Genesys X

by B. J. Graf

Shin and I raced down the elevator to the parking garage. Shin was headed for the Burbank Airport. Timbo from NOHO Homicide would cover Van Nuys. “Anybody even suspects Nieto’s there,” Shin said, “call for back up.” Shin reached out and grabbed my arm. “Do not try to take him on your own.”

  I nodded as Shin took the detective sedan and I jumped in my Porsche. As I switched on the ignition, Jim Mar called me back.

  “You sitting down?” Jim pulled up the two bloodspots, one the source genome and one labeled Piedmont. They floated between us on the glove phone. To my eyes they looked like a match.

  “She’s the source genome, isn’t she?” I said, feeling my diaphragm tighten. “My mother.”

  “No,” Jim said, shaking his head.

  “She’s not?” I puffed out a short breath that was almost a laugh, then inhaled in what felt like my first deep breath in days. “Then why?”

  “You are,” Jim said. “You’re the source genome, Eddie.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  Standing motionless next to my Porsche, I stared at Jim’s floating face in disbelief.

  “I thought it was insane too.” Jim pointed at the two bloodspots on his phone, one the source genome and one labeled Piedmont. “But it’s an exact match with the uncorrupted part of the Devonshire blood spot and Lee’s file. I pulled your bio-file from Nokia PD to confirm. You know what that means?”

  “I’m a target. And now I know why.” My head buzzed. No wonder Lee had said my name in his vid-log before I’d even shown up at his door. No wonder Nieto had a big fat file on me.

  And if Lee knew all that, Maclaren must have known too, and lied about it, hoping to keep me in the dark.

  I popped the trunk on the Porsche and pulled out my Second-Skin. Peeling off my suit jacket, I slid the silky black fabric over my shirt and fastened the Velcro strip on the bullet-proof vest. Then I headed for Genesys.

  As I hurtled toward the Valley on the 101, cars on either side of me seemed to drift backwards.

  The call that buzzed as I passed the Sunset exit, and pulled me out of my thoughts, was from Jo.

  “Hey.” Until I was staring at her floating image, I hadn’t known just how much I wanted to hear her voice.

  But Jo’s face was tense and drawn, her lips the color of milk.

  “What’s the matter?” Jo looked like I felt.

  The black Lexus in front of me slowed. I hit the gas harder and pulled around him.

  “I can’t see you for awhile.” Jo’s voice was a thin quaver. “I have to go away.”

  “What?” I almost snorted. “Can we talk about this later?”

  Jo’s eyes were bright with tears. She was fighting for control.

  That pushed my pause button. I had no idea what had set her off, but Jo wasn’t a drama queen. Could it be the pregnancy hormones talking? I kept my face calm, took a deep breath, and eased my foot off the accelerator.

  “I’ll be home as soon as I can,” I said. “We can talk then.”

  She shook her head. Jo smiled a wan smile, her face leaning close to the phone’s camera. “Whatever happens, Eddie, I love you. Remember that. I’ve always loved you. Try not to hate me.”

  She was scaring me now. “It’s going to be okay,” I said.

  Jo just shook her head. “Why did you ever take this case?”

  Voices murmured in the background. Jo was calling from an office, not from home. The painting behind her looked familiar. Where had I seen that before? I sharpened the focus and saw a pair of ceremonial swords mounted on a coffee table. Katana. No.

  “Jo, where are-?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Before I could finish the question, she’d disconnected. But I’d recognized one of those voices in the background. It belonged to the owner of that museum quality katana: Maclaren, the CEO of Genesys.

  What the fuck was Jo doing in Maclaren’s office? There was only one answer I could think of, and it wasn’t good. No wonder Maclaren had dodged my calls. My head buzzed and my stomach felt like I was going to heave any second.

  The traffic snarled to a standstill near the Vineland exit. The bar of lights on the dash pulsed blue and arterial red as I hurtled my Porsche up on the shoulder and in and out of lanes. Fast as I could weave.

  Maclaren wasn’t the only one who knew my identity as the source genome. Nieto knew too, and he’d used the knowledge to pressure the Genesys CEO. Maclaren had caved to Nieto’s threats, just like Fuentes-Obrador and Sandy Rose. They had to stop me, and they knew how. Jo.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I slammed the steering wheel with the palm of my hand and welcomed the sting.

  Nieto had Maclaren in a vise. My guess was Nieto had tried to get me off the case earlier. When that didn’t work, he tightened the vise on Maclaren, who found a way to get Jo to come to Genesys. I’d gotten my mother to safety, but left Jo unprotected. And Nieto’s next move would involve more than threats.

  He knew I’d come for Jo.

  And then he’d come for me.

  Let him. I was ready.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  It was seven as I raced into the Genesys parking lot. The gate was up. The guard was gone. Not a good omen.

  The lot was nearly empty. A few cars clustered just inside the security gate, a few more near the entrance to the building. No sign of Nieto, but I tensed at the sight of a black Bentley X20 parked in the spot reserved for the CEO: Maclaren’s car. Next to it stood Jo’s green solar Prius. And perched up on the roof of the building – a chopper car.

  Shin called as I roared to a stop and parked across the handicapped spot by the door.

  “No sign of Nieto here,” Shin said, circling the Burbank Airport “You?”

  “No. But the Genesys CEO is inside with Jo.” I told Shin what had happened. How Nieto had Maclaren in a vise and was using Jo to lure me here. “I’m going in.”

  “Wait for backup,” Shin said. “Units are on route.” He turned the nose of the detective sedan around and headed towards Sun Valley and Genesys.

  “No time,” I said, checking my Laser-Glock before re-holstering. “They’ve got Jo. There’s a helipad on the roof. With a chopper car.”

  “Eddie, listen to me,” Shin said. “Sandy Rose didn’t die in that airport explosion.”

  “What?”

  “The body in that Mercedes wasn’t hers. It was another girl from her club.”

  Another innocent life added to Nieto’s body count. I flipped the Glock’s laser option to hot. “Sandy contact you?”

  Shin shook his head as he barreled down the road, lights and siren blaring. “She’s in the wind. Don’t expect we’ll hear from her anytime soon. Forensics made the call. Over and out.”

  As I leapt out of my Porsche, a middle-aged man in a white coat was scurrying out of the building. When he saw me, he dropped his backpack. I stooped to retrieve it. His biometric identification card told me his name was Dr. Lozano.

  “Where is everyone, Doctor?” I handed him his backpack.

  “The boss sent everybody home early.” Lozano nodded thanks and hurried to his car. He didn’t notice his biometric i.d. had slipped into my hand.

  His i.d. gained me entry to Genesys. Skipping the elevator, I raced up the three flights of stairs to Maclaren’s office. No sign of Nieto. Or anyone else.

  The door to Maclaren’s office was wide open. But Maclaren wasn’t in it. I looked past the coffee table with the katana and short sword mounted atop it near the door, to the leather couch nearby and the desk at the other end of the room. Holographic computer files floated in the air over the desk. Blood spots. And there seated in a ghost chair and staring blankly up at the files, sat Jo. No Nieto. No Maclaren.

  “Where is he?” I said, stepping into the room. “Maclaren.”

  Jo whirled around like she’d been struck. “Eddie. You shouldn’t be here.”

  “I came for you.” I crossed the office and knelt beside her. “Has he hurt you?”

  She looked away, pained.

&nb
sp; I took her pale face in both my hands and forced Jo to look at me. For the first time, she flinched at my touch. Standing, I took a step back. “Jo, we need to go now.”

  “Not yet.” Jo gestured for me to take a seat in the matching ghost chair next to hers. “I suppose you had to know sometime.”

  As I sat, her eyes returned to the floating files above us.

  “Jo, what’s going on?”

  “You remember when I told you I’d had a miscarriage in my teens? That there were complications?”

  There wasn’t time for this, but I nodded and played along. “You thought it’d made you infertile. But you’re fine. You’re pregnant.”

  Jo winced. I took her hand and started to pull her out of the chair. She tore her hand free.

  “There were complications, Eddie. I lied about the miscarriage. Oh, I’d had one, but that was later, in my thirties. You know I’m older than you.”

  I nodded. “Let me take you home. We can talk later.”

  Jo shook her head. “You know I left home and came out west when I was sixteen.” She fingered the tiny white scars on her forearm. Ghosts from her past.

  I nodded, confused, but I let her talk.

  “Had to,” she continued. “My father, he was like yours. Violent. And worse. When I left, he was furious. Cut me off, so I needed to earn money. My brother put me up, but college was expensive. Coke offered to help.”

  “Coke?”

  “Maclaren. He was a med-student and something of a science geek back then. He’d made money donating sperm. Coke told me about this clinic that would pay handsomely for donations. Egg donations.”

  My hands started to go numb.

  “I put myself through college that way,” Jo said. “They made embryos from my eggs and cloned them. They told me they’d use the embryos for research only. But one of their fertility doctors working at the clinic had a problem with alcohol. Dr. Singh implanted some of the research embryos in infertile women by mistake. The babies were born healthy, so the clinic let it slide. But another research scientist kept track of them. One of the implanted embryos which had been cloned for research turned out to be very special.” Jo turned to look at me. Her eyes were brimming with tears. She gestured to the floating files, the blood spots.

  “The resistant source genome for Alz-X,” I said. My voice sounded very far away and my head was buzzing. Dr. Lee was the research scientist who kept track.

  Jo nodded. “You know the rest. Dr. Lee acquired the clinic’s embryos and brought his research to Genesys. He developed the cure to Alz-X using the resistant genome. And then everything went to pieces.”

  “When did you find all this out?”

  “Today. When Coke called me. You see now why we can’t be together.” She hung her head and crossed her arms, rocking slightly back and forth.

  That’s how Maclaren had pressured Jo. He’d told her we were tied by more than love. We were blood. That my birth mother wasn’t my genetic mother. That Jo…

  “No.” I shook my head. “It’s a scam. They’re using you to get to me. Nieto has Maclaren in a vise. They lied to get me here. We have to go. Now.”

  “None of this was my idea,” said a voice from the back of the room. Maclaren. “This was never supposed to happen.” He walked towards us. With a fluid movement, he ran a hand through that salt and pepper hair and leaned against the desk. He looked from Jo to me. “But mistakes were made. And here we are. I can’t sacrifice the research.” Maclaren closed his eyes. His lip curled slightly. What good would that do anybody? Millions will live because of that research. The research is what turns it all around. The only thing left is to focus on the positive and move on.”

  “Move on.” A short burst of bitter laughter erupted from Jo.

  “I know right now this is traumatic,” Maclaren said, leaning towards Jo. “But I’ll see you both get a fair percentage of the profits. It’s the only thing to do. Let me take care of things.”

  “You’ve taken care of enough already,” I growled. “Where’s Nieto?”

  Maclaren’s shoulders dropped in a shrug. “I don’t know. Why don’t we have a drink and talk this through like adults?” In slow motion, he pulled a bottle of whiskey and three squat glasses out of the desk.

  “We’ll talk down at the station,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “There’s no need for that, Detective. Let’s work this out.”

  I stared at him. “You’re like a lot of players, Maclaren. Spinning all these plates in the air. You keep spinning even when all the plates have crashed. I’ll ask you again. Where’s Nieto?”

  “I have no idea.”

  With one sharp backhand, I swept the whisky glasses off the desk. They tore through the holographic blood spots and smashed into the wall.

  “We all need to stay calm,” Maclaren said, drawing out the syllables of each word. “Nobody needs to get hurt. His pale blue eyes were glued to my hands.

  My gun was still holstered, but my hand was on it.

  “Tell that to Frank, or Britney Devonshire and Dr. Lee.”

  Maclaren blinked. “Eddie, you have to believe me. I never wanted anyone to get hurt. Especially not you or Jossie.” Maclaren blinked.

  Jossie – I’d never heard anyone but Craig call Jo that.

  “Shut up,” I said. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  From the corner of my eye I saw Jo staring at me with a look of mingled terror and pain. I was afraid of what I might do if I met her gaze head on.

  “I’m going to be sick,” Jo said. She ran towards the door.

  Maclaren opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. The shrill sound of his glove phone cut the air.

  Maclaren made a sudden move, reaching across his body. I saw the glint of steel leave his desk. My gun left its holster. Glock in hand, I broke his nose and hammered his gun hand down hard on the desk. Maclaren cried out.

  The .9mm clanged as it skidded across the office floor. I kicked it away.

  In the second it took for me to whirl back around, Nieto was standing in the doorway, a .45 pointed not at me, but at Jo’s head.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  Nieto held Jo as a shield in front of his body, his left arm locked tight round Jo’s throat, his right hand with the gun pointed at her head. Eyes glued to mine Nieto shoved Jo back inside the door of Maclaren’s office.

  I stood to Maclaren’s right in front of his desk as he stood behind it, cradling his hand. If I tried to shoot Nieto now, I might kill Jo. I strained for the sound of sirens.

  Shadowing Nieto and Jo step for step, I searched for the clear shot as I edged closer to the door. “Let her go, Nieto. You can’t get away.” I was about five feet from the coffee table to the right of the door. “The chopper car won’t even make it past take-off. There’s already an APB out. Back-up’s closing in.”

  “I’ve beaten worse odds,” Nieto said, voice calm, eyes dead. “Get his gun,” he snapped at Maclaren, hauling Jo another foot inside the office. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Maclaren edged his way out from behind the desk. He slowly walked towards me, still holding his sore hand. His gun lay on the floor between Nieto and me.

  Maclaren knelt. With his left hand he retrieved his Glock. But instead of rising and taking mine, he turned his head towards Nieto. “No.”

  Maclaren’s gun was aimed at Nieto, not me. “I want to save lives,” the CEO said, “not end them. I never wanted anything to do with Sandy Rose and her fertility clinic. But Dr. Lee, he dragged me in, and with her came you. No more bloodshed. It stops here.”

  “What a punk-ass back-stabber you are, Maclaren.” If Nieto was surprised by the betrayal, he didn’t show it. “You were happy as long as you didn’t have to see the real work close-up. You knew what was gonna happen when you called Ms. Sloan with that bullshit about being Piedmont’s egg donor. Sounds plausible. She was a teen when she made the donation. And she’s had nano-work done that makes her look ten years younger now. But you knew it was a li
e. So, don’t pretend to yourself that you’re so noble.”

  “See, Jo,” I said. “I told you it was a lie.”

  Jo’s eyes were bright with tears.

  “Of course it was a lie.” Nieto pressed the barrel of the gun to Jo’s temple so tightly I could see the red impression it left on her skin. “But we needed to lure her here so you’d come after her, Detective. See, you’ve become a problem that has to go away.”

  “What are you saying?!” Maclaren said. “We were going to offer them a deal. I never planned to hurt Eddie or Jossie.”

  “No? Nieto cocked his head. “Then why’d you empty out the place and turn off the security cameras? You figured I’d kill them. Then you’d shoot me in the back. Leaving you in the clear to spin more lies to the cops.”

  I heard the distant whine of approaching sirens. Nieto heard them too.

  We were three points in a line: Nieto holding Jo at the door to the CEO’s office, me at the coffee table, and Maclaren kneeling between us both.

  Nieto’s grip had loosened. Jo must have felt the change in pressure.

  She dropped her weight and broke free. Nieto’s lipless smile vanished as he realized he was open. He let Jo go and lifted his gun to me.

  I saw the blur of motion and fired at Nieto.

  Maclaren’s body jerked like a marionette on strings. Gun in hand he’d risen from the ground just in time for my shot to punch a hole the size of a blood orange just below his rib cage. Maclaren looked down, stunned, as he crumpled and slid to the ground. He reached for the coffee table to steady himself but grabbed only a handful of air. The katana mounted atop the glass table rattled as he fell and dropped his gun once more.

  Nieto took cover right outside the office door. I was pressed flat on the wall just inside. Jo was lying flat on the ground behind the coffee table and sofa on my right. I signaled her to stay put. She nodded.

  The smell of cordite and seared flesh rode sharp in the air. Yet the room had gone eerily quiet. Bubbles of blood frothed at the corners of Maclaren’s mouth. As he tried to speak, the words were drowned in blood.