The God Organ

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  “Oh,” Carter said. His eyes seemed to twinkle as he narrowed them. She could see that he recognized her, but he was struggling to place her.

  Before he could piece anything together, she turned to leave. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Carter. Have a nice evening.” She had waved goodbye, trying to reinforce the idea that she worked at LyfeGen and that was where he had seen her.

  He had offered her a weak nod and a limp wave goodbye.

  Now, she blinked rapidly to regain focus as she navigated a folder of protocols. Her eyes had a nasty habit of drying out when she became hyperfocused on any of the data for too long. With an ocean of files to wade through, she kept rubbing at her eyes until they were red.

  Her trick of distributing comm cards in the parking garage had paid off in dividends. As she’d planned, the cards had caught the interest of well-intentioned individuals hoping to return them to their proper owner. She jumped in her seat as she unraveled each packet of data like a child on Christmas morning. Data trickled onto her untraceable throwaway comm card throughout the day.

  Each card she had left in the parking garage had a dummy set of photos and files filled with nonsense data garnered from random news streams and sites from the Net. Besides this useless data, each card shared a common file, hidden and encrypted in layers of code. The program she designed utilized a modified version of the near-field communications hack she had attempted to use on Preston Carter in the coffee shop.

  This time, though, she had no set target. Rather, the cards sent her all the data they could obtain in sixty seconds after unsuspecting LyfeGen employees turned them on to try and identify the owners. Then the cards wiped themselves clean.

  The only caveat was that too many individuals with the same mysterious story of a lost comm card might arouse the suspicions of LyfeGen’s data protection specialists. With all the media scrutiny and the recently announced change in management, Monica gambled on the company being distracted from an issue that appeared more innocuous in nature.

  She assembled a set of scripts to prioritize her files for closer examination. Starting off, she delved through files with terms like “Sustain,” “production protocols,” and “genetic delivery updates,” filtering out press releases and other files crafted for public consumption.

  Working through the files, she sorted potential goldmine data, until the early morning sunlight warmed her face through the window. Her eyes grew heavy and her head swam with a bevy of thoughts, emotions, and, most of all, exhaustion.

  Though she dreaded it, she would still need to go back to work. She had to play along if she was going to outfox Sam.

  She showered, ridding herself of the oily feeling that had accumulated during her feverish pursuit of data.

  After dressing, she half-jogged down the stairs of her apartment building. Her hair immediately stiffened and felt frozen to her skin when she went outside, punishing her for her decision not to blow-dry it. She stopped at a self-serve coffee window and ordered a triple-shot espresso, hoping it would reinvigorate her enough to make it through the morning.

  Instead of taking the L-train to work, she walked the scenic route. An icy wind nipped at her nose and whipped her half-frozen hair around her shoulders. The cold air, coupled with the caffeine provided by the espresso, warded off her exhaustion for the time being.

  When she arrived at NanoTech, she trudged to her cubicle and settled into her desk. She tossed her gloves in front of her computer display as the holo booted up. A pile of work orders awaited her on the display. To anyone else, her day appeared to be just another filled with requests to fix a holoscreen or broken comm card syncs to the company network.

  She swiped the work order papers into a corner of her display. Normally, she would begin shoveling through the requests, begrudgingly but diligently.

  Today, she had other objectives.

  Cramer, a fellow IT employee, passed by. “Morning.” He stopped. “You look like hell today.”

  “Thanks. I feel it, too.”

  “Happy hour go a little late, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  He hovered over her. She hoped he might take the not-so-subtle hint to leave.

  Cramer’s mouth opened slightly, but Monica said, “I’m really not in the mood today.”

  He held up his hands defensively. “Geez, sorry. Didn’t mean to offend you.”

  Cramer never acted as obnoxiously as Sam. He often asked Monica about her day and made a habit of engaging each of his coworkers in daily small talk. She had acted harshly toward him, but couldn’t muster up the guilt she should’ve felt.

  For a moment, she wondered if her current mental state was suitable for dealing with Sam. It didn’t take her long to decide that her sour mood was better than he deserved.

  She barged into Sam’s office and rolled her eyes when he fumbled with his comm card to turn off the graphic projection of a voluptuous woman splayed across his desk.

  “Figures,” Monica said. “You would be that asshole who got people fired for looking at this stuff, and you watch the same sleazy garbage at your shitty little desk.”

  “Careful, Mon,” Sam said, the red fading from his cheeks. “Just because you think I need you doesn’t mean I’m not willing to take you down.” He licked his lips. “And you know how I’d like to take you down.”

  Monica ignored the innuendo and handed him one of her extra tracker cards filled with files that she had judged were mostly garbage.

  Sam took it from her and began browsing the collection of documents in the data, his eyes narrowed. “So what am I looking for?”

  “I didn’t bother doing all your work for you, but everything should be there.”

  He didn’t need to know that it wasn’t actually everything. Monica figured he would be content to scroll through each and every file, searching for the gold nugget that would be his ticket to rise at NanoTech. There were plenty of distractions in those files that were sure to keep him busy while she finished identifying the data she had saved for herself.

  Sam’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped as he sifted through the documents. Had she made a mistake? His shock was incongruous with anything she thought she had planted on his card. That kind of fatal error would mean Sam could take the trade secrets to some cow of a manager at NanoTech or the resident patent lawyers. He would undoubtedly take the credit for the finds and rid himself of her. She had no leverage.

  “Whoa,” Sam said. “LyfeGen stuff, huh?”

  Monica looked at him quizzically. The butterflies in her stomach settled. “What did you expect?”

  “Uh, yeah, I mean, that’s right.” Sam regained his composure.

  Gritting her teeth, Monica leaned forward. She frowned at Sam as sweat trickled down his forehead and down his bulbous nose. Despite her exhaustion, the heaviness in her eyes, and the pent-up frustration at her slimeball of a boss, she started to connect the dots. “Who told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  If Sam had had access to her comm card or any of her scripts like he had claimed, he would’ve known exactly who and what her target was. There was no hiding her plans for stealing LyfeGen data from anyone with unrestricted access to her personal computer and comm card.

  Then she remembered how upset Cole had been the night she asked him for his comm card hack scripts. His resentment for her hadn’t dissipated; he must have wanted to exact revenge on her. And this was how he’d done it. Pathetic. “Cole told you.” She scrunched her nose. “That little prick told you.”

  “How am I supposed to navigate all this trash?” Sam scrolled through a mountain of marketing advertisements and old news articles that had been posted on LyfeGen’s website. “You’re going to have to help me.”

  “I’m not helping you with anything,” Monica said. “You want something, you do the work for it.”

  She marched out of the office, back to her cubicle. Because of Cole’s betrayal, she had almost lost the only edge she had over Sam. She would find each and every tid
bit of information and dangle it in front of the product managers. They would drool over the Sustain data. Then again, maybe they would treat her just as terribly as Sam had.

  Either way, Monica decided, she wouldn’t be working for Sam anymore, nor would she return to the IT department at NanoTech. The job market was fierce, but she was tired of subjecting herself to the incompetence and patronizing insolence that Sam embodied.

  “Whoa, where are you going?” Cramer said.

  “Don’t worry about it.” Monica brushed past him as she left the IT department for the last time.

  There was no turning back.

  ***

  Monica hadn’t told Sam she’d left but she doubted he would care. He would likely be slobbering over everything she’d given him, still unaware that he’d been duped. That would give her plenty of time to play detective and amass all the worthwhile Sustain data she could find. She was no biologist or doctor, so identifying what was relevant and important would be a challenge.

  With a pot of tea boiling in her kitchen, her room lit up in an array of projected documents with scientific jargon and images of cells, spiraling DNA helices, and molecular structures. Bare white walls were a temporary posting place for random text files and chemical formulations. Production logs and regulatory maintenance checklists floated in the air around her.

  To Monica, the dense scientific works were a complex puzzle. She recalled some of the basic biology and chemistry courses required of all science and engineering undergraduates, but those memories weren’t an adequate codex for the task ahead.

  She needed to begin somewhere and randomly selected a document. She scanned a chemical formulation for a targeting molecule, the sticks and letters only vaguely familiar. Utilizing the textual context of the document, she reasoned the molecule was one of the ligands that LyfeGen attached to their gene delivery vectors to enable Sustain updates. That must be something useful. She swiped over the document to store it in a virtual folder she had entitled “Update Chemistry and Biology.”

  Another protocol outlined the production of gene delivery vectors incorporating custom genetic information for Sustain updates and she sent the document to the “Update Chemistry and Biology” folder.

  Another document outlined an immense, encumbering procedure for the analysis and splicing of a person’s genetic code as the first step in growing the unique cells for a person’s Sustain organ. That document found its home in “Sustain Fabrication.”

  As the hours waned and the holographic documents littering her room diminished, Monica smiled. She touched the windows overlooking the street to reduce their opacity. The shadow of her apartment building leaned across the street, resting on the buildings opposite her own. Dark blue faded to purple in the sky above her. Winter might have meant shorter days, but she was ready to start diving deeper into her stash of data.

  The first place she studied the documents more closely was in a folder entitled “Personal Correspondences.” That would be the easiest route of introduction to the heavy technical data residing elsewhere in her network of folders.

  She recognized a set of inter-office proceedings and references to various protocols from the documents she had already organized. There were projected displays of recent experiments and office parties alike. Her gaze lingered on one of the office party images taken of the regulations department after an apparently successful FDA approval of “Sustain Update Genetic Delivery System Utilizing Combinatorial Viral Systems.” The corresponding explanation described something about synthetic viruses composed of naturally occurring viral components that Monica didn’t recognize.

  Her mind, lost from the ambiguous scientific terms in the captions, focused on the faces in the pictures. A man with round cheeks and a red nose appeared boisterous and jovial, throwing his hands into the air. She spied a woman with dark brown hair and an athletic, toned frame smiling smugly at the man, appearing to shake her head. Another man, with thick, wavy blond hair, smirked at her, sharing a knowing look. There were two faces she distinctly recognized: Preston Carter and Joel Cobb. Preston’s expression was reserved and conservative while Cobb beamed with a boyish grin.

  Scanning the names of the attendees, she spied another familiar name: Jonathan Grieves. She remembered that he had died due to a stroke, much like Joel Cobb. Other names, like Noelle Jorvich, Bill Shepard, Jacqueline Harper, Garry Bernhardt, Whitney Brayson, and Cory Tilman, were completely unfamiliar to her. But they were in regulations and productions, apparently, so she would be sure to keep an eye out for any documents they might have authored.

  Another name stuck out to her. It belonged to the blond man with the wavy hair and the knowing smile. Dave Stemper. She couldn’t recall his name in the list of Sustain patients and employees who had died of strokes recently.

  To satiate her nagging memory, she searched the Net for the name. A crowd of David Stempers danced across her holodisplay until she began to narrow down the results with a filter for “Chicago” and “LyfeGen.”

  A handsome blond man with a gorgeous set of teeth and a distinctive smile shone across the display. That was her Dave. She read what biographical information she could find about him from a congregation of social media, news streams, school, and industry publications. Nothing struck her as particularly interesting until she came to the cause of his death. Apparently, he had been involved in a single-car accident due to drunk driving. He had allegedly disabled the automated driving module.

  Yes. That was how she remembered the name. She had a difficult time accepting that someone would make such an idiotic choice, but the story only reinforced her notion that most people really were idiots.

  While she scoured other personal correspondences, Dave’s story stuck with her. Would the previous regulations manager truly be so foolish as to drive drunk?

  Intrigued, she refocused her efforts on Dave. She was happily rewarded by finding access to his personal Sustain implantation and update records from a highly secured dataset that she had filed away in one of her folders.

  “That’s weird,” she said aloud.

  She crinkled her brow. Dave had had a Sustain implanted for several years, among some of the first company employees to do so. He had apparently received each successive Sustain update on schedule thereafter. Except, he had missed his last treatment.

  The record explicitly stated that he had refused to go in for the injection.

  Monica checked the date of the scheduled update: it was to be October 10.

  The car accident—Dave’s alleged drunk driving—had taken place on October 16.

  It could be nothing more than a coincidence. But, then again, this was too odd. Did Dave know something?

  The challenge presented by this mystery temporarily distracted her from sifting through the mountains of chemical and biological data. Instead, she delved into the enigmatic circumstances of Dave Stemper’s death. The back of her neck tingled and the fine hairs along her skin stood straight.

  She tried to tell herself she was just being ridiculous. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone had wanted Dave Stemper dead. Maybe there was something more important going on here than stealing data for personal gain.

  Chapter 26

  Hannah Boyd

  November 26, 2063

  Hannah folded a black-and-white dress with a floral print.

  Across the store from her, wearing that exact dress, Alice stood near a wall of shoeboxes. Alice, with her perfectly straight blond bangs and skinny little waist—too skinny, Hannah thought—and perky red lips. Alice, whose voice was just a tad high-pitched and who swayed when she walked, her tiny hips swimming in the air.

  She told a man how fabulous the suit he had tried on looked, with a twirl of her hand and an exuberant squeal of approval.

  The suit hung on the man’s frame like a sail without wind. It was awkward and ill-fitting and Alice probably knew it.

  Hannah hated how the girl lied and, even more so, how those lies yielded greater commissions.
She seethed at the idea that her job rewarded people like Alice. Then, she questioned why she even worked at clothing stores. And, following that, she imagined her life outside of Chicago, if she hadn’t followed a boy into the city and had instead been satisfied with her own path in life. She imagined finishing school and having a good job in an office somewhere with plenty of friends, and sipping drinks at a bar and having an apartment where the nicest furniture wasn’t a five-year-old futon with an ugly brown cover.

  But those were all material things. Father Cooney’s oft-repeated words resounded in the back of her head, promising that the meek would inherit the earth. God was watching. She should not be dwelling on the past but rejoicing in her future. This life, here in Chicago and on Earth, was just a small tribute to God and the life she would have with Him. That made her feel slightly better until Alice giggled and grabbed the shoulder of the man in the suit in an overtly flirtatious manner.

  “Hi there, Bug,” a familiar, cheerful voice said.

  Charlotte stood with a Macy’s shopping bag in her hand and a wool hat atop her head. She pulled Hannah into a deep hug.

  “It’s nice to see you,” Hannah said, the temperature rising in her cheeks. She glanced around nervously at her coworkers.

  No one had surprised her at work before. Then again, there was no one in her life she would expect to surprise her.

  “I told you I’d come shopping with you,” Charlotte said, poking Hannah in the shoulder.

  “You did.”

  “Will you be off soon?” Charlotte said. “I really wanted to go to Father Cooney’s Mass tonight.”

  “I don’t usually—”

  “I know,” Charlotte said. “It’s a Monday night, but those are the best nights for Mass. There’s a smaller crowd and it’s just so much more intimate. It’s like we’re all family there.”

  Hannah paused. “What time?”

  “It’s at eight.”

  “I guess.” Hannah shrugged. “I’m off in half an hour, anyway.”