Ezra could hear the whooshing of her breath coming out loud in that hazmat suit. It was a hot December day, and it seemed the building's air conditioner was struggling to keep up with that vast space.

Sweat was trickling down her back and abdomen, undoing the shower she'd had in her spacious quarter they'd granted her. It had no view—probably because they didn't want her to know their location—but a couple of skylights high in the ceiling let in natural light and she was thankful for that. For now, she had a comfy bed to sleep in—no more army-style roll-up swag. No more toilet just beyond the bed, glaring at her like she was a felon. The previous room they had held her in was just that, a cell. In her current quarters, she had the privilege of an en-suite, a small lounge, a small desk in a small nook to work, and a small kitchenette where she could make tea or coffee or prepare herself a little snack whenever she pleased. It wasn't home, far from it, but at least they had been kind enough to provide her with a stocked mini fridge, the luxury of which still overwhelmed her.

Not only that, but thanks to the skylight, she could finally tell day and night passing. She finally hopes that one day, she'd step out into that world again, the world from which she'd gone 'missing'.

Judging by how many rounds the shorthand on her watch had completed, it had been five days. Five days since she failed to return home, as she'd promised. Five days since she'd longed to see Dad and Shaki, to hug them, to breathe them in.

Do they think I'm missing? Or dead? That question haunted her waking moments; a rat clawing at the walls at night; relentless.

Five days was a long time.

'The first twenty-four hours are crucial in a missing person's case,' she recalled Dad's words from years ago when he'd worked those cases. He wouldn't be talking shop with her or Shaki, no. He'd be talking shop with Mum, but Ezra would always be close enough, studying at the dining table to overhear everything as the couple chatted away in hushed tones while making dinner together. 'If they've been missing that long, traces of them disappear swiftly.'

Is there any trace of me left in the world, out there, where lives are lived? This morning, Ezra pondered those questions, orienting herself with the vast maze, the lab. She took her time, walking the length back and forth, snaking her way through aisles, familiarising herself with each station's purpose. All the while, thoughts such as these crawled like spiders in her mind: What if they think I'm 'dead' like Archer? What if they left a puddle of blood on the floor as they did ten years ago? We all thought Archer was dead, but... he was here, making monsters.

She'd tried not to imagine countless faces at those stations in her hour-long vigil. Tried not to imagine Archer at the helm, spearheading this madness. She tried not to taste the burning sense of betrayal as she moved, hindered by the hazmat suit, careful to keep her oxygen line untangled. Occasionally, she murmured small prayers for those who died, who drew their last breath in that space, rather painfully, bleeding from every orifice. That they may find peace one day. That they may forgive their own wrongdoings.

What if some were like me? Forced into it? What if they too had no choice? It was their family or the world. And what a hard choice to make. For anyone. She couldn't blame them for it. After all, she too chose her family in the end, hadn't she?

Ezra moved, running her gloved hand along the run of the tables. Imagining the hum and the din, the conversations as people worked. Or did they work in silence? And How did they all die so suddenly? What happened here?

It wasn't until she was done with the walkthrough that she settled into the office at the back of the large bunker to get a start on catching up with Archer's abominable research Archer. The sense of déjà vu was strong. Ten years ago, she'd walked into Archer's office much the same, thinking he was dead, only this time, he was. Dead, that is. But she felt none of the butterflies she had that day, knowing she was one of the youngest heads of a Genetics lab in the country. Am I still in the same country?

With such disturbing thought, she settled into the glass-walled office that overlooked the entire lab floor, a bit like a factory foreman. The room was opposite the dual-way glass wall, a wall behind which she could imagine soldiers, if not Watergate himself, watching her every move. Wondering about her wondering. Could they see her now, looking up at them? Did they know what the lab was capable of? What of the instruments? Did they know what each one did? What about their ability to access the research data? It was something she'd have to test if she was ever going to act as a double agent under their noses. A scientist creating a deadly disease, a bioweapon, versus a scientist desperately trying to sabotage her own creation, leaving a back door open so that she could create a counter-weapon to destroy the monster she'd eventually make.

Could she succeed? Only time could tell, but for now, she had to get started. To seem like she was playing ball. Dad would be proud of how she incorporated that one: playing ball. If only he was here to see it.

She settled into a large armchair then, dragging a box marked 'Archer', that sat on the desk, closer to her. Watergate had given them to her, the boxes, the research. He'd placed them in this office; boxes upon boxes. All that paper she'd have to read, absorb. Such an archaic way of data handling. Who stored information physically these days? But soon, as she read, and she read, eyes getting bleary and tired by the second, limbs sore and skin begging for freedom from the suit, she understood why everything was offline, secured within an independent intranet. Security. It would be hard for hackers to break into physical files.

And what she was reading—the monsters they'd been working on—were best kept secret. Should the world learn what was coming, the world would crumple into anarchy, into chaos—barbaric as the old ages, ones from history. Either way one looked, Ezra knew, both would cause a massacre: information or the pathogen.

She stared at the open file before her, the tip of the iceberg, her jaw grinding hard, holding off a torrent of anger. She'd never known the need for violence until now, never knew what it could achieve. But if she had the means, she could imagine burning the entire facility down, with everyone and everything in it that ever touched Project Rescue. Including herself.

Alas, she could do none of those. Not yet. Not without finding out if her family was safe. So Ezra did what she had to. She tucked the file back into the box, and with it, marched out of that office.

"This is absurd!" She held up the box for the phantoms that hid behind the opaque wall opposite her. "I can't shift through all these boxes and see the patterns." She did not know if they were there watching her, listening—if they were even there—but she assumed they watched her every move. At least, that was how she was going to proceed through her days. Watched.

She waited. For what? A flicker on the opaque glass? For it to turn transparent and Watergate to stare down at her, as a god?

"I'm only one person and this is ten years' worth of research and experiments. You won't even show me what he created, but you want me to figure out where he went wrong and fix it?" It was worth a try. If they could get the documents scanned and on a computer, she could move around, crosscheck, dig into—and away from prying eyes—it was worth it. Find a way to warn the world...

The opaque glass suddenly turned transparent, as she'd predicted. But instead of Watergate and his minions, there were just two men watching her. One sat behind a screen. Only half of him was visible from this distance. The second stood still, burly arms folded in front of him. His gaze was hard, considering her. This man, Ezra recognised. Rai. Captain Krishna Rai. The man in charge of her kidnapping.

Ezra tried not to lose her cool. With the box still in hand, she spoke again, loud and eloquent. "Captain, I need a supercomputer to help me process all this data, preferably a laptop, one I can move around the lab with. If I'm tethered to just this office and these piles of paper, you may as well give me ten years to do this too, like Archer, or get me some help."

Ezra couldn't tell how long they regarded each other, but it felt like an age, enough that the box's weight got heavier the longer she held it. She set it down at her feet before facing Rai again. "You said you'd give me anything I require. Well, I require a personal computer that can process astronomical amounts of data, and I need it now."

All the yelling, louder than she wanted because she was unsure how far her voice would travel while in a suit, flustered her. She itched to get out of the stuffy suit, for a cold shower to wash away the day. But not yet. She picked up the box at her feet once more and slowly made her way around the lab, to an exit, careful not to entangle her oxygen line.

She glared up at Rai in a last-ditch effort to prove her point. "If you need me, you'll know where I'll be, reading, for the next ten years... I don't doubt you have your eye on me every minute of every day."

#

It wasn't long before a hard knock sounded on Ezra's door. "Who is it?" she asked, delaying the inevitable. She would have to let them in.

The next knock was louder and harsher. "Open up."

Ezra rolled her eyes, peeled herself away from the dining table where several files lay open and dragged her feet toward the door; dragging out the seconds. "What can I do for you this fine evening?" She threw them a miserly smile.

Rai stood before her, his expression as lifeless as a mannequin. Behind him, a soldier stood, hands behind his back, eyes straight ahead like a statue.

"May I come in?" Rai moved into the room without waiting for her answer. He wasn't asking.

"Sure, come right in." Ezra stepped back, away from him. These men were cold and uncaring whenever she dealt with them. "What can I do for you, Captain Rai?"

Rai gestured at his partner with a nudge of his head, and the tin soldier moved, placing a hard case just inside the door. Then he stood to attention again.

Ezra eyed the case, or rather an unmarked cardboard box with a plastic carry handle. "What's this? More files?" Though it looked nothing like the boxes in Archer's office; hers now.

Rai nodded at the soldier again, who promptly closed the door partway, giving them some privacy. "I've procured a laptop for you." She must have looked surprised, for the man offered an explanation. "You asked for a high-end personal computer to sort through the research?"

Ezra nodded. Yes, she had, but had she really expected them to give her one so easily? What happened to keeping things offline? "That's mine?" She eyed the box curiously.

"Yes. If you still want one. Watergate needed some convincing, of course."

"Of course." Ezra moved towards the box, picking it up with trembling hands. Could this be her way of getting the word out? To Dad, or Shaki? Or the world? Her expression must have given away her thoughts, for Rai scoffed and added, "It's had some minor modification to satisfy the Camp's security measures. And it's not the latest, I'm afraid. More a hand-me-down, which I'm sure you're used to."

Ignoring the jab, Ezra remained silent as she took the box over to the table and opened it. It was a chunky monster. No logo or emblem; no brand. It resembled a brick more than a laptop.

"It's an old military issue, discontinued now," Rai offered, moving about the room with his hands held behind his back. He seemed to study the space. "But it's powerful enough to handle some data."

Ezra brought out the laptop, a heavy thing, and turned it on. The machine immediately whirled on, and a login page promptly popped up asking for a username and password.

"What's a username and password?" Ezra narrowed her eyes at the man. They were foreign terms to her.

"Its like your credentials. You choose an ID or username, that's unique to you—most old devices used to use that format as a security measure to deny access to others—and you chose an eight to twelve-character code, numbers, and letter and symbols combined, that you keep a secret." Rai met her gaze as he crossed the room. "You use them to sign into your device."

"Like a Biometric scanner?"

Rai laughed. "Not entirely, Dr Mayur. Not all old devices had biometric scanners. This is old school."

"How old school?"

"Old, old school."

"Older than my dad?"

"We dug it out of the storage unit. So what do you think?"

Ezra chewed her cheek. Could something so prehistoric process the data she wanted? "How do I use it?" For a doctor with multiple qualifications, this was the first time something stumped her. She had never come across such an old-fashioned device.

"Here." Rai strode forward, sat on the opposite chair, and flipped the computer around to face him.

Within minutes, he was asking her to come up with a Username and Password. And when she went to tell him, he held up his hand to her surprise.

"Don't tell me," he whispered, spinning the laptop back around to face her, "type it in yourself."

Ezra sank into a seat and typed away at the slightly sticky-from-lack-of-use keyboard. She couldn't help but watch Rai from the corner of her eyes. "Why?"

Rai's gaze flickered to the door, still slightly open, and he shook his head, holding a finger to his lips. "Now, come up with a password only you can guess, no one else." His words were barely audible.

Ezra narrowed her eyes at him. What was going on?

He eyed the laptop. Go on.

"Is this a trick?" she asked, in a hush.

Rai watched the door as if making sure the coast was clear. "I haven't got all day, Dr Mayur."

Ezra thought for a moment before she settled on a password she could remember, but none could guess. Then she flipped the screen back around to him. "Show me how to use it, Captain Rai?" she asked loudly, so the soldier outside wouldn't make mountains out of their silence.

"Here..." He spent the next few minutes showing her the different software already on the PC, quickly going over how they worked. Then he stood. "Tomorrow, we'll be setting up your office per your specification, ma'am. All the documents you wanted, my boys, will scan them for you onto a secure server that you can access from anywhere in the facility via our intranet. Of course, you'll need our help to locate where the files are first."

He turned to go.

"Thank you," Ezra couldn't help herself. Damn manners.

He paused, glancing back at her. "I almost forgot. I've passed on your requests for assistants up the chain to General Watergate and the board. If they approve it, we'll be drawing up a pool of potential candidates to bring on."

"Candidates?" she mumbled in shock. "Where would you even find them? Do scientists actually volunteer for this job?"

Rai's stoic face told her everything she needed to know. None of the scientists, except Archer and a few others maybe, had volunteered.

"If you have any particular scientists in mind, let me know, and we'll consider them for your team." With that, Rai left.

"What does that mean?" She chased after him, but the door shut behind him as soon as he cleared the threshold. She grasped at the door handle and yanked it open, calling after him. "Captain Rai, what does that mean?"

Their heels clapped on the cold concrete as they walked away. No other word uttered. Nor another glance. Not another odd but meaningful look. Nothing.

"What does that mean?" Long after they were gone, Ezra stood watching the empty corridor, a sinking feeling settling in her stomach. 'If you have any particular scientists in mind, let me know, and we'll consider them for your team.'

Does he mean people I know? Her heart hammered away. Does he mean my team at GenDesign? To bring them here? "Why would I do that?" she mumbled, shutting herself in her room again. Why would I do that do them?

That night, nightmares afflicted her. Nightmares as terrible as the ones she'd had after Dad lost his leg in a factory accident, while suspended on a bogus charge from the force. Nightmares worse than those after they lost Mama, taken so violently in a freak train derailment.

That night, Ezra tossed and turned. She screamed and clawed away at her subconscious, begging for it to release her. Begging for it to stop. Stop with the images. Images of her friends, her colleagues, in those awful hazmat suits, struggling to breathe, bleeding from their eyes. Reaching out to her, all of them. Even Tehreem. 

A/N: As a pantser, I let the story/characters take me along for a ride myself, and I really struggled to complete this chapter. There were times when it was trying to go in two different directions, but yesterday, I finally had a breakthrough. 😁

What do you think of the new development? 

What do you make of Rai's action in her room?

What do you make of Rai's last question? 

What do you think Ezra will do?