Chapter 11 Seraphina
Seraphina
The National Laboratory squatted on its plateau, as blank and merciless as ever, a hive of government concrete ringed by dead juniper and chain-link.
I parked in the far lot, ignoring the reserved spaces, and made the long approach on foot.
The early shift had already begun their ritual of a slow hemorrhage of minivans, hybrids, and old Fords, every driver clutching a thermal mug and the last shreds of their will to live.
Security was always worse on Mondays, and today the checkpoints seemed doubled, as if the threat level had been bumped up in the night.
A woman in a crisp uniform scanned my badge, looked at my face, then at my badge again.
Her eyes lingered on the bruising at my wrist—artifact of last night’s adventure, or maybe just a byproduct of poor circulation. She cleared me without comment.
Inside, the corridors were colder than usual, and the fluorescent lights buzzed with a white noise that crawled under my skull. The floor was polished to a point of self-parody. My boots left prints that vanished in my wake, as if the building itself resented human contact.
I swiped my badge at three more stations, each time catching a whiff of industrial disinfectant and the faint tang of the server banks upstairs.
By the time I reached the elevators, I’d rehearsed at least a dozen plausible explanations for the bruising, the sleeplessness, the fact that my fingers kept trembling whenever I tried to grip my access card.
My office was in a sub-basement. Section G, Adaptive Systems. The hallway leading there was empty, save for the pale rectangle of the emergency exit sign and the hunched figure of my assistant, crouched like a pale shrimp beside my door.
He straightened when he saw me. His name was Dev. His talent was making bad news sound like a clerical error.
“Dr. Dalton.” His eyes were wide, rimmed red. He held a stack of printouts with the posture of a man delivering a subpoena. “Dr. Holloway wants you. Immediately.”
I nodded. “Did he say why?”
Dev’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “He just said—urgent. And confidential. I’ll… I’ll cover the morning briefing?”
I nodded, trying to keep my hands from shaking as I accepted the printouts.
I scanned the top sheet, but the letters swam; I registered only the words “Blue Spirit” and “incident response.” I tucked the stack under my arm and started back toward the elevator, my pulse spiking in ways that had nothing to do with the caffeine.
Holloway’s office was in the main admin wing, a climate-controlled box done up in the style of a Cold War penitentiary.
I passed through a waiting room with all the warmth of an airport lounge, and was buzzed in without so much as a glance from the admin assistant.
The air inside was fifteen degrees warmer, and the walls were lined with degrees, security clearances, and what looked like a framed commendation from the Department of Energy.
His door was the only real wood in the building—oak, heavy enough to block gunfire.
He was waiting for me, standing behind his desk as if prepared to launch a preemptive strike.
He wore a suit, not a lab coat, and the tie was a red so aggressive it could have been a warning label.
He gestured to the chair across from him, then sat, folding his hands on a blotter arranged at exact right angles to the desk.
“Seraphina,” he said. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”
I sat. The chair was designed for discomfort—too low, too narrow, upholstered in a material that pretended to be leather. “I understand it’s urgent.”
He studied me for a moment, and I had the distinct sense that he was parsing through a mental checklist. “I’ll get right to it.” He pulled a folder from a stack, thumbed it open, and laid it flat in the space between us. “This morning, I received a call from Security.”
He let the word hang, as if it were a force of nature and not a department staffed by ex-cops and failed spies.
“They’ve been monitoring certain… communications. As you know, we have an obligation to maintain the integrity of Blue Spirit, and by extension, national security. This obligation extends to every member of the project.”
I nodded, eyes on the folder. The tab was labeled “DALTON, S: INCIDENTS.” My name, in bold, all-caps, bureaucratic font.
Holloway slid a sheet toward me. It was a printout of a security bulletin—one I’d written last week, on protocol for external threats. The irony was not lost on me.
“There’s been some… disturbing rumors,” he continued, voice calibrated for maximum deniability. “About your recent associations outside of work. Specifically, contact with an individual affiliated with a local outlaw motorcycle club.”
My stomach went cold, then hot, then nothing. “I wasn’t aware that private associations fell under incident reporting.”
Holloway’s eyes narrowed. “Ordinarily, they don’t.
But when the club in question is under federal investigation for narcotics, extortion, and potentially international arms smuggling?
And when that club is linked to a violent incident involving a member of this laboratory? Then yes, it becomes our business.”
He tapped the folder. “Your security clearance is up for annual review next week. If there’s anything you want to disclose, now would be an opportune time. Having a boyfriend associated with an outlaw biker club is not good for your career.”
I’d not consider the boyfriend angle with Nitro, though the thought…the thought made me wet. Wet. I started to giggle but buried the urge.
I considered lying, but the exhaustion won out.
“I was attacked last night. In the parking lot of the liquor store on Trinity. Two men, possibly Eastern European, tried to force me into a van. I was rescued by—” I hesitated, not wanting to give the name, not wanting to give him anything— “by the individual you’re referencing. ”
Holloway’s fingers drummed a slow, deliberate rhythm on the folder’s edge. “That is not the version of events I received from the police report.”
I stared at him. “You have the report?”
He nodded. “And the footage. Security pulled the tapes before local law enforcement could misplace them. The situation is… complex. Two suspects dead, one missing, and a civilian—your ‘rescuer’—leaving the scene with you, against protocol.”
The overhead lights flickered, casting his face in alternating stripes of shadow and glare. “If you’re in danger, I need to know. If you’re compromised, I need to know even more. I can’t keep making things disappear.”
I fought to keep my voice steady. “I’m not compromised. I’m not in danger, except from the people already trying to kidnap me.”
He leaned back, folding his arms. “Seraphina. I don’t want to see your work jeopardized. You’re the best we have. But you need to understand—optics matter. The committee reviews matter. Any hint of divided loyalty, of conflict of interest—”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but the message was clear enough.
I watched him watching me, and in that moment, I realized that whatever came next, it would not be decided by facts or logic. It would be decided by which narrative looked best in the after-action report.
“I’ll cut off contact,” I said, the words flat and ugly in my mouth. “Effective immediately.”
He nodded, and the lines in his forehead eased, just a fraction. “Good. I’d like you to take a few days. Get some distance. Focus on Blue Spirit. We’re ahead of schedule, and I need you sharp for the next round of testing.”
I stood, gripping the edge of his desk to steady myself. The surface was so clean, so engineered, that I left a perfect imprint of my fingers on the gloss.
“If there’s nothing else,” I said.
He shook his head. “You’re dismissed.”
I walked out, the weight of the building pressing down with every step. At the far end of the corridor, the exit sign burned a bitter green, promising escape and delivering only the next layer of security.
I made it as far as the women’s room before the shaking started.
I locked myself in a stall, sat on the closed toilet, and stared at the bruises on my wrists.
They looked worse in this light—angrier, more deliberate.
I traced the pattern with my thumb, trying to remember if they’d come from the men in the van or from Nitro’s hands, or if it mattered at all.
I thought of the ride, the wind, the animal certainty of motion. I thought of the lab and the way its corridors funneled you into only one possible outcome.
I made it through the rest of the morning on autopilot, only the memory of Holloway’s veiled threat keeping my hands from shaking as I navigated the maze of meetings, security audits, and simulated disaster response calls.
I gripped every file so hard my nails left crescent moons in the covers.
Whenever my reflection showed up in a monitor or a wall of glass, I didn’t recognize it.
The woman moving down the corridor had the wrong posture: more animal, less scientist. Like I was bracing for another attack.
The second confrontation came at 13:15. Holloway’s admin pinged my desk with a one-word directive: “Now.”
I barely had time to scrape together my notes before I found myself outside the heavy oak door again, sweat pooling in my collar despite the arctic AC. Inside, Holloway was in the same position as before, but something in the air had curdled. Maybe he’d been rehearsing.
I closed the door behind me, then dropped the file onto his desk. The sound was a slap. I stayed standing.
“You wanted to see me,” I said.
He eyed the folder, then me. “I did. Sit down, please.”
“I’d rather stand.”
He let it go, but only because he was ready to escalate. “Your assistant tells me you’ve made no progress on today’s diagnostics. The Section is already three hours behind target.”
I snorted. “I spent my morning reporting on last night’s attack. Maybe you want to check with Security and see which version you like better.”
He did not appreciate the sarcasm, but that was fine. I wasn’t in the mood to grovel. He laced his fingers together, knuckles whitening, and leaned forward.
“I need to know if you can maintain your focus, Seraphina. If not, I can have you reassigned to something… less critical.”
I leaned in, matching his posture, letting the edge of the desk dig into my palms. “You want to talk about focus? Let’s talk about protocols.
Your ‘critical’ response left me dangling in the wind, and if it hadn’t been for a total outsider—someone with no reason to care about national security—I’d be zip-tied in the trunk of a van right now. Or dead.”
He blinked. Once, slow. I wasn’t sure if he was surprised or just recalibrating.
“Your increased security protocols look impressive on paper, Dr. Holloway,” I said, voice sharper than a code review at 3 a.m., “but they weren’t the ones who saved my life when those protocols failed.”
He shifted back, but only a centimeter. “That’s not the point. You introduced an uncontrolled variable into the project. The oversight committee—”
I cut him off, loud enough to echo. “The oversight committee doesn’t have to walk alone at night. I do.”
For a second, the only sound was the hum of the fluorescent lights. Then Holloway’s face went cold, the muscles at his jaw working like he was grinding glass between his teeth.
“I’m warning you, Dr. Dalton. They won’t be as understanding as I am. If this continues, it won’t just be your clearance at risk. It will be your career. Maybe even your freedom.”
He meant it. I could tell.
My jaw locked, the pain in my teeth flaring. I picked up my files, holding them so tight the edges cut into my palm. “Then I hope they send someone competent next time.”
His lips twitched, some emotion almost surfacing, but I didn’t wait for it to finish. I turned, opened the door, and let it slam behind me.
The sound reverberated down the corridor, all the way to the next security checkpoint. I counted my steps, counted my breaths, trying to slow the runaway animal inside my chest.
I’d just declared war on the only authority I’d ever trusted.
By the time the clock shuddered past sixteen hundred, the place was mostly empty.
The adaptive systems lab always thinned out before sunset, as if the building’s design repelled human occupation after working hours.
Most of my team ghosted out the minute the last standup was finished.
The only trace of them lingered in the recirculated air—a blend of old coffee, stress sweat, and the plastic aroma of government keyboards.
I tried to lose myself in the work, but my mind kept replaying the morning’s scenes on a loop.
The echo of the door slamming behind Holloway.
The venom in his voice. The subtle, awful high of talking back for the first time since childhood.
Every time I tried to refocus, my pulse stuttered and I saw the inside of his office—wood, glass, warnings—overlaid on the code I was supposed to be reviewing.
Something rubbed me the wrong way about Holloway.
I watched Dev pack up, then called out before he made the door.
“Do you trust Holloway?” I said.
He froze, then turned, eyes wide. “I… don’t really know him. But he runs a tight program.”
I laughed, bitter and clipped. “That’s one way to put it.”
He hovered, wanting to ask if I was okay, but knowing it would violate some boundary I’d spent years establishing. Instead, he offered a tiny, awkward smile, then bolted. I was left with only the buzz of the AC and the thrum of the server racks two floors above.
At 17:34, my phone buzzed, a text from an unknown number:
How was your day?
I stared at it, thumb hovering over the reply button. I knew who it was—nobody else would dare be so direct, or so casual. Nitro. The man who’d wrecked my sense of risk, and whose last words to me hung in the air like a dare. My boyfriend?
I should have ignored it. I should have deleted it, or forwarded it to Security, or at the very least composed a response so bland it would pass any audit.
Instead, I stared at the glowing words, the icon of the red scythe, and tried to remember what it felt like to want something for no reason but itself.
I thought about what Holloway had said—that the oversight committee wouldn’t be as understanding. That my career, my future, my entire sense of self depended on keeping my head down and my mouth shut.
But in that moment, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done either of those things.
I typed out a response, deleted it, then typed another: Ask me in person.
My heart beat so loud I thought I might black out. I sent the message.
Then I sat in the dark, waiting for the next disaster, or the next chance to feel alive.
Either way, I knew he’d come.