Pulse
Page 4
Down.
Rowan’s breath caught in her throat. It was real. The underground. It existed, and she was going there. She would get to see it with her own eyes. A myth, a legend, that just a second ago she was certain was just a dumb story, turned out to be real. In that case, what else had she previously written off that could prove itself to be real in a matter of moments?
With a grin, she thought about how she’d tell Cameron this later, then remembered from this point forward, everything was completely confidential, and felt her heart sink with disappointment.
“Dr. Phelps.”
They were greeted by an armed security guard when leaving the elevator, and Rowan recognized him as the same man who stopped her and Cameron the night all this began. He was tall and built, the bullet proof vest around his chest accentuating his stature, and the assault rifle in his grip caused Rowan to take a subtle step away from him in unease.
“Good morning,” Phelps replied, nodding and smiling politely at the man. The guard missed the friendly cue though, his eyes darting over to Rowan with suspicion on his face. Rowan fidgeted under his scrutinizing gaze, feeling out of place.
Phelps intervened. “Miss Platts here will be accompanying me as my assistant. It won’t be a problem.” He spoke confidently, words holding his authority. The man looked apprehensive, but nodded curtly and directed them down the hall.
Rowan tried to shake off the encounter, following briskly after Phelps, but the lump stayed stuck in her throat. She’d been working at the ECBS for a while now and had grown comfortable with Phelps and her colleagues, despite most of them being twice her age. A mutual respect radiated among the regulars at ECBS; she hadn’t even thought about how she would have to earn her place all over again among Miller’s chosen, who were no doubt an even more elite group of intellectuals and would likely pass judgement on her swiftly.
She tried to keep this in mind, to hold onto her previous confidence and let her abilities speak for themselves, but she could feel her will beginning to crumble under the already immense pressure she put on herself to succeed.
The uncharted territory of this new lab was not helping Rowan feel any less uncomfortable. Everything was much more high-tech than she was used to above-ground. The dry, recycled oxygen, and smell of sterilizing agents that she had become too familiar with over the years were absent. Instead the halls were fresh and cool, the barely-blue tone of the walls only intersected by the metallic shine of each new doorway they passed. Electronic beeps and chimes of security codes and scanners echoed through the halls, and the gentle swishing sound of the sliding glass partitions connecting the corridor to each room, automatically opening and closing as people moved in and out.
They turned down another corridor and stopped at a frosted glass door which Phelps used his security card to open. He entered, and Rowan followed, but she ended up lagging behind him as she absorbed the surroundings, awed.
The room was modest in size, but the air was clean and cool despite the multiple, high-end computers lining the back wall. Powered on and whirring quietly, they added a familiar ambiance behind the chatter. If this room was anything to go by, this underground laboratory had to be where most of the ECBS profits were going.
In the middle of the space sat a number of long tables, curved into a semicircle facing the left, towards the only blank wall, which, along with the number of bodies, didn’t do any favors for the room’s size. A couple computers were occupied, but most of the white-coated doctors stood, idly chatting with each other to occupy their time. She recognized a few faces, but most were strangers, likely members of Dr. Miller’s research team.
Someone called Phelps by his first name, and Rowan’s attention redirected. She hurried to catch up, only to falter again as she realized who Phelps was shaking hands with.
“Margot, it’s been a long time.”
Margot Miller had aged a few years since the most common photo of her circulating the internet were taken, but it was undoubtedly her standing in front of Phelps, their hands clasped over each others in a warm, friendly shake between old friends. Rowan was left in disbelief, breathless and staring with starstruck eyes.
Even though signs of seniority crept in, with the crow's feet at her eyes and peppering of silver strands in her dark hair, she wore her age much better than Phelps. While he had grown fluffy around the waistline and let his beard go less tended to, Miller was a vision in a crisp, white coat: tall, dark, and thin, with deep set eyes hiding behind a pair of rimless glasses.
Miller smiled wide and friendly just as Phelps did, but her body stayed straight postured and precise, noticeably less fluid than Phelps flamboyance as she answered. “It has. Talking is one thing, but finally seeing each other after all these years… How have you been?”
“Well, while you’ve been stirring the pot with controversial topics, I’ve been settling my career and working towards retirement. Perhaps if you did the same, you’d have your own laboratory and wouldn’t have to get me involved in your affairs.” Phelps spoke in his usual chipper tone, but the sarcasm was hard to miss. It would normally have concerned Rowan that her mentor was being so open about his apprehensiveness, but she was too caught up in her awe to be worried.
“You know I’ve always been insatiable, Robert. Settling down is out of the question.” Miller laughed at the double meaning of her own words, patting Phelps’ arm with a slender-fingered hand. “And besides, why would I have my own labs when I know you’ll let me use yours whenever I need it?” she added with a sly grin, discreetly poking fun at Phelps for his well-known weakness of never being able to turn down someone.
When the conversation lulled between them, Miller’s eyes moved from Phelps to Rowan, and she froze all over again under the older woman’s gaze.
“And you must be the wonderful Miss Rowan Platts.” She side-eyed Phelps with a curl of her lip. “Robert’s told me a lot about you, albeit only just yesterday.”
Rowan swallowed hard, somehow forcing herself out of her stunned silence as she reached out for a handshake. When Miller took her hand, the nerves bubbled out of Rowan’s mouth in embarrassed blubbering.
“I’m such a big fan, Dr. Miller. I own all your scientific journals. If there were more photographs of you, I probably would have posted them all over my walls as a kid. Being a woman in the field and being so successful just… It was a huge influence for me. I’m really excited and grateful for this opportunity to work under you and Phelps.”
Rowan could feel her face going red with her over-talk and tried to pull back her outburst into something a little more professional. Miller seemed entertained though, chuckling a little after Rowan managed to reel in her rambling.
“And with how highly Robert speaks of you, I thought I’d be the one sucking up. After all, any assistant of Robert’s must be pretty special.” Miller smiled warmly, glancing around the room for a moment before adding, “I’d really like to talk with you more later, Miss Platts, but for now, we have to get started. If you’ll excuse me.”
Rowan’s heart fluttered at the exchange, the embarrassment on her face going red-hot from the praise and the prospect of speaking even further. She never thought she’d be standing in front of Margot Miller, let alone getting to shake her hand and exchange compliments. She had to fold her fingers together to keep them from shaking, wanting to hold onto her professional aura, but barely keeping a grasp on it.
Miller crossed the room to the blank wall behind them, and as some of the other doctors noticed, they turned from their conversations so the quiet murmur of the room gradually died off. Many took the opportunity to sit at the desks provided, but a few stayed standing, so Rowan opted to keep her spot next to Phelps.
Although she refused to show it, she was terrified to stray from him. She was walking into a lion's den, and while she had been warmly welcomed by the leader, the other doctors were as good as predators, yet to notice her. She feared once they did, they would tear her apart with her own insecurities, so she
pushed it away into the deep corners of her skull in hopes they wouldn’t smell it on her.
“Good morning, friends.”
The moment Miller spoke, claps from her team members interrupted her. She soaked up the praise with a humble smile, however, letting the applause go for perhaps a little too long before putting up a hand to stop them. As she started talking again, Rowan noticed Miller’s change in demeanor. She was relatively soft spoken and warm when exchanging pleasantries with her and Phelps, but as she addressed the room, a certain hardness found her tone.
The steady and confident voice of a leader.
“It’s wonderful to see you all here today. I understand the sacrifices many of you are making to join me on this study, but I want to promise, and prove to you today, that your time and effort is not in vain.”
It was a bold statement, a buzz of curiosity circling the crowd, but Miller had spoken in front of others before, and she was good at it, that much was obvious. Rowan felt her stomach twist, but instead of her previous nerves, it was a tight anticipation, excited for what Miller would present them with.
“Most of you know each other, but you’ll notice we have some new faces, courtesy of Dr. Phelps, the owner of this fine facility. Normally, I would start with introductions, since I like my team to work together as one big, happy family, but I think we’ll have the opportunity to get to know each other personally at another time. I can see most of you are eager for me to dive into the juicy details, so I won’t keep you waiting.” When she finished, Miller gave a gentle head tilt to the technician waiting at a computer in the corner.
Rowan’s heart picked up an extra beat. The technician returned a curt nod and swung around in his chair, typing in a line of code and pressing enter. Her eyes jumped around the room when the lights dimmed. Miller stepped aside, presenting the wall behind her as it began to move.
Starting at the center, the wall glided apart in sections, folding under each other in panels. Rowan attempted to conceal her shock, to little avail.
No one else in the room seemed impressed. Miller’s team must have been used to such advanced technology, and to Rowan's side, Phelps’ face turned to cold disconnect, suggesting something grave. The concern didn’t quite manage to pierce Rowan’s amazement, though.
The eight panels tucked snugly away into the adjacent corners, and left in their place was a wall of glass, floor to ceiling, and almost invisible in clarity. Beyond the glass, another room, stark white and lit by fluorescents, housing a bed, sink, toilet…
And a body.
Chapter Five
It was a boy, a youth, surely no older than twenty. In the farthest corner, he was curled up, his knees to his chest and his eyes closed, a hard expression marring his sharp features. He was pale, perhaps the palest person Rowan had ever seen in Northern California, and his dark hair hung to his jaw-line, stringy with grease and grime. A thin robe covered his navy hospital scrubs, but even with the layers, she could tell he was thin, too thin. Underfed. She would have assumed him dead if she hadn’t seen him flexing the fingers of his hand into a brief fist, knuckles spiking out from his taut skin.
Breathless, Rowan stared, wide and unabashed into the room as confused and anxious chatter started among the doctors around her. She felt sick, and the tension in the air made it worse. She wasn’t the only one to feel the sudden regret. She turned to Phelps, and he refused to look at her, his brow fighting a frown. He already knew, but that didn’t seem to make the reveal any less disturbing for him either.
There was another human being locked up in a room across from them. They were not studying an alien or some other, strange creature they’d never seen before. It wasn’t just a body. They were studying a living person. A boy younger than herself. And somehow, that was more unbelievable than Cameron's prospect of an extraterrestrial.
Rowan’s insides twisted in disgust as the bits fell together. This was the secret that needed protection. The contract insisted discretion because they didn’t want awareness. She wondered if this was even legal, or if she had just agreed to take part in poking and prodding information out of an innocent victim.
Presumably, anything was “legal” as long as no one knew about it.
Miller came forward to settle the growing conflict, gathering everyone’s attention before they grew any more restless. “Please, do not be put off by the appearance of our subject. I understand your apprehensions, but know first, what you see on the other side of this glass is not human like you and I.”
She had a way with words, and Rowan’s curiosity crept back. Her eyes jumped between Miller and the youth. When she gazed at the boy, she saw a human, she saw a victim, but Miller was suggesting otherwise.
“At about two a.m., the morning of Friday, August twenty-third, our unconscious subject was admitted to the emergency department of a small town’s hospital about a hundred miles from here. The doctor’s write up suggested he suffered from a severe case of anaemia, but blood test results conflicted, reading very high iron levels. When our subject was about to receive treatment, he woke up and became hostile. Within moments he attacked and killed the attending nurse and doctor.”
Miller paused briefly for a reaction, but the room held a chilled silence, and Rowan felt cold chills crawl up her spine.
“The laboratory technician who handled the subject’s blood work attempted to sedate him with a high dosage of morphine. The subject retaliated and killed the lab tech, as well as another nurse who came to investigate, and a wandering patient, before the morphine set in.”
The room stayed completely silent. Rowan’s eyes wandered back to the boy in the room, her mind racing with questions. It seemed impossible for this obviously unhealthy teen to murder five people with his bare hands, let alone with a dose of morphine in his bloodstream. He looked near death, and likely couldn’t even hold his own weight up, but Miller expected them to believe he was capable of a rampage?
A young man who sat at one of the desks closest to the exit broke the silence. “A human wouldn’t be able to do the things you’re claiming. Doctor, are you saying that this subject is not human?” A certain tone of sympathy lightened his voice, as if he was also unable to see past the boy’s helpless appearance.
“He’s right, Doctor. I apologize, but I can’t quite understand how that, managed to do what you’re claiming.” Another member of the group piped up as well, trying her best to keep her doubtfulness polite, but unable to completely hide her disgust. The room murmured a quiet agreement, all turning to Miller for an explanation.
“I know about as little as all of you do, but I can confidently say, this subject is definitely not like you or me. At the very least, we have a dangerous killer, who perhaps has a serious mental or physical illness causing him to act out in violent, powerful fits of aggression.” The room filled with growing whispers again, but Miller continued despite the chatter, talking over them. “But, of course, I understand a number of you require some sort of proof for the grand claims I’m making. We’re prepared to provide this for you.”
These words silenced everyone yet again, the air around Rowan growing thick as their interest piqued. She wasn’t the only one holding her breath now.
“When the subject came into our custody, we were desperate to find a secure holding place for him, considering the situation he was taken from. Dr. Phelps’ facility was offered to us last minute. Though it is a wonderful place for research, it is unfortunately not equipped for what we need. As you can imagine, few laboratories would be. This means we will limit our interactions with the subject, without putting lives in danger, of course. We have no permanent ways of restraining or sedating the subject, and at the moment, the only interaction possible is verbal, which has proven less than effective. We had security cameras, but he has since destroyed them. We have only audio recordings now.
“There is one tool at our disposal though, which will, at the very least, do a wonderful job at showing you all exactly what we’re dealing with.”
“You should all see a cuff on his ankle. This device, on our command, delivers an immobilizing electric shock. We’ve applied this cuff primarily as a safety measure, to have an external power in case we ever need to disable him in some way. But it’s proven to be an effective antagonizing mechanism, also.”
Miller didn’t continue this time, choosing instead to let the proof speak for itself, and gave another glance to the technician at the computer. Reaching for a tiny remote when acknowledged, he pressed a button the size of his thumb after Miller gave another tilt of her head.
Rowan’s eyes flashed back into the room where the boy stiffened in his spot. His thin arm flew up, and his hand flattened firmly on the wall to brace himself against the pain, but it didn’t help. He shook uncontrollably, and as the shock became unbearable, a howl of sheer agony broke through his attempts at resisting, his head stretched back until she saw the veins in his neck pulsing against his transparent skin.
Her heart swelled to a painful pound in her head, keeping count of the long seconds. Two, three, four...
“Stop! For God’s sake!”
The words escaped without her consent, like vomit, to accompany the horror and disgust knotting her throat. Miller’s previously kind eyes flashed something dark at Rowan’s interruption, but she signalled to the other man, and Rowan stared as the boy’s muscles slacked, the electricity stopping. He writhed in the afterpain until he crumbled, his face pressed against the floor, recuperating with deep, labored breaths. The ridges of his spine jutted through his layers of clothes, and his skin under the cuff flared raw and red, suggesting this wasn’t the first bout of pain he’d endured.