Connie’s auburn hair shined beneath the foggy plastic. Her eyes were shut.

Doc couldn’t guess why the Board had ordered the body here, five feet from the visitor’s seat, unless they saw visitors and the body as two of a kind.

She sat in the chair, its wood creaking. The room was large, round, and sparsely furnished. Doors stood to either side, probably offices, lounges, and restrooms solely for the Board, but no one except a cleaning crew would ever see. To everyone else, the Board was as infallible as the building in which they held office. No one would see them anywhere but at their seats of power.

Doc hated speaking with them on the phone, but at least then, faceless and pumped full of corporate rhetoric, she could imagine speaking with a three-headed dragon on its hoard of gold, King Ghidorah lording over his scales.

Facing them was worse.

Three ordinary men wielded ABP’s power, the children of Zeus glaring down from a glassy Olympus. Behind their raised desks, a plaque coughed up ABP’s slogan as if to remind all visitors of the authority behind their three little thrones: AlphaBeta Pharmaceutical, making your world a better place. Doc hadn’t believed those words since the Kentucky Incident.

She didn’t know the Board’s names. They were gray-haired men in black

suits. Left wore glasses, Center wore a long beard, and Right wore both. She wondered if they swapped accessories for each visitor, every element of their presentation a falsehood.

“Thank you for coming, Agent Hall,” Center said, as if Doc had a choice.

“We’d like to discuss a few things, even understand them.”

“Asset recovery, mixed results,” Left said. “Near unprecedented asset.

Intellectual property infringement—”

Center raised a hand. “We can drop the jargon for now, yes?”

Left furrowed his brow and adjusted his glasses, unsure how to speak otherwise.

Center folded his hands together. “Where to begin? The unique specimen was killed a few hours ago. One of yours—Agent Greenwich—helped the Predator Engine crew collect the remains while law enforcement secured the scene.”

Greenwich must’ve felt like a hero, clinging to the side of the greasy steel beast as it rained hellfire down Bruen Street.

“When Agent Greenwich realized you lived nearby the scene, he decided to report to you himself,” Center went on. “He found your door ajar. He suspected foul play, went inside, but instead of you, he found her.” He cocked his head in the body bag’s direction.

Connie’s skull was not broken open and emptied out, which meant Yaya hadn’t finished with her. What had happened last night?

Doc cleared her throat. “How did she die?”

“That’s the main reason you’re here,” Center said. “Educate us.”

Wasn’t that just like the Board? When she had explanations, these three men were all hear no evil toward manhours, science, and realistic expectations.