37. Muscles
Muscles
Dylan
She went against the flow of the crowd, down the corridor to the foyer.
No more than two or three guests were still wandering around there, perhaps looking for the toilets to consume soft drugs or, even worse, tobacco.
Dylan kept her eyes down, arms crossed, one hand thumbing her phone as she walked – trying not to look suspicious.
Around the bend, a staircase led her upstairs. The marble and then concrete slabs of the floor below were now replaced with varnished wood, the smell strong. There had been no bouncer securing the stairs, but that only made her feel more uneasy.
Talia’s texts to the group chat came at an even pace.
@talia: Dude’s hands and feet are shaking.
Dylan walked quicker, eyes flicking between the shut doors of various rooms, looking for a hint. All of them had electronic pads beside the handles, presumably for access cards. That didn’t bode well.
She could still hear the noises of the crowd downstairs and Astrid’s booming voice.
“Now, those convulsions are normal. It’s still in beta, folks!” Astrid said. “All part of the process…”
Bitch.
She walked down the corridor until…
One of the doors ahead clicked open. Shit.
She pressed herself into a nearby doorway, praying that whoever came out of the room wouldn’t see her.
Footsteps on the wooden floor. Her heart hammered.
But the person’s footsteps led off in the opposite direction.
She chanced a look, and saw a suit disappear around a corner.
The decision was made in a nanosecond. She leapt across the corridor as quietly as she could and jammed her foot in the open door before it clicked shut.
For a moment she just stood there, listening for any sign she’d been caught.
But she could hear the clicks of the suit’s shoes on another set of stairs.
She pushed the door open slowly.
Bingo. This one looked like an office.
There was a desk, in a dark lacquered wood, a swivel chair, a desk light. Next to the wall were several black bags, square-shaped, as if each of them had a box inside.
@talia: Dude still unconscious, stopped convulsing at least.
@isaak: Dylan, how’s upstairs?
She snapped a pic of the bags. Send. Then she knelt down and opened the one closest to her. As suspected, there was a box inside, matte black. Putting her phone down on the floor, she pulled it towards her.
Covered in stickers and logos, the Crypterra Sleeper’s box promised a week’s worth of sleep in one night. Beta, my ass. Astrid was ready to sell this now.
Inside, a Sleeper headset lay on form-factor–shaped squishy plastic. To the side there was a strip of something. Not tape – stickers with the Crypterra logo. She crumpled them just out of spite.
Dylan lifted the crown and it lit up on its own, a light sequence flashing on the headband. “Fuck!” She pushed it back down into the box the wrong way, and struggled for a moment to make it fit. The light show stopped.
She looked around the rest of the room.
On the desk were several photos. She grabbed her phone and started taking pictures, auto-sending them all to the group chat.
Astrid at several of her self-promotional events, glazed look in her eyes, dressed in various outrageous dresses.
A street sign for somewhere called Cardinal Row.
The view from a glass cockpit inside a recreational boat, blue sea meeting blue sky on the horizon.
“Check these out, Isaak.” Her breath was tight as she spoke into the comms. The intensity of the experience had her shaking.
“Is there anything else? A computer, a datapad?” He didn’t sound particularly reassuring, urging her to find something more substantial.
“There’s a boxed-up Crypterra Sleeper I may have messed with.”
He chuckled.
“It’s a pretty bare-bones office,” she said. “Almost like… they don’t really operate from this building at all.”
Footsteps in the corridor outside.
“Fuck!”
“What?”
“Someone’s coming.” Her voice was a whisper.
She stayed low and crouched next to the mahogany desk. Just in time too, as an access card beeped outside the room. She tucked herself into the footwell.
She held her breath, trying to quiet down her heartbeat. The floor was cold, old wood.
Someone walked into the room, footsteps like deep beats. After a few seconds of silence, Dylan heard the rustle of the undone box and bag. They were putting it back in place.
After some shuffling noises, she heard a woman’s voice.
“Someone’s been snooping around.”
She tried to listen for the other side of the conversation, but it sounded busy, lots of voices – and though one was louder than the others, it was hard to make out. Was it Astrid?
“Yes, ma’am.”
The woman in the room left in a hurry. Dylan listened to her footsteps disappearing down the corridor but still waited a full minute before shifting herself out from under the desk.
She got up and made sure the lemon-yellow shift dress wasn’t crumpled or dirty.
Strange thing to worry about right now, but it was a little bit of normality that kept Dylan from completely freaking out.
She was sneaking around in a tech CEO’s office, while said CEO was demoing scary tech downstairs!
“You heard all that, Zak?” She kept her voice low.
“Yes! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She wasn’t. Her hands were shaking and her heart was beating fast, threatening to jump out of her throat.
“I think Talia’s got a visual,” he said. “Someone just came down the stairs.”
“I didn’t get a look at her.”
“Muscular woman talking with Astrid now, according to Talia. Head of security, from the looks of it. I think I might know who she is.”
Shit. Dylan didn’t fancy an entanglement with her…
She exited into the corridor and found the stairs, tiptoeing her way down, head bobbing left and right, checking for danger.
Suddenly, she heard gasps and noises from the crowd.
“Oh, fuck,” Isaak said. “The guy with the Sleeper on, his mouth’s foaming.”
Just as she was coming up on the art gallery display room, she looked at the group chat, seeing Talia’s messages.
@talia: Dude’s mouth is foaming.
@talia: Astrid’s carrying him back off-stage.
Astrid’s voice echoed down the corridor towards her. “He’ll wake up fine in an hour, enjoying the full effects of an eight-hour sleep!”
The crowd reacted with rapturous applause, roaring right on cue.
As Dylan entered the crowded space, she caught sight of her right away.
In a corner on the other side of the room, eyes already on Dylan, was a gorgeous woman built like a brick wall.
Astrid’s head of security. Surely she spent all her free time at the gym lifting weights.
The sinews of her muscles were bulging out of her black tank top and leggings, which were both made of the same fabric as a high-street tuxedo.
She looked like an Oscar presenter in a weightlifting competition.
She started making her way towards Dylan.