Page 116 of Reset

Garnier pushed away from the desk, and Sarah noticed something she hadn’t before—the woman was in a wheelchair. She rolled around her desk and came to a halt in front of them. There was an iPad in her lap, and she took the pen from it, opened a document, and faced them with a look of cold assessment.

“I wondered if you’d made it out of the catacombs,” she said with an eagerness in her voice that made Sarah’s stomach turn. “I need to know how you did it. Forgive me.” She waved a hand. “I have a lot of questions. You’re the first of my subjects that I’ve had the opportunity to meet in person.”

“Subjects?” Sarah whispered. Nothing the woman said made any sense.

“You’re part of a very important study. Please, take a seat. We have a lot of ground to cover.” Garnier motioned to a corner of the office that had a leather sofa in it. She seemed to have tuned out the other people in the room, now that she had her attention on them.

“I don’t understand,” Sarah said to Ryan.

“I think I do.” Ryan practically vibrated with rage.

Around them, Lake and Callum were rifling through cabinets and drawers, while Elle and David concentrated on the bank of computer monitors against the far wall.

Voices came through the door, angry and commanding. But Joe and Harvard were on sentry duty and no one got past them. Sarah heard someone mention the police before Joe calmly replied they’d already been called. Dimitri and Megan were waiting for their contacts downstairs.

“Callum,” Elle said, her voice tight. “I have the video feed. There are stored video files of past victims. They’re couples. All couples. There are several here, going back years.”

Professor Garnier seemed to take issue with Elle’s terminology. “Not victims—participants. Carefully chosen to enhance this study. And don’t touch that; I can’t have you corrupting years of data. In fact, it’s time that everyone left this office.” She looked at Ryan and Sarah. “Except you two.”

“You were studying us?” Sarah said, frowning in confusion.

“Yes, of course,” Garnier said. “Please sit. I’m getting a pain in my neck from looking up at both of you.”

“Lady,” Ryan said. “I might just fix that for you. Permanently.”

Garnier cocked her head at him. “Aggression. Interesting.” She made a note.

“The effects of the male self-preservative instinct on romantic love,” Lake read from a file he’d gotten from her desk. “Utilizing a controlled environment, subjects are confronted by an unwinnable scenario. The female partner is secured to the location and unable to escape. While the male partner is free to roam. The author hypothesizes that romantic love would have little to no impact on the male’s overwhelming instinct for survival. When given the choice of dying with his loved one or having a chance at survival alone, the author proposes that the male will always choose the latter.” He tossed the file onto the desk.

“You left us to die, for a study?” Sarah had to sit down, but the last thing she wanted was to do it in that office.

“No, I gave you options.” Garnier’s smile was cold. “I made a mistake leaving you with your belongings; I see that now. I didn’t realize how resourceful you could be. Of course, that means you didn’t actually confront the issues raised by the test, as you simply bypassed the challenge by releasing your partner. You’re an anomaly that fooled the test criteria, but there is still important data that can be gleaned from your experience. It’s obvious that the test conditions need some tweaking in order to ensure compliance going forward. It’s very important for me to know how you got out of the catacombs.”

“She thinks you’re Kirk,” Elle said in disgust. “And this is the Kobayashi Maru. She wanted you in a no-win situation and you won. Guess you’re not such a big brain after all, huh, Professor?”

“Please don’t speak to me,” Garnier said. “You’re irrelevant.” She sighed as she looked up at Ryan and Sarah, disappointment on her face. “And it would seem that you are too. If you aren’t willing to share information, then you must excuse me. I have work to do.” She turned her chair and addressed the rest of the team. “Get out of my office, or I'll call security.”

Ryan dropped Sarah’s hand and spun the wheelchair back around to face them.

“Who put you in the wheelchair?” he said.

“That isn’t relevant,” she snapped.

“It was a lover, wasn’t it?” Ryan looked around, taking in the few personal images in the room before drawing his own quick conclusions. “Did it happen during rock climbing or caving? Because the catacombs weren’t just a convenient location. You aren’t from Paris, are you, professor? You’re Canadian, and I’m betting you moved here to be near the catacombs.”

“This is none of your business,” Garnier said. “Charlotte,” she called. “Get security.”

Ryan ignored her. “He left you when you were injured, didn’t he? Left you to die instead of dying alongside you like a crazy, in-love man should have done. I mean, where was the practical evidence of all those declarations of everlasting love? When he’d whispered that he’d die for you, had it only been metaphorical?”

“Shut up,” Garnier snapped as she tried to wheel her chair out of Ryan’s grasp.

“When he was confronted with the choice to make the ultimate sacrifice for the woman he loved, he chose himself, didn’t he? He left you to die. Only you survived, and you’ve been trying to prove that he couldn’t help it ever since. It’s the male instinct, right? It wasn’t because he was a selfish coward, or maybe you weren’t worth saving. It was biology. Or environmental conditioning. Or anything other than the truth.” Ryan bent over the woman, staring her in the eye. “Am I close?”

Garnier struck out, slapping Ryan across the cheek.

Without thinking, Sarah reacted and slapped the woman hard in return.

Hand burning, she blinked at Ryan in shock.