Chapter 21 #2
“Great,” Wyatt muttered. “Don’t use my powers at all.
Why should I feel useful?” He hit the up button at the elevators, and as they waited for a car, Dani snuck a look at the other people standing there with them.
They were all older, much more professional in their style and the way they held themselves, which only made her feel all the more out of place.
A single elevator arrived, and they all herded inside, far more cozily than Dani would have liked.
She didn’t want to be this close to real OneiroLabs employees—what if one of them could sense their duplicity somehow?
Their glamours seemed to be holding up so far, at least, but there was still time for the operation to go belly-up if they weren’t careful.
Dani closed and opened her fists as people called out their floors: six, ten, fifteen.
“Eight, please,” Wyatt said when the person pressing buttons for the group looked at them. Then the car went quiet as it began to rise.
We’re on our way up to the research labs, Wyatt said.
I’ve got their internal cameras and can see you now, Katya came in. We’re looking good.
The new exit plan, Silva added, is that once you get off the elevator, head to the restroom.
Act like one of you isn’t feeling well. Spend a few minutes in there, then come back out and take the elevator down again.
You can tell the front desk you’re under the weather and you’ll have to reschedule, if they ask.
Are you sure we should bounce already? Wyatt said. I mean, we’re all the way in here. What if we, like, went ahead and looked for the formula right now?
Absolutely not, Silva cut in before the panic of this suggestion could become something real in Dani’s chest. We went over this, Mr. Shalhope. We aren’t prepared to execute that plan tonight. We don’t have the contingencies in place.
Fine, Wyatt said with a mental huff. But let it be known that I think this is a missed opportunity.
Your incorrect opinion is noted, Katya said, and Dani swore she could hear her eyes roll through the shell.
The elevator stopped on floor eight. Wyatt and Dani stepped out into the deserted lobby. Both the receptionist and the barista were gone, the chairs empty, the zen garden undisturbed. Two people were walking down the right-hand hallway toward them.
Okay, Katya said. The bathrooms are in the hallway at your ten o’clock.
No arguing, Silva added, and only Dani could hear the pissed-off breath Wyatt blew out.
“I’m just saying, it doesn’t make sense to get this far and then just leave,” he said to Dani as they headed down the left-hand hall Katya had indicated, the one leading to the lab where they were running the sleep studies.
“Don’t you think there’s at least one other thing we could do while we’re here? ”
Dani had a sudden flash of memory: the sleepwalking woman shambling down the hall, the employees screaming, Max pressing the elevator button over and over, panicking.
“No,” she said firmly. “I think we did what we came to do, and now we go. That was the plan. I want to stick to the plan.”
The hallway, thankfully, was empty, and far more peaceful than it had been the last time Dani was here.
The sign for the restroom glowed at the far end like a beacon.
As they started toward it, Wyatt muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like incompetence, and Dani was about to tell him off when the door to the lab slid open and a person in a pink lab coat stepped out, pausing at the threshold to look back as someone called after her—
Dani’s gut seized up.
Fuck. That’s Dr. Rodriguez. Fuck.
Dr. Rodriguez is there? Silva thought sharply. Miss Lionet—don’t let her recognize you.
It’s fine, Wyatt said through the shell. Dani looks completely different.
All the same, McKenna added, the first time she’d contributed to the telepathic conversation. Try not to look her directly in the face. It’s easier to see through a glamour if you know the person.
Dr. Rodriguez said something affirmative to whomever she was talking to and let the door fall shut.
As she started toward them, she turned her attention to the quartzpad in her hand, tapping away without even looking where she was going.
She was far less put together than when she’d given Dani and Oliver the tour—less so than she’d been at The Sand Bar, too, her hair in a messy updo and her shirt untucked, with a sizable coffee stain on the front.
She was murmuring to herself when she very nearly ran into Wyatt, who, as far as Dani could tell, had not attempted to avoid that outcome in the slightest.
“Oh, gods,” Dr. Rodriguez said, putting her free hand to her heart as she finally glanced up. “I didn’t see you there. Excuse me.”
Miraculously, she made to move past them without further inspection or discussion, but then, in a wild act that Dani could not comprehend—not now, and not later, when she reviewed the events of the night—Wyatt stopped and called after her, “Ms. Phoebe, wait up.”
Wyatt, Dani thought as Dr. Rodriguez came to an abrupt halt and turned, slowly, so they could behold her expression of disbelief. What are you doing?
This is a bad idea, Oliver agreed.
“I’m sorry?” the woman said. “It’s Dr. Rodriguez, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, jeez, my bad,” Wyatt said. “Dr. Rodriguez. I just had a question? If you have a minute.”
“Not really,” Dr. Rodriguez said, and now she was really looking at them, in a way she hadn’t before. Dani angled her face away, pretending to study something on the wall. “Who are you, exactly? I don’t believe I’ve seen you around.”
Be careful, Dani thought to him. She’s in charge of the whole program—
“Garrett,” Wyatt said, and he lunged forward with his hand out for her to shake. “Garrett Shredup. I’m here for the sleep study. Both my girlfriend and I are.” He waved to Dani, who took an incremental step back, desperately wishing to be written out of this off-script narrative.
Dr. Rodriguez extended her own hand reluctantly, as if it were moving without her permission, then shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have time for this. I’m afraid I’m going to have to—”
Almost impossibly fast, Wyatt grabbed Dr. Rodriguez by the hand and pulled her toward him while clamping his other hand over her shoulder, thumb against her neck.
Dr. Rodriguez made a strangled noise, reaching up as though to hit his hand with her quartzpad, but it was too late—her eyes rolled back in her head and her knees went out from under her, unconscious.
Wyatt caught her by the armpits and the quartzpad clattered to the floor.