***
The lab was dark, distorting the outlines of the equipment inside into deformed shapes. Sydney, with all of his limbs curled into a ball with the exception of his left wrist, which was cuffed to the desk next to him, hadn’t closed his eyes since Gordon locked him up. His beady pupils roamed over the instruments of science forced under the shroud of darkness.
He wondered what Gordon would do to him if he wasn’t able to deliver the same soil solution Todd had created? What would happen to him if they couldn’t unlock the encrypted files Alex had stolen? Maybe Gordon would use him as a bargaining chip with his father, exchanging Sydney’s life for escape to another country, or immunity. But in the end, Gordon would most likely just kill him. That was the easiest and most popular way Gordon enjoyed tying up loose ends.
The door to the lab opened, and a flood of light blinded Sydney. He blinked repeatedly until he adjusted to the light, and he saw the grinning face of Jake towering above him.
“Rise and shine, asshole,” Jake said. “Time to go to work.”
Jake dropped a folded piece of paper in Sydney’s lap that had random letters and numbers scribbled on it. “What is this?”
“The password to Todd’s encrypted files,” Jake answered.
Sydney recoiled as Jake bent down and invaded the personal bubble Sydney had always preferred to keep between himself and other people. He could smell the coffee on Jake’s breath, and the leather of his jacket. Sydney’s body curled inward to avoid Jake’s presence until his spine wouldn’t allow it to collapse any further.
“Gordon wants you working on it now,” Jake said. “And I’ll be here watching you to make sure it’s done properly this time.”
Sydney felt the jiggle of his wrist as Jake unlocked the cuffs, and the tension in the small bones of his wrist was released. He rubbed the tender, bruised flesh and stumbled to his desk. The password on the paper was surrounded by faded, red blotches placed sporadically around the numbers and letters. He stopped typing and looked up to Jake, who was watching him like a hawk. The more Sydney stared at those blotches on the paper, the more he realized what his fate would be if he failed.
Ever since Sydney’s first discovery of Todd Penn, he’d known the man was a genius. He’d done what Sydney and no other scientist in the world was able to accomplish, and he did it in an underground lab in the middle of nowhere. It was a remarkable feat of science and ingenuity. If this invention had come about three years ago, or even right after the soil crisis started, Todd’s name would have been in every science publication around the world. He would have been a household name, a savior of the people. But he wasn’t. No one would ever know his name or see his face. The only thing that was going to be left of Todd Penn were the dried blotches of blood on a crinkled piece of paper. Sydney was holding all that was left of a great mind. “Did you kill him?”
“What’s the matter? Feeling sorry for the guy?” Jake asked.
A tear escaped from the corner of Sydney’s eye, and he quickly wiped it away before Jake noticed. But he couldn’t hide the trembling in his thin arms and legs underneath the lab coat. A slow, internal struggle of morality raged inside him. Everything he’d stood for as a scientist, the idea that the pursuit of knowledge was the highest form of morality and those who prohibited it were crusaders of death, was begging him to stop his work. He wanted to run, he wanted to hide, and he didn’t want to be here.
“Hey!” Jake snapped. “Let’s get to work. Gordon wants all of this done yesterday, so let’s move it!”
“No.” The word came out in a mouse-like squeak, almost too quiet for even Sydney to hear himself. His fingers stopped entering the code, and he crumpled the bloodstained piece of paper in his tiny fist. Despite his rebellious act, Sydney kept his head down, afraid that looking Jake in the eyes would make the repercussions of his actions real.
Jake leaned his chest into Sydney’s shoulder, and Sydney could feel Jake’s hot breath on the side of his face. “Enter the code.”
“I won’t help Gordon anymore,” Sydney replied, the lump in his throat catching slightly as he spoke.
Jake grabbed Sydney by the collar and easily lifted all of Sydney’s 120 pounds into the air and slammed him up against the wall. Jake’s jaw was clenched tight, and his words escaped from the thin spaces in his teeth. “We don’t have the fucking time or patience to deal with your little moral crisis, so I’m going to make this simple. If you don’t get off your ass and compile the solution that’s on this file, I’m going to kill you.”
“No, you won’t,” Sydney answered, his shaky voice escaping through panicked breaths.
“And why the fuck not?”
“Because I’m one of the only scientists you have left who could figure out the organic code sequences Todd put together in that data.”
Jake let go of Sydney’s collar, and Sydney collapsed to the floor. Jake towered over him, the side of his jacket swinging open, exposing the gun and holster underneath. “Yeah, you might be right about that.”
A wave of relief washed over Sydney. He wiped the sweat on his forehead, his fingers trembling, and his body shook in spasms of dwindling adrenaline. But the quick moment of safety was swiftly dispelled when Jake pulled a pocketknife.
“But you don’t need your balls to do your job.”
Sydney scrambled on all fours in an attempted escape, but Jake pounced on him, squishing him into the floor. He squirmed to break free, but Jake was just too heavy. Jake pressed the flat end of the blade against Sydney’s right cheek. The cold steel caused Sydney to end his struggle.
“Now, you have two options right now. Option one, I cut your balls off then have a doctor sew you up, and then you can work on getting this solution done. Option two, you keep your balls and start the project now. What’s it gonna be?”
“Okay,” Sydney said, his voice muffled from his face being smooshed into the floor.
“Okay you wanna keep your balls? Or okay you don’t want to keep them?”
“I want to keep them.”
“Good boy.”