The Daughters of Men

Chapter 6

The Thatcher Building, while resembling an apartment complex on the outside, had an interior much closer to what one might assume the inside of a secret agency might appear like, as Holly learned. Her and Samuel had taken the left bottom door labeled '1A'; inside was not an apartment, but an elevator with only two buttons. One of the button was big and blue and the other was small and red, covered with a small glass cube. Samuel pressed the blue button, and the elevator jerked into motion, heading down. Eventually, they found themselves in the real Thatcher Building, a giant silver room with several doors on the walls and no windows, but plenty of things happening in the room itself. Teams of people were around, doing various things; there was what appeared to be a fighter jet being worked on in the very center, with several guys handing each other various tools. A woman in a lab coat was taking notes while two people dressed in ridiculous outfits attempted to shoot and stab each other. There was a small group of men arguing at a table while one of them occasionally tampered with some oddly shaped instrument in the center of the table. A couple people were running on a lazily made track on the outsides of the room while one man was sweeping up some broken glass next to a table filled with beakers and other lab equipment.

"What is this place?"

"This," Samuel answered, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, "is the Thatcher Building. What you see now is the Research and Development team. They're in charge of creating new toys for us."

The elevator stopped, and the two of them stepped off onto the silver floor. "This is incredible," Holly stated, in complete awe. "This is like everything I watched in movies but, like, in real life."

"Yes," Samuel agreed. "It does have that effect, doesn't it? But these guys are working hard. You'll meet them later. Let me show you around." The two of them began to walk, and Samuel pointed out the six doors on the sides of the room. "So those six doors lead to rooms or hallways. Two of them, the middle two on each wall, those are the residential hallways. Everyone in this building lives here. Most people have a roommate; even you will have a roommate, although we don't have anyone for you yet. Only a few of us here get our own rooms, namely myself and Doctor Nguyen, who you'll meet later. We also have a gym, a mess hall, a library, and a medical bay. Where do you want to go first?"

"Can we go see the mess hall?" Holly asked. "I'm actually very hungry."

"Of course," Samuel replied. "Let's go."

The two of them made their way over to the door on the far right of the elevator. Inside was a massive room, with three long tables going across the table. It reminded Holly of her high school cafeteria, only on a slightly larger scale; she could smell turkey cooking, and she felt her stomach rumble in deviance.

"Can we get something to eat?"

"We're not normally supposed to," Samuel confessed, "but for today, I think we can make an exception. Let's go talk to Deb."

Together they walked down to the end kitchen area, where several people were making food. One mean-looking woman with a limp walked by, giving Holly a menacing glance.

"Please tell me that's not Deb," Holly begged, indicating the woman she meant. "Because I'm not sure I wanna start here with bad blood with some of the employees."

"That's not Deb," Samuel replied. "DEB!" he shouted. "Come here! I got someone for you to meet."

A short, tan woman hobbled over. She started to speak what Holly assumed to be Spanish, and Samuel responded in kind. The two of them had a brief conversation, maybe five minutes, before Deb retreated back into the kitchen and Samuel led Holly to the edge of the one of the tables.