The Skylar Experiment : Dead Ending (second draft)

Chapter Twenty-Four - Two Timer

COLUMBUS, OHIO

SHE BURST THROUGH A SET OF DOORS without a regard towards the surrounding staff. Brawny men in tailored suits followed promptly on her lacquered heels, casting the pristine halls inquisitive stares through their sunglasses. 

Caldwell felt her joints stiffen the closer she approached the office, her jaw grinding with impatience. The employees, as they milled around a layout of control rooms, shuffled away from their path. Freecore Tech was a worldwide conglomerate of varied scopes. It wasn't the first time that a group of foreign executives, or so it seemed, roamed the building.

Caldwell strode up to a higher floor and the ground dwindled beneath her feet. Afternoon sunlight spilled over the glazed walls as she mounted the staircase. She walked past several closed doors until she veered a corner, stopping in front of a dice-shaped bureau armored with mirror walls. Two security guards stood sentry by the massive door and they nodded at Caldwell. The secretary by the front desk had alerted them upon her arrival.

"Good evening," she said curtly, and they allowed her to pass. Her men waited outside, posted on each side of the narrow corridor.

The door fell shut behind her, and Caldwell dusted her skirt, looking up at the man from across the desk. His knuckles lingered on the smooth surface next to a whiskey on the rocks, and his lips drew into a tight smile.

"Greetings," he began. "You're here on a short notice."

"I figured there was no reason to schedule a whole meeting for a simple question I meant to give you, Micheal. There was business to take care of in the city, so I stopped by to say hi."

"How thoughtful of you," he replied and took a long drag of his drink. No doubt, he'd rather tend to other matters than this one, but the choice wasn't his. "In that case, I'm all ears."

Caldwell spotted the leather chair in front of his desk but didn't mind sitting down. Her gaze was fixated on Micheal with a severe clarity, as if she was trying to pierce through him and his high-end attire. He seemed to already know why she was visiting his office today, but he watched her calmly, awaiting like there was nothing to worry about.

"I've heard that Lauren has been here," she dropped. "She wanted to speak to you and no one else."

Micheal gave a brief sigh and a tousle to his graying hair. He closed his eyes a second, having been expecting this to happen sooner or later. He fell into his chair. A member of the board would have alerted this woman if he wouldn't, and that was exactly what went down. Some were not willing to take risks like him.

"What would you like to know?"

"Why you didn't call me or one of my associates straight after, for starters?" She tipped her head, eyes narrowing like a hungry bird seizing the presence of mice far below on the ground.

Micheal stirred his crystal glass, making the light brown liquid slosh against the edges. His voice sounded drawled and placid. "Somebody was going to do it for me. I didn't bother."

She sneered at his arrogance. Had it been out of contempt or lack of concern—was he trying to hide something from her?

"We have a deal," she reminded him, a dislike veiling her pale face. "It's been this way for years and you haven't missed out once until now."

He threaded his fingers together, unimpressed. "I don't have amnesia, no need to make me remember our agreement. But what would have you have wanted me to do? She took us by surprise. Surely you understand how reckless it would have been to engage in a fight inside a building crawling with human employees and the press. She came and she left. I couldn't stop her." He pursed his lips, crinkles straining at the corners of his mouth. "I've learned that she's in Oakwood, now."

"Yes." When she crossed her arms, her red-painted fingernails tapped over the padded fabric of her waistcoat. "We are working on finding more about her schemes. I offered her brother a deal."

The man's stare hovered over a blank point for a moment until he lifted it back to Caldwell. He could imagine exactly what kind of deal she offered the kid, the same one that worked on even the most hardened mutants. They all faltered eventually, hopefully before they reaped the consequences for not listening.

"What did you have planned?"

She shrugged, but a calculating smile tugged at her lips. "A few things that might encourage him to change his mind." She glanced at her wristwatch. "In fact, one of them is under way as we speak."

Micheal swilled the remainder of his whiskey, and considered her with a disapproving look. "The boy's not stupid. Push him and he'll push back, whether his sister is with him or against him."

"Oh, but we don't want to hurt him or any of his friends, for that matter," she argued, an amused flicker in her eyes. "It's just a little push in the direction we want him to go. We've been too nice until now, too patient. I think it's time to coarse it up and show him who actually holds the power, here."

"Do you hold the power, Elena?"

Caldwell scanned the man thoroughly. 

In truth, it wasn't always easy to keep the uncontrolled group in check, but seeing them build their bubble, their world, their social ladder, was a golden opportunity to witness mutant behavior in circumstances a protected environment could never simulate. No other mutant behaved quite like them, and they weren't the equivalent of a mindless sheep herd. It was worth the hassle of monitoring them. 

As long as they didn't expose themselves, which would ultimately lead back to NIO, there was no issue. Nobody, not even the mutants, wanted that. There was only Lauren and the data, a potential compromise to their anonymity. A threat to her control. 

"Don't change the subject," she said, unyielding. "What did Lauren want when she found you?"

A dull sorrow hollowed Michael's cheeks. "She threatened me, and it looked like she wanted something else, but decided otherwise and took off. I take it she's still angry about last year. I don't blame her for it. She'll never trust me again."

"Is that so? Nothing happened at all?"

He held her stare while a thousand ideas were chasing each other in his mind. "No. Nothing at all."

Beyond the tinted glass portion of his office, the roads and highways were clogged with traffic hour vehicles profusing from every turn. Smoke billowed from a brick factory nearby and commercial marquees littered the cityscape, flashing weakly in the waning daylight. 

Skyscraper spires would stretch sharp towards the rolling clouds like iron thorns, each one appearing to rival an inch or so, and they looked down in disdain at the chipped, spray-painted facades of the closest apartments. At this height, the bustling commoners were like tiny insects, walking along the boulevards.  

"And addresses?" she inquired, jerking her chin out. "They're smart. The phone numbers we got from you are made to be untraceable."

"I'm afraid that won't change. There's no way I can grant everyone fake names and homes and phones and cars by myself. Everyone takes care of that on their own, and sometimes they'll forge a nonexistent company to put assets under. If I start asking around for that information, you know they won't like it, and they'll be onto me." 

"Don't you keep a record of all the addresses or something?"

Micheal rose to his feet, dusting a breast pocket. "No, Elena, we refuse to keep track of one another like the old days. I'm surprised you didn't get that immediately. The whole point behind breaking free was to live as normally as possible." He nodded at the discomfited, frowning woman.  "Now, if you're done with the questions, I have work to do."

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