“Did he say why?” Elliott asked.
“Only that it had to do with my father’s killer.”
“Captain, it must be big to call you back right way.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Hal tapped the phone to his hand.
“I’m free now. Do you want to head there early?”
After a moment of thought, Hal agreed. After checking in with Sgt. Manis and letting him know they’d both be gone, without further hesitation, Hal and Elliott left for Beginnings.
<><><><>
Lars Rayburn had to wonder how the wiry, annoying, arrogant, little scientist got anything done in the clinic when he was never around. He seldom if ever saw him, and was always being told he was in the other lab.
Not that Lars minded that. The less of Dean he saw the better.
He stopped at the clinic for two reasons, to check on Darrell and to post a bulletin regarding the next woman’s meeting at his wellness center. While there, he pulled Darrell’s chart. He flipped through the pages. “What the heck?”
“Something wrong?” Melissa asked.
“Where are the results from his recent blood work?” Lars questioned.
“They didn’t come in yet?”
“Not yet?”
Melissa shook her head.
“We drew the blood yesterday morning.”
“I know.”
“Does it usually take this long?”
“Well, it depends,” Melissa said.
“On?”
“What Dean and Ellen are working on and if it is an emergency. Obviously, Darrell doesn’t have a disease, and Dean and Ellen are working on a secret project, so they’ll get to it.”
“Andrea allows this?”
Melissa chuckled. “She fights a losing battle. Usually Jason comes in and does it., But Jason hasn’t worked since Joe’s passing.”
Lars nodded. “Well this is unacceptable. I am going to tell this to Andrea. This has nothing to do with you dear, I don’t want you thinking I am blaming you.”
“Thank you Lars.”
Lars handed her the chart and headed to the lab. He’d do the blood work himself. It wasn’t as if he was asking for a simple blood count. Lars wanted an analysis of Darrell’s blood. Mainly because Darrell wasn’t responding, and the head scan didn’t show any damage. So there was a sense of emergency. Why? Was there something else going on with Darrell? Perhaps he was consuming some sort of substance. Lars didn’t know, but analyzing the blood was a first step to finding out.
He ran the blood through the program. When the first result came back, Lars greeted them with a perplexed, ‘hmm’.
“Substance unknown?” he read.
Thinking surely Dean would have put every known substance into the computer; Lars did a breakdown of the substance.
It didn’t take long for the further breakdown to come through. Lars didn’t recognize it. Then again, he was still new to Beginnings.
“Knock. Knock.” Andrea called out pleasantly.
“Oh, what a delight.” Lars said and stood, taking the paper from the printer.
“Melissa said you were dismayed.”
“Ah, yes,” Lars exhaled. “Your resident brilliant boy takes too long to do his work. He should work before he plays.”
“I agree, I’ll speak to him again.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Andrea …” Lars handed her the print out. “Do you recognize this breakdown? This substance was found in Darrell’s blood. The computer doesn’t know it.”
Andrea read it. “No. But that doesn’t mean anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dean has lots of stuff he doesn’t put into the computer. He may have been giving Darrell something on the side.”
“Like a drug?”
Andrea nodded.
“For what purpose?”
Andrea shrugged. “Dean experiments. He is constantly trying new things. Vitamins, energy drugs, antibiotics. In fact, if memory serves me right, Darrell did have a throat infection two weeks ago.”
Lars looked at the readout. “Would Dean know by looking?”
“He should.”
Lars nodded. “Good. I’m going to go find out if he knows what this is?”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m just curious as to why our security man is so out of it. His scan shows no damage.”
“You’re right, I was wondering that myself. Good thinking doctor.”
“Thank you.” Lars folded the paper with a smile. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find Dean.”
“Oh.”
“Oh?” Lars stopped walking. “Why ‘Oh’?”
“I’m not so sure he wants you there.”
“I don’t care. I need some answers.” Lars walked to the door.
“Oh, Lars, before you go. I have a question.”
“Sure. Shoot.”
“The woman’s meeting tonight? This one is the “getting In touch with your estrogen’ right?”
“Right.”
“Should no males be there?”
“It would be best to leave all males at home as they wouldn’t understand,” Lars said.
“Good. Thank you. He’s not gonna like it, but I’ll break it to him.”
“Who?” Lars asked.
“Joe.”
His mouth parted to speak, to respond, but Lars didn’t. He smiled, said, ‘good luck’ and left the lab. He was on a mission to find Dean.
<><><><>
“How’s it going?” Danny Hoi asked.
Danny’s entrance into the communications room took Jimmy away from his daydream break. He was staring at his bookmark, a picture of Jenny Matoose. He ran his thumb over her face, smiled peacefully and set the picture down.
“Man,” Danny said and looked at the picture. “You got it bad.”
“For Jenny.” Jimmy sighed out. “Yeah. But what can I do? She belongs to John.”
“Understand, Brother.”
Jimmy nodded. “So, what brings you here?”
“Checking on you,” Danny said. “I was in the middle of a surprise for Frank and thought I’d come down.”
“Surprise for Frank?” Jimmy asked.
“Yep. When we were in his office, I was thinking how crowded it is.”
“But you’re having an office built for us, right?”
“Right. But until then, wait until he steps out of his office.” Danny winked. “I got him a little trailer.”
“Sweet.” Jimmy nodded.
“So how’s it going with this?” Danny pointed to the satellite link up manuscript.
“Good. Good. I hit page fifty.”
Danny winced. “It doesn’t read right.”
“Actually, militarily, it reads fine. This things when working, when linked will change that whole board.” Jimmy said. “We will be able you do a random scan of air and sea, or punch in coordinates.”
“So if an invasion is coming, we’ll see it.”
“See it and identify the threat,” Jimmy said.
“That explained all that in the first fifty pages?” Danny asked. “I must have really missed it.”
Jimmy chuckled. “No, I skipped ahead. But I’m working on it.”
“How long do you think this will take?”
“Not long. Once I figure out what to do. How to hook it up and retrieve the information. It’s all a matter of learning to work it.”
“How long?”
“Weeks. Months. But then again, it depends how obsessive I get. If I feel close I won’t stop.”
“Cool.”
At that moment, the communications phone rang. Jimmy answered it, “Communications, Jimmy Slagel speaking. Oh, hey Frank.”
Danny tapped him on the shoulder, mouthed the words, “I’ll catch you later’ and turned.
“Yeah, he’s here. Hold on.” Jimmy extended the phone. “Danny. For you. Frank.”
Danny looked oddly. “Why didn’t he call my …”
He glanced down. “Shit. I left it at the trailer. Thanks.” He took the phone. “Hey, Frank, sorry I left my phone somewhere. What’s up?”
“Hey, Danny, that’s OK,” Frank said. “The Dean SUT tracker, I’m having trouble with the history.”
“What kind of problem?” Danny asked.
“I can’t get it to go back any further than twenty-four hours.”
“That’s because it resets,” Danny said.
“Fuck. I need it to go back further”
“It can.”
“But you just said …”
“Well it works like a cell phone Frank. You know how our cells send a signal here, and we are able to log calls. It keeps a log.”
“Of where he’s been?” Frank asked.
“Yep. I haven’t pulled it up. You’ve been on it.”
“I’ve been lax,” Frank said.
“Is there a problem?”
“Could be. How far back can you go?”
“I have that to reset every month, but it creates a backup log.”
“Can you pull for me?” Frank asked.
“Sure, Frank. When do you need the info?”
“In an hour,” Frank said.
“I can do that. Any date you have in mind or just a history.”
“Actually a date.”
Danny grabbed a pencil. “Go on. What is it?”
“March twenty-first.”
Danny paused in writing it down. “Frank, that’s ….”
“I know.”
Danny sighed. “I get you.”
“Danny, lid’s on this one. OK? For now?”
“You got it. I’ll go get that info.”
“Meet me here in an hour. Thanks.”
Danny pulled the phone from his ear when he heard the line disconnect. He placed the phone on the base.
“Everything OK?” Jimmy asked.
“Um … yeah.” Danny forced a smile. “Everything is fine. He just needs something from me.” After a clearing of the throat Danny headed back to the door. “Good luck with that Jimmy.”
Jimmy gave a thumbs up.
Danny left. He knew what Frank wanted. He wanted to know where Dean was on the day Joe died. The implications of that request made Danny’s head spin. Frank had to have a good reason to ask. But it didn’t make sense to Danny, not at all. For as much as he didn’t like Dean, to him there was no question. Danny wasn’t psychic, and he didn’t have the tracking history on Dean, he couldn’t say for certain where Dean was, but Danny would swear he could bet where Dean wasn’t. He wasn’t near Joe when Joe was killed. Dean wouldn’t have been. At least those were Danny’s thoughts.
CHAPTER TWO
“I brought lunch,” Ellen announced as she entered the cryo lab, closing the door with her foot. “Oh, Dean.” She winced. “What’s smells?”
“Rabbit fur,” Dean said. “I was practicing laser surgery and the fur just burned.”
“You should have shaved the bunny,” she stated, setting down the plate on the counter. “Hungry.”
“Actually I am.” Dean walked to the sink and washed up. “What did you get?”
“Bakery now has sandwiches. I got us each a mad meat sandwich.”
Dean paused in drying his hand. “Mad meat?”
Ellen nodded. “I sampled it. It’s really good. It’s the left over meats that kind of blend together like a ham salad.”
“Mad meat?”
“Don’t be so closed minded Dean, try it.” She uncovered the sandwiches.
Dean took a sniff. “Smells good.”
“See.”
He pulled forward stool. “I’ll try them.”
“So how are our embryos?”
“Good. Good. Our pup-bryos are fine. But we have a problem …” Dean took a bite of his sandwich. “This is really good, El.”
“See I told you. I didn’t think Gemma would serve anything bad. What’s our problem?”
“We really have to implant them in the next five days.”
“I thought we were gonna create a womb.”
Dean shrugged. “We are. But I’d really rather have a mother.”
“Like a human mother?”
Dean laughed. “No. Animal. I mean we can implant four to six embryos in her.”
“What kind of animal can we use?”
Dean shook his head. “I don’t know. What are our options?”
“Rabbit?”
“No linked enough.”
“Horse?” Ellen suggested.
“Nah. What we need is a close family member of the dog. Like a wolf or coyote.”
“This is Montana, Dean, there are coyotes here.”
“Yeah, but how are we gonna get one?” Dean asked.
Ellen smiled. She swallowed her bite of food and stood up. “I got an idea.”
“What are you doing?”
She picked up the phone. “Calling Frank.”
“Frank is going to get us a coyote?”
“If anyone can, he can.” She dialed. “Hey… oh, sorry. OK, real fast. Dean and I need a coyote in the cryo lab within the next five days. Can you get us one?” She paused. “Thanks.”
Dean watched her hang up. “That was fast. What did he say?”
“He said he’d try.”
“He’s pretty busy now, El,” Dean said.
“Yeah, I know, he just told me that.”
“He is the president. You’re gonna have to start thinking of ways to occupy your time.”
“I have. I do. You.” She flashed a smile. “Oh. Shit. I have to let Fifi out.”
“El, this is ridiculous. She’s a stuffed dog.”
“Getting into practice.” She lowered the stuffed dog to the floor and grabbed the leash. “I’ll just put her in the tunnel. I’ll be right back.”
Dean laughed.
Not for long.
No sooner did Ellen open the cryo lab door, she blurted out, “Oh, Lars, what’s up?”
Thinking, ‘fuck’, Dean wiped off his hands, and covered his sandwich in case he lost his appetite. “Lars.” Dean said, then cleared his throat.
“Dean. Sorry to disturb your … your …” Lars looked down to Fifi. “Is that Buzz’s Aunt’s dog?”
“Yes, Buzz gave her to me,” Ellen replied.
“Why?” Lars asked.
“She’s cute.” Ellen shrugged and walked out.
“What can I do for you, Lars?” Dean asked.
“I ran those blood tests on Darrell,” Lars said. “The ones you were supposed to get to.”
“They’re routine.”
“Actually, no, I wanted his blood analyzed,” Lars said. “He’s my patient and I’m baffled at why he can’t seem to stay conscious. In any event, I ran the tests. There was a substance in the blood the computer didn’t recognize.”
Dean seemed perplexed. “Really? That’s odd.”
“That’s what I thought.” Lars handed Dean the tests. “Can you identify it?”
Dean took the results. At first he presented an air of arrogance, as if Lars, perhaps didn’t know what he was looking at. But all that changed. “Whoa.”
“Whoa? Is that a scientific term?” Lars asked.
Dean rolled his eyes. “I don’t recognize this at all.”
“It’s not one of your mixtures that you forgot about?”
“No, this isn’t even vaguely familiar. Actually this looks synthetic.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Do you still have the blood?” Dean asked.
“The remaining, yes.”
“If you want, I can bring it down here, El and I can break it down and do some testing, see if this substance has anything about it.”
“If I bring it here, will you share the results?”
“Um … sure.”
Lars took a long look at Dean. “Why don’t I believe that?”
“Lars, please, I’ll share the results.”
Another look and Lars nodded. “Fine. It’s labeled and in the fridge.”
“When?”
“When I’m done eating?” Dean asked.
“How can you eat in this smell?”
“Used to it.”
Lars winced, shook his head and walked to the door. “I still do not like you.”
“Yeah, well, the feeling is mutual.”
“Twit.”
“Asshole.”
“Have a good day,” Lars said.
“You, too.”
As Lars walked out, Ellen walked in. “Fifi feels better. What did Lars want?”
“Check this out.” Dean handed her the test results. “Darrell’s blood. Lars did a break down to analyze because he can’t figure out why Darrell is still unconscious. He wants me to see if I know what it is. I offered to do testing to see what and if the substance does anything and tell him about it,”
Ellen looked. “I don’t recognize this. It’s synthetic.”
“Exactly.” Dean nodded.
“How would he get something in his blood that’s synthetic that we don’t recognize?”
“Lars.” Dean said.
“OK. So why would Lars have you look at it and test it if he made it?”
“Why else? To rub it in that he has a drug we don’t. One he invented.”
“Dean!” Ellen said brightly. “That is so smart of you. Good thinking.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s a fucker.”
“Yeah.”
“So are you going to isolate the substance in the blood and see what it does?” Ellen asked.
“Oh, you better believe it.”
“Are you gonna tell him what we find?”
“Nope. I’ll let Frank know. If Lars is giving people drugs, unapproved, or unknown to Beginnings. Drugs that make people sleep …” Dean winked.
“Oh, he’ll be in trouble.”
Dean smiled. “You better believe it.”
<><><><>
Elliott laughed. Elliott laughed hard. It was a good thing he wasn’t driving the truck or else he would have lost control.
“I could listen to that over and over again,” Elliott said.
“Just something about Ben from Fabrics doing the Frank voice.” Hal sighed and ejected the audio book from the player.
“How did you get that?”
“Ben gave it me as a condolence present,” Hal replied. “It worked.”
“I don’t think our laughter is the desire effect Mr. From Fabrics wanted.”
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