Working Stiff

caught a piece of flying shrapnel from an IED. The only scar she’d brought back from the war.

Not dead.

There was a camera in the corner of the room, and Bryn stood and faced it, head raised. She felt cold, but defiant. “McCallister,” she said. “I’m not dead. I’m not. So you can stop all this crap; I’m not buying it, all right? Just let me go. I’ll sign whatever forms you want. Nondisclosure. Whatever.”

No answer. And the camera never blinked.

She found plain but serviceable clothing in the cabinet, neatly folded—they’d included a shirt, pants, socks, even underwear in her sizes. Bryn took everything into the bathroom to change, and as soon as the stiff, new fabrics slid over her skin, she felt better. More in control, even though she knew that was an illusion.

The room was small, and it got smaller the more she paced, arms folded, stopping to glare at the camera. She didn’t speak again. There didn’t seem to be any point.

Twenty-four hours, he’d said. It was all nonsense, but still, she couldn’t help but wonder how much time had passed. Hours. Was he going to just keep her here the whole time, with not even the courtesy of a meal? Was this psychological warfare?

Well, she wasn’t worried. She could outlast some soft corporate drone, and if they wanted to do any serious psychological damage they should have left her naked, not given her perfectly fine new clothes and shoes. (The shoes were, she had to admit, actually nicer than what she’d been wearing with her suit. Although she missed the pink blouse.)

They’d taken her watch and, of course, her cell phone. Nothing to read, watch, fiddle with, or do. She methodically explored the cabinets and drawers, finding nothing that could help, and set the water dripping in a rhythm as close as she could get to one second per drop. She set the plastic cup under the tap and occupied herself marking off minutes, then five minutes, then ten, thirty, an hour.

Voilà. Instant water clock.

She was two hours into the exercise when she heard a harsh buzzing sound from the other room, and left the clock to see the door swinging inward. Rush him, some instinct said, so Bryn moved toward the exit, fast.

She skidded to a stop when Joe Fideli pointed a gun at her. He shrugged apologetically, but there was nothing but business in his blue eyes. “Sorry, Miss Davis,” he said.

“We’re back to Miss Davis, Joe?”

“Bryn. Sit down on the bed, please. No crazy stuff.”

She backed up and sat, well aware of the disadvantage at which he’d placed her. The hospital bed was high, and her feet dangled off the ground. No leverage for any sudden moves.

Bryn folded her hands and tried to seem as inoffensive as possible. He’d already mentioned how young she looked; that was an asset in a situation like this. One she hated to use, but still, she wasn’t exactly awash in options here.

Joe settled comfortably against the wall, still holding the gun steady on her. “Pat,” he said, “we’re good here.”

It bothered her how careful they were, because even then, Patrick McCallister surveyed the whole room before entering. Like Fideli, she was sure he’d had some kind of military-style training. Mercenary, if not traditional. He was way too good at checking corners.

He also secured the door, closing off her line of escape, before dragging over a chair and sitting down across from her. He did not, Bryn noted, block Fideli’s line of fire.

Close up, without the adrenaline and fear to blur her focus, she was able to spot some interesting things about Mr. McCallister. First, the suit he was wearing wasn’t just any off-the-rack thing; it was tailored, and silk, and every bit as nice as what the late Mr. Lincoln Fairview had worn to work. McCallister looked tired, as if he’d missed a night’s sleep, but he was handsomer than she remembered. She’d missed how warm his dark eyes seemed, for one thing.

“Miss Davis,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“Not like I’m dead.”

“You think I’m lying to you.”

“Obviously. You have to be.”

He shook his head slowly, and leaned back in the hard-backed aluminum chair. “Joe,” he said, “show her the video.”

There was a flat-panel TV set flush into the wall, and well out of Bryn’s reach; Fideli pulled a remote control out of his pocket and punched some buttons. Cue music and intro titles, and a logo that resolved into the words Pharmadene Pharmaceuticals. It all looked very polished and corporate. High production values.

But what followed was cold and clinical. There was a corpse lying on a morgue table, clearly and obviously dead; the skin was chilly blue, and still smoking a little from being removed from the refrigerator. The eyes were closed. It was a man, nothing special about him except that he was dead, probably from the two black-edged bullet holes in his chest.

Enter a medical team, hooking him up to monitors that read exactly nothing. No heartbeat, no respiration, nothing.

And then the injection.

It took long minutes, but then Bryn saw a convulsive shudder rip through the body, saw the ice blue eyelids quiver, saw the mouth gape open, and heard …

Heard the scream.

She knew that scream. She’d felt it rip out of her own mouth, an uncontrollable torrent of sound and agony and horror and fear. It was the lost wail of a newborn, only in an adult’s voice.

The corpse’s filmed eyes opened, blinked, and the film began to slowly fade. The skin slowly shifted colors from that unmistakable ashy tone to something less … dead.

And the bullet holes began to knit closed—but not before bright red blood trickled out and began running down the heaving, breathing chest.

The monitors kick-started into beeps. Heart rate. Oxygen saturation. Blood pressure.

Life.

He stopped screaming and looked at the doctors. His voice, when it came, sounded hoarse and dry. “Did it work?”

Nobody answered him. They were all busily noting details, murmuring instructions, taking samples.

It was like the living man, where the corpse had been, didn’t exist at all except as a clinical miracle.

Bryn felt a horrible chill inside, but she put on a brave face. “Nice special effects. Really nice—”

She would have gone on, but another video started, brutally fast.

That was her. Ash gray, lying dead in a hospital bed. Her eyes were swollen and bloodshot and blank, pupils completely blown. She’d bitten her lip, and blood had dried on her face. Her head lolled limp on the pillow. They cut away her clothing, reducing her to just another shell, another dead thing, pitiful and cold and naked, and Bryn couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything, not even demand for them to stop the video.

Fideli wasn’t watching it. He and McCallister were watching her. She was peripherally aware of that, but she couldn’t tear her horrified gaze away.

“Right, give her the full dose,” said the crisp voice of a doctor in the video. “Start the clock … now.”

It took long, torturous minutes, and then … then … Bryn’s body stirred. Gasped. Spasmed.

But there was nothing else.

“Vital reactions,” the doctor said. “Note the time in the log, please.”

A nurse spread a sheet over her naked body. They seemed to be waiting for something, and Bryn realized that the video-Bryn hadn’t opened her eyes, or taken another breath after that first, convulsive one.

The doctor glanced up at a clock on the wall. “She’s not responding. I’m going to have to call it.”

“Wait.” In the video, Joe Fideli moved out of the shadows and put his hand on her face. “Come back,” he said. “C’mon, Bryn, don’t do this. Come on back. Come back.”

He slapped her, a stinging blow, and Bryn saw her blank eyes finally blink, slowly.

And then she screamed.