Exhaustion eventually won its battle against discomfort, and I drifted off into a deep and disturbing sleep, fraught with dreams that kept insisting to the jury that they were actually memories...
The lights blazed overhead, ironic given where we were sitting. Every detail stood out on the popcorn ceiling and worn carpet. On the wall to my left a faux window showed a lovely beach at some a tropical destination, weekenders splashing in the water. I smiled at it briefly. There were no real windows three floors underground - at least, none that I wanted to look out of.
"Are you listening, Oliver?"
"Yes, ma'am." I snapped my gaze back to the screen at the front of the room. "Three exits. Seven minutes. I understand."
"Be sure you do." The woman running the meeting looked back down at the folder in front of her, her salt-and-pepper hair barely trembling with the movement. I briefly wondered how long she had been doing this.
The briefing continued for another thirty minutes. They always seemed to drag on, but when the margins for making a mistake were practically nonexistent I supposed there was nothing wrong with taking extra time to prepare. I closed the file in front of me, which I'd already memorized the night before.
The dour faces of two men stared at me from a screen on the wall, "Kill or Capture" written in white letters on a red background below them. As the meeting neared its end I let my mind drift, the words being spoken by glorified bureaucrats who would never carry out any of their own orders reduced to a buzz. The carpet in this room smelled musty and I wrinkled my nose at it.
My eyes drifted over to the heavy black door in the far corner. I amused myself for a minute by thinking about what would happen if I just stood up and walked out. Out the door, down the hall, up the elevator.
But I'd never make it that far. There was nowhere to go beyond that door - not in the middle of an operation.
Besides, I saw nothing wrong with where I was or what we were talking about.
Not yet.
YOU ARE READING
Vicious Memories
Mystery / ThrillerTHE MAZE RUNNER for ADULTS --- Things Oliver doesn't know: How he washed up on this island. What the blank keycard in his pocket opens. Who he murdered. When Oliver wakes up he's drowning in the surf, with no memory of who or where he is. Before he...
