She wandered inside the room and looked into a full-length mirror that had been carefully inlaid into one of the walls. The helicopter ride had blown her hair into a stringy mess, and her clothes were all wrinkled. She also had to admit that she hadn’t bathed in over a day.
She saw the bags under her eyes and stifled a yawn.
Could use a nap, not just a shower.
If only there were time.
She turned the face the servants. “I’ll be ready to meet your employer. Thank you for your hospitality. You may go.”
The smiling servants bowed and then departed. The door closed behind them, and she slipped out of her clothes. She rubbed her tired eyes. Her body ached all over; her feet, especially, were still sore.
A pair of wooden double-doors opened into a large bathroom that was nearly as big as her entire apartment unit.
A shower stall with a hard, slate floor and walls of thick-set, sea-green glass beckoned her to enter.
There’s room in this shower for two cars. And a bench to sit. Soap, shampoo, and even designer conditioner.
They think of everything here.
She stepped inside the shower and turned a dark brass handle all the way to the left.
Hot water cascaded down her entire body. She stood with eyes closed as the soothing, steaming water melted away the tension in each one of her muscles. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, her body became limp, and she collapsed onto the bench. She sat slumped over to one side, her head resting on the shower wall, for what seemed like days: unseeing, waiting, and yet not waiting.
Chapter Sixteen
The PIR agents’ slow, careful movements through the hallway in the abandoned part of the lab made scarcely a sound. Their footfalls were soft and careful in the labyrinthine abyss they felt themselves to be within, with their pen-lights pointed ever around them so that they would not tangle themselves in any hanging wires or trip on any debris that might happen to be in their path.
That path, so far, stood clear of any debris. Indeed, the entire lab looked to have been evacuated. Every desk, every microscope, every incubation tank, every file cabinet—all of it gone. There were the ubiquitous, tortured wires hanging from some places in the ceiling, however, and several large holes had been punched into the walls at various points.
Rick’s hand, trembling slightly, swept his pen-light carefully along the hallway walls, looking for a light switch. When he found one, he clicked it several times, again and again, but in vain.
The power to this section of the lab must be out. But there must be windows somewhere near here; I saw them from outside. Why isn’t the light getting through them?
Upon their emergence from the hallway, the agents found a large, open space that appeared to be about the size of a city block, but there were still no lights coming from anywhere in this space, nor from any windows. Enormous, concrete pillars were spread in a wide, regular grid to support the massive weight of the rest of the tower above them. The ceilings on this floor of the lab were very high, however.
When the agents shone their lights along the walls of this space, they discovered a curious, tightly spiked formation covering them all.
Rick then shone his pen-light up to where the windows were supposed to be—and discovered that they had all been covered in sheets of metal. The sheets appeared to have been bolted directly onto the walls of the lab.
“What… the… hell?” Rick whispered to the others.
Rodrigo suddenly stopped, gestured for the others to halt, and then put a finger to his lips. “I thought I heard something,” he whispered back so softly that Rick and Beth had to strain to hear him. “Sounded like someone knocking on a door.”
The three agents stood as still as statues and listened with intense focus for any sounds whatsoever, but the only sounds perceptible in this tomb-like space were their own heartbeats.
It’s gone, Rodrigo thought. But those spikes…
His light followed the spikes to where they began, just a dozen feet from where he stood, on the wall just behind him. The three agents turned and approached the odd formation.
Rodrigo reached out and brushed one with his fingertips. “They’re soft. They feel like styrofoam,” he whispered.
The material they were made from was a very dark grey, almost black. It drank nearly all of the light that fell upon it. He squeezed one spike, and it compressed, then slowly expanded back into its original shape.
“Sound-dampening material,” Rick suggested.
It was now obvious that the people who used to work here did not want any sounds to escape this space, nor did they want anyone or anything peeking in through the windows.
“What were they hiding?” Beth asked.
Rick shrugged, shook his head. Rodrigo had no answer, either.
It didn’t make sense. A robotics lab wouldn’t normally produce so much noise that it could be heard from the outside. Certainly, normal conversation wouldn’t have been loud enough to make it through the walls, out onto the street. No one could have eavesdropped on those conversations from the outside.
Something loud or noisy was happening here, on the inside, Beth concluded. Or they at least thought that loud noises were possible in this place.
Loud noises that they didn’t want anyone on the outside to hear…
But what those noises could have been…
The three agents stepped carefully through the large, forsaken space. Rick looked behind them and could see a distant hint of the light that was seeping in through the service entrance.
Now on the far side of this space, they entered into a labyrinth of hallways, with doors of various signage on them. Some of the signs, large and ominous, were written in red and white, with warning messages on them, and some displayed the international symbol for biohazards. Most of the doors were closed, but a few had been completely or partially torn from their hinges. The smell here, in this part of the lab, was that of a hospital: clinical, sterile, laced with various chemical smells. The large, foam spikes were again along all the walls.
In the distance, a small, muffled sound of a knocking on a door could be heard. Rodrigo, Beth, and Rick stopped and held very still, listening. Beth looked cautiously behind her but could see nothing in the dark they had come from.
“Did you hear that?” Rodrigo whispered. “I definitely heard something.”
“Me, too,” Rick whispered back.
Is she here? Rodrigo wondered. Controlling his breath, he gripped his pistol more tightly in his now-sweaty hand and scanned his surroundings. No immediate danger, but what lies ahead…
The agents slowly made their way deeper into the catacombs of the deserted lab, ducking under torn wires, stepping over broken doors. The soles of their boots were wet with unknown liquids that smelled sharply of petroleum distillates, detergent cleaners, and blood.
As the agents stepped further along the hallways, the knocking sound grew louder.
They followed the sound down, down, deeper into the labyrinth, until they reached the end of a hallway. There was only one room here, and its door had been completely ripped from its hinges, leaving one edge splintered and broken. The room had a single window that had been bolted over with a rusty slab of metal. To the right of the room was a set of double-doors with push-bar levers that had been wrapped many times around with a chain.
There was a slow, deliberate knock on the other side of these doors, along with a small voice that spoke something the agents could not quite make out.
Rodrigo, his heart pounding, put his ear to the door to hear more clearly what the voice was saying.
What he heard sent shivers up his spine. The voice was human-like, but not human. It was electronic, grating, and distorted. It cut rapidly in and out in the way that a strobe light would. It was the voice that a long-abandoned, broken building might have if it could somehow speak.
There was another knock on the door, causing the chains to clink lightly in place.
A small voice from the other
side of the doors pleaded, “Help… me…”
To be continued in Installment #4…
Free Bonuses
Sign up to my reader group to get a free, bonus ebook containing the following goodies:
Scarlet McRae’s NSB personnel file
An in-depth interview with the author
Deleted material with author commentary
A sex scene between Jake and Scarlet not included anywhere in the Nightfall Billionaire novel installments
Tap the book cover below to get started…
Your Opinion
As an indie author, I depend on readers for reviews. Generally speaking, a book with many reviews will sell better than a book with few or no reviews, all else equal. I write as my livelihood, so each review, even if just a few words, means a lot to me.
If you’re willing to write a sentence or two about what you thought of this installment, please leave a review on Amazon. That helps other readers, and it helps me, too. Thank you so much!
Click the link to your Amazon store below to leave your review of this installment.
US
UK
CAN
AUS
About the Author
I grew up on a plot of untamed land in rural Texas in the 1980s. The environment of my childhood instilled in me a great love and respect for the natural world. I recall the hot summers with singing cicadas, the cold winters with sleet and clouds, the smell of juniper trees, and how earth-scents would fill the air right before a rainstorm. I remember the way wind would hint of its secrets and stories, especially when no one else was around (which was often). I am a Native American, and my love for the land is endless.
When I was struck with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in 2017, I could no longer work at my previous job. I refused to get on welfare. I decided instead to write stories for others’ enjoyment, as well as a means of livelihood. Due to my illness, I cannot publish full-length books as quickly as many of the other authors out there, but I do what I can.
Your purchase of this book, or your reading of it with a Kindle Unlimited subscription, helps me keep the lights on. Thank you very much. <3
For a full catalog of my books, please visit vanessablackstone.com.
The Nightfall Billionaire: Serial Installment #3 (Scarlet McRae) Page 6
