by T. Starnes
Mom looked at Alex, who took over, "An hour after the injection Margret suffered a serious psychotic break. One of her doctors told me it was the worst he had ever seen. She is experiencing delusions, both visual and auditory and swings from violent rages to wailing and crying. She was moved to the psychiatric ward this morning.”
"None of her doctors know what caused this, but this is beyond the chemical imbalance she was experiencing before. There is no chance that her previous condition is connected to these new symptoms. It is unprecedented. I am certain our attempt at blood mixing is what caused it. The period between her being injected and the beginning of her psychotic break corresponds to the period of time everyone else here experienced before first feeling the affects of their injections.”
It was as though a lead weight had settled in my stomach, and I felt nauseous.
"I'm so sorry," I said to Tina. "I didn't know. I would never have put her in harm's way.”
"I know," Tina said after a moment as she too came to grips with the information. "We all agreed on this. You checked with every one of us. It was unanimous. I don't blame you Cas, any more than I blame myself.”
I couldn't agree with that last part. I knew it would be some time before I would forgive myself for what happened to Margret.
"Do we know why this happened to her?" I asked, pushing my feelings down. "There was no indication of this with anyone else.”
"I have a guess," Mom said. "We have discussed people who have some kind of baseline revulsion to you, even when they had just met you. We believed Margret was one of those people. I think that those people have some kind of … genetic allergy I guess is the only way I can put it … to you, Cas. We know that many psychoses are genetic in nature. It is my guess, and I will be clear that this is just a guess, that instead of building up and improving someone at a genetic level, their allergy to you causes flaws in them at a genetic level.”
"As Angela said," Alex added, "This is all just guesswork. Without some kind of controlled test, we will never really know. But the explanations fit all the facts we have, as of right now.”
"It does sound plausible," I said, "but I never want to test this on anyone else.”
Mom nodded, saying, "Agreed. We will avoid any kind of mixing with someone who exhibits similar traits in the future.”
"So what happens to me," Tina asked, looking younger then I remember her ever looking.
"For now, you stay here," I said, looking at Mom for confirmation, which she gave. "I will call Jonathan now, and find out what our options are. What is going to happen to Margret?”
This last question was directed at Mom and Alex.
"She is going to be committed. Usually, it is temporary until she can be stabilized, but if what we think happened is true, I don't foresee that ever happening," Alex answered in her clinical, somewhat dispassionate tone.
"Come on," Zoe said standing up and taking Tina's hand, "let's go upstairs for a bit. We need to get your mind off all of this, while they try and figure out a game plan.”
"Ok," Tina said as she stood up with Zoe.
As she passed me she let go of Zoe's hand and gave me a hug.
"I don't blame you for this, Cas. We all agreed, so please don't let this eat at you. I know how you get. I know you guys will figure out something.”
She let go and took Zoe's hand. As they went up the stairs Zoe gave me a knowing look, most likely trying to reinforce the 'don't let this eat at you' part of the statement. Sometimes Zoe did a remarkable mother bear impersonation, much like her mother.
When they disappeared up the stairs I went to the phone and called Jonathan and put him on speaker phone.
"Jonathan, the problem last night was worse than we feared," I said without preamble.
"What happened," he asked, concern in his voice.
"We think something went wrong with the blood mixing. You remember the people with some kind of built in aversion we told you about?”
"Yeah.”
"Well Margret was one of them, we are pretty sure, although we don't have an actual test for this. Alex believes it's more than an aversion, she thinks it's some kind of genetic allergy. We can't be positive, but after being injected Margret suffered a complete and total psychotic breakdown. While we have no way to know, both Mom and Alex think this is going to be permanent.”
"What can I do," he asked.
"We need to figure out what to do about Tina," Mom said, nudging me aside slightly so she was closer to the speakerphone.
"I can see that. If this lasts more than a few days she is going to get a visit from child services. Ok, let me work it from this end. I am guessing you are going to let her stay with you for now, until we figure out something?" he asked Mom.
"Yes. If possible see if you can get me some kind of long term custody of her and Cas. I don't know if that is made easier by the fact that he has been living with us for most of this year.”
"It might. Let me get on this. I will call you back," he said and hung up without waiting for our response.
After explaining the situation to Tina, we went and picked up a bunch of her stuff so she would be comfortable, and moved her into the spare room down the hall from Zoe's room.
We all just sat around the rest of the day, waiting, but Jonathan didn't call that day. We only had a brief call from him on Sunday, saying he was working on it, but didn't have anything solid for us yet.
Monday started the last week of school and we all had finals we had to take, so missing school wasn't an option. I hoped Tina wouldn't be so distracted her grades slipped, but at this point there was nothing I could do about it.
The whole week went by without a word from Jonathan as we finished out the school year.
While all of our classmates were jumping for joy over being done with school, there was a group of us who moped through the last day of school. All of my girls were as concerned for Tina as I was. They had bonded to her and each considered Tina as a sister, especially Tami. She was hearing it both from me and Tina, and from Judy, who was concerned about her best friend.
On Saturday, over a week from Margret's break, we finally heard from Jonathan. He dropped by just after lunch. Vicki and Tami were not around, but Mom, Tina, Zoe and I joined him in the living room.
"Ok, I have a bunch of stuff," he said, sliding paperwork out on the table.
"First is the custody. I have spent a lot of time talking to the people at CPS and a family judge I know, who helped me expedite this somewhat. You are going to have to go to court, but it's a formality. They did some checks on you and everything cleared. It helped that I was able to round up several upstanding members of the community to give you character references.”
"Who …" Mom started to ask.
"Alexandra Chang, Ted, Marcus, the Hollabrands," he told her, smiling.
She couldn't hold her chuckle in and said, "Ohh, the Caspian network.”
"Precisely. You are going to be assigned custody of both Tina and Caspian. Adoption is a possibility, although considering Caspian's relationship with Zoe, I would actually recommend against that. Legal custody should be enough. CPS will come by next week some time to inspect the house. I know you have a room set up for Cas, and you just set up the spare room for Tina, but Caspian really needs to spend the night in his own room for a while.”
This last part was directed my way. I nodded sheepishly.
"And that takes care of that. Actually it was all pretty straightforward, and you were right, it did help that you have had de facto custody of Caspian for almost a year. Considering the Grey's have no other relatives that seem interested in taking them, this solved a problem for CPS. They had no interest in adding more kids to the system, and were more than happy to jump at an easy solution.”
Tina looked a bit relieved. I know she was worried about Margret still, but things had been hard at home for a while. I think somewhere, deep inside, she was happy about being able to escape that environment.
"I actuall
y have something else," Jonathan said, talking over the conversations that had started after his last pronouncement. "This is business related however.”
"I don't hold anything back from this group," I told him.
He shrugged and continued, "Ok. I received a call from the CEO of MilTech. He wants you to meet with him.”
"About what," I said, surprised.
"He said he wanted to clear up everything that has happened. For some background, I turned the key over to the police over a week ago, and I know the room was searched. It is almost certain they have approached MilTech about this already.”
"So what do you think he wants," Mom asked, concern thick in her voice.
"I don't know. Honestly, I don't think you should do it. He made it clear he was only interested in speaking to you … CEO to CEO. I don't think he knows your age, or really anything about you.”
"Could it be dangerous?" Mom asked.
"Maybe, but I doubt it. If they planned something they wouldn't leave a trail through Cas's lawyer leading right to them.”
"Set up the meeting," I said.
"Cas, I don't think …" he started to protest.
"I know," I said cutting him off. "Please set up the meeting. I think you're right, he isn't planning anything, at least not overt. He might be planning on threatening me, but then at least we have some information to go on. Right now we are flying blind.”
"All right, if that's what you want, I'll set up a meeting for you Monday morning with Mr. Baxter," he said standing up and picking up the documents Mom had signed. "I need to get back to the office. I will have these filed Monday morning, and then I'll let you know when the hearing is scheduled.”
Jonathan had called with information on the meeting the next day. Their offices were in Washington D.C., which wasn't surprising considering what they did. We scheduled plane tickets for Mom and me to fly to D.C. and spend the night, since the meeting was at nine the next morning. Zoe and Tina had worked out that they would spend a few days at Vicki's house. Since we were on the CPS radar, thanks to the custody documents, we felt it best if there was always adult supervision around.
Thankfully school was over, so we didn't have to worry about scheduling around that. Looking back I was a bit surprised we had managed to make it through the year and still hold our grades up, considering how much had happened this year.
I talked Mom into waiting at a nearby coffee shop. It would be hard enough convincing them I was serious, without having my adult guardian standing over my shoulder. I walked into the office building that was apparently entirely owned by MilTech and gave them my name. While I waited I saw her glancing my way several times, and I had the distinct impression that she thought this was some kind of mistake. I had to show her my ID, which since I didn't drive yet was a school ID, which probably made the situation worse.
Still, after a few minutes, someone who looked not much older than me (but who was probably in his early twenties), came and ushered me to the top floor. My guide dropped off in a plush waiting room, guarded by another secretary. She however didn't ask me any questions, instead showing me through the double door leading to the inner office.
Inside was a man I would guess was in his mid-forties who stood up to great me as I entered.
"Caspian, glad you agreed to meet with me," he said.
He actually sounded sincere. Even though I had tried to play off concerns with Jonathan, Mom, and the girls, I was more actually fairly concerned about this meeting.
"No problem," I said trying to play it as mellow as possible until I knew what his angle was.
"Let's get down to it," he said as he gestured at one of the padded chairs opposite his desk. I was surprised when he sat at the accompanying chair, instead of behind his impressive desk.
"The police contacted me early last week about some activities at your offices and information they found that tied to my company," he continued after sitting.
"The evidence is pretty damning.”
"Yes, I know. And I want you to know we have been cooperating fully with the police. This is not how I do business; and, regardless of what the police come up with, I plan on doing a little house cleaning.”
"I appreciate the sentiment, Mr. Baxter …”
"Call me Aaron, please," he said interrupting me.
"I appreciate the sentiment, Aaron, but sending armed men after your competitors is not a first step. This is something that has built up over time.”
"I think you may be right. I know this is a common sentiment from someone sitting in my chair, but I was as astonished about this as you were.”
"I doubt that," I said with a snort.
"Ok, maybe not as astonished as you were, but it still shocked me that this kind of thing could happen in my company. I won't lie and say I don't support aggressive business tactics, but within the law! I knew we were lobbying against your efforts to get your drone picked up by the DOD, and I won't apologize for that. It's how business is played at this stage. However, I did not know about the attempts at stealing your work product, or sending armed men after you! I would have stopped it had I known about it.”
"I hope that is true, for your sake. The police have good evidence against you, and we have made suggestions to the department of justice to look into your past dealings for similar activities. They seemed interested. If you were involved, you might be looking at a much different office in the near future.
"There won't be anything for them to find, but I welcome any investigations," he said with a frown. "One of the reasons I invited you here was to offer you my apologies for what happened.”
"Thank you," I said tersely.
"Considering your life was put in danger by what happened, I didn't hold out much hope that my apology would amount to much, but I wanted to make it all the same.”
"And the other reason?" I asked.
"Right, because I said one reason. You are sharp. What information we have on you suggested you were much smarter than most people give you credit for, due mostly to your age. The other thing I wanted to talk to you about, is a business proposition.”
"Seriously?" I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster.
"Yes, I know how that sounds. Just hear me out. Whoever sent those thugs after you had one thing correct. Your product is something my company very much needs to have. We have looked over your patent filings, and my engineers believe some of your innovations will be worth serious money. Not just to our own intelligence community, but to those of foreign governments as well, or at least those we are allowed to sell military tech to.”
"You saw our patents? I thought those were under some kind of classified status with the DOD?" I said surprised. According to Marcus and Ted, since we were building intelligence apparatus for the government, most of our designs and patents around that equipment were classified. It was one of the reasons for the safe for our documents.
"You aren't the only one with friends in procurement." he said with a smile. "I want you to go back to your partners. I am prepared to purchase your drone technology, and considering the situation we find ourselves in, I believe you might end up with the upper hand in these negotiations.”
"Why would we sell to you?" I asked.
"Several reasons. One is you are not set up for this, not to take it to the level it will end up going. You are a small boutique shop. You just don't have the infrastructure. Also, from what my sources tell me, you have other projects in the works that are non military in nature. Projects that will require a good deal of funding if what I am told is right.”
"Your investigators seem to have dug up a lot on us. Hopefully they will be as thorough when looking into the actions of your own employees.”
"They will be. I shouldn't say anything, but you will be seeing some things very soon that should back me up on that. So, will you take this to your partner's.”
"Yes. That's the best I can offer.”
"It's all I ask. Your lawyer has my information. Have them call my of
fice and we can start negotiating. I look forward to working with you and I hope the first impression you have of my company won't stick with you. We have some bad apples to be sure, but you can trust me.
"Right," I said with a derisive snort. I hadn't actually planned on responding, but it sort of slipped out.
"Point taken. But you can work with me. And in business that is more important.”
We said our goodbyes and I followed the reverse course back to the lobby, where I met up with Mom.
"So, what did he want?" Mom asked as we walked out to our rental car. "Threats to get the police to back off?”
"No, he said he was cooperating. What he wanted is to buy our drone technology.”
"Really?”
"Yeah.”
"Are you going to do it?”
"I have no idea. I will take the offer to Marcus, Jonathan and Ted. We will probably loop Charles Green into the conversation. If we do decide to go through with selling our drone patent, he is the guy to do the negotiating.”
"Is this a real offer; or is he just messing with you guys, and trying to buy some good will?”
"I have no idea," I said, and I really didn't.
Chapter 22
When we got back home from D.C., everyone was excited and wanted to find out what happened. Sadly there wasn't much I could tell them. I got Marcus, Jonathan, Charles Green, and an exceptionally skeptical Ted to get in contact with Mr. Baxter. I wasn't holding my breath about that, however. He seemed pretty sincere, but they had sent armed gunmen after us, so 'sincerity' didn't really count for much.
I checked in with Alex to find out if there was any news about Margret, as well. Nothing great on that front either. She was the same, and Alex said again that she was extremely skeptical that Margret would ever recover. The one bright point was that Tina was settling in nicely.
I knew she was concerned about Margret, but I hadn't thought she was truly unhappy about her home situation until I saw the difference between the girl now living with us, and the Tina from just a few weeks before. Some part of me was a little happy that things had worked out this way, letting Tina escape from what had clearly been a stressful and emotionally exhausting home life.
