Lost: Project Xol

by Amabel Daniels

  1994?

  If Michael Poole was a senior in college in the mid-nineties…he’d be almost sixty years old now, give or take.

  Chapter Eight

  Luke

  I glanced at Cassidy for what felt like the fiftieth time in the last minute. There was no way I could get off saying I knew her. Never minding the fact we’d been on the run together for a few days in a row now, there was still so much I didn’t know about her. What her story was. But I wasn’t so clueless to read her mood. And right now, as she scrunched her face, wrinkles showing on her smooth skin, she narrowed her eyes at the computer monitor in front of her.

  A moment ago, she’d asked Deana if she could print something on the lab’s device.

  What could she be reading? What did she find? Whatever it was, I was more than intrigued and eager to know. So far, she’d been open and including me in everything about this search for Rosa’s old data—or Scott’s, really.

  Honestly, I just wanted to be at her side again. At the minimum, I wanted to get the hell away from Deana. I was no fool. A sure-footed and educated woman doesn’t accidentally trip over thin air and brush her hand against my cock to catch herself from falling. Especially since we were only standing there in front of her computer and tools. Nor was there any reason for her to paw my chest and lean closer to tell me “oops” for her “clumsiness.” In the midst of the insanity Cassidy and I had fallen in, I had no patience for a coy woman trying too hard.

  Then again, she was helping us. I gritted my teeth and kept my mouth shut.

  “Yep. It’s midazolam,” Deana said, nodding as she read the readings on her screen.

  So the syringe was a sedative. Too bad that fact didn’t reassure me. Of course, I would have hated to know that Michael was toting a needle full of a lethal poison and that he may have wanted to use it on Cassidy. But the man was clearly set on capturing my redheaded sidekick one way or another. Actually, the idea of that beast having Cassidy alive and under his control freaked me out even more.

  “Yeah?” I checked, tearing my gaze from Cassidy to look at where Deana was pointing out the comparison on her screen.

  “The chemical analysis is a perfect match.” She twisted one side of her lip down. “Wonder how her boyfriend got it from them.”

  “Them who?” I asked.

  She picked up the empty syringe Cassidy and I had found in Michael’s pocket. A clear tube was all that remained, plus the Daysun label stuck to it. She’d removed the barcode sticker that I saw earlier, revealing the pharmaceutical’s identity inked on the device. Deana tapped at the logo. “Daysun.”

  A chill took over my body. Daysun? As in Dale’s company?

  “They’re huge. I mean, it’s nothing new for drugs to be sold on the street, but I have to bet this company is a little tight with their products. Especially since this sample is…well, it’s a little more advanced than what I’ve seen before.” She shrugged and picked at the label that she’d partially removed. It came off easily, not so quickly that it had crappy adhesion, but more as though it was designed to be replaced. “Well, what do we have here?”

  Her tone dropped as she spoke, almost murmuring the question with a more serious curiosity behind it. Gone was her higher-pitched, flirty voice that she’d been using on me since we came in here. The difference must have caught Cassidy’s attention too because she stood from the workbench where she’d been sitting and came next to me to peer at the needle.

  Or, maybe she’d been keeping a close eye on me from across the room this whole time as well.

  “What’s that?” Cassidy asked.

  Deana handed it over, a frown of confusion on her tanned, overly made-up face. “Another barcode?”

  I took it from her, holding it so Cassidy could examine it with me. Stuck to the clear tube was a thin strip, just like a scannable image but also raised. I ran my thumb over it, noting the metallic ridges. Not quite a barcode, but a…

  “It’s a tracker chip.”

  I pivoted to face Cassidy.

  She glared at the device in my hands and I knew she was right. “We use similar strips at the bookstore. One time, I was bored and I peeled the outer sticker casing off.” Jabbing a finger at it, she confirmed, “That’s a tracking chip.”

  So that was how Michael had managed to follow us up north from Cincy then back down here to Texas. Dammit. I rubbed at my mouth and held back a groan.

  How could we have known something was hidden like that? We couldn’t have, and it had cost us so much in this crazy escape.

  “Is that drug flammable?” Cassidy asked. As she waited for Deana to reply, she set the syringe with the chip sticker face-up and took pictures of it with her phone. Then she zoomed in to get a picture of the Daysun label.

  “Kind of.”

  I followed Cassidy’s line of sight as she scanned the clinical teacher’s lab we were in. “Would it be safe to burn this in there?” I pointed at what had snagged Cassidy’s attention. A vented cabinet. Glass doors walled the front of it. Inside were Bunsen burners.

  “I guess so. Yeah. But we can just throw it away, you know. We have special waste containers for sharps.”

  Sure. But that wouldn’t stop that tracking chip from working. It seemed Cassidy didn’t care about the easier disposal either. She strode to the glass cabinet and inserted the syringe and Daysun label through the slot door. Then, sticking her hands into the rubber gloves, she burned them. With a small burst of flames, the needle caught fire.

  After the evidence was destroyed, Cassidy turned around and met my gaze. She seemed to hesitate, licking her lips. Maybe she was debating how to excuse us from our impromptu request for help.

  I didn’t need time to dillydally. We’d gotten our answers—more than we’d bargained for, really. We found out what was in the needle and how we’d been tracked. More than that, we should get away from the location of the ruined chip.

  “Well, we should get going. Right, sis?” I said. I made a show of checking the time on my watch. “Dad will be wondering why you’re not home yet.”

  “Yeah. And he’s been so worried since the whole…date-rape thing…” She walked up to me and I guided us toward the exit.

  “So, do you want to…” Deana laughed lightly to herself as she leaned against her lab space counter. She glanced at me from under lowered lids and bit her lip. A well-practiced show for insincere shyness. “I mean, I was thinking we could meet up later? After you get her home?”

  We were already at the door. “We’ll see. Thank you for helping us.” I strapped my arm around Cassidy and, taking my cue, she nodded.

  “I appreciate knowing what that monster used.”

  “You should probably report it, you know?” Deana suggested.

  I bit back the harsh laugh on my tongue. Uh-huh. Report it to who? “Thanks again.” I bumped my butt to the door and exited, pulling Cassidy with me. Deana still spoke as the door closed behind us, but I didn’t care. Sure, it was rude, but circumstances didn’t allow for manners here.

  “Let’s get the hell away from here.”

  I nodded at her unnecessary words. For now, that was the best plan. Michael would know the tracker chip was destroyed, and he’d be led to this lab as its last location. Yet, we couldn’t leave the campus completely. We still had to get to Scott’s data in the library basement first. It was a relief to know we couldn’t be tracked step by step now though.

  As we strode down the hallways of the science facility, I kept my eyes on our surroundings, checking for the murderous man to be waiting for us.

  Cassidy kept pace with me, almost running at times. I held fast to her hand, unwilling to allow a chance of being separated even without a pursuit hot on our heels.

  “How would Michael get a drug from Daysun?” I asked.

  She scoffed. “I’m not sure. He’s…”

  “What?”

  “I was Googling him on the computer back there. Something doesn’t add up about him. Who knows what his story is and why h
e has drugs like that. Maybe he got it from someone on the street. Someone he arrested.”

  “But he hasn’t arrested anyone.” Through research, Zero found that Michael was some kind of an oddly dual law enforcement member, but he had no proof of doing his jobs.

  “You know what, let’s check in with Zero,” she said. “I haven’t heard from him and maybe he can explain what I found.”

  Sounded like a plan. Without the tracker on us, we were free, so to say. Free to move as we pleased. But we were stuck here until tomorrow morning. We needed to stall. Instead of staying on campus, we headed for a chain-store coffee shop. I claimed a booth in the back and Cassidy pulled out the papers she’d printed at the lab.

  “What’s all this?” I asked as I sat next to her. Seemed we both wanted our backs to the wall. I couldn’t blame her.

  “What I found about Michael. Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Well, if this is really him.”

  I slanted my brows as she pulled her phone from her backpack. If it was him? It either was or wasn’t. Why was there any question? She knew what he looked like. As she dialed Zero, she tucked her legs underneath her, bringing her closer to my side. I draped my arm on the back of the booth seat and leaned over as the speakerphone called Zero.

  Three rings later, he picked up. “Girl, tell me you’re okay.”

  “Yeah, I am.” She brushed some strawberry hair behind her ear as she met my gaze. “We’re fine.”

  For now. With my arm raised and away from my body, I flexed it slightly, teasing the tightness from where Cassidy had hit me with the cast-iron pan. Still sore, but I expected as much.

  “I haven’t heard from you. What’s going on?”

  We hadn’t set up a timeline for checking in. Probably shouldn’t either, if we were trying to stay off the grid as much as possible.

  Cassidy filled him in on the truck going off the road, about us not being able to get into Scott’s storage box until tomorrow. Then about the tracker chip and sticker on the needle, plus what was in it.

  Zero listened, asking one- or two-word questions. He was an attentive listener and once she finished speaking, inhaling a deep breath because she’d rushed through it all, it was silent.

  “What do you have?” I asked.

  Zero’s deep laugh chilled me. It wasn’t one born of humor. “A little backstory on the monster chasing you.”

  Cassidy scooted, slanting over the table to pull the papers to me. We could both view them and she spoke to the phone as I picked one up. A sports article about Michael playing football. Made sense. He was a strong man.

  “When was he born, Zero?” she asked. “How could he have been in college in the early nineties?”

  Doing a double-take, I brought the print out closer to my face. Nineties? But…he couldn’t be much older than me.

  “He was born in 1975. I found his birth certificate. It was altered in Arizona, but I found the original from Kentucky as well.”

  My jaw dropped. 1975? That’d make him… I couldn’t do the math at the moment because confusion stunned me. If Michael was born in 1975, that’d mean he would be an older man now. The hulk who’d nearly choked me to death, who’d fought me in the subway—he was strong. Fit, muscled, the image of a strapping, violent man.

  “There’s no way he can be forty-seven,” Cassidy said, her finger slipping toward where she’d penciled the math on the paper.

  “I’d agree.”

  She scowled at the phone, not pleased with Zero’s answer.

  “Especially if he had leukemia since he was fourteen.”

  I fidgeted, dropping the sheet of paper to the table and wishing something could make sense.

  “Then it’s a different guy.” Cassidy tapped at the picture of Michael on the article and glanced at me. “It’s him, but it can’t be. He’s not some older guy.”

  “He is, and he isn’t.”

  “How the hell is that possible?” I demanded from Zero.

  “Project Xol.” Zero followed his answer with a deep breath, like he was readying for a long lecture. I didn’t care how much he had to say. I wasn’t budging until I understood something about this mess.

  “Rosa and Scott were leading research for a cure for cancer. They worked with axolotls, interested in their neotenic and regenerative abilities.”

  Cassidy rolled her hand, as though prompting him—without his being able to see—to hustle. We knew this.

  “Their research was a collaborative effort, internationally. Daysun founded it, but when Scott died, the research ended as well. Only, it did not. Those files you sent me in New York—”

  “We lost them.”

  “True. But you did send me some. I’ve been browsing the patient files of the first experimental trials on humans. Michael is one of them. One of the very first, in fact.”

  The bluesy jazz droning in the background of the coffee shop faded. Blood thundered in my head as the truth settled.

  Zero called Michael a monster.

  Exactly what kind was he?

  Cassidy stiffened and slowly faced me. Her parted lips and wide eyes told no lie. She was just as freaked as me.

  “What does that mean?” she whispered.

  “It means he’s a…mutant. A genetically altered human.” Zero huffed. “Project Xol was supposed to cure cancer. And it held promising results. But that wasn’t all it did.”

  “What is Michael?” I asked.

  “He’s a forty-seven-year-old in a teenager’s body. From what I’ve found, like his driver’s licenses—and yes, he has more than one—his academy info, his FBI IDs, he is the exact same man now that he was in 1992.”

  “So Project Xol…stopped him from aging?” Cassidy asked, rubbing at the back of her neck.

  “Seems so.”

  I thought back to the times I’d been up close to the man. When he’d found us in the subway station in New York, his facial wounds were almost healed. And we thought he’d been dead after Cassidy bashed his head with the skillet. If Michael’s body could resist aging thirty years, it didn’t seem so crazy to think he could heal like a freak of nature.

  He was a freak of nature. One set on stopping Cassidy from getting whatever Rosa sent her for.

  “I only saw those first several patient files, Cassie. All of them were terminally ill or chronically challenged people. I don’t think I even want to know what they’re playing with.”

  “Playing God, it seems.”

  No one replied to my comment. Cassidy and I stared at each other for a moment. After a beat, Zero continued, “And this is all hush-hush. Big money, big government… Rosa was in some deep shit.”

  Cassidy chewed on her lower lip. “And now I am too.” She closed her eyes for a second. “Have you found anything about her yet? Where she is?”

  “No. Not a thing. I’ve been trying to find out more about Hendrick Allen too.”

  She nodded, slumping a little. “He’s her main assistant. Has been in all of her labs over the years.”

  “Well, I’m on him now. You said you’ll get into Scott’s box tomorrow?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, stay on the down-low until then. Even without the tracker on you anymore, this guy knows where you’ve been.”

  “It seems like he knows what we’re going for, too,” I said. He’d been waiting for us in New York and now he was on us in Texas too. No escaping.

  Zero murmured a baritone hmm-mmm of agreement. “And I can only worry why. I’m not a fan of this mad scientist bullshit. So, be careful, find a new place to stay that the tracker hasn’t been, and get in and out of that storage space.”

  “Shit.” Cassidy tossed back to the seat and clenched her eyes shut. “We had the tracker in the bag at the hotel. They know where we were.”

  She had a good point. We needed to start fresh. “We’ll go somewhere else for the night.”

  “And the truck.”

  Zero spoke up now. “I’ll find you something new. Ditch what yo
u have now and I’ll look on Facebook Marketplace for a piece of shit someone’s trying to sell and pay for it from here. Rosa can pay me back some other day.”

  Cassidy and Zero decided to text the details about our new ride and then she hung up.

  “Do you think he’ll be waiting for us at the hotel?” she asked me as we stood to leave.

  If Michael was going to keep up his single-minded obsession in chasing down Cassidy and whatever data she was charged with finding, then yeah, I bet the asshole would be there.

  “If he is, we’ll just have to be more careful.”

  My words didn’t seem to comfort her because as we drove to the motel, she gazed out the window, her body tense, her fingers tapping nervously on the bench seat.

  If I had reassurances for her, I wouldn’t be stowing them in my head. I wouldn’t lie to her, though. Besides, I was just as confused and alarmed at the new knowledge we had some kind of a mutant human after us—

  My phone rang, startling us both. I’d forgotten I’d even had it. I flinched and Cassidy jumped.

  I glanced at it in the console and nodded at Cassidy.

  Jonah was the only one who had the number. Well, Zero did too, but we’d just talked to him. “Can you answer it?”

  She slid over and pressed the button. When she started to scoot closer to me, like to hold the device to my ear, I said. “Speakerphone.” Whatever Jonah had to tell me, she could hear. We were in this—whatever our life was—together.

  “Luke?” Jonah answered. The concern in his voice immediately set me on edge.

  “Yeah?”

  “What the hell are you up to, man?” Rapid huffs of breaths sounded, like perhaps my little brother was jogging somewhere.

  “I told you, I’m just out of town—”

  “Yeah. You hooked up with someone.” Jonah scoffed. “What the hell are you really doing with her?”