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He wished he had a fidget…
Unfortunately, his arms were tied to the arms of the chair he was being restrained in and his pen was in the pocket of his lab coat. Which he was not wearing anymore. At some point in the hours before he regained consciousness, the coat had been removed.
So now he was cold, and bored. Great.
And they didn’t even have the social niceties to offer him water. Oh, he was thirsty. Ryland added that to his list of complaints to fix when he was back on the Vat that evening…..in a few hours. (He had no way of actually telling the time, what with his cell not having windows.)
And the wall was gray. And he was bored and cold and thirsty and not working on his greenhouse project like he wanted to be doing. Dimitri had mentioned that he had called in a handful of Engineers and scientists he knew that fit what the greenhouse team would need and they were supposed to be arriving the day after Grace was snatched. (Which was so rude of his abductors. Couldn’t they have waited until Grace ran orientation before grabbing him? Now he didn’t even have a project to review when he got back.)
….Was he behaving like a child? Dr. Ryland Grace knew himself well enough to accurately report that, yes. He was behaving like a child.
But he was cranky, bored, tired, thirsty, and tied to a chair like some damsel in one of the movies his brother was a stunt man for. As far as Grace was concerned, he was allowed the tiny temper tantrum infected pity party he was throwing. (Jeez, let him wallow for five minutes. Stratt was certainly not going to.)
He threw his head back to rest on the chair so he could look at the ceiling without holding his head up. (He felt like being lazy, sue him.)
Where were Carl and Stratt? He was sure they wouldn’t seriously take too long, considering how closely his friend followed him and where exactly they had been before he woke up here. Ryland was almost 100% sure that abducting a man from the middle of the ocean was nearly impossible.
Oh.
That was it.
Stratt had to lecture the poor security team into shape before she would be getting Ryland. He almost felt sorry for them. He certainly empathized. He would be in the same boat when they returned to the Vat.
He took that back. It was their fault he was facing his own lecture when he got back. There was a reason most of the Vat felt that volunteering to be a Hail Mary Crewmate was better than facing her. Eva Stratt gave a blistering lecture when she wanted to. Something Ryland was keenly aware of and attempted to head off before it could boil over. (The stupid government officials were lucky her “Science Lap Dog” was at every meeting. If they even had Ryland overflowing with anger, he could not imagine Eva was doing much better. At least him educating them like they were his students (his students were never that dumb, don’t insult his 8th graders, Lokken) always made Eva feel better.)
Ryland huffed out a sigh. He was bored.
******
He’d started drafting experiment plans and new potential commercial use products for the Astrophage in his head. He was up to, he reviewed the list in his head, ….9? 10? Did it really matter? He was almost vibrating with the need to go see if Astrophage would ruin the inner workings of a fridge if they were used to power one.
Footsteps had him picking his head up, off the back of the chair, and pulling a wince as his neck spasmed. He hadn’t realized how long he’d been in that position, or how weird a position it was to hold his neck in. (Well, lesson learned. He’d remember that for the next time he was abducted)
The door to his cell banged against the wall. Ryland tracked the motion.
”Well, that was excessive.” Did he say that outloud? Probably. He tended to talk to himself when he was bored.
He turned to finally see the man who had abducted him. And, listen, usually Ryland would at least attempt to point out all the guys good qualities, but he was tied to a chair, having been abducted from his bed, thirsty, suddenly hungry, sore, and bored out of his mind. He was allowed to be a bit petty. And Mustache Lamp deserved all the shade he would be throwing very shortly.
”You’re oddly calm for someone tied to a chair.” The man sounded like a creep. Ryland watched him move with entirely impassive eyes. He tilted his head as he observed the man. Should he or should he not wish the guy stay far away from kids? Cause the law would protect Ryland from whatever actions he took to protect those kids, but also, those poor kids. Yup, Ryland was being a jerk. Mustache Lamp deserved it. And, oh, he was still talking. “You have a lot of experience with being a bit…tied up?”
And dude was really bad at being suggestive. Hmmm. Maybe he could teach Martin and Annie a thing or too.
”ummmm, what?” When in doubt, rage-bait the evil dude.
Don’t judge him! Eva and Carl were taking their sweet time and Ryland was probably missing his chance to greet the new people for his project. And he didn’t have any paper to write his newest ideas on. He was bored.
The guy’s eyelid had started twitching. Was he getting enough water?
”Nevermind, Dr. Grace.” Okay, not a random creep then. Good to know. “Tell me, Dr. Grace, what were you doing on a ship in the middle of the ocean? You were a very hard man to find.”
….Huh?
Ryland refocused on the man in front of him. Tall, trim, neatly dressed in a duchey polo shirt and slacks, with that stupid lampshade mustache. And the man was American. He didn’t seem the usual type to go against Stratt. Nor did he look familiar. Grace had been in enough meetings with Eva to pick out the type of attendee that would leave pissed at her. Ryland always made a point of learning their names so he could put them on a “No Visits Permitted” list on the Vat. Outside of one occasion of flu that swept through the ship after the stupid Congressman had visited with a very obvious cold and refused to leave, the “No Visit” list had never been ignored.
This man was not someone Ryland was aware of as a threat to the project. How had he even known who Grace was?
“I’m waiting, Dr. Grace.” His voice was pompous. Grace didn’t like him.
”I’m sorry. I was distracted. What was the question?” He could fain politeness, even if he was very close to sassing his captor. He could behave.
”You heard me.”
”Yeah, but I was hoping you would realize how much of a bad idea the entire scheme was if you had to spell it out for me.” ….No, no he couldn’t.
”A bad idea? Oh, no, Dr. Grace. I don’t think it was a bad idea at all. After all, Sierra Six wouldn’t come visit me when I asked. I figured a little….incentive… would be the right push.” The man’s voice dripped out in slimy swatches, littering the air with oily nonsense and leaving Ryland in serious want of a shower.
”…Who?” The man’s hand had a strong grip on his hair before Ryland even saw him move. It yanked his head back, where the back of his skull bounced off the high back of the chair in a sharp crack. Pain lit up behind his eyes and filled his vision with white spots. He felt his head being yanked forward again, pulling him forward until his back left the chair from where it rested, and causing the ropes on his arms to pull painfully as the movement shifted where it held him down securely.
”Don’t play dumb with me. Sierra Six.” The man shook Ryland slightly, more stars clouding his vision. “You know. Your brother, Courtland Gentry.”
”Court’s dead.” The words still left a sour taste in his mouth, even after almost 20 years of saying them.
”Oh, so you don’t know.” The man’s baby voice was an insult to all babies.
”Apparently, I’m not the only one.” Colt wasn’t the only one with a penchant for pissing off people, ok? Ryland had meant every syllable when calling the SWoC a Staggering Waste of Carbon.
The hand released him and the remaining skin on his arms rejoiced at not being rubbed off.
”Oh, and what is it that I don’t know, Ryland? May I call you Ryland? Oh yes, Ryland?” Jerk.
”You pulled me off the Gansu, away from the Petrova Task Force and Eva Stratt, to ask me about my dead brother. Do you know what you’ve done?” Ryland didn’t wait for the man to respond before jumping into the lecture he’d been planning in his head between experiments and schematics. “You’ll have to live with joining the class in the middle of the lecture series, but we will not be starting at the beginning. I’m sure someone will share their notes with you, should you ask.”
He didn’t let the other man get a word in before continuing, he was sure he didn’t have much longer before he wouldn’t be able to and this man had more than earned it.
”Class 104: How to Not End Up 12 Lightyears Away, Don’t Piss Off the Scary Dutch Lady, a.k.a Eva Stratt.”
Surprisingly, the man stayed for the whole lecture. Though, looking back, it was probably because Carl had walked up behind him and now had a gun to the man’s head. And, like the amazing friend he was, Carl let him finish his lecture before forcing the man down the hallway and presumably to the black site Grace wasn’t supposed to know about.
***********
So, to be fair, Olesya wasn’t the only gossip on the Vat that was mystified that Dr. Ryland Grace was being lectured by Director Stratt. And she certainly wasn’t the only one who had lingered in the hallway outside the Director’s office, straining to catch any of the words leaking out from under the office door.
”…And no, Ryland, you were abducted. You are not permitted to head right to Engineering. I don’t care if Dr. Komorov told you the project team would be ready today. You are going right to Dr. Lamai for a check up and following her orders to the letter…”
Olesya didn’t catch anything more as she and the rest of the evesdroppers scattered as soon as the heard footsteps moving towards the door.
She would just have to ask Dr. Grace about it later.