by Roxie Noir
“We can take it from here,” Pete said. His voice sounded vague and like it came from far away.
Katrina swallowed. She felt like there was a rubber band tightening around her lungs — she could feel that something was wrong, she just couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
“Your facilities are very impressive,” Zach said, trying to stay a part of the conversation.
Pete just nodded.
“We’ll show you the stuff in cold storage, then take you out the back way. Got a great view of the mountains.”
One of the men Katrina didn’t know opened the door to the lab and they all walked back into a too-bright hallway, Pete coming last. He nodded once at Katrina, dismissively.
“Thanks for coming in today,” he said. “You can go home now. We’ve got it from here.”
The band around her lungs tightened. The two men with Pete still hadn’t said a thing, and didn’t seem like they were about to get talkative.
“It was nice seeing you again,” Zach said. He stepped forward and shook her hand again, giving hers a firm squeeze that made her feel a little better.
“Likewise,” Katrina said, looking him square in the eye.
And I’ll see you again tomorrow night. And Monday morning, if I get my way...
“See you Monday,” she said to Pete, and turned to walk back toward her office.
As soon as she was out of earshot, she could just barely hear Pete begin to talk quietly, though she couldn’t make out what he was saying. Katrina gritted her teeth and pushed open the always-locked door that led from the offices to the labs.
She made it back to her office, then slumped into her chair, leaning her elbows on the desk.
It’s fine, she told herself. They’re not going to hurt him, they’re going to steal his hair. He’s never even going to know, and you get to keep doing the work that you love.
Now the band was so tight that she could barely breathe, and she looked at the wood grain of her desk.
She didn’t believe a thing she’d just told herself.
Why tell her to leave if everything they were doing was above-board? Who were those two other men, the silent ones she’d never seen before?
Why take Zach to cold storage — in the basement? It was where they kept their computer servers and tissue samples for the skin-replacement they were working on, in separate rooms, of course. But Zach’s background was structural with a little of mechanical knowledge tossed in.
He didn’t know the first thing about tissue samples, and Pete knew that.
Katrina took a deep breath, then reached into her desk drawer and pulled out a pair of old sneakers that she kept in there just in case something happened — earthquake, snowstorm — and she needed to walk a serious distance.
You’re being ridiculous, she told herself. You’re just going to go tell Zach what they’re really doing, and he’s going to leave, and you’re going to get fired. It’s not like you’re going to do any running.
She laced them tightly anyway, then marched back to the door that separated the offices and the labs, holding her badge to the pad that unlocked the door.
The light flashed red.
Katrina blinked, then frowned. She held her badge up again, but after a moment, the light blinked a forbidding crimson.
I got in here twenty minutes ago, she thought. Something is really, really not right.
Katrina stared at the closed, forbidding door for a moment.
Then she turned and marched for the offices again. First she went to her own, grabbed her keys and wallet, and shoved them inside her bra. She didn’t know why, but she was afraid she’d need them.
Next she went down the row of offices and tried every doorknob. The executives were supposed to keep their doors locked, but they were also supposed to keep their passwords secret and she knew that half of them had them written on post-its stuck to their monitors.
It wasn’t long before she got lucky and Chuck Engleman’s door opened for her. She made quick work of his desk drawers, finding exactly what she needed: an extra badge. The execs could never be bothered to keep track of theirs.
As a last-second thought, she also took a lighter and jammed it in her bra, next to her car keys. It wasn’t comfortable, but it would have to do.
Pulse racing, she went back to the door. Chuck’s spare badge opened it, and Katrina crept in, but the hallway was empty. She took a deep breath and walked to the last door on the right, hoping that Chuck had stairwell access as well.
He did. She stepped in and carefully peered down the two flights of stairs.
No movements.
Katrina walked on, holding the cold metal handrail for dear life. At the bottom was another door. It had no window, and she pushed it out just enough to check that this hallway was also deserted.
She had only been downstairs, in the cold storage section, once or twice before. It was dark, gloomy, and — unsurprisingly — cold, two stories underground, the hallway made of bare concrete with fluorescent tubes lighting the way above.
Katrina stood very, very still. She listened. There was the constant hum of the server room, somewhere in this hallway. She listened harder.
Over the hum, she thought she could barely make out voices. The concrete hallway ended in a T-intersection, and sounds echoed around so much that it was hard to tell where they came from.
The voices raised. Now they sounded like muffled shouting.
Katrina’s feet moved on their own, walking down the hall to the intersection at the end, then to the left, following the voices. She was certain that if she was caught she might be worse than fired, but she could only think of Zach. He could easily take on any of those three men in a fight, but she doubted they’d fight fair.
There was a door in the wall. By some small miracle, it had a window in it, and Katrina stood on her toes and looked in.
It was Zach. He was wearing some sort of hospital gown and he was strapped to a table. Pete and the other two men stood around him, Pete making wild hand gestures. Sweat ran down his face, but on the table, Zach seemed mildly concerned at best, blinking and staring at the ceiling.
I was right, Katrina thought. Her blood ran cold. They drugged him.
She turned away from the door and tried frantically to think. Somehow, she needed to get the three men out of there, and then she needed to rescue Zach.
A plan formed in her mind.
It’s not a very good plan, she thought. But it’s something.
Back down the concrete hall, she pulled open the door to the server room, its hum filling the air. As she walked she pulled her wallet out of her bra and opened the money pouch.
It was mostly full of receipts. For the first time ever, she was glad that she’d kept them.
Katrina took the receipts, crumpled them tightly together, and jammed them into a tiny crack between two big, humming servers, among as many cords as possible.
Then she got out the lighter and set them on fire. She held the lighter on until the metal burned her thumb, even after the receipts were burning, scorching the rubber coating until the smoke made her eyes and nostrils burn.
At last, the fire alarm sounded. Katrina finally let the lighter go and ducked behind a row of servers out of sight of the door and a moment later, the door crashed open to the sound of swearing. Two sets of footsteps came in.
Shit, Katrina thought. Only two.
Just as she was about to dart out the door, a third man came into the room.
“What the hell is this?” she heard Pete say just before she made a run for it. She wished she had some way to keep the men in the server room, but she was out of tricks.
In seconds, she was back at the door to the room where Zach was, yanking it open.
Zach looked over. He didn’t look concerned, just confused.
“Hey,” he said.
Katrina didn’t say anything, just yanked the restraints from his wrists.
“We have to go,” she said. “Now.”
&n
bsp; Zach sat up on the bed and grinned at her.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said, his speech the tiniest bit slurred. “Want to play doctor? My penis feels real funny, but I bet you could fix that.”
“If we get out of here now, I’ll play doctor with you later,” Katrina said. “Please.”
“Promise?” Zach said. He looked skeptical.
“Yes,” Katrina said.
He hopped off the doctor’s table and walked to the door. Katrina spotted his clothes, crumpled into a pile on the floor, and grabbed them.
“Follow me,” she said.
She opened the door and ran, turning right out of the room and then right down the concrete hallway. At the stairwell she fumbled with Chuck’s badge, her hands shaking. Zach jogged behind her.
As they slipped into the stairwell, the door to the server room opened.
“Hey!” she heard.
“Run!” she shouted, and charged up the steps.
Chapter Nine
Zach
God, her ass looks great in that skirt, Zach thought. It bounced and wiggled in front of him as Katrina went up the stairs.
Her ass looks great in every skirt, though. She must just have a closet full of skirts that fit her ass perfectly.
I bet I know what else would fit her ass perfectly, he thought. He reached one hand out and cupped her ass, but she’d stopped for a moment and he nearly ran into her.
“What are you doing?” she asked, breathlessly.
Following your spectacular ass, he thought, but then she was gone again and whatever it was that was going on, he knew it was very important to follow her.
Very important.
Then she was running through a bigger, better-lit hallway, then a room. Someone was behind them, but Zach was pretty sure that they didn’t look very good in skirts, so he didn’t care.
Katrina stopped and pulled at a red thing on the wall. An alarm went off and water showered down around them, her white blouse quickly going see-through.
She was wearing a bra, but Zach could still feel himself stiffen, nearly at full-mast by now.
“Wet t-shirt contest?” he said.
Something was weird about his erection, and he looked down.
I’m wearing a dress? he thought. His dick made a huge tent in the front, and he looked back up at Katrina, who was staring right at his crotch, looking surprised.
“See what you made me do?” he said.
Talking was a little hard, and he didn’t know why.
“Come on,” she said, and kept running.
Now there was shouting behind them, as she led him through two more doors and then, suddenly, bright sunlight and a slight breeze on his ass. Katrina was running full tilt toward a black car, and she stuck a hand down her shirt as she did.
Zach got unreasonably jealous. The car’s lights flashed.
“Get in!” Katrina shouted.
“Are you—”
“GET IN THE CAR!” Katrina nearly screamed. She flung open the driver’s side door and threw herself in.
Zach shrugged and slid into the passenger side.
As long as she’s going, he thought.
“Buckle up,” she told him. There was a click, a pile of wet fabric landed on his lap, and then the car lurched forward with a screech.
It took Zach a long time to figure out his seat belt, and when he finally looked up again, he faintly recognized the scenery flashing by outside the window.
Huh, he thought.
Then he looked over at the much better scenery of Katrina, wet shirt, well-fitting skirt and all. In her haste, the skirt had ridden up her thighs. She was breathing hard, her breasts pressing out against the wet fabric of her blouse, just barely stretching between the buttons.
Zach was very aware of his throbbing erection, poking straight up out of his lap.
“Everything okay?” he asked. He put one hand on her shoulder, faintly aware that she was driving a car and he probably shouldn’t just grab her.
Her blue eyes darted to him, then back to the road.
“What did they give you?” she asked.
“Water,” Zach said, shrugging.
“Fuck,” Katrina said. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“Okay,” Zach said. “Right now?”
She just ignored him.
He leaned closer.
“I don’t know if you can go down on a woman while she’s driving, but I’m willing to try,” he whispered.
Katrina’s blue eyes turned to him again. This time she was glaring.
“Can you get dressed?” she asked. “Put your pants on, at least?”
He looked down at his swollen dick, the thing practically making a nuisance of itself.
“He’s just excited,” he said.
“Please?” Katrina asked.
“Only because you asked nicely,” he said.
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Zach was feeling a lot less frisky. His erection had gone away, and he could barely keep his eyes open. He had on the hospital gown over pants, which he’d gotten buttoned but not zipped.
“Where are we going?” he mumbled.
“I’m still working on that,” Katrina said. There was a note of worry in her voice, but he didn’t think about it too much. “Go to sleep, you look tired.”
Zach just nodded, turning his head to look out the window.
When he woke up with a start, it was dark. All he could see was the headlight on the road in front of them, and in the dashboard lights, Katrina’s face.
“There you are,” she said.
He had no clue where he was.
“Hi,” he said.
“The guy at the gas station said there was a shitty motel a few more miles down this road,” Katrina offered. “We’re almost there.”
“Where’s here?” Zach asked.
“Central Utah, south of I-70,” she said. “The middle of nowhere, basically.”
Zach swallowed and shut his eyes. His memory wasn’t working too well, but he knew he’d been at the job interview that day. All those weird questions about his family, then making out with Katrina in the lab.
Then... Pete had taken him to cold storage. Offered him a bottle of water. After that, Zach’s memory got blurrier, but he remembered taking off his clothes, lying on a table, letting the three men strap him down.
Katrina, getting him out, following her ass up the stairs and out the door.
Pawing at her in the car while she was trying to drive.
“Did you rescue me?” he finally asked.
Up ahead, he could see a neon sign: the numeral 7 in a circle. Katrina pressed the brake and hit the turn signal, even though they were the only people on the road.
“Sort of,” she said, and pulled into the motel’s parking lot. She parked her car behind it, then turned it off and looked at Zach.
“You feeling better?”
“Mostly,” he said.
“Got any cash?”
Zach handed over his wallet, and Katrina pulled out two twenties.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s hope this dump is cheap, because I only had thirty on me. Put your shirt on while I’m getting us a room, will you?”
Zach nodded, and Katrina left.
He got out of the car and managed to untie his hospital gown, tossing it into the backseat of Katrina’s car. Then he put his shirt on, buttoned it most of the way up, and started pacing back and forth, just to get the blood flowing.
In a few minutes, Katrina was back with a key.
“Anyone asks, you’re Mr. Johnson,” she said. “Come on.”
The motel room wasn’t nice, but it at least smelled like it had been recently cleaned. Katrina closed the door and locked it, sliding the chain across and looking out the peep hole.
“Coast clear?” Zach asked.
“For now,” she said, and she leaned back against the door.
Zach sat on the bed.
“What the hell is going on?” he asked.
&nbs
p; Katrina pulled an ugly green chair out from the small table and sat in it, her head in her hands.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “I’m sorry, Zach, I’m so sorry.”
He pushed himself back onto the bed, then sat with his back against the wall, pillows behind him.
“C’mere,” he said, patting the bed next to him.
She looked up, her blue eyes puffy and red already.
“We went to the job fair looking for you,” she said, her words coming out in a rush. “Pete had found out you were a student there, and he said that he wanted to talk to you, so we went to this job fair in the hopes that you’d show up.”
Zach swallowed. He thought back to the interview, all those questions about his family, about his brothers.
“Why?” he asked, even though he thought he already knew the answer.
“It’s so stupid,” Katrina whispered.
Zach swung his legs off the bed and sat right in front of her. He took her hands in his, their faces only inches apart.
“Does it have anything to do with Seth?” he asked.
Katrina just nodded.
“Does it have anything to do with my big brother’s ability to turn into a very large bird?”
Katrina’s head snapped up. Zach couldn’t help but grin. She narrowed her eyes.
“Did he start that rumor?” she said. “And why? Pete’s boss, the head of MutiGen, is completely convinced that it’s true, and I just...” she trailed off and shook her head.
“He did, kind of,” Zach said.
“Why?” she asked. “And how the hell did he get people to believe him?”
“Because he can turn into a very large bird,” Zach said.
“Zach, don’t fuck around,” Katrina said.
“I swear to God,” he said.
She just rolled her eyes.
“It’s impossible,” she said.
“If you sit on the bed with me I’ll tell you the story,” Zach said.
She did.
Zach didn’t know where to start, so he just told her everything: the family legend that Hiram Admas has struck a deal with the devil for the best land and the ability to turn into an eagle. How the town of Obsidian hated his whole family because of it. About Copper Mesa and Quarcom, who’d tried to snatch it out from underneath his family — literally.
