Skin Tight by Ava Gray

minutes, 34-Q would be in the incinerator. Idly, Rowan wondered whether Silas said a few words for their dead, offered a moment of silence, or simply chucked the bodies away. It was hard to know what passed behind those dead, black eyes.
    Dr. Rowan sat down at his desk and turned on the computer. They weren’t networked to the rest of the facility. The work they did upstairs was just for show. If anyone managed to get past security, they’d find worthless research on the long-term effects of sugar and caffeine on chimpanzees, among other such red herrings. He was amused at the idea of anyone finding an application for that information. A monkey could tell you that stuff was bad for you.
    It was all smoke and mirrors, and it was too entertaining that the faux-scientists upstairs thought they were doing serious research for the Food and Drug Administration. They thought they had been commissioned to find more healthful alternatives to foods containing sugar and caffeine, like anyone would pay for that.
    With a faint sigh of regret at 34-Q’s ruined potential, Rowan began to type up his report.
     
     
    Gillie hated the nights most of all.
    Oh, it meant a respite from the endless tests, no poking and prodding and being hooked up to the machines, but it also meant Dr. Rowan lurked around the hallways, watching on the monitors. Her bathroom had a door, but it didn’t lock. The privacy was never quite enough, and sometimes she went in there and sat in the shower stall just to feel like she was alone. If she lingered too long, an orderly came to check on her.
    Things were better than they had been. The suite she occupied was equivalent to a studio apartment, and they’d allowed her to choose a few colors and furnishings so she felt less imprisoned, not that the illusion changed the reality.
    At least she no longer had two-way mirrors in her apartment. There used to be an observation area, where anyone could come and watch her, as if she were an animal in a zoo. If she were ever lucky enough to escape this place, she’d immediately join an animal rights group. But the prospect of freedom seemed ever more remote.
    Bits she remembered from the outside world were fading. On television, people dressed differently than she recalled; they drove different cars. The automobiles were sleeker now, more aerodynamic, and they had more fiberglass, less metal. She knew these things in the abstract sense, gleaned from books, magazines, and various TV programs. Vicariously, she’d lived a thousand lives and never one of her own.
    In here she’d lost track of time, and she was no longer even sure how old she was. Things never changed. They stocked her kitchenette on Wednesday, allowing her to pretend she had some control over her environment. But they regulated her recipes. They wouldn’t let her cook a big, greasy bacon sandwich if she wanted one, or biscuits in gravy. She had no friends, only staff who supervised her.
    Shortly after they had first taken her for “treatments,” she wondered what she’d done to deserve this. As a kid, she’d asked God about it, but she’d long ago stopped expecting any answers. Bad people did bad things, and they got away with it.
    Except on TV.
    The drone of the machine comforted her, and she found it easier to relax with noise in the background. Overall, she slept better during the day. Nights like this one left her tense and fearful, as if she could sense the ill at work in the very air.
    There was something about Rowan she didn’t trust, a proprietary gleam in his eye when he examined her, perhaps. She’d grown used to doctors who came and went; it was par for the course. Unfortunately, Rowan seemed to be staying.
    He knocked on her door at 5:45 A.M. It was a perfunctory courtesy. There was no lock; she had no way to dissuade him from entering. As king of this underworld, he could do as he pleased, and so, though she didn’t know his first name, she mentally called him Hades. She didn’t like the