Prisoner

I opened the other phial and poured it into the glass beaker and began to mix the two viscous golden liquids together with the glass rod viciously with a repetitive clink clink of glass on glass. 

"How long will this take?" the filtered voice of my captor echoed breathlessly in my ear. I could see their helmeted visage reflected on a dozen different bottles on my work bench.

"I am going as fast as I can, you cannot rush this delicate reaction" I said slowly not ceasing my work for a heartbeat.

"I took you because you were supposedly the best and most efficient." Again, the slow metallic voice bereft of emotion.

I remembered that night, being awoken from my bunk by an armoured glove gripping my night shirt and throwing me to the flagstone floor. The pale green armoured figure casually aiming a shock rifle steadily at me whilst I bundled some clothes into a bag.

Being shoved at rifle point out into the corridor, past the dead security guard hunched over a blackened blaster wound and out into the cold night towards the customised insectile vessel hidden out in the woods. The memory of seeing my roommate's lifeless grey eyes staring across at me, her mouth open in a silent sigh as the blood ran from deep slash in those dainty wrists into a dark pool. Sigardson was her name, she'd only been at the facility a few days but was enthusiastic about her work in Quantum theory and the crystalline drives that powered our great warships. She had been innocent, I was innocent!

"You took me because I was easy to catch." I said testily, ceasing stirring and looking up into those lifeless black eye plates. "Now do you want this to work or not?"

I felt the steel blade gently pushing against my chest almost immediately, I'm not sure when or from where it was drawn but the promise was definite.
"Pretty ballsy Professor, now finish the job or you'll end up like your pal Sigardson."

My mouth worked quicker than my brain and I heard myself saying "Why? Can you mix this accurately?"

The blade shifted from a gentle threat to clear and present danger as it now broke the skin of my abdomen enough to make me recoil and for blood to begin staining my pale grey jumpsuit.

"Back to work." Metallically filtered or not, you could hear the menace in the voice. I obeyed immediately.

As I stirred and added the sodium chlorite as well as the hydrogen monoxide.

"How did you know Sigardson?" I muttered.

"I didn't know her. We spoke before she died. She was not who I wanted and a possible lose end."

"So you killed her?" I tried not to let my attention falter from the reaction in front of me.

"I was merciful." the voice was blunt.

"Merciful? You slit her wrist and left her to bleed to death." I choked a little.

"Professor, what do you think is going on here? My employer needs this compound and as quickly as possible, they're up against something far more evil than me. I did her a favour, if the others had got their hands on her, and they would have, then... She'd have died but not well."

My stomach churned. What was I a part of? Maybe the mercenary was right and Sigardson did go the right way, but what will happen to me when I am no longer useful. I took the first step in that direction.

"I've finished," I muttered. "hand me that bottle would you?"

The blade vanished from my side and I heard the click of the shock rifle as it was laid against the laboritory wall, I glanced sideways at it and at the slim armoured figure at the next work station looking for the stoppered conicle glass I'd indicated. I quickly began running the math on my chances.

"Don't even think about it." There was a firmness in the mercanry's voice that like a boot on a spider, crushed any thoughts I had. "Unless you have my DNA you can't pull the trigger."

I sighed and took the flask when it was held out for me by the same gloved fist that had pulled me out of bed that night.

"Are we done here?"

I gently poured the compound into the flask and placed the orange stopper into it. "Yes all done." I held it out for the merc to take, if I was to die here they could carry their own damn formula.

"You carry it, I may need to blast us out of here professor." My captor moved deftly but surely towards the door and peered out into the metallic corridor beyond. "Looks clear. Keep behind me and if rounds start flying stay low. You're no good to me dead. Although if the Syndicate's goodn get their hands on you you'll wish I had cut your wrists too."

I looked over the table briefly to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything - an old habbit of mine that held no relevance to this new life I found myself living. Then my eyes fell on something on the floor next to the table and my heart lept! There was an universal key card, it looked rather battered but looked to be in working order. I examined it from a distance and my heart stopped when I saw the familiar chipped corner of my cell key. It must have fallen out of the mercanry's utility pouches. I quickly scooped it up and followed the armoured figure to the doorway clinging to the phial because my life genuinely depended on it surviving the journey back to the ship. After that... Well that depended on the Merc.