S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND: Season Two Omnibus (Episodes 9-11)

by Tanpepper, Saul

  The government had never shared the technical details with the public, citing issues of national security. But that was the public explanation. In truth, the company which had licensed the technology to the government did so with the restriction that any information which might be used to either copy or interfere with the technology be kept in the strictest confidence.

  Cassie shook her head. “Their skin is creepy. It looks dead.”

  Lyssa rolled her eyes. The Omega crew members actually had very little exposed skin— a small band beneath their masks and an occasional flash around their wrists. Everything else was covered. So she guessed the reason Cassie was saying this now had less to do with their appearance than something she might’ve heard, possibly in preschool.

  To be honest, it wasn’t the first time Lyssa had heard it said about them. There were conspiracy nuts who claimed the Omegas were lethally injected and then brought back to life. Lyssa’s favorite DJ was known to make the same claim. Besides being impossible — everyone knew there were no such things as zombies or reanimation — it seemed like an unnecessary step to achieving the same goal. What advantage did it provide to kill someone if you were only going to bring them back?

  Of course, the rumors stubbornly persisted.

  Lyssa had tried to protect Cassie as much as she could from such nonsense ideas. She tried to remember not to tune the car radio to WDQR whenever Cassie was with her. But she couldn’t protect her all the time from the reckless things other people said.

  “Did you hear that at school?”

  “No, Mama.”

  “Ronnie? One of her housemates?” She stopped short of asking if she’d heard it on the radio. She didn’t want to give Ramon another reason not to listen to her Jay Bird. Ramon already believed he was a waste of time.

  “No. I just think they look dead.” She looked past her mother. The work crew was now less than twenty feet away.

  Lyssa turned her eyes toward the site. The workers were climbing out of a hole in the road, their movements stiff and mechanical. She knew this was just an artifact of the interface between them and the people who controlled them, the so-called Operators.

  A hand reached up out of the darkness, followed by a masked head and shoulders. The coveralls pulled tight against the man’s shoulder, as if snagged on something inside the hole, so that a larger slice of skin was now exposed. Clearly visible on his neck was a wide gash. Lyssa gasped. But the snagged shirt came free and covered it up again and suddenly she wasn’t sure she’d seen what she thought she had. It could’ve been dirt or oil. In fact, it was most likely to be that. The liquid dripping down his shoulder was thick and black. It hadn’t looked anything like blood at all.

  “They’re not dead, honey. Don’t think that.”

  “So, nobody loves them?”

  Lyssa sighed. “Can we talk about something else, honey?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Anything.”

  “When’s Daddy coming home?”

  Lyssa squeezed her eyes shut. Okay, maybe anything but that.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The next morning, Veronica Mueller angled her car toward the curb in front of the Stemple house and killed the engine. She sat for a moment, listening to the motor tick and sigh, before pulling the key from the ignition. She felt bad for Cassie. The little girl was such a sweetheart, so much in need of love and attention. The way her parents treated her, neglected her, acted as if she wasn’t there half the time, deeply troubled Ronnie.

  From the one undergraduate psychology course she’d taken, she knew she really shouldn’t blame them. Losing a baby the way they had, just a few days after being born, must’ve been a terrible shock. That part she could sympathize with. But for heaven’s sakes, it’d been more than two months now. Poor Cassie was starving for attention.

  The Stemple house stood farther back from the street than most of the others. It was a fairly modest but modern Tudor, unremarkable in a neighborhood where modest but modern Tudors were run-of-the-mill. And the owners had done little to make it stand out, whether by painting it a color other than white or doing anything creative with the lawn. It was all well-tended — most likely by groundskeepers hired by the neighborhood association — but there was simply nothing extra to any of it. Even the clichéd front porch felt somehow uninspired. There simply was nothing to distinguish this property from any of the others on the street except for the fact that its roof was now covered with shiny new black panels.

  Cables dangled from the eaves and lay draped over the bushes, the loose ends coiled in large, stiff loops at the base of the foundation. The trees on that side of the house had been trimmed back to maximize exposure to the sun, but it didn’t appear that the panels were yet connected to the home’s wiring system.

  She grabbed the bag containing her books, artist’s kit, and computer from her passenger seat and stepped out into the bright morning sunlight. She guessed that on days like this, the panels would generate more than enough electricity to power their needs, maybe enough to run a small factory. But that was the problem. Clear, sunny days like this, while not uncommon during the summer months, were a rarity during the other three seasons. Fall and spring were too rainy, and winter was too hazy, even with the drop in snowfall in recent decades.

  She caught herself grimacing at the thought of the family resorting to candles and gas lanterns when there wasn’t enough sunlight, then dismissed the idea as ridiculous. She was sure the Stemples knew what they were doing. They were both scientists and business owners. They might be blind to their personal problems, but certainly smart enough to weigh the costs and benefits of solar.

  Lyssa met her at the door and invited her in. She seemed frazzled and in a hurry to leave. “I’ve packed Cassie a snack,” she shouted over her shoulder as she hurried down the hallway. The clothes dryer in the hall alcove was making a racket, like there might be a pair of sneakers inside. “It’s on the counter.”

  Ronnie stood at the entrance to the kitchen, unsure of what to do, whether she should have a seat at the table or help herself to the fresh coffee brewing on the counter. “Where is she?” she called.

  “Out back with the rabbit.” Now Lyssa was around the other side of the house, probably in the downstairs bathroom.

  Ronnie walked to the living room and looked out through the sliding glass door and into the enclosed yard. In the far left corner, way in the back, was a wooden shed. Beside it stood the rabbit hutch and, at its base, sat Cassie cross-legged, her light hair glowing brilliantly in all that deep green. She was hunched over on the lawn, a large ball of fluffy white fur on her lap.

  In the middle of the yard was a metal play structure. Beneath its plastic swings was a second ball of fur, golden this time and quite a bit larger than the rabbit. The nearly fully grown puppy bobbed its head as it gnawed some unknown object, probably something it wasn’t supposed to have. From where Ronnie stood at the door, it looked a bit like a shoe.

  “Ramon’s supposed to stop by soon.”

  Ronnie turned in time to see Lyssa emerge from the other hallway, her hands behind her head as she worked her hair into a bun. The lipstick and makeup was a bit of a surprise, and Ronnie wondered what the special occasion might be.

  “He’ll probably drop some things off.”

  “Things?” Ronnie asked, confused.

  Lyssa came to a stop beside her, but her eyes were on Cassie in the yard, watching the girl yet not really seeing her. “We agreed to patch things up. I think it’s best for Cassie’s sake.”

  That must be why she’s acting so frazzled.

  “That’s great news, Missus S.”

  “Lyssa,” she gently reminded her. “Anyway, I expect he’ll be coming soon.” She reached out and took hold of Ronnie’s hand. “Thanks for agreeing to stay here with Cass. I know it’s a lot to ask. Help yourself to anything in the fridge. And the TV, of course. Give me a call if anything comes up.”

  “You’re leaving already?”


  “I have to get in. I’ve got a busy day ahead of me, and with traffic . . . . Well, you know how it’s been lately— the construction and the military exercises everywhere. I’ll let you know if I’m going to be late coming home.”

  Ronnie followed her to the front door, waved, and repeated the same thing she’d said to Cassie’s parents every weekday morning for the past six or seven weeks: “She’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry.”

  But this time it felt different. For some strange reason, here at Cassie’s own house, in the one place the little girl should’ve felt safest, Ronnie just couldn’t seem to shake a feeling of agitation.

  You’re just nervous. Uncomfortable. This isn’t your house. You’ll get used to it.

  Ten minutes later she was pouring herself a cup of coffee when the front door opened and footsteps sounded in the vestibule.

  “Ronnie? Hi.”

  She turned, once again unprepared by the startling blueness of Ramon’s eyes and the blackness of his hair. But then she chastised herself, realizing how wrong it was to be thinking about the father of the child she was being paid to watch. And, okay, maybe it wasn’t wrong wrong to just think it, but it definitely wasn’t decent. Besides, he was much too old for her.

  “S-sorry,” she stammered. “I was just—”

  But he was already making his way down the hallway. “Cassie in the back yard?”

  “Yeah. With the rabbit.”

  “Ah, good old Ben Nicholas.” Mister Stemple chuckled. “He was a rescue, you know. Saved from the jaws of Death.”

  Funny way to put it, Ronnie thought.

  “Got him from the lab. After Remy—” Ramon swallowed. “After we came back from the hospital, I thought Cass needed something to look after, distract her from . . . things.” He sighed. “She sure does love that rabbit.”

  “Not the dog?”

  He shrugged.

  “I always thought Shinji was hers, too.”

  “Lyssa’s,” he replied curtly. His face seemed to cloud. “I got him for Lyssa.” He waved a hand. “Anyway.”

  “Ben Nicholas is a funny name for a rabbit,” she said. “Did Cassie come up with it?”

  Ramon nodded. “She named him after a vampire.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “As promised, Lyssa,” Drew said. “I have delivered. The rabbits are preggers.”

  She looked up from the glass slide and slumped in her bench stool. Another batch of cells dead. They had time for one final run, but only if Heather came through and the package was delivered by that afternoon. “How many, Drew?”

  “At least twenty. I confirmed with the urine tests. You know what a pain in the ass it is following them around holding those tiny pee sticks under their bottoms?”

  Lyssa smiled and shook her head. “I’m more impressed at how quickly you managed to get it done.”

  “They’re rabbits. It’s not like they need soft music and candle light. They don’t need an excuse, just an opportunity. Put ‘em together and wham bam—”

  “I get the picture, Drew. Any package from Boston yet? They were supposed to overnight it.”

  Drew shook his head. “No deliveries this morning, last I checked. But it’s still early. I’m going to prep the samples on the assumption it’ll arrive.”

  “If it’s even the right stuff. If it’s in any condition to use. And if there’s enough of it. If, if, if.”

  “I have faith.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I hope you have enough faith for the both of us. Thanks for sticking with me on this, though. I do appreciate it.”

  “Least I could do.”

  She reached down to slip the glass slide into the biosafety container and saw that it was still full. “Did you ask Sudha to take care of these?”

  “Yeah, but she ended up going home early yesterday. I meant to mention it to you. Guess it slipped my mind. I’ll handle it.”

  “Sick again?” Lyssa asked. “What is it this time?”

  Sudha Hernandez was regularly out sick, though not for her health. A small, fiery, Pakistani woman, she rarely ever became ill herself. There were two other reasons for her absences: her twin sons.

  They were high school-aged, and both seemed to garner more than their fair share of attention from the principal’s office. Or, on occasion, the East Patchogue police department. There was also a six-year-old girl, but she was quiet and demure, the complete opposite of the rest of the family.

  Whenever Sudha was out sick, everyone just assumed one or the other of her sons needed to be rescued.

  “She’s got the flu.”

  Lyssa raised her eyebrows in surprise. “The flu? Or ‘the flu’?”

  Drew chuckled. “I stopped by her place this morning on my way in. She’s sick.”

  “On your way?” East Patchogue was south of Medford, not exactly on the way.

  And suddenly she realized something, and it made her pause and reevaluate everything she’d ever thought about the man.

  Drew was one of those good guys, a man who’d go out of his way to help another, even a stranger. What he’d done for Lyssa the day before, trying for one final last-ditch attempt to ensure that the work they’d done these past sixteen months wasn’t just thrown away, was typical of him. But this was different. This was more personal. There was more going on between him and Sudha than Lyssa had bothered to think about before.

  Well, it didn’t matter if they were more than friends or colleagues. So what if they were romantically involved? There was no standing policy against office relationships. That sort of rule just seemed to unnecessarily complicate things, especially in small, tight-knit groups such as theirs.

  “Well,” she said, feeling her face flush imagining the two of them together. The vision came unbidden and was just as quickly gone. It wasn’t anything pornographic, just the two of them standing side by side. If anything, the vision was more comedic. Drew was tall; Sudha, tiny.

  Lyssa turned her back and made a show of shucking her lab coat and throwing it over the back of her stool before excusing herself. “I think I’ll go see if that package has arrived.”

  * * *

  She was in her office when it did arrive a couple hours later. Ramon hand-delivered it, which both surprised and unsettled her.

  “Front office is still out to lunch,” he informed her. “One of the Ames people actually signed for it by accident.”

  He set the polystyrene container down on the chair by her door and asked what was inside. She could tell he was more than just curious why she was receiving something from her old lab at Harvard. He was suspicious.

  She knew she couldn’t keep it a secret from her husband forever, especially not after she’d accused him of keeping secrets from her less than twenty-four hours before. He’d find out eventually. “We’re going to try assembling synthetic virus-like particles,” she told him. “One last experiment before we close the books on the PGE project for good.”

  “Lyssa—” he started.

  “It won’t affect the Ames work at all. I promise.”

  He sighed, but let it go. “I promise you, Lyssa, it’s just temporary. Once the collaboration is done, you’ll be able to get back to this.”

  She frowned at him, trying to judge if he really believed that or thought she was too stupid to realize it was a lie. “And when will that be?”

  He stared at her without blinking or responding.

  “It’s just one experiment, Rame.”

  “The tissue culture takes at least an hour a day and lasts for weeks.”

  “We’re bypassing the TC and going straight into animals. A couple blood draws and amnios after the weekend. The rabbits are already caged and ready to go. The lab techs can run the analyses. Look, I know it’s a Hail Mary, but you owe me this, Ramon. Next week, it’ll be done, and either it’ll work or it won’t. Either way, I’m one hundred percent focused on your project.”

  “It’s our project, Lyssa. This is for the lab.”

  She found it hard
not to roll her eyes.

  He moved the box from the chair to the floor and sat down with a heavy sigh, rubbing his face with his hands. Lyssa noticed that the sealing tape around the lid was cut. Had he checked what was inside without asking her first? Had the Ames person messed with it? She could feel her face growing hot.

  “You’re right,” he said at last. “No, you’re right. You deserve this. And if it’s good news — and I hope it is — it’ll give us something to look forward to afterward. I’m sorry. It’s just that with the lab, and money, and everything, I—”

  Now it was her turn to feel conciliatory. “It’s not your fault, honey. I understand. It’s just . . . . Sometimes things just happen. Life has a tendency to get away from us.”

  He raised an eyebrow at her, as if expecting her to continue.

  “And . . . maybe there is some guilt to share,” she added.

  “Uh huh . . . .” He leaned forward expectantly.

  “I blame the puppy.”

  “Shinji?” Ramon frowned in confusion. Then he burst out laughing. “That’s the Lyssa I miss.” Shaking his head and still chuckling, he stood up and left her to her work.

  Lyssa’s attention drifted back to the box with its violated seal, and she felt the mirth slip away from her.

  He already knew I was planning something because he snooped. He was just testing me to see if I’d tell him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “I’m leaving,” Lyssa said.

  Drew Royce looked up from the array of plastic tubes plunged into the half dozen buckets of dry ice on his benchtop. He held one up and squinted at the tiny permanent writing on the lid.

  “Drew? You sure you can handle this by yourself?”