Sara Strong

Chapter 7

The first thing Max was aware of was the pain, a deep ache reverberating throughout his body making it almost impossible for him to move. For a time, all he could do was just lay there without moving or talking or thinking. Eventually, he braved opening his eyes.

He managed to open them just a slit before he slammed them closed again with a groan. After a few more moments he tried again, this time managing to bring his arm to shield his eyes from the bright fluorescent lights that seemed to bounce off the stark white walls directly into his retinas.

Max recovered fairly quickly. The hospital bed underneath made crinkling noises underneath him as he sat up to take stalk of his surroundings. The room he was in was small and bare and looked pretty much exactly like a hospital room only without all the life-saving machines and medical instruments. The only other thing in the room, other then the bed he was currently occupying was a small window close to where he was sitting and the windowless door across the room.

One glance out the window confirmed that he was still in the institute, which was strange. Considering what he remembered right before he passed he almost thought he'd wake up in a police interrogation room or even a prison. Maybe they were exposed to something and under quarantine? By why not a real hospital, this room doesn't seem the most secure, or where the simple too dangerous to move and this was the best the could come with?

And where was Ingrid? Why weren't they together?

This whole situation was making him extremely uncomfortable, clearly, the Lilith Institute had plenty of things they wanted to hide. The human/meta experimentation was probably a pretty big one. Max didn't want to think that the company he worked for would be willing to kill to keep those secrets, but he wasn't naive enough to think that that wouldn't be a possibility.

Max struggled to his feet and shuffled to the door, determined to find Ingrid and get the hell out dodge. He reached the door and wasn't exactly surprised to find it locked. Well, he wasn't dead yet, but clearly, he wasn't allowed to just leave either.

Max wasn't naive enough to think that he wasn't being watched either, even if he couldn't see it.

"Hey," he shouted, pounding on the door. "Let me out! Where's Ingrid? I wanna talk to her. What's going on?"

His pounding was met with silence. Yet slammed his hand into the door one more time to releases some of his frustration, before he stepped back, defeated.

He reeled back as the door suddenly opened which narrowly missed slamming into Max. He drew back into the room eyeing the other man warily from where he was now sitting back on the bed. He had thought about rushing Lecoix and escaping past him. But despite, his build, Max wasn't a fighter and underneath the fancy, expensive suit, Lecroix looked like he maybe was. Besides, Max had doubts about how far he'd get trying to find Ingrid wandering around in parts of the building he had never entered before.

This would be a chance to get some information if nothing else.

"Well," Lecroix said, holding his hands out as though trying to calm a raging beast, "you must have questions."

Sebastion Lecroix was an unknown variable. He should have just been Lilith's over-glorified PA. But, in reality, it was more like he was her right hand man. Men and women a thousand times more qualified than him in the company deferred to him with a respect that seemed questionable and he had an authority that stretched just shy of their mysterious CEO. It was hard to remember sometimes that that position wasn't actually his.

They had never actually met before, someone that high up the corporate chain hadn't the time or inclination to meet with a lowly intern. It seemed like he was making the time now.

"Where's Ingrid?"

"I see where your priorities lay, " Lecroix said. He was smiling like they were two remates teasing each other about their girlfriends in the locker room.

Max just glared at him. Lecroix's smiled dimmed just a little, like Max had taken away all his fun by refusing to play with him.

"She safe," he said. "And so are you. No one's going to hurt you, Max. Niether of you."

"I want to talk to her."

Lecroix nodded. "I know you do. And you will, just give us time. You were both exposed to a dangerous virus. You're quarantined until -"

"I want to talk to her now."

"We have a lot in common," Lecroix admitted. "In this life, you need to choose one thing to devote your entire life to. It doesn't matter what it is. You just have to make the choice and stick with it. That's true integrity. For some people, it's money, or God, or family. For you and me it's too remarkably ambitious women."

"I have my own ambitions," Max answered.

"I'm sure you do," Lecroix said, and he looked sincere.

There was a beat of silence and then Lecroix crossed his arms and leaned back against the door. "Neither of you are in any position to be making demands. You entered into a restricted section and accessed dangerous chemicals. You two will be lucky if you aren't arrested let alone lose your jobs. You two could have been killed."

"Funny that you haven't called the police yet," Max snapped back. "It's almost like you have something you don't want them to see."

"Don't pretend that you know anymore then you do, Mr Graves. antyhing you think you know is insignificant."

"Because you don't plan on letting us leave?"

"Becuase we've planned for every single contagincy," Lecroix said. "Because going public at this stage is a little ahead of scedule, but won't interfere withany of our plans. And because nothing we've done is illegal. We are under no obligation to disclose our research to the government."

Max had to laugh at that. "And I'm sure all your experiments are up to legal ethical standards."

Lecroix shrugged. "it's true that not everything we've done has approved through the proper chanells. But the satus of meta-humans as leagal "persons" with all the rights and liberities that title implies is currently in limbo. Peronsally, I think that sounds like a free pass to me."

Listening to the man attempting to justify his actions to himself gave Max a chill. He had no reason to consider meta-humans behond a scientific curiosity before, but now...

"What exactly have you been doing to them?"

Lecroix's grin was back. "I'm kind of curious as to what you've been imagining Mr. Graves."

Max was thinking 20 years was a long time too without any oversight. He was imaging psychological torture, cutting and slicing to find out what makes them tick, needles being forced into the skin with endless properties, and being subjected to all sorts of horrific conditions just to see what would happen. It's wasn't hard to imagine. History itself was filled with examples.

"I could only imagine," he said grimly. "If you're just another shitty company that think their about the law and doesn't give a shit, we don't you just let us go?"

Max was getting tired of the infuriating grin. "Well, this whole situation gave us an intresting oppurtunity. You're a scientist. Don't you want to see what's going to happen next? I know I do."