Page 13 of Lagoon

“Of course,” she said.

He drank down the whole mug of water. “All right. Let’s go to the lieutenant.”

She grimaced. Great, one of her new favorite people. Gary Harris.

LIEUTENANT HARRIS WASflanked by Nathan Robinson and another guard who was introduced as Roger Lee. He was skinny, with a straggly mustache. He seemed to have a perpetual smirk on his face.

Harris leveled a finger at Dr. Greyson. They were standing in front of a larger angular building, which was apparently a dining hall and gathering area. They called it the mess hall, like in the military. “You don’t tell me what to do. You’re not the boss down here, not of me and my men.”

“I think I am,” said Dr. Greyson. “I think that this is my project, actually, and I think that you’re all here to facilitate the work I’m trying to do—”

“And if this thing out here is just a monster, I doubt Anderson Scott wants to bother with it anymore.”

“You can’t kill him!” spoke up Riley. “He’s the last of his kind. You kill Bub and it’s anextinction event.”

Harris turned to look at her, giving her an indulgent smile. “It’s real cute you been here less than half a day and you named it, sweetheart.”

“She didn’t—” Dr. Greyson sighed heavily. “Look, if you won’t go out there and bring him in to the tank, then what are we supposed to do?”

Harris shrugged. “I don’t know.” He grinned at Riley. “I wasn’t saying we kill it necessarily, sweetheart. I don’t want to send my guys out there after that thing if it’s a danger to us. I didn’t sign up for a suicide mission. Let’s just get the fuck out of here. Call the chopper back. I’m going to talk to Nancy.”

Dr. Greyson groaned. “We don’t need to get Anderson Scott into this until we have everything resolved—”

“Dead body, Greyson?” said Harris. “I think we need to talk to Daddy.” He pushed past both Greyson and Riley and started across the dirt road.

Roger Lee waggled his eyebrows at Riley. “Damn, girl, you look like trash. Want me to take you out?”

She blinked at him. What?

He chortled, clutching his stomach, blew her a kiss and went after the lieutenant.

“I’ve got to call Nick’s wife,” said Dr. Greyson, shaking his head.

“Who’s Nancy?” said Riley.

“Oh, Nancy’s a fucking bitch,” said Dr. Greyson. “She’s the liaison with Harmonia, making sure everything out here can be kept from tanking the company or whatever. She also replies-all to emails all the time. With one word answers. So your inbox is full of this chain of, ‘Thanks!’ and ‘Will do!’ and ‘Got it!’ To everyone in the email chain. Constantly.”

Riley waited, because this could not be the sole reason that Dr. Greyson called a woman a “bitch,” could it? Was he that sort of person?

He didn’t say anything else, just fumed.

“That’s annoying,” said Riley.

“Everything about her is annoying,” said Dr. Greyson.

“Okay,” said Riley, furrowing her brow.

Dr. Greyson dragged a hand over his face. “This can’t be happening.”

ANGELA RAMIREZ HADbeen assigned to check the perimeter out here by the river, which she knew was a bullshit assignment given just to get rid of her. She was long past caring whether ornot Harris thought she was competent or whether he gave her busy work just to get her out of the rest of the teams’ hair so that they could make off-color, sexist jokes in peace.

She just did what was asked of her and kept her mouth shut.

She was sent out here at least once a week, to walk up and down through the forest, looking out at the river, and she didn’t even really know what it was she was supposed to be looking for.

He called it “patrol” as if they were waiting for some enemy army to come in and attack them at any moments.

Fuck Harris, though.

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