Broken Chain

by Lisa von Biela

  “Will she come home someday?”

  “No, baby. Not ever.”

  “Never again?”

  “No, Lara. Never again.”

  “I want Mommy back!”

  “I do, too, baby.”

  Kyle held his little girl close as she degenerated into a full-on screaming fit, eventually crying herself to sleep in his arms. Then he picked her up, the back of her little T-shirt wet with his tears, took her to her room, and gently put her in her crib.

  He returned to the living room, collapsed onto the couch, and sat with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. His eyes and throat burned from crying along with Lara. He wasn’t sure she was old enough to grasp that Mommy would never return, but he’d had to tell her something. He couldn’t let her go on thinking that any day now, Mommy would come home cured.

  Now that she was asleep, the place was silent except for the hum of the air-conditioning unit. Even though Gretchen had been absent for six months, it somehow seemed more empty now that she was really gone. He glanced around. Toys lay scattered all over the floor; the place was a disorganized mess. He’d paid little attention to it, other than to care for Lara, leave her with the neighbor, then go to visit Gretchen each day since she’d been admitted.

  And now everything had come to an abrupt end.

  Kyle knew he should call Vic and let him know. But he wasn’t ready to talk to him, or anyone. He wasn’t even sure he still wanted to do this work. He knew this assignment hadn’t caused Gretchen’s death, but his work would be forever linked in his mind with losing her. And he wasn’t so sure he could handle that.

  He turned out the living room lights and prepared for bed. He’d decide tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 76

  Tom Graham lingered in Cornucopia Technologies’ break room, hoping to energize himself with a large cup of black coffee, his third of the day. He’d been up way too late again last night with a new girlfriend, and this morning he was paying the price. His eyeballs hurt like hell and he couldn’t seem to concentrate.

  His job bored the living shit out of him, day after dull day, so he indulged in an active nightlife to make up for it. He worked in Quality Control in the biotech food product division, and had the thrilling job of reviewing the test results for product samples. They routinely tested for purity, nutrient content, and more. He’d hoped his master’s degree in biochem would have led to something more interesting, like actual product design and development, but he had to start somewhere.

  Tom shrugged, downed the last of his coffee, and vowed for the hundredth time to try to do a better job. He’d slacked a bit lately and had fallen behind. He stood, stretched, and sauntered back down the hall to his workstation.

  He lowered himself into his chair and rubbed at his throbbing temples. He hoped the ibuprofen would kick in soon. He flexed his shoulders and neck, took a deep breath in and let it out to try to get himself into the right frame of mind to do his work.

  He tapped a few keys on his PC and pulled up the test results for a sample of Nutrio, Cornucopia’s liquid food product. Stifling a yawn, he viewed the display, then stopped. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. Can’t be. He thought they’d designed the product to avoid this problem.

  But there it was. The lysine, an essential amino acid, was reversed. Just like the problem they’d had with the valine in the GMO soy last year.

  Tom checked the sample’s production date. Last week. He wasn’t even caught up to the current week. But when did this start? He pulled up the test results for a sample from last month—and froze.

  The lysine was reversed in that sample, too. Had he forgotten to review that batch’s results, or had he missed the problem when he had? Didn’t matter. Product from a month ago had long since been distributed. And consumed by millions of people. Hell, even last week’s batch would have already shipped nationwide.

  Tom’s hands began to shake and the coffee lay sour in his stomach. He knew the implications all too well. Cornucopia was still having technical issues developing a beef product that was more three-dimensional and realistic-looking than its own SmartBeef. And SmartBeef’s sales had been disappointing. But Nutrio, though the widespread brunt of jokes, had taken off. Sales were through the roof because it was convenient and affordable, and didn’t taste half bad. Reversed valine had caused a public health disaster of epic proportions. Could defective lysine do the same? And what would he find if he checked the test results for a sample from two months ago—or longer? How long had the product been going out with the defective amino acid?

  Sweat broke out on his forehead as Tom weighed his options. If he told anyone about the problem, he could well imagine himself being fired as Cornucopia’s sacrificial lamb. But even if he did keep quiet, they rotated people around in Quality Control. Someone would eventually discover the defective lysine, figure out when it first started, and he’d be screwed anyway. And the longer it was before it was discovered, the more damage it could do. He wasn’t so sure he wanted to live with that.

  He turned away from his PC monitor and clapped his hands to his face as he tried to think it all through. Maybe it wouldn’t cause any problems. There was no guarantee it would have the same devastating effects the defective valine did.

  But it might.

  Stomach churning, Tom imagined the various possible outcomes, then decided this thing was way above his pay grade. He picked up the phone to call his supervisor, Sam Taylor. Once he’d told him, he’d have done what he could. The rest would be out of his hands.

  As he punched in Sam’s extension, he thought of all the people who’d consumed the product—himself included—and hoped he was worried about nothing.

  CHAPTER 77

  “Look at me, Daddy! I’m a cowboy!” Lara swung one arm up in the air and rocked the brightly painted playground pony as fast as it would go.

  “You sure are!”

  Kyle smiled as he sat on the park bench, watching his little girl play. She’d come a long way in the last month or so. They both had. It had been a dark time, but they’d both battled back to find peace, each in their own way. Lara had finally grasped—as best a four-year-old can—that Mommy loved her very much, but would never return. Kyle nearly pulled the plug on his career in favor of a fresh start. But Dad had ruined himself by taking the blame for something he couldn’t control, and he refused to fall into the same destructive pit. He’d regret scuttling a promising career in epidemiology, and it wouldn’t bring back Gretchen or change anything that had happened. Nothing would.

  Vic had been thrilled to have him back, and offered him a special position in the home office. He was now a team lead, guiding EIS field investigators as a sort of junior version of Vic. The job was a reward for his good work, and offered him more stability than a travel-based position so he could care for Lara.

  Kyle had grown even closer to her since they’d lost Gretchen, and happily spent most of his off-hours with her. He’d brought her out to the park to play on this gorgeous Sunday afternoon in August. They had the place to themselves despite the beautiful weather.

  Lara looked so much better now. Her weight was good; her eyes and hair were bright. She’d gotten the color back in her cheeks. Time, love, and good nutrition had brought back his little girl, though she would probably need plastic surgery some day to erase the ugly scar from her shoulder. She’d been so nutritionally compromised at the time of the attack that the wound hadn’t healed well, leaving a twisted, angry red reminder of that horrible night.

  The smile faded from his face for a moment. He missed Gretchen with all his heart, and still had to work hard to remember her the way she was before. Maybe that would come with time. He gazed at Lara and smiled. Her blonde curls bounced and glowed in the sun as she played cowboy and squealed with delight. She looked so much like her mother … in better days.

  “Hey, Lara! Time for a little something to eat.” He reached into the soft-sided cooler he’d brought as Lara hopped off her horse and came running up to
him.

  “What flavor today, Daddy?” She looked up at him with bright eyes and a huge smile across her face.

  “How about strawberry? I’ll have some, too.” Kyle pulled out two individual box containers of Nutrio, inserted the attached straws into each, and handed one to Lara. She took hers in both hands and greedily drank it down.

  “Thatta girl. That’s good for you, makes you strong.” Kyle sipped his drink as he watched her work on hers. He didn’t know how Lara would have regained her health this quickly without Nutrio.

  She frowned and dropped her drink on the ground. “Daddy, my head hurts.”

  Kyle set his drink aside. “Maybe you drank it too fast. You know how ice cream can make your head hurt, right?”

  Lara pressed her tiny hands to her temples, squeezed her eyes shut, and shrieked. “It’s worse!” Her face and neck turned a purplish shade of red.

  Kyle reached down and hoisted her onto his lap for a closer look. “Open your eyes, honey.” He didn’t like the way she was breathing in fits and starts.

  Lara let out a piercing scream of terror and pain like she had that night Gretchen stabbed her. Kyle fought back the memory to focus on what was hurting her right now. “What’s wrong? Where does it hurt?”

  She balled her hands and shrieked as she thrashed and writhed. He struggled to hang on to her and shield his eyes from her tiny fists.

  “Lara!”

  As quickly as it had come, the deep red that had colored her face faded to a deathly alabaster white. She clamped her arms to her sides, hands still clenched into fists, then all her limbs stiffened straight out. She opened her mouth wide, raised her chin, and gulped another breath.

  Her scream died in her throat as she went limp in Kyle’s arms.

  “Oh my God, Lara!”

  Trembling, he gently lifted her eyelids with his fingers. Lara’s sweet blue eyes were gone, consumed by pupils as wide and black as death.

  Kyle rocked and moaned, clutching her still, fragile body tightly against his chest. His tears flowed down, dampening her soft blonde hair. He wept freely, suspended in a suffocating, dark grief. Nothing else existed for him until a blinding pain, solid and willful as a hammer blow, exploded inside his skull.

  Kyle welcomed the release and let it take him down with Lara. He smiled up at the cloudless blue August sky before it darkened and faded away. “Lara … Gretchen …”

  Other books by Lisa von Biela now available or coming soon from Crossroad Press

  Ash and Bone

  Blockbuster

  Down the Brink

  Incidental Findings

  Skinshift

  The Genesis Code

  The Janus Legacy