Instinct by Jason Hough (ebook reader web TXT) 📗

down my throat. It happens so quickly and forcefully that I’m not ready for it. Before I can gag it out, Doc clasps his gloved hand over my mouth and presses hard, forming a seal. Then he jabs me in my side with a thumb. It’s unexpected. Something about the placement and force of this causes me to swallow involuntarily.

“Good,” Doc says. He glances over his shoulder. “Start the timer.”

Captain Tweaker obediently taps the screen of the tablet, then twists it around and holds it with both hands against his chest. The number 73 fills the display in giant numerals, replaced a second later by 72, then 71.

Doc assesses this and gives a short nod. “Plenty of time,” he says. “Clear the path and call it out.”

The skinny piece of shit steps backward out of the room, keeping the iPad’s display facing Doc the entire time, even when he moves around the corner into the hallway outside.

64…

63…

“Mr. Ang!” Tweaker calls out. “One minute!”

“Mmm,” someone replies, sounding far off.

That name again. Ang. Where have I heard it before? Another detail to file, though my rapidly growing mental file isn’t going to matter if I don’t get the hell out of this chair.

The goddamn display says 57 now. Seconds to live? Seconds to… what?

I want to scream at Doc. Grab him by the collar of his ill-fitting shirt and shake some answers out of him. What did you give me? What the fuck is going on here, and why are you and Greg involved?

Doc has moved behind me now, and suddenly the chair I’m in lurches into motion. He’s wheeling me, I realize. For some reason this scares me more than anything else that’s happened. This room is a known place, but out there… I can’t even begin to imagine where they’re taking me, or why.

The cold fingers of panic begin to twitch around the edges of my mind. This in turn sends my own fingers—the only part of me I can move—into a fluttering blur of motion. I twist and bend, contorting my hand, trying to pull free from the bindings and then, desperately, probing for the clasp that holds the straps so tight. It is out of reach, of course, but I don’t care. I strain. Groan with the effort.

“Just relax,” Doc says. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

46…

45…

We move down a dark hallway, Doc pushing me as if I’m a piece of furniture being delivered. Captain Tweaker is in front of us, walking backward, the iPad always facing Doc, the numbers ticking inexorably toward zero.

Many doors, all closed, line the passage. Doc ignores them all, making straight for the last one, walking without panic and very much with purpose.

Before Tweaker reaches that last door, it swings open. A new person, silhouetted against a window, holds it aside, letting us through. A woman, I think. Doc turns my chair before I can get a good look at her.

The room is a study, or home office. Big oak desk. Walls lined with books. I can do little more than swivel my eyes, trying to read their titles as we pass, but all I get is a general impression: legal tomes, biographies of former presidents, a few classic novels.

There’s another door ahead. Tweaker pushes it open with his foot.

37…

36…

Doc wheels me into a small room, long and narrow. Probably once a closet, I guess. Ten feet long and five wide.

The woman in the study approaches. She’s holding a finger to one ear. “He wants to know if she swallowed it.”

“Of course she did,” Doc says.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. Just tell him we’re coming.”

She nods once, then backs away.

Doc presses a button on the wall just inside the small room, and the whole thing lurches. A low electric hum comes from the walls.

Not a closet then, but an elevator. Going down.

When the doors open I’m wheeled backward into a sort of man cave. Wine bottles, a humidor for cigars, a dartboard. But just a few feet inside there’s a plastic swoosh from behind me, and the tone of the wheels on the floor changes from carpet to something like laminate or vinyl. Two thick plastic curtains brush past my ears and close before me as Doc guides my chair into what I can only assume is a psychotic’s murder cave.

The walls, ceiling, and floor are all lined with plastic sheeting.

A long groan escapes my lips.

Doc raises an eyebrow at this, curious. Maybe even concerned. But he does nothing to help me.

Then I glimpse the benches along the side walls. A microscope, racks of test tubes and machines. I can only guess at their purpose.

I see a row of small refrigerators with glass doors and samples inside, color coded.

Several laptop computers line the desk above.

There’s a safe with a fancy biometric lock.

Captain Tweaker lets us pass him and now follows us, still holding the tablet toward Doc. I can see the timer again.

16…

We move through the laboratory. Doc walking backward, pulling me. Tweaker following. His head is bowed like a monk, eyes fixed on the iPad in his hands. Their steps are in sync, matching the seconds that tick away.

Suddenly Tweaker glances up, seems to see me for the first time.

“I’m sorry about this—” he says. I can only stare back at him, momentarily dumbfounded by the sudden change in him. Attitude, posture, everything. He’s like a different person.

“No talking,” Doc snaps. “Be absolutely silent now!”

Instantly the man’s head bows again. In the blink of an eye he’s Captain Tweaker again. Why? Fear?

11…

10…

Another door, another room. This one’s small, I guess, just from the way the sound echoes. Or rather, how it doesn’t. Doc spins me around.

The space is absolutely empty save for a simple desk, upon which rests a computer screen. Behind this, on the otherwise unadorned walls, are two large speakers built into the surface.

Tweaker holds the iPad out slightly, emphasizing its eight remaining seconds. He sets the tablet on the desk beside the computer, using a kickstand built into its case