Page 53 of Challenged

Rardek considers this for a moment. “A list of supplies they had might be of some use. If you know what tools a person has, you can guess at their purpose.”

His thoughtfulness defuses my irritation some, though it’s nothing I hadn’t thought of myself.

“A lot of it I don’t know what it is. The particular scientific equipment - most of it is just listed under company names and serial numbers. I’d need a catalogue to work it out, and I couldn’t find one of those. Most of the rest of it is generic - stuff with so many different uses, I could never narrow it down. And then some of it is just weird. Like they packed full protective gear. Nuclear level PPE. What would they need that for out here?” I grimace. “I mean, it would have been really useful to them when the disease started spreading. But they can’t have anticipated needing it for that, so what else?”

Rardek says nothing. At least he doesn’t fall into that guy trap of trying to look like he understands everything better than anyone else.

“The most frustrating part is I feel like the answers I’m looking for are in there somewhere. I’m just not seeing it.”

I rub at my face, my neck. The strain from sitting at a computer for so long hasn’t followed me into the dreamspace,but the action is automatic. Still, despite the aches I know I’ll wake up to, the lack of progress I’ve made, I do feel strangely better for saying it all. For having someone listen, even if they can’t offer any answers.

I’ve never had someone listen to me before.

“You have more time yet,” Rardek says. “Two females were woken today while Rachel and Grace learned the process of using the pods. There are sixteen still to be woken. Perhaps they manage more than two tomorrow, but I doubt it will be all sixteen. You can keep looking.”

“I can.”

But to what end? Is knowing the answers to this mystery going to fundamentally change anything about the life I have now? Or is this search just me holding on to a part of the life I’ve lost? Doing my job one last time, because once we leave here, I’m never going to do it again.

My job. Hah.

Baxter’s job.

You’ll pay for this, you little bitch. I will make you pay.

Baxter, in all his disheveled fury, flashes before my mind’s eye again. Except it’s not just my mind’s eye. He walks out of his office - a room tucked off the side of this one. Exactly as he looked that day - tie loose, shirt untucked, pulsing vein on his forehead, his face bright red.

“How could you do this to me?” he spits, charging forward.

I didn’t flinch then; I don’t flinch now. But Rardek is in front of me in a moment, a wicked-looking knife appearing in his hand. Baxter looks right through him, as though he isn’t there.

Because he wasn’t. This isn’t the real Baxter, just a memory.

“It’s okay,” I say, taking Rardek by the arm and guiding him back. “Not real, remember?”

I don’t know if it’s my touch or my calm that gets through to him, but he straightens out of his defensive pose, the knife vanishing.

“I sense that this was real to you once,” he says, his tone strangely clipped.

Baxter continues to breathe hard, but otherwise he doesn’t move. Frozen, waiting for permission to continue playing the memory out.

“Yeah, meet my boss, Andreas Baxter.”

“Was he always this angry?” Again, his voice sounds wrong. Like he’s trying to hold his own anger in.

“No, only this once.”

“You’ll pay for this, you little bitch. I will make you pay.” Baxter says it without moving, just stands in place and repeats that line that has echoed in my ears ever since.

“Pay for what?” Rardek says.

“Humiliating him.” I step closer to Baxter, really look at him. He was always lazy, arrogant, but I thought he had something redeeming to him. A charm. Looking at him now - admittedly at his worst - he just looks greasy. A five o’clock shadow on his jaw. Food stains on his collar. Such a charisma vacuum his anger doesn’t even frighten me.

“I was supposed to be his assistant,” I say. “Make him cups of coffee and bring him things. Do his errands. Remind him to buy an anniversary present for his wife. That sort of thing. He realised pretty quickly that I was smart enough to help him out with some of his actual work responsibilities. I didn’t mind doing it - far more interesting than the rest of the stuff he had me doing. And when I did it well, he gave me more things to do. Again and again until I was basically doing his job for him. I was bored enough at first that I didn’t resent it. Naïve enough to think that maybe I’d get credit for it one day. If I worked hardenough, did a good enough job. Never happened. I just watched Baxter taking credit and getting rewarded for everything I did.”

It still burns in my chest. To me, it’s still like it all happened yesterday. Seeing Baxter all fury and humiliation - it’s as satisfying now as it was then.

“There was this one job. It was complicated, and I thought I knew what the answers were, but I figured I’d run it past Baxter before I got him to sign it off. Just double check that what I was saying really represented his views, you know? I was trying to do the right thing. Should have known better. I barely said two words to him and I could see his attention starting to wander.”

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