Docile Hunger
Copyright© 2026 by TMax
Chapter 2: Organic Machine
Cliff’s wide eyes and open mouth indicated that he thought one of the subjects had escaped. Good, maybe he will act less cavalier, Lara thought, before she giggled and said, “Nothing to worry about. This happens every couple of days. Likely a lost intern or hospital staff wandered into the outer containment area.”
Cliff scowled and glared at Lara as he mumbled, “Discipline, total lack of respect and discipline.”
Lara nodded as she pulled out her phone to check the status of the alert. The system didn’t have an update yet, just the alert. By protocol, security had a checklist of fifteen different situations before they could confirm what had happened, but because this happened every couple of days, it wouldn’t take them long.
The Asian girl thing, subject 1218, had paused and stared at the mirror as if she could see Cliff and Lara. Maybe she could. The eyes of the subjects didn’t seem to work as they became scratched and wrecked from the virus. Yet, the things could track prey with a precision that scared Lara. Lem thought they had some sort of echolocation because they made sharp, high clicks, but Stephan disagreed and thought they used their tongues to taste their prey, because they constantly stuck their tongues out as if to detect and taste the air. Most of the other scientists didn’t care. They just kept their heads down and transferred out of this unit as quickly as they could.
“Well,” Cliff asked as he glared at Lara. He didn’t scare her. Nothing like him would scare her after seeing what those things could do. In truth, she wanted a transfer, someplace far away, in a boring place with nothing to do. Cliff’s threats acted more like promises and wishes to her.
“A family of five. Must have taken the elevator to the restricted floor,” Lara said. She fidgeted with her phone as Cliff’s cologne tickled her nose. Better than the copper and iron smells that seemed to leak through the mirrors of the new subject. And much better than the faint lilac smell that permeated the whole building. Lara had thrown out all her lilac-scented washes within two months of her start date and refused to go into any store with the slightest hint of lilac, to the point where she no longer went to her former favorite coffee shop or craft place.
Cliff reached for her phone, but Lara pulled it away as she said, “The fingerprint reader has been malfunctioning for the past month. There is a work order to get it fixed.”
The family stood in the middle of the elevator. From their perspective, the elevator would have just stopped. No announcement, no reason why. Likely one of the young kids pressed the administration floor button, the do-not-touch button, that should have read the child’s fingerprint and not allowed them to access the floor.
The building had two elevators: one for the hospital that also allowed the military facility staff to reach the administration floor, and another elevator on the other side of the building that only went to the four floors and the roof. Originally, the facility elevator went down to street level, but Lara changed that when she arrived. She didn’t want the biological sample to have any direct access to the street. So now personnel had to come up the hospital elevator, cross through the administration floor, and then use the secondary elevator to access the floors.
She had also put doors in the stairwells, so nothing from below their facility could get access through there. She had to put her ass on the line to get that done because, in case of a fire, everyone in the facility would likely perish.
Cliff growled under his breath before he said, “I can get it fixed within twenty-four hours, as could you.”
Lara sighed and said, “It’s union. The elevator’s part of the hospital’s property, so they need to fix it. And since your predecessor pissed off the hospital administration, they drag their feet on stuff like this.”
“Don’t they know how important this is? Why the hell did you build this lab on top of a hospital?” Cliff asked.
Lara sighed, and she made a mental note to not sigh as much. She didn’t mind the scientists and their quirks because they had brilliant minds. However, Cliff and his attitude could get everyone killed. She hoped that he would transfer her before then. She hadn’t built the lab, but she knew the history. Cliff knew the history if he had read the briefing package.
“We found the first iteration of the virus here, in this hospital, so the first lab to study it was constructed on the top four unused floors. Budget reasons,” Lara said as she watched the father of the family frantically press buttons in the elevator and held the middle boy’s head against his chest. The little girl cried and held onto her mother’s legs. The oldest boy kicked the steel walls. A small red light on the elevator control panel pulsed.
While Lara couldn’t hear it, she knew, based on the family’s body language, that the speaker in the elevator crackled to life and the message about not moving and danger played.
“We have better places for this,” Cliff said as his eyes darted between the docile lady and the Asian girl with her tongue darting in and out. He could just hear her clicks.
“Damn right we do, but money, budgets, and stupid administrators want nothing to do with what we do here,” Lara said, and almost added that she wanted nothing to do with any of this. She and the former general had fought with the accountants for a more secure facility, but they wouldn’t build one, and every other research site refused to allow them to set up shop near them. No one wanted to have zombies in the building next door. Lara couldn’t blame them. She even agreed.
Cliff said, “Well, I’m here to change that. Get things done. I once sourced enough food for a proper party in Cambo when I was only a private. I can do this.”
Lara rolled her eyes as she watched the family get escorted out of the elevator and into a white room that acted as the facility’s front door. Research motivation posters covered the walls, while a simple metal door with a large red and yellow sticker said, ‘Authorized Personnel Only. Caution: Biohazard.’
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