by M. V. Kallai
“Yes, of course,” Camden said and scrunched his eyebrows together.
Ganesh looked around quickly to see that no one was paying any attention to them, and then pulled a thick folded envelope out of his jacket. Camden took it and quickly shoved it into his own suit jacket. Ganesh raised his eyebrows and smiled. “I told you she was good,” he said.
“I think I’ll visit the men’s room before lunch,” Camden said.
“I didn’t think you’d be able to wait the rest of the day to read those,” Ganesh laughed.
Camden rushed to the far corner of the room and went into the small bathroom and locked the door.
Minutes later, he was saying out loud to himself, “He’s done it, I can’t believe it. He’s actually done it. And it’s tested with positive results.” Camden was grinning from ear to ear, shuffling the five pages in his hands and reading them over and over, when there was a knock at the door. Camden looked up from the papers and realized that someone might have to legitimately use the facility. He folded the papers again, tucked them inside his suit and exited the room smiling at the three engineers who had formed a small line outside. Camden walked back over to Ganesh and shook his hand. Quinn, who had returned from the cafeteria, found the gesture rather odd and noted it. While the team ate, Camden felt a new sense of confidence in his own project. “If Lee can do the impossible, then why not me,” he thought.
Down in sub-basement of the weaponry unit, Charisa was having a bad day. Her amplifiers proved to only provide minimum improvement to the biomachines response system, and the self-destruct program didn’t work at all. It was immediately recognized as a threat to the overall system and overridden. Damn her foolproof programming. Andreas could do nothing to help her except to intercept Major Magner when he made his rounds. When Mace was finally able to catch up with her, she reluctantly gave her progress report.
“I told you it would be a damn waste of time!” Mace yelled at her. “Now get upstairs and do your job of making the Phase Three biomachines better than these useless Phase Ones. Charisa nodded, and swallowed hard to fight back tears of frustration. Mace walked by her and smacked her on her backside. “Now go!” he yelled again.
Andreas saw their interaction and came over in a rage and stood face to face with his superior with his fists clenched at his side.
“Is there something you want to say to me, Soldier?” Mace shouted, spewing drops of spit at Andreas. Andreas just stood there red-faced, fighting hard to keep his temper under control. Attacking a major was not a smart move, no matter what the motive.
Mace smiled his snake-like smile. “I didn’t think so. Now get back to work and stay the hell out of my face!”
Andreas stormed away and seriously considered setting two of the biomachines loose in Mace’s office. Charisa slumped down in her office chair and stared at her hands. She felt so helpless, like she was trapped in some sort of sick nightmare.
An hour later, Andreas went to her office to check on her and to also share some news. Charisa wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck. He stroked her hair and kissed her on her head.
“I could kill that son of a bitch, Magner,” he said, just above a whisper.
“Yes, I wish we could, but then we’d probably never find Luke,” Charisa replied. Andreas put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her slightly away from him. He looked deep into her eyes.
“Charisa, I didn’t mean literally kill him, but I think you did.”
She turned away from him and returned to her chair.
“Of course I didn’t. I’m not capable of that,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as Andreas, “It’s just that every time I see him, I feel this hardness in my chest, you know? I think about it sometimes…what it would be like to see him suffer. It’s a satisfying thought. Should I be ashamed?”
Andreas went to her and held her hands in his.
“Sometimes I forget how much worse the major is to you than to anyone else. And if you are ever in a position to make him suffer, it will be well deserved.”
Charisa nodded, somewhat comforted. Then she took a deep breath.
“Oh, what a horrible day,” she said, “I failed with my amplifiers and I have to get a message to Luke that his programming failed too.”
“We’ll find Luke, he can’t be far, and the two of you will find a way to tame those biomachines. Today was just a bad day. You haven’t failed; you just need more time.”
“At least I have you,” Charisa said and managed a smile for him. “When you came in, you looked like you wanted to tell me something.”
“Yes, but it may not be good news and I don’t want to make your day any worse.”
“I’m fine, really. Tell me.”
“When I walked away from Major Magner earlier, I was so angry that I went down to where the first Phase One biomachines are chained in their cells. I wanted to see how many there were that we could use, unnoticed for Luke’s next self-destruct test.”
“How many?” Charisa asked.
“Oh, there are enough, for now, about two hundred actually. But I also found twelve empty cells. We have been so tight on space for housing the biomachines, I don’t think twelve cells would be empty that far back in the sub-basement by accident,” Andreas said.
“What are you saying? Do you think they were taken?”
“I don’t know of any other explanation.”
“Do you think they are already attacking Tyrine?” Charisa asked then shook her head. “No, maybe they are just in a separate training area.”
“Wherever they are, they are not where they should be. And whoever is responsible for them knows that no one ever goes back there. The whole division is too concerned with building the new housing facility outside, and training Phases Two and Three.”
“Well, I can guess who is behind it,” Charisa said.
“Magner,” Andreas replied. “That makes the situation more dangerous than we thought.”
“Andreas, try again to find that nurse. I’m going to write to Colonel Ganesh again,” she said.
“I’ll try, but I have a feeling we are searching for a ghost. I think you should be up front with Colonel Ganesh. Just tell him what you know.”
“No, I’m afraid to trust anyone in TRU. If I tell him, I might be the next person to end up missing or dead.”
“Think about it, Charisa. We are running out of options and we need his help. You need to decide how much you are willing to risk to stop the biomachines from being set loose…and to find Luke.”
“I’ll think about it,” Charisa said softly.
“When you are finished working, call me and I’ll take you home,” Andreas said and went back to work training Phase Two biomachines.
General Pike was upstairs making his visit to the space travel branch as promised. Ganesh introduced him to the other engineers assigned to the project. Camden explained the plans with a smug scientific sophistication, as he knew the general wouldn’t possibly grasp the jargon & concepts. Pike seemed pleased with the work that had been started, in spite of Camden’s attitude, and said so to Ganesh, before he left. General Pike motioned for Sergeant Quinn to come with him when he walked out. Once they were behind closed doors in the general’s office, he asked,
“So, Agent Quinn, what do you think of all this?”
“Believe it or not, I think it could work. Rhys Krell’s contribution was vital. It was a good call to bring him in. Camden wouldn’t have come to the adjustments on his own,” Quinn replied.
“Good. What about Ganesh?”
“I followed him last night to his home. He had a visitor arrive at 3:27 and leave at 3:49. I kept my distance in case she is of the same caliber as me. I snapped a picture of her. It’s in my daily report along with the notes from Camden’s work today.”
“Who do you think this woman is?” Pike asked, thumbing through the notes Quinn had just handed him, and thinking of the mysterious nurse that had appeared in the thick of the biomachine chaos.
“Don’t know. I ran her picture through the database and she has no Daxian identity. So, she is either from Tyrine or…as I mentioned before, like me.”
“Good work, Quinn.”
“Thanks. Have you made a decision on when you plan to eliminate Ganesh?”
“I think we’ll let this all play out a little longer. I need Camden Riles to build that machine and he’s too close to falling off his rocker to lose Ganesh, too.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Have a good evening, Agent Quinn,” Pike said.
“And you, General,” Quinn said and left to return to his duty, shadowing Colonel Ganesh.
Chapter Fifty
Mixture 266
Two weeks later, Sergeant Bearden Leitner had successfully identified two of the Phase Two biomachines with completely dissimilar origins for Mace Magner. They tested together without incident and Major Magner was ecstatic. It meant moving forward with General Pike on their test drop in the small village of Maile, at the Tyrinian border, where resistance recruiting and attack planning were known to take place. The weaponry unit was rapidly running out of time to prove itself a success and a small victory would put the program back on track. Mace seemed pleased with Bearden for the first time since he demanded that he gain him access to Tripple Laboratories; a task that Bearden had yet to accomplish.
Over at Tripple Laboratories, Dana was waking up and getting ready to start her day. It was 6:00 in the morning when she made her way out to the main lab. She was surprised to see Bearden standing there with Lee, setting up rows and rows of glass tubes. Even though Lee had a staff of lab technicians on standby through the security hall to do this sort of thing, he had not called upon them since Dana had been using the lab as sanctuary for the questionable murder she’d committed. Lee half acknowledged her as she walked over to them.
“Good morning, Dana,” Bearden said.
“You’re here early,” she said.
“Yeah, couldn’t sleep,” Bearden replied. He felt guilt every time he looked at her. This had become the only place where he felt good anymore and he didn’t want to lose that, but Mace would likely kill him or destroy his career if he didn’t bring him an access code soon.
“What are you doing, Lee?” Dana asked. “It looks like you are setting up the lab to test more re-animation mixtures.”
“Exactly. I have prepared mixtures 263 through 267.”
“When did you find time to do that?” she asked.
“You and Bearden have kept the embryos thriving and the biomer virus code takes time to react,” Lee said. “Therefore, I had time.”
“Oh. So, I guess Bear and I will be preparing tissue samples for testing today?”
“Not me. I have to go to the unit soon. But I’ll help you get started,” Bearden said.
After they finished labeling the tubes, they went back to Lab B, where the tissue samples were kept. Lee had already set up a cart with large glass bowls filled with bits of yellowing flesh in a clear fluid. As they wheeled it down the hall, Dana asked Lee,
“Did you ever find that missing vial of the virus code?”
“No. It doesn’t make sense. Bearden was the only one with access to it and he walked out through the scanner. It would have shown up if he had taken it,” Lee said.
Bearden rolled his eyes. “Not to mention that I wouldn’t have taken it anyway. I thought you trusted me.”
“Yes, but it’s an insurable trust,” Lee stated. Dana giggled and the three went to work placing samples in each labeled tube. It didn’t take them long, all working together, and by 7:00 they were ready to start dropping the mixtures into the tubes. Lee started with five tubes of the same type of genetically altered flesh and tried out each mixture as a preliminary test. Dana and Bearden leaned over the table to watch closely as he dropped 262, 263, 264, and 265 without any change in the tissue. But then, he dropped in 266, and something remarkable happened. The sample twitched. Dana, Bearden, and Lee all froze instinctively and looked at each other in disbelief. No one breathed as Lee dropped more of the mixture into the tube. The flesh moved again and began to gain a pinkish color. Lee looked like he might shed a tear and Dana’s stomach twisted into a knot. Her gut feelings of both excitement and dread seemed to be fighting each other. Bearden, who had not seen this experiment before today, threw his hands over his head and shouted. He was smiling. Dana was not. She knew what was coming and if Bearden stopped “whoo hooing” for a minute to think about it, he would too.
Lee was quiet for a few minutes observing the tube of reanimated flesh. Then he looked at Dana and said,
“Let’s proceed only with mixture 266. I will be in lab B making another batch.”
“Congratulations, Lee,” she said.
“Aww, I have to go now, but I will definitely be back tonight,” Bearden said looking disappointed.
Dana turned to him and sighed, thinking that she would miss him until he returned.
“Hmm…” she said, looking slightly distracted at the pink wiggling cells once more. It hadn’t occurred to her before, but the highlights of the past several weeks were the days Bearden was here in the lab with her. Somehow, just his presence made her life feel somewhat normal.
After Lee mixed up his second batch of ‘266’, he went to his very private lab A, a room he seldom visited and had still not shown Camden, much less Dana or Bearden. He scanned a freezer shelf with labeled tissue samples from dead people, deciding who would be the first lucky one to return to life. His eyes paused on a container labeled “Rosa Lim Riles” and his mind replayed a conversation he’d had with Camden five years earlier.
“I just can’t do it anymore, Lee…hope. Can’t you see I’m exhausted?” Camden had said.
“But when I get the code altered I can create a mixture that will bring them back to life,” Lee said.
“And I thought that’s what I wanted, but she just haunts me. I’m holding on to this fantasy and you are feeding it, dammit! She’s never coming back and I need to be able to function again. I can’t keep living like this. Do what you want in your lab, I won’t try to stop you. Just not with my Rosa. I want her cells destroyed today.”
The look on Camden’s face held such determination that Lee did not try to argue.
“I will, Cam, today.”
“Thank you, my friend.”
Lee’s eyes moved away from Rosa’s cells, still perfectly preserved, and he grabbed Ari’s container.
“He will be first,” Lee told himself. He took Ari’s sample to the mixing room to defrost it.
“Leave the dead in peace, Lee.” Camden’s words echoed in Lee’s head several hours later as he carefully extracted stem cells from Ari’s brain sample.
“That’s just not productive, Camden,” he said out loud, answering the voice in his head. Now that he had found the right mixture, and, along with Dana and Bearden, had developed a suitable womb environment, there was no reason not to move on.
Chapter Fifty-One
Too Soon
Camden paced back and forth in his room, waiting to be escorted to the supper club to meet Lee. He was looking forward to having his favorite meal and telling Lee about his progress with the space-bending machine. Two government nuclear physicists had been brought in this week to consult with Camden, and a glimmer of possibility had appeared in his mind.
To his dismay, when he got to the supper club, he found that Lee was particularly quiet. Camden had done all the talking so far, and though Lee seemed interested in what he was saying, he was standoffish, even for him. This made Camden wonder what he had done. Knowing that Lee wouldn’t talk about his work since the club was still under General Pike’s watch, Camden kept his inquiries very general.
“Lee, is everything at the lab okay?”
“Yes. Yes, it’s fine. It’s been an extremely productive week. My assistants and I have had much to celebrate,” Lee said. Camden felt that familiar twinge of jealousy toward Bearden and the girl, Dana, whom he had yet to meet.
“Anything you can share?” Camden asked, unaccustomed to having to fish for information from Lee.
“No. Not yet anyway. I will tell you when the time is right,” Lee said and averted his eyes.
“Lee, what have you done?” Camden suspected he’d accomplished something big, like finding the magical combination for raising the dead, or something equally disturbing. Nothing less would make him so distant. Camden was glad that Rosa’s tissue samples did not exist anymore for him to use in his terrible experiments.
“You will see soon enough, Cam. I think I’d like some tea,” Lee said, meaning to close the topic for any further discussion. He looked all around the club and Enira, who was standing close by, noticed him right away. She brought over a teapot and her finest selection of teas. Camden watched her graceful movements, the way her hair flowed down her back and how long her legs looked in the dress she was wearing. He missed her, at least the physical part of her. She smiled at him when she noticed his stare. He then turned his head back to study Lee’s expression, which was a mixture of disapproval and self-satisfaction. The rest of the evening was mostly filled with awkward silences and longing gazes between Camden and Enira.
The next morning, Camden and Aldretti went to the thirteenth floor to visit Rhys Krell. He had been in the same mellow mood for a week now. Rita and Terry thought this new private environment was a good change for him. He still shouted at Camden from time to time, but was able to maintain some self-control. This was a good thing for Camden because he had a new request of Rhys.
“Rita, I’d like Rhys to accompany me today to the space travel division and look at the progress of the prototype that he has helped inspire,” Camden said.
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Rita answered. “I know he’s had some good days lately, but being pushed into that kind of environment may be too much.”
