Chapter 22 #3
“What about you?”
Rue shifted on his feet when Ryker set an accusatory gaze on Bowie.
“That’s hilarious,” Bowie said. “Look, I’m honored you’re willing to give me that kind of credit, but I’ll be real with you.
If I had the type of funding needed to pull something like this off, I would have used it to buy myself an estate.
Even one half the size of the monstrosity you grew up in would be better than the two-bedroom one bath my family currently reside in. ”
“Leave him alone, Ryk,” Rue warned.
“He’s an outsider,” the Black Hart didn’t listen, still staring Bowie down, “but that’s still a step up from staff in their minds. They wouldn’t have reacted strongly to his presence if he got too close while everyone was distracted by the creatures.”
“Rhys is still our main suspect, right?” Ellery joined in, surprisingly coming to Rue and Bowie’s defense. “While that could explain the funding issue, it still wouldn’t add up. Why would Rue’s friend work with your dad, Ryker? Rue doesn’t even talk to the guy. There’s no reason his friend would.”
“Best friend,” Bowie said, holding the Black Hart’s gaze.
“Your dad has never cared about him. He was planning on forcing him to join the company, completely ignoring Rue’s major and his wishes, and he was set on banishing him from the planet as soon as this retreat ended.
If nothing else, you should believe me when I say I would never do anything against Rue, including working with someone who doesn’t have his best interests at heart. ”
Ryker tilted his head, but a moment later he nodded, the tension leaving his shoulders as quickly as it’d come. “Then that really only leaves us Fran.”
“Maybe it was multiple in the beginning?” Ellery surmised. “Cosima seemed suspicious.”
“Jesse killed her,” Uriel reminded.
“Because she locked him up.” Rue pointed to the box still in Ryker’s hand. “Once the drug is administered, that’s it. There’s no control system in place. As soon as he went violent, she was just as at risk as the rest of us.”
“Cosima had easy access to the workers at the beginning,” Uriel played with the theory, “and then later, once we were all trapped and confused and clinging to each other in a group, Fran would have been able to approach everyone else without much notice. All he had to do was bump into them.”
“It was other staff members from the start as well,” Rue added. “Until they ran out.”
Aka, until they’d been used up and were all dead.
“Morbid,” Ellery said it, but the statement was empty.
Uriel got up from the desk. “I’ve read through everything here already and gave you the important details. If you still want to look it over yourself—”
“No,” Ryker shook his head. “Let’s not waste more time.”
“We should search the rest of the tunnels,” Rue agreed. “See if we can find anything else. Any proof that Rhys orchestrated it or funded it or whatever. And ideally something that can help us figure out how to shut the creatures down.”
“Creepy as fuck.” Ellery gave a mock shudder. “Aren’t cyborgs illegal? Takes a real psycho to come up with something like that, let alone to execute it.”
“You’re thinking of androids,” his cousin corrected him.
“Shut off the fog,” Ryker told Uriel. “Let’s at least deal with the one thing we can.”
After, if they could locate a way to take out the creatures, they could get on the bus and drive out of here. It was a plan. A plan that relied heavily on possibilities and not absolutes but it was better than nothing at this stage.
Uriel opened a program on the computer and followed the order. It didn’t take very long, maybe a minute or two. “Done.”
“How many paths are there down here?” Ryker asked next.
“We saw six then turned back. A few random doors here and there as well. Only opened two. Empty rooms,” Ellery said.
“We think this place was built as a shelter when the original owners of the resort made it. Before it was sold and turned into this. Compared to this space though, the rest of the halls seem like they’ve been unused for a while.” Uriel turned on the flashlight on his multi-slate.
Considering they’d only stumbled on empty rooms from here, that was likely.
“The fog machines are set around the perimeter,” Uriel continued. “Installing them without alerting the staff or the owners of the resort had to also take funding.”
“My father gets things done one of two ways,” Ryker drawled, “he either pays people off, or he disposes of them.”
“Two birds with one stone in a situation like this,” Ellery quipped. “If Cosima was working with him, she already paid the ultimate price. My guess is Fran isn’t long for this world either.”
“He wouldn’t leave any witnesses around.”
“Which now includes us,” Rue pointed out.
Ryker linked their pointer fingers comfortingly, then turned back to the others. “Split up into teams. You two check all the paths to the left, we’ll take the ones to the right.”
“What about him?” Ellery indicated Bowie.
“He’s coming with us,” Ryker said before Rue could do so himself. “Safety in numbers.”