The Premise

by Andy Crossfield

  He was fairly sure Ramy had no idea he was involved, but it was just a matter of time, and Mark knew he had to get out of town quickly. He was trying to come up with a reason to leave but could find nothing important enough to warrant his absence at such a critical time.

  Mark was deep in thought as he entered the building and was immediately stopped from entering by security.

  "Whoa, Charlie, it’s me, Mark!" he said as he recoiled from the new security protocol.

  "Sorry, Dr. Moran, Basra’s orders. We’re in lock down mode around here until further notice. May I see your badge, sir?"

  "Uh, sure," and without thinking, Mark handed over his credentials.

  The badge scanner made a rude buzzing sound, and as Charlie tried again, Mark remembered he had the fake ID from the switch with Walter. Mark's heart rate jumped what seemed a hundred points as he froze, trying to think of what to do.

  "Play dumb," he decided.

  "What now, Charlie?" Mark protested. "You must have that machine set too high!"

  "Not sure what’s the problem, sir" Charlie said as he closely examined the badge. "But it looks like you have forged credentials here, Mark…" Charlie gave Mark a suspicious look as he continued turning the badge over and over, examining the edge and the laminate layers, where any forgery was most likely to deviate from the original…

  "It sure isn’t one of ours, I’ll tell you. It's passable on sight, but the chip is faked. Has this badge been out of your possession, sir?"

  "What? …Not that I know of. C’mon Charlie" Mark whined, "It’s me, Dr. Moran! You’ve known me for years for God’s sake!"

  "I know Dr. Moran, but this is not one of ours, and we're on-." Charlie said continuing his close examination.

  "Yeah I know, lockdown" Mark parroted.

  "Wait," said Mark, beaming as he recognized an opening for an explanation. "You know, that Walter guy from this morning, the one who caused all this extra security? He got onto the sixth floor using my real badge, didn’t he? This must be one he brought along to cover the switch…."

  "That’s possible, but I can’t let you pass without legitimate ID, and I’ll need to keep this as part of the investigation. Sorry, Mark." Charlie put Mark’s badge in a baggie and sealed it.

  "It’s all right Charlie. But can I ask you to escort me to Dr. Basra’s office? We have an important meeting and I’m already late…." Mark said as he impatiently fingered the handle on his briefcase.

  "Well, I guess that will be ok. But when you are through, come back to security to have your prints taken. We’ll need them to re-issue a badge."

  "My prints? This just gets worse and worse," Mark grumbled convincingly as he passed through security and down the hall toward Ramy’s office.

  He and Charlie walked the fifty or so steps to the large corner office and Charlie knocked lightly on the door. He stuck his head in and said "Sir, I have Dr. Moran here for his meeting with you. There is a problem with his ID so I thought I’d bring him down myself."

  "Oh, okay Charlie. Thanks" Ramy said.

  Charlie moved aside to let Mark enter, then started to leave. "Oh, by the way, Dr. Moran, don’t forget to drop by security and get those prints when your meeting is over. You won’t be able to move in the building without a new badge…"

  "Okay mother, thanks…" Mark replied using his annoyed voice.

  Mark entered Ramy’s office and sat in his usual chair, the one in the corner with the view of the courtyard.

  "Ball buster of a day Ramy… what’s so important that we couldn’t talk on the phone?" Mark said in a tone he had been practicing all the way back to the office. Mark was going for a cross between exhausted and anxious, which he hoped would elicit sympathy for his difficult day; yet still convey his concern for the recent turn of events.

  His carefully prepared and practiced tone was lost on Ramy though. Mark had never seen him so worried and upset. He actually looked like he would start crying any moment. "Ramy?" Mark asked, again in his rehearsed tone, "Are you all right?"

  "Mark," Ramy said, with a dead serious expression. "We have to talk. It's about Termes."

  Mark’s heart began beating so hard he was sure Ramy could hear it from across the room. The pounding in his ears made it difficult to hear what came next.

  "I have a confession to make." Ramy said.

  Wait, Mark thought. Did he say he had a confession to make?

  Ramy continued in a voice that was barely audible. "Do you remember a few years back when we were short on money?"

  "Sure," said Mark, barely able to contain his relief at the conversation’s unexpected and new direction. "The economy hit our product testing business pretty hard. I remember cash flow was tight." Mark couldn’t believe his good luck as he tried to recall more details. "You pulled a rabbit out of a hat and got that private investor to pony up millions… is that what this is about, the investor?"

  "In a way. Mark, did you ever wonder why I asked you to develop Termes in the first place? Why I asked that it be kept secret, and why you were excluded from testing?"

  "Well, I assumed it was need to know, and let’s face it, some administrations are not too keen on genetic research; what with the frenzy over stem cells and all… even if they do have the promise to deliver like Termes. I thought the secrecy was to protect the firm from adverse publicity… you know those Greenpeace crazies can cause quite a stir."

  Ramy turned away from Mark to look out the other window, a favorite negotiation ploy of his when he wanted to hide all emotion in his face.

  "Mark, what would you say if I told you Termes was already implemented as we speak– in a controlled environment of course?"

  Mark could not hide his surprise. His jaw actually dropped as he sputtered, "But, it’s not ready yet! It's close, but it's not safe…."

  Ramy turned back to Mark, his eyes begging forgiveness. "I couldn’t wait, buddy. Everything we had was on the line, the client wouldn’t give me the time, I had to act."

  "You had to act? Ramy, what did you do?" Mark’s tone came across a bit too condescending, and he immediately recognized the irony of condemning Ramy for his transgressions. Ramy, the confessed sinner, being judged by a murderer.

  "I dug us a hole there may be no getting out of, that’s what." Ramy said, talking again to the window.

  "What do you mean, Ramy?" Mark asked, adjusting his tone to be more compassionate this time.

  "A company, ReformCo, must have heard about our work on nutrition, and came to me asking us to design a modification to human digestion. They were leasing out their inmates for all sorts of labor; factory assembly, fabrication, phone banks, that kind of stuff.

  "They were looking for a way to increase endurance and stamina, while reducing the costs of feeding and health care for them… you know, add more profit to their bottom line."

  Ramy sighed deeply and began again. "Well, I looked at project Termes and thought this was just what they were looking for. Your objective was to get more energy from food by breaking down crude fiber into sugars, and when you jokingly suggested it would be easier to modify the person instead of the crop, I thought it was a match made in heaven!

  "I approached them with a schedule of two years to bring Termes to market and they just laughed. They had $3 million on the table, Mark, but only if I could deliver in six months.

  "So I took their deal and pushed you to the limit to hit their deadline… and handed it over to them without…."

  "Ramy," Mark sighed loudly not letting him finish but guessing the rest. "My God, …the liability… what were you thinking?"

  "I was thinking we were desperate, okay? And I was thinking these were inmates, okay?"

  "But now, with Termes on the loose somewhere out there, we’ll be sure to be found out. We’ll be inmates ourselves because of me and my stupidity."

  Mark was conflicted now. Should he tell Ramy he had orchestrated the theft? He had no idea what Walter had done with the thumb drive, but Mark sure as hell knew for certain
Walter wouldn’t be talking anymore. Best case, the police would recover the drive, make the connection to IFT and turn it over after the case went cold.

  In any event, it would be safe from competitors in the hands of the police. Mark realized it would be more difficult to come clean later, but he weighed professional misconduct, the rap Ramy was on the hook for, and murder, the rap he’d be confessing to, and decided he couldn’t offer any aid to Ramy. He justified his decision by thinking he was actually doing Ramy a favor. After all, if he told him what he had done, he’d only succeed in making Ramy an accessory after the fact to murder.

  "Mark, I tried to get you permission to go out to ReformCo and oversee the project. I thought if you could evaluate the data, do the physicals of the test subjects, and get a handle on things, maybe we could wind it down quietly. But Hank Caswell, their CEO, refused to go along with the idea. He doesn’t want any ties to us, especially now that a rogue copy is out there, and frankly, I can’t blame him."

  "Where is this ReformCo located?" Mark asked.

  "Outside of Las Vegas. Secluded in the desert, a perfect controlled environment, don’t you think?" Ramy replied, allowing a bit of pride to rise in his defeated voice.

  Ramy’s attempt at partial redemption flew right past Mark. He was instead thinking what a great place that would be for him to hide out for a few weeks, when Ramy’s desk phone rang.

  "Yes?" Ramy asked weakly.

  "Great, put him through, …well hello again Hank, did you rethink my offer?"

  "You did?" Ramy sat up straight in his chair, visibly relieved. "Well sure, I can get him on a plane tonight!"

  "All right, Hank. Keep in touch!"

  "Bye."

  Ramy placed the phone down as gingerly as if it were a fragile work of art.

  "Mark, you are not going to believe it! That was Hank, and he wants you to come out after all! Can you leave tonight?"

  Now it was Mark’s turn to quickly face the window to keep from showing his grin. All he could think about was how his luck had changed for the better. He never gave one thought to why Hank had changed his mind.

  Chapter 8 The Darkest Side of Vegas

  Mark took the rest of the day off and went home to pack for his trip. He couldn’t believe his good luck, being asked to go to the Nevada desert for an undetermined length of time just when he needed to lay low. Congratulating himself for his sudden reversal of fortune, he threw some clothes in a small carry on.

  He pulled out the money and divided it into two bundles. He put $10,000 in a dopp kit that he put in his carry on. He would try to pay cash to avoid being tracked by his credit card purchases, though he wasn’t sure it would work; the possibility of paying cash for everything might make him even more conspicuous. He put the rest into a large box, taped it securely shut, and stuffed it into a backpack along with the 9mm pistol he kept by his bed. He had plans to stash the money in a safe place on his way out of town, until he could figure out how to proceed.

  He caught a cab with plenty of time to make the money drop and continue on to Midway.

  As the cab made its way to the airport, he called Colleen.

  "Oh, hi Dr. Baker, its Mark, Moran…."

  "Hi Mark, and call me Colleen please, no need for formalities" said the pleasant voice. Mark thought her voice got friendlier when she realized who was calling, but he could just be imagining it… after all, he was having an amazing day!

  "Say, I’m going to be out of town for a while; I’m not sure when I’ll be back. I wanted to see if you had already sent your data to my office."

  "Yes, it should’ve gotten there this afternoon, why?"

  "Well, I’ll be busy with the project in Vegas, and I’ll probably have to postpone the review until I get back. I didn’t want to put you to the trouble of pulling it together since I’ll get to it late."

  "Did you say Vegas? What a coincidence Mark! As it happens, I’ll be giving a talk in Vegas on Friday. Since we'll be out there at the same time, how about I buy you dinner and you can look at my data by then? Come on… it’ll be fun and we can catch up!"

  "Well, I guess I will have my nights free… okay, let’s do it! I’ll drop by the office and if it’s there, I’ll take it out with me. Where will you be staying?"

  "The conference is at the The Palazzio, that new hotel on the Strip? I hear it is fabulous! Shall we say Friday at lunch to catch up and talk, then dinner that night to go over my research?"

  "Okay, sounds good. I’ll meet you in the lobby at noon."

  "Thanks Mark, I look forward to seeing you again!"

  "Bye Colleen"

  Mark called the office and confirmed there was a package there waiting for him. As it happened, the cab was just coming up on the exit to IFT. Mark had the cabbie drop by and Mark picked up Colleen's research along with some files he would need for the evaluation of the prisoners.

  The flight was two hours late leaving Chicago and by the time the wheels touched down in Vegas, it was dark. Flying into Las Vegas at night was a wondrous sight, one full of contrast between the vibrancy of the lights of the Strip and the utter blackness of the surrounding desert. Hard to believe, Mark thought, that this trip, he was headed for the darkness.

  He was pleased to see that ReformCo had reserved and pre-paid for a car for his use. He had wanted to avoid using his credit cards to make it more difficult to find him. Although he had no idea of how to rent a car without one, he had decided to figure that out if the time came. He was glad he didn't have to face another obstacle. Things seemed to be going his way after all.

  Mark drove the forty-odd miles out to the Crimson Desert State Prison to get a peek at the place before he was to report tomorrow. He dared not get closer to the front gate than the main road that passed in front, and didn’t stop for fear of drawing undue attention. True to its name, there was nothing but desert for twenty miles in every direction, except for the presence of the nearby little town of Brisbee. Mark wondered why the prison even bothered with a fence.

  Nobody in his right mind would attempt an escape from this place, and even if an inmate had lined up transportation, they would be easily detected from the air for an hour or more after the breakout. He had passed 'God forsaken' ten miles back, as his grandfather used to say.

  Mark pulled into the parking lot of the only motel in Brisbee and had an immediate flashback to a similar looking spot at the Regal Inn outside Chicago. A shudder went through him as he relived his unthinkable act and the image of Walter’s lifeless body, now most likely lying on some morgue’s examination table.

  He checked in using his real name and paid cash. The clerk hardly noticed and even seemed grateful he didn’t have to process a credit charge. He knew it probably wouldn’t prevent anyone from finding him, but he didn’t think it would hurt his cause either.

  His room was small, musty, and showed signs of being occupied by generations of vermin. Choosy guests would have marched back to the front desk, turned in their key, and continued the search for more suitable accommodations. Mark wasn't choosy. He tossed his key on the desk, and his briefcase, files, and his small carryon on the bed.

  He couldn’t help but envision the parade of occupants that had come before him, primarily family members of one of the inmates no doubt. Whiling away the hours until visiting time, they would lie on the bed, or pace around it in the small room. That, or some other activity he tried to force from his mind that involved the prominent slump in the middle of the bed.

  With no Internet or cell coverage, the room had about what he’d expected from an establishment that bragged about "air-conditioned" rooms in the desert. The only distractions he could find were a well-worn Bible with missing pages and a TV with only two channels, both with a fuzzy picture. Mark set his phone to wake him, undressed, and turned out the light.

  When his phone went off the next morning, Mark was deep in a dream. Some creature that anticipated his every move was chasing him; and when the alarm sounded, he woke with a start. It took him a mo
ment to realize where he was, and memories of the dream still hung in the air around him. In his dream, there were high walls he could not see over, but he could hear sounds of a struggle on the other side. There was no way in, and no place to hide. The feeling of dread stayed with him long after he showered and dressed, and only began to lift when he stepped into the glorious sunshine of the crisp desert morning.

  The guard at the gate found his name on his list and directed him where to park and the appropriate entrance to use for guests scheduled to see upper management. The Crimson Desert State Prison had been privatized three years before into the quasi-factory arrangement Mark saw in front of him.