by Olah, Jeff
“They’ve just about got breakfast ready. What do you say to some stale chocolate chip cookies and a few bottles of warm water?”
Owen smiled, wrapped his arm around her and kissed her on the head. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah,” she said, “I guess I owe you an explanation.”
He sighed heavily. “I don’t want to know why. I just want to know what I need to know to make this work, to keep you and the kids safe.”
Natalie turned back to face him. “You may not want to know everything, but I think you need to understand why.”
“Really, I don’t—”
She continued. “I wanted to tell you, but there really never was a good time.” She took a breath, let it out slow. “And by the time it felt right, there was just too much. I was worried about your anxiety and the added stress. I can’t even say that I fully understood what Project Ares was all about, so trying to explain it to you or anyone else seemed pointless.”
“What were you doing for them?”
“Only trademark advice at first, but that quickly evolved into management of their in-house litigation team, and at the three-month mark, they brought me in to oversee the contracts with the military and Project Ares.”
“Project Ares?”
“Yes, that’s where I met Dr. Gentry. He let me see things I can’t ever forget and wish he hadn’t. Things went rapidly downhill from there.”
“So, Project Ares … that’s what caused all of this?”
Natalie paused. “Yes, but there’s no way I could explain all the details. Not in a way that will make any kind of sense. I’m not even sure I completely understand it all myself.”
Owen leaned away from her. “Why don’t you try?”
“Okay,” she said, “seven years ago, Marcus Goodwin developed a program that was initially called Project Lockwood. I believe it was named after the scientist he was working with and then changed to Project Ares sometime later. They created an injectable that was going to turn the world upside down, and he used his billion-dollar tech business to fund the whole damn thing.”
“So this outbreak, this infection, it was man-made?”
“According to Gentry it was.”
“Okay,” Owen said, “but why, what was he trying to accomplish, besides killing everyone on the planet?”
“Goodwin was attempting to create the perfect soldier. Faster, more agile, and without the burden of guilt or thought. He was trying to get around some of the hardwiring of the mind, make it process information faster. And it worked, at least for a while. But then over the last few years, things started to go really bad.”
Owen pulled off his coat, set it aside. “And somehow that became this?”
“Gentry told me that there were anomalies, things that no one saw coming, but should have. The injectable became unstable, started affecting other parts of the mind. Parts that are necessary for impulse control and basic level human compassion. And then as it progressed, it ended up shutting down everything in the mind other than the most fundamental human needs—hunt and feed.”
“Obviously not what Goodwin had initially intended.”
“No, but at some point, he stopped caring. He was determined to push forward, to find a way to fix it without going back and starting over.”
Natalie paused, took a beat to catch her breath. “And when the media got ahold of it, there wasn’t anyone there to answer the questions. No one that really knew what they were talking about anyway. They ended up labeling it Intermittent Explosive Disorder Syndrome.”
“They weren’t wrong.”
“No,” she said, “but they weren’t right either.”
“And you, you got to see all of this?”
“Just some of the video footage Gentry showed me, some of the stories he told. I begged him to go public, but he was terrified of Goodwin. I still can’t believe all of this is happening, none of it even seemed real until a few days ago.”
“So,” Owen said, “the day that all this broke, the meeting you were supposed to have, it had nothing to do with signing contracts—you had already been working with them?”
“Yes, for a while anyway. However, I couldn’t discuss any of it with anyone, and I think you understand why.”
Owen’s head was swimming. He wasn’t sure he completely understood what all of it meant, although he really didn’t need to. He knew what he had to do to keep his family safe and for now that was enough. “So then, what’s next?”
Natalie leaned into him again. “I’m not sure how much I trust Kevin, but he isn’t wrong about what we need to do to fix all of this. For now, I’m thinking we take it one step at a time. Get our strength back, give the kids a few days to adjust, and then go find Dr. Gentry.”
Owen looked out over the city, wasn’t sure he wanted to bring it up. He had told himself to leave it alone, but knew there’d be no way he could. So instead, he’d just get it over with, rip the Band-Aid off in one stroke. “Is there anything else?”
She didn’t need to see his face to know what he was really asking; it was in his voice. “You found my satchel?”
“I just don’t understand.”
“It’s not what you think it is.”
He wasn’t sure how to say it, other than to just say it. “Divorce papers?”
When her voice came out, it was higher than she intended, but still didn’t totally capture her disappointment. “Are you kidding me?”
“Uh …”
“You obviously didn’t open it, did you?”
“I was gonna—”
“You should have.”
Now he regretted it, but was more confused than anything. “I uh …”
“Things weren’t perfect between us, but they were never that bad, were they?”
“I didn’t think so, but I thought maybe—”
She stopped him. “I wrote you a letter about all of this, every single detail of the last year. I was going to give it to you weeks ago, but never felt like I could. Now I don’t feel like I have to. Owen, you have to believe that everything I’ve ever done was for you and the kids. That didn’t change six month ago, and it hasn’t changed today.”
Owen leaned in and kissed her once again, feeling like he been given a gift. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too. No more secrets.”
Owen reached for her hand, interlaced their fingers. He’d heard enough, more than he needed. The details didn’t much matter—what did was right in front of him. “The kids, how are they?”
“Better this morning. It’s weird with Noah, though; none of this seems to be fazing him, like he maybe doesn’t understand, I don’t know. And Ava, well she’s at least talking this morning. I think she kind of likes having someone her own age to talk to.”
“Talk to? If you’re referring to that boy—”
“Lucas.”
“Whatever, just keep him at least ten feet from my daughter at all times.”
Natalie gripped his hand, pulled him to her, and returned the kiss. “Don’t worry, he’s a good kid, and he’s afraid of you.” She pulled back. “But he’s more afraid of me.”
“Good.”
“Owen.” Her tone was again different, like it had been when she first sat down.
“Yeah?”
“I need you back … the old you. Because as bad as it is now, I have a feeling it’s going to get worse, much worse. I need you, the kids need you, we’re all gonna need you. There’s a chance we can fix this, but it’s not going to be easy.”
Owen took her other hand, folded both into his, and kissed them. “We’re going to get through this Nat, all of us. You, me, the kids. I promise you. I’m going to be who you need me to be. But if this is going to work, there’s one thing we all need to remember, one thing we need to keep with us every minute of every day, and that’s that we’re still here. No one can take that from us. As long as we do whatever it takes to keep going, keep surviving, we’ll get through this. And from now on, we stay together; we don’t
take any more chances. That’s how we live … and nothing else matters.”
42
Jerome Declan sat in the passenger seat, clutching the satellite phone and growing impatient as he peered down at the backlit display. There were few things in this world he valued more than punctuality, although at the moment he couldn’t recall what they were.
To the man seated beside him, he said, “Is it me? Am I the one who’s crazy?”
The man in the driver’s seat didn’t respond or even acknowledge the question.
Declan wasn’t used to this level of disrespect. He’d worked with others who were difficult in their own way; however, keeping your word was the one thing he demanded, no matter who he was dealing with.
“I’ll give him another sixty seconds and then we’ll drive right up to his front door and ask him ourselves.”
Again, the man seated in the driver’s seat said nothing.
“Thirty seconds, and he doesn’t even deserve—”
In his left hand, the satellite phone rang. He reached to hit the talk button, but then stopped. Without turning to the driver, he sucked in a slow breath. “Once we find the woman and the doctor, remind me to come back to this wretched city and kill Mitchell Blake.”
The man to his left turned and raised an eyebrow, but again held his tongue.
Declan waited for the fourth ring, hit the talk button, and placed the phone to his ear. “Mitchell, you’re eleven minutes late, do I need to even ask?”
There was a sigh and then a brief pause. “It’s Blake.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve asked that you call me Blake.”
Declan chuckled. “Yeah well, I like Mitchell. It just fits you better.”
There was no response.
“You still there?”
“Do you want the information or not? These games are growing old, even for you.”
“The woman, have you or your degenerate brother been able to do what I’ve asked?”
“We found her earlier today. She’s traveling with a kid and a man that we were unable to identify.”
“I’ll need a description,” Declan said. “And where I can find them.”
There were a few seconds of dead air and then the sound of paper rustling. “Uh, she’s a redhead, mid to late thirties. The boy looks like he could be ten, maybe a little older—”
Declan’s hand began to shake, he could feel his pulse beating in his neck. “Bloodstained sweatshirt, left shoulder wrapped in a bandage?”
The man on the other end of the line was quiet.
“Mitchell …”
Nothing.
“Blake, am I describing who you tracked?”
“Yes.”
“I was told she was much younger, brunette.”
“Hey, I’m just relaying the information I was given. You don’t like it, go talk to Goodwin yourself. But if you do, please let me know, I’d pay money to watch.”
“I’ll need an address.”
More rustling paper and then, “One-ninety-eight South Fourteenth Street. They’re with another group, since late last night.”
Declan turned to the driver. “You know where that is?”
The driver nodded, finally spoke. “The old garment building, we can get there in an hour.”
Jerome Declan ended the call and dropped the phone into the center console. “We had her yesterday and let her go. That’s not going to happen again.” He rubbed at the three-day growth along his chiseled jawline, and looked out over the city. “We go in and we get her—anyone who gets in our way, we kill them.”
End of Book One
The Next World
Book Two
RESISTANCE
43
Six Months before the Outbreak …
Dr. Dominic Gentry paused the video at the thirty second mark. He hadn’t been able to watch past that point in the eight times he’d tried. With his hand still shaking and the pain behind his eye beginning to return, he closed out his secure connection, ripped the CPU from his desk, and smashed it on the cool concrete floor.
From over his right shoulder, he could feel the camera tracking his every movement. Marcus Goodwin watching from his ivory tower. Not a single moment missed and especially not now, and not for the last several weeks. Whatever this was, whatever had gone wrong, however it came to be, no longer mattered to him. He had seen more than enough.
Now he was going to stop it before one more person lost their life.
Gentry—as he’d become known around the ten-thousand square-foot underground facility—removed his glasses and paused a moment. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he peered out through the glass-walled office and shook his head. A handful of lab technicians who were now frozen at their work stations stared back.
To no one in particular he said, “So much for doing this under the radar.”
Without completely thinking through what he was going to say, but before once again losing his nerve, Gentry moved to the door. Swinging it open and stepping out into the wide-open communal space, nearly two-thirds of his staff turned back to their workstations. Of those who didn’t, only one maintained eye contact.
Emma Runner.
The one person he had hoped would call in sick today.
But she didn’t.
She never did.
She was a model employee when no one else was. She asked questions that he could never answer, but had wanted to from the very first day. To have someone with her talent on his side, someone with an eye for identifying the problem he’d always known was there. Goodwin had asked—no demanded—that he only give her what she needed to do her job, and nothing more. Not a single detail that would expose the project for what it was becoming. Nothing that would lead to the questions she was sure to ask. Nothing about the eighty-six deaths. Nothing at all that really mattered.
But here she was, now moving toward him much more quickly than he was comfortable with.
“What?” Her voice was loud. The single word coming out more like a command than a question.
Gentry stretched his lower back and ran his hand over his face. He attempted to continue forward, moving to her left. “Emma, this isn’t a good time.”
Emma stepped to the side, blocking his path. Two of the men at the desk over her right shoulder moved quickly away. “Yeah, I’m getting that. But—” She quickly looked past him, at the camera in the corner of his office. “I think it’s time we had a chat, maybe away from here.”
He smiled, his lip quivering as he spoke. “There isn’t anywhere we can talk.” He followed the path of her eyes to the camera. “It wouldn’t matter anyway.”
The petite woman with the shoulder-length brown hair and steely blue eyes shook her head. “That’s not what I meant, it’s just—”
“No Emma, it’s over.”
She cut her eyes at him. “What’s over?”
“It’s time to kill Project Ares.”
“What are you talking about, why?”
He reached for her hand, and guided her to his left. “All of it … it ends today, right now.”
“Wait, are you—”
Gentry stepped past her and started toward the elevator. He took one last glance back at the camera before increasing his pace and taking in a deep breath. “Here we go.”
Ten seconds later, the doors parted, and although the man standing six feet away wasn’t his intended target, it was exactly what he’d expected. The man in the penthouse suite wasn’t usually predictable, but having run this gauntlet more than a few times, Gentry knew the initial minefield well enough. It wasn’t going to be easy, but nothing with this company was ever easy.
He paused a moment, stepped into the massive elevator, and quickly turned on his heels. Now facing the doors and the floor-to-ceiling mirror, Dr. Dominic Gentry avoided looking at the man he stood beside. “Dalton …”
James Dalton, head of technology for BXF and Marcus Goodwin’s longtime confidant, held tight to the tablet in his left hand,
typing furiously with his right. “Are we really doing this again?”
Gentry had the young man in the three-thousand dollar suit by at least four inches, but at the moment, he had no intention of trying to intimidate the often awkward twenty-something. No, today he was going to play this another way.
Finally turning toward the man he’d worked with for better part of three years, Gentry smiled and waited for Dalton to look up from his device. “How about you come with me today, maybe witness the fireworks first hand this time. I promise it’ll be worth your—”
It looked like Dalton held back a laugh, but then quickly straightened his jacket and cleared his throat. “Why do you keep doing this to yourself? You know how it’s going to end. It always does.”
Gentry shook his head. He then looked up at the readout above the door and felt his pulse quicken. “Not this time, trust me.”
James Dalton didn’t respond. Instead, he simply took a half-step back and offered a quick nod. As the doors slowly parted and a rush of cool air pushed into the elevator, he turned his attention back to the tablet in his left hand. “Good luck.”
Gentry moved to the door, but paused in the threshold. “Not necessary.”
The doors closed behind him and for the first time since slamming his CPU to the ground, he felt ready for what was to come. He knew exactly what he was going to do and was confident in the reaction it would bring. There was nothing left to discuss, nothing more to examine. No more questions of ethics, no finger pointing. The wheels were already in motion; now he just needed to stand clear and watch the train finally derail.
Through the massive glass doors and into the outer hall leading to Marcus Goodwin’s private office, he let out a slow breath. The smell of lavender and the slightly warmer temperature brought an unexpected sense of calm as he continued toward the massive desk at the center of the room and the high-backed Italian leather chair that was now turned toward the windows at the opposite side of the office.
“Dr. Gentry …”
He stopped ten feet from the desk. That was close enough for what he needed to say. “Marcus.”
