“Greetings, new hires. And thank you for beginning your career with our illustrious company. Here at Serkasis Labs, we are completely dedicated to solving the Rabid Kodadt plague that threatens our entire system. Government contracted by the Council of Six, we are the sole line against this virulent disease.
“You are here because you have already passed several levels of clearance as well as holding a position for at least two years at another classified station. However, despite these qualifications, there is still much more protocol to learn before you can begin your futures with us. Since we deal with many lethal diseases, a single leak could result in the deaths of everyone in your entire division.
“We are also hosts to the only kodadts to have survived infection. While they are the subjects of many of our experiments, they are also our guests and greatest resources. They must be protected at all costs, and part of this protection is segregation from all staff except for the scientists cleared to work with them.
“There is much more to discuss, but first, your benefit packets and the rest of your orientation work.”
A small compartment opened on the desk in front of each of us, and a datapad slid upwards before the compartment closed itself. I was instantly greeted by page after page of legalese, and my eyes almost crossed at it all.
I could only understand about half of it -apparently, my trans-dimensional reading comprehension still needed a bit of work- but I was able to make out where I was supposed to sign and initial easily enough.
“Geeze. Talk about your lawyer mumbo-jumbo.” Janix buzzed in my ear.
It took everything in me not to jump. For a moment, I had forgotten that the rest of the crew could see and hear everything I could thanks to Angel’s super spy gear. Unfortunately, I couldn’t actually respond given the absolute silence in the room and multiple witnesses. A fact that I was sure my companions were going to love.
“It’s just your standard ‘leak anything and we’ll ruin your life plus it’s a federal crime fair’.” Viys’k said somewhat dismissively. “I’ve signed probably a billion of these things and ultimately, they only matter if you plan on actually following the law.”
“That’s not something I think any of us have ever been concerned with.”
I pressed my lips into a thin line, shoving down any urge to laugh that might have bubbled up. A thief, a smuggler and a notorious space pirate certainly was a very particular mix of skills. I wondered what our resident doctor thought of all this blatant criminal activity. Sure, he had broken the law himself to save my skin, but that had been for the greater good.
Who knew, maybe he would write a memoir about this when everything was all said and done.
I never more ardently wished I could share my musings with my team, but I stayed quiet. I couldn’t blow my cover this soon.
After what seemed like forever we all finished and set our datapads back into the small recess on the desk. A few minutes later, the doors slid open and the woman from the hologram walked forward. She greeted us with that same artificial smile, however, and I briefly wondered if cyborgs -or otherwise mechanical enhancements- were popular in this reality.
“Thank you. Now that you have completed your in-person attestations of privacy, we can move to our on-site scanning and identity confirmation. Follow me.”
Like ducklings, we all filed in line and kept after her. A nesr-roona, two humans, a couple of mooreerie, some krelach and a lone half kin. I was glad to see a smattering of races in a janitorial position. Although this galaxy had just come out of an intense species rebellion, there seemed to be at least some semblance of equality now.
Granted, my sample size was nowhere near adequate and I had actually had surprisingly little interaction with the actual society I was trying to save, so maybe I was experiencing a slight confirmation bias. At this point I was more familiar with prisons and the criminal underbelly than any actual cities or stations.
Once this was all said and done, maybe I would go on a vacation before I went home. Let Jyra take me to see all the sights worth seeing. We could get caught up; try to find all of that time that was stolen from us. Maybe-
“Here we have our full body scanners. If the nine of you would each like to step into one, we can make sure that you are exactly who you say you are and be on our way.”
My heart kicked up a notch, and I felt my worry-wort self come to the forefront of my mind. What if Angel’s tech didn’t work? What if they had some new technology that circumvented the override that Viys’k had been carefully planting into their system for the past few days? What if? What if?
I clamped down on that before I lost control and started sweating like someone who had something to hide. I would deal with the ‘what if’ if it happened at all. For now, I was just Natalie Greensbach, happy to report to a job that was several figures above her last paygrade.
I slid into the pod like device, and the glass cover slid down over me. It was mildly claustrophobic, but I just breathed deeply in through my nose and out through my mouth.
“Greetings, Natalie. We will now begin your scan. Please place your hands against the sensors at your sides.”
I felt around for the cool, metal swirls and found them in finger-shaped divots. I set them down, and waited to pass the first test.
“Thank you. Fingerprints confirmed match.” Well, that was one down. “Next, please align your right eye with the marking on your glass covering. A scanner will slide down from above you head, please do not be alarmed by its movement.”
I followed the directions, and the set up did exactly what it said it was going to do.
“Retinal scan, match.” The machine retreated. “Miss Natalie, we noticed that you have an elevated heartrate. Is everything alright?”
Wow, they had even programmed concern into this thing. Impressive. “Just feeling a bit locked in.” I murmured. “Not the biggest fan of small spaces like this.”
“Understood. We are almost done with the procedure, but if for any reason you feel that you cannot complete it, you can discontinue the scan and we will arrange comfortable accommodations for your return trip home.”
“No, I’m fine. I promise. Just uncomfortable, not terrified.”
“Wonderful. We will proceed. We will be taking several strands of hair for a DNA sample, as well as a full body scan for any undeclared devices. Do you have any that you wish to declare now?”
“Nope, we’re all good.”
“This is it.” Angel murmured in my ear. “Time to see how these bad boys hold up.”
I wanted to hiss that I did not appreciate being a guinea pig for testing her gizmos on, but again I said nothing. The pod whirred into a flurry of action around me, and less than thirty seconds later it was sliding open with a slight hiss.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Natalie. We look forward to your career with us at Serkasis laboratories.”
“Thanks. Me too.”
I sat up on the edge of the pod, feeling a bit more confident about then whole thing, when the alarms went off.
I jumped to my feet, fists raised like I was going to fight.
“Whoa, put down the dukes there. This isn’t for you.”
As quickly as I had jumped into my defensive position, I dropped it, trying to take on a shocked but lost expression.
Guards were rushing into the room, and while I was still sure that they were going to snatch me up, they instead rushed past me to another pod where the mooreerie was banging on the cover to release him.
It didn’t, by the way. Instead, one of the guards slammed an orange button on the side of the pod, and the capsule glowed with energy. I winced as I heard the alien’s body slam around like he had been hit by a taser, then the cover slowly slide open.
They pulled out his limp body and dragged him away. The woman who was leading us quickly stepped to the center, her professional mask as in place as ever.
“I know that was alarming, but as we said, we take security very seriously here. Th
at man is not who he said he was, and now he will be detained and given to Councilmen custody where they will determine his exact identity.”
“Poor thief got a little too cocky.” Viys’k cooed. I could practically see her, sitting back in Angel’s sitting area, looking vaguely condescending.
“How do you know he’s a thief? What could this place possibly have to steal that’s worth the risk?”
“You’d be surprised. I was hit up three different times with contracts that wanted specific viruses being handled here. I always turned them down. There are some things even money aren’t worth to me, and being exposed to thousands of fatal pathogens isn’t one of them.”
“And yet here I am, doing this for free.”
“What was that?” The nesr-roona asked, standing just a few feet from me.
“Nothing. Just a little shaken, that’s all.”
“I can’t blame you. The last time I saw something like that, it was when a smuggler tried to break into the records facility I cleaned at.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“Not really. They filled him with so many plasma bolts, only his shoes were left at the backside of the building.”
“Charming.” I murmured, before walking towards the woman who was still standing at the center of the room.
“Thank you all so much for your patience. I have just been given the go ahead, so I will not show all of you to your quarters, as well as the general facilities. Tomorrow, we will have class training on phase one of your new contagion protocol for eight hours. And again, welcome to Serkasis Laboratories. We’re so happy you chose to join our family.”
“That’s not super cult sounding.” Janix scoffed. I could practically hear his eyes roll. “I hope everyone here isn’t so pretentious.”
“She’s a combination of HR, PR and a tour guide. What do you expect?”
It was killing me not to join in with my normal retorts. This was like playing the game of mum, but ten times worse. After at least fifteen minutes of straight walking through chrome halls lined with doors all equipped with a plethora of scanners, we finally reached what I could identify as living quarters. They were laid out very college dorm style. There was one large common area, with couches, chairs and other entertainment devices, and four doors.
“You will all be assigned two to a room. Please be courteous to your new companion as you will be working together for the foreseeable future. We did our best to schedule roommates with similar shifts so you wouldn’t be disrupting each other’s sleep, but we understand that naps come at all different hours.”
“Natalie, you are with Veela in room blue. Cranton, you are with Vris in room red. Cecessa you are...”
I tuned the woman out and looked to the Krelach I had been paired with. “Hello.” I said, trying to sound the perfect amount of social enough to be polite, but wanting no further conversation.
“Hey.” She said, a thick accent that I didn’t recognize layering her words. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too.”
We quietly walked to our room, and it was surprisingly adequate. It seemed like Serkasis Labs didn’t treat their facility workers like some lower-class citizens. That was nice.
“Hope you don’t mind,” The rat-resembling alien said from beside me. “But I prefer not to talk much. It’s nothing personal.”
I mentally thanked the powers. “Fine with me.”
The krelach sighed in relief. “Awesome. Thanks. I’ll take right.”
“I’ll take left then.”
We went to our perspective bunks and that was that. I was relieved that for once there wasn’t some unseen hurtle we suddenly had to lurch through and make my new roomies disappear. The lights flicked off on their own after a while, and I waited until I heard the steady breathing of Veela before I pulled out my own miniature datapad.
“Well, you did it.” I congratulated quietly, rolling onto my side so I was facing towards the wall and away from my furred companion. “You broke through the highest security system in the entire galaxy.”
“I didn’t do it on my own,” Angel said, barely able to contain how pleased as punch she was with herself. “Believe it or not, it was mostly my engineers.” I heard a very distinct throat clearing. “And Viys’k helped.”
“You’re damn right I did.”
“So, what now, guys?”
“For tonight? Nothing. They’re too on guard considering the idiot who got caught in the scanner, plus an entirely new group of personel. You just got to lay low.”
“That seems really boring and not entirely the best option considering we’re racing against time here.”
“You’re not gonna save your lady friend by rushing into danger and alerting them to your presence before we can learn anything.”
“Fine. But put this under my strong protest.”
“Will do. Get some sleep, sunshine. You’ve got a long stake out ahead of you.”
I grumbled several more profanities, but Angel just laughed.
“Hey, I can stay up with you if you need,” Janix offered. I could hear an edge of anxiety to his voice and for some schadenfreude reason, it made me feel better.
“No, I’ll be alright. Besides, you all have to be rested up for the part where we storm the castle.”
“Right.”
“I’m going to try to get some shut eye. Fireskull, over and out.”
I shoved the datapad back into where it belonged in my cleavage and tried to settle down. But as I stared at the back of my eyelids, I felt a keen sense of discomfort settle over me. It took me longer than I liked to admit that it was loneliness. I wasn’t used to sleeping without my friends anymore.
I was just going to have to make sure I found out where they were holding Jyra and be reunited with my friends.
All of them.
Chapter Four: Stealth, Spies and Subterfuge
I fought with everything I had to keep my head from slamming into the table in front of me while the hologram at the head of the room droned on. We were on hour six of our first day of training and so far I had learned the colors of different level chemicals, and where we were and weren’t allowed to go. It was less than thrilling and I felt like I was back in college again. It figured I would end up in an entirely different galaxy but still have boring lectures to sit through. Academia just couldn’t let me go.
By the time the end of our first day rolled around, I wanted to rip my fake hair out. When we had decided that I would be the spearhead of the mission to infiltrate the super scary labs, I had imagined much more Hollywood Spy Thriller and less job tutorial 101.
“So, on a scale of one to ten, how much of that did you actually retain?” It was Janix once again, and I was pretty sure I could hear him chewing right in my ear.
“An irritating amount, actually.” I answered quietly. “Even when I was daydreaming I could still hear that stupid hologram explain how to initiate seven different types of lockdowns.”
“Wow. That sounds annoying. I’ve just been having Cragzen ribs up here with Bajol.”
“I don’t know what that is, but by all the smacking sounds I’m guessing delicious?”
“Oh yeah, they’re amazing. I’m sure your lunch will be just as good too.”
“Yeah, I sure. Because cafeteria fare is known for its five star qualities.”
“That’s the spirit!”
“Don’t worry,” Bajol assured, voice as low and soft as usual. It was much harder to tell if his mouth was crammed full of ribs or not, which I appreciated. “I will make sure they save some for you.”
“That’s alright, Doc.” I said with a laugh. “Who knows how long I’ll be down here at the rate this is going.”
“I have faith that you will be able to work your way in. You have all of us behind you after all.”
“That’s very true.”
I turned a corner towards the mess and nearly jumped out of my skin. Across the large room stood several aliens who I recognized as lead researchers from the
very start of our orientation presentation. Normally that wouldn’t be something to start me, but standing in the midst of them was none other than Maven. The very same man who had stolen away Jyra, and -as far as I knew- a current body puppet of our shared enemy.
I ducked back behind the wall, my heart ricocheting around my ribcage in its own personal riot against my adrenal gland.
“You vitals are spiking. What’s up?”
“He’s here.” I whispered, trying to act natural as I pressed myself against the patrician as if it alone could safe me from the malevolent being.
“You’re going to play the pronoun game here? Really?”
“Maven.” I hissed, not in the mood for any verbal nitpicking. “And I’m assuming our friendly neighborhood universe destroyer.”
“Oh…”
“Oh. Is right. I mean, I knew we would have to cross paths eventually if I was going to tail him, but I had hoped it would be, you know, later. As in not on my second day of being a spy thing. What if that reader thing isn’t working? What if he already knows I’m here?”
“And what if Maven was only temporarily possessed by that creature?” I was surprised by Angel’s voice flickering onto the comm. “We don’t really know much about how it works, despite being hunted by it for years now. Can it temporarily inhabit a person? Or is Maven purely a construct of its energy with a fake identity, just like your Natalie?”
The Rescue (Alternate Dimensions Book 3) Page 3
