Ann Marie's Asylum (Master and Apprentice Book 1) (2 page)

All the work was being performed by robots. Mechanical and pneumatic arms spun around the rooms like hands around a craps table. The rooms themselves seemed entirely alive but there appeared to be no human beings anywhere.

The green arrow pointed to one of the rooms. The lights were even off inside. Ann Marie noticed the sign on the door:
Dr. Ann Marie Bandini, Ph.D. Biological Nanotechnology
.

When she walked inside, she detected that perfectly sterile smell of a cleanroom that she had grown to love over her years in graduate school. She had also gotten used to sharing a second-rate academic lab with six other graduate students. The prospect of having her very own nearly made her jump up and down. Ann Marie looked at the lab the way newlyweds look at the empty living room of their first new house.

In the corner, she had her very own nuclear magnetic resonance machine. It was still bubble-wrapped and ready for its first measurement. Before this job, she had grown accustomed to sharing a secondhand model, which had been donated to the university after ten years of service. Everything in her new space was state-of-the-art. Someone had gone out of their way to make sure Ann Marie had more than she needed to start her career.

She heard someone say, “Welcome to the Asylum,” and realized there was a man at the door. A friendly looking Asian man in his seventies or perhaps eighties with a big smile walked in and offered her his hand. He had fancy-looking gold glasses with thick lenses. His pristine white lab coat had a tag that read:
Dr. Lin Hoo
.

She immediately recognized the name from her chemistry courses. “You’re Doctor Lin Hoo, the inventor of the Hoo Reaction. I studied your work as an undergraduate. There is a whole chapter on your method in my organic synthesis book.”

The old man smiled wider and laughed. “Oh yes,” he said, “that was me in my previous life.”

“What do you mean by previous life?”

“Before I met Dr. Harkenrider.”

His answer seemed odd to Ann Marie. “To tell you the truth,” she told him, “I was under the impression you were dead.” She carefully added, “And I don’t think I’m the only one.”

Lin Hoo slowly nodded as though she had just reminded him of something unfortunate. “You are certainly not the only one,” he said. “It seems that my work has become so secret that I have effectively disappeared from planet Earth.”

“You know,” Ann Marie said as though starting a delicate topic, “you are the first person I’ve met in here. Well, I guess second. I met the Sheriff this morning too. I guess I just expected to see more scientists, more engineers, more crew, you know, more people.”

“Dr. Harkenrider likes to keep the number in here as small as possible. Skeleton crew. I was surprised when I heard we were hiring a new scientist and not building another robot. I don’t see him often but Dr. Harkenrider found me and told me personally that you were coming.”

“That’s nice to hear.”

“Your work is so impressive, especially for someone so young.”

Even though she had been praised in exactly that way countless times, Ann Marie did her best to take the compliment graciously. “Thank you very much,” she said. “Your work definitely inspired me.”

“It can get a little quiet in this place,” Hoo said. “Sometimes even a little spooky. If you get bored or you need anything, my laboratory is just one floor above you.” He started to walk away.

“Great,” said Ann Marie. “Thanks.” She stopped him, saying, “Wait a second. Just one more thing. I haven’t met the boss, Dr. Harkenrider, yet. I figured he would introduce himself to me at some point today.”

Lin Hoo started laughing. “Oh no no,” he said. “I doubt you’ll be seeing very much of him. He keeps to himself in his lab upstairs. If he needs something, he will send someone.”

“That’s kind of weird.”

Dr. Hoo started to laugh with even greater intensity. “Weird,” he said as though the word itself was a joke. He started down the hall again.

For the rest of the day, Ann Marie was all alone with her music and headphones. She toured most of the building’s floors while electronic bass and synthesizers pumped into her ears. She didn’t run into a single other person. However, the laboratory was not devoid of activity. Behind almost every door, factory robots assembled the surveillance and attack drones that kept the Asylum Corporation in business. Sparks flew as automated welding arms did the work that would have belonged to dozens of men.

At exactly five o’clock, Ann Marie grabbed her bag and left the lab for the day. On her way out of the building, the place seemed even emptier than it had that morning. The pristine, well-lit hallways echoed nothing but machine hums and the throbbing from the various industrial pumps. It struck her how safe she felt without any human voices around.

When she got outside, the chrome beehive edifice of the building looked fiery red in the afternoon sun. She admired her strange new workplace, a far different lab than the squat, dull grey university buildings or industrial warehouses she had seen in her short but auspicious scientific career. The Asylum building looked like the work of a mad entomologist that had won six lotteries.

Her mom had promised her the night before that she would be there on time with the rental car. The idea of being stranded after her first day, standing in front of the building like a hitchhiker, reminded her too much of growing up. She had pleaded with her mom to, just this once, view time the way most other people on Earth did. Lori Bandini had agreed to arrive at four-forty-five just to ensure that her daughter’s departure would go smoothly.

It was five-fifteen and there was no sight of the rental car in the nearly empty parking lot. Ann Marie set her bag down and dialed the phone.

“I’m on my way, baby girl,” her mom answered in the middle of the first ring. “I’m still on time, right?”

“Yeah, you’re OK. I’ll be out front.”

“I can’t believe how beautiful it is here,” said Lori Bandini with the sound of rushing air in the connection. “We have hit it big. My little genius. My baby.” She sounded so proud. “This place really beats the hell out of Philly.”

“The road up here is really dangerous, mom. You shouldn’t be driving on the phone. We should really hang up.”

When the rental car finally made it to the top of the hill and pulled into the parking lot, Ann Marie experienced an odd sensation. It was as though someone was standing right behind her but checking revealed only empty space. Some impulse told her to look up toward the top of the Asylum building, to the peak of the beehive. Holding back some of the glare with her palm, she thought she saw someone on the top balcony. She saw two dark spots waving in the sun before realizing they were actually the lenses of sunglasses. Two hidden eyes stared down at her. She wondered if it was Dr. Dade Harkenrider.

“That is one weird ass building!” shouted Lori Bandini through the car window to her daughter. “Honey, are you working for extra terrestrials?”

As Ann Marie walked to the car, she looked up to find whoever it was gone.

When she got inside, her mom told her, “I can’t believe my daughter works in paradise.” As they drove away, Lori Bandini went on about how extravagant and beautiful the houses were in the beachfront community of Palos Verdes. “I have a feeling you’re going to work your way up in no time. Pretty soon, we’ll be living at the beach. You know, you make more in one month than I made in a year at my last job. I always knew you being a little genius would pay off for us.” She lit a cigarette and rolled down the window an extra inch when she remembered how the smell irritated Ann Marie.

“The place is weird,” said Ann Marie, looking out the window, over the guardrail, at the wake of a pleasure boat in the Pacific.

“I’m such a bad mom,” said Lori. “I forgot to ask you about your first day.”

“It’s fine.”

“Don’t play that game with me.”

“It’s wonderful, I guess,” said Ann Marie. “For a frightening hellscape. It’s like being inside some kind of cold machine. I think I’m one of four, maybe five people in that entire building. I guess the two I met seemed nice. But weird. The security guard was straight out of the old west and I met a famous scientist that I thought died. Those are my new coworkers.”

“What about the boss?” Asked her mom. “That’s important. If the boss is an asshole, you’re screwed. I remember working for this prick manager named Brian at MacAvoys. Made my life miserable.”

“Didn’t meet him today.”

“Probably a good sign.”

“I can’t believe I have to go there everyday. I never wanted to work on weapons. I never wanted anything to do with weapons.”

“You must be kidding me, girl,” her mom gently chided. “An opportunity like this. To make a pile of dough at your age, to be able to take care of the both of us, it’s incredible. You should realize the gift you’ve been given and stop being such a self-centered brat.” Then Lori smiled and grabbed her daughter’s leg. “Working is our lot. I’m sorry I never got around to setting up that trust fund.”

Chapter 2

Dr. Death

Ann Marie’s first two weeks on the job consisted mostly of surfing the internet and wandering the hallways. The only duty her new job brought was what seemed like endless online security training. The only person she ever ran into was Dr. Hoo, a man who talked to himself nearly all the time and made no effort to hide it. A few times, Ann Marie heard him down the hall, asking himself questions about quantum tunneling and the Jahn-Teller effect. It seemed as though working so long by himself was beginning to take a toll on the man.

The boredom was beginning to get to her too. She found that time was moving slower every day that she did nothing at the strange place. All the hallways looked the same. Nothing but microprocessors and mechanical robot arms behind just about every door.

One part of the building did interest her. On the third floor, a small army of fully automated factory robots were working all the time to assemble the corporation’s suite of special attack drones. She couldn’t see much through the small window in the hallway. It looked like the robots were sticking together mechanical spiders with long metal tails.

She was too afraid to enter the hallway next to the drone factory. It was marked:
Dr. Harkenrider Only
and it was the only hallway lit with red lighting. It was also narrower than any other hallway in the building. When Ann Marie passed by, she tried to stare to the very end.

It was difficult to see anything so far away and in such dim red lighting, but she thought she saw something on a few occasions. When she would strain her eyes to see all the way down that particular hallway, it looked like there might be dogs and cats running around.

One day, she stopped by Dr. Hoo’s office to ask about it. He told her that the hallway led to the elevator that takes you to Dr. Harkenrider’s personal laboratory and the building’s top deck.

“What’s it like up there?” Ann Marie asked.

“Oh I’ve never been up there.”

“You’ve worked here for decades. How is that possible?”

“When Dr. Harkenrider needs me, he finds me. I’ve never had any need for going up there.”

...

It took another three weeks before she received the first communication of any kind from her new boss. The email read:

Dr. Bandini,

Please use those amazing technical skills to synthesize me 1 gram of the following compound (Please see included structure sketch). I will send Dr. Hoo to ensure you have the necessary supplies and equipment. Please exercise extreme caution with handling the final chemical compound. Do not allow it to make contact with your skin.

Regards,

D. Harkenrider

There was an included drawing of the molecule. What he wanted was strange but Ann Marie thought that she might know how to make it. With her brain humming along with the sound of building’s recirculated air, the necessary chemical reaction steps started to become clear to her.

The only thing she couldn’t figure out was what anyone would want with a chemical like the one that Doctor Harkenrider was asking for. She opened up her notebook and started to redraw the various carbon rings and single and double bonds in her own writing. Then she drew in the chemical functional groups like ornaments on a Christmas tree.

Whatever the boss wanted her to synthesize wasn’t any known explosive or chemical weapon she knew of. Still, the unknown nature of the chemical made her nervous. There was no
materials safety data sheet
in the world for whatever it was. No one in the world had ever observed its effect on plants, animals or humans.

Over the next few days, she performed the necessary chemical reaction steps in her lab. She kept everything safely contained under the explosion-proof fume hood in the corner. When it was time for the final step, she used one of the automated robot arms to dump one vial of liquid reactant into another. She stood on the other side of the room and actually jumped back when the two were mixed.

There was some bubbling and a little bit of cobalt blue gas hissed from the reaction vial. Ann Marie had never seen anything like it. Shimmering blue and white crystals were starting to form. She ran over and switched off the lights to the lab.

Inside the vial, it looked as though tiny lightning bugs were twinkling. Then they started to collect and eventually fuse together. When it was over, there was a pulsating blue crystal about the size of a pearl sitting at the bottom of the liquid.

...

On a Friday evening a few days later, Ann Marie was sitting at the kitchen table, putting checks into envelopes for the rent and electric bills. It was her seventeenth birthday and there was a half-eaten birthday cake in front of her. Her mom was on the phone in the living room talking to one of her old friends from the bar where she used to work back in Philly. With a gin and tonic and cigarette skillfully contained in one hand, Lori Bandini howled with laughter as she revisited an old story with a guy she called Big Mike.