Authors: Tabitha Rayne
She’d been at the facility for a few weeks now—or was it months?—and sat at her work desk every day until the light failed, staring down at Petri dishes of defrosted semen.
The noise in the corridor continued and Deborah waited patiently at the door of her cell until Jane came to take her to the lab. As far as guards went, Jane was one of the good ones—not too bright but equally without malice. Deborah had heard of other women who were overcome with power lust when appointed with the responsibility of leading prisoners to work or meals, who did awful things to the inmates. Jane was actually very pleasant and told Deborah things about the other guards and sometimes the governor that she really shouldn’t have but, again, it was done in all innocence.
As the cell door swung open, Deborah came out and followed in step with Jane. They fell into easy conversation.
“How’s the Archmatrias’ veg plot coming along? Did they get the stock delivered yet?” Deborah looked sideways at the ever-smiling Jane, who was always more than eager to talk.
“Oh, now there’s a tale. Remember they were waiting for them new seed potatoes?”
“Yes,” said Deborah while peering at every nook and cranny of her surroundings, as she did on each trip back and forth, searching for something that might seem like an escape hatch.
“Well, the delivery cart rode off the ditch and snapped a wheel so they had to wait ’til the next day!” She told the news with such gusto, Deborah couldn’t help smiling.
“When are the deliveries usually?”
“I told you a million times! Monday the grain comes for bread. Wednesday them things you work with come in that big van with snow in it.”
She was talking about the vats of semen frozen in liquid nitrogen. It was quite unusual to see trucks these days, so Deborah knew she could rely on Jane’s attention to detail.
“Oh yes, the snow van. What time does that come again? I’ve forgotten.”
“Eleven-fourteen in the morning—you know that!”
“Oh yes, but what time does it leave again?”
“It only ever drops off one big box with all the containers in so it only takes a few minutes.” Jane paused and looked along the corridor, a motion that meant a juicy bit of gossip was coming Deborah’s way. “Unless it’s the curly-haired driver, then it takes a bit longer.” A smile broke over Jane’s face.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the governor likes shagging that one.”
“Jane!” Deborah giggled to Jane’s guffawing until her chest ached. This was good. This could be very good. At least when she had found a way to get out, she knew where to find transport. “Which way does it come from?” she asked when the hilarity had finally subsided.
“East. It comes from the east.”
As they drew up at the locked lab door, Deborah turned to the guard. “Just how is it that you know so much about everything going on here?”
Jane stared unblinking into Deborah’s eyes. “They’re not careful around me. They think I’m stupid.” She opened the door for Deborah and winked at her as she slid under her arm and into the lab. A shiver raised the hairs from Deborah’s neck all the way down to the base of her spine.
The door locked behind her. She took her place at the huge window and picked up her papers from the previous day’s work, still reeling slightly from Jane’s revelation. Smart indeed.
She was usually left to her own devices for a couple of hours before any equipment or samples were brought for testing. It was then that she really studied her theories from the day or days before, trying to relax her mind and get into the zone where her brain connected the formulas that brought results. It had always been part of her thinking process, and as she began to let herself drip into that almost trance-like state of pure thought, she began to draw parallels with the ultimate unity. She wondered whether her mind could roam in that space for other things, or if she could reach the meeting point without the release of climax.
Deborah let the hope creep in that it could be the case. Last night, as every night, as she’d tried to make contact with her lover, no arousal would come. She’d explored her body under her sheets, mechanically rubbing all the bits that should have induced pleasure, but nothing. Not a thing. She was beginning to fear it would never come back. Even with Marcus’s words scrawled over the pages of the notebook, nothing was helping. She was frigid, dead, passionless.
The slowly growing stack of her new research papers drew her attention and a glimmer of hope twinkled as she tried to find her way through a theory. It was tantalizing. Maybe, maybe… She needed to start with something simple. She rifled through an old textbook until she found some elementary puzzles to work on. Easy logic but as the answers flickered into her mind’s eye, she also felt the wave wash over her. Lifting her face up toward the sky through the huge window, Deborah began to soar on her own thoughts. Logic met with spirit and at last she knew she could do it.
* * * *
“I think she’s having a fit.” Jane’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts to a group of women crowding around and shaking her.
“I’m fine,” Deborah snapped, and sprang to her feet, knocking the women away. “Have you got what I requested?” she asked, outwardly composed but with her heart hammering inside.
“Yes.” A uniformed delivery girl came forward and motioned to a box on the floor near where Deborah had been lying. “It was me who found you. I thought you’d fainted or something so I went and got help.”
“Well, I’m fine now so you can all get back to whatever it is you need to be doing.”
A soft mumble rippled through the collected women—a couple of guards, the delivery girl, and two cleaners. To her amazement, they all seemed to do as they were told...as she had told them.
“And you don’t need to report this either,” she continued sharply. “I am fine.” She flashed them a warning glare as all five women left.
When the clunk of the key had signaled their departure, Deborah sank onto her stool. What had just happened? Yes, she’d had a weird astral-planing trip-out, but after that...it was as if she was developing some kind of power over these women. It wasn’t something she felt very comfortable about, but she was wise enough to cast her uncertain feelings aside long enough to see that this shift in control could be very helpful to her plans. Very helpful indeed.
She went to the box of requested items. Her heart sank as she thought of all the different chemicals she would have to test and record the reactions of. It was a laborious and tedious task, especially since she’d done it all before. Deborah was still unconvinced that her research papers couldn’t be found. She’d been ordered to start her studies again from scratch and she’d yelled in horror that it could take years. The governor had merely smiled and waved her out.
As she picked at the packing tape and ripped the box open to reveal vial upon vial of samples, solutions, and chemicals, Deborah roared in despair. Angrily, she balled her fists and punched at the box, knocking it off the table. She ran to the door, pounding as hard as she could.
Jane opened it quickly, looking stricken. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “I thought since you’d had a fit I’d stay here in case something happened.”
Deborah fought her instinct to speak kindly to Jane and pushed past her into the corridor. “I didn’t have a bloody fit. Take me to the governor.”
“You know I can’t just take you to the governor,” the big woman said, shrugging and rolling her eyes.
Deborah stood to her full height and pushed her face upward to Jane’s as menacingly as she could. “I said take me to the fucking governor.”
Fear flashed in Jane’s eyes, but quickly dispersed back to her usual easy way and she shrugged again, lumbering off down the hall and beckoning Deborah to follow. “Okay, I’ll take you.”
Deborah bent forward, leaning her hands heavily on her thighs while Jane’s back was still turned, and took a huge breath. Where was this bravado coming from? Trembling now as the adrenalin began to leave her body, she straightened and trotted after Jane.
The governor was indeed less than happy to see her and motioned Jane to leave with a thunderous look.
“And just how can I help you, Ms—” She checked the number on Deborah’s tunic “—Regan D222?”
“I will respond to Doctor Regan or Deborah—that is all.” Deborah saw a glint of what could have been amusement, or irritation, in the governor’s eye.
“Very well, Doctor Regan. How may I assist you?” Her tone was clipped and Deborah could almost see the rise of the woman’s hackles. Another power victory. The governor would never know how calling her by name boosted Deborah’s confidence another three notches.
“I don’t see why I have to redo all my research when you already have access to the results. It took me years to compile all of that information and most—in fact over ninety-nine percent—of the experiments were failures. This is a complete waste of my time.” Her cheeks bloomed to a ferocious heat as anger and frustration at her situation came to a head. “If you’d bothered to read my papers, which I know you possess, you’d know where the best focus for my work would be.”
“I have no such access to your papers.”
“What?”
“All research labs were burned to the ground and the homes of scientists ransacked. Any papers were destroyed.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not lying. You’re only alive because of your little excursion into the forest.”
“So who…”
“The Archmatria government.”
“How?”
“They have a secret breakaway group to carry out their plans. If the toxins are left to carry on killing off most of the population, there will be enough food for a small, elite portion of society to continue until the world begins to revive itself.”
“But how will they procreate and make future generations if they don’t know how to counteract the poison?”
“Oh, they know. They’ve known what the causes and the cures are for a very long time.”
“What?” Deborah felt sick. She wobbled slightly and managed to catch the arm of a nearby chair, easing herself into it before she fell. “I don’t… I just don’t understand. What about the lab I worked at?”
“You mean the lab you pretended to work at?” The governor eyed Deborah carefully as if trying to read her thoughts. “Did you never wonder why none of your successes was acted on? Or why you never had a team to carry out the more menial of your research tasks?”
“Well, actually…” Deborah felt like a haze was lifting, and fragments of the conversation between her and Hazel that night by the bonfire flickered into her memory. “Yes.” Her brow furrowed as she thought about how best to converse with this woman. “But I had nothing to compare it to. It was my first research job after university. I didn’t know what to expect.”
“That’s what they were relying on.”
“Who?”
“The government.” The governor walked around the front of her desk and took a chair next to Deborah, leaning in intently to continue. “It’s all a sham, a cover-up.” She took Deborah’s hand. “They had to let the people believe a cure was being looked into. They had to give us hope, while they were actually accelerating the growth and spread of the toxins, all the time keeping a vaccine for themselves.”
Deborah snatched her hand away and rubbed it defensively. “And just why should I believe you?”
“You probably shouldn’t believe anyone.” The woman had turned cold and stood up primly, making her way to the corner of the room. “Tea?”
Deborah nodded. “So what of my colleagues?” she asked, trying to remain stoic while a tremor shuddered through her.
“Dead, I imagine. Sugar?”
Deborah shook her head and the woman brought the cup over to her. “So what is this place?”
“It is a prison. You are still a prisoner.”
“Under what charge?”
“Well, you posed a problem as you were meant to die in the fire alongside the others. When you showed up hiding in the woods with your boyfriend, it must have felt like a gift to the government. They had a valid reason to lock you away for harboring a male, no questions asked.”
Deborah was reeling from the force of all these revelations. She’d only come in to get the focus of her research changed. She was completely confused.
“So why are you telling me all this, and why have you set me up with a lab? I just don’t understand.” She slumped forward and held her head at her knees, slopping tea onto the carpet.
“You’re a decoy.”
“A fucking decoy? What are you talking about?”
“Well, while the government goes about the business of ‘finding out’ who destroyed the labs, they can continue to look as though they are intent on also finding a cure.”
“By using me?”
“Yes. Think of it, a criminal, locked away, our only hope for the future survival of our species.” The woman rolled her eyes then sat close to Deborah once more, taking her hand. “You’re practically a celebrity already, Doctor Regan. You’re actually very lucky under the circumstances.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sure there was some speculation as to why you went missing when you did—just as the fires were starting…”
“People think I was part of it?” She remembered the hostility from the escort guard who had brought her to this facility. She had thought it was just due to her abandoning her research, not destroying laboratories.
Nausea pooled in her solar plexus and Deborah rocked back and forth, clutching herself. That would explain her apparent power over the women in the lab earlier. And all these weeks of reworking dead-end samples and experiments was just aiding the demise of humanity. Her stomach lurched again. “But why are you telling me this? Why?”
“Because I think you do know what you’re doing. Something about you tells me you had made some kind of discovery, and the fact that you burst in here today the way you did is making me more confident about that.”
“But who are you working for then?” Deborah studied the woman intently as her eyes scanned the room suspiciously. She felt like laughing in her face—if anyone was listening to this conversation, they would have already gotten what they’d come for.
“That doesn’t matter for now. You just assume I’m alone in my thoughts.”
“How can I trust you?”