"I worked with him in the Mission Phidias," Adam rushed to say.

"You did?" The national guardsman eased his posture.

Ah! The magic words. Everyone knew this. Whenever a government official finds out you are on the same team, their attitude changes.

A military ID, a document identifying you as a member of the socialist party, sometimes, as little as wearing a shirt with a slogan supporting the president, was all it took to get on their good side.

The guardsman produced a small walkie-talkie and asked for professor Rafael Alvarado.

"Álvarez," Adam corrected him.

The soldier paused and repeated the question, using the right surname this time. While Adam waited for a response, he paced from one wall to the other and entertained himself by reading the inscriptions below the nearby busts.

"There's no Dr. Álvarez or Alvarado on staff."

Adam dropped his gaze.

"Sure?"

"You calling me a liar, citizen?" The soldier glared him down.

"He's here. Let me go to his office and—"

"No."

"Why not?" Adam looked over the national guardsman's shoulder and saw him. It had been only a glimpse, just before he crossed the corridor that led downstairs, but he'd seen him. "There he is. Professor!"

He hurried to the end of the hall, and the guardsman dashed behind him, trying to grab his arm. For a moment, the soldier grasped him by the wrist and pulled him, but Adam's sleeve tore off.

"Citizen, stop!" He shouted, losing his balance and falling onto his stomach.

Adam didn't listen and made his way downstairs. The floor below got gloomier as the day waned fast. Is it this late already? He rubbed his eyes until they grew accustomed to the dwindling sunlight.

For the longest of seconds, Adam hid behind a column, listening. I can't hear him. The guardsman must have stayed upstairs. This is my chance.

"Rafael?" he whispered, but his mentor was nowhere to be seen.

Adam lifted his Nokia and shone the light on the mobile phone's screen around the darkened hallway. After a few steps, he covered his nose and mouth with his arm. A chemical smell that reminded him of pickles stung his eyes and caused the back of his throat to burn.

"Professor?" Something moved behind a wooden door with a frosted glass panel to his left. "It's me." Adam stiffened, expecting a reply, but even the smallest shadow went still. "I'm coming in."

He regretted that decision as soon as he walked inside.

A pile of corpses awaited him there: Blackened severed arms, rust-colored legs, mummified faces with sunken cheeks and empty eye sockets, and countless body parts under sheets stained by swaths of dried bloody fluids. I have to get out of here. Like the flashes of a camera, the images of the corpses the Allies found near the end of World War II in Auschwitz crossed his mind.

Horrified, Adam stepped away from the mutilated bodies. If he hadn't vomited earlier that afternoon, he would be doing so now. Instead, a fit of coughing made him retch. With each cough, a different horror blazed in his brain—the bony body lying on a metallic table, the bottom half of a woman without butt cheeks, a familiar face peeking through the severed parts of a man who looked like...

Me.

Adam shrieked in dismay as a hand grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Are you okay? What are you doing here?"

It wasn't Rafael, but another doctor.

"I... eh..."

The man in the white coat checked Adam's ears with a small light and took him back to the stairs, where he asked him to sit down.

"How long were you in there?"

"I'm looking for professor Álvarez. His office is down here."

"That's always been the cadaver storage center."

Adam put his hand over the exposed wristwatches on his arm and tried to stand up.

"Don't move yet."

"I have to find him. He sent me an—"

"Wait. Do you mean Dr. Álvarez?"

Everything was spinning.

"Yes! He used to teach here and led the Mission Phidias."

The doctor wrinkled his brow.

"I do not recall that program, but Rafael Álvarez is dead."

"That's..." Adam sank back, his breath rising. "Impossible."

"Hey!"

The national guardsman had finally found Adam, and from his expression, it was clear he would sooner be anywhere else.

"No worries, officer. It's all under control."

"Doc, this guy is crazy."

"He is fine, disoriented, but he's one of us. Isn't that right, comrade?"

I'm not mad, Adam said to himself although he wasn't so sure of his sanity anymore.

To be continued...