Soul Suites

by Hulden Morse

  “Alright,” he said to the woman. “We need to hold on to one another and be quiet. We’re going to where the explosions were.”

  “What? Why?” She cried.

  “It’s our only way out. There’ll be a lot of guards, but also smoke. We can slip through unseen. We just have to be quick.”

  They reached the bottom of the stairs just as the door into the hallway was thrown open violently and the security team, furious after having been impeded by an oxygen tank, poured into the space, screaming at the subjects to stop.

  Ariana let out a cry of surprise and Charles pulled her up the stairs, not caring that she was tripping on every other step and yelping in pain. They needed to move faster. He was so close to freedom, so close to getting them out of that facility, and he was not about to let the woman’s lack of sight drag them down and into capture.

  They breached the next floor and were instantly thrust into madness and mayhem. The CEO could see only a couple feet in front of him, though what he saw was appalling. Individuals in blue lab coats, coated with blood and debris, lay slumped against the walls. Some of them were moving, rubbing a limb or holding their head, while others seemed unconscious or too pained to shift their battered bodies. Other employees tended to the injured, while men and women darted in both directions, carrying bandages and hoses and buckets of sloshing water.

  Charles continued down the hall with Ariana trailing behind him, pushing past people like an explorer forcing his way through dense foliage. Their heads were in the cloud of smoke hanging just below the ceiling, which gave the man confidence. If he couldn’t see anyone’s face, then they could not see his. The grey clothing was an unfortunate giveaway, though no one seemed to be paying attention to what they were wearing. There were more pressing matters before them.

  The subjects hurried past a couple doors, smoke pouring out of them, and were then presented with an awesome sight. An entire wall on one side of the hallway was blown out. Pieces of plaster and wiring and machinery lay on the ground beneath their feet, having been expelled from the room with the force of the explosion. Charles warned his companion about the uneven ground, and they carefully stepped through the rubble. The CEO could not help but admire the satisfying view of utter destruction.

  The ground and remaining structure were blackened from heat and seemed on the verge of collapse, weakened from shock waves, fire, and the trampling feet of so many people. A faint light, mostly obscured by the smoke, shined from inside the room, flickering against the damaged area as dancing fire. He pushed past the site of the explosion, running toward an adjoining hallway that he remembered seeing before, when he heard something that eradicated all hope from his being.

  “Two subjects in the hallway! Two subjects are loose on this floor!”

  The scene suddenly shifted. Guards and technicians and administrators were grabbing one another in an attempt to discern the identity of every person in the area. People were pulling one another to the ground, out of the smoke, in order to see their faces and ensure that they were truly employees of the facility.

  Charles panicked and started sprinting as fast as the sightless Ariana would allow him, dodging individuals when he saw them. But then, without warning, he felt the woman’s hand slip through his fingers. She was ripped from his grasp and yanked to the ground by a passing guard.

  “I have one! I have one!”

  The subject screamed as loud as she could, never seeing her captor but knowing she had reached the end of her journey. Charles could see the man’s strong hands on her body, one on the back of her neck and the other on her thighs, pressing the woman facedown into the floor as he waited for assistance. Ariana could not move, she could barely breathe, yet she managed to screech a tune of agony into the air, begging with God that her death would be swift and immediate.

  The CEO heard the cries of his fellow prisoner, knowing that there was nothing he could do for her now. He did what he hated doing more than anything: he left her behind. Charles darted between scrambling employees until he at last found the other hallway branching off from the area of trial rooms. He turned the corner and raced away from certain capture, toward a greater opportunity for escape.

  He was alone, with no one to worry about except himself, and he felt conflicted with that fact. The man had no one else to focus on and no other distractions, yet he was on his own. He was frightened, trapped in a building full of people who were determined to murder him, and he had no one with whom he could look to for comfort.

  The subject continued to run. The smoke was becoming thinner as he progressed down the hallway, and there seemed to be no one following him away from the explosion epicenter. He neared a fork in the path and saw that one direction had a faint glow creeping around the corner. Hopeful, he headed in that direction and found a long walkway leading toward another part of the building, with windows all along one side. The space seemed peaceful, with benches facing the windows and muted paintings of oceans and landscapes on the walls. That was his moment. He was on the ground floor, something he did not know until that moment, and he had found a way out of the building. He was going to escape.

  Desperate to feel the outside air on his body, Charles aimed his gun at the glass and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He looked at the weapon and saw that he had emptied the cartridge when shooting the oxygen tank. Undeterred, the man threw the heavy gun as hard as he could at the glass, severely cracking it. He picked up the weapon and threw it once more, sending the gun crashing through the window and onto the outside ground. The CEO then broke away the remaining shards of glass before clambering through the opening, leaping to the earth. For the first time in what felt like years, he smelled the crispness of grass and felt the cool air in his nose. It was marvelous. He had never experienced something so beautiful and so fulfilling in his entire life. Freedom had been granted to him through great strife and struggle, and finally, emotionally, he was one step closer to seeing his family.

  After taking a split second to bend down and touch the soft grass, Charles began running again. He saw trees in front of him, a thick forest of vegetation, and he sprinted for the protection they offered. The man briefly turned around to look at the building in which he had been killed multiple times and saw that it presented an aura of sadism amongst the natural landscape around it. The structure was three stories tall, with large windows on every floor. He assumed that it had rooms in the center that contained the subjects for he had been unable to see a single one of those windows during his time in this quaint dwelling.

  The building looked old, possibly from the 1940s or 1950s, but was well maintained. There was a large parking lot to his right with cars in it and a security booth. He then saw that the security guards were standing outside the booth, staring at their place of work as smoke billowed out from its backside. There were lights along the road leading to the main entrance and lights within the parking lot, though the building remained dark, with the occasional glow of a flashlight streaking through a window.

  Charles then turned back to the line of trees and continued his journey toward the foliage. There were two perimeter fences stretching across the start to the forest, complete with warning signs of electrocution and barbed wire spiraling across the top. He paused for a moment, wondering what to do, when he heard a gun discharge behind him. The sound ricocheted off the building and trees, echoing in his ears with the reminder that he was not yet free.

  As the CEO slowly turned around, his hands instinctively in the air, he noticed that the guards in the parking lot had shifted their attention to him, watching the scene unfold, but made no move to come closer. He completed his turn and was met by the glaring face of Dr. Raymond. The man was livid, his eyes fierce with vengeance and the gun aimed directly at Charles’s head.

  This is it, he thought. This is the end. I failed.

  Chapter 57

  They stood outside an unassuming door, which le
d into an unassuming building upon an unassuming street. A not so hot sun hung in the pastel sky, feeding the growing crowd of agents with more potential than execution. It could have been a beautiful day, and it could have been a relaxing moment beneath the sun, yet the reality remained a combination of anxiety and impatience. That case needed to be closed and the end seemed alarmingly near, though how it would resolve before them remained a mystery. What would they find behind that storefront door? Would there be anything in there that had to do with Reaching Dreams? Would the new discovery simply lead to more unanswered questions?

  Bob Seeker arrived nearly an hour after Hamilton, Pinner, and the other IRS agents had gathered outside of the location. The Audit Manager bore a serious scowl and had several people in tow: Salvador Moreau, the still terrified accountant from the Chicago district, and two men in dark suits that Hamilton had never seen before.

  Seeker nodded to the waiting crowd as he dragged Moreau to the mysterious door. The two men in suits stepped on either side of the director and pointed at the building front.

  “Have you been through this door before?” one of them asked.

  Moreau ignored the man’s question and stared stoically at the ground.

  “Sir, I suggest you cooperate with us. You understand who we are. Have you been through this door before?”

  Without looking up, the director said, “Yes.”

  “Who pays the rent for this office?” he asked.

  “I do,” Moreau said.

  “With what money do you pay the rent for this office?”

  The man hesitated, deciding what the best course of action was. Everyone stared at the defeated director, and Hamilton could see the look of terror in his eyes. It was over. He was about to be discovered. There was nothing he could do to stop it.

  “With what money do—”

  “The district’s money!” Moreau yelled, looking up to glare at the man in the suit.

  The two men, nameless to Hamilton or Pinner, then nodded to Seeker who ordered Moreau to unlock the door. He did so obediently and people began to file inside. Hamilton pulled aside one of the IRS agents and asked him if he knew who the newcomers were.

  “They’re from the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force. Under the Attorney General. Bob notified them, and they were here in a heartbeat. Scary dudes. No bullshit.”

  “I can see that,” the assistant said as she walked into the building.

  The office was small, at least smaller than she had expected. There was a single common area that held a large conference table in the center. Several offices branched off of the common area, one of which housed a series of filing cabinets and shelving. Another office had two desks in it with computers on them. The last office had servers in it, six units total that Pinner recognized as the original ones she had bought for the entire company two years ago. Seeker headed directly for the server room while the Task Force men followed closely behind, dragging their reluctant prisoners with them.

  Hamilton and Pinner followed the officials into the tiny room, much to the annoyance of the men in suits.

  “Who are you?” one of them said angrily. “This is not a damn show.”

  “Excuse me?” Hamilton threw at him. “A show? This is my goddamn company. My boss and best friend is missing, and I’m watching my job go down the fuckin’ drain because of something these fuckin’ districts are doing. I’m staying in this damn room, as is the CFO of this company.”

  The men looked from the angry woman to Bob Seeker, who nodded his head in approval. The suits shrugged their shoulders and turned toward the one monitor in the room. Seeker turned it on and a login screen appeared before them.

  “Alright, Moreau. Log in for us,” he commanded. The director stared at him as if he were out of his mind. The Audit Manager waited a few seconds before speaking again, “Either you log in for us, or we’re going to get someone in here that can hack it. Up to you. But we’re getting into this system. It goes on the record whether you were cooperative or not. And so far, you have not been helpful. Plus, I really hate your tie.”

  Moreau contemplated his situation. They were going to gain access to those files, that much was certain. And if that were the case, then his incarceration was inevitable. His only chance at not getting smoked like a piece of meat was to play their game, give them what they wanted, and beg for mercy.

  He sauntered up to the monitor and typed in his credentials. A welcome screen appeared, after which the director was shoved out of the way to make space for the curious eyes of everyone else in the room. Seeker took charge by grabbing the mouse and scrolling through the file folders, looking for anything that may pertain to the case. He clicked on a file that read “Subjects” and received a large list of people’s names. Unsure what to make of that, he clicked on another folder labeled “Marketing” and found more folders referencing social media marketing, magazine articles, marketing budgets, and marketing plans. He clicked on something called “Marketing Outline” and was presented with a number of PDF files and Word documents. He opened the first one, and everyone looked on in confusion.

  It read “Soul Suites” at the top, something that was completely unrecognizable to Seeker. He motioned for Hamilton to take a closer look, asking her if anything on the mock flyer made sense, but the woman was just as baffled as everyone else. She took the mouse from the Audit Manager and began clicking on other folders and other files, scanning everything that she opened for familiar information.

  After opening something called “Operations,” followed by another folder labeled “Site Logistics,” she came across a series of spreadsheets neatly labeled by function. As the group looked through each one, the gravity of the situation began to sink in. All talking ceased as they stared at the screen, their eyes fixated on every word and every number presented to them for the first time. At one point, Hamilton looked back to find Pinner standing to the side, her hand over her mouth and her eyes glassy. Even the hardened agents from the Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force had lost their cold exteriors and were numbed with astonishment, their jaws hanging open.

  Moreau and the accountant leaned against a wall, staring at the ground with emotionless acceptance. They did not regret what they had done, not even for a second, but they regretted what had come of it. They believed in their cause, yet were certain a jury would not understand the reason behind their actions.

  Hamilton made her way through file after file, every one revealing the darkest depths of human intent. She found herself on the verge of vomiting. She was not sure if she felt sick from imagining what those good people had gone through or from the realization that it was happening within Reaching Dreams. Her company, those districts, were a front for one of the most unimaginably inhumane experiments she had seen. The woman would have gladly accepted that those people were embezzling money from the company, rather than the atrocity of the truth. And for what? To create Soul Suites? To make that brand name a reality? It was revolting.

  As her vision became cloudy from the brimming tears, she inadvertently clicked on another folder that was filled with image files. There were hundreds of them, thousands of them, each labeled with a last name and a date. She clicked on one and found the scanned chart for a man named Donovan Abraham. The chart had a picture of him, a physical description, family history, some strange reports about seeing lights, and other information of which Hamilton did not understand the purpose. She then had a sudden realization.

  Frantically, she clicked on the folder and typed “Pearson” into the search box. Two files appeared, one of them matching the date that Charles was discovered missing. Her heart raced as she opened the chart. She could feel the mouse slipping in her sweaty hands. Seeker breathed heavily behind her, the man just as anxious as she was to discover what had happened to the CEO of Reaching Dreams.

  The image file opened, and Hamilton let out a pained gasp as Charles’s picture appeared
before them. He looked like he did when he was pretending to be homeless: same unwashed hair and unkempt beard, except he was wearing a plain, grey sweater. He looked scared in the picture, as if someone had a gun pointed at him as they snapped the photo. It was disturbing to see a powerful yet generous man in so much distress. She couldn’t bear to see him in that state. He deserved to be home, with his family and friends, devoting his life to helping others as he always had.

  She read through Charles’s chart, looking over every detail in utter agony, until she saw a heading that read “Status.”

  And then her muscles tensed. It was as if her body were a stomach, reacting to something putrid that the stupid human had ingested, doing so by desperately expelling the harmful matter. Her body had just absorbed the most painful information imaginable and now it was going into complete meltdown mode. Every brain cell and every muscle was malfunctioning, causing the world around her to spin violently.

  “Hamilton? What is it?” Pinner said.

  The ceiling continued to turn. She placed both hands on the desk, gripping it tightly for support, but nothing could keep her mind grounded. It wanted to escape. Her brain wanted to break from her skull and flee out the window, fling itself into the path of an oncoming car in order to end the torrent of horrid imaginings that were overflowing its capacity for mental images.

  “Hey. Hamilton. What’s it say?”

  “Uh . . . uh . . . ,” she said, turning away from the monitor. “It’s Charles’s chart.”

  “What?” People in the room exclaimed in shock.

  “He was pulled into the experiment. That’s why he disappeared.”

  Everyone was silent. Not a muscle dared to twitch. Not a person dared to breathe.

  “And he died,” Hamilton continued, the tears flowing freely down her cheeks, “two months ago.”