R&D

It took a few seconds to realize I was utterly and completely lost. I cleared my throat before holding down the side button of the walkie talkie.

“Uh Charlie, which way did you say I should go at the T-Section? Over.”

Charlie’s voice crackled in surround sound as it echoed off the metal ventilation duct, and I covered one ear to hear him. “I didn’t, there’s no T-section.” The walkie went quiet without a sign off, yet again. I waited long enough for pain to bloom in my back, and it wasn’t just because man did not evolve to wriggle through metal tubing barely more than two feet high.

“Charlie, I’m staring at a goddamn T-section. Right or left, over.”

“You must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”

I curled to the side as much as I could and looked behind me. The beam of my headlamp hit the far vent that connected this shaft to the external air intake, right at the south side of the building. That, at least, made sense. Pockets of shadow hinted at the other turns I could have taken, ducts splitting off like fingers over the whole of the building. The sheet metal was bare except for a kind of fan in the middle—a diffuser, Charlie had called it— which I’d had to crawl around for fear it might pop out and into the room below.

“You got to say over Charlie, how many times do I have to say it. Over.”

“Sorry, right, sorry,” he fumbled, and I could hear the crumpling and rustling of paper. I imagined him in a snowstorm of blueprints and spec docs in the van outside. I’d already been having my doubts when he pulled out these walkies like we were in a 90’s heist flick, but now that tickle of unease had turned into full blown nausea. It would be the last time I let Frankie do the hiring, that was for sure.

My job wasn’t usually this dramatic. Why burgle a building when you can just as easily clone someone’s phone while they stand in line for coffee? Most companies, even the smart ones, usually left holes in their cybersecurity big enough to walk through. Even the really smart ones, the companies who kept their secrets offline and on site like this one did, had their vulnerabilities. Even then, blackmailing or bribing the right person would usually get you what you need. Nobody is taking a hit for their employer these days.

So, when an associate of an associate reached out about retrieving a certain string of code from a certain pharmaceutical giant, for very very good money, I agreed, even before I looked up this particular lab. I knew the company well enough, and it was the kind of job I could feel good about taking.

Dantalian Pharmaceuticals. Most recently infamous for tripling the price of epinephrine during a nation-wide shortage last year.

Problem was, whoever worked here didn’t ever seem to get coffee. After three weeks of stake outs and web dragnets, I hadn’t seen evidence a single employee even worked in this building. The only people for miles were the security guards, one per eight-hour shift, who mostly kept to the small gate house at the top of the road. There weren’t even cameras. For a building whose sole stated purpose was to house Dantalian’s R&D division, there didn’t seem anyone around to research or design a thing.

“It’s all AI now, man,” Frankie had said. “Probably just a big server farm cooking up formulas while the science bros get high.” He’d punctuated that hot take with a hit of the blunt we were sharing at his local dog park, his usual office of choice.

Note to self: stop agreeing to jobs while stoned.

When Charlie spoke next he sounded far away, like he was holding the walkie in the wrong hand. “Do you think you could have missed the first right turn? You should be over the kitchen right now.”

I would have no way of knowing from my current position, as the closest vent would be down one of the tributary ducts. Still, I shimmied forward until I could see down each end of the T-section.

At first they seemed indistinguishable, both tunnels stretching ahead to opposite sides of the building, my headlamp barely reaching the ends. Maybe the air was a little warmer to the right. Heat coming off the servers? There would be one vent pulling hot air out of the server room while another pumped in cold. This duct wasn’t anywhere near where we’d thought it would be based on the HVAC diagrams I’d gotten hold of, but then I didn’t seem to be anywhere near where we thought I’d be either.

“I’m going right, over,” I said, and began to crawl.

If I could just confirm where the server room was, I should be able to find an access panel. It was going to take longer than planned, but what was a few more minutes alone in an empty building?

The strap of my headlamp prickled as I began to sweat. It was warmer down here. The temperature seemed to tick up every few feet. I was just starting to get concerned when I reached an opening on the right. I peeked around the corner, ready for yet another copy of the many ducts I’d passed before, when I heard voices. Not the one or two I might have heard if we’d miscounted the security guards. A steady drone of them, like an office at midday.

My skin was cold as I fumbled to turn off the walkie talkie, then my head lamp. As my eyes adjusted, I could see fluorescent lines of light cutting through the base of the shaft.

Shit.

This was why I preferred stealing from the comfort of a coffee shop. I tried to tamp down the panic by reminding myself that if anyone had heard me up hear by now, Charlie would have likely seen some activity on the ground outside. But then, he had been neck-deep in maps the last time they’d checked in.

Double shit.

There was nothing for it. I’d inch back the way I came and cross my fingers for a clear exit, no harm no foul. Find someone more competent as back up. Or maybe another gig altogether.

I was ready to move away from the vent. I almost did.

But there was something about that drone of chatter that drew me forward. As though the layers of innocuous office chatter were weaving together into something rhythmic, something whole. Like a chant. Before I could think better of it, I was before the vent, my face pressed close enough to peer through.

It was a lab, or what I would have pictured in my mind to be a lab. It was a large room, big enough for a half dozen countertops with computers and machinery I couldn’t recognize. The twenty or so workers wore white lab coats.

Only no one was facing one another. They were speaking, but not to each other. They were talking to the pit at the center of the room.

The hole looked like a giant acid spill. I could see it was deep enough that it ate through tile and concrete, and I could not see the bottom, even though I was nearly directly over it. The surrounding floor was bubbled and discolored, and the workers seemed to keep a careful distance.

A door opened at the far end of the room, and I could have sworn I saw daylight coming through a window on the other side, as though it were noon and not two in the morning. A young man in khakis and a blue button-down shirt hurried through with a tray of what looked like coffee cups, but he startled when he saw the rest of the workers and closed the door carefully behind himself, self-conscious as an intern late on his first day.

The intern picked his way through the frozen employees toward the man standing closest to the pit, who I could only see in profile.

The man was balding, and wore wire-framed glasses that caught the light in a way that made me feel like he was turning to look at me with every twitch of his head. He was clutching what looked like a leather portfolio close to his chest. When the intern reached him, he gave a sharp gesture with his chin, and the young man planted in place beside him, coffees still in hand.

It was too weird to be real. It couldn’t be real. I was still thinking that when the first tentacled arm shot out of the pit. It landed with a wet smack in front of a woman whose head jerked back but otherwise did not move or cease her droning.

I would have moved. I wanted to move.

Why can’t I move?

Another long appendage rose from the pit, this one slithering out and wrapping itself around the heavy-looking leg of one of the lab tables. There was a sucking sound, and out of the pit rose something squid-like and horrible. Its rubbery head rose to a point, and its countless arms in constant, undulating motion, as though it were underwater.

The room went silent. Almost as one they bowed, though the intern needed a tug from the man in glasses. As they did, a pair of something spiked and bristled clicked across the tiles, like the feelers of an insect. Something fleshy and red rose after it, held up by hairy legs that seemed to dig into concrete sides of the pit itself. It had no eyes, just rows of teeth. Drool spilled from its mouth onto the thin stretch of floor between the pit and the man with the portfolio, but he did not move an inch that I could see. A familiar smell rose up, one that took me back to chemistry class—or more likely, stealing from the chem lab in high school. I couldn’t put a finger on it.

“My lords,” said the bespeckled man. His voice was steady, but I could see light reflecting off the sweat on his scalp where his hair had thinned. He gestured rapidly behind him, and three workers shuffled forward, still bent low. Between them they dragged and pushed a gray tote. All of them appeared to strain as they pushed it forward, and as soon as it reached the edge of the pit the scuttled back.

The man slowly opened the tote, and I nearly made a sound when he moved back, finally standing upright.

Gold—it was full of gold. Bars, stacked neatly and to the top. I had only a vague Hollywood understanding at what that volume of gold could be worth, but it was enough to make my palms sweat for a new reason. They weren’t done either—soon four more totes had joined the first. The intern’s eyes had grown as wide as mine must have been. The man opened his portfolio and cleared his throat.

“After an exciting and innovative fiscal quarter, we at Dantalian Pharmaceuticals are pleased to deliver your share of our—”

“What.”

The word—question?—could not have been formed by the lipless maw of teeth of the fleshy spider. The creature had given a wet huff, and the meaning of it bit into my brain something chewing on my mind.

The man’s head was dipped close towards the portfolio in his hands.

“As I was saying, this is the 22% of our third quarter profits that the board has approved for R&D purposes.” He cleared his throat again. “That is to say, your generous services. Your last contribution yielded unimaginable results.”

The toothy one gnashed and appeared to sniff the gold in the tote nearest it, but the squid gathered its limbs beneath itself, rising high enough that the hanging fluorescent lights revealed oozing pits of green and white across its flesh. A smell like brine and blood and paint thinner wafted up with it, finding me through the vent and sending bile into my mouth.

“It’s less”. My skin crawled. This one didn’t even make sound, only slopped and slithered its hundred limbs. The words wriggled into my ears like tongues.

“Sales did dip more than expected, it’s true, but we expect a full recovery once the FDA approves— “

“Not enough,” the red one bit.

“I understand you’re disappointed, all the shareholders are. But you see this administration, they’ve introduced new price capping regulations that—"

The squid beast shot out a tentacled arm and grabbed at the intern still holding the tray of coffees and proceeded to tear him cleanly in two. He came apart so quickly and neatly that it was as though he were made of paper. Even his brief-lived scream seemed to split down the middle. I bit my lip until I tasted blood.

The squid dangled one dripping half of the body above its companion before dropping it like a trainer feeding a dolphin mackerel.It slipped the other half within the folds of its legs, pushing it deeper until the intern was a pair of legs, then shoes, then nothing at all.

Those watching didn’t move, though the room became noticeably quieter.

The man at the front closed his portfolio. “I don’t know why you would do that,” he said finally. “You already had a contract with him.”

“We never say when we will collect,” slurped the squid.

“Not enough,” the other repeated. “Bargain.”

“Yes,” the squid wriggled, “who will bargain?”

For the first time a ripple of disquiet moved through the room. More than seeing a coworker rent in two, no one seemed eager to make a deal with these two. The air had changed.

Get out.

I wrenched myself back, limbs aching with the effort to stay quiet. I heard screaming and moved faster until I was back in the main shaft, only daring to turn on my headlamp when I rounded the corner of the T-secion. It was then that I realized, my heart tripping over itself in my chest as I stared down the shaft funhouse of options, that I couldn’t remember which duct I’d turned down. The only element I recognized was the vent on the south wall, a vent I would not be able to fit through.

I had to take deep breaths to steady my hand on top of the walkie. I covered the speaker as switched it on, muffling the beep. I slowly increased the volume, keeping it as low as I could. Charlie’s voice whispered through.

“—the hell are you, things are getting weird, just like, talk to me. Over, over, shit bro, over.”

I breathed slowly through my nose and held down the button to speak, my voice quiet as I could make it. “I’m coming out. Is the van in the same spot? Over.”

“Christ, finally, what’s been going on in there, there’s like—I don’t know, like—the building is glowing, over.” The walkie went quiet.

My mind couldn’t begin to wonder what that meant. I just needed to get out, and I needed Charlie calm enough to help me get there.

“Charlie, I need you to look at that HVAC diagram again. I’m in that central branch I was before, facing the south wall, but I don’t remember which one of these leads to the access panel I came through. Over.”

“Um yeah, yes—I was looking at it before and I think I’ve figured it out, you’ve got to take the second left.” The walkie crackled out again, but at least I had a direction now. I was at the second opening in no time, squeezing myself around the turn. It was tighter than I remembered, but I pressed ahead. I could see a metal plate bolted into the metal base at the far end of this shaft.

The access panel.

Relief made me crawl faster, blood rushing in my ears so loud that I almost didn’t hear the walkie talkie.

“—repeat, take the second left after the central diffuser, over.”

Now he says it.

There was a metallic groan, and I froze in place. Metal on metal creaked, then snapped, and then, with a shrill roar, the duct I was in buckled in two, pitching me forward in a sheer drop. I slid headfirst out into the room below, fingers raking and splitting against the metal as I tried to slow my fall. It wasn’t enough.

My head slammed into a table and my body crumpled around it.

At first I couldn’t see anything, but not because I’d found myself in an empty room. No, everything was white and overexposed. Fluorescent. I blinked, and realized I was staring into an office light. I tried to move but my limbs were too heavy to move. I couldn’t feel anything but the dust and plaster falling onto my face and into my eyes.

But I could hear. Voices, subdued but growing louder, chatter over chatter until it sounded like a chant. An acrid chemical smell rolled over me, sulfur and acetone. Soon their shadows blocked out the light. My jaw trembled, but I couldn’t look away, even if my eyes couldn’t yet see more than their silhouettes, enormous and terrible.

“We thought we smelled you,” like a knife pushing into my temple.

“Greedy, we like greedy,’ a tongue wrapping around my mind.

“Let’s make a bargain,” they whispered.