"You're looking tired, Doktor. Have a drink with me."
Dok poured himself a few centimeters of the light ochre liquid. He didn't like wine, but disliked refusing the Major's offer even more so.
"How are they coming along?"
"Well, I have used around a third of the materials, but have not been able to get the fused cells to start splitting on their own. It was fortuitous that I was able to retrieve so many eggs on the first try. The method I used to amplify the growth of follicles was quite successful. For reference, usually a procedure of this type would recover only one or two at the very most. I recovered ten from her."
Despite the Major having an above average tolerance for discussions that might have turned a normal person's stomach, the doctor still tried not to get too graphic during a meal. If anything, the Major was far more often guilty of that particular faux pas than he.
"She is quite something. And behaving herself nicely, or so I have heard."
"Yes, I think having this break will be beneficial before we proceed with phase two."
"How confident are you that this will succeed by August? I believe that was your promise to me when they were first brought in."
The muscles around Dok's mouth tightened. He sincerely wished to present a picture of perfect confidence, but honesty would serve them both better in the long run.
"It is still possible, but before the end of the year might be more plausible. I only wish to give you the proper expectations."
Major polished off his glass and then began to fill it again. Dok watched the man's expression carefully, which did not give a hint as to his feelings on the potential delay of several months' time.
The Major swirled the liquid in his glass thoughtfully, then set it down without taking a sip.
"Perhaps you do not give yourself enough credit. I trust that you will find success in this endeavor and will not fail me now." Major silently helped himself to a biscuit.
Dok took a sip of his wine. That had not been the most reassuring response. In fact, he felt downright discouraged by it, but at least he had said his piece and spoken the truth. Now there was only one other uncomfortable matter to deal with.
"You have my gratitude for your infinite patience with this. There was another thing I wanted to bring to your attention about the, uh, husband."
"Mmm?" Major gestured for him to continue, his mouth already full of the flaky bread.
"Unfortunately, he was a witness to the incident last week. It may have been avoidable in retrospect, but at any rate it is safe to assume he now knows something of our vampire project." Dok found himself unable to look his superior directly in the face at this, and ended up exchanging a glance with the Captain instead, who was stationed directly behind the Major like a severe guardian angel.
"How interesting. And so there he sits with his thoughts, pondering how he could have ended up in such a twisted place. No doubt replaying the gory scene over and over in his mind, the stench of death and gunpowder invading even his dreams. Oh, how he must wonder if he will ever make it out of here alive!"
Relief flooded through the doctor as there was no hint of anger or frustration in the Major's response. He almost sounded amused at this new development.
"We never really discussed the long-term arrangements, as we didn't deem it necessary at the time."
"And it remains unnecessary to do so. So long as things continue to progress, I am content to leave the arrangements as they are. Has she found out, by the way?"
"No, I am certain I would know if that were the case."
"They certainly never cease to fascinate me, those two. Well, I am taking a trip and will be gone for a week at least. If there's any serious update I want you to contact me immediately, regardless of my agenda."
"Yes, Major."
"Poor Roger," Tamara whispered under her breath.
What on earth happened to him?
She thrust her arms into the deep sink searching for the remaining soup pot. The water was always too hot, but she was used to it by now. Hopefully Dok wouldn't have harsh words about her dry skin whenever they met again. Maybe she could send him a message, find out if he had a moisturizer he wanted her to use in the meantime.
Her wandering hands found a large cutting knife that wasn't supposed to be in this particular wash tub and she carefully pulled it out and set it aside. Something about the sharp cutlery always gave her pause, as she didn't want to be seen handling them any more than necessary. She hadn't forgotten her promise to behave, and playing with anything that might be considered a weapon would probably not look good right now.
Those Brazilian women were clearly gossips, too.
As it turned out, there were other women working for Millennium, though none of them spoke English. They were all older and only spoke to her in broken German, if at all. These women came in two flavors: rather shy or rather mean. Neither provided a great opportunity for making a friend, especially given the language barrier.
Though the first few days in the new and sunnier environment had been a relief, they had also been stressful with the barking of orders she didn't always understand. Fortunately, everyone stayed quite busy so she did not find herself on the receiving end of too much bullying.
The work generally provided a good distraction, but it was getting lonelier as the days wore on. Sometimes her thoughts drifted to the strange woman who had been kind to her before the surgery. Who was she, anyway? And would she ever see her again?
At some point Tamara found herself beginning to have conversations with the woman. It embarrassed her greatly to have an imaginary friend, but having someone to confide in was a huge emotional relief.
Those witches left you with so many today! You should let me help with that.
"I'll be fine. Besides, the Major says I have to do everything I'm told. Or else."
You should poison his dinner. That might be the ticket out of here.
"What? No! I don't know how to do that. And even if I did, that's crazy and risky and... I'm just going to keep doing what I'm told until Dok is finished with his secret project."
But who knows when that will be? You're far too compliant.
"I have no choice. It's the only way to get us out of here someday."
Sure, but then where will you go?
"He told me somewhere quiet."
What will you do?
"I don't know. I could probably get another secretary job. Roger can find work anywhere. We'll be okay."
Maybe you'd like to be a physician's assistant, like me!
"Now you're just being ridiculous."
And so on it would go with her outrageous "friend." Rip Van Winkle could say the things that Tamara was too scared to. If nothing else, it helped to pass the time when there was no one else to talk to.
"Vampires. I know he said 'attacked another vampire.' I didn't mishear that."
Roger was pacing and talking out loud to himself. He knew he had to pull himself together before he lost his mind. Once that happened, then Tamara would be completely at Millennium's mercy and he would be unable to help her any longer.
As if I've been any help to her so far, locked in here like an animal.
"Okay, let's review what we know. We were at Carnival and we got kidnapped by a German organization named Millennium. They're para-military, they're Nazis, they seem to have some big plan for…let's go all out and assume world domination. They have their own 'Doctor Mengele' who wants to use Tammy for some reason that we don't know exactly. Genetic research he says, but there's obviously more to it than that. She's not German, at least not much, so it can't be a…breeding thing."
But now that he'd said it out loud, he could not exactly rule it out.
"Dammit Roger, forget purity, forget the master race. What is special about Tammy? She's young, she's healthy, she's just a nice girl. She wants all the usual things, a family and kids. No, stop it!"
It was true, though. The doctor had asked about their plans for having children and Tamara had responded enthusiastically. That must not have been a coincidence.
Some weeks ago, Tamara had admitted to him that the doctor had performed a small surgery where he took cells from her. She didn't know what he did exactly, but that she hadn't suffered any real side effects and had no visible stitches from being cut open. As Roger pondered this he calmed a little.
"So maybe the doctor wasn't lying. He took cells or genes or whatever from Tammy and now he's going to play with them in his lab. But what does that accomplish? What does she have that he couldn't get from any other person?"
And now vampires. What do they have to do with this?
If there truly were such creatures in the world, and Roger had a hard time doubting what he had seen, then anything was possible. That blood-crazed man had survived almost a dozen gunshot wounds to the head before he had been taken down. And while those soldiers may have been carrying Walther P-38s, the ammunition they had used to kill him had been far more destructive than it should have been. All of it was certainly unnatural.
Roger shuddered at the memory of the doctor ordering the destruction of what he probably deemed nothing more than a "creative mistake."
"Is Dok trying to make a new kind of creature? And he's using Tamara to do it?"
I feel like I'm going even more crazy.
So he started again.
"All right. We were on our honeymoon in Rio and we met this weird guy at a café."
Dok slammed a fist into the table, hard enough to vent his feelings but not enough to disturb all the precious specimens floating in their glass cylinders.
"So close, I know it's close."
He was down to six untouched eggs remaining and was starting to wonder if he was going to have to retrieve more. Even a month or two setback was frustrating, what with the Major's high hopes in him. The man had been talking of nothing else for years now. Just how many more excuses would he accept before he lost all confidence in his physician's abilities?
And although failure was part and parcel of being a scientist, the fate of the wretch who didn't survive his blood transfusion was still bothering him. A little bit, anyway.
"The concepts are all sound, yet the rate of cell division is being hampered. This didn't happen with the reptiles, it didn't happen with the rats. What am I lacking here?"
Luck?
Faith in a god?
He barked a dry laugh.
A good night's sleep?
Now there was an amusing idea.
Absurd.
Dok always had a penchant for neglecting his own need for rest, but he couldn't go on without results while the Major was depending on him. He started to consider the possibility that it was indeed part of the current hold up.
So he locked the doors to the lab, which is something he normally only did during procedures where he absolutely could not be interrupted or disturbed. Then he selected a medical journal on fertility that he'd found pertinent to his recent work and set it under his arm before turning off all the overhead lights in the large room.
He had a dedicated cot of his own back in the recesses of one of the hallways, but he thought he might shut himself up in one of the patient rooms instead. Hopefully the mattress wouldn't wreck his back, not being used to something so soft.
Removing just his coat and shoes, he rolled onto the bed.
Not too soft, he supposed.
He set his glasses onto the bedside table and opened the journal.
Twenty minutes later, he was fast asleep.
Dok startled awake when he heard the sound of heavy footsteps pacing outside in the hallway. The lights were still on and the medical journal was still spread across his chest as if he had not moved a muscle in his sleep.
Throwing the magazine off and retrieving his glasses, he moved to open the door.
"Captain? I wasn't expecting you. You were able to unlock the door?"
The Captain tapped his wrist with an index finger.
"My sincerest apologies, Hauptsturmführer. You require an update for the Major."
Dok grabbed his coat from the foot of the bed and hurried into the lab without retrieving his shoes, the Captain closely following. Sitting down quickly at his computer terminal, he removed his glasses and rubbed at his tired eyes gingerly while waiting for it to power on.
"I'll type up a report quickly if you can wait. Again, I am so sorry for…oversleeping."
This had to be the ultimate embarrassment. The Major may not have been here to witness it but he'd surely hear about it one way or another.
The Captain moved into his view and lifted a finger that he would be back in a minute. Dok nodded and silently cursed the technology that would not bend instantaneously to his will.
By the time he had passed through all the encryption and passwords needed just to access his word processor, Captain had returned bearing a single Styrofoam cup. He set it down carefully next to the keyboard, but Dok quickly scooped up the hot liquid before an accident could fry all his circuits.
"I don't generally…" he began.
He was already on the hook, might as well try to salvage his appearance. It had been a thoughtful gesture, after all.
"Thank you for the coffee." He took a careful sip and decided it was tolerable, but that he'd have to go slowly so as not to overload his system, as he rarely consumed caffeine. If he had his way, no one would ever drink this poison, but there would probably be a revolt in the ranks if their precious coffee was taken away.
Captain took a step back, seemingly satisfied, while Dok set the cup out of the way on a tall file cabinet and began typing up his report.
It didn't take long. Between the restful sleep and the caffeine his mind and hands worked faster than ever.
An infusion of caffeine.
That phrase kept popping up in his subconscious as they awkwardly waited for the printer to noisily tap out the report.
"You know, you might have just given me an idea," he told his silent associate as he handed him the printed documents.
It was hard to tell under that mess of white hair, but Captain appeared to raise his eyebrows in curiosity. However, instead of gesturing for the doctor to elaborate, he scanned the report once then nodded and departed the lab post-haste.
Breathing a sigh of relief now that he was alone once again, Dok took another sip of the bitter drink and got straight to work.