Arena (2 page)

“Not more than a few hours if you follow instructions. We do ask that you commit to finishing the experiment, however.”

“And we won’t have to do anything embarrassing or improper?”

He looked amused. “Only if you choose to.”

“Come on, Cal,” Meg murmured. “You said you’d do this.”

“Oh, all right.” Callie signed the waiver and handed it over.
It’s
only for a couple of hours
, she consoled herself.
And who knows—maybe
I
will
gain new and powerful insights. Maybe I’ll learn how to say no to
Lisa. Maybe it’ll even turn my life around like the flyer promises. There’s
no denying it could use some turning around
.

Four years out of college, she was still making minimum wage raising rats for biology experiments. She still lived in a rented apartment, still had to endure her mother’s lectures about finding a man and getting focused, and still wasn’t any closer to doing what she really wanted to do—paint. Unfortunately that was something both her mother and sister considered completely unacceptable. A career in art was too unreliable. Worse, her deadbeat father was an artist—when he wasn’t following the horse races or losing his money in Las Vegas—and she didn’t want to be like him, did she?

At her mother’s insistence, she had gone into pre-med. But she was not accepted at med school after graduation—much to her relief—and thus far the only thing her science degree had turned up was the rat-raising job. A job that somehow spilled from part time into full and consumed all her energy, so that little art got done, and she stayed where she was, trapped, frustrated, and waiting for a miracle to set her free.

Gabe told them to go on up and indicated an elevator panel in the textured beige wall beside the desk. Meg hesitated, looking uncertain, then leaned over the counter. “Alex Chapman was supposed to meet us—”

“Yes. He’s waiting upstairs.”

As they entered the elevator Meg nudged Callie’s arm. “He’s waiting for us! Did you hear?” She fluffed her black curls and groped in her purse for a breath mint. “Do I look okay? What am I gonna say?”

“Hello usually works.” Callie tried not to think of the dark well of space beneath her feet, pushed away thoughts of cables snapping and cars plummeting. The last thing she wanted was to have an attack here.

“But what about
after
hello?” Meg persisted.

“You never had any problems talking to Jack.”

“There’s a light-year of difference between Jack and Alex. Wait’ll you see him, Cal. He is
so
gorgeous.”

“So you’ve said. Many times.”

“Have I?” Meg giggled.

Callie watched the six blink out and the seven appear over the door. Uneasiness churned in her middle. She was okay up to the seventh floor, but after that, things got dicey. Floor-level fear was a fairly common manifestation of acrophobia, but because it didn’t match the stereotypical fear of heights, it was harder for others to relate to. You were expected to freak out when you looked out a lofty window or stepped onto a rooftop observation deck, and most people nursed enough of their own latent acrophobia to sympathize. But falling into a full-blown panic just because the numbers changed on an elevator panel? Even she knew it made no sense.

Not that it mattered. Above the sixth floor, she got jittery. And above the ninth . . .
STOP it! Don’t think about it!

“Frankly, I think you were an idiot to return Jack’s ring,” she said to Meg, desperate to distract herself. “He’s a good guy, and he loves you.”

Meg gestured dismissively. “Jack’s even more predictable than
you
are. He’s a stick-in-the-mud. I want some excitement.”

“Excitement.” The seven gave way to an eight. “You
have
lost your mind.”

Meg grinned. “You mean my heart.”

“You don’t even know the man.”

The eight changed to a nine, a chime pinged, and the elevator opened at the end of a gleaming, door-lined corridor. On the ninth floor.

Don’t think about it. Everything’s fine
.

She followed Meg into the hallway, smelling the pleasant crayon scent of the floor wax and feeling abruptly disoriented. Hadn’t the elevator faced
across
the building’s width when they’d boarded it?

The dark-haired youth awaiting them distracted her from further musing. This must be the famous Alex—the handsome-as-a-Greek-god, I-die-a-thousand-deaths-each-time-he-looks-at-me real reason Meg was here. A graduate teaching assistant for Dr. Charis’s Psych 101 and a doctoral candidate in the psychology of the paranormal, Alex was set to receive his degree in less than a month. Meg figured she had to make a connection today, or forget him.

Though Meg had billed the guy as movie-star caliber, Callie found him unexceptional. Dressed in a white tunic and slacks, he was of average stature, with glossy black hair and dark, long-lashed eyes. His face was open and friendly, but hardly stunning. Gabe, the receptionist, was better looking.

He did have a nice smile.

“Meg! Great to see you. And you brought a friend!”

As Meg introduced them Callie had to admit he was a likable guy, one of those people who instantly made you feel at ease.

“We really appreciate what you’re doing here,” he told them. “Without volunteers like you, our project would be nothing. I hope you’ll find it worth your while.” He motioned down the hall. “Shall we get started?”

“So what is this obstacle course like?” Callie asked as they walked.

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you,” Alex replied. “The experiment demands that all participants begin with the same level of . . .” He smiled at her sidelong. “Well, ignorance.”

“You mean we have to go into this blind?”

“More or less.”

Alarms went off in her head. Red lights flashed around images of experimenters hovering over her posterior and TV reporters aiming large-lensed cameras.

“I hope the obstacles aren’t tires and ropes,” said Meg, “because we’re hardly dressed—”

“Oh, we’ll provide appropriate apparel.”

“You mean it
is
tires and ropes?” Callie asked, aghast.

Alex laughed but wouldn’t commit either way.

He led them to an L-shaped room where three people waited in white plastic chairs lined against peach-colored walls. A picture window dressed with vertical blinds—thankfully closed against the morning sun—filled the left wall. Callie took care not to look at the window and concentrated on following Meg and Alex to the counter. There a boyish Asian in a gray-yoked tunic gave them clipboards with medical forms to fill out, after which they were called to the examination room at the back. Callie went first, leaving Meg in happy conversation with Alex.

The exam was decidedly unorthodox. Instead of using blood pressure cuffs, thermometers, and blood vials, the lab tech, a handsome, muscular youth named Angelo, pressed her hand against a jellylike plate and flipped a switch.

“This is pretty fancy equipment,” she exclaimed as the plate vibrated beneath her palm.

“Takes fingerprints, temperature, blood pressure, and blood chemistry all at the same time,” he boasted with a grin. “State of the art. Now please step up onto this disk.”

She complied, looking around curiously. “It must be a pretty physical obstacle course if you have to examine us first.”

“Just follow the instructions, and you’ll be fine. You need to put your jewelry and such in the bowl there.” He gestured to a steel receptacle sliding out of the wall. “Glasses, too.”

As Callie deposited watch, earrings, and glasses in the bowl, Angelo stepped into a cubicle across the room. Then a low hum sounded above her and a studded circular plate descended from the ceiling, stopping well above arm’s reach. She heard some clicks, and the hum changed pitch. Abruptly, ribbons of multicolored light swirled around her, the incongruous scent of warm taffy tickling her nostrils.

“My goodness! What is this?”

“Organ scan,” Angelo called from his booth. “Relax.”

Again the ceiling plate clicked and whirred. The taffy scent faded, and now a tingle burred through her body like a tiny whirlwind. It stopped a moment later, and the humming ceased. As the lights faded Angelo emerged from his controls. “You’re the picture of health,” he said with a grin. “I’d guess you’re a jogger.”

“I do my share. Would you have disqualified me if I wasn’t in good enough shape?”

“Well, if you had a bad heart or something, we’d have to address that,” he said, helping her down from the raised disk. “But you don’t.”

He gave her a cream-colored jumpsuit and sent her off to a changing booth. Stitched with pockets and zippers, the suit was fashioned from a fine, buttery fabric that seemed unlikely to withstand the rigors of an obstacle course. Though she felt silly wearing it, it was very comfortable.

Only one person remained in the waiting room when she returned—a thin man seated by the hall doorway whose open stare made her even more self-conscious about the jumpsuit. Keeping her distance from the window, Callie sat as far as she could from the pointy-chinned stranger. But she’d no sooner settled when, to her chagrin, he got up and sat one chair away from her, regarding her with an almost leer. “You here for the experiment?”

Suddenly aware that even the Asian receptionist had left his post, she nodded and looked around for a magazine. There were none.

“Better reconsider,” he said. “Strange things go on around here.”

Curiosity made her look at him. His hair was lank and gray, his skin waxy pale, and he had an unpleasantly strong earthy smell. “Like what?”

His black eyes bored into hers, and she thought—absurdly—that they weren’t quite human.

The chair squeaked as he leaned close. “Have you noticed . . . that none of the workers here”—he looked around conspiratorially—“have beards?”

Callie blinked. She tore her gaze away, flushing. “No, I hadn’t noticed,” she said, thinking of going back down the hall to look for Meg. Or even the lab tech, Angelo. And where was the receptionist?

The stranger leaned closer. The earthy odor acquired a taint of decay. “They’re aliens,” he whispered. “Can’t grow beards like regular men. And they’re plotting to kidnap you. Better reconsider.”

Callie rose, heading for the hall to the examination rooms. Before she reached it, however, the stranger stood and, chuckling softly, left the room.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she sagged into a chair. No beards? Aliens? What nuthouse did
he
escape from?

She was almost giggling when first Meg, then the receptionist, and finally Alex returned. When she told him of the incident, he wasn’t surprised.

“Calls himself Hermes. I think he’s one of those homeless guys from over on Fourth Avenue. I’ll send someone to escort him out.”

As they headed for the next station, Callie asked about the project’s sponsor, which Alex identified as a private foundation called Aggillon, Inc. When she asked why they were interested in this project, he looked at her askance, one dark brow raised in amusement.

“It just seems like a lot of money’s being spent here,” she added hastily. “I wondered what the justification was.”

“You don’t think turning people’s lives around is sufficient justification?”

She opened her mouth to contest his overblown claim, but saw Meg glaring at her from Alex’s other side and swallowed her words.

He stopped outside a pair of double doors. “I’m afraid these psych profiles are tediously long, but try to answer as honestly as you can.”

“Where is the course?” Callie asked suddenly. “Is it on this floor, or will we go somewhere else?”

Alex grinned. “You are the curious one, aren’t you?”

“Paranoid is the word,” Meg muttered.

Alex laid a hand on the door handle nearest him. “You’ll enter on this level.” He pulled the door open for them. “While you’re completing the profiles, I’ll program your starting sequences. One of the techs will take you to an orientation room when you’re ready.”

Program your starting sequences? Could the course be computer generated? With a virtual reality unit they could set up any sort of obstacle course they wanted, in no space at all. Perfect for a ninth-floor operation like this. It also explained the ritzy jumpsuits. But virtual reality units had to be expensive—just like every other piece of equipment they had in this place.

“Are we not going through together, then?” Meg asked, stepping into the opening.

“You might meet each other once you’re inside, but at the beginning, each of you will enter on your own.” He paused. “Any more questions?”

They shook their heads. As he walked away Meg leaned against Callie and whispered, “I haven’t talked to him this much all year!”

“I didn’t think you’d have trouble talking.” Callie steered her friend through the doorway. “Have you asked him out yet?”

Meg looked chagrined. “Every time I start, my throat freezes up.”

“Meg—”

“Don’t worry. I’ll do it.”

The room beyond the doors held rows of white Formica-topped tables lined with more plastic chairs. About twenty people sat scattered throughout, bent over legal-sized sheets of white paper. Callie was relieved not to find the alien-obsessed weirdo among them.

A table near the door was manned by yet another youth in a gray-and-white uniform who looked as if he hadn’t graduated from high school. Perversely Callie found herself studying the smooth skin on his face, realizing the business about the beards was true. Not only did none of the workers sport one, none even looked capable of growing one. From Gabe to Alex to the muscular lab tech, Angelo, to this desk worker, they all looked too young to be doing what they were doing.

She settled with Meg in a corner of the room, skimming the questions as she chewed on the end of her braid.
It’s nonsense, surely
. But . . . what about that organ scanner? The jumpsuit’s strange fabric? Even Alex’s evasiveness about the obstacle course became suspicious.

“All right, what’s wrong?” Meg’s whisper cut into her thoughts.

“What makes you think something’s wrong?”

“You’re chewing your hair.”

Grimacing, Callie dropped her braid and picked up her pencil.