by Beth Martin
She got up and shuffled into the bathroom to take a shower. Once she was clean and dressed in her casual clothes, she came out into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. The door to the second bedroom, which Jamie used as an art studio, was closed. She must already be working.
“Cha cha cherry play the morning news,” Irene said. The screen in the living room turned on and the news started playing. She settled down into the armchair and sipped on her coffee as she watched the screen.
After a while, there was a knock on their door. Irene got up and answered it. “Angel,” she said, opening the door for him to come in. He stepped into the front entrance, but didn’t come any farther.
“I, uh, brought the stuff from your desk,” he said, holding up a box.
“Thank you.”
“Are you okay? You look like shit.”
Irene shrugged a shoulder. “I tried to drown my sorrows last night. I did a pretty good job.”
Jamie emerged from her studio. “Oh, hi Angel. What are you doing here in the middle of the day?” She had dabs of paint all over her smock and was cleaning her hands with a rag which smelled strongly of paint thinner. Even though stunning effects could be done easily with digital art, there was still a huge market for physical paintings.
“I just came over with Irene’s stuff,” he said. He had a stern expression on his face. “I’m so sorry about everything.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Jamie said with a smile, “I’m used to her working all kinds of hours.”
Angel looked at Irene. “You didn’t tell her?”
“Tell me what?” Jamie asked.
Irene took the box from Angel and set it on the kitchen counter. “I got fired,” she said.
“Fired?” Jamie spat, throwing her rag at the kitchen sink.
“I should go,” Angel said, ducking out of the apartment.
“I wanted a baby for us so bad. I took information about a sperm bank, hoping to use them for our baby. The bank had already shut down, but my theft didn’t go unnoticed.” Irene wanted to tell Jamie the truth, that her investigation had taken her on a new turn investigating AQD. At least this lie would keep Jamie from getting too mad. “I’m so sorry, bunny. I let my desire to have a baby cloud my judgement.”
“If you really wanted a baby, you wouldn’t have gotten yourself fired! How are we going to afford starting a family if you don’t have a job?”
Irene knew Jamie would likely be upset, but she didn’t expect this outburst. “I get a severance. I’ll find a job before it runs out.”
“I can’t believe you’d do this to me,” Jamie shouted before going back into her studio and slamming the door. A moment later she stormed back out and grabbed her rag from the sink before disappearing and slamming the door again.
Irene sighed as she sat back down in the living room, turning the news on again. Although she knew she needed to get to work on her assignment from Agent Rick, she wasn’t sure where to start. More pressing was the nausea waving through her stomach.
She went to the kitchen and put some slices of bread in the micro cooker and set it to toast. As it heated her bread, she peered at the box of things from her office. Looking through the contents, she shuffled past her wedding photo and the pile of pens to the pamphlets at the bottom. All the literature she and Jamie had gotten from that first AQD meeting they had gone to were here.
The micro cooker bell dinged. She put her toast on a plate and slathered a generous amount of butter on each piece. Taking her plate and handful of papers to the living room, she sat back down in her chair. Jamie would get upset about the crumbs in the living room, but she was already mad. What was one more little infraction?
As she ate, she read through the pamphlets, cover to cover. One of the brochures had a small section on the back titled, “Employment Opportunities.” It was perfect. This would be her in. They held open interviews every Friday at noon. “Cha cha cherry, update resume,” she said. She had an interview to prepare for.
··OOO··
Irene wasn’t sure where the interview would take place in the middle of the school day. It was bright and sunny outside as she walked from her car to the front of the elementary school. She wore a full suit of matching dark gray pants and blazer with a simple cream-colored blouse. On her neck hung a silver pendant necklace, and a watch adorned her left wrist. Her only other accessory was the leather folder with copies of her résumé.
She pulled out her device and said, “Cha cha cherry silent mode,” then placed it back in her pocket before entering the school. The pamphlet had said to check in at the front office at noon for open interviews. Walking tall, she strode into the school’s office and said, “Hello. I’m here for the open interview.”
The secretary at the front desk glanced up over her reading glasses for a few seconds before saying, “What interview?”
She could feel sweat forming at her hairline, but remained confident. A job at AQD would be her in, and a much faster way to infiltrate than being just a member.
“I’m a member of the association which rents facilities from this school building,” Irene said.
A man working on a computer at the far end of the office spoke up. “She’s talking about the DNA brainwash club.”
Irene smiled. She didn’t want to say ‘yes, the brainwash club!’ but that was what she thought too.
“Right, right, the DNA club. They use one of the mobile classrooms, Unit G, during the week.”
“Thank you,” Irene said before leaving the office. She went back out the front door and walked around the school until she found the correct temporary structure. Now it was ten past twelve. She hoped her lateness wouldn’t be an issue.
She knocked on the door and waited for a voice to say “Come in,” before entering the trailer. The unit was long and empty with just a desk and chair at the end. The chair was occupied by the same tall man who had given them the parental profile.
“Hello, I’m Irene Crow,” she said, extending her hand.
“Oh,” he said, looking up at her. “It’s you. I don’t have another yellow packet.”
She dropped her hand since he apparently wasn’t going to shake it. “I’m actually here about a different matter. I came for the open interviews. I’m interested in employment at AQD.”
“We’re actually not hiring right now,” he said. Done with their conversation, he turned away from her and focused on the small screen sitting on the desk.
Irene searched the desk for a name plate or some other indication of this man’s title. “What’s your name?”
“Sean Nagle,” he said.
“Mr. Nagle, it’s a pleasure to formally meet you. I’m not one for self-aggrandizing, but you need me. AQD needs me.” She opened up her folder and handed him a copy of her résumé. “I would like to point out that my previous employment was at the Social Department. I was forced out because of a disagreement in ideologies. I hold the AQD tenets at heart, and the Social Department wasn’t accepting of my vision for the future.”
She pulled out the green membership form which she filled out for herself and handed it to Sean. “Since I was employed with the Social Department for eight years, I have an in-depth knowledge of how they work and what red flags they are looking for as far as the Genome Database is concerned. My knowledge would be invaluable to AQD.”
“I could pass your information along,” he said.
Irene gave him a big smile. “I would greatly appreciate that. I’ll make a point of looking for Mr. Stone at tonight’s meeting.” Before leaving, she held out her hand for a firm handshake which he accepted this time. She felt good.
··OOO··
Irene spent the rest of the afternoon trying to memorize the AQD mission statement and tenets. In case Aiden observed her at the meeting, she wanted to be able to recite the passages without having to read them from a page. She wanted to show how serious she was about this job.
Jamie had cooled off a little since their fight over Irene’
s lost job. Over dinner, Irene told Jamie that she had gone to an interview and it went well. All through the meal she tried to come up with a convenient reason to be absent for the evening without directly telling Jamie she was going to the AQD meeting.
As Irene cleared the table after dinner, Jamie announced, “I promised some of my artist friends that I’d go out with them tonight.”
Irene didn’t mix well with Jamie’s artistic friends. This would be perfect. “I was just going to stay in and look for some more job leads, but I’ll go out with you and your friends.”
“That’s all right,” Jamie said, getting up from the table to help Irene clean up. “Your job search is more important.”
“Are you sure you’ll be okay going out by yourself?” Irene asked. She needed to carefully toe the line between getting out of the social interaction and making Jamie suspicious that Irene would so willingly stay behind.
“I guess I can do it just the once,” Jamie said.
Once Jamie had left, Irene quickly put her blazer back on and swiped on some lip balm before leaving for the meeting.
··OOO··
She did her best to look engaged through the entire evening. She recited all the tenets loudly from memory and nodded along with Aiden’s lecture, making a show of agreeing with everything he had to say. Today he focused on nurture, and how each person’s upbringing shapes the adult they will become.
After the ceremonies concluded, Aiden actually made a point of finding Irene.
“Mr. Stone,” she said pleasantly, shaking his hand. “What a wonderful lecture. I’m interested to hear more about how a person’s early development sets the stage for future learning.” She wasn’t actually interested, but she wanted to let him know she had been listening.
“Please, call me Aiden. Sean spoke highly of you after your conversation earlier today. There aren’t any positions in the organization that currently need to be filled, but we could certainly benefit from your expertise.”
“All I want to do is help,” she said. “Perhaps I could volunteer for a trial period. I get thirty days severance from my old job. After that, you can decide whether it’s worth keeping me on.”
“All right, you’ve got a deal,” Aiden said, shaking her hand again. “I want you to report to this address Monday morning at eight am sharp.” He pulled a business card from his breast pocket and pressed it into her hand. She slipped it into her own pocket.
Only after leaving the school grounds did she look at the card. All that was printed on it was an address. She knew better than to put her first day of work in her device’s calendar.
··OOO··
The weekend had been tense. Jamie had stayed out all night Friday, finally coming home late Saturday morning. She claimed she had simply lost track of time. Irene didn’t trust any of her wife’s friends, and wasn’t sure if she should trust Jamie either. She was glad when Monday finally rolled around and she was able to go to work.
Irene didn’t want to take the chance of her device shutting down by putting in the address Aiden gave her. Instead, she pulled up a map of the area and looked for the street the address was on. A couple blocks away was a shopping center with an Every-Mart. She could park there and walk the rest of the way.
A tree-lined sidewalk connected the Every-Mart parking lot to a quiet residential area. The street was dotted with compact single-family homes nestled on small lawns. It was a lovely walk on such a nice day. Even though the houses were little, the price of the land they sat on made them far too expensive for most middle-class families. The city was so saturated with people, little luxuries like a yard were hard to come by.
Double-checking the street number to the card, Irene found the place she was looking for. It was an unassuming ranch style house clad in gray siding. Large trees grew in front, blocking the view of the house from the street.
She knocked on the front door and was greeted by Aiden who was still dressed in pajamas.
“Irene, you actually came. Please, come in.” He held the door open for her and she walked inside. “I didn’t realize it was already eight. I apologize, I haven’t gotten ready yet.”
Irene looked around at the interior of a house. She assumed Aiden was a bachelor who lived by himself, and the house he stood in was nothing like she had expected. Every surface and piece of furniture was covered in floral prints and trimmed with lace. The table tops held lots of little pictures, candles, and fragile figurines.
“This is your home?” Irene asked.
He smiled, clearly proud of the little house. “Yes, it is.”
She needed to stop staring at the cluttered interior and focus on Aiden. “So, what would you like me to do?”
“Let’s get you caught up first,” Aiden said, walking to the kitchen table. He grabbed a couple of notebooks and handed them to her. “You can start reading through these. I’m going to go get showered.”
She watched him disappear down the hallway and enter the last door. Clearing a small spot between the fussy place setting on the kitchen table, she took a seat.
She opened the top notebook and flipped through the pages. She quickly believed that AQD, specifically being led by Aiden, was capable of a terrorist attack. The tiny scribblings crammed into each page, curling around the bottom and snaking up the sides, were not the writings of a sane man. Every page was more of the same: incomprehensible ramblings about DNA impurity and the inevitable fall of man. The second notebook looked much like the first. An uneasy feeling rose from her gut, and she no longer felt safe even being at this man’s house.
The sound of water running came from down the hall. Irene figured she had a little bit of time to poke around before Aiden got out of the shower. She walked into the living room to explore.
Even through the room was full to overflowing with stuff, it was still clean and dust free. She picked up a figurine from an end table, a little white Japanese cat with one paw raised into the air. Next to it sat a globe which appeared to be upside down. The southern hemisphere was on top with the northern hemisphere on bottom. All the labels were legible, so the orientation must have been intentional. Setting down the cat, she moved farther into the room.
There were four or five rugs on the floor, some overlapping. She wondered if Aiden couldn’t settle on just one, or if they were hiding some horrible defect underneath. She stepped carefully, worried that the floor would give out under her.
The fireplace looked unused and neglected. The mantle was crammed with even more items: clocks, candlesticks, and another cat with its paw in the air. In the middle was a family portrait. Her eyes widened when she saw the people in it.
She didn’t recognize their faces. A young man wearing a graduation gown and cap with bright blue eyes and tanned skin stood between an older couple, presumably his parents. The woman had fair skin, blue eyes and blond hair. The man had dark skin, dark eyes, and black hair. This wasn’t Aiden’s family. This wasn’t Aiden’s house.
The sound of a car pulling up startled her. She almost fell to the floor tripping on the pile of rugs. Rushing to the front of the house, she stood next to the window, straining to hear whatever she could. She couldn’t tell if the water was still running in the bathroom or not. The car engine cut off and was followed by voices. Someone was here. She needed to leave.
Irene grabbed the two notebooks from the kitchen table and dashed through the living room to the sliding door leading to the back deck. Closing the door behind her, she crept down the steps and around the side of the house. She hid, watching the family get out of the car.
“Are you sure this is the place?” a woman asked, pulling a small child from a car seat in the back.
“This is it,” an older woman said cheerfully. “Looks like my sign fell over again.”
“The yard is pretty overgrown,” a man said. The young family and their realtor all walked up to the front door and the realtor fiddled with the doorknob and keys.
“Huh, the door should have been locked,” she sa
id before letting the family into the house.
Irene wondered what happened to Aiden. She couldn’t hear whether or not the shower was still running from outside. Hopefully the young family wouldn’t run into him in the bathroom.
She walked quickly back to Every-Mart and went inside the giant shopping center. The front held a cafe where they sold beverages and snacks. Irene got a cup of coffee and sat at one of the small tables. She held up her device and said, “Cha cha cherry, look up Aiden Stone.”
The hourglass icon flashed for a few moments before the computerized voice said, “No match found.”
She opened the notebooks again, flipping through to see if she could learn anything from the insane scribbles. She was looking for any mention of the Genome Database. Scanning a third and fourth time didn’t reveal anything useful.
Letting out a heavy sigh, she closed the notebooks and looked back at her device. What was she supposed to do now? She could go back to the house and see if Aiden was still there. He would be at the AQD meeting on Friday, but she didn’t want to wait that long before returning to the case. She wished there were some way she could reach out to Agent Rick and get some form of guidance.
Irene wasn’t the only one employed by AQD. The tall man, Sean Nagle, was an employee. Where was he today? “Cha cha cherry, look up Sean Nagle.”
“No match found.”
“Damnit,” she said, banging her device against the table. The woman at the register gave her a curious glance. Irene wasn’t getting anywhere, so she decided to just go home.
Instead of using navigation, she engaged the manual drive mode of her car and drove back to the house. There was no longer a car parked out front, and there were no signs of life outside.
Feeling bold, she parked and walked up to the front door. It was now locked. She knocked on the door, but no one answered. Aiden must have also left. She got back in her car and drove home.
eleven
Irene got up early the following morning. She wasn’t sure what to do. She could try going back to the house she had met Aiden at yesterday, or she could go to the elementary school where AQD rented space.
