He sent the message home, this time directly to his father. Blunt, truthful, and pleading for help.
Chapter Seventeen
Another week passed with Jason diving deeper into the ever-growing stack of information Bill brought to him. About the only interesting item to turn up was proof that the two lead people at Wingate immigrated to Alexandria from Serigala — Dr. Frank Carson and Ms. Ellen Wingate. While it helped confirm to Jason some of his original assumptions, it wasn’t really useful information.
Since Dr. Wilkes was still missing, Bill plied people for information and then suggested nabbing Wingate or Carson. His lackey also continued to show up with an increasing number of bruises, scars, and on one occasion, an impressive limp.
Jason forestalled his accomplice in any effort to grab and torture the two executives. Fortunately, Bill hadn’t been able to track either of them outside the office building so for the moment it was a moot issue. Real or in the Mirre, Jason would have to watch, and he shuddered thinking about going through one of those episodes again. Day after day, the idea both enticed him and scared him. He could see himself become more and more ruthless as the years went by, turning him into another Shabin Emperor willing to do anything just for the sake of gaining more.
After another five days, he got his first response from home — Dr. Wilkes's file from Debra. The details of his firing were ambiguous. A simple insubordination statement affixed to the end of the document. Jason turned to the man’s résumé. While the doctor wasn’t considered a genius, he was certainly well-educated. Dual undergraduate degrees in biology and chemistry with a focus on non-human life-forms. After that, Wilkes went on to get a medical degree but instead of setting up a practice, he re-enrolled and picked up two more doctorates — cloning genetics and Herodotus biology.
Jason couldn’t know from the records, but it looked as if the man custom-designed his education to be perfect for working in the deepest levels of Shabin Industries. He didn’t even start his career until he was well into his forties and Shabin snapped him up a few years later. He’d worked for the company for the next fifty-three years.
The picture brought the recollections back to Jason. He’d seen the man occasionally, and between the picture and his old memories, he thought he had enough to link with Wilkes. The doctor had been a loyal user of Shabin youth retention medications. His last company photo, taken a few months before he left, showed a man in his prime. Close to a hundred, he could pass for fifty if it wasn’t for the markings along his ears. One of the telomere stabilizers had a habit of accelerating ear growth, so most people who used it required frequent ear sculpting.
“What are you doing, Dr. Wilkes?” Jason sat on a couch and spoke to the image.
It was early afternoon when he’d started going through the records; now, it was evening. Jason ached to hop into the Mirre and question the doctor. Confront him. Maybe punch him in the nose. It also terrified him that he would try and subsequently fail to connect. Wilkes could be anyplace in the universe by now. Bill was off wandering the domes and probably collecting a few more injuries. Jason could snatch a copy of Bill to go with him, but he didn’t want the first meeting to turn nasty. That would be a decision for later and possibly require a live meeting. If Wilkes needed to die, Jason wanted it to be quick and painless, not another horror show.
Well, there was no use waiting. He needed to determine if staying on Alexandria was pointless. If they had to continue the search elsewhere, he could walk into the Rhime Embassy and leave a message concerning Wingate for whatever help his father sent in a few weeks.
He moved from the suite’s couch to the bedroom and got comfortable. Placing his comm on a table, he switched Dr. Wilkes's image from the screen to a holographic projection. The doctor floated over the room like a ghost.
Preparing himself for a new Mirre connection, he watched the image while past encounters with the man flipped through his mind. Short black hair slicked down like a little kid getting ready for a school photo. Hazel eyes. Stumpy frame. Dr. Wilkes. Talk to Dr. Wilkes.
With a sigh of relief, the hotel room broke away. Jason stood in a lab. Lots of gleaming stainless-steel shelves and counters. Biological cabinets. Bottle after bottle of mysterious substances with chemical names and symbols. One wall had stacks of box-like machines — scientific components for one purpose or another. No windows. This lab was underground.
Sitting on a stool with his back to Jason was Dr. Wilkes working inside a sterile field. Rumpled lab coat and all, hunched over and swirling a beaker with a long neck like a mad scientist. On the other side of the room, a door stood ajar. Jason could just make out the edge of a bed. So this is where the doctor disappeared to. Living inside his fortress. One level down? Two? Ten? The company bought enough materials to make a dozen or more levels, depending on various factors.
Screwing up his courage and praying this wouldn’t get violent because Jason could easily throttle the man if he wanted to, and he wanted to, he dramatically cleared his throat.
Dr. Wilkes flinched, and the beaker smacked hard against the counter. “Oh, God.” The doctor swung around and stared at him. “You’re alive!” Hollow eyes closed for a moment and Jason would’ve sworn the man was relieved to see him.
It wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. Jason kept his threatening posture and growled, “Yea, I’m alive. And you better start talking fast if you want to stay alive also.”
The man looked haunted and sorrowful. Pitiful even. “I… I wasn’t sure what they’d done.” The doctor glanced around the room. “So this is the Mirre. Huh. Everything looks the same, even feels the same.”
Jason took a moment to turn and check behind him. There was no door. The entrance must be through the bedroom. He’d have to pop inside there on his next trip, but there was no sense in wasting this time around. He could glean some information even if the doctor knew it wasn’t real.
Hesitating for a moment, he sought the best way to go about the interrogation. “I’m coming for you, doctor.” He tried to make his voice convey an ominous manner. “We’re coming for you. You can tell me what’s going on now, or you can do it in your real body later in front of the Emperor. You won’t like the results if you make me wait.” Jason crossed the lab and towered over the quivering man.
Wilkes stuttered with anxiety. “P-Prince Jason. Oh, G-God. No, Jason, Please.” He held up shaky palms. “You’ve got this wrong. I’m a prisoner.”
Jason stepped back, both literally and figuratively. He’d been sure the doctor was directly involved. “You were walking around free a few weeks ago while working for Wingate.”
“Yes, well.” The man ran fingers through his hair and un-crouched himself. “A slight miscalculation on my part, I’m afraid.”
Jason let out a sigh along with vibrating his lips. “Pfft.” Grabbing another stool, he plopped down across from the man. “Let’s hear it, doc. All of it.”
“Right. Sure, my err, sir.” He couldn’t call him my prince any longer. After the doctor lost his status back home, Jason wasn’t his prince anymore. Twinges of nervous tension continued to plague the man.
Jason rubbed his temples. “Let’s start at the beginning. Why did the company fire you?”
“The beginning, right.” Wilkes looked past Jason as if peering into history. He murmured to himself. “I could go back to… No, too far.” He straightened again and spoke louder. “You know, you’re quite the little miracle, Jason. So is your father. And I suppose your grandfather, as well.”
Jason twirled a finger, hoping to get the doctor on track. “Come on.”
“The whole basis of scientific research is producing results that are reliable and repeatable. Your family seems to defy that.” He looked at his hands and nodded. “Right. You don’t care about any of that. Essentially, I was fired for getting results.” He paused a moment and glanced into Jason’s eyes. “I’m not doing this well. It goes back to my start with the company. My hiring contract included a provision where I wasn
’t allowed to publish any of my work without permission from the company. I’d forgotten all about it. It was over fifty years ago. I can’t even be sure if I knew about it in the first place.”
That seemed a bit dubious. The topic should’ve come up more than once over the years, but he let the man ramble on.
“Anyway, once you got old enough to demonstrate you had the power, your father cut back on the development of more children.” Wilkes offered Jason a smile. “He was a more pleasant man back in those days. I think he was satisfied to know he had an heir with the Mirre. I don’t know. Maybe he figured you could take up that part of the experimentation again when it came time for you to have a child and we had another decade or two of research.”
Oh, doctor. Oh, father. If I ever have a child, it won’t be through gene manipulation. Jason would gladly let the Mirre disappear after he died. A brief vision of Sparrow crossed his thoughts. Silly, they weren’t anything yet. “Go on.”
“But then, a few years later, the company stepped up the cloning project. We were asked to clone you.”
That wasn’t a surprise. Jason knew the company had tried the process. What he didn’t know came next.
“You were twelve by then, and your father wasn’t happy with who you were becoming. He feared the company would collapse under your authority. You lacked his drive. He raved about it sometimes. Since this all started after his body change, I always wondered if something happened to his brain during the transfer.” Dr. Wilkes gave a shrug.
Jason grimaced at the plan. Well, they’d never gotten along. He could see his father wanting to replace him with a fresh heir. Start over. Maybe use some mind control techniques while raising a new Jason.
“Are you okay?” the doctor asked.
Jason caught himself staring off into space and playing with his chin. “Yea. Sorry. Go on.”
“About a year and a half ago, I had a breakthrough. A new process that let us clone your cells which didn’t destroy the Herodian bits. It looked promising. It wasn’t a total success mind you, but another step on the way. I filed a request with the company to publish a paper on the results. I hoped to get input from more people.”
Was that request filed before or after you supposedly found out about the clause in the contract? Jason didn’t bother vocalizing the question. If the doctor was hiding some level of culpability in this mess, he could find out another time. Let the man spill his brains.
“Anyway, after they denied my request, I sent a private message to a former colleague.”
“Let me guess.” Jason interrupted. “Dr. Carson?”
“Yes.” Wilkes nodded in agreement and let out a sigh. “Frank and I studied the Herodians together. I knew he could help. Please believe me when I tell you I didn’t know he worked for the Serigala government. I knew he came from there but not his job. I hadn’t talked to him in a few years.”
Another possible lie to fact-check later.
“Well, to give you the basics, the company found out I sent the message, but since most governments block transmissions to Serigala, I used a few intermediaries to get it to him. Your father knew what I sent, just not to whom. I refused to tell them and they fired me.”
Jason jerked back in surprise. “Why didn’t you tell them?”
Another heavy sigh. “I don’t know.” It came out as a groan. “I thought I was being noble. I didn’t want the company sending an assassin after the man.” He glanced around his surroundings. “Maybe I should’ve let them.”
“And after that?”
“The company didn’t just fire me. They revoked my citizenship! They told me I could either leave Rhime on my own or they’d throw me off, and if they had to throw me off, my whole family would be coming with me.” For the first time, Wilkes spoke with some backbone. “I have three children, eight grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. I couldn’t uproot them all.”
Punish with mercy, father. With mercy. “So, where did you go?”
“Lurser colony. It was all I could afford. Wiped me out just going that far.”
Jason’s ears perked up at the mention of Lurser. “You didn’t happen to run into…” Not knowing Sparrow’s real name, he let the idea pass. Well, there wasn’t much chance Wilkes had met her mother. “Never mind. Continue.”
“When Frank caught up with me, I was broke and still looking for work. He made a fantastic offer. His company wanted to try cloning actual Herodians.” An excited gleam sparked in the man’s eyes. “Imagine that! I warned them that I’d be starting from scratch. I wasn’t allowed to take any of my research with me.”
“What do you mean clone the Herodians? I thought that wasn’t possible.”
“It wasn’t. At least it wasn’t until my new development. And Carson had his own research. I think we can do it now.”
Jason’s mouth dropped open. The aliens brought back to life? What would they be like? Did he consider them to be distant cousins? “Why? W-Why would you want to do that?” The words stammered out. “Why would Wingate want that?”
Wilkes perked up and spoke as if the answer was obvious. “Knowledge. To know.” The doctor shrugged. “We’ve always assumed their telepathic ability was a two-way form of communication. If we could bring them back to life, we could find out for sure.”
“But that plan changed along the way.” In the muted distance, Jason could hear the alert on his phone back in the real world chiming away.
“Changed. Ha! Yes and no. They still want a clone. But their main focus is the psychic abilities and creating more humans with it. They knew the Mirre came from the Herodian portion of your DNA. Although, they had some strange ideas about the power. They seemed to be under the impression it was a form of mind control.”
Maybe not so direct as that, but yes, a manipulation of a sort. “And you still agreed to help them. Do they have any of the original Herodian DNA?”
“They have it.” Wilkes waved his hands and then dropped them. “Don’t ask me where they go it. But what could I do? I had no home. No money.” His despondent tone grew firm, and he pointed at Jason. “And I warned them. Even made them write it into my contract that you weren’t to be harmed. Honestly, I thought you’d take the other option and enjoy yourself.”
Only on this idiotic planet would they allow a non-murder clause to go into an employment contract. Jason’s jaw clamped at what else the man had said. “What other option?” He spoke through gritted teeth.
“Oh. Well, there was a plan to get your sperm. We could only use blood or sperm for our tests. Your skin cells or hair only lets us go so far.” He dropped the nugget of information casually as if it was of no consequence.
Jason gulped, unsure he wanted to find the answer to this next question. “How was that supposed to happen?” Not Sparrow. It couldn’t be Sparrow. She turned him down. Repeatedly.
“Some woman in the palace. Mary? Melanie?”
Jason flinched with surprise. “Marisa?”
Wilkes snapped his fingers. “Yes. That’s it. I never met her, but I saw a photo. I was a bit surprised you didn’t take that bait.” He added more to himself. “I know I would’ve at your age.”
And another piece of the puzzle locked in place. “Who else did they have back home? I don’t think it was Marisa that examined the first blood sample.”
“Oh, that guy. I never heard the name. They hired him and someone else to go after the blood. I think he was a former lab tech with the company.” Again his voice firmed. “But I warned them that I’d walk if I found out they hurt you.”
“Thank you for that,” Jason spoke mildly, not wanting to grant the man absolution. “That still doesn’t explain how you ended up as a prisoner.”
“After your blood showed up, I ran across a report Dr. Carson was compiling for his real boss back on Serigala. I honestly didn’t know. I assumed the man came here so he could go back to collaborating with the rest of the universe.” His eyes dropped to his lap, and his voice became a whisper. “That’s when I made
my mistake. Another mistake. I told them I couldn’t work for Serigala. I tried to quit. I should’ve just left, but I did it in person.”
Jason stood and crossed the lab. He peeked into the connecting room. It had a small bed, kitchenette, bathroom, and little else. He checked the door. It was locked from the outside, so he went back to the doctor. “So, then what happened?”
“That’s when I found out how many other people in the building were from Serigala. My assistant turned out to be a Lieutenant. They dragged me in here and told me to get to work, or they’d send someone after my family.”
“Couldn’t you just destroy the blood? Claim it was an accident?”
Wilkes straightened his back. “Jason, I have no reason to be loyal to Shabin Industries anymore. As much as I hate the idea of my research being used by a military, I’m not going to let them kill my family over this if I can help it.” Then he waved a dismissing hand. “It doesn’t matter. They didn’t give me the blood. Anytime I need testing done on it, Dr. Carson does the procedure for me in another lab.”
Jason chewed a nail and glanced around the room. “How can I get you out of here? Do you know where you are?”
The doctor shrugged. “I hadn’t seen this lab until they threw me in here. I think it’s three flights down, maybe more, but I couldn’t tell you more than that. It all happened too fast.” His agitation returned. “If you break me out, they’ll kill my family.”
Jason tried to calm the doctor’s fears. “It will take them time to send someone or even contact anyone on Rhime. I can message home after I leave here. I’ll get them protection.” How much protection the man would get from him was still up for debate.
Wilkes let out a huff. “Am I supposed to believe you’ll do that for me.”
“You can believe what you want. I’m still going to find a way to take you out of here.” Not that the real Dr. Wilkes would know any of this ahead of time.
Letting go of the link, Jason went back to his room and the hovering image of Wilkes. He ignored the flashing message light while thinking of his father. So, Dad had been planning on replacing him. Would he kill his son? Have someone else do it? “Would you have thrown me off the planet? Penniless also? Or would I merit a living allowance as long as I stayed off Rhime and lived in obscurity?” Having a spare Shabin allowed to run around with the ability to use the Mirre and a grudge against his father didn’t seem to be the most likely scenario. He’d be quietly killed if the company was ever able to clone him.
Shabin- The Reluctant Prince of Rhime Page 15