Page 90 of Sloth
“But when she did, she sent a busload of people to sleep. Isn’t that worth exploring?”
“That wasn’t enough for our investors.” The boss’s jaw chewed from side to side. He didn’t like being argued with.
Max held his breath, trying not to move. Funny what information people gave away in front of a dead man.
The man waved his syringe. “This will expedite results.”
“I thought you wanted him to talk.” Daisy flicked her gaze to Max. “You will ruin him.”
Okay, now Max was sitting up. Ruin him? Ruin him how?
“If I needed your opinion, my darling, I’d ask it. Now be a good girl and do your job.”
Daisy stared at the man for what seemed a long moment. She blinked once. Max had the sense he was witnessing a rare thing—her dissent. He wanted to feel triumphant; he wanted to believe that he’d gotten through to her, but when she took the syringe from the man’s hand and turned on him, he could only feel despair… and with that, her lips curved in a cruel smile.
“Don’t do this, Daisy,” he urged.
She flicked her finger against the cylinder of the syringe, then depressed the handle to make fluid squirt out. “I told you, my name is Despair.”
And then she stabbed him in the arm.
Twenty-Seven
At the lower end ofthe Cardinal City Quadrant, bordering the highway separating the haves from the have-nots, stood the tallest southern building filled with shared office space and business corporations.
Workers had begun to file in for the day, and Despair was among them.
Dressed in a simple white pantsuit, she held a small potted plant in her hands. Pink Freesias, a perennial flowering plant from South Africa. Family:Iridaceae.
Acknowledging the security guard at the turnstile simply by looking at him, she pushed through and made her way to the group of three elevators. As she approached, the waiting office workers parted like the red sea to make way for her. There were so many of them that they stretched across the lobby, crowding the entrance to the lifts.
Their proximity irritated her. She rarely left the building during rush hour, especially morning. Most people hated going to work. She felt it.
She stared at the closed metal doors of her private elevator, saved only for access to the secret Syndicate floors. Even though none of them knew her true identity, they were still afraid of her. She could see it in their minute twitches and bodily shifts away. She wanted to laugh. To scoff. They all tried so hard to not let their fear show. It mattered not. She wasn’t there to make friends.
The elevator pinged, and the doors opened. She stepped inside the empty car, heels muffling on the carpet, and hit the button for the top level. She turned to face the front. The doors were still open. The group of workers goggled. Instinctually, she dipped her head until her long hair covered the scarred side of her face. Mouths gaped until the doors closed, hiding her from view.
Craning her neck to the side, she glimpsed her reflection. Long white hair. An uneventful face. Deep blue irises that faded to purple around the pupil in a way that reminded her of the ever expanding expanse of space, the nothing inside her soul. The only other ounce of color came from the Freesias in her hands.
This was when she looked most human, and still they feared her.
She watched the indicator light flash up the levels, going beyond the empty office space insulating their top floors and past the level where her living quarters resided, along with Julius’s.
On a whim she rarely felt, she’d only left the building to purchase the plant, otherwise she may have dressed in her work leathers and traveled straight to the basement in preparation to administer the second dose of the serum on their captive. But she had all day to action their plan.
The doors opened, and she stepped out onto the maroon carpeted hall, continuing until she reached her father’s office door.
When she pushed through, she found it empty. Good. The meeting hadn’t started yet. The elevator and hall were in the center of the building. The office covered the entire floor. Floor-to-ceiling windows gave them an unrestricted view of the city, from the decrepit slums of the south-side, to the prestigious districts of the Quadrant and further north. She strode to the solitary mahogany desk facing the south-side and put the plant down. There were too many monitors there today for the meeting, and she had to squeeze the plant behind the narrow space before the edge of the desk dropped off. Not ideal, but it would do. The only other item occupying the space was a picture frame of Julius’s first family. The one that came before her.
With nothing else to do, she switched on the monitors and computer, readying the station for the video conference. Within moments, Julius arrived.
Mary, her nanny from the lab in her youth, had once described Julius as a tall, sophisticated nightmare on legs. At the time, Despair had only been eight or nine, but she remembered thinking he was just misunderstood. Despair rode the man more than anyone she’d ever sensed. She’d felt sorry for him. Still did.
Nothing he seemed to do eased his sorrow, and he hid it behind his work.
Without a word, he sat down at his enormous leather high-back chair and dialed into his meeting.
While they waited for the connections to click, Despair wondered if she should say something. Whether to greet him, or announce the plant, but decided against it. Idle conversation wasn’t in their repertoire. Instead, she stood behind him, same as usual, and joined her hands at the front.
