The Virginia Beach boardwalk district had been eerily quiet over a decade now, the silently decaying facades of seaside merriment slowly decaying into monuments to a less austere era. Planned obsolescence would have seen each of these structures chewed down to the nub under a decade of continuous use, but here they stood, all the more uncanny for their relative lack of wear and tear. 

Amelia had no real memory of the single time her parents had taken her here as a toddler, back during its operational heyday. The odd whirl of colorful streamers or whiff of popcorn, the general impressions left on an overstimulated 4 year old. As she traced the largely unfamiliar streets of the district, she occasionally caught glimpses of life: a shabby snack cart here, an impromptu cornhole tournament there, activities more compatible with the quiet industrial collapse that surrounded them than trying to operate a full-scale theme park or restaurant.

As her destination came into view, a building rather unceremoniously repurposed from what was very clearly a Rainforest Cafe, something in the pit of her stomach dropped. Her hopes at doing fulfilling, meaningful work at a cutting-edge biochemical lab were going from slim to virtually hair-thin. Her shoulders slumped with exhaustion as she approached what she had every reason to expect was yet another biocomputational miracle startup that would singlehandedly solve the labor crisis and make everyone immortal or whatever. 

As she entered, she steeled herself. “You can’t judge a book by its cover. This is the first interview you’ve gotten in months.” she muttered, chiding herself. “You can’t afford to go back home empty-handed for fear of a little white collar crime.”

—

One might call Dr. Liam Kuchak a poor fit for Fabacea Bioindustrial Solutions company culture. One of the types to earnestly espouse the virtues of a classless society based on constant scholastic improvement, where everyone was both eternal student and eternal teacher; he thought of himself as a fair-minded man who kept to lofty ideals.

It was still sinking in that that hadn’t actually been materially true for years. Deep down, he still believed he was one of the good ones. Once the infrastructure to provide for the material needs of the populus has been established, the real work to shake free the chains of oppression could begin, and he could ensure that whatever harms the company had done, it could all be rectified in the end.

He desperately didn’t want to know the specifics. It didn’t take a Nobel Chemistry laureate to recognize how gross and unethical the work the company had had him do with retroviral RNA sequences that only activated with the presence of certain sex chromosomes in the last year and a half. He kept his nose clean from any of the implementation of the company’s contracts, and could still muster outrage when misconduct was brought to his attention, but at the end of the day, he couldn’t deny that he had become exactly the kind of hollowed-out mercenary scientist he railed against in his academic days. Lying awake, alone with the cat he had smuggled into his extended stay motel room, he had spent more than a few cumulative days contemplating just how quickly his younger self would’ve kicked the everloving shit out of him if he could have seen what he became. As if that entitled little bastard had ever been hungry in his–

The sound of static blasting through his desk comm brought him out of his funk. “Doctor Kuchak to TC1-C. We are about to begin a round of trials.”

Liam pushed the button to acknowledge that he had heard, but remained silent. He knew that the time had come to cast aside illusions. He had dreaded the possibility of being promoted out of the synthesis lab for years, a fear that had come true only in the past six hours, with as much notice as a heart attack. It was time for him to face that reality, and as it turned out, many more.

—

The lobby of the building had been unnervingly drab and empty, as if someone went exactly far enough in their redecorating to remove all the rainforest iconography, then replaced it with exactly nothing. 

Amelia had been of half a mind to leave when she had seen that the only “person” manning the front kiosk was a buzzing intercom gratingly repeating “PLEASE PRESS THE CALL BUTTON AND AN ATTENDANT WILL SEE TO YOU IN THE ORDER YOU ARRIVED” every couple of seconds. But after pressing the button, she waited around just long enough to actually see another human being: a thin, middle-aged woman in nurse’s scrubs with close-cropped hair and a smoker’s voice, who led her past the locked door to what appeared to be a small conference room, marked TC1-A. 

Team Conference, maybe? She had the sinking feeling that wasn’t what it stood for, but her college counselor had told her over and over not to catastrophize. 

“Your interview today will be conducted by Dr. Jardinez.” the older woman tossed out unenthusiastically, checking off a few items on her clipboard and not once looking directly at Amelia. “Best of luck Ms. Davis.” she said, nodding inscrutably before hustling out of the room.

“I uh… thanks?” Amelia replied, not managing to get anything else in before the woman was out the door.

She waited uneasily at the table for a couple of minutes. 

It’s fine. You’re fine. You are going to get that job in the synthesis lab, and you’ll get to spend all day looking at beetle carapaces under a microscope, and you’ll make enough money to actually properly move to this area with your own place and prove to everyone that you’re not just some crazy lady that catches bugs in the woods, and you aren’t signing up to be some data-entry monkey in a disposable shell company that’s designed to go under after two weeks, or worse–

Her doom spiral was rudely interrupted by the entrance of an older dark skinned man, with lean, harsh features and a ring of stark-white hair clinging for dear life to the bottom edge of his scalp. His pristine pinstripe suit wasn’t really what she associated with a research director, but in the biocomp boom, all kinds of weirdos were launching startups. 

“Amelia Davis, I presume?” he greeted her with a broad smile and an outstretched hand, although mirrored shades concealed whatever his eyes might have to say. In his other arm was cradled a vintage data tablet, the high-quality kind that they couldn’t afford to manufacture from scratch anymore. Its soft glow was steady, and its thin glass touchscreen was pristine. Whatever this company actually produced, it was clearly successful enough to keep their rare technology in perfect working order.

“Yes!” she stood bolt upright, faster than she had meant to. She could easily play her anxiety off as enthusiasm for the job, or so she hoped. “I, uh… thank you for your… y’know…” 

If it had been her intention to come off as confident, she was missing badly, and she knew it.

“...time.” she finished meekly.

The man chuckled warmly. “No trouble at all! As you may have guessed, my name is Dr Ovidio Jardinez, Personnel Services Manager for Fabacea Bioindustrial, and I will be conducting your interview. In the interest of transparency, I will let you know that this interview will be recorded for future use as training data. Do you consent?”

Amelia had to physically stop herself from raising an eyebrow. Still, she had come this far and ignored this many red flags already. If anything, this was probably the most normal interview behavior she had seen from them.

“Yeah, sure. Of course.” She said.

“Marvelous. Now, if you would please state your name for us?”

“Amelia Annemarie Davis”

“Date of birth?”

“September 28th, 2030”

“Very good, very good.” he muttered under his breath. “Now tell me, do you have a history of chronic disease? Any health accommodations we need to be made aware of?”

“Chronic? Oh, um…” 

Kind of an odd thing to bring up so early in the interview, especially for a research position, right? No, it’s fine. They’re probably just trying to avoid ability discrimination liabilities.

“...no, not that I’m aware of.” she finally replied.

“Excellent, excellent. Honestly, looking at your file, I think you’ll do well here!” he said, grin widening. 

“Oh, really?” Amelia was equal parts relieved and concerned. “You don’t have any questions about my entomology credentials?”

“No” Jardinez replied blithely “The institutions you cite are all very reputable. I believe you. I suppose the question should really be: do you have any questions for me?” 

Amelia thought for a moment. 

“The listings said something about on-site accommodations…” she asked with as much certainty as she could muster.

“Oh, yes, we can absolutely accommodate you in an on-site private dorm, just like any staff member here could have if they so choose. I’m not putting people up in a penthouse or anything, but it’s also a damn sight cheaper than anything else you’re likely to find in this market. This may come as a surprise to you, but we really would rather our personnel didn’t have to sleep outside if possible. Real drain on productivity.”

That was a relief. She hadn’t relished the prospect of apartment hunting, even if these rooms weren’t likely to be luxurious by any stretch.

He slid a stack of papers across the table.

“And this is?” Amelia asked before picking it up to give it a once-over.

“Your contract.” Jardinez explained matter-of-factly.

“Oh, already?” Amelia was stunned. It had hardly been two minutes, and they were already willing to hire her?

“Your profile already had a lot to recommend you. The interview is really just a formality, if I’m being honest. I’m sure you noticed people aren’t actually lined up across the street to get in here.” He said, leaning back in his chair with a dramatic stretch. “Frankly, we’re lucky anyone showed up at all, let alone someone with your… qualifications.”

For a split second, some kind of predatory leer might have spread over his face. Amelia was more focused on signing the contract.

—

In adjacent TC1-C, the long-time Clinical Trials Staff were already gathered, and the atmosphere was less clinical professionalism and more bachelor party. Dr Kuchak didn’t especially enjoy spending time in the upper levels of the facility, and the fact that the Clinical Trials department was inexplicably staffed by the most insufferable techbros you’ve ever seen certainly wasn’t not part of the reason. As he entered, he could swear he smelled vodka.

“Heeey, Liam!” a heavyset man with bright red hair all over his body greeted Dr Kuchak jovially, speedsuit stained with sweat. “Finally got tired of your little pipettes? Ready to join us working men in the applied sciences?” he ribbed.

“Applied sciences?” Kuchak scoffed, “You mean brewing?”

“Are you saying you want some? I think we still have some oyster juice around here to wash it down.”

Kuchak gagged.

“No, but seriously Brady, what are you idiots doing in here?”

Brady looked taken aback.

“As if we would ever compromise our ability to extract useful data for you, oh philosopher-king.” he slouched forward in a mockery of a bow. “For your information, Jardinez is just finishing up with the new test subject now. She should be ready for her first round of treatments any minute now, and I’m not nearly drunk enough to fuck up sticking a syringe into a hapless would-be-intern.”

Brady gestured toward the one-way mirror. Through it was visible Jardinez, who was seated across from his interviewee: a nervous, slightly sickly-looking young woman with shoulder-length dirty-blond hair. She was rapidly signing paperwork, visibly exhausted and not really paying attention in exhaustive detail.

Human trials. They had jumped straight to human trials with participants who thought they had been hired as staff. Kuchak’s back stiffened. He felt even sicker for how long and how deliberately he had been ignoring the obvious. He was going to have to face the fact that these were the people he had been supplying for the past three damnable years of his career. No more tortured rationalizations about the fringe health applications, no more equivocation about the value of research for research’s sake. He had to decide here and now: Give up on any pretense of being a decent human being, or finally do something.