by Tate, Harley
John settled in, propping his elbows on his bag, and watched. The morning passed in uneventful chunks, with Emma sticking to her research and ignoring the people around her. If she kept it up, his job would be almost too easy.
Emma would be off his list by the end of the day and he could report another successful mission to his boss. A perfect record. Just the way he liked it.
Chapter Three
Emma
“How’s the titration coming?” Randall leaned over Emma’s shoulder and the remains of tuna on rye wafted up her nose.
She cleared her throat and eased away. “Everything is fine.” No one had checked up on her like this since ninth grade chemistry. It grated on every nerve, but Emma forced a smile as her temporary boss continued to inspect her work. Gone were the days of running a lab with her own experiments and a host of lab techs to carry out the boring details. Now Emma was the lab tech, plugging and chugging through an endless routine for barely enough money to keep afloat.
Stop it. With a silent admonishment, Emma shoved the pity aside. If it wasn’t for Randall and Fielding Labs, she might be out of the science field entirely, back to waiting tables and wasting her degree. She glanced at her boss. “Just wanted to remind you, I’ll be out next week.”
“That’s right. You’re going to assuage your conscience in front of a handful of senators and the five people watching on C-SPAN.” Randall stepped back. “We’ll just have to find a way to carry on without you for a few days, won’t we?”
Emma swallowed. Pissing Randall off was not a career-enhancing move. She tried to sound contrite. “I’m sorry about the time off. If you need me to come in on the weekend—”
He waved her off. “Just get all your weekly tasks done by Friday. Harris can fill in.” Without waiting for her reply, Randall turned and headed for the next lab.
“You sure got his panties in a twist.” Tyler, another lab tech, sidled over. “Just wait until he watches your testimony.” His eyes practically gleamed with amusement. “I bet he spends all morning in the can!”
Emma rolled her eyes. “If you’re here to lecture me about CropForward—”
“Whoa, now.” Tyler held up his gloved hands. “Just giving you a hard time. That’s allowed, isn’t it? Not every day one of my coworkers is a big-time whistleblower. After next week, you’ll be famous.”
A groan gurgled up Emma’s throat. “Don’t remind me. If I could testify anonymously, believe me, I would.”
His half-grin faded. “You really think CropForward is going to poison people? I know they’ve had a bad rap for years with their pesticides, but these new seeds are supposed to double the yield.”
Emma hesitated. Ordinarily she didn’t share when pressed about her upcoming testimony, but part of her was sick of hiding. Tyler was right; in a few days everyone would know. “My job at CropForward was to test for side effects of crops grown from the Seeds of the Future. Rats to start, then Rhesus monkeys through another lab in India, then human trials in a few locations worldwide.” She paused. “I didn’t make it past phase two with the rats.”
“Ouch.” Tyler adjusted his safety glasses. “What happened?”
“At first, nothing. They ate the wheat, corn, soy, no problems. But we noticed their litters beginning to decline after the first six months or so. Instead of litters of five to ten, we were seeing three to seven, then two to five, then a year out, maybe only one.”
Emma thought back to the early days. “I remember wondering if it was the bedding or the lighting—rats can be picky about too much light—but everything was standard. It wasn’t until the next generation stopped reproducing that I became concerned.”
Tyler’s face paled. “You’re telling me the seeds made them sterile?”
“I can’t account for any other explanation.”
He whistled. “That’s insane. Why hasn’t CropFoward halted the trial?”
“Because they would lose billions of dollars in funding. It’s a joint contract between UN countries, remember?”
“But they would have to know something like this would come out.”
“We signed NDAs.”
“That’s not stopping you.”
Emma shivered. “After next week, Fielding will probably let me go. There won’t be another lab anywhere in the US who will hire me. I’ll be unemployable.”
“I don’t believe it.” Tyler crossed his arms. “What about all the other research trials that end badly? I don’t see a bunch of unemployable scientists now working food service.”
Emma appreciated Tyler’s innocence. He couldn’t have been more than a year or two out of college. He hadn’t risen in the ranks enough to know how it all worked. “Most researchers work for companies now. Even college professors. They get a contract to test a new drug or product and it pays enough that they can keep working on the projects they really want to do. If it turns out badly for the company, the research is mothballed, never to see the light of day.”
“And the drug?”
“Sometimes it’s canceled, sometimes it undergoes more tests.”
Tyler opened his mouth to respond when his stomach did the talking. He grimaced. “Skipped breakfast. Traffic was terrible.” He motioned toward the elevator. “Want to catch a bite?”
The invitation caught Emma off guard. Although most employees ate in the communal break room, Emma never felt welcome. The side stares and hushed conversations didn’t scream “Come on in,” so she ate alone.
She told the truth. “I didn’t bring a lunch.”
“Neither did I. There’s a good sandwich shop around the corner. They’ve got a $5.95 lunch special if you order before noon.”
Emma checked her watch. “If we hurry, we can just make it.”
Together, they removed their lab gear before heading toward the elevator. Had she ever seen Tyler without the goggles, coat, and gloves? She hadn’t realized how gangly he was; more teenager than grown man. “When did you graduate college?”
He tucked his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders as the doors opened. “That obvious, huh?” He focused on the floor. “Next year. I work here part-time as my hands-on experience for my degree.”
Emma smiled. “Good for you. Hands-on experience is invaluable.”
Tyler’s shoulders eased. “You think so?”
“Definitely.” Emma pushed the button for the lobby and the doors slid shut.
At the third floor, the elevator slowed. The man from the morning stepped on.
“Done already?” Emma smiled.
“Excuse me?”
Emma’s cheeks heated. “I’m sorry, I just—” She stumbled over her words in embarrassment. “I was on the elevator with you this morning.”
The man’s lips thinned into a line. “Sorry. Didn’t remember.”
Of course he didn’t. Emma wished she could melt into the wall. Tyler had distracted her and brought her out of her shell for the first time in weeks. Why would a stranger, especially one a step below model material, ever remember a frazzled researcher with a bagel in her teeth? As the awkward silence extended, the elevator shuddered.
The lights flicked out.
“What the—” Tyler spun around, knocking into Emma’s arm.
She reached out to steady him. “It’s just a power outage.” She pulled her phone from her purse and turned on the flashlight. Their faces illuminated from below like ghouls in a cartoon.
“But the building’s on a generator. Emergency backup for all the labs.”
Emma thought back to the news coverage of the morning. “Didn’t the news say something about this?”
“You watch the news?” Tyler kept tapping the screen of his phone. “I thought only old people did that.”
“Then roll me into assisted living, I guess.” She smiled despite the situation. “I like the distraction while I’m getting ready.”
“Can you get a signal? I keep trying to load the Georgia Power site, but it won’t do a thing.”
“It
’s the elevator.” The man from the morning spoke for the first time since the lights flicked out. “We’re in a giant metal box. Reception is terrible.” He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms.
“So that’s it? We just wait?” Tyler reached for the emergency phone. “Hello? Hello? We’re stuck in the elevator—” After a moment he replaced it. “There’s no one there. Not even a dial tone. Shouldn’t there be a dial tone?” Panic edged up his voice.
“Haven’t you ever been stuck in an elevator before?”
Tyler spun around in the small space. “Once. I was seven and all by myself. It took my parents six hours to find me.” He palmed the wall. “I’d never been so thirsty in my life.”
“If the confinement is bothering you, try to regulate your breathing,” offered the man from the morning.
“What?” Tyler turned to him. “What good will that do?”
“Focus on your breath. Count to four on the way in, hold, count down from four as you breathe out, hold. Ten seconds total, then repeat.”
Tyler tried it. “It’s not working.”
“Give it at least a minute.”
“I don’t—”
Emma reached out a hand. ‘“It’s worth a shot. I can do it with you.”
Together, the two of them slowed their breathing until it matched. By the time a minute rolled by, Emma was calm and collected. Tyler stopped pacing and leaned against the wall.
“Where did you learn that?”
The other man shifted across the elevator. “YouTube.”
Emma laughed and angled her phone so it lit the elevator before sticking out her hand. “Emma Cross.”
After a moment, the other man shook it. “John Smith.”
“Seriously?” Tyler snorted. “You know that’s like the name everyone gives when they don’t want to tell the truth.”
“Is that right?” He sounded unimpressed.
“Tyler Savateri.” He stuck out his hand and John shook it. “You should really think about jazzing that up. What’s your middle name?”
“Tyler!” Emma admonished him, more like a mother than a fellow lab tech.
“David.” John didn’t seem to mind. “What can I say? My parents were traditional.”
The conversation continued in fits and starts, with Tyler intermittently exclaiming about the close quarters and lack of cell service. After half an hour, he cursed and banged the wall with his fist. “That’s it! I can’t just stand here and wait for someone to let us out. We have to do something!” He reached for the closed doors and tried to wedge his fingers inside. They wouldn’t budge.
“You’ll never move that door on your own.” John stepped off the wall. “But if we work together, we might be able to get out of here.”
Chapter Four
Holly
A wave of Cheerios sloshed over the bowl as Holly carried it to the kitchen table.
“What did I say about overfilling those bowls?”
She rolled her eyes. “That I always make a mess and waste half the milk.”
“It’s true.” Her dad handed her a paper towel. “Now clean that up before we get another batch of ants.”
Holly set the bowl down before crouching above the linoleum. As she wiped up the spill, her father busied himself with his coffee, adding milk and sugar and giving it an exaggerated stir.
“I thought you were cutting back on the caffeine?”
He grimaced. “Me too, but this Congressional testimony has me so nervous, I can hardly sleep. I’m dragging all day.”
Ever since her father told her about the testing gone wrong at CropForward, she’d been worried. It sounded more like the beginning of a spy thriller than real life. A handful of researchers out to prove a big corporation really was a greedy profit machine. She sat back down and frowned at her cereal bowl. “Are you sure the seeds are no good?”
Her dad leaned against the counter and rubbed his eyes. He was right about the not sleeping; the dark circles and puffy skin broadcast his nervous state to anyone who glanced his way. “The subjects showed decreased fertility in each subsequent birth, with the second generation almost completely sterile. The subjects who did produce offspring showed signs of hair loss, dermatitis, and sometimes incurable itching. Nothing I want to experience.”
“But those are rats, right? I mean what’s to say it would have the same effect on people?”
“We test on rats not just because they reproduce like crazy, but because they are very similar to people genetically.”
“You can’t be serious.” Holly made a face.
“I am. Researchers recently mapped the entire genome of lab rats and concluded one-fourth is shared with humans. That’s approximately 700 megabases of DNA shared by rats and people.”
“Still seems sketchy to me.” Holly picked up her bowl and drank the last dregs of milk.
“Holly?” Her father’s voice took on an unexpected edge. “Get in the basement.”
“What?” She lowered the bowl in time to see her father crouch below the counter. “What’s going on?”
He swallowed and his finger shook as he pulled out his phone. “Just do it.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Go!”
Holly scrambled out of the kitchen chair as something shattered in the back of the house. “Was that the back door? What’s happening?”
“You have to go, honey. Now.” Her father pushed her toward the basement. “Get down there and whatever you see or hear, you don’t come out. Understood?”
Panic lodged in Holly’s throat and she nodded at her father before turning toward the basement door. Keeping to a half-crouch, she hurried through the kitchen with her father following right behind. She eased the door open but hesitated at the landing. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too. Go!” He nudged her down the stairs and shut the door behind her.
“Zachary Klein!” A voice Holly didn’t recognize boomed from somewhere across the house.
Holly eased to the floor and wedged her face against the basement door. With one eye, she could see the kitchen, hall, and part of the living room. Her father’s feet emerged from the pantry, too close for Holly to see more than his lower legs. The sound of his shotgun racking filled the silence.
A shudder ran through her body and she braced herself against the door. This can’t be happening.
“I’m in here.” Her father spoke with only a slight warble in his voice.
More than anything, Holly wanted to run to him, beg him to leave, get out, do anything other than stand there in the kitchen with a 12-gauge shotgun that hadn’t been fired as long as she could remember. But she kept her word and stayed quiet and still.
A figure emerged at the end of the hall straight out of her friends’ video games. Head-to-toe black tactical vest, crazy rifle with a scope, sunglasses. More Call of Duty than Halo but terrifying all the same. She bit back a sob.
Her father eased away from the basement door and further into the kitchen.
“Stop moving.” The man with the rifle stepped forward and aimed his gun straight at her father’s chest.
“You don’t have to do this.” Holly’s father took another step and the sunlight from the front window fell across his face.
“I said, stop moving.”
“Do you know why you’re here?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Her father kept talking. “It’s to keep the truth from the world. CropForward’s seeds will make millions of people sick. Millions more will be unable to have children. You can’t want that.”
“What I want is irrelevant. Put down the weapon.”
“Haven’t you stopped to think about this? They’re producing a product that causes generational sterility and a host of other side effects.”
“Not my problem.”
“The most impoverished nations who rely on CropForward for seeds will begin to experience massive population decline. It will cause upheaval to their social structures, their
families, their very way of life. Whatever CropForward is paying you, it can’t be worth that.”
“I never said CropForward was my client. Last chance. Put down the weapon.”
“Then… who?” Holly’s father lowered the shotgun.
No! She raised her hand, about to shout out, when the intruder laughed. “Who do you think? Try the biggest client for military contractors like me. The big one. The one who likes to send in the private companies to do the dirty work so their hands can stay clean. You think they don’t know about the seeds and what they do? You think they don’t want it to happen? Man, for a scientist, you really are an idiot.”
Holly blinked. What did he mean? Was he talking about the government? Holly thought back to her twentieth century history class the semester before. She knew there were contractors in the Middle East that multiple governments used to police food and supply routes, but she didn’t remember anything about something like this. Wouldn’t it be an act of war? She swallowed.
Her father ran a hand over his face.
Holly started. Was he giving up? No! He can’t!
“Are you telling the truth? About your client?” Her father’s voice came out soft and almost resigned.
“No reason to lie, is there? Not like you’re walking out of here.”
“So, it’s true.” Her father’s shoulders sagged. “It doesn’t matter what I say, what I do. The fix is in.” He turned his head and stared straight at the basement door. “At least I know that I stood up for what was right. Even if no one else does.”
He closed his eyes as he pointed the shotgun at the ground.
A million firsts flashed through Holly’s mind: getting her license, prom, graduating high school, marriage. Her dad had to be there. This couldn’t be happening. It had to be a mistake. A bad dream. She must have blacked out between bites of cereal.
They were ordinary people with ordinary lives. Her dad drove to work every day in a Honda Civic and Holly rode the bus to high school. They weren’t criminal masterminds or spies or drug dealers. They were—
