered herself even further out of the spotlight a year ago. It made absolutely no sense to throw me in with the rest.
Since finishing the roundup, they had established their parameter outside, which turned out I was right about. They'd set up the monitors and built the barriers, and as far as Thecla knew, all exits had been rendered useless by the detonations except the one at the foyer of the atrium.
That only left one question unanswered.
“And I presume the bucket's for basic human needs?”
Her grim nod confirmed my suspicion.
“Yup. So far I've avoided getting anywhere near it, but it's only been three hours. Give it a little more time, and we're all going to get really uncomfortable around each other.”
I had to admit, the idea of peeing into a bucket in front of fourteen other hostages and who knew how many terrorists outside wasn't the most comforting thing I could come up with, but I could imagine a lot worse. Then I caught Greene leering at me from across the cube, and quickly remedied that assessment.
That guy was trouble, and I had the sinking feeling that before long things would get a lot worse than they were right now.
Chapter 9
Time soon slowed to a crawl with nothing to occupy my mind with and Thecla not at her most talkative. There wasn't much I felt like talking about, either, so I figured I wasn't better company. And what I probably should have been mulling over—my connection to the man who was responsible for us sitting here inside our see-through prison—was the furthest thing from what I actually wanted to think about.
More out of boredom than interest, I turned around and studied the monitor array. Maybe a part of me hoped that there were more duct rats still out there, but it didn't seem likely. There hadn’t been that many people in the building to start with, and I doubted that more than a couple had considered hiding rather than following the security protocols and flocking to the atrium. The only thing the cameras picked up were lots of dark-clad mercenaries making rounds. That they were mercenaries I didn't dispute any longer. I still had no clue what this was about and how they were getting paid—and what for—but I didn't expect to find out anytime soon.
What I was more concerned with was the question of whether we would make it out of here alive.
While I couldn't find it in me to disagree with the notion that they were a bunch of trigger-happy lunatics, the analytic part of my brain was asking nagging questions. Like, what did I really know? Besides being shot at myself, I hadn't seen them execute anyone. The conspicuous absence of most of the people I'd watched getting herded together in the atrium could mean a veritable blood bath, but I figured Thecla would have told me about that if she’d observed it happening—and I hadn’t heard any screams or shots except for what their hunt for me had produced. That thought came with a bitter taste for me. Had my failed adventures inadvertently led to my imprisonment? But there was still that matter of that special coincidence…
I quickly cut that train of thought short. There was no sense in beating myself up over this until I could talk to him—and if I had my way, I would remain oblivious for the rest of my hopefully very long life, thank you very much.
The cute tech girl was meanwhile busy typing away on her keyboard but then stopped, and the large screen switched to a generic view of the start of a presentation, from the looks of it. Just seeing that made me frown. Once she was done, she signaled her boss, who posthaste went to grace us with his presence—way too soon, if anyone had asked me, which they, of course, did not.
I knew that this couldn't be good, and the way my stomach heaved, I wondered if I was already developing ulcers. He pretty much confirmed my fears when he stopped just inside the door and stared right over to where Thecla and I were huddled.
“Remember when I said that you would all benefit from showing your explicit cooperation? I need a volunteer.”
It came as no surprise that no one spoke up, and the floor at his feet held a sudden high potential of interest for the entire group. What did astonish me was that he didn't grab me by the arm and yank me up, but instead turned his hard stare on Thecla.
“And I'm volunteering you.”
Her reaction was as immediate as it was understandable. He hadn't yet fallen silent when her arms came around me, and she grabbed me hard enough that the discomfort of my fresh bruises roared alive. I couldn't help but take her hand and squeeze it just as hard as we both stared up at him in our shared horror.
I felt like the lowest invertebrate for being immensely glad that he hadn't chosen me.
Antics of any sort apparently weren't what he considered excusable behavior, because instead of repeating himself, he drew his gun from his shoulder holster and pointed it with steady disregard straight at me.
So much for my guilt trip.
“Dr. Soudekis, you already published five papers using Dr. Lewis’s research here without even crediting her in the footnotes; do you really want to ruin her career further by threatening her life? You have a lot to make up for and likely not enough time to achieve that. Is adding to that list instead of subtracting from it how you want the world to view you?”
I had no idea what he was talking about, but I was definitely going to check her publishing credentials when we made it out of here alive. Not that that was a top priority for me, but the human mind likes to latch on to such wonderful details while it is working hard on ignoring others.
At first, she didn't react, but then she gave me one last hard squeeze and let go. Her jaw was set in determination as she got to her feet, and Thecla looked almost regal as she faced her captor.
“Very well. What would you have me do?”
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His answering grin was nothing if not feral.
“I’d like to have a chat with you, nothing more.”
“I think I can manage that,” she replied low under her breath, and sent me a last, long look. “Be brave.” Then she stepped up to him and didn't look back. Without putting his gun away, he signaled her to precede him out of the cubicle, and closed the door behind them.
My eyes were glued to her progress as she followed his directions and stepped in front of the huge screen. I admired how calm she looked right until he took position in front of her, crossing his arms over his chest, gun still out in the open but pointed downward. Before, the walls of the cube had seemed to hold out more sound, but with them both standing just a couple of feet away, I could more or less make out what they were saying.
“I presume you have a suspicion what this is all about?” Nate asked, his jaw set in a surprisingly grim way. How Thecla avoided his gaze spoke volumes—volumes that made me uneasy on an entirely different level. It made me wonder if she actually knew him—if not in the same way as I did, any kind of familiarity freaking me out. What kind of business did a high-ranking scientist and current leader of the BSL-4 division of a biotech company have to do with terrorists? That my thoughts weren’t that different from what Greene had accused me of didn’t go by me unnoticed and immediately made me second-guess myself.
“Maybe,” she pressed out when he made no move to spare her answering.
“Maybe?” he echoed, his voice taking on a playful lilt that gave me the creeps for a different reason. The promise of violence in his tone was not even thinly veiled.
“Probably,” Thecla amended, quickly looking up, but she returned to studying her own hands twisted around each other a second later.
“Take a good long look at me. Maybe that will probably help turn that into a ‘definitively’?” he suggested.
Green Fields: Incubation Page 8