While Justice Sleeps

by Stacey Abrams

  She felt the flash drive tucked ominously in her pocket. As she had all weekend, she swung wildly between wanting to tell Agent Lee everything and wanting to keep the documents a secret until she solved Justice Wynn’s final riddle. But Nurse Lewis was dead. Betty Papaleo was missing. She and Jared had been attacked. Ani Ramji was on the run, and Justice Wynn lay in a self-induced coma. As long as she tried to fix this herself, she was risking her friends’ lives and her own. Yet if she told the FBI agent the truth, there was no way to predict how he’d react. Or who he’d tell. Her mind circled with the conundrum, but no new answer emerged.

  She decided to stick with what she knew. Who she trusted. Pulling out the flash drive, she announced, “Jared, we need to review the drive.”

  With a nod, he reached out his hand for the slim casing, and Avery placed it in his palm. In short order, files began to open on his screen. Jared had taken extra precautions. No eavesdropper or hacker would be able to access what they read, the data immediately encrypted.

  In silence, the team huddled around the screen and read the data, absorbing the information that confirmed their own research. Ling homed in on the images of DNA strands and scientific formulas, her occasional gasps signaling both wonder and horror.

  A video file was next on the directory.

  “Hold on,” Noah said. He opened the door and spoke to their guard. “I know you like to keep an eye on us, but we need to watch a few videos. We’ll need to use the blackout screens and the projector.”

  “Understood.”

  Noah came back and, using the audiovisual controls, darkened the room and dropped the screen. Jared connected his laptop and started the video.

  They watched as a large room appeared. Bunk beds had been lined up across the far wall, five in the row, stacked two deep. Off camera, a soft alarm sounded, rousing the occupants from sleep. One by one, they woke from their slumber. A few young men, in their early twenties by their looks, climbed down from the bunks. Others moved more slowly, particularly the elderly men who had bunked side by side on the lower level. A nurse entered the room from the left, her peach scrubs identical to the ones worn by the occupants, except theirs were either blue or green.

  As she moved among them, she offered each a bottle of water and a tablet from her rolling cart. To a person, they accepted the pill and quickly swallowed it down, as though this was a set routine. She waited while each person finished their bottles, then she carefully retrieved each bottle with gloved hands, swiftly labeling them before storage. No one spoke—not to the nurse, not to one another.

  The room, a pale yellow, had a set of four seating areas, with five chairs at each grouping. The camera angle changed, revealing a small sink and a mirror, which reflected the row of beds. One by one, the men approached the sink. Avery noted the range of ages, from teenager to septuagenarian. A quick brush of teeth confirmed the video time stamp of 7:18 a.m. Off camera, a faint sound of flushing could be heard.

  Once the occupants had completed their ablutions, they sorted themselves into the five arranged seating groups. Various games stood in arrested states of play. The teams began their activities, again without words.

  “Why is no one talking?” Noah wondered aloud.

  “I’ve got the volume up as high as it’ll go,” Jared responded. “You can hear the background noise. They’re just not talking.” He glanced at Avery. “Want me to fast-forward?”

  “Not yet.”

  They watched the silent room for another eight minutes before a figure entered the frame. He wore a white lab coat and a surgical mask, and he carried a clipboard. “Tigris test gamma one twenty-nine,” he announced.

  “That sounds like Ani,” Jared said. “Can’t be sure because of the mask.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  He moved from table to table, placing an oximeter on a silently proffered finger. With the completion of each blood oxygen test, he recorded the results before moving to the next. His rounds completed, he stared up into the camera and gave a short nod. Then he turned back to the group. “Hygeia appreciates your service. We are nearing the end of this phase of the trial. I will ask that you continue your assignments, and that you remain in your stations. Thank you again for your participation.”

  Ani exited the room, and the test subjects continued to play their games, solve their puzzles. Suddenly, a hiss of air disrupted the silence. The susurration was followed by staccato bursts of air. The occupants paused in their games to look around and at one another. When a second round of bursts followed, one of the younger men got up and moved to the side of the room where the beds were located. He stared up at the narrow vents that ran along the ceiling, then moved to the catty-corner wall and stared up again. A third volley of air bursts could be heard, and the young man climbed up to the top bunk and examined the vents, running his finger along the metal base.

  One of the older men approached the bed and grabbed at the bottom of his pants leg. He tugged once, hard, but the younger man waved him off. He yanked again and pointed imperiously at the door. With an angry gesture, he instructed him to come down, pointing in the direction of the camera. Reluctantly, the young man clambered down, frowning.

  The video continued for another five minutes, but nothing new happened. “Fast-forward,” said Avery.

  Jared increased the film speed by 1x and then by 4x, rushing forward by nearly six hours. Like marionettes, the figures changed tables, ate lunch, then dinner. Jared reduced it to normal speed when white-coated figures entered the room, but the actions in the room rarely varied. No one left or broke the routine except to go into what they assumed was the bathroom. Jared sped up the video again as the test subjects slept through the night.

  Suddenly, while the morning routine was repeating itself, Ling urged, “Stop. Play right here.” She got up and walked closer to the screen and tapped on the image of the young man who had climbed up to the vent. “Look.”

  Seated at a table with an incomplete puzzle, he reached up to his face and thumbed away a nosebleed. As Ling watched, the young man used the sleeve of his scrubs to wipe at his nose again as the drip became a steady stream. One of his companions rose and hurried over to the bathroom, returning with paper towels. While he tried to stem the now-constant flow, a voice cried out, “What is wrong, Harjit?”

  The older man who had intervened yesterday had his head in his hands, moaning, “What is this? What is this?” He lifted his head, and crimson streaked down his wizened cheeks as his eyes bled. “I cannot see!”

  Soon, the once-silent room erupted into a cacophony of screams and cries. Another young man doubled over, vomiting, clutching his stomach. Another elderly man moved toward his screaming friend, only to collapse near his chair, convulsing, blood vessels bursting across his skin. A middle-aged man, who appeared unaffected, beat at the door, demanding to be released. More occupants joined him, alternately pulling on the handle and banging on the metal door. To no avail.

  “My God,” Ling whispered to the room.

  Avery turned to her. “Do you know what’s happening?”

  “I hope not.” Ling told Jared to speed up the video, skipping through the horrific images at blur. When play resumed, the pale yellow room contained twenty bodies collapsed across beds, furniture, and the floor. Blood streaked the walls and the exit door, where a tangle of limbs spoke of their final desperate minutes.

  From a concealed panel, three people outfitted in masks entered the room. They methodically checked each body, and when they found one person alive, they took a blood sample, checked his blood oxygen level, and swabbed his cheek. Then a second attendant injected the prisoner with a needle. Over the intercom, Ani’s voice sounded: “Test Tau one twenty-nine completed. Fourteen dead. Six survivors. All subjects terminated.”

  The video ended, stilled on the final image of the bunks. “What the living hell just happened?” Noah demanded.
“How did they do that?”

  “Based on the symptoms, I’m guessing those men were dosed with a bioengineered viral vector that targets haplotypes and edits genes to limit clotting factors,” Ling answered hoarsely. “With a side of hemorrhagic fever, like some supercharged version of Ebola or Marburg. But they went from exposure to death in less than thirty-six hours. That’s insane.”

  “How long would it usually take?”

  “When the transmission is aerosolized? Maybe up to five days for initial symptoms. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  Shaken, Avery swallowed hard. “See if there’s another video, Jared. Please.” She and the others waited as he scrolled through the directory.

  “There are sixteen more videos,” Jared warned. “Labeled Tau one thirty through one forty-five.”

  Avery clasped her hands, pressing them to her forehead. Ani had told them the truth. More than three hundred people murdered in the name of a perverted science that weaponized their religious heritage. Bile strangled her as she stared at the screen. “You all can go, but I need to watch these. All of them.”

  No one moved.

  * * *

  —

  They made their way through the horrific videos, until, at Tau 142, an American soldier entered the laboratory and stooped next to a body, his mask firmly in place. A scientist joined him, and he waited silently for the American to speak.

  “Control groups?”

  “Genetic testing is not foolproof. We have found crossovers in our experimental groups and our controls. However, in nontargeted haplogroups, the incidence rates for the infection are below eight percent. The survival rate among our targets is twenty-four percent.”

  “And it looks like an aggressive form of Ebola or dengue fever?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Am I at any risk?”

  “Not unless you have been lied to about your heritage.” The scientist pointed to the concealed panel. “We can continue discussion in the clean room while the attendants see to the test subjects.”

  In the clean room, both men removed their masks and disrobed. The tall, slim Indian man was a new face. But the American was absolutely familiar.

  “My God, that’s Vance,” Avery said quietly. “That’s him. Let’s see what else Ani gave us.”

  * * *

  —

  Nearly an hour later, Avery’s mind was reeling.

  They had pored over the files on the drive and handed out assignments for one another. She now had proof of a massive scheme to murder millions, but she couldn’t reveal what they’d learned until she figured out what else Justice Wynn had left for her.

  They had proof of the crimes against humanity and concrete evidence that the United States had outsourced the project. They had chromosomal grants, the videos, and carefully detailed records saved by Ani. She could prove what Justice Wynn suspected, but the damned man expected even more from her. Until all the riddles were solved, she wasn’t finished.

  Even if she published Dr. Papaleo’s memo and the financial information and showed the video from Dr. Ramji, who was to say anyone would believe what they read and saw? Accusations against governments sprouted like kudzu on the Internet, the lifeblood of conspiracy theorists. Deep fakes had become de rigueur, and gory videos could be produced by anyone. What they had could take years to validate. In the meantime, she would be dismissed as simply one more lunatic media whore who had been discredited and wanted redemption.

  “Avery?”

  She looked up and saw Noah frowning. “What?”

  “I asked, what are we going to tell Agent Lee?”

  Wearily, Avery responded, “I don’t know yet.”

  “The information on this drive corroborates the files you received, so we have to give it to Agent Lee,” Noah stated flatly. “You’re an officer of the Court.”

  “For God’s sake, President Stokes has committed treason,” Ling said. “Genocide. We have to tell someone.”

  “We can’t prove that,” Avery countered. “We can’t really prove anything. All we can show is that Vance is in a video, but without authentication from the authors, no court will accept it. We don’t know if this goes anywhere above Vance. Again, based on documents we cannot authenticate, the only thing we can confirm is that the money and direction were from Homeland Security and that Vance is involved, based—again—on a video that could be faked. And not one shred of evidence implicates the president yet.”

  She had most of the pieces—the pawns, the rooks, the bishops. But she couldn’t quite maneuver around the strongest pieces left on the board. Vance was protecting the king. She had reached a stalemate.

  “Until we have a plan that lets us use what we’ve found, we can’t move.”

  “Agreed,” Jared said. “But we know we’re right. My contact at the Pentagon came through and confirmed it—prior to joining the Secret Service, Major Vance served in the CBIRF.” He named the unit in a tight, hard voice. “He’s a highly skilled specialist whose bread and butter in the military was figuring out ways to anticipate the next anthrax or sarin gas attack.”

  Ling asked, “What happened?”

  “Apparently, while stationed in Afghanistan, he met a group of scientists working on a special project for a company in India. They’d posited that biogenetic weapons could be developed to target religious groups based on common ancestry. Vance brought it to his superiors; and six weeks later, he was stateside with a military pension and an honorable discharge.”

  “Is that how he ended up in the Secret Service?” asked Avery.

  “Seems so. The Service assigned him to the detail of an old friend—a young U.S. senator running on the ticket as vice president, who previously served a tour with him in the Gulf.”

  “Stokes and Vance. Like minds.”

  “Exactly. He links up with then-senator Stokes and, once they take the White House, Vance gets assigned to the Science and Technology Directorate at DHS, which has the authority to disburse funds to foreign entities for research, including chromosomal projects. Then President Cadres dies, and Stokes becomes president.”

  “President Stokes. Major Vance. The full weight of Homeland Security and the White House,” Avery muttered. “All I’ve got are some documents written by a missing employee who may have stolen government materials, which were likely emailed to me by the man who stands to benefit if his company joins forces with Hygeia’s successor. Authenticated by a renegade scientist who has vanished again.”

  Ling looked at her best friend. “That’s some desk job you have, Avery. What do you want to do?”

  “We wait. If we don’t, under the best-case scenario, you three find yourselves living under armed guard for a few months until there’s a trial, while I’m held in custody in a federal detention center. It won’t matter that you don’t know where the information came from or what happened. You’ll be material witnesses.

  “After weeks and weeks, they might strike you from a witness list, but President Stokes and his lawyers and DHS will have your names. They’ll know you spoke with the FBI and with DOJ. Which means your lives as you live them are over. No more medicine for Ling. No more security firm for Jared. No more corporate law firm for Noah. You’ll find yourselves mysteriously blackballed, assuming you don’t spend three to five years of your lives unraveling mistakes on your licenses and fending off lawsuits. Or worse.

  “And Jared.” She leaned in, facing him closely. “They’ll kill your father. Just like they killed Jamie Lewis.”

  “I don’t understand why we can’t trust Agent Lee,” Noah offered quietly. “We’re out of our league here. He seems to be on our side.”

  “I like him, Noah. I do. But anyone who works for the federal government has to be suspect. We just saw Major Vance blithely check on the murder of hundreds of Muslims, and he has access to everything I say or do. I’m not ju
st worried about Agent Lee for our sakes; I’m afraid for him.”

  Jared nodded in agreement. “Noah, I know why you suggested giving this evidence to Agent Lee, but I agree it’s a mistake. He’s an FBI agent, not a miracle worker. Nothing this big can be kept hidden by the FBI. They might be able to offer witness protection, but there’s nowhere we can hide that DHS can’t find us.”

  Jared turned to Avery. “You’re in an impossible spot—but you’ll figure out what to do. My father trusted you for a reason. Look at how much you’ve figured out already.”

  “Look at how many people have died.” She dipped her head, her voice low. “Okay, we keep gathering evidence. And we’re not telling the FBI or anyone else. Not yet. Agreed.”

  Ling nodded, as did Noah.

  “Let’s get back to work.”

  * * *

  —

  The team spent the next hour focused on their assignments. Jared had outfitted each of them with laptops that encrypted their data and searches, and he’d established an autonomous VPN to keep their activities hidden from anyone hunting for digital fingerprints.

  Avery finally closed her computer. “I’ve got to clear my head, and I need to visit Justice Wynn at the hospital. Maybe while I’m there, I’ll figure out what his letter is trying to tell me.” She’d just stood up, ready to ask the protective agent outside to arrange for a ride, when her phone rang. Avery wanted to ignore the summons and didn’t recognize the number, but she answered out of caution.

  A man’s scratchy voice said, “I want to talk to Avery Keene.”

  “This is she.” Unable to place him, she asked, “Who is this?”

  “I’m the person who has your mother. Say hello, Rita.”

  “Baby? Oh, God, I’m sorry. So sorry.” Her voice was small.