“I’m okay,” Jacob said. “Before we get to my news, though, what’s on the agenda this week? What have you guys found that’s worth blogging? God knows we need something juicy. I only had five hits to my blog yesterday, and most of those were you idiots searching my site for something.”
“Hey, that monkey porn search wasn’t me,” Mex said.
“Classy as ever,” Brian said. At thirty-eight, he was the oldest of the group and often tried to take the role as the leader. The others humored him, though.
Just because he managed the comics and DVD section of the local grocery store on Saturdays didn’t mean he was management material. But Jacob knew his heart was in the right place, even if Brian did remind Jacob of the Comic Book Guy in the Simpsons.
“Well,” Brian said, looking smug and stroking his patchy goatee, “I’ve got something interesting on DARPA attacking China with weather modification. There was a tsunami on the coast—”
“Really?” Mex said. “Are we still on that? I thought we debunked that subject?”
“You might have,” Brian said, “but I haven’t. Look.” He took some printed images from a folder and put them on the table, instantly regretting it as the beer soaked through.
Stan glanced down at them. “That was last year, Bri. And that ain’t even China. It’s the Philippines. I covered that story on my blog. You’ve been duped.”
Brian grunted, placing the papers back into the folder. “Whatever, man, I know there’s something going on there.” He slumped in his chair and took a deep gulp of beer.
Stan patted him on the back, nearly making him choke. “Don’t worry, big guy, you’ll find something better for next week.”
“Don’t patronize me, Stan. At least I bring something to the table.”
As they went around the table, each discussing and debunking their various ideas, they eventually came around to Jacob. He’d sat quietly through the banter, not in the mood to join in the laughter and jokes.
Emma eventually joined them, sitting opposite Jacob. “So, Jakey, what’s the news?”
“Yeah,” Brian said, “what’s the cause of your silence?
Jake passed the SLR around and each person looked at the blurred image. It came to Emma. She lingered on it for a few moments and finally voiced what the others hadn’t picked up on. “That’s Tucker in the tube.”
“Tucker?” Brian asked.
“Yeah,” Mex said, “you know, that guy Jacob’s been flirting with lately.” Mex gave Jacob a friendly elbow to the ribs.
No one laughed.
Emma handed the camera back to Jacob. “Where did you get this?”
“Oh, wait, don’t tell us,” Brian said. “This is your obsession with Julian Gray again, isn’t it?”
Both Stan and Mex groaned, clearly bored by the subject. Jacob had mentioned his theory to them a number of times, but even to them, who thought aliens existed and a cabal of immortal lizards ruled the world, his ideas apparently didn’t hold water.
“Really, Jacob, that again?” Stan said.
Emma turned to Stan. “Why don’t you shut up for a second and let him speak, eh?”
“Thanks,” Jacob said. “Look, guys, Em, this shit is real whether you think I’m obsessed or not.” He lowered his voice and everyone leaned in close. “I got in tonight. Got real evidence of what’s really going down over there. That image on the camera is real.” He turned to regard Emma. “You can see the similarity, can’t you, Em?”
“Yeah. Tucker’s been coming here for the past couple of years; I’d recognize his face anywhere. I’ve got a good memory for that kind of thing.”
“So what are you saying?” Brian asked.
“I’m saying that Julian and his cronies aren’t just researching XNA as a future technology, they’ve already gone much further than that. They’re at the practical application stage. And I think they’re cloning humans to create these… whatever you want to call them.”
Mex finished his drink, clanked the glass on the table, and exhaled. “So you’re telling me Julian Gray has invented replicants? Like in Blade Runner?”
“I don’t know everything yet,” Jacob said. “But in that room there were a number of these cryo-tubes. But that’s not all.” He fished out his flash drive and placed it on the desk. “There’s 128 gigabytes of data from one of their servers on that drive. All we have to do is comb through the data and build a case against Gray. We can expose him and his company. Can you imagine how big that would be?”
Emma touched the flash drive, staring at it with apprehension.
Stan sat back and wiped his face before leaning back in. “Are you saying you broke into a science facility and stole confidential data?”
“Sshh!” Brian said.
“Something like that,” Jacob said. “But this is it, guys. This is our break.”
“No way, man,” Stan said. “I’m not being involved with this. Look, I like you guys, but I ain’t getting involved in breaking and entering, let alone corporate espionage and theft. This is messed up. You could go down for years for this.”
“He’s right,” Mex said. “This is too big.”
Jacob couldn’t believe it. Just like Tucker, when presented with the truth they recoiled, preferring to live in their pathetic dream worlds.
Emma looked at him, her face serious and her thoughts unclear.
Brian was staring at the flash drive on the table. He looked pale but remained silent.
“I can’t believe you guys. I thought you were in this for the truth. All the months we’ve gathered here, shared information, discussed our theories, and for what? We have a real opportunity here. Our blogs will explode; we’ll be validated. All your dreams and ambitions can be realized here. All we need to do is expose Gray, present our evidence.”
Stan stood up and eased past Brian and Emma. Mex followed.
“I’m sorry, Jake,” Stan said. “I don’t want any part of this. It’s too dangerous. I don’t want to go to prison. They’d send us to some off-grid place like Gitmo or something.”
Mex gripped Jacob’s shoulder. “He’s right, man, let this one go. You’ve gone too far. Think it over first, yeah? We’ll chat again next week.”
“Catch you guys later,” Stan said as he and Mex left the bar.
“Fucking cowards,” Jacob said. He looked up at Brian. “Well, Bri? You going with them? This too dangerous for you too, eh? What about you, Em? What are you thinking?”
Jacob snatched the flash drive away, putting it in his pants pocket.
“I’m… this is huge,” Brian finally said, scratching at his beard. “We’ve got to think long and hard about this. We can’t just go throwing accusations. I mean, sure, you’ve got a picture, but it’s blurred and could be anything. We need to see what’s on that drive first, make sure we know exactly what we’re dealing with before making any rash decisions. You get me?”
“I agree,” Emma said. “I’m with you on this, Jake. I can see how important it is to you, and if you’re right about what XNA Industries are doing, the consequences could be enormous.” She fiddled nervously with the ring in her eyebrow.
Jacob scanned the bar casually, feeling like someone there might be watching him. His neck was flushing hot and his scalp itched. He tried not to fidget too much or look like he was obviously hiding something.
He knew other members of XNA Industries occasionally drank here, but all he could see were plant workers getting hammered while dancing badly to the crappy soft rock classics. Just because he couldn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t there, somewhere, watching.
“Okay, this is the plan as I see it,” Jacob said. “I’ll go home, analyze what we’ve got, and then we meet up again to go through it together. In the meantime, I think I should blog the photo at least to get it out there, get some early interest.”
“What’s the rush?” Emma said. “Sleep on it first. I’ll come over in the morning; it’s my day off tomorrow. Bri, are you free tomorrow?”
&n
bsp; They both knew he was. Tomorrow was Thursday and he only worked on Saturdays. He spent the rest of his time in his mom and dad’s basement, working on his web comic. But he always got a bit funny when they assumed he wasn’t doing anything.
Brian spent a few seconds ‘considering’ his busy schedule before saying, “I think I can spare a few moments of my time. But I agree with Emma; don’t post anything to your blog tonight. Make some backups of everything and we’ll see what we have tomorrow. But I’ve got to tell you, Jake, this is all kinds of screwed up. It reminds me of a mix of The X-Files and a le Carré novel.”
“Difference is, Bri, this is real life,” Jacob said. “But you guys are right, I’ll think it over before doing anything rash.”
He drained nearly a full bottle of beer while looking at Emma. She was twirling her hair around her finger, her face wrinkled in concentration. He wondered how far her worry went for him. He placed the bottle on the table, the sound making Emma jump.
“Hah, I was miles away there,” she said. “This is getting serious.”
Did she mean the Julian Gray stuff, or something else?
He wished he knew. It felt like a storm of consequences was ready to blow right through their lives.
“Shit’s getting real,” Brian said.
Jacob agreed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
11 a.m., Day 2, XNA Industries, Alaska
As Gray drove along the quiet, tree-lined highway back toward his facility, he slammed the steering wheel with his hand, still annoyed by Devereaux’s blustering.
“Everything okay?” Michael said.
“I’m fine now we’re back amongst the people who really count.”
He pulled down the car’s visor, shielding his eyes from the watery spring sunshine. Internally, Gray was suffering a mix of emotions. He was relieved to be away from Devereaux and the meeting, back in comfortable familiar surroundings. It had always been his preferred MO: a white coat and stimulating environment over a jacket with coffee and small talk. Nothing productive was ever achieved over coffee. The lab, however, that’s where one changed the world.
The global investors tainted his relief with a sense of sadness. They’d seemingly turned their noses up at his advances. Although he knew they’d live to regret the snub, he would have preferred to have them on board. He could have used their investment to speed up his plans, though it was by no means essential—more of an exercise to keep Devereaux around for long enough.
“You’re speeding,” Michael said.
Gray glanced at the dial: ninety miles per hour. He looked in the rearview mirror, releasing the accelerator. No police, no cars.
He took the next exit.
Arriving through the facility gates, Gray lazily spun his Lincoln Navigator into the center of the empty car lot.
“Take the afternoon off, Michael. Work from home and be fresh for tomorrow.”
“I’ve got my security checks to do.”
“Ah, of course. I’ve got a couple of things to prepare for tomorrow. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
As they approached the main entrance, a tall, thin man in a dark blue security uniform greeted them at the door. “Tucker wasn’t here when I took over my shift; I called him but got no response,” he said.
“That lazy, good-for-nothing—” Michael started.
“We ought to reevaluate our staff recruitment criteria,” Gray groaned, edging past the frantic-looking guard.
“Come with me,” Michael said to the guard.
Gray watched them disappear to the control room before heading to his office. An LED strip-light illuminated his spacious private area. At the far end sat a leather chair behind a large wooden desk, cluttered with a computer, a jumble of papers, and a purple stress ball. At the other end stood a bookcase crammed with scientific books and journals.
Gray liked to keep up to speed with developments and keep an eye out for potential recruits. Or rivals.
He booted up the computer, reclined in the leather chair, and started to rhythmically squeeze the stress ball, mulling over his next steps. A couple of minutes later, two firm knocks rapped the office door.
“Come in.”
Michael entered. “We’ve had a security breach. You’ll want to see this.”
Gray sat forward. “What do you mean ‘breach’?”
“Tucker left a letter of resignation in my office.”
“So what? We were going to replace him anyway.”
“Before he left, he let somebody in. I checked the external cameras to see what time he’d left and couldn’t see a thing. When I checked the master control system, Tucker had uploaded a loop file. It’s still on there and was only disabled an hour ago. His username is registered against the video file.”
Gray shook his head. “The kid’s hardly a criminal mastermind. Come on, then. Let’s see what you’ve got.” He let the stress ball fall to the floor as he left his office, his hands clenching until his fingers dug into his palm.
Michael led Gray across the facility to the control room.
This was the last thing Gray needed, a stupid employee letting a damned friend in for a tour around the facility. He couldn’t abide his staff not doing their jobs, and this was a step too far. Too many people these days not taking their lives seriously. It was another form of trivialization on par with Devereaux’s toe-curling analogies.
The guard stood gazing at monitors in the control room as they entered.
“Get back to your duties,” Michael snapped.
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
After the door closed, Michael leaned over a control panel and tapped on a keyboard. “I’ve got two files to show you. Here’s one from the hall.”
Gray looked at the monitor and screwed his eyes as he strained to see the person Tucker led along. Whoever it was, he peered in each office window they went past and then took a camera out of a backpack.
“This character seems a little too interested for my liking. This doesn’t look like a friend here for a casual look around,” Gray said.
“No, it doesn’t. But this isn’t the interesting part. Here’s the next video from inside the cryo-chamber.”
“What?” Gray’s pulse instantly increased as he pressed his hands flat against the console table. He intently looked at the screen; alarm bells rang in his head. A person in the cryo-chamber with a camera added up to a massive potential problem. He had to know more about the motivations for the visit. Tucker didn’t even have clearance to get into the chamber; he must have been working with this intruder for quite some time.
Gray’s eyes widened as he watched the figure insert something into one of the servers. “Is he pulling our data?”
“I haven’t checked yet. I thought I’d come to you first with my immediate findings,” Michael replied. “Watch this.”
Michael forwarded the footage. The intruder wiped one of the cryo-chambers with his hand, took a step back and briefly held up a camera, then scampered to the side of the room, looking at the entrance.
“Who is it? What do they want?” Gray said.
“I don’t know, but it looks like he’s talking to somebody at the doorway, look again.” Michael replayed the final few frames.
Gray felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. “It’s pretty obvious that he’s talking to Tucker. Who else could it have been?”
“I think we need to pay Mr. Tucker a visit—right away,” Michael replied.
***
Gray pulled the Lincoln to the side of the road, dimmed the lights and cut the engine.
“Are you sure this is where he lives?” Gray said.
“Yes, positive. He registered with us using this address, and we send his paychecks here. I double-checked,” Michael replied.
A shudder of fury ran down Gray’s spine as he replayed the footage through his head. He had little doubt which tube the intruder had photographed.
“Let me do the talking,” Gray said.
“You’re the bos
s.”
Gray tensed on exiting the vehicle as the cold night air hit him. He pulled his jacket lapel around his neck. Single-story houses, at well-spaced intervals, dotted the quiet street.
Michael followed him through a gate and along a short path leading to a front door with small panels of frosted glass near the top. Light seeped from behind the curtains of a window to the right of the door.
Gray reached up and knocked on the door three times in quick succession. After waiting twenty seconds, he knocked again.
Gray turned to his right after catching a glimpse of movement in his peripheral vision. He focused on the curtains and noticed cracks of light appear as they gently swayed to a halt.
“Mr. Tucker, we know you’re in there. We’d just like to ask you a few questions,” he shouted against the window.
“I don’t think he’s going to come to the door,” Michael said.
“We’ll wait. He will eventually.” Gray shrugged, then called, “We’re not going away, Mr. Tucker. Come to the door.”
“Do you want me to kick the door down?” Michael asked.
“No, no. We don’t want to cause a disturbance. Just have patience.”
Gray tried to imagine what Tucker would be thinking. If he were in his shoes, he’d probably realize that they weren’t going away. He knocked on the window.
“Okay, okay, I’m coming,” a muffled voice called from inside.
The front door opened on a latch. Tucker’s face squeezed into the gap created. “What do you want? I’ve resigned, I don’t work for you guys anymore.”
“Like I said, it’s nothing major,” Gray said. “I’ve just got a couple of questions. Do you mind if we come in? It’s freezing out here.”
“Who else is that there?”
“Just Mr. Murphy. He’s found a couple of your items in the locker room he wants to return.”
“You can stay out there.”
Gray shook his head and smiled. “Mr. Tucker, I’m going to catch cold if I stay out here much longer. What do you really think we’ll do? We just want to talk.”
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