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

by Tanpepper, Saul

  “She’s going to be late for school.”

  “Ronnie’ll get her there on time.” He checked the clock. “It’s us who are going to be late.” He frowned at her. “You’re not even dressed!”

  Lyssa looked down at her robe. With all the commotion and setbacks, she hadn’t had time to change. “And what’s wrong with this?” she said, after first considering yelling at him for not helping her. “Maybe I’ll just show up like this.”

  He rolled his eyes.

  “The staff meeting’s at nine,” he reminded her, “but I want to stop off at the bakery, be a good host. I’m going to go ahead and take my own car. Please don’t be late.”

  There was a knock at the front door.

  “And that’ll be Ronnie,” Lyssa said, studying his face. He nodded and went to let her in. Lyssa wasn’t sure if she’d seen a flicker of something in his eyes.

  Cut him some slack. Ronnie’s in a relationship. She doesn’t want Ramon. And he doesn’t want her.

  She hurried back to her bedroom to get dressed, reminding herself that she should be grateful that the mess in the kitchen had been much easier to clean up than the mess at the laboratory the day before.

  Despite Lyssa’s warnings to Cassie to keep an eye on Shinji, he’d managed to dump the trash bins and strew garbage across the pavement. Cassie had screamed out of fright, fearful of what her mother would do. And Lyssa had fed that fear by shouting: “I’m going to kill that dog!”

  It was a terrible, horrible thing to say, spoken in anger.

  If it had just been trash, that might’ve been the end of it. Lyssa would’ve cleaned it up. She would’ve calmed down and issued apologies, retracted threats. But it had turned out to be more than just harmless garbage.

  She’d found, scattered among the papers and pencil filings and remnants of lunches, contaminated glass slides and culture flasks. The Ames group was up to its old tricks again.

  “These are the people your father is whoring us out to,” Lyssa growled, as she donned latex gloves and rebagged the waste, this time in a proper biohazard container. She threw it outside the door of the small lab the Ames scientists rented. She would’ve added a harsh note of reprimand to it, but in a moment of clarity, she knew it would only make matters worse between her and Ramon.

  Of course, in all the turmoil, she’d completely forgotten to check the rabbits.

  “Cassie,” she called out through the sliding door, “Miss Ronica’s here.” Cassie looked up. She was lying in the shade beneath her slide. “Come in, honey.”

  “My eyes hurt.”

  “They’re dry, Cass.” Yeah, from all the crying she did yesterday, Lyssa thought guiltily. “You need to drink more water.”

  “I’m tired.”

  Lyssa apologized to Ronnie. “Yesterday was a bit rough for her. Just let her do what she wants today. Maybe keep her home from school.”

  Ten minutes later Lyssa was on the road and heading east. Tucked into a crease on the dashboard so she could read it without looking away from the road was the scrap of paper with Drew’s address. She wasn’t that familiar with much of Medford — aside from the part where Ramon had rented his apartment, of course — but she did happen to know the road where Drew lived. She and Ramon had looked at a house on the same street five years ago before settling on the one outside Woodbury.

  It took her about forty minutes to get there, another couple to remember exactly how to get to the street. By the time she pulled up outside his house, it was already a quarter to eight. She’d need a little luck to get to the lab before nine, when she was supposed to be there to meet the people writing the checks.

  She killed the engine and stepped out, checking her phone one last time to see if she’d missed any calls or messages. She hadn’t. I need you, Drew. Don’t be sick.

  It was a well-kept house, if small. The front lawn was neatly tended, though plain. In fact, everything about the place was nondescript, from the beige paint job to the lack of flowers or plants. Just grass. And the driveway was faded gray instead of black, as if the tar was frequently scrubbed clean with soap. The windows were dark behind drawn curtains.

  To keep out the heat.

  She knocked before noticing the doorbell and pushing it. The chime tumbled away into the house, sounding as empty as a dime dropped into a deep, dry well.

  “Drew?” she called, squinting into the darkness through the tiny window in the door. “It’s Lyssa. Hello, you in there?”

  She tried the bell again.

  Nothing.

  She scanned the street. His car wasn’t parked at the curb in front; it couldn’t be, since hers was. But neither was it parked anywhere else she could see. To the left was a dusty light blue sedan with its rims so close to the road that it might as well be sitting on flats. To the right and across the street was a single black car with dark tinted windows. Thin gray wisps of exhaust were puffing out of its muffler. She hadn’t noticed it or the quiet rumble of its engine before.

  “Drew?” she said again, breathlessly. She rapped her knuckles again on his door while keeping an eye on the black car.

  Why are they sitting there like that? Are they watching?

  She might’ve been tempted to go around into the backyard, but not with witnesses. She didn’t want to be accused of trespassing.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket, making her jump. She let out a little yelp and quickly pulled it out. It was Ronnie. Throwing one last quick glance over her shoulder, she stepped down off the porch and onto the front walk.

  “Hey, Missus S, did you want me to make Cassie a lunch if she goes to school?”

  “Lunch? Damn it.” Lyssa winced. “Sorry, I was in such a rush that I forgot to make it. Would you mind throwing something together for her? There’s fruit snacks in the cupboard, and a peanut butter sandwich will be fine.”

  “Sure, no prob, Missus S.”

  “Lyssa,” she said absently, her eyes still on the idling black sedan.

  She crossed in front of her car, fumbling for her keys and thumbed the disconnect button on her phone.

  Tucking it into her pocket, she turned to unlock her car door. Then, reconsidering, she spun around and stepped out into the road in the direction of the black sedan.

  Without warning, it pulled away from the curb, angling toward her as if it meant to meet her halfway. Lyssa hesitated, but the car never slowed. The driver didn’t seem to be in any hurry.

  The morning sunlight bounced off the windshield and into her eyes, preventing her from seeing the figure behind the wheel.

  The car didn’t stop as it passed, just seemed to float on down the road. When it reached the corner, the driver signaled and turned right. A moment later, the black sedan was gone.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “Do you have any idea how incompetent this makes us look?” Ramon whispered. He wrapped his fingers around Lyssa’s arm and guided her around the corner, out of sight of the people inside the conference room. “I told them I’d have all of our senior staff available. And now one of them’s gone AWOL? You need to get Drew in here!”

  “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, Ramon,” she replied. “He’s not answering his phone. He didn’t come to his door when I stopped by his house.”

  “Is that why you were late?”

  “I was worried!” She took a deep breath. “I think he might be really sick.”

  “You said he had the same thing Sudha had and she was back the next day.”

  “But she’s out again. And I tried calling her, too. No answer.”

  He exhaled through pursed lips, his face reddening with frustration.

  “Rame, something’s not right. I can feel it. It isn’t like Drew to act this way. In the time he’s been with us, he’s never just disappeared like this. I mean, can you recall a single time when he’s been out sick?”

  “Maybe he’s not sick. Have you considered that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ramon tilted his head back to check o
n the visitors. “We both knew it was possible he’d leave us, that he’d take a better paying job closer to home.”

  “He’s happy here. He likes the work. Besides, I spoke with him the other day and he sounded terrible.”

  Ramon shook his head. Finally, he took a deep breath and scratched his cheek. “Damn it. Okay, we’ll figure this out later. For now, though, we only tell them he’s out with the flu and we expect him back in a day or so. We’ll just have to start without him. And Lyssa—” He pulled her back. “I hope for both our sakes he really is sick.”

  “Thanks for the worry.” She shook him loose, seething with anger. Didn’t he understand that this wasn’t about Drew flaking out on her? Of course he was sick, and not just with the flu. “For once, can’t you stop thinking only about yourself?” she hissed.

  She stepped past him and entered the conference room, forcing a thin smile onto her lips. Ramon followed on her heels. He had also switched on the charm, though he was doing a much more convincing job of it. Now he was laughing and shaking hands and introducing the rest of the staff and explaining everyone’s role.

  When he finally came to Lyssa, she nodded politely and allowed the two male and the one female executives to shake her hand. They mentioned how much they were looking forward to working together with the Laroda team. Lyssa nodded and reciprocated in kind, but her mind was elsewhere.

  Blessedly, Ramon took command of the meeting, speaking for the group and directing the discussion to the details of the upcoming studies. When a break was proposed, Lyssa excused herself, explaining that she needed to tend to things in the lab. The Ames members smiled indulgently and commented on her dedication. Ramon laughed and agreed with them, but he gave her a stern look when their backs were turned. The message was clear: he expected her back as soon as she was finished. With half the staff gone, the empty seats around the conference room table made the group appear inadequate.

  Back in her office, the door shut behind her, Lyssa settled into the chair behind her desk with a heavy sigh. She didn’t need the pressure Ramon was putting on her shoulders, not today, not when Drew wasn’t answering his door or his phone. She pictured him lying unconscious in bed or, God forbid, the floor, his lungs filling with fluid.

  Stop it!

  There was a knock and one of the techs stuck her head in when Lyssa responded. “Ramon wants us back in ten,” she said. She dropped a package on Lyssa’s desk. “Noticed you were out of ink.”

  “Thanks.”

  Lyssa scurried down the hall in the opposite direction of the conference room, grabbed a mask and some latex gloves from the table in the hall, donned a lab coat, and headed into the animal room.

  The test animals were kept in a series of cages against the wall to the right of the door. Animals not being used were kept in a separate part of the building, accessible through a door to the rear of the room, as well as from one down another hall. The cages on the left were empty.

  The occupied cages appeared not to have been cleaned for several days, and the food dishes in most were empty. The task cards on each of the cages hadn’t been checked off, which wasn’t like Drew at all. He was usually meticulous in his recordkeeping. According to the cards, the rabbits hadn’t been cleaned, fed or watered since Friday.

  When she’d last looked in on them then, only the treatment animals had been listless. Now, they were all in distress, laying on their sides and panting. Their bellies were distended. Some watched Lyssa as she approached, minimally turning their heads and peering at her with their watery eyes. She didn’t know if their lack of energy was because of the lack of food.

  The trays beneath the wire floors contained only a handful of droppings. There was urine in the traps beneath half of the control rabbits. None of the test animals had urinated. At least not in their usual corners. Lyssa exhaled into her mask in annoyance. Their water bottles were still nearly full. The rabbits weren’t drinking.

  On a whim, she collected all the urine samples she could from the control animals, then tested each with colorimetric strips to measure various metabolites of interest. Unexpectedly, there were high levels of protein. Even more worrying was the presence of nucleic acid.

  She quickly refilled their food bowls, then ticked and initialed the task cards. Only two rabbits made any attempt to feed. The rest cowered in the backs of their cages or remained where they lay.

  “I’ll be in to check on you ladies later,” she told them.

  She stripped off her lab coat, gloves and mask, and returned to the meeting.

  * * *

  Thankfully, the second half of the discussion lasted only another forty minutes before Ramon suggested they break for lunch. Risking his ire, Lyssa declined as politely as possible. “Our chief scientist and lead assistant in the animal house have been out with the flu,” she explained.

  Ramon coughed lightly into his hand. “Lyssa’s temporarily taken on the extra burden. As you can imagine, we all wear multiple hats here.” The others nodded sympathetically and a suggestion was made that they look into hiring an additional scientist or two. “We’ll definitely do that,” Ramon said. “Won’t we, Lyssa?”

  She walked with the group into the lobby and waited while they chatted. A stern-looking woman named Elena excused herself to use the washroom. Standing to one side while the men chatted, Lyssa’s thoughts strayed. Out in the glass-enclosed courtyard, two of the regular Ames people were taking their lunches. They were sitting in the shade at the picnic table.

  “As you know,” Ramon was saying, “we raise our own small animals here on site. Our care and monitoring protocols exceed federal standards.”

  Don’t take them into the test room, Lyssa thought, absently.

  Her eyes settled on a blemish on the glass door to the atrium. It at first appeared to be a crack, but upon closer inspection, she saw that it was a drip, dark crimson and jagged as it ran toward the corner of the glass. It looked relatively fresh.

  Blood?

  Her heart leapt into her throat.

  Whose?

  She hadn’t seen it there yesterday, but it was possible she’d missed it.

  Cassie’s?

  The sound of heels clipping on the linoleum reached Lyssa before the Ames woman appeared. She quickly straightened again.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come, Lyss?” Ramon asked. They were all beginning to edge toward the front door.

  “I’m good. I’m just going to do some work. I’ll see you after you get back.”

  As soon as they pulled out of the parking lot, she hurried off to find a towel and some bleach from the lab. After wiping the stain away, she checked for more signs of blood inside the enclosure. The two regular Ames staff members watched her curiously.

  It can’t be Cassie’s. It’s not.

  But the drip on the door was the only trace she could find.

  It’s probably old, she tried to convince herself. Maybe even weeks old. But her doubt trailed her back to her office. It pestered her and wouldn’t leave her alone.

  Lyssa sighed and tore open the wrapper for the replacement ink cartridge.

  You’re being paranoid. Just check Cassie over again for new cuts when you get home. And Shinji.

  And what would she do if she found any? She dreaded the batteries of blood tests they’d have to do and the reports they’d have to file. She could hear Ramon complain about how it was messing everything all up.

  Over on her desk, her cell phone buzzed. She quickly hit the printer’s RESET button, then hurried over to answer it.

  “Missus S? I’m sorry to bother you at work.”

  “Ronnie? What’s the matter?”

  The young woman’s voice was quavering. “It’s Cassie. She’s running a fever. And now she’s throwing up.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Too many cars, not enough road.

  That’s what the traffic reporter on WAXQ had said. No mention of the fact that the tower work crews were out in force again, gumming up the commute e
ven worse than usual. It appeared they were adding cameras to the towers, though Lyssa couldn’t understand what they’d use them for.

  If yesterday’s drive had been blissful, today’s was proving to be worse than hellish.

  Normally, it should’ve taken her ninety minutes to make the drive from the lab to their house. But on this day, which had already started off badly and then gotten steadily worse, this one day when Lyssa desperately needed to be home not now, but like ten minutes ago, she figured she’d be lucky to arrive in less than three hours.

  “I should never have gotten out of bed this morning,” she muttered impatiently.

  The memory of the call replayed in her head, over and over again— Ronnie’s assurances that it was probably nothing: “I think she just got a little too much sun. No, you don’t need to come home.”

  Scenes flashed through Lyssa’s mind, some of them imagined: Cassie pulling Shinji out of the middle of the biohazard waste, a needle stick or a shard of contaminated glass, a cut. Blood flicking onto the glass door.

  It felt to Lyssa as if she’d been forcibly expelled from her own body. She could suddenly see herself standing there in the office, growing small as the walls spun around her. Ronnie’s voice fading away into the thinnest sound: Should I give Cassie something for the fever?

  In the background, page after page spewing out of the printer, all covered in words she had lost all sense to read. Her ears filled with the roar of blood through her veins.

  She remembered raking the sheets into a loose packet and thrusting them into a folder and tossing it, along with her notebook and computer bag, into her trunk.

  But now that she was on the road with little to do but rethink how unlikely it was that Cassie’s sickness was anything but what Ronnie had said — too much sun — she realized that she had overreacted yet again.

  If not the sun, then definitely whatever’s going around the office.

  Just the flu.