The Big Ten: The First Ten Books of the Beginnings Series

by Jacqueline Druga

  “But you know.”

  “I know you.” Ellen said.

  “I was going to tell you. I just didn’t know how you’d react.” He opened his drawer and pulled out a shirt.

  “You take care of things Frank. It was only right that you took care of this for me and Beginnings.” She stopped him before he placed on a fresh tee shirt. She took it from his hand. “Hold me.”

  Doing what he was asked, doing what he wanted, he put his arms around her. “I wish I could have taken care of it sooner.”

  Ellen rubbed her face against his chest, feeling the security as he held her. “You did all you could do.”

  A part of Frank knew that to be true. Things happened that could not have been changed. But even doing everything within his power, even taking out George, it would never be enough. Dean was gone. There was no replacing that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  In her dream she desperately and without emotions worked on the woman who so much suffered with the third stage of the virus. Ellen was frustrated, not knowing what to do, suctioning the body fluids that projected from the woman’s mouth, and easing her suffering against her better judgment.

  “Ellen.” She heard Joe’s voice but continued working on the woman. “Dean’s gonna work this section with you.”

  “Good.” Ellen looked up at him. The very first thing she saw was his eyes, his translucent green eyes. She never noticed his face at that moment during the plague, but in her dream she did. Dean. “I’m done with this one.” While Ellen began to wheel the cart away, she heard Joe ramble off something, but she paid no mind. At that time in the plague, Ellen had reached her wits end. When she looked up again, Dean stood there staring at her.

  “Can I help?” He asked.

  “Next one. You can start to prep . . .” She felt him staring. Why? Back then she didn’t want to deal with it but in her dream she wanted to feel that more. “Is there something wrong?” No. Ellen, don’t, do it right this time, even if it is only a dream Remember this time, he was the one that helped Taylor. “Am I doing something wrong?”

  “No, why?”

  “You’re staring.”

  He blushed and lifted his eyes at her. “I’m sorry, I was just thinking, with all that is going on, you’re the first beautiful sight I’ve seen in days.”

  Do this right. Do this right. “Thank you Dr. Hayes. I needed to hear something nice.”

  “No, no, no.” Dean shook his head drastically, starting to laugh at her.

  Ellen, holding the suction hose, tilted her head. “What?”

  “Ellen, stop.” Dean held up his hand. “You’re supposed to tell me that it is a little inappropriate to be flirting. Don’t you remember?”

  “Yeah, but Dean . . .”

  “No, Ellen, do it right.”

  “I don’t want to do it right. I was mean to you that day.” Ellen pushed the cart to the next patient.

  “Yeah but that was you. And then you and I argued about the pillow thing . . .” Dean’s hand waved back and forth. “This is so like you to change it like this.”

  “Christ, Dean, this is my dream.” Ellen shut off the suctioning. “I can change it to do it right.”

  “If you want to do it right, do it correctly.”

  “Why are you arguing with me?”

  Dean walked around the patient and touched her face. “I loved chasing you. You were such a challenge. Come on El, fight with me.”

  “No Dean, I want to be nice to you.”

  “Then I’m not hanging around.” He backed up. “Forget it. If you aren’t going to dream things right, then I’m not going to be in your dreams anymore.”

  “Hey!” Ellen yelled at him watching him walk through the maze of dying people. “This is my dream Dean! You can’t dictate my dream. Dean? Dean?” He was gone. “Dean?” With a shudder, Ellen jumped to a sitting position in her bed. The room was still dark, her breathing heavy. She held her hair. Running her hand over her face, Ellen had to stop and place herself in reality. She had to do that quite often after waking. So many nights since Dean died, she had dreamt of him. A part of her hoped and wished they would never stop.

  “Look, Alex.” Frank walked into the bedroom holding her on his hip. “Looks like you aren’t the only one having a bad dream. Hey, Mommy, can she sleep in here with you?”

  “Um . . .” A bit confused Ellen pulled back the other side of the covers. “Sure.” She looked up at Frank who was dressed. “Where are you going?”

  “I have to go to work.” He laid Alexandra in bed and covered and kissed her. He walked around to Ellen. “I’ll stop by containment and see you in a little while.”

  “Don’t go.” She grabbed his hand. “Look Frank it’s not even six. It’s too early for you to leave. Why are you leaving?”

  “El.” He looked down as she grabbed so tightly to his fingers. “We have to make another gas sweep.” He knelt down. “Johnny spotted ten of them yesterday living in Miles City. We have to take them out.”

  “But you have to wait until daylight.”

  “I have to get things ready.” He leaned down and kissed her. “I have to go.”

  “Frank.” She pulled at his hand.

  “El.” He spoke firmly. “I have to go.” Again he kissed her. “I’ll see you in a little bit.” He pulled his hand from her and moved to the door. Frank stopped and failed to open it. He returned to her bedside. “El, look. I know mornings are the worst for you. If I didn’t have to do this now, I’d stay right here with you. But I can’t. O.K.?”

  Ellen nodded. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m like this.”

  “I understand.” He touched her cheek and walked to the door.

  “Frank . . . Be careful today. Please?”

  Frank looked back one more time at her. “Always.”

  Closing her eyes, Ellen listened to him leave. She lay down on her side, next to her daughter.

  “Mommy, I’m here.” Alexandra whispered.

  “I know you are, honey.” Ellen pulled her daughter closer to her chest, cradling her with her body. “I know you are.”

  ^^^^

  Everyone and anyone who dealt with the clinic gave their try at Ellen. It was a daily task for her trying to avoid their pestering. Containment stayed her safe haven. But she knew it wouldn’t be for long. One of the very few people she allowed to visit her there would eventually corner her. She just never expected it to be Henry. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me.” She spoke softly, her head barely raised from her folded hands.

  “Sorry, El.” Henry shook his head. “It’s time to face the clinic. They need your help.”

  “Who?” Ellen asked sarcastically. “I was the peon over there. I stuck people with needles, remember?”

  “You did more than that and you know it. You worked with Dean.”

  “I pestered the hell out of Dean. I talked his ear off.” She watched Henry shake his head. “No? Come on Henry, I assisted him.”

  “Then if you didn’t do all that much there, then why won’t you go back there and help.”

  “Help what?” Ellen became annoyed.

  “Help them figure out all those years of research Dean did.”

  “There are two doctors and an almost doctor over there, let them figure it out. I can’t go there. I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s too much of Dean. Too much.” Ellen leaned forward placing her elbows on her desk.

  “I would think you would like that, Ellen. Don’t you miss him?”

  “Fuck you, Henry. I miss him with all my heart.” She leaned on her hand.

  “Then be where he was. It’ll bring back good memories.”

  “I don’t want memories. I want Dean. And as long as I don’t go to that clinic, it isn’t quite real what happened.”

  “El.” Henry reached his hand out. “It is real what happened and you know it. It is time, El, to do it. If you don’t want to work at the clinic that’s fine. But help them. You two di
d so much work, there’s so much just lying around that needs to be put together. Help them to do it.”

  Breathing slowly through her nose, Ellen sat back. “Will you go with me?”

  “Where? To the clinic?”

  “No.” Ellen stood up and reached out her hand to him. “You said it was time. It is . . . to face this.”

  ^^^^

  Jason, like a turtle peeking his head from a shell, looked over Johnny’s shoulder as he sat at the computer in the clinic lab. “Nothing?”

  “Nothing.” Johnny rubbed his buzzed head. “I’m telling you Jason, he didn’t write things down correctly.”

  “Oh you’re mistaken. He had to. He was a brilliant scientist.”

  “Yeah well . . .” Johnny stood up from the stool. “A brilliant scientist that thought he was infallible. Basics. Basic medication is all he listed the ingredients for. Other things like the complicated anti-infection agents . . . zilch. No wait, I’m lying. Watch . . .” Johnny tapped on the computer. “This agent, look, he started but never finished.”

  “You’re joking. I saw him pull that one up before. If he didn’t finish, how did he know what he did or didn’t do?”

  “Simple. Just like he told me millions of times and I never took him seriously. He’d point to his temple.” Johnny pointed to his own head. “And he’d say, ‘up here Johnny, all up here’.”

  “This is ridiculous.” Jason through his hands in the air. “Andrea, anything in those journals?”

  Andrea shook her head. “Nothing I understand. I’m clueless. He has little made up names for things. I know what they make, but ‘how to’ is the question.”

  Johnny interjected. “His little ‘Dean’ acronyms are what are screwing us, not the formulas.”

  Jason, in total frustration, ran his hand over his hair. “This man suffered from an intense case of paranoia when it came to his medication. He wanted to be the only one who knew. That is the only thing I can come up with.”

  “Nah.” Johnny disagreed. “He was just lazy when it came to marking things down right. He just would get too excited and move on to the next thing.”

  Andrea agreed. “That was our Dean. What about Ellen? She worked with him.”

  Jason shook his head. “Ellen is useless. She won’t even talk to me about it. Never in all my years of science has anyone refused to keep track of their research completely. Never. I can’t have this. Beginnings can’t have this. Excuse me. I’m rattled.” Spinning in his heels from yet another vain attempting day at figuring out Dean’s work, Jason went back to his own lab where he understood the work. His own work.

  ^^^^

  “El.” Henry’s voice echoed in the darkness. “This isn’t exactly what I mean by facing it. This is over the edge facing it. Are you ready for this?”

  “This is how it has to be done.” Ellen stared at the ajar door to the cryo-lab. “Could you go in first and light that emergency light you have.”

  “Yeah.” Henry walked past her.

  Ellen waited, holding on to her boxes until she saw the dim light. She took a deep breath and stepped inside. It didn’t matter how big of a breath she took, when she walked into the nearly destroyed cryo-lab, she couldn’t breathe. Her chest felt heavy.

  “You all right?” Henry grabbed her arm.

  Ellen started to shake. She looked to her right, to the large hole in the floor. “So much happened down here. So much happened.”

  “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “It isn’t. But it has to be done. You said you think I should help with his work right? Well there was a lot of work done down here that wasn’t brought up.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that.”

  “No one did.” Ellen handed him the larger of the boxes. “Over in the actual cryo-room is a metal box. It’s heavy and nailed to the floor. In there are files, about seventy. Put them in here. And we’ll need to see if we can salvage at least one of these hard drives from one of these computers.”

  “I can do that.” He watched her take her own box across the room being careful not to fall through the missing floor that took up half of the huge lab. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m grabbing all his disks he hid down here. And he had a bunch of different experimental agents we were trying out.” She opened the cabinet. “Plus things that he used to make them.”

  “He had all this down here?”

  “What we did down here was future things for Beginnings. Upstairs was immediate. I also, at my house have his backup tapes. Dean did that you know, backed up everything twice.”

  “Yeah I know.” Henry smiled and moved to her. “You’re going to do this aren’t you? You are going to make sure that all his years of work aren’t for nothing.”

  “I’m going to try my best. But I don’t think I can do any better than Jason, Andrea or Johnny. I’m a nurse and not a very good one. Dean was a scientist.”

  “Yes he was, but you have an advantage no one else has. You worked closely with him. You, Ellen, know how his mind worked. All his secrets, the way he did things, are all right here.” He touched her head. “Up here.”

  “Dean used to say that. But I don’t think so Henry. I don’t feel like I know anything about this stuff.”

  “Yes you do.” Henry spoke with so much pride and assuredness. “And the moment you start working on it, it will all unlock itself.”

  ^^^^

  Back to his office, back to his normal disgusting shaking of his head as he read things over, was Joe. “Aw, Ellen.” He tossed a paper to the side.

  “I heard my wife’s name.” Frank opened his father’s office door, bringing in a blast of cold air.

  “Your wife released three people while I was out of it. Two of which should have been put elsewhere. One seemed like it was a practical joke.” Joe raised his eyes to Frank. “Is it snowing or is your hair getting that grey.”

  “I do not have grey hair.” Frank touched the top of his head. “Not much, that is.” He pulled up a chair and sat across from his father.

  “How did the gas run go?”

  “Good, got them all. Scouted the hillside, found some remains. Same old, same old.” Frank sniffled.

  “When do you think you can go to New Mexico?”

  “I told you I’d get a team together for you whenever you want.”

  “I need you to go, Frank.”

  “I can’t leave my wife. Not now, not the way she is.”

  “Yeah.” Joe dropped his pencil and leaned back in the chair. “She’s not getting any better. How are you with that?”

  “Surprisingly fine. I know that Ellen and Dean were close. It would shock me more if she wasn’t depressed about it. Hell, she spent every day with the guy. They have kids.” Frank shrugged. “El has been my friend forever. Besides being her husband, I have to be that friend right now.”

  “Sometimes you shock me by what you say. So any idea when you think you can leave her for a few days? I know we’re dealing with the SUT problem, but we also have to take care of the factory if you get my drift.”

  “Dad, I have a hard time leaving her in the morning. She grabs my hand.” Frank held it up. “And her little fingers wrap so tightly around it, it’s like she’s so afraid I’m not coming back. I have to tell you, I do not know what to do anymore. Never in all the years with Ellen has she ever let me hold her so much. She clings to me. Clings. It breaks my heart because I can’t make her feel better.”

  “You will Frank, you will.” Joe reached into his pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it. “I’ll give it a few more days. After that, you’ll have to get that team together. All right, tell me about Miles City.”

  “Dumped a shit load of Dean’s chemical on them. Which by the way, we are running low. We’ll need more for our raid. Jason have any luck?”

  “None. You know who knows how to make it, don’t you?”

  “Ellen.” Frank ran his hand over his face. “I can’t even get her to put a band-
aid on a cut. I’m not going to get her to make a biological weapon.”

  “She knows the recipe. I wouldn’t give up hope. Henry radioed in. He and Ellen went down to the cryo-lab to pick up some research.” He saw Frank get antsy. “Before you get upset, yes it is dangerous there. But she went and filled three boxes. She’s going to go to the clinic and work again. But only at night. Hey, that’s a start.”

  “I guess.” Frank lowered his head.

  “Miles City?” Joe asked.

  “Oh yeah. Walked through it, everything is good. They’re all dead. And . . .” He reached in his pocket and laid a bunch of folded papers and three photographs before his father. “Take a look.”

  Joe saw the photo. It was of him and his sons. “Where did you . . .”

  “Robbie’s stuff. He must have left it there. Notes he wrote, too. I read them. You should, too. It kind of makes you remember the old Robbie. The Robbie that we all knew, not the one that came to Beginnings.” Frank stood up.

  “Thanks, Frank.” Joe laid his hand over the articles then slid them closer to his body. “Oh, by the way. How was flying?”

  “Greg puked all over the place because I couldn’t keep it steady.” Frank reached for the door and opened it laughing. “It was pretty funny though.”

  “I’m sure it was. And I’m sure you’ll get good.”

  “Oh, sure I will. What don’t I do good.” He smiled and closed the door.

  “What an arrogant son of a bitch.” Joe shook his head then looked at the second photograph and sadly the name escaped him. “Robbie.”

  ^^^^

  Jason brought his cup of coffee to his lips, sipped and grabbed the lit cigarette that burned before the ashtray. How he truly didn’t want to start smoking again. He hadn’t for five years, but being around Joe didn’t help matters.

  He puffed a long drag then laid it back down, flipping the pages to his notes. “Now see Dr. Hayes, this is how you’re supposed to write . . .” A loud power surge sound frightened him from his seat. At the far wall he faced, he saw the reflection of a flashing light. “One weird snow storm must be brewing out there.” He looked behind him to his window. The darkening sky looked clear, and then he saw it. A rabbit. It sat alone on his floor. “How did you get out of your cage?” Jason slid off his stool reaching down to the rabbit. “Are you another Houdini?” He raised the rabbit to his eye level and noticed he wore a rope necklace. Hanging off of it, strung though the thin rope was a thick folded piece of paper. “What’s this?” He set the rabbit on the counter and took the rope from his neck. Untying it, he slid the note free and unfolded it. His eyes widened as he read the long message. “Son of a gun.” He rubbed the bunny’s head then in his excitement kissed him. “Son of a gun.”