The Genesis Code

by Lisa von Biela

  “It’s back over there.” Mark reluctantly led him to his 4Runner and let them in.

  “Are you OK to drive, if it should become necessary?” Cleary studied him closely.

  “I think so.” Mark slid his key into the ignition. “All right. So what’s this all about?” He hoped Cleary was overdramatizing whatever was going on, and that Tyler hadn’t been his real protector.

  Cleary let out a sigh, then spoke rapidly. “Do you remember me showing you a tiny object in a plastic bag—back in the conference room?”

  “Vaguely. I was kind of hazy then.” Mark rubbed the back of his neck. “What did you do to me?”

  “I injected you with a short-acting drug—Ketamine—so I could remove the device. I’m sorry for doing it like that, but I had no other safe choice.”

  “Safe?”

  “That’s the least of it. You may have some bad dreams tonight, but there should be no other side effects from that.” Cleary leaned back and rubbed his face before continuing. “OK, I’m going to say this fast to get it all out. I’m sure you’ll have questions, but please bear with me in the interest of time. You were part of an experiment. Harris bought Tyler’s company. He made these microchip implants—Genesis devices, he calls them—which he claimed would increase productivity. He could download training and information onto them, and get more and better work out of people. Harris jumped at the idea.”

  “An experiment? Why me? How dare they do it without permission!” Mark absently touched the site behind his ear. He felt violated, poisoned.

  “You weren’t the first. Terry Simmons was first. I don’t know for sure, but I suspect his death had something to do with Genesis—they’ve kept most of this from me. Far as I know, you’re the only two they implanted. At least the only two I personally witnessed.”

  “You saw this? You didn’t stop them? And it may have killed Terry?” Mark was torn. He wanted to throw Cleary out, but now that he’d heard this much, he needed to hear it all.

  Cleary looked at him directly. “I’m not proud of it, but that doesn’t change anything. They would have done it without me, I’m certain. They were trying to train me for when they rolled it out to all the employees. They probably wish I hadn’t seen any of it. Tyler knows I’ve removed yours now.”

  “Why did they do this?”

  “Money, of course. They decided to test this out on you to see if they could increase your output several fold. And it seemed to work—at least in that respect.”

  “How does it work?” Mark didn’t want to believe Cleary, but he had been doing the work of several—and so had Terry before he…died. It seemed to fit.

  “I’m not sure. Tyler designed it—I don’t know the internals. He creates files to load onto it, and it somehow transmits it right into your brain. He also told me that he can receive from the device, that he can read your mind.”

  “What?” Mark suddenly felt naked. What thoughts had Tyler been able to see? Who did he tell?

  “He could be bluffing about that part, but I couldn’t take the chance. That’s why I had to drug you to remove the thing. I couldn’t tell you about it while it was in you—if he wasn’t bluffing, he’d have known right away what was going on.”

  “He was reading my mind, and pumping things into my brain with this thing? Who controlled what he put in? What did he put in? And how long had he been doing it?”

  “I can’t be sure of what’s been uploaded. Training materials, technical stuff, he told me. You’ve only been implanted a few weeks.”

  Mark shivered at the thought of things forced into his brain without his consent. Then something occurred to him. He barely dared ask. “Could it damage my brain?” he asked in a whisper.

  “I wouldn’t rule it out. Like I said, I have no proof, but I worry that something went wrong with Simmons, and they’ve been covering it up. Since you were the second recipient, I couldn’t take the chance of leaving it in you.”

  Mark swallowed hard. “Could it…damage someone’s memory?”

  “I don’t know for sure. I don’t know if Tyler even knows—I suspect he hadn’t really tested this thing completely, and had latched onto Harris’ greed to do so. You forgot who I was the other day, didn’t you? Have there been other incidents?”

  “Yes, two others—that I know of.”

  Cleary shook his head. “Dear God.”

  “Will it go away now that the device is out?”

  “I wish I knew. I’m sorry, but I just don’t know what we’re really dealing with here, on that level. There are tests that can be done—”

  “Christ.” Mark rolled his head back on the headrest. “What am I supposed to do? What the fuck am I supposed to do now?”

  Cleary interrupted him and spoke forcefully. “Listen to me, Mark. We need to work together. I can help you get the testing and care you need, and you can help me end this program before they implant anyone else. I’m going to take it public, expose it for the sick and greedy experiment it is. Only a few OneMarket people were in on it.”

  “Did Reyes know?”

  “Oh yes, he suggested the recipients.”

  Mark clapped a hand across his eyes. He’d heard enough. If Cleary wasn’t making this all up, he was likely brain-damaged, out of a job, and in God knows what danger from Tyler.

  Cleary pressed his case. “I have the device, the proof—until now I didn’t have any hard evidence. I want it to be known what Harris green-lighted, how it affected you and how it may even have killed Simmons. If you’d back me up, that would help. I’m sorry, but I suspect you’re done at OneMarket either way now. That’s why I didn’t want you to see anyone until I told you all I knew.”

  Mark turned away from Cleary and stared out the window into the night. It was all too much to absorb. Cleary’s story seemed to fit, and he even had the blood-speckled implant in a plastic bag. He tried to think, to focus, but it was hard with Cleary staring at him, waiting for his response. Was there any reason that Cleary could be making this up, or twisting it to suit his agenda? Had he implanted it? Could he be framing Tyler to cover himself?

  How could he be sure who was really on his side before he got in too deep with Cleary?

  CHAPTER 55

  Knowing he had little, if any, time to do something about Cleary, Josh fought the Ketamine with his own fury and adrenaline. He slowly, deliberately placed his hands on the floor beside him and raised his torso to a sitting position. Drained from that minor effort, he leaned back against the wall and tried to focus on Reyes’ concerned, gape-mouthed face.

  “I’m OK, gimme a minute.” His speech wasn’t too badly slurred now. That idiot’d better start to understand him—and fast.

  Reyes reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Relax. I’ve called for an ambulance. It should be here any minute.” He peered into Josh’s face.

  Josh wanted to shake Reyes’ clammy hand off his shoulder, to jump up, run down the hall, and stop Cleary by whatever means presented itself. He’d not only removed the implant, but he’d taken off with Weston! Who knew how much the bastard already revealed—and what he might have made up to suit his own purposes. He had to make Reyes understand.

  “Don’t need it. Have to find Cleary!”

  Reyes blinked in confusion. “What?”

  Irritated, Josh shook his head. He searched for the most succinct words possible, then concentrated on pronouncing them clearly so Reyes would get it all the first time. “He removed Weston’s device. He has it, he knows, and he left with Weston.”

  “Where?”

  Josh clenched his teeth and forced himself to stand. He wobbled toward one of the chairs and dropped into it. “I don’t know! They were in here. He drugged me and they ran out the door.”

  Reyes paled, stood and shifted his weight from foot to foot. He started to speak, then stopped himself at the first syllable and shook his head. Annoyed, Josh turned away from him. He needed to quickly think through his options, and Reyes’ pathetic attempt to digest the situ
ation was distracting.

  Josh didn’t want to bring Harris in on this—it’d be one more excuse for him to shut the program down permanently. Frustrated that his thinking wasn’t as sharp as usual, he pinched his own thigh—hard—using the pain to help clear his head.

  The worst part was that Cleary now had physical proof of the program. It would give him credibility if he leaked the story to someone outside OneMarket…

  He had to be caught before that happened, whatever it took.

  Josh did some quick calculating. Judging from the easing of the Ketamine’s effects, they probably had a ten-minute head start on him. No way could he catch up with them himself. He clenched his fist and groaned with frustration when he realized Security was probably his only shot at catching them now. And that meant involving Harris.

  “Shut the door.” He reached for the phone.

  Simon Harris leaned back against the booth’s burgundy leather upholstery and sipped his after-dinner cognac in the tranquil candlelight. He gazed across the table at his date, letting his eyes pause and linger where they would. Anita wasn’t much of a conversationalist, which was fine with him after a typically intense day running OneMarket. But she was gorgeous in an elegant way, not in the hard, glittery way that was so much in fashion now. She knew how to dress to please him, and she was inventive.

  He watched the candlelight flicker, warming and emphasizing her cleavage in her halter-cut, softly shimmering ivory column dress. Her straight, gleaming ash-brown hair just brushed her tawny, bare shoulders, a tantalizing hint at how she would look later in his bedroom, without the dress. As if she knew what he was thinking, she met his eyes with a confident, almost challenging, look as she raised her glass of cognac for a languid sip.

  His muted cell phone vibrated in its belt clip, tarnishing his mood. He gestured to Anita and glanced at the phone’s display. Looked like a OneMarket number, but one he didn’t recognize. He hoped he could dispatch it quickly. Tonight he wanted to put business aside and enjoy what Anita had in mind.

  “Harris here.” He hoped his curtness would alert the caller to get to the point right away.

  “This is Tyler. We have a problem.”

  “Can this wait until tomorrow?” Simon asked, though he guessed the answer from Tyler’s tone.

  “No.”

  He held his hand over the phone. “I need to take this—privately.” Anita nodded, picked up her purse, and headed for the ladies’ room. He didn’t bother to hide his irritation. “All right. What is it?”

  Tyler quickly explained what had happened, emphasizing that he’d last seen Cleary running off with Weston—and the Genesis device. Simon wished he weren’t in a public place. He wanted to rage, to pound his fist on the table. The situation had spun from risky to out of control in the span of a day. All the money he’d invested in this, and it hadn’t simply failed, it threatened to take OneMarket down with it. “You have no idea where they are?”

  “No, Cleary spiked me with Ketamine and I saw them go, but I couldn’t chase them.”

  “Shit. Hold on a minute, I want to talk to Jenkins.” He stabbed at the buttons to hold the call, then speed-dialed the number.

  “Hello, Maria speaking.”

  “It’s Simon. We have a problem, and I need your take on our exposure.” He quickly relayed Tyler’s story. “Cleary has the device—and Weston, last anyone saw. What if he goes public with the story, even the fraction of it that he was privy to? How bad is it?”

  There was a pause at the other end. Simon figured he probably knew this answer, too, but hoped that Maria could think of some loophole. In all her time with the firm, he’d never known her not to find an angle.

  “It would be a disaster if this got out without a strong mitigation plan—especially since he has physical proof. But if I recall, he has some skeletons in his closet, doesn’t he? Wasn’t he disgraced over something in his past? Given time, we could probably build a case of professional jealousy and discredit him that way—provided we’ve been careful about the paper trail as I advised.”

  “Well, it’s better than nothing. Get started on preparing that approach. There’s a good chance we’re going to need it.”

  “What about Weston? How much does he know?”

  Simon shifted in his seat. “We don’t know. Best to assume the worst and think of an approach in the event he tries to talk about it.”

  “That’s going to be more difficult. If he and Cleary work together, discrediting Cleary won’t be enough.”

  “Well, start thinking about it. That could be the scenario we have to deal with.” Simon hung up abruptly and returned to Tyler. “I’ve got Maria working on the fallback plan. It’s critical there’s no paper trail. I suggest you go through all your records—and anything Cleary would have entered—and make damned sure there’s nothing to find. Bad enough Cleary has the device, but if we have to resort to this, and you’ve missed something—”

  “What’s her plan?”

  “If Cleary says anything, we say that he made up the story out of professional jealousy. Then we bring up his past and smear him.”

  “I can make it so he can’t say anything.”

  Simon was taken aback. What was he suggesting? As he was trying to come up with a guarded response, he saw Anita returning. Distracted by Tyler’s remark, he brusquely waved her off again. She gave him a stony look and turned away, back toward the ladies’ room. He was afraid to ask, but he couldn’t let it lie. “What do you mean?”

  “If he can be caught and subdued, I can reprogram Simmons’ device and implant him with it. Just to counteract his memories of the program and Weston—the things we don’t want him to leak. It wouldn’t take me long to prepare.”

  Simon considered the implications. If they could pull it off, it’d be cleaner than trying to mop up after the fact with Maria’s approach—and it could also solve the problem of Weston talking. If Cleary couldn’t back him up, and there was no paper trail… “All right. Get it ready. I’ll call Security. If he’s still on the property, we have a chance at getting him, and Weston’s device.”

  Simon hung up and speed-dialed the head of OneMarket Security. “Victor? It’s Simon. We’ve got a serious problem. This is your number one priority. Dr. Cleary has exceeded his authority on a confidential matter, and we have reason to believe he has one of our employees with him, Mark Weston. If they’re anywhere on site, detain them, whatever it takes—with your own people. If you can only get one, Cleary is the priority. Do not involve the police. Update me every half hour until you either find them, or confirm that they are no longer on OneMarket property. Am I clear?”

  CHAPTER 56

  Molly wheeled into the visitor’s parking area in front of the OneMarket building and killed the engine. Sheila released her death grip on the door handle and absently rubbed her fingers, whitened and stiffened into a claw from the frantic ride over.

  “Well, we’re here. But I don’t quite know what to do next.” Sheila looked up at the imposing glass façade of the building. She felt small and helpless.

  “We’ll figure something out.” Molly’s smile wasn’t as confident as the tone she tried to use. “Let’s start with the front desk.”

  Sheila opened her door and got out. She felt slightly better outside the cramped confines of the tiny car. Sirens blared in the distance, then moved closer.

  Molly got out, shut the door and turned her head in the direction of the sound. “That sounds really—”

  As they stood next to the car, the sirens grew closer still and then they saw flashing red lights cutting through the dusk on their way to the OneMarket campus. A small fire rescue truck and an ambulance sped to the front entrance of the building and braked sharply. Two firemen jumped out of the small truck and dashed into the lobby with their emergency gear. The ambulance drivers got out their gurney and followed close behind.

  “Oh, Jesus. Mark!” Something was wrong—they’d tried to hide it from her. Envisioning Mark sick enough to need an am
bulance, Sheila ran after the emergency workers into the lobby, not hearing Molly’s attempts at alternate explanations.

  She wanted to grab at the men and get answers. Was it Mark? How bad was he? But she held herself back; delaying them could put Mark in worse danger. Unnoticed in the turmoil, she stood near the front desk and eavesdropped.

  The uniformed security guard, a skinny young guy who looked barely strong enough to carry a gun, was on the phone. He nodded his head quickly, repeatedly, appearing anxious to get off the call. “Yes, I’ll keep an eye out for him, but the ambulance is here now… I’m not sure. Reyes called down here and said we needed one… Yes, I’ve gotta go. I’ll call you back.” He addressed the firemen as they approached the front desk. “We have someone on the third floor in one of the conference rooms. I can draw you a quick diagram. Normally I’d go with you, but I’m under special orders to stay at my post.” He pulled out a piece of paper and hastily scratched a crude route on it. He pointed with his pen. “Here’s the room. Jeff Reyes should be there with the person—he called it in.”

  “Anything else?” The first fireman grabbed the sheet of paper.

  “That’s all I know. Sorry.” The security guard shrugged.

  “OK.” The fireman gestured at the others to follow him, then strode quickly to the elevator.

  Reyes! Sheila turned to Molly. “He said Reyes, didn’t he?”

  “I think so.”

  “It’s Mark, I know it.” Sheila shivered as she watched the rescue squad get into the elevator.

  “Is that police or fire? Sounds like it stopped right in front of the building.” Weston started to get out of his 4Runner.

  Evan put a hand on his arm, gently but firmly. “Don’t.”

  Weston pulled his arm away and glanced at him sharply. “Why not?”

  “They may be looking for us. I gave Tyler the same thing I gave you. It must have worn off, and he’s called for help.” He looked around the parking lot, the growing darkness pierced by pole lights at the end of each row. There were still some cars, but he didn’t see anyone walking around. “You feel OK to drive now?”