He smiled at the mirror as he brushed his teeth. Spit, rinse, and a splash to the face. The burst of icy water cleared the fogginess a little. Tamas ran impatient fingers through his short dark hair, slapped on deodorant, and left his room, stepping out into the brightness of the glass corridor that linked his private quarters to the access elevator. It had one of the best views in the Facility, floor-to-ceiling glass panels that afforded a view uninterrupted even by the security fencing ringing the complex. Tamas’s room looked out across the desert, towards the low-level mountain range that curved around the backside of the Facility. Everything was dusty pink. Even the deep olive tone of his skin had dustings of the sun’s blush upon it. He pressed the call button on the elevator and crouched on his haunches, back pressed hard against the white marble wall. No expense spared. His mother’s taste had bordered on outlandish, and the income brought in by the Facility’s sought-after tech, predominantly Blake’s designs, had only fed her appetite.
Despite having just woken, Tamas’s body weighed him down. He wanted to rest. For a very, very long time. His blurred reflection regarded him in the glass panel work of the elevator doors: the dark mop of his hair, the smudge of stubble on his chin and cheeks. Movement at the far end of the hallway caught his attention. Someone stepped into his space. Granted, it was a lot of space. The length of the hallway stood between him and the man; at least a dozen paces separated them. But the way Tamas’s heart rate quickened and skin warmed with a blush, the man might as well have been holding a knife to his throat. Catching sight of Tamas, he raised a hand, a smile lifting his lips, adding further wrinkles to an already well-burdened face.
‘Oh, hey there, young man. I’ve gotten myself a little lost. There should be a conference room round here somewhere, I believe.’
Tamas’s mouth was parched as dry as the desert surrounding the Facility, and the dampness of sweat oozed beneath his armpits. Whoever this fool was, he was not only lost, he was oblivious too, with no clue to whom he spoke.
His boss.
One who didn’t like strangers. Didn’t like the way coming across an unknown person rendered him a speechless, trembling mess. Tamas pushed so hard against the wall his vertebrae felt fit to crack under the pressure. His breath escaped him in quick, sharp puffs. The man waited on a reply, went so far as to take a step down the hall towards Tamas.
‘Are you okay?’ he said, pulling a cleaning cart into the corridor behind him. Brooms and mops and other paraphernalia jutted out of it, like oversized porcupine quills. Just a cleaner. The guy was amongst the lowest paid of any on the Facility grounds, yet here Tamas was, huddling like a frightened child, willing the damn elevator to open and swallow him whole. Tamas forced a slow breath, digging his fingers into the woodwork beneath him.
‘Go . . .’ Only one croaky syllable escaped him.
But a reprieve came from elsewhere. A woman suddenly appeared behind the man, and her eyes widened at the sight of Tamas. She grabbed the man, the material of his sleeve bunching in her fist, and hauled him back into the corridor they’d stepped from.
‘My apologies, Mr Cressly. Samson is new.’ She stumbled over her own words, and over Samson, as she backpedalled them out of sight. Tamas caught the woman’s words as the pair hurried down the echoing walkway.
‘Idiot. That’s the boss. What the hell were you thinking?’
‘That boy? He doesn’t look old enough to –’
‘He’s old enough to sign your paychecks, and he doesn’t like to be disturbed. Ever. Don’t you ever . . .’
What the cleaner should never do was lost to Tamas as the couple moved out of earshot, leaving only tinnitus to disturb his peace. The elevator door eased open. Wiping sweaty palms against his jeans, Tamas jerked to his feet and stepped inside. By the time he reached level eleven, the anxiety attack was an embarrassing memory, added to the pile of embarrassing memories stored up over the years. It would not always be this way. Serve the goddess well and great things would come his way. He would be the one who caused people to tremble and stammer. Not the other way around.
Tamas stepped out of the reassuringly small confines of the elevator and into the corridor. The land the Facility was built on, and into, had once been a salt mine. After that, it had been a government facility, a testing base for secret initiatives, both airborne and biological, before being closed down. A few years later Tamas’s mum had decided the abandoned complex was where they would wait. Prescience, a gift from the goddess that so far Tamas had not been privy to, led his mother from their homeland of Iraq to here, the United States, a few years after Tamas had been born. Not to this particular place, in the middle of the desert, but she was too ambitious, too restless not to do something while they waited on the goddess’s next divine instruction. A human could waste a lifetime waiting on a deity who operated on an entirely different timescale. Tamas’s grandfather had, apparently. The man had been something of a monster to his mother as year after year passed and he did not receive a Calling. Probably explained why she was so good at being a bitch herself. Years of training. But she had been a damn good robotics engineer and had decided to continue a career begun in Iraq. She’d purchased the ruined complex and turned it into a formidable robotics and engineering facility, giving Tamas next to no choice on his own career path. He pressed his fingers against his temples, seeking to ease the tightness building
