The Genesis Chamber

by Beighton Devlin

  “Do you have any beer?”

  “Certainly.” Wolf made his way into the kitchen, opened the fridge, grabbed a beer and returned to the dining area.

  I wear this crown of thorns

  Upon my liar’s chair

  Full of broken thoughts

  I cannot repair

  Beneath the stains of time

  The feelings disappear

  You are someone else

  I am still right here

  He placed the beer in front of his guest and returned to his seat. “Are you a religious man?”

  “Take it or leave it.” The guest opened the beer and glugged half the bottle.

  “You don’t really care for much, do you?” Wolf stabbed another piece of steak and put it in his mouth. He was losing patience with his guest.

  “Are you not having a beer?” the guest quizzed.

  “I don’t normally, but, seeing as this is a special occasion and we have come to an agreement about our little venture, I think I will join you.” Wolf stood and made his way to the kitchen. “You know, I thought you were the right guy when I read about you.” He raised his voice as he went into the kitchen so he could be heard.

  “Oh yeah?” The guest was puzzled. “How did you read about me?”

  The wolf returned with a beer in his hand. “I have a knack for gaining access to the police database. Don’t you just love computers? There’s a whole world of information at your fingertips.”

  The guest looked impressed by the Wolf’s admission. “When we’ve finished with the kid, maybe you could help me out.”

  “Really?” Wolf sat back in his chair and let his hands drop into his lap.

  “Yeah, if you can hack into the police database, maybe you could erase all my records for me,” the guest said hopefully.

  “Oh, I’m sure I could do that for you,” Wolf confidently responded.

  “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” The guest dug into his food again.

  “Please excuse me; I think I left something on in the kitchen.” Wolf slowly walked past the guest, glaring at him as he shoveled the food into his mouth.

  Once in the kitchen, wolf leaned against the sink for a moment. He took a sharp intake of breath and started back to the dining area. “You know, there’s something you can do for me in return.”

  “Me? Help you?” The guest continued with his food. “How?”

  Wolf walked briskly behind his guest. “You can help Detective Hernandez find me.”

  Before his guest could react, the wolf placed a gun onto the back of his head and fired a single shot into his skull. The force of the shot pushed the guest’s head straight into his food, shattering the plate and sending his baseball cap flying across the table. The wolf stood back and watched as the pool of blood slowly spread across the table, and continued to mouth words to the song which was coming to the end.

  I will let you down

  I will make you hurt

  If I could start again

  A million miles away

  I would keep myself

  I would find a way

  “Oh, and don’t worry.” Wolf stepped forward and bent down to whisper at the lifeless body. “I will erase all your records. That’s the way this whole thing is going to work.”

  The Genesis Chamber

  Chapter 10

  Early on Monday morning Andy drove along, tapping his finger on the steering wheel in time to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” while Maria sat beside him, looking out of the window. In the back seat, Jen sat looking at her phone and making exasperated sounds every so often as various messages came through.

  Andy was enjoying the fact that he didn’t need to make conversation, giving him the opportunity to listen to the soft rock station he had recently stumbled across on the radio, and had been his only pre-set station ever since. His moment of inward serenity was broken when his partner turned to look at him with a slightly vexed look.

  “So, the first time ever I actually want some breakfast is the one day you decide to pick me up from home?” she said, with a hint of anger in her voice.

  “Quit moaning. We need to drop Jen at the office, so this seemed the easiest solution,” he said, dismissing her outburst. “Besides, you’ve missed breakfast for the last ten years. I don’t think one more morning is going to kill you.”

  “It might not kill me, but I might kill you.” She scowled, and formed the shape of a gun with her right hand, then dropped her thumb to indicate pulling the trigger.

  “Oh, yeah, you might want a real one of those things.” He pointed at the glove box. “Yours is in there. I swung by Chris’s on the way and picked it up.” He suddenly swerved to avoid a car that had stopped in the middle of traffic. “Damn tourists!” he shouted at the car and blasted the horn.

  One of his pet peeves was the way tourists drove in Orlando. Aside from the residents of every other state in America descending on the Sunshine State to see the famous house of the mouse, tourists from all over the world came to town, which made driving tedious, as far as he was concerned. Lost people paying more attention to the paper map supplied by the car rental companies than to the actual task of driving really bugged him.

  “You know, they should pay more attention to the road. It’s just plain dangerous, stopping like that for no reason,” he stressed to his partner as he pointed out yet another example of bad driving.

  Maria rolled her eyes; she ignored his usual Monday morning rant about the traffic problems in Orlando, and dove into the glove box to retrieve her treasured service weapon. Instinctively she dropped the clip out of the handle and examined the top bullet.

  “Hmm…” She appeared perturbed.

  “Something wrong?” He looked at the weapon.

  She rolled the top bullet slightly with her thumb. “No. It’s okay.”

  Before he could say anything else she quickly replaced the magazine, readied the chamber, set the safety on and holstered the weapon. “So, Jen.” She turned to face the obviously displeased teenager still huffing at the messages on her cell phone. “How is this work thing going for you?”

  Jen dropped her phone into her lap. “It’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I’m mainly working with Martin. He’s a fun guy to be around. Plus, Uncle Chris is cool, too. In fact, everyone has been really nice to me.”

  She smiled, then picked her phone up. But before she got a chance to look at the latest batch of messages that she had received, the female detective continued.

  “Just be careful around that Miller guy; there’s something about him I just don’t like,” she said.

  Andy, who rarely agreed with his partner, especially when she was advising his daughter, quickly jumped in on the conversation. “Listen to her, sweetie.” He nodded in his partner’s direction. “That’s a good cop’s instinct at work right there.”

  Maria looked to be taken aback at him agreeing with her. She looked at him for a second, then leaned over to purposely whisper loud enough for Jen to hear.

  “You wish I had pulled the trigger the other day, don’t you?” she joked.

  “Oh… I’m sorry if I’m giving off that impression.” He said this with heavy sarcasm in his voice.

  “Dad!” his daughter exclaimed. “Martin is all right. He’s a nice guy when you get to know him, and I’m learning lots of stuff from him.”

  “Martin is a geek, and I don’t like him,” he said, making eye contact with her in the rearview.

  “I have to agree with your dad on this, Jen. There is something very ‘off’ with pee wee.” The female detective jumped back in on the conversation.

  “Thanks a lot, Maria. I thought you of all people would be on my side.” Jen sat back into her seat with a pout on her face.

  “I am on your side, kiddo. Hey, in the words of your grandpa . . .” She held her hands up to mock the retired cop’s surrendering pose. “I’m only saying.”

  All three of them laughed at her impression of Coop. As the la
ughing subsided, Andy pulled into the AppTech parking lot. They exited the vehicle and made their way to main reception, where they were greeted by head of security, John Sinclair. He smiled pleasantly at the trio from behind his desk as they approached. “Good morning, Detectives. Jennifer. How are you all this fine morning?” he asked with a beaming smile that made Andy wonder if he practiced it in the mirror at home.

  “Good morning, John,” he replied. “I didn’t see you at the party on Saturday; I thought you might have been there.”

  “Well, I was there. Although not physically. I was there in spirit. Shall we say, overseeing the proceedings?” He laughed at the joke that only he seemed to get.

  Maria looked at the security-expert-come-receptionist, then turned to her partner. The confusion was apparent on her face as she turned back to Sinclair. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  The head of security was noticeably annoyed by her abrupt tone and returned her stare. “I was here all weekend putting the finishing touches to Mr. Cooper’s latest home security addition,” he announced proudly.

  “Is he still speaking English?” she asked, as she turned to Andy, who grinned at just how rude his partner could be without really even trying.

  It was part of the reason she was such a good cop. She had the ability to cut straight through all the bullshit that criminals would tell her. It was also part of the reason people took an instant loathing to her when they first met her. He was pretty certain that not being liked didn’t really matter to her, either. If people didn’t like Maria Hernandez, then fuck them. That was her motto, and he believed she meant it.

  “Do you mean you were putting some cameras up?” Although a straightforward question, the tone she used to ask it made it sound like she was belittling him.

  Sinclair shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “If you want to break it down like that then yes, I was installing cameras. However, it is a little more complicated than that. This is a state-of-the-art security system we are talking about here.”

  “Security cameras,” she repeated.

  “Well, you were missed, wherever you were,” Andy interjected, sensing that this conversation needed to end before she got angry. “Is Chris in his office?”

  Sinclair shot the female detective a scornful look, then turned back to Andy. The big welcoming smile instantly returned to his face.

  “Yes, sir. Mr. Cooper arrived about twenty minutes ago.” His fingers went to work on the keyboard in front of him. “He is currently in his office.” Without taking his eyes off the computer screen, he reached into a drawer in his desk, pulled out three visitor’s badges, and placed them on the countertop. “If you would care to put these on,” he stood up, “I will escort you up, as I have to see Mr. Cooper anyway.”

  “I bet that’s the highlight of Chris’s morning.” Maria continued staring at the enthusiastic receptionist.

  Jen’s face flushed with embarrassment. “We only need two passes, John. I have mine already.”

  “Of course you do, how absentminded of me.” He tapped a few times on the keyboard, then picked up an iPad from the desk, swiped the screen, and looked back to the computer screen again. “I just have to sync everything up before we go in case someone comes while I’m away from my post… Okay, shall we head up?”

  The female detective raised her eyebrows, but refrained from saying anything. Sinclair strode purposefully towards the elevators, checking over his shoulder every few steps to ensure the trio were following him. Once there, he swiped his pass key and the elevator doors opened immediately. All four boarded, and the escort pressed for level five. The doors closed, and they were on their way up.

  Ding. They had arrived at the fifth floor and the doors opened. The security expert stepped to one side to allow the others to alight, then hurriedly pushed past them, almost quick-marching towards Chris’s office, where he knocked on the door but didn’t wait for permission to enter. He swung the door open and held it for the others to enter. When they were all in the office, he closed the door and stood behind everyone.

  Chris looked up from behind the large desk in his very spacious office and smiled when he saw who was standing in front of him. “Good morning! How is everyone today?”

  Jen rushed over to her uncle, sat on his lap, hugged him, and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, which drew a raised eyebrow from the female detective as she looked on.

  After they had all exchanged pleasantries, Sinclair approached his employer. “Sorry to be so forward, sir, but can I just show you the new surveillance and spyware I’ve installed? It’s just that I have left the front desk unattended, so I need to get back quickly.”

  “Sure, come show me what you’ve done.” Chris eagerly waved him over.

  “Right, well, first of all, I updated all the existing security protocols that were in place. Then I installed a few new ones to cover a few backdoor loopholes I detected. I actually made a whole new program, which is quite a nice bit of software. We should think about marketing it.” He paused for a response from the CEO but received nothing. “It detects any outside threat,” he continued, looking slightly vexed. “Then it plants a virus in the system that is attacking ours, allowing us to trace it to the source. The best bit of all is that the hacker has no idea the virus has been planted.”

  He looked around, smiling like a child on Christmas morning, clearly looking for some sort of praise for his hard work.

  What he got was Detective Maria Hernandez. “Fuck me! Rain Man is going off again. Is he always like this?” She directed the question at Chris, who went to the defense of his head of security.

  “Go easy, Maria, John here is the best in his field at what he does.” Chris gave his employee a reassuring smile.

  “I don’t understand the need for all this security,” she said, as she looked around the office at the two cameras and the bank of screens that all had live video feeds from different locations. “Surely this is overkill for a few computers?”

  “It’s not the computers,” the security expert interjected. “It’s the information stored on them that is invaluable.” He moved to the bank of screens, pointing to draw everyone’s attention to them. “Housed in this building is a myriad of databases containing some of the most advanced and original gaming ideas the world has ever seen. Other gaming companies will stop at nothing to get a glimpse of what goes on inside these walls. The threat of a cyber-attack is far greater than any other, so we have to have in place the most stringent of security systems to—”

  “Forget I asked.” The female detective put her hand up to stop him. “Life is too short to listen to you going on and on. I’m guessing you’re single?” She frowned at him, but before he had a chance to answer she turned and walked away. “I can’t take any more of this shit. I’ll wait by the car, partner.”

  Andy placed his hand on Sinclair’s shoulder. “I think you lost her at myriad. Hey, Chris.” He turned to his brother. “Just wanted to say thanks again for having us over last weekend. We had a great time.”

  “Yeah, it was fun. We should do it again soon.” He smiled.

  “Listen, I’d better get going. I don’t like leaving Maria for too long on her own,” he said and pointed at his daughter. “Be good, and have a nice day. I’ll pick you up on my way home.”

  Jen jumped off her uncle’s lap and gave her father a hug.

  “No need, bro, I can drop her off when I leave,” Chris offered.

  “Well, if it’s not too much trouble, that would be better for me,” he replied.

  “Nothing is too much trouble for my favorite niece.” He winked at the teenager.

  “Thanks, buddy, I’ll catch you later,” the detective said as he left the office, escorted by Sinclair, who was anxious to get back to his desk.

  Andy left AppTech through the main doors and immediately saw Maria waiting by his car. He had nearly reached her when his attention was drawn to the sound of loud music, and the unmistakable roar of a high-performance sports car’s engi
ne. He looked around and saw a bright-red Porsche 911 convertible heading towards him. The car swung into the space next to his at a rate of speed that he found excessive.

  The detectives watched as the roof unfolded from the trunk and stretched into place. The windows simultaneously closed, sealing the car and protecting it from the early-morning sun.

  Andy didn’t recognize the driver at first; the red baseball cap that had the peak pulled down towards the wearer’s nose obscured his face.

  The door opened and the driver got out. He closed the door gently and pressed the security button on the key fob; two electronic beeps signaled the car was locked. The vehicle owner raised the peak of his cap slightly. They immediately recognized Martin Miller.

  “Morning, Pee Wee,” she said in a mocking tone.

  The programmer lowered his head as if shying away when he saw who was talking to him.

  “Maria!” her partner barked, stopping her before she ripped into the nervous-looking Miller. “Leave the kid alone!”

  She edged towards the geeky-looking programmer; the look of terror became more apparent as she got closer. With her nose no more than an inch away from his, she reached up and lifted his red baseball cap, staring at him for a couple of seconds. “Boo!” she shouted.

  The geek flinched and jumped back a few feet, almost falling over the hood of his car as he stumbled. He managed to keep his footing by placing one hand on the windshield to steady himself.

  “Enough!” Andy shouted, temporarily stunning Maria and making Miller stumble back even further.

  Before he knew it, Chris’s prize employee had slid the length of the hood of his new car and was sitting on the concrete, his face flushed with embarrassment.

  The male detective rushed over to help him up, offering his heartfelt apologies the whole time while Maria was obviously using every piece of self-control to stop herself from laughing out loud.

  “Thank you, Detective Cooper,” Miller stuttered, as he pulled him to his feet.