That made sense to Ash. “Lead the way.”
They raced to the room, Ash both worried about Chloe and wishing she’d chosen a better time to have a breakdown. When they reached the door, he yanked it open.
“Dammit,” Robert said. “I thought for sure she’d be here.”
The unoccupied room looked like a cross between a dentist’s office and a medical examination room.
“Same as the one downstairs?” Ash asked.
“Yeah.”
Ash noticed one of the cabinet drawers was open. He went over and quickly rifled through the files hanging inside, but nothing there could tell him where Chloe went.
“Come on,” he said, heading out the door. “She’s here somewhere.”
Using a floor map she’d found in the procedure room, Chloe navigated her way three corridors over to the medical staff quarters and began opening doors — closets, a communal shower and toilet area, a half-full bunk room. Toward the far end of the hall, she came to a door with a metal nameplate mounted in the center that read:
MEDICAL DIRECTOR
If Dr. Karr still worked at Dream Sky, then this had to be his room.
She tried the handle but the door was locked, so she knocked.
“Wait a second,” Robert said, grabbing Ash’s arm. “Did you hear that?”
Ash stopped and cocked his head. For a moment, he heard only the hum of the air circulation system, but then above it came a faint rap-rap-rap.
“It could be her,” Robert said.
With a nod, Ash said, “Come on,” and headed down the hall.
Chloe knocked again and then pressed her ear against the door.
Some kind of noise was coming from inside, but she couldn’t tell if it was caused by a person or pipes in the walls.
She squeezed her eyes shut. What the hell am I doing?
She shouldn’t be here. She was letting her rage take over. She had run off when others were counting on her. For God’s sake, if Dr. Karr was still in the facility, she’d have plenty of time to deal with him after Dream Sky was secured.
And yet…
How am I supposed to think straight until I know if he’s here or not?
She knocked again, louder this time, and said in a panicked voice, “Please, it’s an emergency.”
A voice in the hallway called, “Chloe?”
She twisted in surprise and started to pull her rifle off her shoulder, but stopped when she saw it was Ash and Robert.
“What are you doing?” Ash asked as the two ran up.
“Go back to what you were doing. This is…personal.”
He looked at the nameplate on the door. “Medical director?” He turned back to her. “What’s going on?”
Without warning, the door rattled and opened inward a few inches.
“What is it?” a tired voice said from inside.
Recognizing it immediately, Chloe thrust her arm through the opening, grabbed the man by his nightshirt, and kicked the door all the way open.
“Hello, Dr. Karr,” she said, stepping over the threshold.
He stared at her, confused, afraid, and clearly not recognizing her.
“I realize it’s been a few years,” she said, “but surely you haven’t forgotten me. Lauren Scott. That should ring a bell, right?”
The doctor looked no more enlightened than he had a moment before. Chloe pulled him over to the bed and shoved him onto the mattress, sensing Ash and Robert moving in behind her.
“What are you doing?” Ash whispered.
Staring at Dr. Karr, she said, “I’m getting reacquainted with the man who stole my life.”
“What are you talking about?”
She glanced at him. “I remember.” Her gaze returned to the doctor. “I remember everything.”
Ash was silent for a moment, then said, “Everything? How?”
“Turns out this isn’t my first time here,” she said. “I used to be a member of the Project, too, though not for very long. I was selected to be part of an experiment that apparently didn’t go very well.”
She could see the doctor begin to connect the dots.
“Tell them,” she said to him. “Tell them what you did to me.”
Karr pressed his lips together defiantly.
Chloe drew her pistol and whacked the barrel against his cheek. “Tell them.”
Rubbing his face, Karr said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Tell them! Tell them how you took my memories. How you ruined my life.”
“I don’t know anything about that.”
She moved the gun’s muzzle to within an inch of the man’s ear and pulled the trigger.
The doctor screamed as he jerked to the side, the hand that had been on his cheek now covering his ear.
“The next one takes a little bit of you with it,” she whispered. “Now talk!”
Wincing, Karr looked at her and then at Ash and Robert. “It…it was a trial, that’s all. A test. She volunteered for it.”
“And was I truthfully told what I was volunteering for?”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
“What kind of test?” Ash asked.
“We were…we were trying to develop a way of keeping a person in a…a deep sleep. A kind of low-level suspended animation.”
“You were going to use it on the people you brought here,” Chloe said. “Your protectees, right?”
The doctor swallowed. “If it had worked, yes.”
“If?” Chloe asked.
Trying not to look at her, he said, “The side effects were…” He paused, his eyes flicking to her and then away again. “Unacceptable.”
“You mean memory loss,” she said.
“That’s one.”
“What else?”
He hesitated and then said, “Death.”
“So you knew there was a good chance I could die when you strapped me into that chair,” Chloe said.
He looked away. But she didn’t need him to confirm what she already knew.
“When it didn’t work, you changed your plan?” Ash said.
At first the doctor said nothing, but a tap of the gun on his head got him talking again. “If the drug had done what we’d hoped, the protectees would have been brought in over several years preceding Implementation Day. Since it didn’t, we had to bring them all here at the last minute and use more conventional means.”
Chloe stared at the doctor in disgust. “You son of a bitch. You knew exactly—”
Ash touched her arm. “You can deal with him later. We need to get back to work. There’s a good chance we’ll have visitors soon.”
“You two go,” she said. “I just need a few minutes of private time with my old friend here.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Don’t leave me alone with her!” Karr pleaded. “Please!”
Ignoring him, Chloe looked at Ash and said, “I know it’s not a good idea, but it’s what I’m going to do.”
Ash grimaced, but finally relented. “Just be careful.”
“Wait, wait!” Karr said. “I don’t—”
Chloe ground the gun into his chest enough to shut him up.
“One request,” she said to Ash. “Help me get him to the examining room.”
Chloe found a drawer full of restraints in a cabinet next to the examination chair. Before Ash and Robert left her, she secured Karr’s arms and legs. She knew her two friends weren’t exactly pleased by what she had in mind, but she also knew Ash wasn’t going to stop her, and that he’d make sure Robert understood the full scope of what was going on.
“Don’t be long,” Ash said as he headed to the door.
“I won’t.”
The doctor tried to convince them to help him one last time, but Ash and Robert left without even looking back.