The Fair & Foul (Project Gene Assist Book 1)

by Potts, Allie

  Juliane's mind felt as if it was hit with a sledgehammer as she was pulled violently from Betty’s bedside. It began to throb, quickly outpacing the pulsing sound of the machines as the doctor and nurse rushed the bed out toward an operating room. Betty hadn't been out of view long when Juliane felt her private network connection sever as sharply as if she had been physically cut in two. Juliane knew then that Betty would never wake again.

  Juliane felt another pain crest, but this one was more distant, and her shoulder made contact with the tile floor. Her body screamed as the pain spread and intensified. Just like when she had broken the connection to Louis, it felt as if she had a gaping wound in her brain, except, this time, it felt even rawer around the edges. Juliane's vision began to blacken. No! she thought. Not again! Never again! She did not know if she was fighting against the impending unconsciousness or the lack of the network. She no longer cared.

  Twenty Eight

  Juliane blinked to clear her blurred vision as she pulled herself back upright. A handful of personnel in scrubs rushed past, barely noting her presence. As she made her way down the hall, Juliane was hit by waves of vertigo. She was in a hospital, but she couldn't quite remember the reason she was here. Her shoulder throbbed as she crashed into the hallway railing. She wondered if it might be better to take a day to recover before returning to work. Juliane took more confident steps as her sight cleared. She would have Stuart begin rounding up the task force. The room spun again.

  A patient, a young boy, was wheeled past her, strapped in a bed. A dull drone emitted from machines as they passed. Her vision blurred again as another wave of nausea hit. She hadn't felt this lethargic since she first severed the connection with Louis. A man in a white coat, looking much like a troll doll, rushed by. "Stay with me, buddy," he pleaded with the child.

  "Are you all right, Ms.?" another male voice asked.

  Juliane couldn't answer. It was as if the act of moving her lips required too much energy. The droning sound of the machine ceased, only to be replaced with a ping that reverberated in her ears. If she didn't get out of here soon, Juliane was certain she would go mad.

  "I need you here stat," shouted the troll doll from down the hall. "We've got a reading." The person hovering near Juliane turned and sprinted toward the patient.

  The sense of disorientation ebbed Juliane as the trio passed beyond a large pair of swinging doors. Why did the boy make her think of Betty? Wasn't her son two? It had been ages since she last saw them, or was it? Juliane turned and took a hesitant step forward, keeping thought of her own office out of her mind. A thought danced in the back of her mind just out of reach. There was something she was supposed to do. Something she needed to remember. But it was like the information was on another side of a wall. Getting around that wall would require a significant effort, and all she wanted to do was go home and sleep until next week.

  As drained as she felt, suddenly Juliane had the strangest compulsion to seek out Chad. It had to have been even longer since she had last seen him. She fought through the exhaustion. Did the hallway lights flicker? With each step further away from the double doors, her vision cleared. By the time she made it to the exit, the ground was once again stable beneath her feet.

  Twenty Nine

  Juliane realized that she hadn’t bothered to confirm that Chad was still with the ACI before making the drive from the hospital. She accessed the online directory and released a breath as she spotted Chad's name in its listing. A specific office was not listed, but at least he should still be on the campus. Somewhere. Their old building would serve as a good starting point for her search.

  As she made her way to the Gould building, she was struck by how every brick, every flower, along the ACI campus looked just as it had the day she left, as if the campus itself was impervious to the passage of time. A crow pecked at something on the ground as she reached the building's entrance, flying away only when she was close enough she could have picked it up had she wanted to.

  Entering the building, she felt hollow. She had spent so many years here, but it felt as if her memories of the place could fit into the span of a handful of days. Lost in her thoughts, she was startled when she heard someone approach from behind her.

  “Dr. Faris? Is that you?” Chad stood inside the hall. His disheveled hair surrounded his head like a fiery halo, making him appear even more like the stereotypical mad scientist than she remembered. His arms were filled with stacks of Manila folders covered in streaks of coffee stains. A pair of coffee cups balanced precariously on top.

  “Chad! Just the person I was looking for!” Juliane smiled as Chad shifted his burden, jostling one of the cups and sending beads of coffee flying. At least some things never changed, she thought. She should have visited ages ago. Her smile faded. Why hadn't she looked him up over the last few years? She had always meant to, but it was as if every time she scheduled a moment to reach out, something would come up that required her immediate attention and the urge would evaporate.

  “What happened to you? You just vanished. People here thought you might have died.”

  “Really? What were they saying?”

  “Well, some people thought you must have had another episode while at home and got eaten by random dogs; other people thought you must have perished in one of your crazy experiments.”

  "That's one of the reasons I don't like to listen to gossip." Juliane laughed. "Ridiculous," she snorted. "What about you? What did you think happened?”

  Chad paused before answering, and when he did, it was without humor or recrimination. “I just assumed that when opportunity knocked, whatever it was, you didn’t hesitate to answer.”

  Juliane blinked. She must have been staring. She felt a heat rise in her cheeks and fought to control it. Stop it, Juliane, she thought. It was only Chad. There was no reason to react like this. After all the time they had spent together, of course he knew her. It was a good thing Betty wasn't with them. She no doubt would tease her relentlessly.

  Juliane felt her throat begin to close. It suddenly felt like there were bags of sand in her lungs, holding her down, preventing her from drawing a full breath. A piece of the mental wall chipped away as an image of Betty on a hospital bed flooded her mind. Her ears rang with the distinctive sound of a monitor's flat-line alarm. Pieces of the last few days and Betty's final words came rushing back.

  Chad caught Juliane as she staggered, causing the coffee cup to spill onto the floor.

  "Are you okay?" he asked.

  Juliane's head pounded as she struggled to stand up again, but as quickly as the headache's onset began, it faded away to something like the pins-and-needle tingle of a limb allowed to fall asleep. Chad's arm shifted under hers. Juliane pushed herself away. The vision of Betty in the bed remained behind her mind's eye, but it was muted. Like a dream. Colors were grayer. Details blurred. It was almost as if she hadn't even been in the room with her at all.

  "Sorry about that. I must have slipped," she answered.

  Chad scanned her face. "Are you sure?"

  "Betty told me that you might have some of her research material.” Juliane changed the subject.

  Chad’s face tightened. “She isn’t going to be asking for it herself, is she?”

  Juliane shook her head, unable to voice the words.

  Chad’s shoulders crumpled, sending a few papers to the floor where they landed dangerously close to the coffee spill. As they both bent down to pick them up, Chad whispered, “Come to my apartment later tonight.”

  When they were both standing once again, Chad spoke at regular volume, “Nadia is going to be so upset that she didn’t get to see you.”

  “You two are still together?" Juliane tried to smile, but her lips refused to turn up. "I’m happy to hear that. Have you made it official yet?”

  Chad shook his head. “Nothing formal yet, but that’s her choice. She knows I will be ready to take that step whenever she is.”

  Juliane su
ppressed the urge to sigh. She wasn’t surprised at all that Chad was content to wait for the lady to do the proposing. As much as she used to think Nadia treated her assistant like a doormat, she now could see he had always needed someone strong and opinionated. Chad smiled, and for a moment, Juliane wondered what it might have been like if their relationship had ever taken a romantic turn.

  Chad glanced down at his wrist. “You wear a watch now?” she asked, stunned. Not only was it a watch, but it was an antiquated analog version.

  “Well, you were always the one reminding me about how late I always was. Nadia, apparently, thought the same. She gave me her grandfather’s watch a few Christmases ago. I find there is something nice about knowing that its sole function is to tell time and only requires a few spinning gears.”

  “But it’s just so . . . so . . . unnecessary.”

  “Perhaps, but every now and then, I’ve found it to be nice to do things the old fashioned way.” Chad glanced down at his wrist again and blanched. “Unfortunately, bad habits are hard to break. I really have to run these papers over to the team I am working with now. They have me running simulations on extreme climate change. Did you know that the Sahara went from green to a desert in a flash?”

  “How thrilling for you. Do you think anyone will mind if I stick around the building a little longer?”

  Chad hesitated in mid-stride. “I don’t know if that's the best idea. If the wrong person saw you, who knows how they might react."

  As Juliane made her way back to her car, she tried to call Stuart to see if the factory had sent in any further report. However, each time she attempted to instigate the call, she would be hit with another wave of vertigo. She decided that she would find a place to rest while she waited for the business day to end and Chad to return home. There has to still be a few cafes nearby. She could not remember the last time she ate.

  Rose light from the setting sun blanketed the parking lot as Juliane arrived at Chad's address. The apartment was located in a complex about twenty minutes away from the campus. It was a nice enough space, a definite step up from traditional student housing, with well-manicured common areas and clean lines.

  Juliane spotted movement from one of the upper balconies. A short minute later, Nadia emerged, gesturing her inside while holding a finger to her lips.

  “Why the whole cloak-and-dagger routine?” asked Juliane as the door closed behind her.

  “Chad should be here in the next few minutes. I'll let him explain.”

  Nadia fidgeted under Juliane’s glare. “He shouldn’t be too much longer. Would you like me to make up some tea while we wait?”

  Chad let himself into the apartment just as the kettle began its whistle. Nadia poured the steaming liquid into a pair of cups. To Chad she said, “It’s a beautiful night. I think I will go out for a bit while you two have a chance to get reacquainted.” Without waiting for a response, she leaned over to kiss Chad briefly before grabbing her purse off the counter and departing.

  “So what's with all the secrecy?” Juliane asked.

  “Betty did tell you what she was working on, right?”

  “She explained her theory to me.”

  Chad paused before taking a quick sip of his tea. “And you think she was paranoid?”

  Juliane left her cup on the end table and sat down on the couch across from Chad. “I am not as convinced that the situation is that dire. Alan would never design something he couldn't control." There was something else she needed to remember. Something else Betty wanted her to do. What was it?

  Chad placed his teacup back on the countertop with care. “Betty seemed to think that was exactly what he did.”

  Pressure began to build behind Juliane's temples. Not another headache, she thought. It was harder to think straight when all she wanted to do was lie down. She needed something tangible to focus on. The teacup. “Maybe she allowed their marital problems to influence her opinion.”

  Chad shook his head. “That was my initial thought as well when she first discussed her theory with me, but think about it this way. What if what might appear to the rest of the world as a careless mistake wasn’t so careless?"

  “You mean, what if he purposely designed the virus to mutate so that he could intentionally put the entire population at risk?”

  “Exactly.”

  Thirty

  Chad handed Juliane a small metallic keychain fob. "Betty asked me to give you this."

  It didn't look like much. It was just a small tube of plastic connected to an empty key ring with some unknown company's name printed on it. She turned the fob over and noticed a break in the material. On a hunch, she pulled at the plastic. A portion of the device broke away, exposing a contact plate. It was one of those old throwaway flash drives. No one used those devices anymore. Juliane closed her fist around the exposed metal surface. Immediately, a command prompt appeared behind her mind’s eye, followed by a series of ones and zeroes. She issued a quick command, and the data packets were transformed into large high-definition photos of Betty’s son in various poses.

  Chad looked at her expectantly. Juliane shrugged and opened the next file.

  File after file had been more of the same. Juliane began to uncurl her fist; Betty must have given Chad the wrong storage drive by mistake. Another wave of vertigo hit, and Juliane ground her teeth in frustration as she sank further into Chad’s couch. When the room finally stopped spinning, Juliane noticed a framed picture placed on a nearby end table. Alan was behind a podium presenting something unclear while Chad and Betty looked on from the sidelines.

  The shot must have been taken shortly after Juliane had left the team to join Damien’s group. Chad looked embarrassed to be in the spotlight while Betty looked positively aglow; her eyes were locked on Alan with rapt attention.

  Juliane's headache made it feel as if her brain were being torn in two. She felt a pain that was almost electric run down her spine, breaking her connection with the device. Juliane ground her teeth. There has to be something on this drive worth all this trouble, she thought. She clenched her fist again, and the files immediately reloaded. Once again, Juliane saw image after image of a young boy. His pale gray-blue eyes shone in the sunlight, carefree and happy. His eyes mirrored Betty's in shape, although his were a different color, but Betty's son was two. This boy was clearly a few years older.

  There was something about the eyes. They just seemed wrong. On a whim, Juliane sent a command to change his iris color so that they would truly match Betty's. A few pixels in the image shifted. She adjusted the hue by a few points. Suddenly, the photo in her mind dissolved and was replaced by documents detailing out research notes and equations. Juliane sucked in her breath as the balance of files were decrypted. Another piece of the mental wall chipped away.

  She glanced at Chad, and her brow wrinkled as she attempted to make sense of the scrolling data.

  “Well?”

  “I'm not sure, but I think I am looking at a basic radiant energy transformation equations. But if that's what it is, why go to all the trouble of encrypting the formula?" The pictures dissolved, and Juliane felt lightheaded as the pressure of her headache eased. She blinked several times as Chad's face came back into focus.

  “She stopped by here a few nights ago in a panic. I tried to get her to tell me what the matter was, but all she would say was that I was to give that to you and only you. You know how Betty used to always want us to go out to celebrate this, that, or another thing?”

  Juliane nodded, the corner of her lip turning up at the mention of the memory.

  “She was like that. Except not like that at all." Chad shook his hands. "Ugh. How to explain it . . . It was as if she had all the same intensity, but all the life had been drained away.”

  Juliane thought back to Betty’s fierce reaction at the office when she had told her that she wouldn’t be able to help. Betty had seemed like an animal backed into a corner.

  “She looked awful, th
ough," continued Chad. "I asked her if she wanted me to call Alan to come and get her, but all she would say was that she had already been away too long and had to get back." Chad picked his cup up and took another sip. "She looked terrified." He stared into his mug as if reading tea leaves. "I hate to say anything, but you look a little like that too.”

  Juliane traced her finger around the rim of her teacup, the file drive still clutched firmly in her other hand. “I've been under a bit of stress recently, but I was there, Chad. I was at the hospital when she died." Juliane sighed. "Alan wasn't. She had a bad reaction to the drugs the doctors gave her. It was a tragedy, not a conspiracy.”

  Chad jumped up. “I'm sorry, but I think you are wrong.”

  “Why?" Juliane allowed herself a half smile. "Because you think Alan is an egotistical maniac?”

  “Well, you have to agree he does have more than the average ego.” Chad began to pace around the room.

  “True, but that doesn’t automatically mean that he is planning genocide.” Chad spun to face her.

  The door burst open, and Nadia came running in. Whatever Chad was going to say was lost in her entrance. “I know I promised you that I would let you have your meeting in private, but you have to see what is on the news,” she pleaded.

  Chad pressed a small button located on the wall, and a piece of artwork hanging nearby transitioned into a video display. Juliane toggled on her own newsfeeds in her mind to run as a supplement to the images on the screen.

  “Any particular channel?” Chad asked Nadia.

  “He’s on all of them.”

  The screen showed the exterior of the same hospital where Juliane had been not long ago. Louis sat in a wheelchair near a makeshift podium, supported on one side by a team of doctors dressed in the traditional white lab coats. Each stood straight, unafraid of the camera. Another man dressed in a sharply tailored business suit stood by Louis’s other side. Juliane assumed this man must have replaced Durham in the role of go-to lackey.