Working Stiff (12 page)

She was directed to the basement, which seemed weirdly appropriate, and, of course, armed security met her at the elevator. She wasn’t given a choice where to go, but she was issued a badge with her picture on it—creepy, because she was sure she’d never posed for it.
God
, had they taken it when she was dead? No, this looked more like a hidden camera had snapped her from a distance. The badge had a red stripe at the top, and some kind of holographic image superimposed on it. Pharmadene’s logo, she guessed.

“Miss Davis,” the security man said who was escorting her. He had on a blue sports coat with the Pharmadene logo on the breast, and a badge with a green stripe. “Let me familiarize you with the rules. You’re not supposed to be here from this point forward, but I’ll go over the rules in any case. You will go only to your designated floor, and proceed straight to the person with whom you are meeting. You’re authorized for that person’s office, the common break-room areas, and the restrooms. Nowhere else. Understood?”

“What happens if I go to the wrong place?”

“Alarms go off, and we go Code Red. Not a good thing. Please mind the rules.”

Well, that was good to know. Code Red didn’t sound like much fun, at least for her. “I’ll be careful,” she promised. The elevator doors opened on the seventh floor, and the guard walked her down a plushly carpeted hall that seemed to stretch on forever, to a door with no number, just a sliding nameplate that said MCCALLISTER, P., DIR. SECURITY.

The guard knocked, waited for the okay, and ushered her in. He didn’t follow, and when Bryn looked back she saw that the door had closed behind her.

Patrick McCallister, wearing a fresh (but still beautifully tailored) suit and tie, came around the big modern desk and offered his hand. She took it, not sure why they were so formal all of a sudden, and took the square padded guest chair he indicated. “You’re looking better today,” he said, which was a backhanded compliment, at best. “Slept well?”

“Yes,” she said. She wasn’t sure if he knew she’d been at Joe Fideli’s house, and didn’t say, in case there were rules against it. “Surprisingly, I did. Maybe the nanites come with a Valium setting.”

That surprised him into a smile, a genuine one. He was entirely different in that moment, and it caught her off guard. She looked away. When she checked, he was back to his old, unsmiling, very corporate self. “Let’s get the obvious out of the way,” he said, and reached in his desk drawer.

She was expecting to see the gun he’d promised, but instead, out came the pneumatic syringe.
I’m really going to get tired of this
, she thought, but rolled up the sleeve of her sweater and took the shot without complaint.

“Now. More forms for you to sign.”

“Lovely.” Bryn picked up the pen and clipboard and began flipping through, trying to glean from the legalese what exactly was being promised. It looked like the standard sort of safety disclaimers.
Shoot anybody with the weapon we provide you and we’re not liable
. Whatever. She signed. “I would have thought being undead came with less paperwork.“

“Not in the corporate sector.”

“So am I a real Pharmadene employee now?”

“Unfortunately, you’re not only official; you’re my responsibility.” He opened his desk drawer again, took out a box, and passed it across to her. She swung open the hinged top. Nice. A Beretta 92F S, basically the same as the weapon she’d been issued in the military. He’d included two boxes of ammunition as well. “It’s registered to you personally,” he said. “No direct connection to Pharmadene, as a security measure.”

“Plausible deniability.”

“Exactly. Should you go shooting up the town on Saturday night, the company won’t be implicated.”

“Am I likely to do something like that?” Bryn asked, checking the slide on the pistol. It was smooth as silk.

“Are you asking me if the drug makes you go insane? No. Not in any of our clinical trials.”

“Well, that’s reassuring.”

“And I think we already established that it doesn’t make you crave raw meat or brains.”

“Even better.” Bryn put the gun back in the box. “Still, this is quite a statement of trust, all things considered.”

McCallister cocked his head slightly, watching her with those secretive, slightly sad dark eyes. “Not really,” he said. “Pharmadene owns you now, Bryn. They control your access to the drug, and that absolutely guarantees your loyalty and service. Doesn’t it?”

That was a harsh way to put it, and she felt a bright surge of anger inside. “Or it guarantees that I want to punish them for it,” she said.

“Not advisable to take it there.”

“Because you’ll stop me?”

“Yes,” McCallister said, and she was suddenly aware of his stillness. It wasn’t quite human, the way he could shut down like that. And the look in his eyes … She’d been in the military, and she knew a stone killer when she saw one. “That’s what they pay me to do.”

She understood that; it hadn’t been any different being a PFC in Baghdad. Whatever your personal feelings were about what you were ordered to do, you did it, unless it was illegal or immoral. And sometimes, she had to admit, you did it even then, because the gray areas were pretty broad.

“Good to know,” she said softly.

McCallister relaxed in his chair, as much as he ever relaxed. “Good to have it clear between us,” he said. “I understand you spoke to your sister on the way here.” That was another unpleasant little jolt, and Bryn let him know she didn’t like it without a word being said. McCallister gave her one of those little half smiles again, the kind that meant he didn’t really mean it. “You’re the property of Pharmadene now, Bryn. You won’t have a personal life we won’t know about. Sorry if that upsets you, but you’re now carrying top-secret information, and we can’t afford to let you just roam around without checking up on what you’re saying.”

“And what did I say?”

“Nothing specific, which is exactly what we’d like you to say. Nothing to anyone. Your family’s not close geographically, which is good; we’d like you to limit your interaction with them to phone calls for a while, and discourage any kind of visits. Having your sister get curious about this unknown out-of-the-blue uncle you’ve just acquired would be … awkward.”

“My family wasn’t planning any get-togethers until the holidays,” Bryn said coldly. “Is Big Brother going to spy on me on dates, too?”

“Probably,” McCallister said. “At the very least, your gentlemen friends will be checked out thoroughly. Or lady friends, if your tastes run that way.” He lifted an eyebrow, as if mildly curious.

“I thought you’d probably already know that, since you know so much about me.”

He shrugged. “I try not to pry except where strictly necessary.”

Which was so ridiculous that she wanted to hit him with a blunt object, preferably a bullet. “Didn’t you have something to show me? Or was this just an opportunity to humiliate and frighten me again?”

“And give you a loaded weapon.”

“That, too.”

McCallister stood up and came around the desk, passed Bryn, and opened the office door. “This way,” he said, and left. She scrambled up and after him, because he wasn’t waiting on her. “Well, that’s rude,” she muttered, and hurried down the hall to catch up. “You know, if I go somewhere I’m not supposed to, this badge thing goes off.”

“I know. I designed the system. If you’re in close proximity to me or someone else with a green badge, you’ll register as being escorted. Of course, until you try to open a door.
Then
you’ll set off a Code Red.”

“And what exactly happens during a Code Red?”

“You get thrown to the ground, handcuffed, and Tasered. If you’re lucky.” He sent her a half-amused glance. “Oh, and don’t think that you can randomly shadow someone with a green badge, either. We’re all well trained to challenge intruders and hold them for security. You wouldn’t get far.”

They rounded a corner—and this hall looked pretty much exactly like the last one, Bryn thought. Pharmadene wasn’t big on decorating. Now that she thought about it, McCallister’s office had been one big pile of modern nothing, too. No photos, plants, desk toys, the usual stuff people gathered around them. Not even a nonstandard paper clip tray. Of course, that could have just been him; he didn’t seem like a cube-toy-and-kitty-poster type of person.

But as she glanced into a couple of nearby open offices, Bryn thought it might have also been corporate policy, because she’d never seen such personality-free workspaces. Everything matched, everything alike, everything company owned.

Like her.

“In here,” McCallister said, and swiped his card to open up a closed door. No nameplate, she noticed, but didn’t have time to ask what they were doing here. He ushered her in with a light touch at the small of her back, not quite a push. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered and came on automatically, revealing … an unoccupied office. Completely bare, except for the same stripped-down glass-and-chrome desk McCallister had, only this one was without accessories, a computer, or anything else except a desk chair in a plastic dust jacket.

In the desk chair sat Joe Fideli, who reached into his pocket and took out a small device. It looked like a black plastic pyramid. He pushed the top of it, and it glowed red in slow, hypnotic pulses.

“What—” Bryn started to ask, but McCallister put his finger to his lips. She subsided, waiting, until Fideli checked something on his smartphone, then nodded.

“We’re good,” he said. “Just keep your voices down. I can’t do much about the soundproofing in here.”

“What the hell is going on?” Bryn asked.

“I wanted to tell you something,” McCallister said. “Something that shouldn’t be on Pharmadene’s public record.”

“So talk to me after hours.”
If you ever stop working
, she thought. She couldn’t imagine McCallister without his suit and tie. He wasn’t an off-duty kind of guy.

He and Fideli both shook their heads. “Doesn’t work that way, sweetheart,” Fideli said. “You already know you’re being followed. Thing is, we’re
all
being followed, monitored, tracked, you name it. You work for Pharmadene. You’re their property, twenty-four-seven. Having any kind of private conversation is a real effort.” Fideli looked at the red glowing device, which was pulsing just a bit faster now. “Enough chitchat. We’ve got about two minutes before I have to shut it down. Talk fast.”

McCallister turned to Bryn and said, “When you get the name of the person selling the drug to Fairview, I want you to tell Joe that you need to see your sister Sharon.”

Sharon
. That sent a shock through her, and made her take a step back. “What do you know about Sharon?” Sharon had walked out of the house at nineteen and never been seen again. She might have run away. She might have … not. Privately, Bryn had always thought that something terrible had happened, something they might never fully understand, but the rest of her family carried on talking about Sharon as if she were still alive, still just absent.

“Nothing,” McCallister said. “It’s a signal to let him know we need to meet off book and exchange information. This is for your own safety, Bryn.”

She blinked and looked at Fideli. Him, she felt she could trust. “Joe?”

“He’s playing straight with you. Listen to him.”

“Why can’t I just do what you told me to do? Find the seller and turn him in?”

“Because,” McCallister said, “once you do, your usefulness to Pharmadene is over, and they’re not going to waste one more dose of Re turné on closed business. Understand? Succeed, and you’re dead.”

Her mouth opened and closed, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. The look on his face, anxious and earnest, convinced her that he meant what he said. Her life— whatever it was—hung by a very slender thread, and Pharmadene’s faceless bureaucrats and accountants held the scissors.

“I’m an investment,” she said. “Once I no longer pay off …”

“Exactly. They’ll let an investment mature, but a useless tool … gets discarded. Play for time. Give me a chance to find a way to keep you alive after that objective is achieved.”

Fideli held up a finger, watching the now rapidly strobing pyramid. “Thirty seconds, man.”

McCallister glanced at him, then focused back on Bryn. “Please,” he said. “Do what I’m telling you. And be careful.”

“Why do you care?” she asked, mystified.

He hesitated, then shook his head. “I don’t think you’d understand even if I told you.” His cell phone buzzed for attention, and he pulled it out and checked the screen. “I’m due for a meeting in fifteen. We need to wrap this up.”

The little flashing-red device was really working now, clearly warning them failure was approaching. Bryn quickly looked at Fideli. “One more thing: did you find Fast Freddy?”

“Not yet. But I will, no doubt about it.” He glanced down. “Time.” He tapped the top of the pyramid, and it went back to a lifeless black plastic object. He waved silently at the two of them, shooing them to leave. McCallister nodded, opened the door, and ushered Bryn back out into the hallway. As they left the empty office behind, it was like the whole thing had never even happened.

“You have a full understanding of your position with us, Bryn?” McCallister asked, back to the poised, confident corporate exec. She had no choice but to nod. “Excellent. If you have any questions, my number’s programmed into your cell phone, as is Joe’s. If we need to meet, you can call me and ask me out on a date.”

“
Excuse
me?”

“Was that unclear? Ask me to coffee. Or dinner. Whatever seems convenient. Simply to ensure you’re maintaining your cover in the field.”

“You are unbelievable.”

There went that tiny little smile again, tight and controlled, meaning nothing. “I do date, Bryn. Occasionally.”

She bet he did it on a schedule.
1900 to 2100 hours, dinner. 2100 to 2115, drive the girl home. 2115 to 2130, sex. 2135, shower, kiss good-bye. 2140, drive home.