New Reality 2: Justice Read Free

existence.
    With her shoulders clamped to her neck, she winced as she stepped around the next corner.
    The smile on Doug's face was as wide as his fat head. He rubbed his hands together and then nudged the man he was with. "Ah, there she is, the woman of the moment."
    The vulgar man stood with one of the company's directors. There were so many, and they showed their faces so infrequently, Marie couldn't remember who he was. All she could do was force a smile and remain mute.
    "I was just telling Monty here about your eventful day yesterday." Doug grinned like a maniac as he threw her a heavy wink. It made Marie's skin crawl.
    Monty nodded. "Well done…"
    "Marie."
    "Thank you. Well done, Marie." He looked at her cleavage and continued in a whisper, "I'm told the first is always the hardest, but it gets much easier after that."
    Like he's ever had to kill anyone that didn't deserve it; what the fuck would he know?
    "Don't worry about being overheard down here, Monty." Doug slapped him on the back and laughed again. "As you know, we don't allow any unauthorised personnel in this area. Any ears that hear our conversation are tied tightly into our secrecy contract and they can be trusted. Hell, even if they can't be trusted, they still won't talk because our lawyers will destroy their lives in an instant."
    That little routine was for Marie, not Monty. A sharp reminder that they needed to shut the fuck up, or else.
    "Of course, Dougie."
    With a gentle shake running through her, Marie's throat tightened as she looked from one of the men to the other until Doug waved his hand at her in a shooing motion. "You can go now."
    Marie dropped her eyes to the floor and pulled her shirt away from her stomach as if her bump was visible. When the men didn't move out of her way, she slipped sideways through the tight gap created by the pair and headed for the control room.
    Every step away from Doug and Monty helped her breathe more easily. By the time she reached the control room door, her heart rate had settled and she was breathing freely again.

Chapter Three

    It was hard not to blink when the green bar of light ran across her eyes. No matter how many times she entered the control room, she'd still not mastered the retina scanner, and it often took her several attempts to get in. The light above the door remained red. "Fuck it!"
    When she felt a hand on her back, Marie jumped and spun around. It was one of her colleagues. She was just coming off her lunch break too.
    After beaming a warm smile at her, the petite, blonde woman pushed her face into the scanner, pressed the fingerprint pad, and let them both in.
    It would have been so much easier to thank her, but Marie smiled instead. There were three cameras in the hallway watching them; even a smile was risky.  
    The air-conditioned room threw a frigid shawl around Marie. It was even colder in here than in the corridor. She shivered as she watched the door slide shut.
    Of the six seats in the room, her sister's and her own were the only ones unoccupied.
    Marie glanced at the man she'd reached out to that morning, and although he didn't look back, her cheeks flushed. Why had she even tried to talk to him? She had to be more careful in the future.
    The chair creaked as she sat down on it, and she stared into space momentarily. After that, the only sound in the room was an occasional sneeze and fingers dancing over keyboards.  
    When she looked down at her desk, Marie lingered on her corset-enhanced cleavage. Before the pregnancy, she was a B cup; now she was already at a C. Whenever she put the corset on, it felt like it was lifting her tits to her neck, but Frankie assured her that wasn't the case. Whatever; all that mattered was that it hid her bump and prevented Doug from noticing her weight gain in other places.
    There was a small fridge by Marie's workstation, which she removed a can of soda from. It had been weeks since she'd had any. The baby didn't seem to like it, but the cravings