"You touch the housing units before the Columbus line updates, the whole floor collapses."
"Then tighten the net, Commander," Bill murmured, turning on his heel and reaching for the brass door handle with a slow, deliberate twist of his wrist. "The sun is hitting the ridge, and when the dark comes back to the woods, I'm going to need another twenty
The door swung inward, and Detective Alice Jarvis stepped into the office of Quive then closed the heavy door behind her with a solid, deliberate slam which cut through the low hum of the cooling fans.
"Hello, Bill Curt," she greeted, her voice a flat, professional chill as her dark eyes tracked the tall figure in the yellow oilskin raincoat.Quive didn't look up from his silver pocket watch as his knuckles remaining pressed against the green blotter.
"You had better not touch the housing units around the university before the Columbus line updates," he hissed, his warning directed straight at the shadow beneath the yellow hood. "Unless you want the whole plan to collapse."
"Then it's the clinic we're basing in, then," Bill murmured, turning on his heel and reaching for the brass door handle with a slow, deliberate twist of his wrist. His bloodshot eyes glinted under the dim halogen bulb.
"The sun is hitting the ridge, and when the dark comes back to the woods, I'm going to need new clothes and groceries."
"Do your normal work yourself, Bill," Alice shut him off, her arm crossing over her service belt with an unyielding, bureaucratic finality. "We aren't your logistics couriers. If you leak another insurance code before the registry is verified, I'll personally log the manual capsule as a system error."
Bill paused, his hand still resting on the brass handle. A dark, enigmatic smirk crept across his features without a single word of compliance, he unbuttoned the stiff, waterproof fasteners of his yellow oilskin raincoat, letting the wet, heavy fabric slide off his shoulders. With a careless flick of his thick wrist, he dumped the stained coat directly into the metal trash bin beside Stephenson's desk, leaving it to pool like a discarded skin under the amber light. He stepped into the corridor, closing the door behind his bare, dark shirt sleeves with a muted thud.
The room settled back into its usual silence with the cooling fan being the only sound. Alice walked over to the desk, tossing a fresh leather-bound logbook onto the papers between Stephenson's elbows.
"The transit from the private airfield is complete," Alice reported, her voice dropping into the secure frequency.
"Dr. Gadhi Lauren has officially checked into the pathology department at the regional hospital. But two senior consultants arrived before her—Julian and Adams. They've already moved their personal luggage into a short-term residential flat on the west side."
Stephenson massaged his temples, the thin line of cold sweat on his forehead glistening under the monitor lights. "The MACE surgical core," he muttered, his jaw tightening as he recalled the extraction signatures from the Munich files. "They're suspect of being affiliated with The MACE organisation that we know or maybe they just happen to have similar name plaque"
"Should we flag their credentials for an active sweep?" Alice asked, her pen hovering over the local grid map.
"Ignore the visitors," Stephenson commanded, his voice returning to that flat, authoritative baritone that had cleared the Paris accounts two years prior. "The researchers won't break the boundary unless the of course they poke their hands into the wrong place. Our primary worry right now is m Bill. He's growing erratic because of the Asian freelancer at the mall, and if he screws our plans up before the Columbus line updates, the entire Ohio unit goes into the furnace."
Alice nodded once, her fingers tracing the perimeter line around the university's third-floor dormitory block. Outside the blinds, the gray afternoon light was beginning to lean toward the ridge, and the empty concrete paths of the campus were already cold.
[ Back at Ohio University ]
The lemon bleach was too loud as it smelled sharp, not just smell clean; like being on a stale limestone damp of the third-floor restroom.
Fiona's head jerked upward, her forehead leaving the cold, cracked porcelain of the outer sink basin with a wet *smack*. Her eyelids fluttered, heavy and encrusted with dry tears.
For a terrible, disorienting second, she didn't know if she was still sitting in the terraced third row of the history seminar or if she had dropped through the floorboards entirely.
The world had gone grey. Her cardigan was twisted around her ribs, the heavy wool choking her throat, and her left sleeve was soaked through from where the tap had been dripping.
"¡Dios mío!" she breathed, her voice a rough, dry rattle that scratched the back of her teeth.
She stood up too fast. The room tilted—a long, sickening lurch to the left that made the row of green toilet stalls blur into a single, vertical smear. She gripped the edge of the sink until her knuckles cracked. Her clothes were a mess. With frantic, uncoordinated fingers, she tugged the hem of her knit sweater down, smoothing the crumpled fabric over her jeans while her breath came in shallow, ragged hitched gasps.
She reached out and cranked the cold water tap on full blast. The sudden, violent gush of the water against the ceramic basin was loud—blessedly loud—drowning out the lingering echo of the iron links that still made her clench her jaw.
She scooped the freezing water into her palms and shoved her face into it, groaning as the numbing cold bit into her temples repeatedly. She needed to wash away the feeling and the blurry sight of unventilated cellar aura that had nearly suffocated her three rows back.
She reached up, her wet fingers trembling as she pulled her thick hair away from her neck, twisting it into a tight, defensive knot at the back of her head, securing it with the black band she kept on her wrist. She yanked a handful of cheap paper towels from the dispenser, the brown paper tearing with a rip.
She didn't wipe her face; she pressed the rough paper against her skin, holding it there until the water stopped dripping, staring at her own reflection through the water-spotted plate glass. Her pupils were still wide, two dark wells surrounded by a pale, sickly green.
"Focus," she whispered to the glass.
"Enfócate, Fiona."
She crumpled the paper, hurled it into the plastic bin, and bolted through the heavy outer door.
The third-floor corridor was unnaturally quiet.