Hunter arrived at the golden-veneered InnerCore building at 9 a.m. sharp. All markings of the company’s logo had been removed, and as he pulled the handle to the entrance door, he found it locked. But as he peered inside, he could see there was someone at the reception desk. Seeing a buzzer with an intercom by the handle, he pressed it.

“Yes?” The voice of the woman at the desk crackled in a way that instantly offended the ear. 

“Uh, yes. Um, I’ve come to see about applying for a job?”

“Sorry, we’re not hiring,” the voice wasn’t unfriendly, just crisp.

“Does Dr. Kahn still work there, by any chance?”

There was a brief pause. “He does,” the woman replied. “But he’s quite busy.”

“I’m sure he’d want to see me,” Hunter said. “Would you page him, please? Tell him Hunter Reeves would like to see him.”

Another pause. “Hold, please.”

Hunter waited patiently at the door, checking his reflection in the mirrored glass of the entrance. For a moment he felt as if he were really a job applicant. He jumped slightly when the door opened and the receptionist motioned for him to come inside.

The foyer looked just like Hunter remembered it; green marble over every square inch, but all evidence of an operating business had been removed, save for the receptionist’s desk. No waiting room furniture, no TVs playing the local cable news channel softly in the background. Again, the brass logo announcing to the world this was “InnerCore Industries… Progress Brings Us Together,” had been pried from the walls, leaving the faintest of scars on the marble.

“Dr. Kahn will be with you shortly,” the receptionist said. She tousled her curly, black hair and straightened the hem on her blouse as she walked back behind her desk. “My apologies for the wait, as I said, we weren’t actually expecting anyone today. May I get you some water?”

“Oh, uh, yes, please,” Hunter stammered. Anything to keep himself calm, he figured.

The receptionist filled a mug with water from a desktop dispenser and offered it to Hunter, who took it and began drinking immediately. He set the mug on the desk just as a large set of double-doors behind the desk opened. They hissed as their air-lock disengaged, almost heralding the person behind them to step forward.

“Mr. Reeves, what a surprise,” said a deep, disaffected voice. Dr. Kahn breezed past the doors. He was just as imposing as Hunter had seen in the dossier, yet nowhere near how he remembered. Kahn’s hair had been buzzed short, and he was indeed much more muscular and taller than when Hunter had first been hired.

“Dr. Kahn,” was all Hunter could think to say.

“What brings you here,” Kahn asked, breaking the silence.

“I had, uh, come here asking about possibly returning to the data entry department,” Hunter said. He tried to remain calm, as instructed. “I had no idea InnerCore had closed down.”

“Not closed,” Kahn said, removing his glasses, taking a small cloth from his lab coat pocket and cleaning the lenses. “We have changed our focus recently, and as such we decided it was best to trim our personnel down to the… barest of essentials.”

“Oh. I see,” Hunter pretended to be disappointed. “I’m terribly sorry to have wasted your time.”

“Well, you might not have,” Kahn said, replacing his spectacles. “As it happens, I am in need of a lab assistant. If you are interested, of course. There’s no prior experience needed. Just grunt work, mostly, though there is a chance you could help me with some procedures down the line. Would you be interested?

Hunter forced a grateful smile. “Yes! Certainly.”

Kahn pursed his lips in what Hunter assumed was his display of a smile. “Splendid,” he said, spinning on his heels. “Right this way. Nancy? The door.”

The receptionist pressed a button at her desk, causing the doors to hiss and unlock, opening to their fullest extent. Hunter followed Dr. Kahn down the hallway.

Here we go, he thought, another point of no return.

“You’ve never seen this wing of the building,” Kahn said, hands behind his back, strolling slowly past a bright white corridor. “Allow me to give you a quick tour.”

As he stayed two paces behind Kahn, Hunter made note of hallmarks of each passageway. Each office, each door they passed looked identical. There was no sign or nameplate attached. He also noticed a security camera here and there… but the indicator light on each camera was dark, meaning they likely weren’t recording.

Kahn stopped at another set of double doors. “So let me explain what we’re doing,” he said. We have a small number of patients with us for an extended period. They each have some form of cancer, you see, and we’re testing an advanced form of therapy on them. One of your chief duties will be to check on them every two hours and prepare, serve, and clean up after their meals.”

“Cancer,” Hunter echoed. “How horrible.”

“Yes. A terrible malady,” Kahn said, without a hint of compassion in his voice. He opened the door and held it for Hunter to pass through first.

As his eyes adjusted from the bright lights of the hallway to the dim, nearly useless light in this new room, Hunter could see this large room was filled with 16 hospital beds. Nine of them were empty, the others had their curtains wrapped around, indicating someone was in them.

There was carpet on the floor, Hunter noticed. That seemed odd. Any hospital ward he’d ever been to had tile. This is makeshift, Hunter realized. More cameras in each corner of the room, he saw - and each powered off.

“We have someone on staff who helps them get up and out of bed for their ablutions,” Kahn continued, whispering quietly and continuing on a beeline across the room to the next set of doors. “I perform their treatments. And you will, as I said, prepare their food. For privacy’s sake, I ask that you do not open the curtains. Just lay the trays out on the tables next to their beds and carry on to the next.”

“Noted,” Hunter said.

“The kitchen is right through here,” Kahn said, pushing past the next set of doors. Hunter followed dutifully behind.

While there was a refrigerator and microwave, like he expected for a kitchen, they were normally-sized. Instead of a stove or an oven, there was a single hot plate on a counter. This was a break room, Hunter thought, not something meant to prepare food for hospital patients.

“Everything you need for a meal is in the cabinets and the fridge,” Kahn said. “One item per meal per person, please. And that includes you,” he added, with another tight-lipped smile.

“Me?” Hunter panicked but tried not to let it show.

“Yes. Your meals will be on us, free of charge to you. Consider it a perk of the job.”

“Oh! Uh, sure,” Hunter said, nodding.

“Any questions thus far?” Kahn asked.

“How much?”

The question caught the doctor off guard. “Pardon?”

“Um, how much… per hour?” Hunter put his hands in his pockets. “I kinda hit a rough patch, I just need to make sure what I’m making is worth it, you know?”

Kahn nodded. “I understand. How much did you make when you were with us before?”

“Fourteen an hour,” Hunter replied.

“Let’s add a dollar to that,” Kahn said. “Will that suffice?”

Hunter could tell Kahn was bullshitting. Money was not going to factor into this, as far as the doctor was concerned. This was just to appease Hunter and keep him from leaving. He smiled in false gratitude. “That would be great - when can I start?”

“Would you have any qualms about starting immediately?”

“Not at all!”

“Right,” Kahn said crisply. “Follow me, we shall get you a lab coat.”

“I’ll be done at five, is that right?” Hunter asked a few minutes later, decked out in a starched, bleached, sanitized lab coat.

“Actually,” Kahn said as he reclined in his office chair, “and I apologize for already asking favors of the new employee, but would you be amenable to staying overnight?”

“Overnight?” Hunter furrowed his brow.

“Yes. You see, there is a lot of disused furniture that needs to be put upstairs in storage, and it must be done by morning for the liquidators to take stock of. I simply have too much to do,” Kahn said, patting a large stack of papers in folders on his desk. “You’ll get overtime, of course.”

“Oh, uh, that’s not a problem,” Hunter began, “um, but would there be some time for me to perhaps get a nap in?”

“Certainly,” Kahn said, feigning a kind smile. You’ll be moving plenty of chairs. And, of course, there’s the sofa here in my office. I assure you I won’t mind if you need to lay your head there for an hour or two. So long as the task at hand gets done.”

Hunter spent the next three hours hauling rolling chairs out of the empty offices, scuttling them into the service elevator and into the room above. The room was expansive, but apart from a large bank of unwieldy and heavy boxes placed in one corner of the room, it was empty and waited to be filled with more junk.

His muscles were aching and burning; it was the most physical activity he had undertaken in quite some time. After exiting the elevator to the ground floor for what seemed like the fiftieth time, Hunter crossed the hallway to the break room-cum-kitchen. He slid into the lone leather reading chair stashed there, folded his arms on the small fast food restaurant-style table, and rested his head.

“I gotta get outta here!” The pleading shout of a voice coming from the makeshift hospital ward beyond the doors made Hunter snap to attention. He recognized the voice immediately. It was Alex.

“Alex?” He rose from the chair and started for the door leading to the hospital beds.

As soon as he placed his hands on the door to push it forward, the one leading to the kitchen swung open. “What’re you doing?” Dr. Kahn’s voice grated like razor wire.

Hunter spun to face him. No need to lie at this point, he reckoned. “I was resting and heard a voice,” he said.

Kahn stepped to Hunter and put a hand on his shoulder. It was a tight grip, unnecessary for the situation, Hunter thought. “No need to concern yourself,” Kahn said. “It’s the sedation wearing off. That patient’s condition is… quite advanced. But that’s my cross to bear,” he said. He felt around in his pocket until he found and produced a pre-filled syringe. 

Uncapping it and heading for the hospital door, Kahn gave Hunter an unsettling look. “Please. Tend to your duties, and await my further instructions.”

“Yes, sir.”

“By the way,” Kahn said, using his posterior to push the door open slightly. “Did you ever experience any undue side effects from the vaccination we gave you the last time you were with us?”

Hunter shook his head with a nervous grin. “Uh, no,” he said. “Never felt a thing after that first day or so. Just like you said.”

Kahn nodded, then fully entered the hospital ward, letting the door close behind him.

Hunter hurriedly left the kitchen and ran into the hallway. He rested his head against the wall, breathing heavily. Alex was in there, for sure. He had to see what condition he and the others were in, but he’d have to wait until Kahn gave him permission to be in the ward. Probably mealtime.

It pained him to not be able to act immediately. But he had to obey not only Kahn, but the mission agenda, which meant doing as instructed for now. That meant trying to locate evidence.

He crossed the hall to Kahn’s office. He had enough time to at least do a visual scope. Maybe look at the first two or three documents on the stack on the doctor’s desk.

Hunter cautiously opened and closed the door to prevent any noise, then crept over to the desk. He opened the flap of the folder on top of the stack and scanned for any important-looking words.

“Good God,” he muttered to himself. “This is what he’s trying to do? He’s insane…”

The clacking of the doctor’s shoes coming from the hallway alerted him to move. He closed the folder, dashed to the side door by the doctor’s sofa, and entered the adjoining room, closing the door just before the main office door swung open.

“Hunter?” Kahn barked.

“In here!” Hunter called cheerfully from the next room. Spotting two rolling chairs tucked inside a desk, he swiftly grabbed them both by the headrest, then opened the front door to the spare office.

“These are the last from this hall,” Hunter said, pushing the chairs to a stop inches from Kahn’s legs. “I’m just about to store ‘em upstairs with the rest.

Kahn eyed Hunter up and down with a wary eye. “I see,” he said defeatedly. “Well. Very good. You’ve worked very hard so far.”

“Thanks,” Hunter said. Sweating, he wiped his brow. “It’s very hot work, too!”

“Here,” Kahn said. He pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket and handed it absently to Hunter. He accepted it and wiped his forehead. A strong odor wafted from the cloth, causing Hunter to take it away from his face immediately, reflexively putting it in his pocket.

“I need to leave the building for an hour or two,” Kahn said. “With our delivery contracts ended, I must go pick up my own orders of medical supplies. Since you’ve wrapped up with the chairs, I’d like for you to move on to packing up any leftover decorations or items left in the desks. They can be placed in the incinerator on the third floor.”

“Very good, sir.”

“Remember, mealtime is at 2 p.m.,” Kahn added as he grabbed a set of keys from the same pants pocket. “Remember our rules about serving the patients. I shall be back by 3.”

Hunter nodded dutifully and allowed Kahn to pass by him and the chairs on his way out through the reception area. He pushed the chairs quickly to the elevators and pushed the call button. Chewing on his thumbnail, he plotted his course of action for the next two hours.