“That would be great. I would certainly appreciate it. If you deliver on that, you’re getting the tickets to La Traviata, anyway.”
Stanley laughed. “Fair enough.”
When he sent her a secure message one hour later, it was confirmed: before Elizabeth became a pharmaceutical sales manager, she had been a sales representative and product manager at LyfeGen, peddling Sustain organ technology to hospitals around the greater Chicago area.
The four Sustain deaths wove an incomprehensible network around LyfeGen and only Stanley and Audrey knew about it. At least, only they had uncovered the web. Audrey was determined to find the spider that had spun it.
Chapter 17
Monica Wolfe
November 7, 2063
“I got your message, sweetheart,” Sam had said over Monica’s comm card. “Sounds to me more like you’re playing hooky. Why don’t you try coming in to work? If you can prove to me that you’re sick, you can go back home. If you don’t come in, well, that’s your problem.”
Never before had the sound of Sam’s voice provided her any feeling close to the relief that washed through her now. The police weren’t coming to get her and hadn’t discovered her ploy. Yet. All the safeguards to ensure that her identity wasn’t found had worked so far.
Monica had declined Sam’s offer to dial in via a hologram so she could prove how sick she was and begrudgingly agreed to go in. She coughed in a feeble attempt to bolster her story before ending the call and going to work.
At NanoTech, she dropped down at her desk and reviewed the list of computer fixes assigned to her for the day. She tapped her foot anxiously, her thoughts racing around the almost disastrous encounter with Carter and his comm card.
Her focus waned as she removed a virus from an engineering employee’s computer that forced it to continuously project images of cats rolling around with catnip. At least the projections were more entertaining than her usual tedious assignments.
She stopped working and stared at one cat that mewed with delight, eyes comically wide open. The sudden buzzing of her comm card made her jump.
“Hello?”
“Please come to my office,” Sam said.
“Right now?”
“No, in two hours.” He paused. “Yes. Of course right now.”
She turned off the computer, letting a frizzy-haired cat flicker away, and trudged to Sam’s office.
“Close the door behind you,” he said.
When she did, he changed the shade of all the windows to an opaque gray.
Unnerved, she sat in the chair in front of him. “What did you need?”
“That’s a good question. What I really want to know is what you need.”
“More time away from you.”
“Not a good time for jabs, Mon.”
“Please stop calling me that. My mother used to say that all the time.”
“I know. That’s what she told me last night.” Sam beamed, quite proud of himself.
“You’re disgusting. You do realize that, don’t you?”
“Pull that stick out of your ass, Mon, and have some fun.” Sam crossed his arms over his stocky chest.
“Can you just tell me why I’m in here?”
He stood up and began to pace back and forth behind a desk full of superhero toys and rotating holograms. He flicked one of the cape-and-tights-clad projections. The character spun wildly around its axis.
“You just want to show off your toy collection, or do you have something more important for me?”
“Again, let me direct that question to you.” He walked around the cluttered desk and stood behind her.
She stared straight ahead at the poster of Superman on the wall.
“What important information might you have for me?”
“I still don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t take that tone with me.” He laid his hands on her shoulders and his fingers kneaded her skin. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” He leaned in close and his bristly cheek brushed hers. An awful stench hung in his breath.
She swatted at his hands. “No, I do not.” Her heart began to pound as her thoughts spun back to her amateurish hacking exploits.
He let go of her shoulders but remained behind her. “I’m smarter than you give me credit for, Mon. You might call me a pig, but pigs are one of the most intelligent animals in the world. Plus, bacon tastes great.”
Monica tensed, her jaw clenched in a grimace.
“I’ve become aware that you’ve been doing some data gathering.” He leaned in again as her eyes widened and her mouth opened slightly. “And you’ve just confirmed that I’m right.” He disappeared behind her again, his hands falling back on her shoulders.
Frozen in fear, Monica gulped.
Sam chuckled. “Here’s the deal: I want you to give me all the data you find. I’m sure I can find some use for it.”
She couldn’t give up all that hard work. The effort, the time she spent to escape him would be wasted on the bastard. “What if I don’t?”
Sam’s fingers dug into her shoulders and Monica withheld a yelp. She tried to lean forward to escape it, but he pulled her back against the chair.
“Get off me, you creep.” She stood up to face him.
He pushed the chair away with his foot, trapping her at the desk. “You don’t want to make me angry, Mon.” He grabbed her hands and held them together to keep her from shoving him backwards. “You know that stealing data is illegal. And you know that you’d be spending a solid decade or two in jail if I turned you in. That would suck, wouldn’t it?”
Monica spat in his face. “Screw you.”
He let go of her and wiped the spit off with the back of his hand. “That’s not very nice.”
“Go to hell.” Monica reached into her pocket to activate the recording function of her comm card, hoping she had correctly memorized the location on her touchscreen. Evidence of his harassment would be necessary. Otherwise, she’d end up just like Noah Choi if she went to HR without anything to back up her case. Sam would then torment her by planting lurid messages on her network message clients and work computer.
He laughed at her as she fumbled around in her pocket. “Come on, Mon. I told you: I’m smarter than you give me credit for. Now look at you, trying to record our conversation as if that’s going to protect you. I’m head of IT, after all. I already disabled comm card recording in here.”
Monica tried anyway. Maybe it was just a bluff. “Pig.”
“I want that data. If you don’t give it to me, I’ll turn you in. You’ll lose your job, whether they throw you in jail or not; I’ll see to that.”
She glared at him. Maybe she could string him along. The data drive was still safe at home. She could parse through everything she’d gleaned from Carter’s card before the lockdown. Then she’d give Sam only the most useless reports and information. She’d keep the rest for herself. That would give her time to figure out who to give the trade secrets and research data in LyfeGen’s pipeline to. When she had the ears of the right people at NanoTech, she would get Sam fired instead.
Then again, if she had no worthwhile information, she’d be tossed aside by Sam and everyone else at NanoTech. But she couldn’t let him know that the data sitting on her drive might not be worth anything to either of them.
She narrowed her eyes. “Fine, you fucking slob.”
He appeared amused. “Play nice, or else.” He leaned in, trying to kiss her cheek.
She slapped him and shoved him backward. “Leave me the fuck alone, starting now, and I’ll get you your data.”
Sam rubbed his cheek. Her red handprint was already beginning to appear. “Who do you think you’re talking to, bitch? Did you not just hear our conversation?”
“You know as well as I do how badly you want that data. You know exactly what it’ll do for you here. Guaranteed promotion, bigger office than this pigsty.”
“Oh, it’s that good, huh?”
Monica crossed her arms. “Of course.”
Sam smirked.
“Well, then, that’s our deal. You leave me alone. Don’t bother me and don’t ever, ever, fucking touch me again. Then I’ll share it with you.”
“It’ll be hard not to touch that body—”
“No,” Monica said, shaking her head. “No.”
Sam shrugged. He reached out his hand to shake hers. “It’s a deal. But it better be as good as you promised.”
She dug her shoulder into him as she walked past him. “Leave me alone.”
Though emboldened by the adrenaline and anger that coursed through her veins, she knew she had not won yet. She might be able to hold him off for a couple of days, but she needed better data.
She needed another plan.
Chapter 18
Matthew Pierce
November 12, 2063
Days after the Grape Street Piano Bar kiss, Matthew still had not mentioned the incident to Audrey and avoided the topic with Jacqueline. He deflected her attempts to bring up his life outside of the lab while they worked together.
But those barriers wouldn’t last long.
Absentmindedly, he ate his oatmeal while Audrey made coffee. The warm scent of the brew invigorated him, though it didn’t distract him from the thoughts and the dull headache that had taken residence in his head. His efforts to distract himself from thoughts of Jacqueline by partaking in an extended happy hour with Jonathan Grieves and one of his friends from regulations, Grant Paul, had only exacerbated his infatuation with the woman. Each time one of the men spoke about his passion for golf and his plan to reduce his handicap during the spring thaw, he couldn’t help but think of how much more exciting it had been to be out with Jacqueline.
Scrolling through news streams on his comm card, Matthew selected a story boasting a breaking revelation regarding LyfeGen. His heart sank. He couldn’t swallow the last lump of oatmeal in his mouth.
A reporter, Beth Childs, had somehow scrounged up the names of the three recent stroke victims who should not have died with their implanted Sustains.
He tried to wrap his mind around who the hell would have leaked this information. Jonathan Grieves would be under too much scrutiny in his position directing regulations. He couldn’t imagine Preston Carter would stab his own company in the back. That only left Jacqueline. She could’ve released the information, but what gain was there for her in doing so? It didn’t make sense.
“Are you all right?” Audrey said. “You look like somebody died.”
“Somebody did.”
“What? Who?”
He ignored her and continued scanning the article as she sidled up beside him to read over his shoulder.
For a second time, his heart stopped and he stared at a single sentence: “All three victims, besides suffering from a preventable stroke and possessing a Sustain organ, were found to have been, at one time or another, connected to LyfeGen.”
Joel Cobb, and now these three, shared a common LyfeGen denominator. It was difficult enough to believe the odds that Joel would suffer a death perfectly preventable by his own implanted invention, but now three more cases, too uncannily similar to be coincidental, had presented themselves. Matthew’s job would quickly become more complicated than he had anticipated.
***
He fumed the whole walk down the hallway toward the office space he shared with Jacqueline. Above him, the simulated sun shone brightly through parting cumulous clouds drifting across a light blue sky. The scent of lilacs permeating the LyfeGen offices did nothing to placate his mood.
Jacqueline looked up from the holoscreen projecting from her computer when he entered. “Something wrong? I could pretty much hear you coming down the hall since you got off the elevator.”
Instead of sitting down, Matthew stood in front of the wide window that separated the lab space from the office. He crossed his arms. “Did you read any of the news today?”
“Of course.”
“Then why aren’t you upset?” He dropped into his chair and picked up the crystal cube on his desk inscribed with “Inventor Award.” The modest trophy was recompense for an invention disclosure that had led to a patent. While LyfeGen reaped the financial benefits of (and owned) its employees’ intellectual property, they deemed these participation awards reward enough for the inventors. There were days Matthew was proud of the trophy and other days where it only seemed to taunt him. Those days, he would debate dashing it across the floor. Today was one of those days.
Jacqueline grinned. “I’m not upset because it means job security.” Her long eyelashes and seductively perky lips were only offset by the slight wrinkles emanating from the corners of her eyes. Though she was just under forty, her vibrant blue eyes exuded a youthful beauty that could only be improved upon and preserved if she got her own Sustain. Matthew sometimes wondered why she didn’t already have one.
He scoffed. “How does this possibly mean job security to you? The whole company could go down in flames.”
“At least we’d be the last to go. If LyfeGen needs anyone right now, it’s the engineers and scientists working on proving to the FDA that we aren’t slobs. It’s those of us who are participating in research who could potentially bring in new revenue. We’re the ones who could save the company, so why would they terminate us?” She smirked, clearly pleased by her own logic. “We might watch Rome burn, but at least we still get to drink the wine.”
There was a fierce cruelty to her words and an arrogance in her eyes that Matthew hadn’t seen the night at Grape Street Piano Bar when her laughter and smiles prevailed above all else.
“You’re crazy.” He remained unsure of whether to laugh or scowl. “You know that, right?”
A scream echoed down the hall and broke the stare between them. “Help!”
They shared concerned looks and wide eyes. Without a word, Matthew took off toward the corner offices, where the sounds of frantic conversation could be heard.
A couple of others had gathered in front of Jonathan Grieves’s office.
Inside, Grieves was splayed across the floor. A woman was crouched beside him, tapping on her comm card as she checked his pulse. On the desktop, a picture of Grieves’s wife and son was face down and a stack of paper documents had been knocked askew.
“Yes, he’s unconscious.” The woman paused. “Yes! Now!”
She ended the call and stared at Matthew.
“What happened?” He pushed past the others still frozen in shock and stared at his manager’s still body. “He needs CPR.” Kneeling down, he pumped on Jonathan’s chest.
The woman shook her head. “I don’t think that’ll help. I think he’s dead.” She stood up and her eyes darted around wildly. “Jonathan’s dead.”
Chapter 19
Matthew Pierce
November 13, 2063
Matthew slammed his hand on his desk, causing Jacqueline to jump in her seat.
“What the hell was that for?”
“Sorry.” He stared at a follow-up story regarding the three Sustain patients’ deaths and their ties to LyfeGen.
The article provided an account of Jonathan Grieves’s history with the company and his own improbable demise. In it, Beth Childs postulated that Grieves had likely suffered an embolic stroke. She was unabashedly skeptical of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the five Sustain stroke victims, and her claims verged on accusations of conspiracy. She referenced data and information that Matthew had thought was entirely secure at LyfeGen. Various employees in regulations and research might know pieces of these stories, but no one should have had access to so much information. “This writer knows everything about us. She’s even hinted at some of the projects you and I are working on.”
Jacqueline appeared curious but not overly concerned. “Did she release the details on the Sustain package updates or the new vectors?”
“No, but she makes some eerily accurate foreshadowing.”
“You’re sure it’s not lik
e a horoscope thing where it’s just some generic prediction that could be true for about everything we do here?”
“I don’t think so.” With a flick of his finger, a projection of the story appeared on Jacqueline’s desk. “Look.”
“I guess so. It does hint at research possibly eliminating the need for regular patient-specific updates for Sustain owners, doesn’t it?”
Matthew nodded.
Jacqueline scoffed as she read. “Although I don’t appreciate her constantly calling it ‘the god organ.’ It’s ironic, don’t you think?”
“How so?”
“Well, first off, gods don’t die.”
Matthew expected her to smirk, but the serious expression on her face showed she had not meant it as a joke. “Fair enough. It doesn’t help us to defuse the whole religious argument, either.”
“Exactly.” Jacqueline read the rest of the article. “Do you think it would be worthwhile for us to find out what’s going on here?”
He’d already begun to look over the previous day’s research data. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that this journalist appears to know too much about us and I don’t like where this investigation of hers appears to be going.”
“Should we talk to Preston about trying to find out who’s providing all this information?”
“Not a bad idea.” Jacqueline adopted a garish Texan accent. “Looks like somebody out there is fixin’ to get themselves fired.”
“Okay, I’ll set that up.”
“Let me take care of that.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Now, don’t look at me like that. You know I’ve got the rank and priority thing going on here.”
He held up his hands in submission. Working with Jacqueline, he often forgot that she did hold considerable sway in the regulations and research departments. She always tended to treat him as a peer, rather than a subordinate, and the intimacy they shared muddled those lines considerably.
“Do you know anything about The Shore outfit mentioned here?”
A lump caught in Matthew’s throat and his heart raced. “The Shore? I—yeah.”
The God Organ Page 14
