Memories of Yesterday

Chapter 3 - The Assignment

August 13, 1998

Alex sat at her desk, busy adding a new technician to the database. Normally, she'd have had Davis do this, but he was unavailable at the moment. He was currently assigned to cleanup duty, escorting the truck that would haul the failed experiments to the factory out of town for incineration. Not a pretty job, hence the reason she'd given it to him. Insubordination was something Alex could not and would not tolerate.

She was just finishing up, when Keith Alexander came through the door. He was a well built man, in his late twenties, with just the right amount of thick black hair. When they'd first been introduced, Alex thought he'd have a problem taking orders from a women six years his junior. She'd been wrong. Keith was a professional and recognized that Alex was as well.

"What do you need Keith?" She didn't even bother to look up from the computer as she asked. "It had better not have anything to do with Bates."

"As a matter of fact, Bates wants to see you in his office. I'm not going to repeat the order verbatim, but the basic idea was that you drop what you're doing and head there immediately.".

"Oh goody, just what I needed today." Alex hit the final keystroke and pushed away from the desk, giving Keith a rare smile. "So what were his exact words?"

"Oh something like Tell that sunglass wearing boss of yours to get her ass down here, before she finds herself running cleanup duty on zombies. Something like that."

"Like he has the balls to do that, not to mention the authority." She sighed, climbing to her feet. "Take that new technician down to lab three, while I go see what our esteemed leader wants."

Alex walked down the corridor, slowly. She had every intention of drawing out the walk to Bates' office, as much as possible. She nodded at a few security personnel as she walked. Three were stationed in front of Birkin's lab, one was inside the anteroom...her orders. Birkin allowed no on inside the main lab except Annette and herself. Much to the chagrin of Bates.

Officially Bates ran the labs here under Raccoon, at least on paper anyway. In reality, he was nothing more than a glorified babysitter, who wrote a lot of reports. He had no authority over any decisions regarding experiments, that was Birkin's domain. He had no say in security shifts or placement of personnel, that was her job. Basically he was left with authority over his personal secretary and little else. Which made him a major asshole, who quite enjoyed bothering her with useless and trivial matters. He didn't dare bother Birkin, stupid as he was...he wasn't that stupid.

Ales looked over the door to his office, an old technician's office by the machine elevator, with an irate expression on her face. Sighing again, she adjusted her glasses and opened the door...not even bothering to knock. Melanie, Bates' personal assistant, was shoving a few files into a nearby cabinet. The man himself was ignoring the papers on his desk, because he was busy staring at the poor woman's ass. Alex cleared her throat, crossing her arms. Bates snapped his head up to glare at her, as Melanie scuttled out of the office and down the hallway. No doubt the woman was grateful for Alex and her timing. Alex smiled and sat down in a nearby chair, not bothering to remove her sunglasses.

"Keith said you wanted to see me."

"Yes though I sent Keith after you twenty minutes ago. Where have you been?"

Bates puffed himself out like an old laying hen. Alex almost burst into laughter. If he though he looked intimidation, he was sorely mistaken.

"I was busy. Some of us around here, have actual work to do."

Alex cracked a smile, as Bates' face turned a bright shade of scarlet. He recovered quickly, shuffling several papers together while clearing his throat.