The group appeared in the doorway. Between Beatrice and Erin stood a lanky young man with wavy brown hair. His rumpled black oxford was torn at the left shoulder. He clutched a spiral-bound pad against his chest. A sketchbook.
Zack examined the three refugees in bathrobes, then chucked a hand in hopeless dither.
“Okay. Now I’m at a spa.”
—
Czerny stopped at the end of the second-floor hallway. He squeezed a drop of clear liquid into each eye and shot a blast of eucalyptus spray up his nostrils. After several blinks and sniffs, he was finally ready. He knocked on the door to the Primary Executive’s office, and then once again stepped into Rat Heaven.
Scattered among the Persian rugs and sculptures stood ten huge glass aquariums, each filled with scampering mice of the brown and white varieties. Despite the apartheid arrangement, both breeds enjoyed a life of murine opulence, filled with fresh mulch and lettuce, frequent mating opportunities, and the greatest luxury of all: time. As physicists, the Pelletier Group experimented with math, not mammals. None of these creatures would see the business end of a scalpel. Not for a few generations, anyway. Their caretaker was breeding a special strain for his wife, a university neurobiologist. Czerny could tell from the devoted pampering that these creatures were more than a pet project to Sterling Quint. They were pets.
A fat white mouse roamed free on his great mahogany desk. Quint stroked her back as she chomped a piece of radicchio.
“I’m not encouraged by the blood on your shirt.”
Czerny breathed through a scented tissue. “I’m afraid the Oriental has fallen into coma, sir.”
Quint scowled in pique. “Idiots.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The Salgados. They should have smelled the alcohol on him. They had no business drugging him in the first place.”
“As it stands, I agree. Shall I dismiss them?”
Quint pondered the matter a moment, then slowly shook his head. “No. The last thing we need are disgruntled ex-contractors spilling our secrets. Raise their wages, but give them less responsibility. Have them guard the property or something.”
“Of course, sir. Clever thinking.”
It had been remarked by people crueler than Czerny that Sterling Quint kept mice to make himself feel larger. A quirk from his father’s genes had left him with achondroplasia, which stopped his growth at four-foot-five. While he struggled with his stature as a child, he’d made peace with it in his adult years. Now, at the distinguished age of fifty-five, he took comfort in the fact that “little” languished at the bottom of his list of pertinent adjectives.
“That doesn’t solve the problem of our unfortunate guest,” said Czerny. “I fear his condition exceeds my expertise.”
“Maranan won’t die,” Quint assured him. “I have a specialist coming tonight.”
Czerny knew better than to press his boss for details, or to inquire how he knew the Filipino’s name. He glanced at the three-by-three bank of monitors on the wall. Seven of the screens showed empty rooms. He saw Amanda, Zack, and the teenagers on one. On another, he caught Hannah running a towel over her wet, naked skin.
Blushing, he forced his gaze back onto Quint. “Uh, I suppose you already know that our sixth guest has arrived.”
“Sixth and last,” Quint responded. “That’s all of them.”
This was news to Czerny, especially since there had been nine signals from the start. One led to a corpse. He was eager to learn what Quint knew about the other two.
“Okay. I’ll inform the team. I take it you’ll be introducing yourself soon?”
“Yes. I’ll be down in a few minutes.”
Czerny sniffed his tissue again. “Excellent. I’ll let you prepare.”
“Constantin . . .”
He turned around at the door. Quint leaned back in his leather chair, shining flawless white teeth.
“It’s okay to smile. This is exciting stuff.”
Czerny laughed. “You have a gift for understatement, sir.”
Alone again, Quint held the free-roaming mouse and petted her with euphoria. There were six new people in his building today, six people who didn’t exist on this world yesterday. As far as science was concerned, this was a game changer. A game winner. Now all he had to do was follow the wisdom that Azral had texted him twenty minutes ago.
Keep them safe. Keep them content.
Quint wasn’t worried. It was easy to keep them safe when no one else knew they existed. Keeping them content was harder, given their state of mind. It was also less important. When these six people lost their world, they lost their options. In the end, they had nowhere else to go.
EIGHT