The Genesis Code

by Lisa von Biela

  THE GENESIS CODE

  By Lisa von Biela

  A Gordian Knot Techno-thriller

  Gordian Knot is an imprint of Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition Copyright © 2017 Lisa von Biela

  Original publication by DarkFuse – April 2013

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  Lisa von Biela worked in Information Technology for 25 years, then dropped out to attend the University of Minnesota Law School, graduating magna cum laude in 2009. She now practices law in Seattle, Washington.

  Lisa began writing short, dark fiction just after the turn of the century. Her first publication appeared in The Edge in 2002. She went on to publish a number of short works in various small-press venues, including Gothic.net, Twilight Times, Dark Animus, AfterburnSF, and more. She is the author of the novels The Genesis Code, The Janus Legacy, Blockbuster, and Broken Chain, as well as the novellas Ash and Bone, Skinshift, and Moon Over Ruin.

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  THE GENESIS CODE

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  EPILOGUE

  Other books

  CHAPTER 1

  Mark Weston hoped his face didn’t betray the tension seething inside him. Show calm, confidence. That’s all they need to see. What’s in my mind is none of their damned business. He spread his fingers, surreptitiously forcing himself to release his death grip on the arms of his chair.

  Fred Cline, head of HR for OneMarket Services, leaned forward and glanced again at Mark’s resume, which lay in the center of his tidy rosewood desk. He wore his slightly graying hair in a short, no-frills style. His crisp white shirt, dark blue tie, and trim torso spoke of discipline and hard work.

  Actually, he looked like a cold, bloodless son of a bitch.

  “You’ve been unemployed for a number of months now. Explain that, please,” he said without looking up, as if it were a casual, insignificant remark.

  Mark felt his stomach churn at the inevitable question. Time to tread carefully, to stick with the answer he’d rehearsed until he could recite it with no audible trace of anger. “There were significant layoffs at my prior firm, Mr. Cline, due to outsourcing.” He added, “Performance was not a consideration. As my resume shows, I’m considered an expert in tuning high-availability systems.”

  “Yes, I see you’ve published a number of white papers on the subject. So with your expertise, why have you been out of work for so long?” Cline gazed intently at Mark, as if daring him to trip up.

  “I had some family matters to attend to.” Another statement delivered with no outward emotion. Mark hoped Cline wouldn’t choose to probe further, though he was fairly sure he couldn’t legally press him for more detail.

  “Are those matters…resolved?” Cline emphasized the last word, enunciating each syllable in an intrusive manner.

  “Yes,” Mark lied, as he looked directly at Cline and prayed he sounded believable enough to curtail the line of questioning.

  Cline leaned back in his black leather chair, steepled his hands under his chin, and paused. Mark knew that game, and Cline looked like the type who elevated it to an art form. Let silence fill the interview room, make the subject crack and say too much. He wasn’t going to fall for that one. He sat back in his stiff vinyl chair, matching Cline’s gaze while appraising the room itself during the test of wills.

  The walls were devoid of corporate art. Cline’s desk was neat, utilitarian. A rosewood In and Out tray stack sat to his right, a laptop computer and phone to his left. His office seemed arranged for maximum output with minimum clutter. Disarray had no place here.

  After several minutes, Cline broke the silence. “Your technical interview went well. Mr. Reyes indicated there is no problem with your qualifications. The question is what is your capacity?”

  Mark had won the silence contest, but now Cline had thrown him a curve to retaliate. He wiggled his toes inside his shoes to conceal his fidgeting while he tried to read Cline’s intent. “What do you mean?”

  Cline leaned forward again, a trace of a smirk on his lips. “I mean, how much can you take? You must understand what you’d be committing to.”

  Here comes the spiel about OneMarket’s notorious overtime requirements.

  “Mr. Weston, information in this organization flows faster than you can imagine. Training is a constant effort—on top of day-to-day demands.” He paused and looked Mark in the eye for emphasis. �
��Our environment is so demanding that seventy percent of our new employees leave by the end of their first year. But—for those who can perform under pressure and remain with us—the rewards are well worth it.”

  Cline reached into a cabinet drawer beside his desk and pulled out a glossy, dark blue folder bearing the OneMarket Services logo. He handed it to Mark. “This describes the incentives granted as you achieve each new level in the firm. Study it, weigh it against the commitment you’d be making. See if you consider it a fair exchange.”

  Mark set the folder on his lap, maintaining steady eye contact with Cline. “Thank you. I’ll do that.” He wondered just how much of his soul he’d have to exchange for those incentives.

  Cline stood and offered his hand. “We’ll be in touch within forty-eight hours with our decision. It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Weston.”

  Mark stood, brushed his hand against his pants to inconspicuously dry his palm, and shook hands. “Thank you. I’ll await your call.” He turned and stepped out of Cline’s office, closing the door behind him. Thank God that’s over.

  Sheila cringed on the living room couch, holding the receiver slightly away from her ear. Damn it! She knew what was coming next—a déjà vu litany of pain and frustration.

  “Why do we always have to wind up on this topic? You made your choice. I’ve made mine.” Her sister’s voice carried a tired anger, worn smooth and hard from repetition.

  Sheila closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. She struggled for a moment to find the right words to make her point—a point she had been trying to get through for months. “Molly, what if you get married again? Don’t you want to know if it’s safe for you to have kids?”

  “It was bad enough losing Dad that way. I’m trying hard to remember him as he was before the Alzheimer’s. And I can’t! But I’ll be damned if I’ll live with a sentence imposed by a blood test. Look how it’s affected you.”

  “Affected me how? The doctor said it’s not a guarantee I’ll get it.”

  Sheila gritted her teeth. Molly could flip defense to offense in a snap.

  “Sheila, that’s not how you’ve been acting. You forget one little thing, and it automatically has to be early Alzheimer’s lurking in the shadows. You’ve let it color your entire life.”

  “OK, maybe you don’t want to know for yourself, but what about anyone you get involved with—”

  “Can we please drop the subject? I’m supposed to meet some friends, and I need to get going.”

  After terse goodbyes, Sheila slumped back on the couch, exhausted. Most of her conversations with Molly lately took the same path, and she still couldn’t get through to her. Dad’s death carried a message: Be vigilant, prepare. You, too, could die like this. It was irresponsible to ignore the warning.

  She got so tired of being the older sister sometimes. Molly had always insisted on her own path, and their often-exasperated parents had used Sheila as their proxy. Now that both their parents were gone, Sheila was on her own with Molly, who, at twenty-six, already had a failed marriage under her belt and hadn’t yet seemed to learn responsibility. At least not in Sheila’s opinion.

  She glanced at the coffee table, heaped with books, magazines, ragged-edged articles ripped from newspapers. All things Alzheimer’s. Molly didn’t have the market cornered on grief. She, too, couldn’t get the images of Dad’s final days from her mind. Alzheimer’s was the enemy, and she’d be damned if she’d face it uninformed, unprepared. Sooner or later, she’d get Molly to understand and face it, too.

  The harsh ring of the phone cut short her train of thought. She snatched up the receiver, certain it was Mark with news of his interview. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Sheila? This is Frank. Did I catch you at a bad time?”

  Sheila pressed her forehead against the heel of her hand and frowned. She owed him an answer she wasn’t quite ready to give. He’d been so patient the last few months, hiring a temp for her spot at his accounting office and telling her to take the time she needed. But it couldn’t go on forever.

  “Frank, hi.” She tried to sound calm, but was sure she sounded like a basket case after the hassle with Molly.

  “Sheila, I really hate to have to make this call. You’ve done great work for us the last six years, and I know you’ve had a tough time lately. But I have to ask if you intend to return. We’d love to have you back.”

  Sheila rolled her eyes upward and blinked to fight the tears. Truth was, she was afraid to go back. Afraid to test her power to concentrate, to remember. If she started to forget things, would it be chance…or not?

  “Sheila? You there?”

  She hastily wiped away a tear. “Yeah, Frank, I’m here.”

  “So, are you coming back?”

  “I…can I have a few more days to think?”

  “Sheila, I really need to know. The temp we have now is pretty sharp, and if you’re not coming back, I’d like to hire her while I have the chance. But I’d rather have you, of course.”

  “All right. Well, I’m still wrapping up a few things. Can I start in two weeks?”

  “I’d prefer a bit sooner, but we can manage. It’ll be great to have you back, Sheila. See you soon.”

  “See ya.” Sheila hung up. Well, that’s settled, anyway. She checked her watch. Mark should be done with his interview by now. Why hadn’t he called? Maybe it hadn’t gone well.

  Sheila tried to push her negative thoughts aside. It just had to go well. Because of her father’s lousy insurance coverage, she’d inherited an estate of debt. And between Mark extending his layoff period to help her out, and her own time off from work, they’d exhausted their savings.

  And if that wasn’t enough to overcome, she could contract early onset Alzheimer’s in as little as twenty years.

  She glanced around the living room of their modest, middle-class home. Their furnishings were comfortable, nothing extravagant. She and Mark had always been careful with their money, never wild spenders. Yet all it took was the domino of her father’s illness to endanger all they’d worked for.

  Groaning, she pushed herself up from the couch and went to the kitchen. Time would pass faster if she kept busy mindlessly making dinner while she waited for Mark.

  CHAPTER 2

  Mark leaned against his eight-year-old 4Runner in the visitors’ lot, trying to shake off the tension from his interview before heading home to Sheila. Arms folded, he scrutinized OneMarket’s five-story headquarters building. The late-afternoon light cast a rosy tint across its otherwise glacial silver-blue glass surface. Fifteen acres of green rolling hills formed the corporate campus. He shook his head. You’d never know Acacia Park was right in the middle of drought-stricken northern California.

  Just more evidence that whatever Simon Harris wanted, he got. OneMarket’s founder, president, and CEO was known for his ego. He bathed in the limelight with his extravagant parties, his elbow-rubbing with celebrities and powerful politicians. Yet he was amazingly untouched by scandal. And there was no denying his success—OneMarket’s record spoke for itself. Harris’ hubris had always made Mark’s skin crawl.

  Mark slid behind the wheel, setting the OneMarket folder on top of the stack of bike trail maps on the passenger seat. He already had a pretty good idea of the nature of OneMarket’s incentives. As he loosened his tie and undid the top two buttons of his dress shirt, Mark wondered how the interview had really gone. He hoped Cline hadn’t sensed his reservations. In truth, he wasn’t at all sure he was OneMarket material—or that he wanted to be.

  The employee lot was still nearly full. No five o’clock mass exodus here. He wondered when the lot did normally empty for the day, and what kind of lives these people had outside of work, if any.

  To give himself more time to think, Mark drove home in the congested right lane of the freeway. The discussion with Sheila had to be framed carefully. He knew she wanted him to get this job, but not for the prestige. No, she was strictly interested in the money.

  Her fath
er’s illness and death was more than a family tragedy. It had wreaked havoc on their finances. Given time, they could dig themselves out with two incomes. But if Sheila contracted early onset Alzheimer’s, they’d fall right back into the pit, and wouldn’t be able to get her the care she’d need. OneMarket’s compensation plan would be the fastest way to put the debt behind them and set aside the funds for Sheila’s care, should she need it.

  Mark had always hated everything Harris stood for. But he owed Sheila. She’d sacrificed her own shot at grad school to put him through his master’s in information technology. So he’d swallowed his feelings and given the interview his best shot.

  Yet there was one little problem with this plan. Well, a couple. First, he had to actually get the job. Second, he had to perform at the level expected by OneMarket—a grueling effort that would leave precious little quality time for him to spend with Sheila. Let alone on anything he himself enjoyed. He’d likely have no need for those bike trail maps while employed by OneMarket.

  Mark shook his head as he pulled into his driveway half an hour later. He almost hoped they turned him down. Then he could pursue a suitable position elsewhere, make a more normal salary, but they would have a life.

  Sheila was pacing in the kitchen. The counter was cluttered with utensils and various dinner possibilities, as if she couldn’t decide what to make. She abruptly stopped and turned when he said hello. Mark could tell she’d had a difficult conversation, probably with her sister again. The ends of her long, wheat-blonde hair were bunched together from her nervous habit of twisting the ends.

  “What took you so long? How’d it go? I’ve been worried, I thought you’d call.” After rapid-firing her questions, she planted herself near the sink, shoulders tensed, waiting for his answer. Her jeans and T-shirt hung on her, now a size too large. Normally slender, she’d passed right into gauntness with the stress of the last few months.

  Mark tried to set a casual tone as he took off his suit coat and draped it over the back of a kitchen chair. “I don’t know anything yet. They’re going to call in a couple of days with their decision.”