The Descartes Evolution

by N. J. Croft

  “Now for something more entertaining,” Callum said. “We’ll start with this one. There are earlier ones but nothing much happens. The one in the lab coat is our friend currently residing downstairs; the other man is named Lynch and, according to the doctor, he’s dead.” His gaze shifted to Jenna. She kept her face expressionless. “There’s one interesting thing—neither the doctor nor Lynch are wearing masks here. So whatever made the doctor decide you were poisonous came after this.”

  Jenna watched the screen, wincing only when Lynch punched her in the face. After what she had seen in the African village, her interrogation seemed almost trivial, but beside her, Luke’s hands tightened on the arms of his chair.

  “Bastard,” he muttered.

  Callum paused the film and turned to her. “Your nose is definitely broken.” He frowned and studied her closely. “You don’t have a double, do you?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  He shrugged but switched the film back on. The drugs hit her system and she screamed. Beside her, Luke tensed again but didn’t move. She kept her attention on the screen—this was the part she didn’t remember.

  She went crazy, thrashing and fighting the restraints. First one of the straps holding her into the chair snapped, and the doctor and Lynch backed out of the room.

  “Do you remember this?” Luke asked.

  She shook her head. The second restraint broke, and she hurled herself to the floor, finally curling into a fetal ball and going still.

  “Anything to say?” Callum asked.

  “No.”

  He reached across and pressed a couple of buttons. “Well, if you liked that, you’ll love this one.”

  The screen came to life. Jenna saw herself standing at the sink in the white tiled room. She swallowed the lump in her throat as she realized what was coming next.

  Her hands gripped the arms of her chair as the door opened, and Lynch walked in, locking it behind him. Watching the scene play out, she felt again the rage that had built up inside her. She moved incredibly swiftly, the force of her first blow knocking him off his feet. Keeping her gaze fixed, she watched the rest of the film. When she slumped unconscious against the door, Callum switched it off and turned to her.

  “What the hell are you? Some sort of bionic woman?”

  “Leave her alone,” Luke snapped.

  Callum shoved his chair back and rose to his feet. For a minute, he paced the room, and Jenna could sense the frustration emanating from his tense figure. Finally, he came to a halt in front of Luke. “You’ve got to admit, that”—he waved a hand toward the blank screen—“is not normal.”

  “No, maybe not. But it’s also not Jenna’s fault. She’s as much in the dark about this as we are.”

  “Maybe.” Callum turned to her, one eyebrow raised. “I’d like to try something.”

  He sat at a small table, glanced at Jenna, then at the seat opposite. She frowned but got to her feet, crossed to the table, and sank onto the chair indicated. Until he put his right elbow on the table and flexed his fist, she had no clue what he intended.

  She stared at him in amazement. “You want to arm wrestle?”

  “Let’s just say I’m interested.”

  “Callum…” Luke spoke warningly from behind her, but she shook her head.

  “No, he’s right. It is weird, and I want to understand what’s happening.”

  She put her elbow on the table and slipped her hand into Callum’s, and his fingers tightened around her. He didn’t trust her, and she didn’t blame him, but she felt instinctively that he would like to hurt her. Not like the doctor. Callum didn’t usually enjoy causing pain, but he would make an exception for her, because he felt she jeopardized their work, and how could she blame him? And maybe he was a little bit jealous that she had some of Luke’s attention.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  When she nodded, his hand tightened on hers. She allowed him to move hers a little just to get the feel of him. Then she stopped him. It was so easy. One minute her hand was being lowered, the next it…stopped.

  She stared into Callum’s face, saw his eyes widen in shock, as she gently but inexorably pressed his hand onto the wood of the table.

  Pulling her hand free, she looked at him steadily. “Best of three?”

  “What are you?”

  She rubbed her palm down her pants. “I don’t know—that’s the truth.”

  A hand touched her on the shoulder, and she glanced up to see Luke standing over her. “Have you always been this strong?”

  “No. I woke up the morning after Merrick’s death, and I felt wonderful. My hand was healed, my senses were more acute.”

  “That’s how you overheard the conversation between me and Callum.”

  “I also noticed when I ran away that I could run faster, for longer.”

  “But you don’t know why?” The question came from Callum.

  She took a deep breath. “I think it’s to do with the medicine my father gave me. He told me it was treating a genetic illness, but I think he lied. The night Merrick died I didn’t take any for the first time in as long as I remember. It must have been suppressing this.” She gestured to the table. “That’s all I can think of.”

  “I’ve never heard of any pill that could do this,” Callum said.

  She gave him a nasty look. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

  Callum’s cell phone rang, and he picked it up and listened. “The doctor’s ready for interrogation.”

  “Good,” Luke replied.

  Prickles of ice shivered across her skin. What did the doctor know about her? What would they discover? Part of her wanted to run and hide and pretend all this wasn’t happening. But the rest of her knew she had to discover the truth, however difficult it was to take. “I’m coming,” Jenna said.

  Luke studied her for a moment then said, “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The basement had been transformed into a series of cells. Luke led them through a steel door and into a room about ten feet by ten feet. A chair stood in the middle, into which the doctor was strapped.

  He looked up as they entered, panic flaring as he caught sight of Jenna.

  “Don’t let her in here. I told you I’d talk—just get her out.”

  Luke turned to her. She glared at the doctor with hatred in her eyes. This wasn’t doing her any good, and they needed the doctor’s cooperation sooner rather than later. “Jenna, come with me?”

  She frowned but followed him out of the room and through a second door.

  “This is an observation room.” He pressed a switch and a window appeared in the far wall. It looked into the cell where the doctor was secured. “You can see and hear everything from here.” He picked up one of the comm units from the counter and slipped it in his ear. “If you want to ask anything, hold this button down, and you can talk to me.”

  He turned to leave.

  “Luke?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you ask him about me? About what he said?”

  “Of course.”

  She caught her lower lip between her teeth and chewed. Suddenly he had an inkling of how she must feel. Jenna was one of the strongest people emotionally he had ever met, but right now she was confused and afraid. He crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her, held her close. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. There will be an explanation.”

  She pulled free and stepped back, a rueful smile on her lips. “I know—but not, I suspect, one I’m going to like.”

  He forced a smile of his own. “Look on the bright side. At least it looks like you don’t have Huntington’s.”

  “You’re right. Now all we need to find out is what I do have.”

  “It will be all right.”

  He turned and left the room, wondering what he’d d
iscover about her. He forced aside his worries over Jenna. They were close. He could feel it. This was their chance to cut off the hydra’s head and end the Conclave forever. If Dr. Smith could lead them to Descartes, they would have a bargaining chip.

  He reentered the cell and nodded once to Callum.

  Callum was more experienced at interrogation techniques, but Luke didn’t think they were going to have to get nasty with the doctor, which was unfortunate.

  He wondered how much pain the man had dispensed in his time working for the Conclave. Luke had seen his pleasure as he injected Jenna with his chemicals. Leaning against the wall, he fixed his gaze on Smith’s face.

  “Tell us about Descartes,” Callum said.

  Shock flared in his face as though he hadn’t been expecting the question. “Descartes?” His voice caught on the word. “I thought you wanted to talk about the woman.”

  “Descartes and the woman. How are they linked?”

  His gaze darted around the room, came back to Callum. “I don’t know.”

  Luke pushed himself off the wall, crossed the room, and crashed his fist into the doctor’s face. The bone crunched beneath his knuckles, and blood spurted from the broken nose. “That’s for Jenna. To start with.”

  Callum stepped closer and leaned his face close to Smith’s. “You agreed to talk. So talk. Or we will find a way to make you.” He lifted his hand to show a syringe filled with a pale yellow liquid. “We took this from your lab, and I’m dying to see how it works.”

  Smith stared at the syringe as if mesmerized. “I’m telling the truth. I don’t know the link. That’s why we had her, why Lynch had orders to interrogate her. She was somehow tied into Descartes. She knew the name when she shouldn’t have, but we didn’t know how. And she didn’t talk.”

  “Right, so tell us about Descartes. What is it?”

  “I told you—I don’t know.”

  “We’ve just watched a video of you in Ivory Coast. Ring any bells?”

  “If you saw the film, you know I was there, but that’s not Descartes, or at least, I’d never heard it called by that name. I’d never heard the word Descartes until Lynch started the interrogation of the woman. It meant nothing to me.”

  Luke frowned. Perhaps the doctor wasn’t aware of the imminent terrorist attack—that would fit with the way the Conclave usually worked—allowing the players to know only what they needed and no more. “So what was the gas, where did it come from?”

  “I was told it was a by-product of some other experiment, produced by accident, and they needed to know what it could do.”

  “What did they plan to use it for?”

  “I don’t know. That’s not my job.”

  Callum leaned in closer. He lifted the syringe, reached across, and pushed up the man’s sleeve, baring his forearm. Smith stared at it, for the first time fighting against his restraints.

  “No, wait. That’s not how we work. You must know that. Nobody knows the full picture.”

  “Nobody?”

  “Well, somebody at the top, but we never see them, never hear from them directly.”

  Luke stepped up close, and the doctor eyed him warily. “I don’t believe you.”

  His eyes bulged. “What?”

  “Even in an organization as secretive as the Conclave, things get out. Nothing can remain that secret. Somebody always talks.”

  Smith remained silent. Luke looked at him, pictured his smug face on the video in Ivory Coast. Rage rose up inside him, and he leaned in close. “If you don’t tell us what we want to know, I’ll let Jenna continue this interrogation. I’ll lock you in here with her for as long as it takes.”

  When the doctor remained silent, he straightened and turned to the two-way mirror. “Jenna, would you like to join us?”

  “No, I’ll talk. Keep her out of here and I’ll talk.”

  “Good. Perhaps we can start again. What do you know about Descartes?”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you what I’ve heard over the years. The rumors started in the 1970s. I know that much.”

  Luke frowned at the words. He hadn’t realized Descartes went back so far.

  He’d found evidence the Conclave went back hundreds of years in one form or another, and he believed it was headed up by hereditary members. It had started with one powerful family, and today, at its head would be the last of that family. But why did the 1970s sound important? What had happened back then? He concentrated hard, running the information he had learned over the past few weeks about Descartes. There was something important, and he remembered.

  In April 1972, Apollo 16 had touched down on the Descartes Highlands on the moon.

  He ran a hand through his hair, trying to tie that in with everything else he’d learned. He didn’t believe in coincidences. He turned back to the doctor.

  “What else?”

  “Not much, and I’m telling the truth. The only other thing I heard was…” He paused. “It’s a rumor only. I never heard anything to substantiate it…”

  “Get on with it,” Callum said.

  “I heard it all began with something they brought back from one of the lunar landings.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.” He glanced at the two-way mirror. “I really don’t know.”

  Unfortunately, Luke believed him. Maybe there was some other way to find out. Perhaps it was part of public record, something they had brought back, some mineral or chemical found only on the moon. If not public record, perhaps one of the astronauts could tell them what had been found.

  It didn’t help answer the question of how Jenna fit into all this, though. Maybe it was time to find out.

  “What do you know of the woman, Jenna Young?”

  The doctor’s gaze flashed to the two-way mirror as though he could see Jenna sitting on the other side. His face twitched and his hands tightened on the arms of the chair. “Nothing.”

  “Come on, you told us she was ‘poison.’ Hardly ‘nothing.’ If you’d never seen her before or heard of her before, why would you say that?”

  He licked his lips. “After she killed Lynch, I sent the tapes upward. I don’t know where they go, but we have a protocol we follow if we want to move information fast.”

  Luke made a mental note to get the details of that protocol, but he didn’t want to interrupt the doctor’s flow. “Go on.”

  “I got a call back within the hour. They said to test her, but to take maximum precautions, to presume she was toxic. I was on my way to start the tests when you took me.”

  Luke glanced toward the two-way mirror. “You have any more questions?” he asked.

  Her voice came through the comm unit. “Ask him what sort of poison he was testing for.”

  Luke turned back to the doctor. “What were you to test for?”

  He appeared surprised at the question. “A variation of the same poison we used in Ivory Coast.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Jenna hasn’t been exposed to the poison. Why should she be infected?”

  “I wasn’t to test for infection. I was to test for production. I was told she could be producing the poison.”

  Shock numbed his mind for a moment. He shook his head. It didn’t make sense. Or maybe it did. Maybe she was somehow involved in the original experiment; she would have been a child, only four when her father did his vanishing act. Would she remember anything? He glanced again at the mirror, forced what he hoped was a reassuring smile.

  “How do you do this test? Can you do it here?”

  “Yes. But I need certain chemicals.”

  Luke shoved his hands in his pockets and turned away while he thought about where to go next. He decided to leave the Jenna question for the moment.

  “You worked on the poison?”

  Smith looked wary, but he nodded.

  “Where are
the stocks kept?”

  “Usually they’re spread around the country, but they’ve been moving them recently to a secret location.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t need to know.” He blinked rapidly, his eyes flickering to the mirror. “But there’s a laboratory outside London. It’s the only place with storage facilities for larger amounts. It must be there.”

  “We believe the gas is going to be used for an attack on London sometime in the next few days. Would you say there’s enough for that?”

  “There’s more than enough to take out a whole city. More than one. We were told to put together two separate shipments.”

  “Can you give us the location of the laboratory?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is that the only stock of the poison?”

  “I don’t know. It’s the only one I know of, but they could have been developing it elsewhere.”

  “Tell me a bit about it. I saw the film—it resembles some sort of Ebola derivative.”

  “The symptoms might seem like Ebola, but it isn’t. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.” He looked up and met Luke’s gaze. “Like nothing on Earth.”

  Luke considered the words. “You think they first found it on the moon.”

  “Maybe. There are molecules in there I’ve never seen before.”

  “Is there a cure? Once a person has been exposed, is there anything you can do to stop the progression of the symptoms?”

  “No. We were specifically told never to investigate a cure.”

  Which didn’t mean there wasn’t one.

  He glanced back at the mirror. Was she poisonous? If so, was he already infected?

  He turned to Callum. “Get the details. Everything he has on this lab facility and get the protocols for sending messages up the chain of command. And find out how we get rid of the stuff. We’re going to destroy their stocks of the gas, and we’re going to send them a message.”

  Callum followed him to the door. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “How the hell would I know that?”