PGAD - Prologue

Prologue

Stanley stood in line, shifting restlessly.  He wasn’t sure if he’d been waiting for over an hour yet, but it sure as hell felt like it.  His goddamn feet ached and he all he wanted to do was get home and sit down on the couch in front of the TV for the rest of the night with a 12-pack of cold beers.

Still, he shouldn’t be complaining.  After all, he was still on the clock, and when was the last time he got paid to do nothing?  Gen-U-Tech Labs was a big ass building, and there was always hallways needing mopping or sweeping, garbage cans that had to be emptied, bathrooms that needed cleaning.  Hell, there were five other janitors assigned full time to the giant ass cafeteria alone.

But it had been a long day, and his damn feet hurt, and if the line were at least freaking moving it might help, instead of crawling an inch at a time.  He should have just left after his shift, but hey, free was free, even if it was a poke in the arm, and then getting paid on top of it to wait, well…  the way he looked at it, tonight’s 12-pack would be on Gen-U-Tech’s dime.

He finally got to the front of the line and then was called in.

“Hello, badge please.”  The lab tech was polite, but Stanley knew the guy didn’t recognize him, even though he’d been right here in this very room a dozen times over the last month, changing out biohazard boxes and restocking supplies.  But, oh well... he was used to being ignored.  Nobody gave a rat’s ass about the janitor.

He handed his badge over and the tech scanned it.  “Have a seat here, Stanley,” the tech said, reading his name off the screen and gesturing toward a stool.  “When was your last flu shot?”

“I ain’t never had one,” Stanley said, rolling up his sleeve and slinging his arm up on the counter.  “But hey, free is free, am I right or am I right?”  He gave a toothy grin, but the pencil neck only gave him a small uptight smile in return.

“Just hold still, here…”

The lab tech stuck him in the arm, and Stanley felt a bit of a stinging chill as he was injected.  Then the needle was withdrawn and replaced with a wad of gauze taped down.  “Put some pressure on that for a few minutes.”

“No problem, thanks, Doc,” Stanley said, standing up.  “That was pretty quick, if only it didn’t take all damn day to get in here, huh?”

The tech gave him another prissy smile and gestured toward the door.  Stanley walked out and nearly collided into someone.

“Whoa, hey, watch it, lady!”  Stanley exclaimed before he saw who it was.  “Oh hey, I mean… sorry, miss, ‘scuse me..  ‘Scuse me very much…”

It was one of the big wigs from the top floor, the brunette broad.  She blinked and gave him a quick polite smile, backing away a few paces before stepping around him, adjusting her jacket and smoothing her skirt.  “It’s fine, really.”

She put her hand on the knob of the door, before looking back apologetically at the guy who’d been standing behind Stanley, now at the front of the line.  “Sorry, you don’t mind if I go first, do you?  In a bit of a rush...”

The guy threw her a relaxed wave, and only made a face after she gave an appreciative smile and stepped into the room.  What a schmo.

Stanley looked back and was able to catch a glimpse of her ass just before the door swung shut.  Lucky for her, he liked a gal with some meat on her.  This mighta been a little hefty, even for him, but hell… wasn’t nothing he’d kick outta bed.

Freakin’ broads, he thought as he passed the opposite direction of the winding line, giving some of the maintenance guys he knew a nod.  They got everything in the freakin’ world, even the big ones.  Everybody standing in line all damn day, and here she gets to waltz right up to the front, fancy-free as you please.

But as he stepped outside, all Stanley was thinking about was that 12-pack.  Hell, it was way past beer o’clock.

***

“Hi, I’m Sara Davis,” the brunette said with a perfunctory smile as she entered, holding her badge out.

Chris didn’t bother to take it, naturally.  “Oh, of course, Ms. Davis, I know who you are…”

“Well, that’s flattering..!”  A rehearsed managerial response, deliberately intended to portray genial warmth and disarming friendliness, to let the recipient feel as though equal in rank, delivered with experienced poise; but Chris was both puzzled and wary.  All day long, it’d been sticking needles into maintenance guys, lab technicians, maybe an admin or two.  Never mind that this wasn’t even his job in the first place -- what was an executive doing here?

As if he’d asked it aloud, she said, ”I’d heard we were doing a flu vaccine drive this year.  What a great idea!  I never have the time to go get one…”

He wasn’t at all sure if it were true or not, but nonetheless, Chris directed the woman to sit and prepared another dose, then administered it the same as he had to the dozens of other Gen-U-Tech employees who streamed in continuously all day long.

“Ugh,” Ms. Davis grimaced as she stood, pressing against the gauze taped to her arm.  “Now I remember why I don’t get these..!

“Well, thank you anyway,” she said as she headed toward the door.  “It’s been nothing but fun..!”

Chris glanced at the mirror in the rear of the room as the woman departed, and indeed even as he did so, a second door just adjacent to it opened, and a man in a crisp business suit stepped out of the small room, which held a few other executives, similarly dressed, seated comfortably around a table holding a bottle of scotch and some glasses as they privately watched the shots being administered through the one-way glass.

Chris frowned at the lit cigarette in the man’s hand.  Such a flagrant violation of lab protocol, here and anywhere else.

“...the fuck was she was doing down here..?”  The man stared at the door his colleague had just departed from as though he could see right through it, taking a long drag, eye cocked with interest.  “Which one did she get, anyway?”

Chris bristled again in annoyance.  “I really have to renew my objections.  I shouldn’t even know which subjects are getting the formula vs. the placebo, let alone sharing that data with anyone.

“Double-blind, randomized trials are the gold standard of --”

“Look, egghead,” the executive interrupted sharply, turning his focus from the door back to Chris with swift abruptness.  “Stop talking for a minute.  Fucking scientists…  Always trying to tell you something they think you’re asking…

“Listen, just forget whatever the fuck it is you think I wanna know, cause really… I don’t.  Just answer the question I’m asking.

“Which.  One.  Did.  She. Get?”  He pointed toward the door with his index and middle finger, the cigarette trapped between them, smoke drifting up in soft curls.

Chris returned the stare with one of his own, a bit defiantly -- but this guy was such an asshole -- before giving a great, huffy sigh and then he picked up the vial he had just used to inject Ms. Davis.  He read the numbers off the label then turned and punched it into the computer.

The result popped up a moment later.

“It was the formula,” he said.

“She got the formula.”