Ezra fell into her recent routine, arriving at the lab early enough to take her time getting in her suit, by the time the new guy she referred to as Fly—as in a fly on the wall for all he did, all day—arrived to watch her. When he did, she was already in her inner suit, getting her glove on. He seemed jittery than normal this morning, bounding in like a child on too much sugar.

"What's up, Doc?" he may as well have shouted.

It startled Ezra and caused her hand to jerk, ripping the inner latex glove she'd been meticulously tapping around the wrist.

Great. She'd have to start that again.

"What?" She turned, finally noticing how buzzed he was.

The young boy—she doubted he was eighteen—scratched his head sheepishly. "Kind of wish I wasn't here right now. No offense, Doc."

Ezra didn't know why he still called her Doc, though she'd asked him to call her Ezra or Dr Mayur. "Why?" she asked. "Am I too boring a detail for you?" Half of her hoped that was true and she could tell him to leave, that she'd be fine on her own. At least it would give her a window of opportunity to try things out without the eyes.

The soldier shook his head, laughing. "No, it's not that, Doc. It's just Captain Gracery landed with the new recruits, and everyone is going... to see them..."

New recruits. Ezra faintly remembered that conversation from yesterday's drill.

"... I was kind of hoping you'd sleep in or something and give me a chance to go see them..."

"Oh!" Ezra nodded. Was he waiting for her to let him go? "Would you like to go?"

He hesitated. "I can't just leave you..."

His face reminded her of the one Shaki was notorious for pulling, the one that basically begged her to come along. "Would you like me to go with you?" If Captain Gracery was right, these were recruits for her lab. She may as well see the soldiers she'd be working with.

Fly's eyes went wide with excitement. "Would you?"

"May as well. I'll have to start this from scratch, anyway." Ezra ripped off the rest of the glove and turned around. "Help me out of this."

#

When Ezra followed Fly to what they called an observation deck, she had not expected the whole of the base to be there, gathered shoulder-to-shoulder, vying for a look. I may as well have stayed in the lab, she thought when faced with wide shoulders and not a lick of view of the garage below. That vast open bunker where they stored their vehicles was also their main entrance.

It was a while before the crowds thinned a little, having caught sights of the newbies and wandered off, talking amongst themselves, that she made her way to the edge of the deck to get a look herself. Why she bothered with more soldiers, she couldn't tell. It wasn't an everyday occurrence, so it must have been boredom.

As soldiers passed her, she caught snippets of comments that confused her to no end, before the view revealed itself.

"...did you see that one with the cute, round face? I'd like to get to know her if you know what I mean..."

"...they look surprised to be here..."

"...one minute they're home, next minute..."

And as she did, moved towards the edge, a sense of dread bubbled in her chest. No. No. It can't be. Please. Please don't let it be them—But her thoughts halted like a train about to hit a jumper. Screeching.

"What? No, no, no..." She gripped the railing, a wringing pain in her chest as her heart went from zero to a hundred in a second. Tehreem. She'd recognised that beautiful flowing dark waves tied high in a ponytail and that graceful walk anywhere. But the more she looked, the more her heart attempted to escape its hold. It wasn't only Tehreem standing there, rounded up like cattle she'd seen in shows, confused and terrified. Every single face she saw brought back memories of the candidates Rai had shown her on their Antarctica trip. Every single one...and then more. More familiar faces than she liked.

"No!" Her knees went weak, remembering her first day here, alone. How terrified she was, waking up among strange men in a strange place, being asked a favour she never agreed to give. "No!"

"Doc, you okay?" Fly's voice broke through her shock.

Ezra turned, unable to hide the tears pooling in her eyes. "That's, that's everyone"—she stole another look. To double-check she wasn't imagining the scene below as 'new' and obviously unwilling recruits were being processed. "That's everyone from my old lab. Everyone." Forty lives she was responsible for ruining. Forty. "Everyone! The whole of GenDesign."

"Oh." Fly watched the garage below curiously. "Didn't you know, Doc? Captain G convinced the General that if we're delayed by months on the project and are answerable to the board, then we must do everything we can to make up for the lost time. If a few new scientists can help you work faster, then why not get your entire old team? Something about how you already have rapport with them, despite Captain Rai's protests. It's why the pickup detail was changed last minute..." Fly turned to face her, oblivious to the effect his matter-of-fact statement was having on her. "Captain Rai refused to carry out the order, so Captain Gracery volunteered his team. I thought you knew."

Captain Rai protested the kidnapping of the whole of GenDesign and got replaced? What did that mean for her? Was he going to be replaced for everything? Would she have to be careful what she did in and out of the lab from now? Ezra blinked away her tears. "Captain Rai was replaced?"

Fly nodded as the observation deck emptied but for them. "Yeah, they had a huge fight over it. Cap R saying you and a few of your trusted scientists would be enough, or the disappearance of a whole Genetics lab might look suspicious, while Cap G argued, who cares? Guess the General went for who cares."

"Who cares?" Ezra had to ask. She had to.

Fly shrugged, and the next thing he said surprised her, even more than the impromptu and shocking arrival of the whole of her old lab. "Yeah. I guess whatever this project is, it's big and very important to the big guys."

What? Ezra must have stared at the boy awhile, for he asked her what and she responded with, "You don't know what Project Rescue is about?"

He shook his head. "Me and half the boys without clearance assume it's to rescue some high-level person from something?"

"That's not what this is, Fly." Ezra shook her head. "I can't believe they didn't tell you what you signed up for. You signed up for a mass genocide, on a global scale."

Fly scoffed uneasily. "What are you talking about, Doc?"

Ezra didn't know if she should tell him what she was going to, but what were they going to do, kill her? Let them. She'd destroy all her research and design work before they could get to her. Let them find another scientist. Let them get delayed. If the world was going to burn anyway, why did she care how? So, in that hushed observation deck, Ezra finally burst, itching to tell him everything that was wrong with this project.

#

For hours, Ezra wore down the carpet in that glass office that was now hers. Hours wondering where Tehreem and the team were now. Wondering how they were feeling. At least they had each other. It was more than she'd had.

As the day wore on, her feet finally tired enough for her to make her way back to her room, mumbling, "Goodnight, Fly," to the kid, who still looked shell-shocked.

It alarmed her when he grabbed her hand. "Doc."

"Yeah?"

"We're really here to kill people, not protect them?" His eyes looked tortured.

"I'm so sorry they did this to you, too. But maybe keep what I told you a secret." Ezra felt sorry for the kid and gave his hand a squeeze. "I don't know what they will do to both of us if they find out I've told you everything. Goodnight."

When she got to her room, she couldn't even enter it, not without feeling like the bunker was bearing down on her shoulders. What had she done? Complained about too much work and got her friends in danger as well?

"Dr Mayur?" the familiar voice broke her trance. "Are you okay?"

Ezra hadn't heard the soldiers approach her. "Millen. How are you?"

Millen, her old lab guy, stood before her with a sombre look. Behind him, a couple of soldiers stood, carrying something between them. In fact, even Millen has something slung over his shoulder.

"What is it?" She narrowed her eyes at the men. Had Fly blurted out everything? Or was he a plant from Captain Gracery to see what she was up to, and now these men from security—for Millen was now head of security for this wing—were here to drag her to a cell and interrogate her?

Millen jutted his chin towards her door. "You'll be getting a bunk mate. Captain's orders. You've heard about the newcomers by now, I'm sure."

Which Captain? She was tempted to ask. "Not enough room to cram forty new bodies elsewhere?" she asked instead, hoping to sound normal. It probably didn't look good that she'd been staring at the foot of her door for who knew how long.

"No, ma'am. Since this is the lab wing, the orders are to house all scientists within walking distance. For efficiency." A faint smile tugged at Millen's serious soldier facade. He pointed at her door. "May we?"

Ezra nodded, and the men behind him quickly stepped up to her door carrying an extra cot. "Do you know who it will be? My new roommate?"

"Captain Rai is finalising the housing as we speak, since the lab is under his purview. Why don't you go grab some grub, Ezra? We'll be done here by the time you get back."

She obliged, dragging herself to the canteen abuzz with talking. She got herself a tray of food she wouldn't touch and sat down. After what felt like hours, she found her way to her room, hoping the roommate was someone she was semi-close to and not some poor newbie graduate they'd recently taken on. She had no energy to soothe a frantic soul.

When she got to her room, someone screamed and flung themself onto Ezra so fast she hadn't any time to react.

"Oh my god, thank god you're alive! Dad would be so relieved to know you're okay."

The words 'alive' and 'dad' together made her pay attention to the person clinging to her like a raft amid white waters. "Tehreem?"

Tehreem pulled away, wearing a smile on her face while tears freely rolled down her cheeks. "In the flesh."

I wish you weren't. For a moment, Ezra stood watching her friend. "How are you here?" Of all the people they brought from the lab, Tehreem was the last she expected to get as a roommate on the account of they were far too close.

Tehreem shook her head. "I don't know. I don't know what happened. We were just winding down for the day. I was checking reports last minute in my office—your office—when all I heard were gunshots firing and people screaming. It was chaos, Ez! Chaos. Then these men in black threw cans of some gas in and stormed the building. I couldn't tell you what happened next. When I opened my eyes, we were in some giant cargo plane that landed here."

Tehreem held Ezra by her shoulders and turned her this way and that, checking she was still in one piece. "We've been so worried about you. Your dad was in bits over your disappearance and Shaki dropped out of school to help him track you down. And you've been here the whole time?"

"They got me almost the same way that night." Not telling her friend that her arrival had been more violent and less than welcoming. She pulled Tehreem into a bone-crushing hug for a long time before letting go. "So, what did they tell you about why you're here?"

Tehreem shook her head. "Not much. Just said that there's a high level, critical and time-sensitive research happening here and that they need our expertise. That this was the fastest way to gather us quickly. They apologised for the manner in which they brought us here and assured us that when the job's done, they'll let us go. Why? Is that not the case?"

Ezra stared at her friend in shock. "That's what they said? Critical and time-sensitive research, and apologised? Nothing else?"

Tehreem nodded. "And that the head of the lab'll brief us in more detail in the morning after a good night's rest. Who is it, by the way? Do we know this lead?"

"I'm the lead, but not by choice..." Ezra shook her head, unable to believe lies and fabrication they'd conjured up, trying to make Project Rescue sound benevolent. Critical and time-sensitive research, my arse! Why not just call it what it is, mass genocide? It made her wonder, however, what was their angle? Did they not think? Ezra knew these 'new recruits' and she would not gloss over the fact that they'd all been gathered for one purpose only. Design the deadliest yet manageable pathogen they've ever seen and kill more than half the world's population? It made her almost want to chuckle with mirth. I'm going to tell them everything. Watch me.

"What?" Tehreem asked. "Why do I feel that's not the whole story?"

"Because it's not."

A violent knock on the door caused them both to jump. "Dr Mayur. The General wants to see you."

"Now?" Ezra eyed the door curiously, clutching her friend's hand. "Can't it wait till the morning?"

"That wasn't a request, ma'am." The door swung open, and a soldier stood, one hand resting on his gun holster. Clearly not a request.

"I'll be back." Ezra hugged Tehreem again, whispering, "Stay in the room and don't trust anyone," before she let go. "I'll see you soon."

A/N: This chapter was written during stolen time. Few minutes in the morning in the hotel, while hubby got ready, few minutes in the night, trying not to fall asleep because I'm dog-tired; even writing on the bullet train despite my motion-sickness, seeing if I could get another word down before the first signs of migraine arrived and said 'hello'. It was written so choppily, with my outline packed away and sent off ahead of our arrival at out next destination. So, all in all, I hope it makes sense and reads well.

I apologise for keeping you waiting, and for any errors the chapter contains. ❤