Chapter 105. Lunch with a Mad Genius
"Lab rats?" I repeated after a brief pause. My voice stayed even, giving nothing away as I studied her face, searching for the slightest tell. "As far as I know, it is impossible to bring living aliens back through the portal. Are you seriously conducting animal experiments behind these walls?"
"Oh, for God's sake, of course not!" Selina huffed, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear as though I had just said something absurd. "I'm an engineer, Tom. I work with high-voltage circuits and microchips. Do you have any idea what floating animal hair would do to sensitive optics? It'd short out the whole lab. The biology people work in a completely different facility on the other side of town."
Lowering my voice, I fixed my gaze on her blue eyes behind the thin lenses of her glasses. "Then... are we talking about illegal experiments on people?"
"Oh my God, Tom. Just because my badge has a government seal on it doesn't make me some comic book supervillain." She rolled her eyes dramatically and threw up her hands. "Besides, if I ever needed human test subjects, I wouldn't have to kidnap anybody. One call to the Pentagon, and a thousand flag-waving patriots would line up from here to the Lincoln Memorial, begging for the chance to sacrifice themselves for the glory of the United States."
"So that's your plan?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You'll see." Selina gave me a sly wink, then pivoted gracefully on her high heels with the poise of a stalking predator.
I barely stopped myself from sighing. Her habit of turning everything into a theatrical production and acting like she was hiding some earth-shattering secret was getting old, but arguing with her now would have been pointless.
Selina pressed her plastic keycard against the electronic access panel and waited for the confirmation beep. The magnetic lock clicked, and the heavy door slid smoothly aside. Even with the sharp scent of industrial disinfectant, the fresh corridor air felt like a gift after the stale atmosphere of the medical room. That place had been suffocating, far too reminiscent of a solitary confinement cell.
"Hey, you!" Selina called sharply to a man in blue coveralls walking past.
The poor janitor jumped so hard he nearly dropped his mop and bucket.
"Clear out room three-oh-one. Everything. Empty it completely and move the contents into storage. Now."
"Uh... y-yes, ma'am. Got it." The worker hurriedly steadied the bucket, still looking stunned. "I'll get right on it..."
Without waiting for a response, Selina continued down the polished floor. The sharp click of her heels echoed through the corridor while her fingers danced effortlessly across her phone. She carried herself with the quiet confidence of someone who was used to giving orders.
"I understand the need for sanitation," I said, matching her brisk pace with my hands in my pockets. "Replacing the bedding is standard procedure. But why remove the bed and all the specialized equipment? It's still in perfect working order. What if someone else needs it?"
"Tom, this is the Corps Engineering Center, not a county hospital," she replied without looking up from the glowing screen. "People build plasma weapons here. They don't treat patients. I had that medical bed brought in just for you. Your treatment is over, you're back on your feet, so we don't need it anymore. It'll go into storage. Maybe the tech guys can salvage it for parts. If not, we'll write it off and toss it. No sense wasting valuable floor space."
I kept quiet, but I still had trouble wrapping my head around that kind of thinking. Years of working as an ordinary corporate office clerk had trained me to account for every last cent. I remembered when replacing a leaking office water cooler required a formal complaint from half the staff and weeks of waiting for management approval. Here, a specialized medical setup worth tens of thousands of dollars was purchased for a single project and discarded the moment it was no longer needed.
"What are you doing?" I asked, watching the bluish glow of the screen reflected in her glasses. "Ordering those Pentagon volunteers?"
"What good are test subjects if I don't have the equipment to collect data?" she said, dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand while scrolling through what looked like a specialized catalog. "Your demoralization ability is clearly triggering neural activity spikes. I'm ordering portable MRI scanners and high-frequency EEG systems. I need to track your cerebral cortex activity over time."
"For one test? Just so everything can end up in storage afterward?"
"Exactly." She tapped the middle of the screen. "Perfect. They even offer express delivery. Two hundred bucks extra, and a courier will have everything at the front gate within two hours."
"You're paying for all this with your own card?" I asked. Every accounting instinct I had was already screaming.
"As if." Selina stopped, slipped her phone into the pocket of her white lab coat, and looked at me like she genuinely did not understand the question. "The engineering division has its own operating budget. Why does this bother you so much?"
"Call it professional conditioning." I rubbed my chin, feeling the coarse stubble that had grown in. "But after spending years reviewing financial reports, I can't help seeing a massive disconnect. At my old job, buying a new printer meant writing a formal justification, sending it through financial analysts, and convincing the board it would benefit the company next quarter. You spend a fortune on top-of-the-line equipment in under two minutes, and nobody even asks you to file an expense report."
"You're comparing the private sector to the government, Tom." Selina smiled faintly, adjusted her glasses with an effortless motion, and continued down the hallway. "Private companies obsess over every penny because unnecessary spending cuts into someone's profits. Governments don't work that way. Their budgets are practically bottomless. Do you know how much the Apollo program cost? Twenty-five billion dollars. An astronomical amount just to plant an American flag on the Moon and stick it to the Soviets."
"So you're saying your funding basically has no ceiling?"
"Well, I am saving the world." She shrugged without even looking back. "As long as I hand headquarters a working technology or another breakthrough patent every month, nobody upstairs cares about a couple of extra million buried in the overhead column."
There was an undeniable logic to what she was saying, cold, practical, and impossible to argue with. I remembered reading an article about massive corporations pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into deep-sea exploration and long-range space research. Decades of work, entire teams of highly paid specialists, and in the end all they had to show for it were a few dozen pages of dry theory and a handful of vague hypotheses. Selina, meanwhile, had her gift and unrestricted access to portal technology, and she kept producing practical, ready-to-use breakthroughs one after another.
Results like that bought a tremendous amount of freedom. As long as she kept delivering, upper management was willing to overlook almost any eccentricity.
As we talked, we crossed a long glass skybridge and headed down to the cafeteria. The spacious, spotless room was awash in fluorescent light, with rows of empty tables stretching across the floor. Aside from the polished stainless-steel serving line and the almost eerie silence, it was not much different from the mess hall back at basic training.
The place was nearly empty. The only people inside were two cafeteria workers behind the serving counter. Both women froze with their mouths slightly open, staring at us as though members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had just walked through the door. Apparently, they were not used to seeing outsiders here, especially not patients.
"If the courier doesn't get caught in traffic, we can start the first round of tests this afternoon." Selina settled gracefully into a metal chair by the window. "Until then, we might as well grab something to eat."
"Sounds good." I took a deep breath, catching the mouthwatering aroma of fried potatoes, beef, and braised vegetables. My stomach answered with a low growl. "What do you want?"
"You seriously think I'd eat cafeteria food?" Selina crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair with theatrical offense. "My body's gotten used to a much more refined diet, Tom."
I glanced toward the serving counter. The cafeteria workers had obviously heard every word. Judging by their expressions, it was not my presence that had shocked them. It was the sight of their resident diva acting as though anything less than a Michelin-starred restaurant was beneath her.
Thinking back over the past few weeks, I suddenly realized something. During all the time she'd been lecturing at the training center, I had never once seen her in the instructors' dining hall.
"Well, thanks for showing me where the cafeteria is," I said dryly. "I'm a simple guy. Gourmet food isn't exactly a requirement for me. I'll eat what's here while you wait for your restaurant delivery."
"So you're really going to let me starve? In my condition?" She sighed dramatically, placing a delicate hand over her stomach, though the mischievous sparkle in her blue eyes completely ruined the performance. "That's cold, sweetheart."
"I'm listening," I replied evenly, tightening my jaw. Her constant attempts to manipulate every conversation were getting old, but arguing with her would have accomplished nothing. "As long as it's reasonable."
"Remember that morning we spent together? You told me that, with the right ingredients, you could outcook the chef at any five-star restaurant." Her voice softened into a teasing purr as she leaned toward me. "You remember, don't you?"
"I've got a good memory."
"Then prove it. This place gets the best ingredients money can buy, and trust me, nobody here would dare get in your way." She cast the kitchen staff a brief but unmistakably commanding glance. "Cook something for me, sweetheart."
Looking into her utterly shameless eyes, I felt a brief surge of stubborn pride, the urge to turn around and walk away. It disappeared almost as quickly as it came. Habit took over, and I reduced the situation to a simple cost-benefit calculation.
Selina's demands were irritating, but she had a point. First, I really had made that promise. Second, after everything she'd done to drag me back from the brink of death, cooking her lunch was about the smallest favor I could repay.
I nodded without a word and stepped behind the serving line. The cafeteria workers quietly moved aside, their nervous, apologetic expressions making me feel a little sorry for them. The kitchen was stocked unbelievably well. The shelves held premium olive oil, fresh herbs, and crisp vegetables, and one of the refrigerated cases even contained several bottles of respectable wine. To an ordinary employee, it would have looked extravagant. To Selina, it was probably nothing special.
After a quick look through the ingredients, I glanced into the dining room through the serving window. Selina was already absorbed in her phone again. She was not the patient type, and after hours of intense work, her body probably needed hydration and quick carbohydrates more than a heavy meal. A fruit salad was the obvious choice.
The recipe came together instantly. Back when I was unwinding after long days at the office, I had watched hundreds of cooking shows, and the muscle memory sharpened by the [Trainer] enhancement let my hands move with surgical precision. The knife danced across the cutting board, turning pineapple into perfect cubes, while caramelizing the fruit with a splash of dessert wine took only a matter of minutes.
"All done." I returned to the table and placed a deep porcelain bowl in front of Selina.
"And what's this supposed to be?" She arched an eyebrow, inspecting the dish with the practiced skepticism of a restaurant critic.
"Arcobaleno fruit salad with blackberry sauce. The pineapple was lightly caramelized in dessert wine to bring out its natural acidity," I said, almost quoting a television chef word for word.
"Sounds interesting." Selina speared a piece of pineapple with her fork, lifted it to her lips, and inhaled its aroma. "Smells promising. Let's see how it tastes."
She slipped the fruit into her mouth and chewed slowly, wearing the stern expression of someone judging a signature dish. I watched without giving anything away. Behind me, a faint collective inhale drifted out of the kitchen. The cafeteria workers had gathered against the window, frozen in anticipation as though their quarterly bonuses depended on her verdict.
"Not bad. The texture could use a little more complexity," Selina finally said after swallowing. "Nine out of ten."
A loud sigh of relief rose from behind me. It sounded as though the women in the kitchen had barely stopped themselves from applauding. I had no idea what they were celebrating. Maybe they had decided to root for me as one cook supporting another.
While Selina leisurely worked her way through the salad, I returned to the serving line and picked up the standard staff lunch: a juicy steak, a baked potato, a serving of fresh greens, and a cup of black coffee. Honestly, I enjoyed that simple meal far more than I expected.
Ten minutes later, the cafeteria's sterile silence came to an end. The clock had just struck noon, and the first wave of visitors began filtering in: junior technicians and lab assistants. Every single person who walked through the doors and noticed Selina reacted exactly the same way. They paused at the entrance, stared for a beat too long, then hurried over with stiff, awkward greetings.
"Good afternoon, Miss Langstrom," two young men in white lab coats mumbled as they took the widest possible route around our table, doing everything they could to avoid making eye contact.
"Enjoy your lunch, gentlemen," Selina replied with a dazzling smile that looked almost angelic.
The second they slipped away toward the serving line, her lips curled into that familiar predatory grin.
"And here come our little lab rats."