The place that would save the human race looked, from the outside at least, painfully inconspicuous, yet another towering office building in a city full of them, the list of companies present within the main lobby’s directory nothing out of the ordinary for the downtown core. It was a façade that served the Odyssey Project well, and as Dr. Katrina Gould made her way down to greet the evening’s deliveries, she took comfort that it would shield them long enough to do what needed to be done. Whatever it costs us, the thought blossomed unbidden, and scarlet lips pursed in disapproval at her weakness as she forced the doubts down. We’ve come too far to back down now. Breathing deeply, Katrina stepped out of the elevator and into the subterranean loading dock the very picture of cool professionalism, clad in her typical outfit of a scarlet silk blouse and black skirt, with a white lab coat over top, long black hair bound in a simple ponytail. The delivery truck had arrived precisely on schedule, the Odyssey handlers already hard at work moving the night’s acquisitions out of the transport in preparation for processing, and Katrina made her way over, heels clicking upon the concrete floor. “Good evening, Lawrence.”
One of the handlers, a portly man in his mid-forties, greeted her approach with a genuine smile. “Good to see you again, Dr. Gould. You on processing duty again?”
“Until the foreseeable future,” Katrina answered. “Any difficulties?”
“Went like clockwork, as usual,” Lawrence boasted. Metal and leather squeaked as the latest acquisition for the Odyssey collection was wheeled before her, and Katrina refused to allow any discomfort to show, grey eyes peering past her dark-rimmed glasses with a clinical lack of empathy.
Blue eyes, wet with helpless tears, stared back at her with an unspoken plea, and the acquisition thrashed in her bonds to the accompaniment of creaking leather, her scream stifled by the wide strip of tape covering her mouth. She was about twenty-five by Katrina’s reckoning, a young woman in the prime of life, and as per Odyssey protocol, had been stripped naked by the acquisition team, leaving every inch of her smooth, pale flesh open to the doctor’s inspection. Rigid leather straps kept her locked in place upon the gurney at the ankles, thighs, wrists, upper arms and below her breasts, yet she still fought on, sending her long golden-blonde locks whipping about her in her struggles, sweat glistening down her lithe figure. Only the most basic of sedatives were employed in the initial capture phase, so as to avoid compromising the results of their physical examinations, and the drugs had clearly worn off in this instance, given the clarity with which her panicked eyes darted about, looking for any possible avenue of escape. More women were wheeled out from the transport, likewise bound, gagged and stripped, all of them likewise left bewildered by their unexpected abductions, and a small sound of despair emerged from past the blonde’s gag.
Not for the first time, Katrina wondered who these women had been before falling into the Odyssey Project’s clutches. Teachers? Lawyers? Accountants? Doctors like herself? In the end, she supposed it didn’t matter anymore. Whatever they were before, they were now part of the Odyssey collection, and once the tests were completed and their suitability determined, they would become part of the many thousands already in cryostasis, a living time capsule that would enable some small fraction of the human race to survive and continue on, no matter what disaster befell them.
“It’s all for the greater good,” she found herself saying, reaching up to wipe away the blonde’s tears. “Trust me, this is all for the best…”