Once inside this new area, Chip let the door whisper shut. The halls were more dimly lit, and the bulbs glowed a kind of eerie blue. It was like emergency lighting, though not quite. Something else. Ahead of him Janice moved through the dark corridors, skulking and sure of her footing, like a panther on the prowl. Only she was the prey now, wasn’t she? Chip tapped his pocket. That gun he wasn’t supposed to have was right there. They thought their rules could force him to do what they wanted, but Chip was beyond their rules. He was his own man.
Janice rounded a corner, and Chip was about to hurry after her when something occurred to him. The labs he worked in required a key card to enter, but also to exit. Was he going to be able to get out?
He turned around and tried the door. It didn’t budge. He tried his key card, and it made a slightly grating electronic noise—not the normal satisfied beep or even the staccato error message when it had failed to read the card properly. This was something new, like an electronic baby spitting out unwanted electronic food.
Chip could be in real trouble here. If he had to ask for help from a scientist, there could be some uncomfortable questions. He could claim he’d gotten turned around and wandered in here by accident, but he was pretty far from his usual part of the compound. It would be a tough story to sell.
His best bet, he realized, was to make Janice his ally. He had to get her to be friendly to him, and she’d let him out. Maybe if he begged her, showed her he was a little vulnerable, she’d like him better. It could well be that she disliked him because he radiated too much masculine energy, a residual effect of his violent past. Given her history of being a slut, she might find him too intimidating. He was just going to have to show her he had a softer side.
She had already moved far down an adjoining hall and to another door and put her handprint on a panel. There was, evidently, another layer of security here that would keep him from moving forward just as much as from retreating.
Well, Chip was nothing if not daring. The record proved that. He was all in now, and if it blew up in his face, he’d deal with it. Maybe he would burn his bridges with Janice. Maybe he’d be fired and have to go back to his mom. There were always risks, but he had never been one to play it safe, to let the soft old guys in their suits tell him what to do.
Chip rushed forward just as Janice was moving through the door. He pressed his palm out flat and prevented it from closing only inches before it sealed. He could feel some kind of pull, maybe magnetic, trying to push him away, but Chip knew he was equal to any force of nature. He pushed back, and the door yielded.
Janice turned around and shrieked. Maybe he’d startled her, but there was no need to react like he was a serial killer or something. He was just a coworker.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded. In the dim light, her face looked sharper, harder than he remembered.
“I just wanted to talk to you a little,” he said. He knew this sounded lame. He came across like a little kid asking her to the junior prom. He knew she needed him to show his softer side, but that wasn’t the same as coming across as weak. He couldn’t allow that.
“You can’t be here,” she said, panic in her voice. “You’re not authorized. If they think I let you in, I’m so screwed.”
“Come on,” Chip said. “It’s not that big a deal. Anyhow, I was thinking that maybe we could have lunch together. Not at my place, since my roommates are kind of crude, but maybe at yours.”
“Get out,” Janice said.
Behind her, something growled. No doubt she had her own animal cages to clean, and it sounded like maybe they were kind of dangerous. It could be that all her attitude was about not wanting him to get hurt.
Chip looked up and into the room. It was also lit with the dull blue light, but he could see that the cages in there were huge, like something at a zoo. Something moved in one of the closest cages, lumbering like an ape, and he heard the sound of metal rattling against the cage. Then he heard something else. A distant voice from within. A voice saying, “Please,” its tone rasping and broken.
Chip leaned forward to peer inside, but Janice pushed him hard in the chest. He stumbled backwards, almost losing his balance.
“You need to get out of this section. Let’s go.”
“There’s no rush,” Chip said. “I just wanted to talk to you. You should be flattered.”
“I’m swooning,” Janice sneered. “Come on.”
She led him down the hallway to where she had first keyed herself in. Now she swiped her card and pulled open the door.
“What about lunch?” he asked.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
She gave him another shove, which Chip tried unsuccessfully to interpret as playful. He careened into the hallway where Dr. Kohl stood waiting for him, his arms folded. This, Chip knew, had taken a bad turn.
*
“Now we have problem,” Kohl said, sitting behind his desk, steepling his fingers, looking thoughtful. “Now we think that maybe you are not suited for working here. Perhaps, in this instance, Limbus makes a mistake.”
“I just wanted to talk to a girl,” Chip said. He’d come up with this strategy as he’d walked over to Kohl’s office, and he thought it was pretty clever. It was close enough to the truth that it would pan out. “I wasn’t really paying attention to where I was going. If I’d been thinking, of course, I’d never have gone where I was unwelcome. I don’t want to be an uninvited guest or anything.”
“The contract you signed it was very exacting, yes?” Kohl asked. “There was no unclarity about going where you can go and not going where you cannot go.”
“Like I said, it was an accident.”
“And we take good care of you, yes? The food and also the beverage, which you enjoy both of?”
“Sure,” Chip agreed. “The salad dressings are really good.” Chip had come to understand that scientists liked it when you talked about vegetables.
“You agreed to terms of contract,” Kohl said wearily.
“I just wanted to strike up a conversation with Janice.”
“Her story intrigues you?”
Chip shrugged. “I guess.” He didn’t want to admit to this, but he could see that Kohl was softening.
“In that room you went into, when you were looking for girls, what did you see?”
“I didn’t see anything.” Chip said. “It was dark. What’s with the blue lights?”
“Some animals are more dangerous than others. We make the very dangerous ones to be pacified by certain colors. It is way to control them. You saw such animals?”
“Like I said, it was dark.”
“And what did you hear? Animal noises, perhaps?”
“Just a growl,” Chip said. He shrugged, knowing that this would make him seem honest.
“If you had to guess the nature of this animal, what would you say?” Kohl studied him very closely.
“Puma,” Chip said. “Or maybe a Cheetah. It sounded fast.”
“Fast has vocal inflection?”
“I don’t know. You’re the science guy.”
“I am,” Kohl agreed. “I tell you this so you understand, Mr. Dunston. You are not very smart. It is because of this, in part, that you work here. You must do your work, drink your beer, and eat your food to make yourself grow fat and happy. This is what we wish from you. No curiosity, no looking for lady friends, and no seeking out of fast animals. Are we understanding?”
Chip had just been insulted in at least three different ways, and he was seething inside. He’d never been so good at controlling his temper, and he knew that about himself. When he was a little boy, when he was his mother’s miracle baby, he could have taken comfort in belonging. That sometimes had helped him when he became angry. He didn’t have even that anymore, so it was hard for him not to take out his gun and shoot Kohl.
But he didn’t, because Chip was a guy who believed in improving himself. Maybe if he’d started on this track sooner, his life would be more to
gether right now. It was hard to say. All he knew was that he wanted to stick around, and he had to control himself because Chip no longer cared about Janice, who had been unforgivably mean. Now Kohl had insulted him. More than that, he’d tried to make Chip feel powerless, and the guy was going to have to pay for that. This wasn’t about having a bad temper. This was about justice.
“I understand,” Chip said. He looked down at the floor, forcing himself to play the good boy. “It won’t happen again.”
He was about to say something else similarly humiliating, more words for which there would have to be compensation at some point down the road, when Chip’s eyes were drawn to a few envelopes on the desk. They bore a familiar name and logo: that of Versteckt Labs, the company that had been single-handedly keeping Chip’s legal defense fund afloat.
“What is that?” Chip asked suspiciously. “I know that company. Do you work for them?”
“Versteckt Labs is major sponsor of my work,” Kohl said. “I work with, not for.”
“Because they are a big contributor to my patriotic cause,” Chip explained.
Kohl smiled. “It is good then.”
“It’s kind of weird, though. I mean, that they should help me out, and then you give me a job.”
“Versteckt Labs gives to many causes. They also give to saving endangered elephants. You are not elephant, yes?”
Was this a comment about his weight? Chip wasn’t sure. “It just seems kind of weird,” Chip reiterated, because it was, in his view, a very good point.
“Forget labs,” Kohl said. “You have big problem now. You are on probation. Another mistake, and we end your contract.”
This sounded vaguely menacing, like they meant to kill him if he disobeyed. Maybe they did. Maybe they thought they could bully him and strong-arm him and humiliate him into being their good little lab tech, but Chip had something else in mind. He was going to find out what was going on in this lab, and he was going to expose it to the world. People would forget that he’d killed a violent minority and instead they would see him as an adventurer. A crusader. He would be like one of those journalists who uncovered some story that everyone seemed to care about even if normal people didn’t see the big deal. He would be on morning television.
He had always been like this, he realized. He’d always been at his best when life backed him into a corner. At school, he’d told teachers when he’d had enough of their crap. At work, he hadn’t let customers push him around. That night, with that minority, when he’d felt threatened, it had been the same way. It was like a light went on inside his head, showing him the way, and he’d learned to follow that path, even if the way was difficult.
“Thank you,” Chip said to Kohl, and this time he meant it because this little worm of a scientist had given him something he hadn’t had in a long time. He’d given Chip a purpose.
*
At dinner that night, Chip decided it was time to turn his roommates into allies. “Don’t you guys ever wonder about the work we’re doing here?” he asked while spooning mashed potatoes onto his plate. A tray of cheese steak sandwiches was still steaming in the middle of the table. Chip had already taken two.
“What is it with you?” Lester asked. “Where does the food come from? Who does our laundry? What kind of work are the eggheads up to? It’s like you’re never satisfied.”
“I’m just curious,” Chip said.
“It’s got something to do with the beasties,” Gregory said, tossing a bit of cheesy meat in the direction of the pair of watchful Komodo dragons. They scrabbled forward, edging one another out of the way with their snouts, until one grabbed the morsel. Then they both rested their chins on their forepaws—or feet or whatever they were—and watched Gregory hopefully.
Did the lizards know Gregory was a minority, Chip wondered. Were there minorities among Komodo dragons, or were they all normal? The universe held tight to its secrets.
“So, you think they’re breeding lizards for pets?” Chip asked.
“Why not?” Lester said. “That sounds as good as anything else.”
“What do you guys do for your work? I spend my days—”
“I don’t really want to know,” Gregory said, holding out a chunk of sandwich as a shield. “Contract says we can’t talk about it, so I’m not going to talk about it.”
“Come on. It’s just a job,” Chip said. “Sure, it pays good, but there are other jobs. It’s not like you have to be a slave to these guys.”
“You really think any of us are ever going to be able to get work somewhere else?” Lester asked.
“Sure,” Chip lied. “Why not?”
“Like you hadn’t hit bottom before the Limbus people showed up?” Lester pressed. “You just wanted to come work here because you like being confined to a house?”
“Can’t get this sort of money anywhere else,” Chip said.
Gregory snorted. “So, you put a price tag on freedom?”
This stung Chip, because it was the sort of thing he should have said. Freedom, Chip reflected, was his jam. Now he was letting Gregory take his words, his positions, in order to try to get them on his side. It felt uncomfortable.
“So, you guys didn’t have any options?” he pressed, trying to stay focused. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
Gregory laughed. “You don’t know who we are, do you?” He was shaking his head now.
Chip did not like to be laughed at, particularly not by someone like Gregory. That teenager had laughed at him too, for all the good it had done him. “Who are you then, hot shot?”
“I’m Gregory Haskins,” the minority said. “Come on, man? The Astral Projector?”
This was starting to sound familiar. Chip strained his mind, and then recalled the story from when he was a kid. Gregory Haskins had been an astronaut, part of the space shuttle program when it had still existed. Being an astronaut was a good deal, but he had thrown it all away. Haskins had developed an addiction to pain killers after getting hurt while in the Air Force. He’d kept the addiction a secret for years, up until that accident that he’d caused because he’d been blitzed out of his mind during a safety check. He’d made it out just fine; seven other astronauts died in the fire.
“I’m Lester McMullan,” his other roommate said, waving cheerfully. “The Portland Pedophile? Convinced on 17 counts of molestation.”
“You should hear him go on about this,” Gregory said. “The 17 were the only ones they knew about. Sick bastard.”
“At least I didn’t kill America’s best and bravest and pretty much single-handedly ruin the space program. At least I didn’t hand the stars to China. Anyhow, I’ve been chemically castrated, which at my age, who gives a shit, right? They haven’t taken away my love of beer, so I’m good.”
“Wait a minute,” Chip said. “You guys are both famous. Like me. Isn’t it strange that we’d end up here in the same house?”
“This guy really isn’t wired right,” Gregory said to Lester. “Don’t you get it? We’re not famous, we’re infamous. Every last one of us who works here. Even a lot of the scientists. Kohl got run out of his own country for trying to clone some porn star without her permission. Some of the eggheads are just fucked up and like doing the work, but every last one of us grunts is tarnished. We’ve got nowhere else to go, and that’s why we all agree to live by their rules.”
“No sacrifice for me,” Lester said. “I wouldn’t know what to do with myself out in the world. Now I get everything I need and want, and I’m living with my best buddy.”
“Just keep it platonic,” Gregory said, holding up his hands in protest.
“You wish, you winkled old man.”
The two of them burst out laughing. Chip remained still, stunned by this revelation—both that what they said was true, and that he hadn’t figured this out on his own. Everyone who worked here was damaged. They had recruited him because he was unwanted, expendable, someone the world would never miss.
“But what happens when people
leave?” Chip asked. “How does the company protect its secrets. If we’re all desperate, then we all have nothing to lose by telling someone what we know.”
Gregory shook his head. “This is the Hotel California of jobs, my friend. We’re all lifers. I mean, it’s a good thing, right? The world hates us, so where else would we go? But that was in the contract, my man. They have the option to renew indefinitely. And it is an option they intend to exercise.”
“Then what good is the money they pay us?”
Gregory shrugged. “It makes me feel rich?” he offered.
“I like to imagine buying candy,” Lester said, “that I can hand out to children.”
Gregory smacked his shoulder. “You sick motherfucker.”
The two of them cackled hysterically once more while Chip slumped into his chair.
*
It was now clear to Chip that he’d been tricked. They hadn’t told him what he was getting into, and they clearly hadn’t informed him that his coworkers were going to be a bunch of outcasts. He didn’t want to work for the lab for the rest of his life. He didn’t even want to be working for the lab now. He wanted a normal life—not the normal life of hiding in his mother’s house, where beer and television were all he had to look forward to. He wanted his old life back, and these scientists were trying to take away any chance he had of returning to that. Whatever he did now, they would have coming to them. They would have no one to blame but themselves.
Chip went upstairs after dinner and took out his phone. He’d still picked it up once in a while to play games, but only now did he realize how out of touch he’d been with the world even before coming to work at the lab. He received no texts, no emails, no calls, but he’d been isolated so long, that he hadn’t even noticed. He’d half expected his mother to check in on him, but every time he looked at the phone, he’d felt relief rather than surprise to see a blank screen staring back at him. He wasn’t even sure his phone was still getting a signal.
The first thing he needed was more information, so he decided to run an internet search on Limbus and the lab. There was, he discovered, no internet. His phone gave him the not-connected symbol, and he checked for Wi-Fi signals. There were several, but they were all password protected.
Limbus, Inc., Book III Page 13
