Then there was the other man. A powerful, respected being in his own right. A giant in the pharmaceutical industry. She was in awe of him. They all were, even his peers. How could she resist that? Better people had tried and failed. She realised how easily she had fallen for his flattery and the twin lures of a high financial reward and her name up there with the giants of research, and how easily his honeyed promises had led her to become something cold and vile.
Yes, she had been attracted to the career partly because of the illness that took her mother in old age and scrambled her mind so much that she wasn’t the same woman. Attracted to it because she could make a difference to people’s lives. It was partly why medical research held such allure. Partly. But once there her greed for professional recognition rose quickly like oil in water, to the surface, so that when she had shown startling promise, and had been headhunted for higher and better things, she gorged on the opportunities heaped before her, and entered, almost without question, her darkest phase; a phase when she felt she choked her very humanity in the process.
And in truth that’s why she was here, to atone for her sins. That’s why she must go through with this and accept the consequences, whatever they might be. Pipistrelle had promised safety, for herself and her year-old daughter, and she believed him. Trusted him.
God, she wished she had never heard of Project Gilgamesh.
The ladies’ locker room was empty, as she expected. There were few staff members abroad at this hour, a couple of colleagues hunched over their Petri dishes and agar jellies in a lab down the corridor; a security guard up top, guarding the main entrance to the underground chambers; another guard floating around, patrolling the building somewhere. She unlocked the metal door to her own locker, withdrew a white lab coat. Contrary to popular myth, they rarely wore them all the time, as seen in the movies. Most researchers preferred not to wear them and there was only a rush to put them on when they were being inspected by the bigwigs. This coat was her spare. She groped in the locker for a plastic name badge. This was definitely not hers. Pipistrelle had made a false one based upon her own. She looked closely at it; he’d done a good job and she wondered where he got the expertise. The likeness to the woman in the bed was close enough to fool a quick, disinterested glance, and that, she hoped, was all that was needed.
She took out a pair of flat shoes. They may be a size too big, she thought, but they’d have to do. She put everything into a carrier bag and checked the corridor before dashing out.
‘Evening, Stephanie,’ said a voice at her back. She turned, horrified.
He walked calmly down the corridor towards her, his hands in his pockets.
Randall Tremain was young, ambitious, you could read it in the way he carried himself, she thought. He was the head of security’s number two. Second in charge. His good looks, his warm smile, were masks to a far colder nature. She didn’t trust him, in the same way he trusted no one else. He smiled but she realised he was scrutinising her, digging deep beneath the fragile crust of her outward calm. She hadn’t expected him to be here. He wasn’t supposed to be in the building tonight.
‘Good evening, Mr Tremain.’
‘She is well?’
Stephanie nodded. ‘Well enough.’
‘Have to look after our valuable little investments, don’t we?’
‘Absolutely.’
He stared for a second longer than was comfortable. ‘I’m keeping you from your job, I’m sorry.’ He passed her and disappeared down the corridor.
She breathed a heavy sigh of relief, waited a few seconds and then rushed back to the room.
The woman lay watching her closely as she unloaded the contents of the carrier bag onto the foot of the bed. Stephanie bent down to her. ‘I’m now going to untie the straps from your ankles. I need you to keep calm and keep quiet. Do you understand?’ She placed a hand on the woman’s arm. ‘I promise to get you out of here, so please do as I say. For both of us.’ She drew in a calming breath and untied the first ankle. It left a large red welt. The woman didn’t move. She unbuckled the next, and then moved swiftly around the bed to the strap holding down the woman’s right arm. Finally she paused at the buckle on the last strap. ‘Remember what I told you,’ she said. ‘Keep calm.’
As soon as the strap was released the young woman swiped hard at Stephanie, hitting her in the jaw and sending her reeling backwards. She attempted to get off the bed, rise to her feet, but her feeble legs crumpled beneath her and she fell to the floor. She began to drag herself to the door.
Stephanie caught her by the shoulders. ‘Stop!’ she said. ‘Can’t you see you’re still too weak?’ But the woman shrugged her off, her fist striking out again, this time lending Stephanie a heavy blow on the arm. She had no choice but to hold her down, piling her full weight on her, surprised that even in her weakened state the desire for freedom gave her added strength. She eventually calmed down, the fight knocked from her.
‘You’re trying to trick me,’ she said. ‘It’s all part of playing with my head.’
‘No, no tricks,’ she assured her, releasing her hold on her. ‘I’m going to get you out.’
‘Why should I believe you?’
‘Because you don’t have a choice,’ she returned flatly. She took out a bottle and a syringe from her lab-coat pocket. ‘I’m going to give you a shot of this,’ she said.
‘Like hell you are!’ snarled the woman, using the metal foot of the bed to raise herself to her feet. She put a hand to her head as the room began to spin crazily.
‘You’re still feeling the after-effects of the drugs you’ve been receiving. This will help counter them, give you a burst of energy. You’re going to need it.’
‘You think I’m going to let you shove that thing into me, after I’ve been treated like an animal all this time? You come near me with that and I’ll sink the thing deep into that black heart of yours — if you fucking had one!’ She sank like a lead weight onto the bed, her vision blurring, her head pounding. She knew she was on the verge of blacking out.
‘I’m your only chance of getting out of here,’ said Stephanie calmly. ‘We don’t have much time. I reckon we have half an hour tops before your supervisor for the night comes in. If anyone finds you free were both screwed.’
‘Why? Why are you doing this?’ she asked, pain pumping like lava through her head.
‘I can tell you later. Now, are you going to trust me?’
She nodded, held out her arm. Stephanie swabbed and injected. ‘You should start to feel its effects in a minute or two. Until then, slip this on.’ She handed her the lab-coat.
‘I’ve not seen you before,’ said the woman, doing as she was bid and threading her slim arms into the sleeves of the coat.
‘I work in a different part of the complex ordinarily. I got myself posted here, when I heard about you. When I was told about you.’
‘Came to stare at the freak?’ Her fingers fumbled over the buttons, but she felt strength beginning to seep through her body again.
Stephanie helped pin the name badge on the coat pocket. ‘Not a freak. You’re someone very special. And I don’t agree with any of this,’ she said, her hand flapping dismissively at the room. ‘It’s wrong, it’s vile, and it will end tonight. Hurry, someone is waiting for us outside.’ She could hardly disguise her nervousness.
The young woman slipped her feet into the shoes, bent to tie the laces. She was aware of her swollen midriff pressing against her upper thighs. ‘So who is waiting for us?’ the suspicion strong in her voice.