by Jeff Altabef
He wished he could remember every Maggie and the moment she had died, but only a dozen stood out over the years: the first one, of course, and some of the young ones. It wasn’t his fault. They weren’t extraordinary.
He lifted the nearest jar from the rack on which it sat, and the heart inside sloshed to one side. He glanced at the bottom of the jar at the photo attached to it. Yes, he thought he remembered this one. Didn’t she have an accent?
His wife’s voice interrupted his reverie. “When are you coming home? We’ve got a baby shower planned in two days, and you have to be home for it. You have to attend or—”
“Lori, I have to go. Mom’s got this meeting planned with Chinese businessmen that I’m late for.”
“Sure, do whatever Mommy wants. Just make sure you get home in time.”
Click.
He put the jar back, looked at the plain wooden box that sat on top of the oak table, snapped open the bronze latch, and peered inside. Three shiny new calligraphy pens rested on red velvet. The light sparkled off their diamond tips.
He sighed and surveyed his sanctuary. The racks were only a third full.
Darian leaned back in his chair and studied Lassie’s latest brain scan and blood reports. Her brain development had stalled right after all the other dogs had died, three months ago.
He had designed EBF-202 to dissolve in the bloodstream, but in the other test subjects, including Jack, the drug never fully dissolved. EBF-202 worked better than EBF-101, partially breaking down in all the subjects. However, enough residue remained to fuel brain development even at a reduced pace, until the pressure on the cranium damaged the brain and the patient died.
Lassie was different. Small traces of EBF-202 lingered in her blood system, but her brain resisted it and she remained stable. The secret must be right in front of him. If he could just see it and understand it, he could save Jack, but it hid from him, taunting him, making him feel helpless.
If self-loathing were an Olympic sport, he would have been a gold medalist.
How hard can it be? Jack is depending upon me.
A tsunami of guilt whipped through his mind. Four months had past since Jack’s initial treatment—four months to figure out the secret, four months to tell Jack the truth, four months to do something, anything. At first, he’d rationalized he would discover the cure and tell Jack about the treatment with the resolution in hand.
Why worry him over nothing?
Over time, the lie became so large he couldn’t confront it. Now, when he finally summoned up the courage to tell Jack, he couldn’t reach him.
Darian bashed his forehead on his desk in time with (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones. When the song ended, he started toward his small refrigerator and the needle full of EBF-202.
Perhaps it’s time.
***
Vanessa sauntered into the lab without Darian noticing. He’s working and worrying himself to death, she thought. Tonight, I’m going to take him away from his troubles. He needs fun. We need fun.
She cleared her throat at the doorway, and Darian shut off the music. She held a picnic basket in one hand and a bottle of California Cabernet in the other. She swayed toward him, her white lab coat parting down the middle, a string of pearls shifting loosely around her neck.
She spoke in a flirtatious, lilting voice. “I hope you didn’t forget about our date tonight, Doctor Beck. I have something special planned for us.”
Darian smiled, but it looked forced.
He forgot about the date.
Jack’s plight so consumed him lately, he had no room for any other thoughts. Every one of their conversations ended with Jack.
“I’m not sure I will be good company tonight. I’m running out of time. The answer is right here somewhere, and it’s making me crazy.” He clenched his hand into an angry fist and pounded his thigh.
She sighed. “I understand, but it’s late and you need to eat, Doctor. You’ll be of no use to anyone if you starve yourself.” She placed the picnic basket on the floor and bored her eyes into his to drive the point home.
He relented. “Dinner is a good idea. I feel a little lightheaded.”
She grinned, opened the bottle of wine with a soft pop, and poured two glasses. She busied herself by opening the picnic basket and taking out various plastic containers of take-out Chinese food. She possessed many remarkable talents, but cooking wasn’t one of them.
She frowned. “I forgot the forks and knives. Be a sweetie and grab some from the kitchen area.”
He jumped from his chair. “I’ll be right back.” He bounded from the office in long, looping strides.
She tossed the knives and forks she had brought into the trashcan and surreptitiously removed a glass vial from her lab coat. She poured the latest mood-enhancing narcotic into both glasses of wine, swirled the red liquid into tiny whirlpools, and smiled to herself.
Darian needed to relax, and she would make sure he did.
***
Darian finished the remaining wine in his glass with a messy gulp. His mood had improved dramatically. Gone were his worries about Jack and EBF-202, replaced by visions of Vanessa, who let her lab coat drop to the floor. She wore a form fitting, low-cut red dress with spaghetti straps, and a skirt that ended at the top of her thighs. The lab filled with big band jazz compositions she played from her phone. It wasn’t Darian’s first choice in music, but he swayed against her. Her lips glistened with crimson lipstick, and her perfume lingered in the air like a soft caress.
When he began to trace his mouth and tongue along her neck, she pulled back, shook her head, and playfully scowled at him. “No, no, Doctor Beck. This place has too many windows. I have a better spot planned for us.” She waved a card key in front of his nose as if he were a dog, and the key his treat.
“What’s the key for?” He read the lettering—Doctor Wickersham PHD’s Office. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Does that open Wicky’s office?”
She nodded, took his hand, and led him down the hallway to the elevator. When the door closed, she pressed the button for the top floor. He nuzzled the back of her neck, drinking in her perfume and running his hands up her thighs.
“No one should be on the top floor tonight,” she whispered. “There’s a board meeting.”
He didn’t care.
The bell rang, the elevator doors opened, and they stumbled giggling into the hallway. He grabbed her hand and raced toward the corner office, skipping as he went. He flung open the door and shouted, “We’ve scheduled a very important meeting, Clair!”
The leather couch beckoned, so he flopped down while she unzipped her dress. The fabric cascaded gently to the ground, revealing a warm and inviting naked body. He clumsily ripped his Rolling Stones t-shirt over his head and tossed the rest of his garments around the office.
She pounced on top with a purr in her throat, and they lost themselves in the moment.
His heart rate soared as she moaned and clutched his shaggy blond hair. The leather burned his back, but he didn’t care as his body shuddered with a blast of energy.
When they were spent, Vanessa laughed and stumbled her way to the bathroom.
Darian stood and had an almost irresistible urge to urinate in Wickersham’s trashcan. He eyed it enthusiastically and started calculating distance and angles, when voices wafted in from the waiting room.
“That’s odd. Clair left the door open. I’ll scold her tomorrow.” Wickersham’s voice droned on from the hallway and became progressively closer.
Darian bolted into action. He grabbed his clothes, just remembering to snatch his boxers from Wickersham’s desk, and raced into the bathroom a second before the office door opened.
Vanessa was already dressed when he lifted his finger to his lips. He wanted to laugh, but the distressed expression on Vanessa’s face stopped him.
“I will save the presentations on an external disk for you, Coop. It shouldn’t take more than a minute.” Wickersham slurred his words
.
“So, is Project Qing ready for launch?”
Darian pressed his ear against the door and strained to hear the conversation.
“Almost, Coop. The drug will make the population very susceptible to subliminal suggestions at the right frequency—just below the normal hearing range—but we haven’t determined the best dosage yet.”
“It also increases productivity, correct? We’re not making a population of zombies that won’t work for us?”
“That’s the best part.” Wickersham laughed. “‘We can brainwash the ghettos and transform them into hard-working citizens at the same time. Some will even work themselves to death without realizing what they’re doing.”
Darian strangled his small pile of clothes, his hand aching from the pressure.
“And no one knows about the full effects of Project Qing except the project leader and us?”
“We have maintained total secrecy. We used some of the work done for the brain cancer vaccine, some of Doctor Beck’s work on EBF-202, and new findings. All the teams on the project have discrete tasks. No one has a clue as to the whole project except Doctor Sanders.”
Vanessa flung her arms around Darian’s shoulders as he reached for the doorknob. Sweat glistened across his back and his nostrils flared as a crashing sound filled his head. He so wanted to strangle Wickersham.
She held him tight and whispered, “Not now.”
“The Vice President is going to be well pleased, Samuel. I can see a new appointment for you—perhaps Surgeon General.”
Wickersham chuckled, the voices faded, and the door to the office slammed shut.
Darian turned on Vanessa. “Did you know what Project Qing was about?”
She stepped backed and pressed against the sink. “I don’t know the full scope of the project. No one does except Doctor Sanders.”
“They’re using my research to brainwash the people in the ghettos and make them into working robots.” He struggled to grasp the ramifications of the plan. “I have to stop them.”
She whispered, “Would it be so bad to have the ghettos more compliant? They need to pull their weight.”
For the first time, she reminded him of her father. Her face was suddenly too perfect.
“I think it’s time you understand who I am and where I come from.”
Maggie slept fitfully, her dreams unearthing a part of her past she would have preferred to leave buried.
Young and back at the Lake Country Resort, it was the year after she had first met Cooper. Thoughts about Mr. Cat had faded to the back of her memory. Cooper returned to the resort that summer, and although she tried to avoid him, he made it impossible. The stables were the only place he wouldn’t follow her, but she could only spend so much time with the horses and her father.
He never mentioned Mr. Cat or the events of the prior summer. He started this vacation the same way he had the prior year—funny, friendly, charming, interested in her. He had grown taller, stronger, and more handsome. She convinced herself he was not responsible for Mr. Cat’s disappearance. Maybe he’d taken the collar, but the cat could have wandered away on his own. He was a free cat, after all. She was foolish and young, and his eyes were beautiful and his smile appealing.
As the summer dragged on, signs of the volcano started to bubble up and her fear burst back to the surface. In early August, he started to talk about the end of summer and her living with him and his family. She said no, and he got angry. To avoid him, she stayed close to her father in the stables.
One night, late in the summer, her father came home shaken. A guest’s prize colt had died inexplicably, and the owner would blame him.
She stormed out of their small apartment with her hands balled up in fists and stomped to the rose garden, where she waited for Cooper.
Sure enough, he appeared, a smug expression on his face. “I haven’t seen you in a while, Maggs. You spend too much time in the stables.”
“I know you had something to do with that horse, Cooper! You have to tell them so my father doesn’t get fired.”
He moved close to her, his face pinched together. “I’ll tell them if you agree to come live with me and my family.”
She imagined rivers of lava bubbling inside his head, the volcano close to erupting.
She felt heat flush her face as she stomped her foot. “I will not!”
He grabbed her by the arms, shook her fiercely and yelled, but what he shouted, she couldn’t tell. The words sounded garbled, as if they had a hard time fighting through his anger. The world slowed as fear dulled her mind. She closed her eyes and became dizzy.
“Hey!”
Suddenly, John Grant shoved Cooper away from her and into the dirt.
“Don’t touch her,” John bellowed in his baritone voice. He worked for Maggie’s father and was his best friend. Big, wide in the chest, shoulders, and arms, he loomed larger still as he rose to his feet and puffed out his chest. John had the sweetest personality Maggie had ever known, but this John looked and sounded angry. He even scared her a little.
Cooper stayed silent, dusted himself off, smiled sickly at John, and stalked away seething.
John peered down at her with concern etched into his face. “Are you all right, child?”
“I’m fine, John. It was no big deal.”
“No big deal, child? I don’t like the look of that one. Does your father know about him?” His big bushy eyebrows made a v-shape on his forehead as he crossed his arms against his chest.
“No. Don’t tell him. Promise me you won’t tell him! He’ll get mad, and he’ll be fired.”
He frowned. “I promised your Aunt Jackie I’d help look after you. If I find him around you again, I’ll have to tell your dad.”
Maggie had heard that he planned on asking Aunt Jackie to marry him when she returned from her circus trip in Europe. He thought he had kept it a secret, but everyone knew.
Later, her dream world spun and she found herself thrown into a pitch-black night. She ran after her parents, who sprinted toward the lodge as smoke filled the air and flames lit the horizon like the noon sun. She stumbled to the ground and saw the ambulance and her father jumping in the back. Her mother wept.
“Who got hurt?”
Through the sobs, her mother managed to say, “It’s John, sweetie.”
***
Maggie twisted in her bed. She imagined a young Cooper watching her, smiling at her. A nauseous feeling settled in her chest, so she forced her eyes open.
Cooper stared down at her, a cold smile spread across his face.
Rachel unlocked the Upper West Side townhouse, stormed inside, and marched passed Steven into the galley kitchen. The townhouse stood three stories tall with a basement that stretched under the middle of the adjacent street. A cutting edge wave jamming system protected the residents and made it impossible to trace cell phones or citizen cards, shielding the townhouse from prying electronic eyes.
She walked smartly and tossed her Cooper file on the kitchen table. “Charles, I need some help.”
Charles Sheppard appeared on the staircase moments later, cupping a glass of Shiraz in the palm of his hand. “Yes, Rachel. You look lovely.” He kissed her tenderly on the cheek.
The two were secretly married. The world believed she had died in an accident twenty years earlier, when she chose to run the Fourteenth Colony, a job she could not hope to perform as the public wife of Charles Sheppard. She’d had no choice. She saw the direction the country was headed and needed to act, and even though he’d argued with her, he couldn’t help but be Charles—the exciting, visionary, celebrity businessperson who revolutionized the world one innovation at a time. The two roles couldn’t coexist.
Rachel missed the little, everyday things that should have woven their lives closer together. She told herself the amount of time they spent together wasn’t important, but the quality of that time was what counted. It was a lie. Sometimes, she imagined she had made a different choice, one where they fully shared
the present. Regret was too big a word for how she felt. Still, going back wasn’t an option, and even if she could, she would make the same choice over again.
“I need help with the search for Cooper. We’re running out of time to save Maggie. We’ve stolen the records to the Lake Country Resort guest lists. The information is coded, and Mary is having a hard time cracking the code. She needs the name and number of one of the guests at the resort—hopefully an old client, but anyone would do. Otherwise, she’s searching for a leaf in a forest of trees.”
“From what you’ve told me, this resort is an ultra-luxury establishment.” He swirled the wine in his glass. “I’ve never even heard of this place, but there’s older money than what runs in my family. I can reach out to the Wine Merchants. One of them might know something.”
“Please do, Charles. Maggie doesn’t have much time.” She squeezed his arm.
***
Charles walked to the kitchen to retrieve a secure phone, and saw the Cooper File on the table. Drawn to it, he flipped it open. The photographs tumbled onto the kitchen table, and he winced. He detested violence. Watching violent movies gave him troubled dreams afterward, but one of the photos caught his eye. His fingers trembled as he moved the photo close to his face.
“What is it, Charles?” Rachel moved beside him.
“Do you know who this is?” He lowered the picture.
“We’ve hadn’t had any luck identifying the victims yet. That one stands out, though. She least resembles Maggie.”
“She’s Isabella White.” Charles drained the last of the wine from his glass.
He needed a name and number. He was looking for a needle in a haystack, but if he found it, everything else might fall into place.
Darian and Vanessa strolled through the grimy streets of the Upper Manhattan Ghetto. Most of the apartments had boarded up windows, garbage collected on the sidewalks, and an overpowering stench filled the air. She did her best not to think what caused that awful smell. Still, energy and life permeated the neighborhood—music and laughter floated onto the street, and a few open clubs teemed with activity and excitement.
