We hugged our stuff and hurried off toward the trees. A heavy thud and splintering wood carried to us, adding some speed to our steps. The security thugs were breaking through the front door! Could they track us at night? I didn't see how, but what did I know?
I spared a thought for Josh and Martha Eberhart as we ran. How had Josh fared in the orgy and its bloody aftermath? Had he been able to escape the feverish clutches of the women? What had Martha done? I couldn't see her participating, given what she knew. But I couldn't say I had a handle on who was doing what to whom. I had been caught up in my own special fantasy. Fantasy was clearly the right word for it because in reality it would be impossible for me to have the best, most soulful sex of my life with a complete stranger in a VR program!
We made our way out to Secret Lake with a minimum of stumbling and muttered curses. Fortunately, the trail was pretty easy and familiar to most of us. That changed when we left the trail on the north shore and headed straight up into the forest on rocky and unsteady soil. Jenny was part mountain goat, part guide as she shepherded us up a steep mile to a large rock outcropping and a small tent inserted under a canopy of brush and tree limbs.
Jenny helped us arrange the blankets in the tent which looked to me like a tight fit for two people not to mention all five of us.
"I'll sleep in my sleeping bag outside," Jenny announced. "I suggest you drink some water, relieve yourselves, and huddle together for warmth. It gets cold out here at night."
"I'm sure we can find a way to keep warm," Chrissie laughed, wrapping a possessive arm around my waist. "Lucky we have a hot hyper with us."
"On second thought" – Jenny stepped over and pried the Asian computer executive's arm from my waist – "Aiden, you take the sleeping bag. I'll sleep with the women."
I wished I could say I didn't feel a stab of disappointment. Logic could be a cold mistress. And speaking of cold, even I was entertaining thoughts of shivering. It was as if the night had drained every scrap of heat from the warm, sunlit day.
I was way too keyed up to even consider sleep. While the women did their thing and crammed into the tent, I sat with the mummy sleeping bag flopped over me on the rock outcropping. Below, Secret Lake lay shimmering with stars. No amount of insanity or fear could erase that primal beauty. We were just specks within specks within an unimaginably vast cosmos. I wished that made me feel humble. I actually felt like designing a starship and flying up there and spreading human civilization through the whole universe. Probably just a guy thing.
I heard a scuffling on the rock and Jenny, now in a ski jacket and cap, lowered herself beside me. I draped one end of the sleeping bag over her shoulders.
"There were moments when the view was so beautiful it made me forget what I was doing up here," she said quietly. "And moments when it was so ugly I wanted to forget."
It was like some Zen puzzle that I was pretty sure wouldn't have an uplifting solution.
"I watched you do a noble thing," she said. "Then I watched you do something that was utterly repugnant."
Jeez. Exactly what I was afraid of. "You watched me save that, uh, woman from drowning."
"Then I watched you revive her. Multiple times."
I winced. "I'm sorry, Jenny."
"You don't owe me an apology, Aiden. We aren't together. And you're just doing what hypers do."
I thought I heard anger poking through her the forced evenness of her voice.
"That's not the way I want it, Jenny," I said. "I hope you know that."
"Hypers aren't monogamous, Aiden. It's not about character. You have more of that than most. But there's just too much chemical force."
I wanted to protest, as I always did when people made it sound like I was a puppet on some hormonal string, but what could I really say?
"Who was she, by the way?" Jenny asked.
"Martha Eberhart. She's – "
"Dr. Martha Eberhart, the new CE Sacramento branch Director of Research."
"You know her?"
"I've been doing a lot research myself into CellEvolve lately. Her name came up in some conversations I had with your former boss, Dr. Blumenthal."
"You talked to him? I can't believe he'd be willing to do that."
"I think I caught him at the right time. He's a bit bitter toward his former employer right now."
I nodded to myself. No surprise there. A small bubble of guilt rose – had my extortion of the two million gotten him fired? Still, he had treated me with a measure of respect and maybe even kindness at times.
"It was actually his idea to check out this retreat," said Jenny. "But I doubt even he had any idea what would happen up here."
"I don't think anyone did." It was sort of reassuring that even these "makers and takers" couldn't predict or control everything. On the other hand, if whatever had changed these women's personalities was permanent...or could be somehow transmitted...then their lack of control wouldn't seem quite so comforting.
"What else did Dr. Blumenthal tell you?"
"He was very vague – no real details. He just assured me that there were definitely many things worth investigating about CE and especially their 'latest barely tested wonder drug,' as he put it. He told me the reason he'd been forcibly retired was that he'd made the mistake of objecting to a plan to give Reprise to 'willing guinea pigs' at this Retreat. Emanuel believed doing that could mean billions in revenue and investments."
"Oh." I enjoyed a moment's relief that I hadn't gotten him fired. "I don't know much about business, but turning customers into psychopaths doesn't seem like a good business model."
Jenny's laugh sounded thin. "I assume they gave out Reprise samples as Max Emanuel wanted – Dr. Eberhart willing to play along unlike Blumenthal – and the women started acting crazy?"
"Yeah, that's about it."
"Do you or your mom have any ideas why?"
I listened to the tent for a few seconds, hearing nothing. Were they already asleep, or was my mom listening through the thin walls? I doubted it since we were talking so quietly and so many yards away. Not that she would have a problem with me talking about her theories.
"She thinks it might have something to do with gut bacteria producing too much testosterone. We don't know exactly how the Respite factors are transmitted into the women's bodies – I mean, aside from the obvious."
"Sex?"
"Right. We don't know how those factors, whatever they might be, are getting from the, uh, male reproductive organs into the women's systems. She took blood samples, but Max Emanuel confiscated them. She wanted to get the women into a lab and really check them out, but Max vetoed that for now. Maybe that will happen after the dust has cleared here."
"Or maybe it won't," said Jenny. "Maybe the women won't agree to the tests? From what I've seen, they don't seem terribly rational. Maybe CE just pretends it's no big deal – gets the RSA and FDA to look the other way - and moves on?"
"I don't think it will be that be easy."
"I don't think it's going to be possible." Jenny tapped the camera case slung over her shoulder. "Since by this time tomorrow my story and the accompanying videos will be public knowledge."
Though that was the logical conclusion of Jenny being here, I couldn't stop icy veins of dread branching up my legs and spearing my gut. It was one thing to write a critical article or some conspiracy speculation about a powerful corporation, but this would be an act of war. What could CE do about it? I was guessing plenty. They had people in government and the media – they even had an army, for God's sake! I'd read that Greywater had over twenty thousand former military personnel among their one hundred and twenty-five thousand employees.
"You're sure the Chronicle would even print this?" I asked. "Didn't you say they killed your story digging into the causes of MES?"
"Oh, I'm sure they wouldn't print it." I saw the flash of her grim smile in the starlight. "I'm not going to bother with the Sacramento Chronicle. This is going straight to the internet – specifically, to three
alternative news sites I trust. They'll take it from there."
I had a flash of Max Emanuel and all those high-powered men and women frolicking naked near Secret Lake or worse – being savaged by packs of horny women in "New Eden" – appearing on every computer, phone, and tablet screen on the planet.
"Wow," I said. I had a sudden, panicked thought. "Was I in any of your videos?"
"I recorded you rowing Martha Eberhart into shore. And some...afterward." She made a hoarse clearing-throat noise. "Nothing of you in the auditorium. Of course, everyone was covered up in their suits until the end."
"I'm surprised you didn't come down to help me when Dr. Eberhart was drowning."
"You were already halfway to shore when I spotted you. From then on you two didn't look like you needed my help." Muscles coiled along her jaw. She relaxed them with obvious effort.
"Oh."
"But don't worry, I won't be sending the recordings I made of you to Activist Post or the other alternative news sites."
I bowed in relief. "Thank you."
"But Aiden, to make this work I could really use your help. You and your mom's help. I need a corroborating source from the inside, or it could all end up looking more like a porno movie than a news report."
I shivered. I doubted from the cold.
"You have video of Max Emanuel and other well-known people. Wouldn't that be enough?"
"It would be enough for a tabloid story. I could get a billion views on YourWorld. But what exactly is happening, other than a lot of bigwigs behaving like Caligula? There's no proof that Reprise has anything to do with it."
I pulled the sleeping bag more snugly around my shoulders. I was feeling a strong regret that I'd ever contacted Jenny in the Hypersphere.
"What about Chrissie?" I asked. "I bet she'd be willing to back you up about Reprise after everything that's happened."
"I wouldn't bet on that. First, she's not in her sound mind, and it's possible she may not be any time soon. Second, she's one of them, one of the Club. I don't see her or any of them turning on Max Emanuel or Marion Ellsworth. Better to make a deal and get something out of this rather than risk being ostracized or worse by these people."
"You want me and my mom to be whistleblowers."
"That would be a great help, yes."
"But Jenny, seriously. You just said 'ostracized or worse.' What do you think they'd do to us if we did that?"
"They wouldn't go easy on you, I'm not denying that." Jenny placed a hand on my knee and squeezed it. "But look at what happened here – at what CellEvolve has been doing? They're doing the same kind of immoral, selfish, shortsighted crap that Mantra was doing before the Outbreak. And we all paid the price for that didn't we? Now, almost forty years later, CellEvolve's traveling down the same road, throwing caution and commonsense to the wind in the pursuit of profit. Someone's got to take a stand, Aiden. Someone has to stop this insanity. One or two brave, good people could save the world."
I wrapped my arms around my legs, squeezing them together against a frigid breeze. A coyote howled somewhere not far away. Fitting.
"That was quite a speech," I said.
Jenny gave a soft chuckle. "Thanks."
"They could kill us, Jenny. We could become one of those suicidal people who shoot themselves three times in the head and then hang themselves."
"We'd have all the information out there. What would be the point?"
"Revenge?"
Jenny sighed. "I don't see them going that far. Too risky. But of course I can't guarantee what they'll do. Have they ever threatened you in that way?"
"Not exactly. Dr. Eberhart sort of hinted about it once. And there was this girl...well, actually a young research scientist who, uh, worked with me at the CE facility here. Aleesha Bloom. She quit CE because she thought what they were doing was unethical, maybe even criminal. She was upset about how they were treating me and about the possibility that CE was withholding a drug that cured MES. She said that if she found out they were doing that she'd tell people about it. She supposedly committed suicide by overdosing on Melatin a short time later."
A bunch of coyotes started yipping. It sounded like demented laughter. Jenny shifted closer to me under the sleeping bag.
"You think maybe it wasn't suicide?"
"I'm not sure. They said there was a suicide note. But Aleesha was really smart and successful. She wasn't much older than you. She was upset with CellEvolve, but I don't believe for an instant she was suicidal."
Jenny was silent for a few moments. "I don't know what to say about that. I could look into it, if you want. But right now we need to decide what to do."
I let my breath out slowly, watching its mist drift away over the rock.
"I want to do what's right," I said.
"I know. And I know it's asking a lot, especially from someone your age."
"I don't suppose you'd consider just deleting the recordings and forgetting about the whole thing?"
"Ha. I almost wish I could. But all it takes for evil to triumph is good people to do nothing, as they say." She turned to me, her face pale in the dim light. "Is that what you want me to do?"
I groaned. "Not really. But I wouldn't be disappointed if you did that, either."
"Well, sorry, Aiden, but I'm committed now. With or without you."
"They could harm you, too, Jenny."
"I know. I'm going to take precautions. And you may have noticed, I can take care of myself."
I smiled. "I have noticed that."
"Well..." She eased out from under the sleeping bag. "Time to join the others in the bat cave. Uggh."
"Have fun with that."
"Just please take some time to think it over, Aiden. That's all I'm asking."
"I will. See you tomorrow."
"With any luck."
Chapter 32
WHEN I FIRST HEARD the sniffing sound outside my sleeping bag, I instantly suspected one of the coyotes – hopefully, just one – that had been serenading us last night. But when something pawed the bag I was thinking mountain lion or bear. I lay as still as death, my eyes glued to the tiny opening at the top of the bag that remained after I'd tied myself inside. All I could see were the dark grey shadows of early dawn.
Then the zipper started down and I was face to face with a much scarier carnivore: the dark-haired, ivory-skinned Chrissie Hayashi wearing a grin that showed off her sharp white canines.
"Good morning," she chuckled. "I've been smelling you from the tent. Even all cocooned in your mummy bag, your smell still leaks through."
"Maybe I need a shower?"
"Ha, ha. No what I think you need, my beautiful young man, is some company." The zipper resumed its downward course. "Let's try to keep quiet, to avoid waking the others."
Funny thing – I was smelling her, too. Musky, ripe, maybe a touch of body odor from all the exercise and close confinement. I hated myself that I was turned on instantly. The idea of her climbing inside and us quietly going at it lit me up like the Fourth of July.
"Oh, yes," she murmured. "I smell your desire. I will consume it all like buttery chocolate my dear hyper-boy."
I thought she was pretty poetic for a sex zombie.
"Get away from him, Chrissie."
Surprisingly – and frighteningly – it was my mom. Frightening because her blouse was half-undone and because of the naked hatred and aggression in Chrissie's eyes as she rose from her haunches to face her.
"You just want him for yourself you fucking bitch!"
She lunged for my mother. I grabbed for Chrissie's leg but missed. I scrambled out of the sleeping bag in movements that seemed monumentally slow as I watched a snarling Chrissie Hayashi bear down on my shocked mother. My mom raised her hands in an uncertain defensive gesture an instant before Chrissie tackled her and slammed her to the ground.
I raced toward them. I knew I was fast – I knew I had to be crossing the ten yards between us in a second or two – but Chrissie seemed to be clawing my mom's face an
d chomping into her forearm in some accelerated time frame. At long last when I reached them my mom was a bloody mess. How could that have happened so fast?
I found out in the next few seconds how: Chrissie was like a combination meat-grinder/rabid cat – ripping, biting, slashing – all the while wearing this happy, creepy smile. She dug her teeth into my right shoulder and held on, bulldoggish, when I attempted to throw her off me. She was clamping her legs around my waist and working herself frantically against my groin when when Jenny thunked her on the back of her head – twice – with what appeared to be a rock. Chrissie flopped on the ground.
We stood there, panting, locked in that impossible moment until Meredith crawled out of the tent and my mom made a moaning attempt to sit up. I dropped down beside her. In the weak light it was hard to make out the extent of the damage, but my impression was that the wounds were superficial.
"Are you okay, Mom? Did she injure you in any way?"
"Nothing major, I think."
She held out her arms. Jenny and I hauled her to her feet where she swayed for a second or two before stabilizing under our support.
"I should've been expecting that," said Jenny.
"We should've been," Meredith growled.
"What did you hit her with?" my mom asked Jenny.
Jenny shrugged. "A rock."
My mom stared down at her. "She could be severely injured. Suffering a concussion or worse."
Jenny grunted. "What a shame."
After a couple of steadying breaths, my mom kneeled beside Chrissie and felt around the back of her head. "Her skull seems intact..." She touched the side of her throat. "Pulse is steady. I don't think she has a critical injury. But she needs to be medically examined."
"So do they all," said Merry. "So should you and Aiden."
"I never thought fingernails could deadly weapons." I touched my face and my fingers came away bloody.
"She did us one favor by waking us up," said Jenny. "This is the perfect time to go – just light enough to see where we're walking. My car's four or five miles away. We should get moving."
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