Free Instinct (2010) by Ben Kay

geneticist were sitting through the end of another showing of Casablanca , one of them about to go to work, the others to sleep.
    MEROS had been built underground to keep its location a secret, but the people in charge soon realized there was another benefit: the lack of distinct days and nights encouraged a subconscious submissiveness in the inhabitants that made them easier to control. Not knowing something as fundamental as when night fell left them feeling dependent and cowed.
    The interior walls helped to maintain the illusion of twenty-four-hour daytime. They were covered in bleached polycarbonide and permanently lit by white fluorescent strips that gave the rooms and corridors a harsh, oppressive glow. The sleeping quarters providedthe only respite from the constant feeling that it was daytime and therefore some industrious behaviour was expected. There were no clocks, and with the lack of any nearby facilities for watch repair or battery replacement, hardly anyone had any idea what time it was. But that was of little consequence: in MEROS, the only timing of any significance was that of mission preparation, and on those occasions Bishop made sure everything happened during its appropriate fraction of a second.
    The elevator was where any visit to the facility began. It opened on to a wide lobby area, whose featureless walls reminded all first-time visitors of a minimalist space station. The pristine white of those walls was interrupted only by the Perspex windows to the holding bay on the right of the elevator, and the retinal scanners beside each door, which could analyse anything from blood type to vitamin deficiencies in the time it took to blink.
    At regular intervals the ceiling was dotted with innocent-looking transparent circles, each the size of a penny. These were the latest in video surveillance technology, designed to be mistaken for light fittings. They employed a complex arrangement of mirrors and fibre optics, providing video and audio surveillance of near-perfect accuracy, and covered 99.3 per cent of the facility.
    The lobby area was the hub of MEROS and, as well as leading to the holding bay, gave access to the weapons storage, sleeping and eating areas, Bishop’s office and the corridor to the labs.
    Directly to the left of the elevator was the most sophisticated weapons-storage system in the western hemisphere. Based on the WS3, which was developed by the US army in the Cold War to hold nuclear weapons, the MEROS facility was designed to house anything from volatile explosives, such as HMTD or triacetone triperoxide, to custom-built guns and ammunition.
    When it came to MEROS weapons, the rule was that it was better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it. That’s why there was also room for CS gas, cyclosarin, Desert Eagles, HM1018 High Explosive Air Bursting ammunition and all manner of prototypes, adaptations and hybrids which the Pentagon had created in conjunction with MIT.
    Security was strictly monitored but, in practice, any of the soldiers could access the cache. They were unofficially encouraged to follow the procedural instructions for deployment and to familiarize themselves with the weaponry by practising with it up on the surface. This helped to pass the long periods of downtime – although many of the jungle’s animals found the experience less beneficial.
    The facility was highly automated, the air conditioning, heating, ventilation, water and electricity all maintained without the need for human involvement. This was most apparent in the scientists’ sleeping quarters, which consisted of individual pods adapted from those of an Osakan capsule hotel. These self-contained bunks confined any mess and reduced the amount of building required. They were cramped andclaustrophobic but they had not been built with comfort in mind.
    Each pod contained a television, an air-conditioning unit and a control panel for the blind that covered the glass door. In the rest of the