Machine Man (serial)

Carl the security guard deposited me in my chair in the Glass Room. We called it the Glass Room because it looked over the adjoining labs, but actually the walls were a green-tinged polycarbonate plastic. They used to be glass, apparently, until an incident involving a spilled beaker, an experimental strain of weapons-grade pathogen, and some panicked researchers with office chairs. When I heard this story, the pathogen was harmless, and served as a wake-up call to management. But later I overheard a version in which six people died before the complex could be locked down, and thirty-one afterward, when they flooded the labs with gas. This was according to Jason, one of my graduate lab assistants. Since he was telling it to Elaine, my best-looking graduate lab assistant, I figured he was embellishing. But I’ve never been able to tell when people are lying. All I know is the walls are plastic now.

12.