I forced myself to take in a breath, just to show that I could.
“Did he say how?” Karen asked, her voice dropping to just above a whisper. “Sister? Cousin?”
“He hasn’t said anything,” Gerry replied. He pushed his glasses up the ridge of his nose. “I don’t know if I can get him to come to breakfast.”
“You need to,” Karen said, voice firm. “Lying in bed, all alone, you know what that leads to here.”
Gerry nodded. “He’s not the only one, you know?”
“What…we have another newbie? Where is he?”
“At testing.”
“Already?”
“They’re starting early this time.” He dropped his gaze. “And I don’t know what that means.”
“Shit.” Karen wiped a hand down her face. “We’ll talk about this later, okay? I…don’t have the stomach for it before breakfast. Not on day one.”
“I understand,” he said, then turned to me. “I apologize for not speaking to you sooner. My name is Gerald Trimpop.”
“Gerry,” Karen interrupted.
“Gerry,” he replied with an amused half sigh. “If you prefer.”
“I’m Dawn,” I said. “Dawn Takahashi.”
“Japanese. That’s a new one…I think.” He reached for a small pad of paper in his shirt pocket. “Would you mind answering a few—”
“You can add her full entry to the encyclopedia later,” Karen said. “For now, breakfast.”
“Of course,” Gerry replied, making a short note with a small stub of a pencil. “Well, Dawn, I would say I’m happy to meet you, but I think we can both agree it’s been under less than ideal circumstances. So instead, all I can say is I hope we become friends.”
“T-thank you?” I said, unsure of how to respond. Meeting new people was difficult enough for me under the best of circumstances. I had no idea how I was supposed to greet my new…what? Inmates? Fellow kidnapping victims?
“Give us a minute,” Gerry said, nodding at the man in the bunk.
“Of course,” Karen replied. “We’ll meet you outside.”
She turned and exited the room, hitting the top of the doorway as she did. She did the same when she came to the end of the hallway.
And then I saw where we had ended up and froze.
It was the same room, the same massive room. Flashes of the night before assaulted my senses. Being hauled inside in a cage, being strapped down to a bed and injected with…something. The sight of a man being crushed, as if by an invisible force.
I felt my chest tighten; my breathing grew shallow. The world around me shrank away until I was nothing more than a pinprick of light surrounded by darkness.
“Dawn. Dawn!”
I blinked, finding Karen crouched down in front of me. She snapped her fingers. I blinked once, twice.
“Hey,” she said, her voice soft. “Don’t go anywhere, okay?”
“I, uh…” I began. “I don’t…”
“You were freaking out,” she said. “And that’s okay. We all do it from time to time here. It’s hard not to fall down that hole. In fact, that’s kind of the problem. It’s too easy. And I may not be perfect at it, but I look out for my podmates, okay?”
“Okay,” I said with a nod.
“How about we get some breakfast?”
“Okay,” I repeated.
Now that I was not “freaking out,” I got a clearer look at my surroundings. We were heading toward four long tables that had been pulled out and placed near the top of the room. The glass rooms from the night before had been completely closed off, the doors now opaque, but now I could see a duo of larger glass doors, near the four tables. I craned my neck behind me to see that the door to our rooms, our “pod” as Karen had called it, was one of four. She caught the direction of my gaze and nodded.
“The other three are identical to our pods. Two bedrooms, six beds each, for a grand total of forty-eight beds. We call them pods, and since we’re the fourth door, we’re the fourth pod. That will come in handy if anyone asks where you’re staying.” She snorted. “Like this is some sort of hotel.”
She turned back to the room before speaking again. “We call this the Big Room, because whoever originally named this shit wasn’t big on complex thought. It’s where we spend most of our days, or at the very least, our meals.”
I nodded, turning to the four tables again, then frowned when I realized something.
“How…full are the rooms?” I asked. We weren’t alone, but we were far short of almost fifty people.
“About as full as ours,” she confessed. “We suspect that the White Masks had planned on more survivors.”
White Masks? Before I could ask her what she meant, the answer dawned on me. The woman with the white mask, the one who had administered the injection. Calling her a doctor wouldn’t be right. Doctors did no harm.
“You’ll probably notice that there are no clocks in here. It’s one of the first things I picked up on.” Karen nodded at the wall as she moved to the tables. “Considering that they also take away your phones and watches, it can make you feel a little…unmoored. Drives me absolutely nuts at times. Fortunately, you can more or less figure out the time based on the meal schedules. Lights come on at around six and food arrives at seven, as I mentioned before. Lunch comes at noon, and then dinner at around six in the evening.”
She paused as we took our seats at the table, the fourth one in the row, before speaking again.
“Sometimes, if they feel we’re going to be under our caloric intake for the day, they’ll throw out these bars in the afternoon. And they’re fine to eat if you’re hungry, but don’t overdo it. That used to be the only thing they fed us. Not only do they taste like shit, but they gave everyone the shits. Toilets got so clogged up that the White Masks realized they needed to change things. And trust me, it wasn’t out of concern to us. The Black Hats gotta clean up after us, and I bet they complained. It probably complicated their research too.”
Black Hats? Research? My exhausted mind whirled with the new information, but before I could ask for clarification, Karen straightened up and waved across the room.
“Hey, Gerry,” she said. “Mystery guest.”
I looked up to see Gerry walking toward our table, the curly-haired man following him just a couple of steps back. I could see now that he was probably a little older than I was, maybe twenty-one or twenty-two. His gaze was distant, his shoulders slumped, and when he sat at the table, he didn’t look anyone in the eye.
“Get a name yet?” Karen asked.
“No,” Gerry replied. “But to be honest, I don’t even know if he speaks any English. And I haven’t taken a Spanish class since college…”
Karen nodded and turned to the curly-haired man. The next time she opened her mouth, the words…well, they sounded Spanish at least. I had taken French. The curly-haired man didn’t respond. Karen turned back to Gerry and shrugged.
“No dice,” she said.
“Either that or he wasn’t fond of your Spanish.”
“Maybe we should ask Sam then. Where is he? Pod Three must have gotten, what? Four new people yesterday?”
“Two,” Gerry replied with a wince. “The others died in the night.”
The main doors to the Big Room opened with a clang, quickly followed by a shriek from the table next to ours. The entire room fell silent save for the redheaded woman who had cried out. She pressed her hands over her mouth and her eyes. Her shoulders began to shake. A dark-haired woman ran around the table and rested a hand on the sobbing woman’s back.
“It’s okay, Dawn,” I heard Karen say. “Plenty of food for everyone.”
I blinked and looked down to see Karen resting a hand on my arm. Somehow in it all, I had sprung to my feet. My body was as tight as a wound spring. And honestly, I couldn’t say what had triggered it—the sound of the door opening, the woman screaming…
Swallowing, I took my seat, feeling my face redden in embarrassment.
Tw
o men dressed in black (the “Black Hats,” I realized, even though only one of them wore a hat) came through the now-open doors, wheeling in a couple of steaming pots. My stomach roiled even though the scent that came out of them wasn’t exactly unpleasant. Oatmeal, my mind delivered.
“Gerry and I will get the food,” Karen said, moving to her feet. “You guys sit tight.”
I nodded as the two of them left the table, my gaze drifting to the curly-haired man who now sat across from me. I could see that his eyes were red-rimmed from tears. Had he cried all night? What had Teresa been to him?
This time, I only jumped slightly as another door swung open. I turned to it, half expecting someone to come in carting a giant tray of bacon.
Only this wasn’t a Black Hat at all. It was Mark.
He was still dressed in the plaid shirt, olive-green jacket, and jeans he had been wearing the night before, although his sleeve had also been torn to allow for the injection. His face was twisted into a scowl.
But I barely noticed that. I was already out of my chair and crossing the room by the time the door shut behind him.
“Mark,” I said. “I didn’t know…Where have you been?”
For a second, he didn’t respond. Just looked at me, a mixture of shock and disgust on his face. Then his scowl deepened.
“Where have I been?” he said. “Where the hell do you think I’ve been. It’s not like this place has exits.”
I felt my face fall.
“I’m sorry.” I ducked my head. “I’m just—”
“What? Happy to see me. Of course, you would be happy to see me caught up in all of this.”
“That’s not true!”
I felt a twinge of shame. I wasn’t happy to see him here, just to see him alive. Still, there was a tiny part of me relieved to know I wasn’t going through this alone.
I paused at the sight of a strange scab on Mark’s wrist.
“Mark, is there something wrong with your arm?” I asked.
In response, he tugged his shirt sleeve down farther.
“It’s fine!” he snapped. “Or what passes for fine in here—thanks a lot for that, by the way.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think, Dawn. I wasn’t going to leave you on the side of the road. I was coming back for you. It’s how they found me.” He shook his head. “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t even be here in the first place. You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not really in the mood to chat right now.”
And with that, he brushed past me, heading straight to Pod Four, leaving me, mouth hung open in shock.
10
Alex
Dana and I don’t have the rosiest backstory.
I can’t blame the guy. As Faultine, I had tried to kidnap him, twice. After I had moved on from that, I’d thought I’d never see him again. Then Dawn had brought up the fact that he was her go-to hacker. Since then, our relationship had gone from rocky to uncomfortable. He was willing to work with me. He just preferred to deal with Dawn. And since I had put aside the armor for good, it was normally what happened.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case today.
“Wait…where are you again?” His voice came through loud and clear on Connor’s satellite phone. Which was good because regular cell service was shit out here.
“Uh…Breman? I think?” I looked toward Connor, who shrugged.
Dana let out a sigh. “You’re trying to tell me that SynergyCorp’s secret lab, where they do all of their illegal human experimentation, is up near my brother’s camp?”
“Apparently.”
“Well, that’s genuinely disappointing. Why not a private island or some run-down former Soviet state?”
“Hey, it’s plenty remote out here. I had to use a satellite phone.”
“Yeah…speaking of which, where’d you get that?”
I looked up at Connor. “New friend. Can you help us with something?”
“It depends on the something.”
I quickly explained our situation.
“But for all I know, we may have broken the damn door,” I finished.
“Later, you’re gonna have to tell me how this new friend of yours managed to do that,” Dana remarked dryly.
“Fair enough.”
“But for now, do you think you can take a picture of that panel to start off with?”
“Just a sec.”
Being unfamiliar with Connor’s phone, it took a second to work things out.
“Okay,” Dana said. “This is good.”
“Good?” I repeated, glancing back at the lock.
“Yeah, SynergyCorp uses a similar security system at some of their more secure locations. Not like Project Regen, of course, but like where they do their legitimate lab research.”
“So, you can hack it?”
“That would be a maybe.”
“Not encouraging, Dana.”
“Hey! I don’t make promises I can’t keep. Anyway, since your new friend somehow rebooted the entire system, I’m gonna need a few minutes to set things up. So, you may wanna pass the phone over to—”
“Dawn’s not here.”
“What? Why not?”
“She’s taking down SynergyCorp from another angle right now.”
“Wonderful. Hey, do you think this shit is gonna impact my 401k?”
“Probably a question you should have asked yourself before you started working for a giant evil corporation.”
“You’re probably right. Anyway, hand me to the person that’s the most technically proficient. You’re a Luddite when it comes to simple tech, never mind something like this.”
I let out an annoyed sigh and looked back and forth between Connor and Alan.
It only took a split second’s thought.
“I’m gonna hand you to Alan,” I said, moving the phone from my ear.
“What? Dawn’s rich brother?” I heard Dana’s voice drift from the phone.
The slight frown on Alan’s face indicated that he had heard it too. Which I wouldn’t call unfair. It wasn’t like Dawn wasn’t wealthy herself. She just didn’t act like it.
“Hello,” Alan said, taking the phone. “This is Alan.”
After listening for several seconds, Alan nodded and walked toward the panel, leaving me alone with the big archer, who stood with his hands behind his head, fingers interwoven.
“This guy trustworthy?” he asked.
“Dana?” I replied. “I’m not gonna lie, the guy gets on my nerves sometimes, but he feels like he has a lot to make up for.”
“That can be a powerful motivator.”
“Yeah, he gets along better with Dawn.”
“Sounds like a useful relationship to me.” He shrugged. “Speaking of which, how did you and Dawn meet? I mean, I understand how Hikari and Faultline happened to come together, but the other halves…”
I cracked a smile.
“You know, it seemed like we were always randomly running into each other or being forced apart. But thinking back, that usually had something to do with Hikari and Faultline as well. Like, I first met Dawn while I was heading to a job for Calypso. Or when our first date was interrupted thanks to Dana Peterson. I’m not gonna say that being on opposite sides of it all didn’t complicate shit, but I’m not sure we ever would have met if it hadn’t been for our second lives.” I nodded at Connor. “So, what about you and Lilah? Your relationship.”
Connor rolled his eyes. “I hope by relationship you mean deep and devoted friendship.”
I frowned. “But I could have sworn that Dawn said…”
“That’s all Hunter Davies.” He waved his left hand in the air. “Or reader pressure or something like that. In print, it may sell well as a romance, but in real life, we’re more like brother and sister. Only a brother and sister that constantly have to explain to the press why we’re not making out like Lannisters.”
“That’s pretty fucked up.”
“Aw, man, you’re telling me,” Connor said. “In o
ur twenties, we almost got sucked up in it all too. Everyone was telling us that we should be together, so we thought, why not? It was a disaster. Our partnership all but fell apart. So we decided to keep things platonic.”
“Sounds smart.”
“I’m glad you feel that way because we both have exes that would not agree with you. Took me forever to find someone that wasn’t threatened by the fact that I spend most of my time with a gorgeous woman who can kick their ass.” He raised his left hand, and I saw a flash of silver on his ring finger. “But I did. And my wife is the one thing that makes it hard to keep on coming out here.” The smile on his face fell. “Well, one of the things.”
Before I could reply, Alan called out my name. I turned to see him approaching, the phone in his hand. He passed it to me without a word.
“Hello?” I said.
“Everything’s all set up!” Dana replied. “Got you a nice code and everything: 103112. Just think Halloween at midnight, which I think is appropriately terrifying given what you might find in there. Now the code should work on all the internal locks too. At least on the ones that don’t require keys. So, if you see something asking for a fingerprint or hair sample or whatever, don’t worry about it. Just go with the code.”
“That’s…more than above average,” I said with a frown, remembering how Dana often described his hacking skills.
“Yeah. Since this has become a thing, I’ve actually put some effort into it.” He chuckled. “I think my past evil self would be proud.”
“Uh…good?”
“Anyway, I had a thought. Where are you, exactly?”
“What, you want me to spring by your brother’s camp?”
“Haha, no. Alan mentioned that you had to walk to your final destination from Route 122. How far did you actually walk?”
“A couple of miles.”
“See, that’s what seems odd to me,” Dana said. “Do you—”
The rest of Dana’s response was cut off by the sound of gears grinding. I turned around to see the massive doorway sliding open. Connor stood across from it, bow at the ready, just in case the place wasn’t as abandoned as it looked. I watched as the lights flicked on inside.
“Sorry, man,” I said. “It’s go time.”
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