Working Stiff

corporate bullshit she’d seen before.

“As long as Pharmadene controls how this gets out, we have a chance to make this change rational. To dispense revival to the people who can make a difference. And that’s what we’re going to do. Choose who lives on, and ensure their loyalty.”

God. Harte made an eerie kind of sense, from a megalomaniac’s point of view. If one power—say, Pharmadene—controlled the release of the drug, they could pick and choose the movers and shakers in all areas: politicians, bankers, technologists, the capitalist and political royalty of the entire world. They could manipulate markets, topple—or simply puppet—governments, rig the entire game of life and death in their favor.

And she was right about something else: if Returné got out uncontrolled into the world, it would cause chaos— every grieving parent screaming for his or her children to come back, every husband, father, wife, sister, daughter. Politicians would tilt revivals in their political favor. Armies would become indestructible.

It was a vision of a future in which everybody died, and everyone lived, and nobody really survived. No matter how it played out.

“Pharmadene can still control all this,” Harte said. Her voice had gone soft now, and very sure. “We will control it. First in our own house; then we broaden our goals to include political and financial leaders immediately after. We’re starting with our top ranks today. We’ll work our way down through the corporate structure and have everyone on board in the next few days.”

The man across the hall had finally stopped screaming, but he was weeping, a desolate and lonely sound. Irene Harte moved to shut off the intercom.

“I’m not dying in here,” Bryn said. Harte hesitated, smiled, and shook her head as she flipped the switch. Bryn hit the glass. “Hey! I’m not dying in here! I’m going to stop you!”

Harte turned to watch as the newly reborn vice president was led away, and another executive-level victim arrived to take his place.

For two days, the room across the hall saw a steady parade of people, and it was always the same—the indignation, the don’t you know who I am, the fear, the terror, the death, the scream. Bryn stopped watching. Stopped listening, except to note the scream and keep count of how many had been … processed. It went on twenty-four-seven, and after a while she fell asleep. It felt obscene to sleep while people were dying, but all the self-loathing in the world couldn’t keep her awake.

She got thirsty first, then hungry.

No one came. She received nothing at all.

On the morning of the second day, she noticed that her skin was starting to get dry. It might have been the lack of humidity in the room, but she didn’t think so. The nanites couldn’t manufacture water or energy for her muscles; dehydration would render her helpless first.

But what scared her much, much more than the dryness and her cracked lips and parched mouth were the ominous dark bruises that formed under her skin. She woke up from a restless nap on the afternoon of the second day and noticed discoloration on the side of her palm, where it had been resting against the floor. She rubbed at it, and it gradually faded; when she unsnapped the coverall and checked the hip she’d been lying on, it, too, had a bruise.

Lividity.

“No.” She massaged the bruise away with trembling fingers. “No, no, this isn’t going to happen. It’s not.” He promised.

She couldn’t count on him anymore. McCallister was on the run, a fugitive at best. She was inside Pharmadene, in a fortress, and they were killing everyone here, systematically. McCallister would be an insane fool to set foot in this place ever again. He had to cut his losses and run, get help from the government or the military or the FBI or the fucking SEC. Anyone, to shut this down before it was too late.

Harte’s plan was moving along nicely; someone had posted an org chart printout on the wall that Bryn could just barely make out, and it looked like they’d gotten through the executive ranks. Now there were two rooms in use, one just visible at an acute angle down the hall—two that Bryn could see, constantly processing live people in, revived people out. She couldn’t afford to care, not even when one of the women—only a little older than Bryn, pretty—broke free and ran screaming and ended up banging uselessly on Bryn’s glass, staring into Bryn’s face. In her struggles, she hit the intercom, and for a deadly thirty seconds Bryn had to listen to the woman plead for help, for mercy, for her children.

Then, pathetically, scream for her mom, like a terrified child.

After that, Bryn didn’t stand at the window anymore. She huddled in the corner, back to the view, head down.

Waiting.

By day three—as best she could count it—her muscles were starting to shake, and her skin wasn’t dry any longer. It was moist, but not in a healthy way. And it hurt. Her nerves caught fire and burned, a low boil at first but growing worse with every breath, every minute.

She had two more days of this, maybe three. Maybe even four.

I am not dying here, she told herself. I’m not.

But she was, with every second, dying a little bit more.

And the expected interrogation didn’t come.

Bryn lost count. It wasn’t sleep so much as unconsciousness that took her the next time; she woke up with livid red marks on her blotched skin where her weight had rested, and the torment of her nerves was like a blowtorch being applied all over her body, without respite or mercy. She couldn’t stop crying.

Walking was better than sitting. She was starting to lose the ability to do it smoothly; it was more of a stumble now, and she trailed her violently shaking fingers over the wall to keep herself upright as she moved around the room, around the room, around the room. People dying and screaming and dying and screaming and she was going insane, she knew she was, and oh, God, it hurt. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Patrick had promised. Promised.

She was halfway through her tenth methodical circuit of the room when something … changed. A shift in the room’s pressure, a breeze. Fresh, cool air moving against her skin, stirring her hair.

She sighed and wavered on her feet, then clumsily turned to look.

The door was open, and three masked medical personnel stood there. Maybe Harte was going to show a little mercy. Maybe she was going to end this, after all. Better being cut apart like a chicken than another three or four days of this, and worse.

Bryn tried to walk to them, but her legs gave out, and she fell. Two guards stepped around the medicos and stoically picked her up, dragging her out of the room and down a pristine white hallway. Bryn’s head sagged backward. She watched the lights flicker overhead without any real idea about what was happening, until she was lowered into a chair, her damp, filthy jumpsuit stripped off and replaced with a clean one, and a gowned, masked, and gloved woman gave her a shot.

The needle didn’t feel like a little stick; it felt like impalement on a red-hot iron, and Bryn screamed and cried and tried to pull away. They held her in place. Another shot followed. Then another.

The woman sighed and stripped her mask down. “That’ll do it,” she said. “It’ll take time for her to come back, though. I’m not sure she’s really rational at this point. You’ll have to wait for her cognition to return.”

Bryn hadn’t seen her come in, but there was another woman in the room now, without the mask or gown. She was wearing a suit. Her name was … was …

Harte.

“Keep her strapped in, just in case,” Irene Harte said. “I’m going to go check progress on the org charts. I’ll be back to question her in an hour. Be sure not to give her too much; there’s no need to drag this out for another entire week. I need a few hours of lucid interrogation, and then you can put her back in the room until she’s finished.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The woman nodded. She was a pretty lady, with shiny black hair bobbed around her jawline and a mobile, kind face.

And she was familiar. Bryn studied her, blinking, trying to force her sluggish brain back to action. The woman started fastening big Velcro restraint straps around her arms and legs, watching Irene