Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

RILEY GOT TO her feet as she saw Dr. Greyson barreling toward her, running fast.

"Dr. Stine, go!" he shrieked.

She looked up to see that Bub was coming around the bend, running even faster, gaining on Dr. Greyson. She paused for too long, trying to make sense of what was happening.

"Run!" he cried.

And then she did. She took off running down the dirt path toward the cabins, and she didn't even look back, not until she was in sight of the angular buildings.

When she did, she saw Dr. Greyson, just on her heels, but she didn't see Bub.

"Run! Don't look back at me!" Dr. Greyson screamed at her.

"He's gone," she said, coming to a halt, panting, looking around.

Dr. Greyson stopped too, looking behind him. He scanned the area. No Bub in sight. He caught up to her, hand on her back again. He was panting. "He slashed his neck! He killed Nick. Bub killed Nick."

"Oh, God!" she said, horrified.

"I know," said Dr. Greyson, pulling her along with him. Still panting, he tugged her down the path and then up the steps of one of the cabins.

At the door, he swore liberally under his breath, and then put his palm against the keycard sensor. "Override, code red," he said. "Authorization, lagoon."

The door opened.

Dr. Greyson pulled her inside.

He shut the door behind them.

She gasped for breath. "Is this your cabin?"

"Yeah," said Dr. Greyson, crashing through the place to the kitchen, where he grabbed two coffee mugs and filled them with water from the tap. "Shit, shit, shit. All ruined, everything ruined. It's all gone. I can't believe it. And Nick, for fuck's sake, Nick."

"He was going home to his daughter," she breathed.

"Right?" Dr. Greyson turned around, holding out the mugs. He staggered across the room and handed one to her. "They'll kill him. They'll shoot him down like a rabid dog."

"You mean Bub."

"Gone," said Dr. Greyson, shaking his head. "Years of research, gone."

"W-well, they can't kill him," said Riley. She gulped at the water. "No, he's the only one of his species. You can't wipe out an entire species—"

"He killed a person," said Dr. Greyson. "Security will have done it before we can say anything."

"No," she said. "No, who's in charge here, you or them?"

"What kind of monster do I look like if I'm telling them not to kill Bub?" said Dr. Greyson.

"You said there's a tank," she said, fierce. "Tranq him again and get him there. That's the job of security."

Dr. Greyson rubbed his forehead. "You'll agree with me on that?"

"Of course," she said.

He drank down the whole mug of water. "All right. Let's go to the lieutenant."

She grimaced. Great, one of her new favorite people. Gary Harris.

LIEUTENANT HARRIS WAS flanked by Nathan Robinson and another guard who was introduced as Roger Lee. He was skinny, with a straggly mustache. He seemed to have a perpetual smirk on his face.

Harris leveled a finger at Dr. Greyson. They were standing in front of a larger angular building, which was apparently a dining hall and gathering area. They called it the mess hall, like in the military. "You don't tell me what to do. You're not the boss down here, not of me and my men."

"I think I am," said Dr. Greyson. "I think that this is my project, actually, and I think that you're all here to facilitate the work I'm trying to do—"

"And if this thing out here is just a monster, I doubt Anderson Scott wants to bother with it anymore."

"You can't kill him!" spoke up Riley. "He's the last of his kind. You kill Bub and it's an extinction event ."

Harris turned to look at her, giving her an indulgent smile. "It's real cute you been here less than half a day and you named it, sweetheart."

"She didn't—" Dr. Greyson sighed heavily. "Look, if you won't go out there and bring him in to the tank, then what are we supposed to do?"

Harris shrugged. "I don't know." He grinned at Riley. "I wasn't saying we kill it necessarily, sweetheart. I don't want to send my guys out there after that thing if it's a danger to us. I didn't sign up for a suicide mission. Let's just get the fuck out of here. Call the chopper back. I'm going to talk to Nancy."

Dr. Greyson groaned. "We don't need to get Anderson Scott into this until we have everything resolved—"

"Dead body, Greyson?" said Harris. "I think we need to talk to Daddy." He pushed past both Greyson and Riley and started across the dirt road.

Roger Lee waggled his eyebrows at Riley. "Damn, girl, you look like trash. Want me to take you out?"

She blinked at him. What?

He chortled, clutching his stomach, blew her a kiss and went after the lieutenant.

"I've got to call Nick's wife," said Dr. Greyson, shaking his head.

"Who's Nancy?" said Riley.

"Oh, Nancy's a fucking bitch," said Dr. Greyson. "She's the liaison with Harmonia, making sure everything out here can be kept from tanking the company or whatever. She also replies-all to emails all the time. With one word answers. So your inbox is full of this chain of, ‘Thanks!' and ‘Will do!' and ‘Got it!' To everyone in the email chain. Constantly."

Riley waited, because this could not be the sole reason that Dr. Greyson called a woman a "bitch," could it? Was he that sort of person?

He didn't say anything else, just fumed.

"That's annoying," said Riley.

"Everything about her is annoying," said Dr. Greyson.

"Okay," said Riley, furrowing her brow.

Dr. Greyson dragged a hand over his face. "This can't be happening."

ANGELA RAMIREZ HAD been assigned to check the perimeter out here by the river, which she knew was a bullshit assignment given just to get rid of her. She was long past caring whether or not Harris thought she was competent or whether he gave her busy work just to get her out of the rest of the teams' hair so that they could make off-color, sexist jokes in peace.

She just did what was asked of her and kept her mouth shut.

She was sent out here at least once a week, to walk up and down through the forest, looking out at the river, and she didn't even really know what it was she was supposed to be looking for.

He called it "patrol" as if they were waiting for some enemy army to come in and attack them at any moments.

Fuck Harris, though.

Today, someone was out here.

"Angela!" It was Nancy Manes. She waved, smiling a big smile that seemed fake.

"Nancy, you're out in the woods," said Angela, moving closer to the woman. That wasn't like Nancy. Angela could count on one hand the number of times that she'd seen Nancy outside for longer than two minutes.

Nancy hated this job.

Nancy seemed to hate everything, though, and everyone. If she didn't hate, she was dismissive and out of touch.

Once, Angela had been on the phone with her mother about health insurance. Angela had a great insurance package through this job, not that it mattered, because it was all supplied. Anyone got sick, the helicopter came in and got them and took them out to get treatment and it was always entirely covered by Anderson Scott. Anyway, she didn't have any real way to help her mother, who'd just been given a bill from a recent hospital stay.

It was five figures, and this was after her mother's insurance had kicked in.

Right now, her mother was calling Angela because she was experiencing symptoms again, and the doctor's office was closed, and they'd told her to go to the emergency room.

"I'm not going, Angie," her mother had said. "I can't go further into debt like this. I don't have the money for it. So, I might die, and I just wanted to say goodbye."

Angela had money. This job paid well. She told her mother that she'd cover the hospital bill, even though her mother had argued that she could probably call and get the bill slashed if she'd offer to pay something.

"Don't you do anything, Angie," her mother said. "My mind is made up."

Nancy had overheard all of this and said that Angela's mother was being selfish. "You can't put money above your health," she said. "You get well and you worry about the money later."

Sure, Nancy, it's that easy, Angela thought.

Now, Nancy fought her way through the foliage, still smiling that too-wide smile. "Did you go and get the new scientist lady today? What's she like? I started thinking, you know, that it's not fair that it's her first day, and they're going to let her go up and see the, um, the lizardthing. I've been here years and I've never seen it. Have you seen it?"

"No," said Angela. "But Greyson has always said that we need to be sure to limit the exposure that whatever-that-thing-is has with humans because otherwise, it could get frightened or whatever. It's important to keep the interaction down to the scientists."

"I guess," said Nancy in a disparaging voice.

"I think Greyson knows what he's talking about," said Angela.

"Maybe." Nancy shrugged.

"Well, she's a scientist," said Angela. "She seemed nice. I liked her. And it's good to have a few women out here." Currently, it was only her and Nancy.

"I know she's a scientist."

"I just mean, that's why she's seeing the creature," said Angela.

"I want to see it," said Nancy.

"That's what you're doing out here, then?"

"You going to stop me?" Nancy gave her a petulant look. "Let's go together." She nodded up the hill in the direction of the lagoon. "I think it's up there. Aren't you curious?"

Angela was curious, but she also didn't really want to spend any time with Nancy. "I'm not going up there. We're not supposed to."

"We're not supposed to," mimicked Nancy. "Seriously?"

"Well, it's all fine and good for you. You answer to Anderson Scott," said Angela.

"True," said Nancy with a little shrug. "All right, well I'm going up there. But if you tell Greyson where I am, I'll get you fired."

Angela's lips parted. "You didn't just say that."

"You could come with me," said Nancy, fighting her way past Angela and up the hill towards the lagoon.

"Have fun on your own," said Angela. She pointedly went back into the woods, heading back for the cabins. It was early for her patrol to be over, but she didn't care about that either. She'd just tell Harris that she'd checked everything over.

As for ratting Nancy out, it was a satisfying thought but probably not worth it. She didn't want to get fired, after all. The job paid well, despite all its drawbacks and oddities.

She emerged out of the woods to see that everyone was gathered outside Nancy's cabin. The guards, both Dr. Greyson and the new scientist Dr. Stine… well, Dr. White was missing.

"Hey!" called Lieutenant Harris. "Ramirez, there you are. Where you been?"

"On patrol, as ordered, sir," she said, and she had to fight to keep the annoyance out of her voice. Didn't he remember?

"Right, right," said Harris. "You, uh, you seen Nancy?"

"No," said Angela without an ounce of hesitation. "Is something going on? Why are we all crowded around here?"

"There's been a casualty," said Harris. "Dr. White's dead."

Angela went stiff. What?