“Yes, it’s quite a simple procedure. Painless.”
“What would it be like, and what would be the possible side effects?”
“You likely won’t notice a thing. You couldn’t tell your cortisol was so high without a blood test, so you won’t be able to tell if it drops just by feel. There are no side effects.”
“Well, what’s involved in getting it?”
“A local anesthetic, a quick insertion, and that’s it. No special aftercare. We’d just follow up in a few weeks to check your cortisol levels, is all.”
“How long would I have to keep it?”
“That depends. We can re-evaluate that as conditions change. If you continue in the stressful situation, it could remain indefinitely to protect you.”
“Well, I’ll think about it and let you know.” Terry started to get off the exam table.
Dr. Tyler sighed. “Mr. Simmons, have I not made myself clear? I cannot in good conscience allow you to put this off. We’ve prepared to take care of it right in this visit. It will only take a few minutes. Dr. Cleary, please get the tray.”
Cleary left the room without a word.
Terry felt like the situation was sliding right from his grip. He tried to take control. “Look, I’d really like to think about it some more. I’m really not comfortable—”
“Mr. Simmons, you should feel fortunate we found out about your cortisol level—and arrhythmia—before it was too late. Would you rather let it escalate until you end up in the ER with a heart attack?”
Dr. Cleary returned with a small, gleaming metal tray and shut the door behind him. The tray held a syringe, some gauze squares, a scalpel and a tiny square something. Feeling trapped and overwhelmed, Terry averted his eyes.
“Now, just lie on your side on the table, and relax. Either side is fine. This will only take a few moments.” Dr. Tyler moistened a gauze square with rubbing alcohol.
Reluctantly, Terry lay down on his left side and curled into a partial fetal position. At least I can have it removed if it causes any problems. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply to try to calm himself, but he was tormented by a mental image of his heart flopping and jittering to an excruciating halt. He hoped he was doing the right thing to prevent that from happening.
A moment later, he felt the cold, wet gauze on his skin just behind his right ear. The sharp smell of the alcohol reminded him of when he was a kid, getting vaccinations at the pediatrician’s. He felt a little woozy.
“OK, I’m about to give you the local. You will feel a little stick, and that should be all you’ll feel for the entire procedure.”
Terry forced himself to remain motionless. He briefly felt the tiny pain of the needle, then numbness in its place. He heard the clink of instruments and a bit of pressure against the side of his head near his ear.
“That’s it. We’re done.”
Terry opened his eyes and saw Dr. Tyler offering his hand. He took it and helped himself up to a sitting position. His thoughts swirled as a brief wave of dizziness hit him.
“Are you all right?” asked Dr. Tyler.
“I’m a little dizzy. Needles…”
“Just lower your head for a bit. I’m sure it’s just nerves. You’ll be fine,” said Dr. Tyler.
Once the feeling passed, he looked up again and saw both doctors staring at him. Dr. Tyler had a smug expression on his face. Dr. Cleary’s jaw looked tight, as if he were…angry. It made no sense. Terry felt like he’d awoken from a mangled dream. He couldn’t remember why he’d come to see the doctor.
“You’re fine, no problems,” said Dr. Tyler.
“What?”
“We just finished your check-up. You’re fine, you can go now.”
His confusion lifted as he remembered he was here for his annual checkup. “Yeah, thanks.” Terry stepped down from the exam table and left to return to his office.
CHAPTER 19
Evan Cleary shut and locked his office door, then set his phone to go straight to voicemail. He flung himself into his chair and dropped his face into his hands as the implications of what he’d just witnessed—and participated in—unfolded in his mind.
He’d thought it was a sham, a bill of goods Harris had bought into to further his ambitions for OneMarket. But now he’d seen it work, seen it with his own eyes. Simmons clearly remembered nothing of the visit, nothing real anyway. He left that room thinking he’d just had a simple checkup. What else had been planted in his mind that wouldn’t have been so readily apparent?
What should I do? What can I do? I didn’t believe it, why should anyone believe me? And besides, I assisted the bastard.
He’d known Tyler would be trouble from the start. He could spot the type a mile off. The kind who’d do anything to make a name for himself. Use patients like lab rats. Tell any lie necessary to get blind cooperation. Play on the patient’s fears—and build on them if it served his purpose.
Oh, and he was good. He had Harris dancing to his tune, paying God knew how much for his little lab. And now he’d slicked this poor Simmons into being the guinea pig. First he’d scared the shit out of him, then smooth-talked that implant right in.
But worst of all—the damned thing works. Evan shivered as he imagined what it could lead to. If Tyler could change memory, what else could he do with that thing? What would he do, given the opportunity? He absently rubbed behind his own ears.
But what to do now? There’d be no talking to Tyler. Not that type. The only thing that could stop someone like that would be a spectacular, very public failure.
He ought to know. That’s why he worked at OneMarket. And that’s why there was nowhere else he could work.
Back in the day, he’d been as much a hotshot as Tyler, cocky as hell. And hot on the trail of a cure for multiple sclerosis. He’d come up with an autologous serum, incubated from each patient’s own myelin, which he used in a regimen similar to the desensitization injections given for allergies.
At first, the results had been nearly miraculous. His desensitization theory seemed to unlock the puzzle—his patients’ autoimmune responses dropped, decreasing the MS symptoms proportionally. Everything was going so well. He was invited to talk at all the most prestigious conferences. He met and married Erika, an up-and-coming research scientist. The grants rolled in. He and Erika bought a huge, expensive house. Things couldn’t have been better.
That was before he noticed the problem. After a certain degree of progress, the patients’ response to the regimen seemed to plateau, then slowly drop. He raised the dose and frequency in a frantic attempt to boost their responses once again. Then one of his patients developed hyper-MS symptoms, and died within days.
The autopsy showed that, at a certain point, the regimen had actually accelerated the degeneration and scarring of the myelin sheath.
In the fallout that followed, he was accused of trying to hide the plateau effect by recklessly increasing the regimen, ultimately hastening the demise of several of his patients. He was ordered to stop his program immediately.
He was barely able to fight off the resulting lawsuits, shielding himself with the release forms each desperate patient had signed to get into the study. He was considered a disgrace by his peers. Erika left him to take up with some other unblemished research scientist.
He hid out in disgrace for a couple of years, with debts piling up, until some other scandal cast his own into the shadows. He managed to land the corporate doc position at OneMarket in time to hold onto his home and possessions, though he still had a long way to go to shed his debt load. It was his practice option of last resort—a captive clientele who didn’t ask about his background. To fight Tyler and defy Harris’ wishes would likely mean becoming completely unemployable as a doctor.
Evan raised his head and stared across the room. The deed was done. Simmons already had the implant. The question was what to do about it now? Maybe Simmons won’t have any side effects. But he could—and who knew what they might be? And was the thing really set u
p only to do what Tyler had said—provide training materials and cover the tracks of the procedure? If that was all…but was it?
Since a direct confrontation would do no good, he decided to stay neutral around Tyler, at least for now. That way, he could quietly keep an eye on Simmons’ health and Tyler’s activities without raising Tyler’s hackles. That would give him the most options. If anything started to go south, then he could do…something.
Mark heard the muffled tap-tap of Terry’s keyboard from over the cube wall. He set aside the report he was reading and considered what he should say. Terry’d been so worried before his doctor’s appointment; Mark wondered how bad the news really was and how he should approach him.
He stood, stepped over to Terry’s cube, and knocked lightly on the partition wall. “Terry?” He still wasn’t quite sure how personal he should try to get.
Terry turned toward him. “Yeah?”
“Well…ah…how’d it go?”
“How’d what go?”
“Your…appointment.”
“Appointment? Oh, my check-up? Oh, fine. No big deal.”
“Really? You were so worried earlier about what the doctor had said.”
Terry’s brow furrowed. “It was just a check-up. You’re making it sound like something ominous. Hey, did you run the CPU usage trend report yet?”
“Uh, yeah. I was just looking at it. I’ll send you a softcopy.” Relieved to end the conversation, Mark returned to his desk and emailed the report to Terry. Maybe it was something bad, and he just doesn’t want to talk about it. I’m not going to press him on it.
“They told you what I like, right?” Josh Tyler, fully clothed, sat on the small leather sofa in the luxury hotel room.
“They did.” The woman stood in the center of the room, waiting. She wore her long black hair straight, with bangs that hung down to just above her eyebrows.
Josh took his time, making her wait for his response. He appraised her in the low light of the bedside lamps. Another beauty from the agency. Dressed in a snug, one-piece midnight blue sleeveless minidress, she was trim and just toned enough. Her muscles showed definition, but didn’t look steroid-boosted.
“Would you like some champagne?” Josh held up a glass.
“Yes.” She walked over, amazingly graceful in her gleaming black stilettos. As she bent to accept the glass from him, he caught a glimpse down the front of her dress.
She stood and sipped, then placed the glass on the dresser. “How would you like to start?”
“Take off your dress.”
“I’ll need some help.” She approached and sat beside him on the sofa, her back to him.
Josh gripped the zipper tab and started it down slowly, slowly, until it came to the end, low on her hips. He slid the dress’ straps from her shoulders. Her skin looked soft. He wanted to kiss it, feel it with his mouth. Not yet.
She stood and stepped around the low table, then let the dress fall from her, like a shed skin. She slipped off her shoes and faced Josh, wearing only a black bra and panties that he could see through.
Nice touch, he thought. All the more maddening. He wanted to strip out of his clothes, run to her, touch her, give in. But not yet. He could feel his pants constricting him more and more as he looked at her, just as he liked it. He would control what happened and when.
Josh languidly took another sip of champagne, then stood. He moved toward the woman, hands at his sides, taking the few steps as slowly as he could. He stopped within an inch of her. He could feel her breath, the warmth from her body, through his shirt. He trembled with the effort of holding back.
He studied her face closely, looking into her dark brown eyes. Her lips opened slightly, and he could hear her breath starting to become uneven.
She reached to unbutton his shirt. He took hold of her wrists and pulled her hands away, then allowed himself to kiss her. She writhed and pressed against him, her skin giving off waves of heat through his clothes.
He broke away. “Get on the bed.” The words came out in a hoarse whisper.
She sat on the edge of the bed, still in the transparent bra and panties, waiting for him, watching him. He could see her breathing.
Josh unbuttoned his shirt, slowly, deliberately. Then he cast it aside. His pants had become uncomfortable to the point of pain. He undid them, gasping with relief as he pulled them down and kicked them off.
He waited, on the delicious edge of torment, for several minutes. That was the pleasure of it—withholding permission until the last, unbearable point. Then the leaping off the edge, letting the contrast between denial and satiation overwhelm him.
Josh got on the bed, pulled the woman down next to him, and abandoned all control.
CHAPTER 20
Sheila awoke, startled, and nearly fell off the couch at the sound of the back door shutting. Groggy, she pushed herself to a sitting position and rolled her head and neck to work out the kinks from sleeping all crunched up. She looked at her watch. Ten thirty.
Mark walked in looking tired and disheveled. “Hi. Were you asleep already?”
“Already? It’s not exactly the middle of the afternoon.” She clicked off the television and carelessly tossed the remote onto the coffee table. “I fell asleep waiting for you. Should’ve just gone to bed.” She stood and rubbed her eyes. “See you upstairs.”
“Wait, don’t you want to have dinner together?”
“I already ate. Hours ago. I left some out for you.”
“Sheila, this is the only time I get to see you. Can’t we at least have dinner together at night?”
“You know, I don’t just lie on the couch all day. I work, too. Then I come home and have to take care of everything around here—everything—so you can work all day and night and come home and ask why I’m not waiting poised by the dinner table for you!”
Sheila could hear the strident tone in her voice. She despised that sort of desperate, hysterical shouting, but tonight she didn’t care. Over the months she’d tried to not hassle Mark over his hours; she didn’t want to add that kind of stress to his load. But for some reason, tonight something just flipped a switch inside her. Life’s too short for this bullshit.
Mouth open, Mark appeared stunned at the vehemence of her response. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m tired and I didn’t pick the right words.”
“Pick the right words? If that were all it was…”
Mark raised his hands, palms toward Sheila.
“Settle down, will you? I just got home after a 14-hour day and you’re jumping down my throat. Give me a break!”
“I’ve done nothing but give you a break this whole time! You’re hardly home, and when you are, there’s nothing left for me! I thought the whole idea was to be able to spend time together in case I get…sick!”
Mark stepped toward her. “Sheila, don’t drag out the Alzheimer’s card. I told you while I was at OneMarket, I’d have very little time for us. Remember? You knew that, you agreed to it!”
“The Alzheimer’s card? Everything’s so cut and dried with you—logic trumps all! I wish it were that simple, something I can just set aside. Well, it’s not!”
Mark held up his hands, palms toward her. “All right, that wasn’t fair. Sorry. But we did discuss the tradeoffs—”
Sheila folded her arms tightly across her chest. “Well, maybe it’s time to reconsider.”
“Sure. OK. I’ll just call in tomorrow and quit on the spot. And all the time we’ve sacrificed the last six months will be for nothing.” He put his hands on his hips. “So you tell me. If that’s what you want, that’s what I’ll do. You just say the word.”
“Oh no, you’re not putting it all on me. Can’t you do something to work more normal hours—do you have to work this late all the time? You’ve always been very efficient. They must be having you do the work of more than one person. This goes beyond asking for exceptional performance. This is abuse.”
Mark lowered his head, pinched the bridge of his nose. He
spoke in a low, weary voice. “You’re right—I’m completely exhausted and I’m not up to talking about this right now. I’ve been so busy, I haven’t even eaten all day. I’ll get dinner myself.” He turned and went into the kitchen.
Sheila ran upstairs and got ready for bed while Mark ate alone. She turned out the light, pulled up the covers, and lay awake in the dark with quiet tears rolling down her face. Maybe Molly was right after all. She wasn’t turning her whole life upside-down over a blood test. Sheila’d thought she was being mature and responsible in insisting on the test, but it had brought nothing but pain. Without it, Mark would never have gone to a meat grinder like OneMarket. And his work wouldn’t be pushing them further and further apart.
Mark sat in his cube and sipped his coffee. He grimaced at the potent taste—he’d added some instant coffee granules to his cup of brewed to give it an extra kick. He needed all the focus he could get today.
He’d barely slept last night after his fight with Sheila. He could tell by her breathing she wasn’t really asleep, but she refused to acknowledge him when he came to bed after his cold dinner. So they’d both lain there in silence, their backs to each other. They’d never done that before, and the artificial solitude frightened him.
But he had no time to dwell on it. He came in to work this morning to discover he had a new fast-track assignment to tackle. Another country, Venezuela, was coming online in the next few months, and he had to plan and execute all the preparations himself. Naturally, Reyes had made it clear that the implementation had better be flawless.
Mark started by writing down a list of tasks: check database space allocations, verify system throughput capacity, prepare logons for all the new users, apply suitable security profiles to each user. Terrified he’d overlook something and cause some spectacular implementation debacle, he stared at the list until the words appeared meaningless. He didn’t dare ask Terry for help; he already had way too much to do.
Complex work, yes, but well within his expertise. Yet after sweating over the task list for two hours, a chilling realization came over him.
The Genesis Code Page 10
