Jezebel's Ladder

by Scott Rhine

  Chapter 39 – Simulation

  Amy and PJ stopped at an A&W Root Beer stand for some refreshment while they waited a few hours for her researcher to call back. Sure enough, a recent NASA investigation report had been entitled “Particle Modeling Using the Crupkin Method to Adapt Barnes-Hut.”

  PJ nodded. “Barnes-Hut is a well-known, high-speed algorithm for tracking gravitational influences between thousands of orbiting bodies.”

  Amy shrugged. “The paper claims that Crupkin had found a way to apply this method to atomic chain reactions.” A quick phone call to the author gave them the name of a graduate student, Serge Crupkin, whom they eventually traced to an Orlando suburb called Windmere. The jigsaw puzzle was beginning to take shape.

  PJ handed her the official navigator’s map and said, “I called it, he’s a computer geek. That means I get to drive!”

  “Should we wait for the senator?” Amy asked.

  He cranked the air conditioning and pulled into traffic. “Considering the nurse called someone as soon as we asked for Nick, I think we’re on borrowed time as it is.”

  This thought depressed Amy, so PJ switched topics to her college experience to get her mind off the unfolding conspiracy. It worked like a charm. By the time Amy got to her fourth roommate, they had forgotten all about Windmere. He got so interested in her exploits that he missed his turn.

  Eventually, they found Crupkin’s apartment amidst an endless row of identical, two-story, tan, stucco units. They even found his nameplate under the doorknocker, but no Crupkin came to answer it. They located an older guy in coveralls kneeling on the front lawn. He wore the nametag ‘Fabian’ and admitted to being the superintendent for the units. When questioned Fabian said, “Sure, the quiet college kid, works at Moushwitz to pay the bills. I know him. He’s Goofy.”

  Amy said, “I realize that most computer science people seem strange to the average person…”

  “Hey!” PJ objected.

  She continued, “But we need to talk to him immediately. Do you know where we can find him?”

  The superintendent just shook his head and kept tinkering with a broken sprinkler head on the front lawn. “Doesn’t get back from work till the park closes.”

  PJ looked at his watch. “That’ll be too late. We’ll have to find him.”

  “What does he do there?” Amy asked, walking straight into the joke.

  “I already told you, he’s the character Goofy!” Fabian said.

  They got into the park at nearly six o’clock. She charged the tickets on her credit card and made noises about her expense account.

  PJ scratched his head. “Do you really think they’ll reimburse you for Disney World?”

  She shrugged and said, “Why not? They reimburse for strip clubs.”

  Amy was able to use the Congress ploy to get park security to radio Crupkin. They arranged a meeting at a lost-children rendezvous nearby. The senator’s plane had to be landing soon, so Amy left a voicemail for the senator to meet them at the same place.

  Goofy had arrived at the lost-child site first and peered at them through a crack in the top half of the Dutch door. He refused to open up until they could provide proof Nick had sent them. In an effort to convince him, Amy held up the calendar sketch. After Crupkin leaned his ‘chest’ closer to look at it, he shook his whole upper body in a negative and said, with a Russian accent, “Not good enough.”

  PJ worried about Paulson’s goons arriving before they got the information and started scanning the crowd for suits amidst the cotton candy and families. “What do you want, his shoe size? I’m his best friend, PJ, ask me anything.”

  “PJ? What does the P stand for?” the Russian asked with suspicion.

  “Come on, anything but that. I’ll tell you who he puts on his dart board.”

  Goofy shook his head again. “Any of his co-workers could know that, but they would not know your first name.” His accent was thicker than bock beer and had to be sipped in small doses.

  After a colossal struggle, PJ whispered, “Percival.”

  Goofy whooped it up loudly. In his mirth, he let go of the door and PJ pushed his way into the room.

  Amy followed him and closed the door with a smirk as PJ cornered the laughing, giant mascot. “He didn’t tell you?”

  “No,” Crupkin admitted. “I was just curious.”

  The angry programmer grabbed Goofy by the neck and had started to administer a noogie of epic proportions when he begged, “Wait. Don’t you want to know about the Wormwood project?”

  “Wormwood, that was the simulation file in the e-mail. Nick abbreviated.” PJ controlled himself, even though the Russian was still laughing. “Take that stupid head off.”

  “I think it’s a sweet name,” Amy said to mollify him.

  PJ grunted, “Start spilling.”

  Crupkin had dark, sweat-plastered hair on a classic, Gypsy face. The only thing missing was facial hair, which they don’t allow in the Magic Kingdom. Despite the large dermal patch on his neck, he pulled a cigarette out of the depths of the suit and hung it out of his mouth expectantly. “Got a light? I ran out of smuggled matches an hour ago. God, it’s hot in here.”

  “Sorry,” PJ shrugged. “Aren’t you supposed to be kicking the habit?”

  “The patch just gets me to my next break without tearing some little rug rat’s head off. I learned that trick from Dumbo.”

  Amy tore the cigarette from his lips and commanded, “Tell us about Nick. Now.” The temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees.

  Crupkin sat down and huddled close to the others, almost whispering what he had to say. “Nick’s a smart guy, a little sloppy with his precision, but that’s why he came to me. He wanted an accurate simulation fast and offered me a grand to code it for him without telling anybody. If he used the computers at work, his boss would fire him for whistle-blowing. Nick was trying to prove that some experiment was too dangerous to perform.”

  “Was it?” Amy asked.

  Crupkin snickered. “Are you kidding? First of all, H is 1.02, not 1. That might not seem like much to a layman, but a 2 percent error can mount up over time.”

  As he discussed his true love, mathematics, he babbled about spherical equations and logarithmic algorithms until Amy’s eyes glazed over. Then, PJ interceded. “All that wasn’t enough to kill the project. What was the big bug your simulation found?”

  The grad student said, “An interesting theory. You have to use L’Hospital’s Rule to pin down the divergent…”

  PJ held up a hand. “Pretend you’re explaining it to your mother.”

  “My mother is a nuclear physicist,” he said, puzzled.

  “Okay, forget about Mom, explain it to me,” Amy pleaded.

  “It’s a chain reaction, right? So the bigger the water source, the bigger the bang. Everything converts to energy.”

  PJ couldn’t help but remember stories from the first atomic-bomb test, where Robert Oppenheimer had warned the military they weren’t entirely sure the reaction would stop.

  As they pried more details out of Crupkin, the senator and his entourage of suits wearing sunglasses came through the door and interrupted. Senator Braithwaite was blustering mad. “There you are,” he shouted to Amy. “Do you have any idea what kind of stir that lunatic has caused?”

  “Nick?” she asked.

  “The maniac stabbed an orderly in the throat with a pen and escaped. They’re combing the countryside for him right now,” said the senator. “Worse yet, the pen had my name on it!” Amy paled when she realized that she had unwittingly provided the weapon. “Don’t worry, the wound wasn’t fatal. Of course, the orderly couldn’t talk and the doctors won’t let the agents near him till he stabilizes. So we have no idea what else the nut is carrying with him.”

  “Go Nick,” Crupkin cheered.

  “Who is this?” the senator demanded.

  Amy took a breath and said, in a small voice, “He’s the man I wanted you to meet, sir.”

>   “Nick hired me to do some simulations,” Crupkin began again.

  “Is this man a foreign national?” Braithwaite asked Amy. Her future as an aide began to look bleaker with every question. Something had put a major bee in his bonnet.

  PJ decided to speed up the interview before she dug herself in any deeper. “Those simulations proved conclusively that Icarus is too dangerous to initiate.”

  “Why is this man spewing state secrets in an unsecured area?” The senator sounded just like Paulson, trying to suppress the ugly truth at all costs. If the senator suddenly wanted to bury this problem, Amy might still have some degree of protection. However, once they found out how much PJ knew, he’d never see daylight again.

  PJ made for the door while Amy explained, “Really, sir. Secrecy will do more harm than good at this point. The more people who know, the better chance we have of stopping the disaster.”

  Crupkin made a dash for it as well, but it was too late. His big outfit made him easy to catch at the door. PJ got two steps off the sidewalk before suits swarmed all over him. He managed to break the first tackle, but one of the suits shoved something small and hard into his back.

  The last thing he heard was, “We have the matter under control, sir.”

  Chapter 40 – Dysfunctional Family

  Sedna paced. She’d left a message for Trina on the equine charity bulletin board to meet her at their old safe house. There were bars on the windows, which were more plywood than glass, but no air conditioning units. The derelict was under the flight path for Long Beach municipal airport. A person could fire a gun off during takeoffs with no one noticing. A “For Sale” sign with an out-of-business realtor’s phone number sat on the weedy, miserable excuse for a lawn. At 11:30 Pacific time, Steve had been admitted to the hospital with severe burns. Running his insurance card would set events in motion. Someone on the arson unit was bound to find the crisped body of Virus under the floor tiles in a few hours. She wanted to be well clear of this city by then. Sedna felt guilty for killing him, but he’d discovered the plan.

  The taxi pulled up at 12:37. She clenched the trigger of her pistol as her sister climbed out and sent the driver on his way. Then, Trina let herself in the back door.

  Sedna crouched around the door frame, waiting. The Taser came around the corner before Trina did, aimed at Sedna’s midsection, “Tag, you’re it.”

  “How?”

  “You’re an active now,” Trina explained. “I could see you from about six feet away.”

  Sedna chuckled. “Momma Bear has been giving you all sorts of toys.”

  “That’s boyfriend bear, and he’s been giving me everything he can.”

  Sedna was pale and stone-faced. “Did you bring the money?”

  “Yes, I transferred it to our old Nena account. Sorry it took so long. I had to hitchhike to LA, dodging cops, and the bank had to phone Daniel.”

  “What did roller boy have to say about that?”

  Trina handed over a transaction receipt. “He trusts me without hesitation. He just wanted to know I was safe. Tan was out checking truck stops between here and Vegas. You’ve scattered our people all over creation.”

  “That’s the idea,” muttered Sedna. Then she complained, “This isn’t enough.”

  “He trusts me because I would never betray him. I’m giving you my half, everything I have because of what we shared. That’s all I can do, take it or leave it.”

  Sedna clenched the pistol grip in anger. “Since when does he matter more than blood or training? We are one person.”

  Trina shook her head. “Daniel and I share everything together, even more than our family did. You wouldn’t understand.”

  The assassin put away her gun, and Trina did likewise. Sedna said, “There are spare clothes in the duffel, wigs, and passports. Help yourself.”

  “What did you mean when you said you want to scatter Fortune’s people?

  Sedna switched to the dart gun as Trina rummaged through the goody bag. “I killed Master Sam, but I was never able to completely ignore his last order. I have to kill myself and burn everything. I think I’ve found a way to do both at the same time.” She fired two darts into her clone-sister. When Trina was down, Sedna switched clothes with the weak one and removed her black wig.

  ****

  Daniel was delirious when he got the second phone call from “Trina” that day. He had just reached Benny’s house, and the other men from the car were carrying in luggage. She gave him an address.

  “As soon as I can slip away,” he promised. “What was the money for?”

  “Something that will rock your world,” Sedna promised. “Hurry up, I’m horny.”

  ****

  Daniel had to wait two hours for Tan to drive back from the highway rest stop, then another hour for him to shower and eat. At four Pacific time, Crusader called Benny with questions because Jez was unreachable. Daniel used the distraction to make his getaway. “Tan, my girlfriend’s found a safe house and wants to meet. Could you please drive me?”

  “The same girlfriend I’ve been chasing all day?”

  “I called you the moment she called me. Please? It’s been over twelve hours since we talked,” the teenager begged.

  “And ‘talked’ is code for something I do not want to hear about. Head out the front door. I will meet you on the next block with the car.”

  True to his word, Tan delivered Daniel to the rundown neighborhood. As they drove by the derelict house, Tan didn’t like the look of it. “Are you certain?”

  A pair of black Lycra shorts with a hot pink stripe waved out the front door like a cape in front of a bull. Daniel started breathing faster. “Awesome. Don’t worry, we cover each others’ backs…you know what I mean.”

  “Push your panic button if there’s any sign of danger,” Tan cautioned while getting the wheelchair out of the trunk. “I will have Mr. Robins post some people over by that market we passed. They can be here in minutes.”

  Daniel grinned. “She’s a lot of woman, but I’m not calling for backup.”

  Tan pushed him up the walk and up onto the porch. The front door was ajar, and jazz music could be heard coming from cheap CD-player speakers in the next room. “Lock the door when I’m gone,” the kick boxer advised.

  Daniel rolled in and threw the three latches shut. He followed the music to one of the two bedrooms in the wreck of a house. She was dancing in her underwear near a twin mattress on the floor in the corner. Two other mattresses were propped against the wall. She had her arms in the air and gyrated to show him her every curve.

  The shock was almost physical, but Daniel hid his reaction. “Why don’t you have a seat on Santa’s lap, little girl, and tell him what you want for Christmas?”

  She smiled, bent over to give him a view, and backed onto his lap. “I’ve been a bad girl.”

  When she got close enough, Daniel wrapped his arms around her in an embrace. When she relaxed, he slid his hands behind her neck in a full-nelson hold. “What did you do with her, Quinn?”

  The clone struggled but could not break free of his well-developed arms. However, the wriggling did cause a muffled moan to escape Daniel’s lips. Instead of answering, she reached a hand behind and scratched his neck with her long nails. He winced but didn’t relax his hold.

  “You must call me Sedna,” she demanded, “Goddess of the Underworld, final judge of mankind. Did my sister tell you about the poison we excrete? It’s a paralytic, just like those dogs that horrified you. But it burns as it crawls through your veins. The faster your heart beats, the faster the poison spreads.”

  She slid her pelvis back across the length of his lap, causing him to gasp, “Stop that!”

  Sedna smiled smugly. “I just have to delay and let nature take its course. Or you could give me what I want, and I’ll neutralize the venom. Our spit counteracts the effects. I can suck the poison out of other places, too,” she said, writhing on the place she had in mind.

  “I’m not going to chea
t on her,” he said, closing his eyes and opening his special senses. During daylight hours, this hurt worse than walking in a sandstorm, but not finding Trina hurt more. He experienced an odd double vision; two people with the same DNA occupied the same house. Trina was nearby, anxious and uncomfortable but not in immediate peril. He considered the panic button in his pocket but knew he couldn’t control Sedna if he released his hold. “You’re obviously holding her prisoner. What do you want?”

  “More than you could possibly know. To start with, I want another four hundred thousand dollars.”

  “I can do that. Use the same account as before. The password is Triniel the number four, capital ever,” he supplied. “We’re worth a lot more than that as a hostage. What else?”

  Sedna purred. “I told you, I’m horny. She has me curious what kind of sex was so good she left her family for it. Come on,” she swayed back and forth. “A few more minutes of this lap dance and you’ll climax anyway. Don’t you want me to enjoy it, too?”

  “Not with another. I could never be one with her again if I did.”

  “But I’m not really someone else. We’re clones. We share everything. I just want to have one last thrill before I die. I’m sure she’d be okay with that. Besides, who do you think is a better ride, Glinda the Good or Morgan Le Fey?”

  Daniel clamped down in a sleeper hold to cut off the oxygen to her brain. The assassin sensed the meaning of this move and screamed, “When you pass out, I’ll kill her. I’ll gut the spineless worm and make you watch!”

  “I’ve developed an immunity to the venom. I’ve lost count of the times my back’s been scratched up. I’ll let your sister decide what we should do with you.”

  He tightened his grip while she tried in earnest to escape. She tipped the chair sideways with her thrashing and they both crashed to the carpet. Still he kept his grip. When they rolled over the edge of the mattress, he had to shake his head to keep focus. Even after she slumped, he kept the grip another few seconds, just to be safe.