Sullied

Chapter 3

Three

Ru

Cold gray skies spit a drizzle of early-morning sleet and rain as I shuffle out to my car. Treetops sway in the chilly wind, barren of leaves as winter begins to swoop in.

With my foot heavy on the gas pedal, and my mind racing, I start the thirty-minute drive to work. Somehow Sullivan managed to cover this entire distance alone and injured. I can’t believe the grit, the will, the sheer, stubborn tenacity a feat like that would require.

How the hell did he do it?

And after breaking out of a highly secure private facility, no less.

Millions of dollars have gone into establishing and protecting the lab’s research capabilities. Yet somehow, one young vampire foiled the system.

Good for Sullivan.

I always liked him.

I like them all, really. Well, most of them. Hayworth isn’t very pleasant, but I don’t think I would be either, living my life in an underground cage to be experimented on night after night.

Fuck this job.

The longer I stay here the more I hate it. If I’d known what they were up to when I was recruited, I never would have joined. Now all I want is to save enough money to get out and to get out safely. Hide somewhere warm. Maybe Greece.

If I can help Sullivan in the process, it’s the least I can do, isn’t it? After being part of the system that caged him.

A stray thought occurs. My chest tightens.

Sullivan has no blood to feed on.

Surely he won’t eat the cat, will he? Though it might serve Socks right, vicious little furry dictator that she is. But no. I don’t actually want anything bad to happen to my dead parents’ cat. Other than the house, she’s the last of what they left behind. I have a weird attachment to the beast.

I hope he doesn’t eat the cat.

I’d turn around and ask him not to, but to do that would risk being really late, and to be really late would risk suspicion. Suspicion would be dangerous any day, but especially today. Hopefully the cat knows what’s best for her and stays out of sight.

A line of semi-trucks idles along the entry road as I zoom past in my beat-up old Honda. My parking space has a brown plaque with my alias on it, Richard Maxwell. Can’t use my real name out here. Too dangerous. I only become Dr. Rupert Martin again once I’m safely underground.

Innovation Immortal Technologies, or II Tech for short, is a covert research lab beneath an innocuous, boxy logistics and distribution center.

The outside is another nondescript giant warehouse that could fit a couple football fields.

But inside, beneath rows of stock destined for the supply chain, deep within the earth, is a state-of-the-art laboratory and research facility very few people know exists.

I lock the car and head inside.

The labyrinth of the distribution center is lit up with fluorescents so bright I squint. I duck my head to avoid notice by the chatty secretary, who snaps her gum and gossips with some other unlucky bastard while I scuttle away.

It’s a simple task to clock in above ground with hundreds of shipping and receiving workers, then head to the special elevator that only operates for those with the correct retina scan.

On the ride down, I relish my last moments of peace. Chaos awaits below. It must.

We’ve never had a breakout. And Sullivan is an important success story for the company.

Possibly the crowning achievement of II Tech, a hybrid born of both human and vampire DNA and displaying traits of both, successfully turned at age twenty-one and somehow retaining a fully functional beating heart, a normal respiratory system, and a semi-normal digestive system—meaning he can process both human food and human blood.

Or any blood, but like classic vampires, all the hybrids prefer human.

The only disappointing outcome concerning Sullivan is that sunlight can still harm him. Poor kid. I’m glad I wasn’t assigned to test that particular aspect of hybrid physiology. I could never intentionally burn a living soul.

The elevator dings, and the doors slide open.

I take a deep breath.

At first, everything looks the same as always, all white-washed walls and clear, cool lights that tint everything an icy blue. Glass partitions separate different labs and offices. I scan my ID card and enter the main lab.

Jenkins sidles over to me. “You’re late.”

I shrug it off. “Only a couple minutes.”

“You hear the news?” Malachi glances up from a set of double monitors.

I’m shaking my head and opening my mouth to ask about it when Oliver Kalinov storms in, face red, yelling, “I want that footage and I want it yesterday. Jenkins, outdoor cameras. Martin, indoor cameras. Malachi, stitch it all together. I need the three of you to nail down the timeline. Text me the second you know the details.”

He storms out as flustered as he stormed in.

Malachi pipes up. “One hundred bucks says he did it old-school style. There’s zero suspicious activity in our systems. No internal breach. No hackers. Who’s in?”

Jenkins huffs. “I know better than to bet against you. Learned that lesson twice already.”

“Wait, what happened?” I ask as we hurry toward the security control room.

“Suit yourself.” Malachi peels off to head to his personal office. He’s head of IT, and way better with the lab’s computers than me or Jenkins, hence, his own digs. Not that I want an office. I just want to get out of here.

“Specimen 19 escaped last night,” says Jenkins. “Or maybe early this morning.”

“Sullivan?” I never call them by their numbers, only their names. The number thing is so impersonal.

“Yeah, that one. No wonder Ollie’s pissed. The whole place is on lockdown. You can get in, but not out.”

That sends a shiver up my spine. I hate the idea of being locked underground. What would happen if I tried to leave early?

Maybe I don’t want to know.

On second thought, I definitely don’t want to know.

Dozens of security cameras monitor both the inside and the outside of the building at all times. Currently, twenty-some monitors display live feeds in rows along the far wall. Everything looks the same except Sullivan’s room.

It’s normally neat and tidy, but today it’s a mess.

The twin bed with its blue sheets and white cover is torn asunder.

His regulation clothes have been tossed from his dresser to the floor and each drawer pulled completely out.

The metal desk in the corner is likewise askew, papers and pens scattered.

“Malachi says they found an old tablet under his mattress,” says Jenkins. “Wonder where he got that.”

“Mmm. Dunno.” I don’t feel like talking. My nerves are frazzled. What if I give something away? If they find out he’s hiding in my bathtub, I won’t just be fired. I know too much.

I shove the thought aside, settle in front of a monitor, and pull the keyboard into place, ready to see how he did it.

Starting at midnight, I jump the timestamp in thirty minute increments, waiting for something to happen.

But it’s just Sullivan, sitting on his bed, back against the wall, knees to his chest, staring at nothing.

The image tugs at my heart.

Such a boring existence. He had books and a TV, but was only allowed to watch PG-rated entertainment at least three decades old: The Muppets, Full House, Boy Meets World, and so on.

They didn’t want him to know about the modern world.

Didn’t want him to ask for technology. No phones, no computers, no internet for our “specimens.”

But somehow, he got ahold of a tablet. I shake my head to suppress a chuckle. Sullivan might have been kept naive on purpose, but he was never stupid.

The footage doesn’t change much until zero six hundred, when he gets up and begins a stretching routine.

I let it run and watch as he takes deep, measured breaths with each new pose. Flexible. Agile. Fast. Strong. I’m glad I’m on indoor cameras, not outdoor. I don’t want to watch him get caught up in barbed wire.

“Oh, here it is,” says Jenkins. “Six thirty-one a.m. and he’s out the north exit. He’s tearing across the parking lot like a bat outta hell.”

I resist the urge to look and keep my eyes on my own screen where Sullivan is still calmly stretching.

“Bro! He tried to leap the fucking barbed-wire fence and missed. Ouch. That had to hurt. Headed north. Not the road, into the forest. And he’s gone. Definitely bleeding though. Think we can track him that way?”

“Not with the rain, no.” I’ve never been happier for a rainy day in my life.

“Right, right. Besides, what would we say we were tracking? Can’t let the public know there’s a vampire on the loose. Like they’d believe us anyway. Civilians.”

I listen to his narration with one ear while watching the escape from inside. Sullivan shouldn’t be able to get out of his room. The only exit is a clear, bullet-proof glass door reinforced with iron bars that locks from the outside.

Turns out, I’m not going to get to watch how he does it after all. Sullivan takes the pillowcase off his pillow and hangs it neatly over the camera, drowning his room in a sea of blue. Clever, but risky. What if there had been an attendant in one of the monitoring rooms?

Except, the specimens aren’t actively monitored unless being used for a particular experiment or research. Did he know that?

Did he have help from the inside?

I switch to the feed from the hallway and find the same timestamp.

For about fifteen minutes I fast forward until the door opens from the wrong side. I fight the urge to laugh. Such a simple and effective solution. He removed the hinges clear off the door and opened it backwards. Damn. Definitely not stupid.

I check the live feed again. Sure enough, he’s left a pile of tools behind: screwdrivers, pliers, and… is that a bolt cutter? How the fuck did he get a bolt cutter? He wouldn’t even need that to remove the hinges.

So, in addition to the tablet, he had tools hidden somewhere. Tools he knew how to use, even though that sort of thing would have been carefully redacted from any of his entertainment options and education.

Nice move, Sullivan.

Oliver’s voice startles me. “Report.”

I sit up straighter and swallow. Jenkins repeats what he’s learned first, ever eager to please, reciting Sullivan’s getaway a mile a minute.

Oliver turns to me. “Martin?”

I tell him everything I know so far. “I’m not done. I haven’t clocked his path.”

“Already on it.” Jenkins types away, pulling up a chain of camera feeds in sequence. “Oh, snap, he took the rat.”

Oliver scowls. “Which rat?”

“Specimen R-24-1733.”

“Blast.” If Oliver’s face gets any redder, he’s going to overheat and steam will start coming out of his ears like the characters in one of Sullivan’s cartoons. “Of course he took the most important rat in the cohort. None of the others progressed to its level.”

“He can’t have gotten far,” says Jenkins. “We’ll find him. Put me in charge of the recovery effort. Give me Martin and Malachi. We’ll bring him back.”

I clear my throat. “Look, I appreciate the ask, Jenkins, but I shouldn’t be on any kind of ground team. I’ve got asthma. Plus, I’ll be of more help collating satellite imagery and incoming data than chasing him on foot anyway.”

Oliver narrows his gaze, dark eyes on Jenkins. “We built him strong. Don’t get overconfident. You might find him, but without the right back up, he’ll kill you. I’m calling Voijin.”

I tense. Voijin is an actual vampire. Not part of our hybrid program, but the real deal. Old and creepy AF, and if I went the rest of my career never seeing him again, it would be too soon. He has an office here, but he’s not in it very often. Thank fuck.

Jenkins’ chest puffs up. “I’ll fill him in. How soon can he get here?”

“Not till dusk,” says Oliver, with a silent idiot tacked on to the end.

“Jenkins, send Hector to the weapons vault. Have him cart it all to the main lab. I’ll call in a few favors, see if I can round up some extra men who can help before nightfall.

Martin, get to your work station and bust your ass.

Triangulate, coordinate, plot—whatever the fuck you do.

Let’s find the little escape artist and drag him back where he belongs. ”

I suppress a shudder, though I’m deeply relieved to not be taking part in the actual ground search. The last thing I need is to be in charge of a recovery effort. Although… I could potentially lead them off the trail. That might be handy. No. Best stick to charts. I’m good at charts.

In the meantime, I’ve got to duck away somewhere with my phone and google a how-to video on administering stitches. Do they make YouTube tutorials for that? And somehow I need to steal several bags of blood for Sullivan.

Damn. I’m no good at stealing. Or hiding. Or pretending to be innocent when I’m not.

It’s going to be a long day.