Monstrosity

by Edward Lee

  “It’s good that you can look at it that way.”

  “I’m not ashamed of what happened to me, because I didn’t do anything wrong. But all that crap is behind me now—thanks to you. I’ll do a great job for you.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Dellin said.

  Next he introduced her to some of the medical staff: tomographers, nurses, technicians, all of whom seemed competent and amiable. She found her eye wandering a bit, though, to Dellin himself. Kind of a fox, she thought, though she wasn’t quite sure why she’d make an observation like that. She was trying to focus on her job. But with his jacket off now, tie loosened and sleeves rolled up, Dellin seemed even more attractive to her than before. Beneath the tailored shirt, he was clearly in shape, his arms strong and well-defined, broad shoulders. Get your mind right off of that kind of stuff! she yelled at herself. Pay attention! Do your job! But it definitely wasn’t her style to be sizing a man up like that. Get real. He’s probably got a knockout for a wife and a bunch of kids.

  She got her mind back on business: site familiarization. “Here’s your office,” Dellin said, and showed her the small security cove. Pretty sterile. Desk, computer, file cabinet, key safe. A civilian-grade radio set sat in one corner, and a row of small black and white tv screens showed several areas of the clinic’s interior and exterior.

  “Great,” she approved. “Closed circuit video cameras.”

  He showed her the console buttons. “There are ten cameras on the site, five inside, five outside. You’ve got six live monitors, A through F. You punch the buttons to pull up what you want. Probably an over-kill expenditure.”

  “Sure, but it can’t hurt.”

  “Here are your keys,” he said next, and got a small key ring out of the desk. “You have a master key to every lock on the site—that’s the personal security key that I mentioned earlier. Each of the other guards has a master too. Plus you’ve got this ring of duty keys, plus there’s a second set for whichever guard is on duty.”

  Clare took her keys, then put her stringed master key around her neck and let it fall into her tunic. It tickled, cold, between her breasts. “Don’t worry, we won’t have any problems with key control.”

  “Same goes for this too, I’m afraid,” and next he handed her a small beeper. “Like the key, you have to keep this with you all the time. But don’t feel bad—” He pointed to an identical beeper on his belt. “I have to have one too.”

  “No problem,” Clare said, and snapped hers on.

  Next, Dellin led her down another hall. As they passed more coves and exam rooms, Clare’s now-ingrained instinct for security caused her to take note of the locks on the doors: just typical house-grade key locks. “I hope your pharmacy doesn’t have locks like these,” she said right away.

  Dellin seemed taken aback. “Well, yeah, it does. What’s wrong with these locks?”

  “They’re inferior, that’s what. I could open these with a bent fish hook and small flat-head screwdriver. If you’ve got heavy-duty pain-killers in this place, you at least need a milspec-grade doorlock plus a deadbolt.”

  Right around the next corner, Dellin stopped. “Here it is.”

  The big sign on the door read PHARMACEUTICAL DEPOSITORY: NO ADMITTANCE!

  Clare laughed. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  Dellin scratched his head. “What?”

  “First thing we do is get rid of the sign. Otherwise, if someone does break in here, you’re telling them exactly where the goodies are.”

  Dellin blinked. “Ah. Why didn’t I think of that?”

  They went inside so Clare could have a look around. “Wow, you guys have got enough dope in here to drop Elvis,” she said.

  “Pretty much all morphine derivatives. All of our patients have to have it during the first stages of treatment.”

  Clare’s eyes scanned the locked shelves. MS-CONTIN, DURA-MORPH, DILAUDID, and much more. Clare wasn’t an expert on regional narcotics abuse but she did remember her several training blocks on the subject, and she knew that stolen prescription drugs were the biggest business on the Gulf-side of Florida, next to crystal methamphetamine. All the crack, cocaine, and heroin went to Miami and the east coast cities. “This is junkie paradise. The Dura-Morphs and any other time-released forms of morphine sulphate sell on the street for a hundred dollars per pill.”

  “Really?” Dellin sounded shocked. “We buy them wholesale for five bucks apiece.”

  “On the street, one of those pills gets cut ten times. I’d hate to think of the street value of all this stuff. Key control is very important for this room.”

  They walked back out, Dellin re-locking the door. “This door can only be opened by our personal security keys, and there are only five people in the facility who have them: you, the other two guards, me, and the director.”

  It sounded prudent but key control alone was never enough. Clare knew this well from her own professional experience. “Did you run everybody who works here for priors and drug histories?”

  “Sure. Everyone’s squeaky clean, even the janitors and the cooks.”

  “Contractors? The people who built the place? It’s not uncommon for a crooked contractor or workman to copy a key.”

  “The contractors who worked here were cleared first by the Defense Investigations Service.”

  “Good, that’s what I need to hear.” Clare was pleased that everything seemed to be falling into place; she wouldn’t have to cover many bases herself. “So, first thing we do is take that sign down; I’ll do it myself when you’re done showing me around. Second thing—we really have to get a serious lock on that door, a lock like—” Then something caught her eye. She pointed. “A lock like that one,” she finished.

  At the furthest end of the corridor was another door. Here the sign read simply: B-WING, and on the door was not a key lock but a high-grade pass-buttoned deadbolt.

  “What’s B-Wing?”

  “That’s where we keep our patient records and our major treatment pharmaceutical, the stuff I was telling you about before—Interthiolate. Harry’s the only one with access to B Wing.”

  “Harry?”

  “The director of the clinic. From our standpoint, the Interthiolate is even more sensitive than all those painkillers in the pharmacy vault, and Harry’s very paranoid about it, but I can’t say that I blame him. If someone stole enough of our supply of Interthiolate to synthesize, the Air Force patent on it would be useless internationally. That’s why Harry doesn’t want anyone else in B Wing. He’s kind of type-A sometimes but he’s a nice guy. He’s doing a symposium today in Sarasota but he should be back by five. Then you’ll get to meet him.”

  At least that explained the off-limits wing, though Clare wasn’t sure if it was such a good idea to deny access even to security. It’s their gig; they can run it the way they want. “Fine, B-Wing’s restricted. But we really do need a milspec lock on the pharmacy.”

  “I’ll talk to Harry when he gets back. Getting him to send in a requisition request for a work order is like pulling teeth but I’m sure he’ll listen to your reasoning.” Dellin glanced at his watch, then muttered an inaudible curse. “I’ve got a patient coming in now, but I’ll catch up with you later. Why don’t you call Joyce on her radio and have her show you around the site.”

  “Will do. See you later.”

  Dellin smiled and walked off but as he did so, Clare caught herself again.

  She was staring at him, wondering about the actual physique beneath the clothes.

  Damn it, girl, there you go again! What the hell’s wrong with you? You haven’t even been on the job a full hour and you’re already lusting after your boss! No, this wasn’t like Clare at all and she had to wonder why. She didn’t like mysteries, especially when they were about herself. But perhaps some of the more primordial aspects of her psyche were overcompensating now that she had suddenly been placed into a position of social normalcy. I’m not sweating food and shelter any more, she hypothesized, so now other
instincts are kicking in, instincts that were de-prioritized when I was homeless. She’d been sexually dead since the rape, of course, and sexually inactive for several years before that, always placing her personal priorities on her job. She wanted her career well-established and rock-solid before she embarked on any serious relationship quests. It had always seemed the most sensible plan but now that she thought of it, maybe that had been a mistake all along. There was such a thing as being too serious, too sensible. She was almost twenty-nine years old now, and much of her romantic prime was behind her. If I’d had a husband or a serious boyfriend during the rape and court-martial, at least someone would’ve been there for me, and I wouldn’t have been homeless after the discharge.

  I played it all the wrong way, she realized now.

  But now was clearly not the time for considerations like these. Self-analyze yourself later, she thought. Now you’ve got a job to do. Don’t ball it all up on the first day going ga-ga for your damn BOSS.

  She walked back to the security office, smiling at a patient or two along the way. The very first thing she did was grab a Phillip’s head screwdriver, then went immediately back to the pharmacy and removed the conspicuous sign from the door. Now, call Joyce, have a look around the perimeter.

  But another sign rasped her eye just as she turned away from the pharmacy.

  B-WING

  And that’s where they keep the top-secret cancer drug, she remembered. Interthiolate. Clare had to agree; the fewer people with access, the better, but she had to wonder if Dellin and the clinic director were being a little paranoid about the prospect of industrial spying and theft. Clare knew that the real theft target was the pharmacy vault. I gotta find out about the alarm system, find out how many of these doors are wired, she made a note to herself.

  She took a last look at the B-Wing door, then returned to her office.

  On the desk lay a clip-boarded daily operating log; Clare could see that Joyce had already started it, listing her initial rounds. Clare signed in herself and noted her own primary site briefing with Dellin. Lockers on the other side of the office caught her eye. A plaque on one locker read SECURITY CHIEF.

  That’s me, so… Don’t mind if I do.

  She pulled up her personal security key from around her neck and—sure enough—it opened the locker.

  All right! Now we’re talkin’!

  Hanging from a hook was a fully fitted leather gunbelt, complete with a thumb-snap holster and a six-inch Colt Trooper Mark III .357 magnum. “Works for me,” she said under her breath. She had to take the belt in several notches to fit her waist, and that’s when she noticed that the belt, though relatively new, had been used in the past. The belt holes were worn. At the bottom of the locker, a gold security badge shined. Clare picked it up and pinned it right on. But then—

  Something else in there.

  She leaned over and picked up a small brass plate. It was a nameplate.

  FLETCHER, G.

  SECURITY CHIEF

  What the hell? I thought I was the security chief, but then it occurred to her that she must be looking at the nameplate of the person she was replacing.

  Dellin hadn’t actually mentioned that she was replacing anyone, but why would it matter anyway? Now she fished around in the desk drawers. It only took a few minutes of skimming some of the past operating logs to figure it out.

  G. Fletcher? Now she saw the name on what appeared to be the very first logsheet. Grace Fletcher. Security chief. Dellin had told her that the clinic had only been open for about a month but Clare could see by the logs that even before the clinical trials had officially begun, there was a security operation here. Of course. Now it made sense. The actual security contract had begun almost a year ago, when the facility had gone under construction.

  And this woman here—Grace Fletcher—was the security chief before me.

  Clare sat still at the desk now, tapping a finger against the blotter. She couldn’t resist the obvious curiosity.

  I wonder what happened to her.

  This seemed like a good time to find out.

  I need to get Joyce to show me the site now anyway. I’ll ask her.

  She swivelled around in her chair, toward the radio set. It was a standard civilian model base station with a scanner, three multi-unit frequency bands, and a private channel. She was about to turn it on and call Joyce when—

  What the hell is that?

  The smallest movement caught her eye as she picked up the microphone.

  Movement from one of the closed-circuit screens.

  There were several screens but they weren’t very large—only thirteen-inch displays. One showed the security gate on the main road, one showed the clinic entrance, and several more showed various points of the perimeter that were deeper outdoors.

  On the last screen she saw something moving.

  The camera showed an extended view of what seemed to be a back entrance to the clinic; she could see the building’s loading dock on the screen, its single bay door pulled down, and the long dirt road leading away from it. The movement she detected was so distant, it was sheer luck she’d picked it up at all. What flagged her was the briefest wink, like a metallic flash, from a stand of palm trees and several squat palmetto bushes. And—

  There it went again—the flash.

  Clare stared at the screen but the detail was just too far away. “Where’s the zoom on this thing?” she said aloud. “Ah, I’m in luck…” On the console she found the camera controls, each camera and its accommodating screen fixed with a letter. She hit the zoom arrow for Camera F, brought the frame in much closer.

  “Don’t tell me I’ve got an intruder on my first day on duty—”

  The lens zoomed in remarkably tight, then she panned over to center her “intruder” in the frame.

  It was a person, all right, two people actually.

  Aw, no, Clare groaned in her head. Look’s like my first official write-up is going to be on my own staff.

  The flash she’d seen was a badge, a security badge, and the person in the frame was Joyce. The badge had winked in the sunlight when she’d opened her shirt to expose her breasts.

  Right now she was in a tight clinch with another guard, a tall, dark-haired male.

  “Great. That’s just great.”

  The male guard was obviously Rick, whom both Joyce and Dellin had mentioned earlier, and it was just as obvious that Joyce and Rick were not-very-discreet lovers. Clare was maddened, not so much that she’d caught them, but because she now had a responsibility to do something about it.

  Damn it!

  Should she cite them in writing? Report them to Dellin? Fire them on the spot? She sighed, rested her chin in her hand. “This I don’t need. Not on my first day.” Her eyes strayed back to the screen.

  The pair of lovers were wrapped up in each other’s arms, trading deep, ravenous kisses. Joyce had Rick pushed up against a tree, and as her bare breasts rubbed into his chest, her hand wasted no time sliding down into his security trousers. Their gestures seemed frantic, desperate, as they practically mauled each other in the little cove of brush. Joyce’s head fell back; Rick’s mouth licked a wet line from her lips down to her jutting breasts, then sucked tight onto a nipple. When his mouth moved off, the nipple stuck out like a pink stud, and Joyce’s entire body flinched when he tweaked the nipple hard with his fingers. Then his mouth licked over to the other breast, repeated the ministrations, while his hand opened brazenly over the crotch of Joyce’s pants and began to rub.

  Man! Clare thought. This is some show, and now I better think of a way to end it… She reached again for the radio mike but couldn’t get her concentration away from the small video screen. She’d never been voyeuristic but this…

  This…

  It was too tempting not to watch.

  Now Joyce was on her knees, Rick breathing heavily as he stood against the tree. The camera angle spared Clare the fine details but she didn’t need to be told what was taking place. Part
of her felt embarrassed watching it, uncomfortable.

  But another part of her?

  Next, Rick pulled Joyce roughly back to her feet, embraced her again with vigor, and turned her around. Now it was Joyce who was against the tree, her eyes closed in bliss as Rick kissed her deeply on the mouth, his tongue plunging. Joyce’s bare, flat stomach seemed to be sucking in and out in the excitement, and her large breasts seemed even larger, the nipples standing out like pinpoints.

  All right, Clare, enough. This is a security office, not an x-rated theater. And as she repeated her order to stop watching the shenanigans on the screen and take some kind of managerial action—

  Oh, no way! They don’t possibly have the audacity to—

  She stared further.

  No, please! Not in broad daylight!

  Rick was still kissing Joyce hard, but now his large hands were busy at her waistline. He unbuckled her belt, unfastened the front of her pants in a few steady, indelicate movements. Then he pulled her pants down right there against the tree.

  I can’t believe this! Clare thought.

  The look on Joyce’s face was like wanton rapture, her eyes radiant slits. Rick’s hand roamed urgently beneath her panties, then he began to slide the panties off—

  Clare could only shake her own head in disbelief but just as it appeared that Rick and Joyce were going to take their actions to the furthest limit—

  Oh, thank God, Clare thought.

  All at once, simple common sense swept over Joyce’s expression, and she was grinning, pushing him away and shaking her head. Clare could see her lips silently saying No no no no no! as she pulled her security slacks back up and refastened them. Then she ran out of the frame with a silent teasing giggle on her lips. Rick slumped in understandable frustration and walked off after her.

  They must have thought the security camera was too far away to pick them up, Clare guessed. But catching them didn’t making her feel particularly clever or observant either. And they probably wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that the new chief would be cranking the zoom in to the max and watching them.