Lights blazed on around her. An automated sensor, activated by motion. No voices, though. Nobody grabbed her arm. No shapes moved on the far side of the frosted glass either. To Mia, the sound of her hitting the door had been louder than creation, but among the other factory noises it must have gone unnoticed. And apparently they hadn’t seen the lights go on, or else they didn’t care.

Forcing herself to breathe normally, Mia let go of the doorknob and looked around. Scattered desks and cubicles filled the room, like any generic office anywhere. Everyone had apparently gone home. Messes sprawled on desktops. Calendars and vacation photos hung from the walls. In the farthest cube in the back, several cables drooped down from the ceiling.

You guys better watch out, Mia thought. One of these days, they’re going to replace you, too.

Making her way down a corridor, she glanced warily into the rooms she passed. The first was an office, the next a conference room. At the third she stopped and stared, sinking to her knees as the strength left her body.

Inside were three female bodies, naked to the waist, headless, with cables plugged into the blue collars. In their arms each torso cradled a baby wrapped in a blanket. A baby nursing from the body’s undead, unliving breast.

Tears obscured her vision as Mia took pictures with her cell phone, then opened the door and entered the room. The torso on the left was African-American, the one next to that grossly overweight. Mia gently removed the baby on the right from the remains of its mother. The arms of the headless body reached out, missing something without knowing what. The child, clearly at least part-Asian, looked up at Mia with a quizzical expression as she wrapped the blanket tightly around its tiny body and cooed at it, offering whispered encouragement to keep quiet while she backed out of the room, watching all that was left of Eun-hee reach futilely into empty space. Tearing her gaze away, Mia slid out the door and continued down the hallway.

In moments they were by the front door and Mia could see in a monitor the empty reception area on the other side. Still shushing the baby, she pushed open the bar on the door and it swung open–setting off an ear-splitting alarm.

As the baby howled in response, Mia bolted across the room toward the front door, bursting out into the parking lot and racing for the rental car. Sliding the bundled baby carefully onto the front seat she fished for the key ring. Should have had it ready. Bad planning. Digging it from her purse she jammed the key in the ignition and the car fired right up. She had one hand on the baby and one on the steering wheel as she skidded in a semicircle and peeled out of the lot. In the rearview she couldn’t tell if anyone left the building after her.

Hitting the highway Mia kept an eye on the mirrors as she punched the accelerator, letting up only when she was sure nobody was back there. The baby’s screaming had changed by now into a breathless sobbing. Hungry and scared and separated from everything it knew and loved and understood.

Join the club.

The question now was what to do next. Well, the baby changed things. The police couldn’t ignore this. The baby hadn’t signed any damn contracts.

Still, best to cover her ass and take this straight to the media. Let them force the cops into action. Mia had been heading instinctively for her home in Hoboken when she had a better idea and took the 1 & 9 turnoff from the Pulaski Skyway. Winding through the streets of downtown Jersey City, she came in view of the huge neon sign atop the Jersey Journal building and turned into the enclosed parking lot at Journal Square. Pulling into the darkest and most secluded spot she could find, she leaned over and picked up the baby, rubbing it gently, speaking to it softly, trying to chase away all the cruelty and evil that had descended upon it.

Mia was about to get out of the car when it occurred to her to check something. She carefully peeled open the blanket swathing the baby. And Eun-hee was wrong; the child was a boy. For some reason, that made Mia giggle, and she let herself go this time, the tension pouring out of her as she laughed until she cried, releasing buried emotions. The baby even stopped making noise to watch her in wonder. Mia was just beginning to pull herself back together, feeling like she’d purged something cruel and cancerous, when the black SUV squealed to halt behind them, blocking her car from moving.

*****

“Happy first day of Spring,” Alpha said, handing a gingerbread man to her new girlfriend, Ophelia, known to all and sundry as Omega. They were in the cafeteria and everything was fine with the world. The company had announced record profits this past quarter, the layoffs were behind them, even the lunch hour had been restored to a full forty-five minutes.

“Thanks, babe,” Omega said, biting the head off the cookie. “You’re so good to me.”

“Anything for my pumpkin.” They shared the cookie, Alpha eating the legs, then carried their trays up to the conveyor and let them vanish through the window.

“You see the one in the kitchen?” Alpha asked as they exited the cafeteria into the hallway.

“The one what?”

“The Phase 3, the one cleaning and restacking trays.” Phase 3s were the headless assistants currently being installed throughout the building to handle menial tasks.

“No, what about her?”

“Tiny little thing. Looked like she could wear a straw for a bathing suit.”

They both laughed as the elevator arrived and carried them back to their desks.

***

Tell us: What do you think of Project Hydra?