by B.M. Hodges
*****
When Tomas arrived at the hotel lounge at a quarter past ten, he was back in control of his emotions. He didn’t know what was going on, but he believed he had to stay strong because Andy was counting on him.
He spotted Dr. Greer right away. It wasn’t easy to forget her raven hair streaked with white. She was dressed in a spectacular purple evening gown, as though she’d just been to opera or some other event of a high-brow nature. She’s fairly attractive for an older woman, Tomas thought, feeling a twinge at the sight of her tastefully presented cleavage. If she were ten years younger, I might have hit on her.
She saw him enter the lounge, nodded slightly and sipped a glass of wine. Then she held up her hand indicating two more of the same to the cocktail waitress.
“Where’s my father?” Tomas demanded as he sat down.
“Tomas! My dear, it’s so good to see you!” Dr. Greer stood and kissed him on both cheeks. She sat back down, all smiles and slid a cocktail napkin across the table where she had written, ‘Shut up and do as I say. There are ears everywhere.’ When she saw he had read it, she crinkled the napkin in her hand and pushed it into her wine glass where the last drops of wine soaked through, obliterating the message. “So how is school? Your father told me you’re quite the scientific genius.” Then she whispered, “We’ll finish our drinks and you are to wait ten minutes then make your way up to room 213. I’ll tell you everything there.”
One thing about Tomas, he was good at improvisation. He’d dabbled in acting during his freshman and sophomore year at UVC. He’d even considered minoring in the theatrical arts until one night when Jan teasingly said it was effeminate. Seeing the look of urgency and fear in Dr. Greer’s eyes when she whispered to him, and watching it turn back into glazed happiness as she waited for his answer to her obnoxiously loud question about school, made him think twice about calling her out. He followed her lead, “I graduated uni last month and came down to San Diego to hang with my dad for the summer. Got all A’s in my biology classes and ended up summa cum laude.”
“Wonderful! Wonderful! You’re handsome and intelligent to boot! I bet you have to beat off the young ladies with a stick!” she replied, eyes darting around the room looking for anyone who may be showing interest in them.
“Yep, beat off is what I do,” Tomas joked.
They continued the inane conversation, drank their wine, and then Dr. Greer excused herself, saying she was meeting friends.
Tomas waited eight minutes, got antsy and went to the restroom.
He then proceeded to room 213. Its door was slightly ajar and Tomas eased it open to a darkened room, the only light coming from the moon and the harbor lights filtering through the sheer curtains.
Dr. Greer was sitting in a dim haze inside at a small marble table by the window. She was smoking and there was a much different look on her face. “Sit down,” she commanded.
Tomas sat opposite and noted that the two butts in the ashtray were the same ladies slims he’d spotted in the Roadmaster on the drive from the airport.
“Your father and I were lovers,” she began abruptly. “Yes, I said it, lovers. We met eight years ago at a company picnic. Your father has a great analytical mind and the two of us were drawn to each other immediately. But our relationship as lovers had to remain under wraps due to the sensitive nature of my work at Vitura. I’m telling you this because you need to know that I am on your side. Andy is more important to me than Vitura, world domination, even my own life. Mr. Bertrand told you half truths. Andy is alive and held in the research lab. The video you saw was accurate, but the hybernox solution your father injected into his system didn’t kill him.”
Did she say ‘world domination’? They’re all insane. “So, if he’s still at Vitura, why would you and your boss tell me he was dead? What’s going on? Why did you say we need to save him in your video message?”
Dr. Greer leaned across the table and set her hand on top of his, just as his mother did two days earlier, “Tomas, your father is alive, but he’s … changed. When he purged the chamber of the laboratory, aerosol containing the virus escaped. The injection worked as it was intended but he was exposed to the virus before administering the hybernox solution. He’s been infected and there is no cure. Yes, he’s still alive and if we don’t save him, they’re going to experiment on him until his body can no longer take the abuse. Afterwards, they’re going to vivisect him as is the protocol for disposing carriers of IHS.”
“Then why did you say we need to save him? If he can’t be cured, how are we going to save him?” Tomas asked, feeling he wasn’t getting the answers he wanted, distraught at the thought of scientists turning his father into a guinea pig.
“Honey, in order to save him, we need to kill him.”
Tomas stood up, shaking his head, intent on racing for the door and getting away from this woman, “This is crazy. You’re all crazy.”
“Tomas, there’s more. Please sit down. This is bigger than you, your father and me.”
Tomas hesitated, still reacting to the fight or flight adrenaline pulsing through his veins. He sat on the edge of his seat.
“Mr. Bertrand was surprisingly forthcoming about IHS. I think he believed that the confidentiality agreement you signed for your settlement and the ensuing greed from your new wealth would shut you up for good. It is true that IHS is a virus that has military applications. But Vitura isn’t working on a contract for an ‘unnamed military organization’ as Bertrand put it. Vitura is working for Vitura.
“You have to understand, Vitura is a global corporation the likes of which has never been seen before. It is a hydra, completely decentralized, with no actual headquarters running the operation. It was set up that way so operations could continue even if most of it was shut down or destroyed. Bertrand mentioned that Vitura is in eighteen countries, but those aren’t its only locations. Vitura has also absorbed a fleet of six cruise ships that they have converted into mobile research facilities and reclaimed four derelict oil platforms for corporate operations that function well outside the jurisdiction of international law. And in reality, each of those eighteen branches is an individual cell, wholly enclosed and self-sufficient. Due to its international presence in various non-treaty countries and its unconventional corporate structure, Vitura Pharmaceuticals operates outside any single country’s law. And with the fortune it has amassed over the last ten years through intellectual property patents and genetic breakthroughs, Vitura has become the wealthiest corporation on the planet, surpassing many country’s GDP.”
She paused, her eyes glittered for a moment at the brilliance of the company’s success, “But the beauty of Vitura is the way that the wealth and its power is delegated so, while in the last twenty years it has grown to become a global power, it has remained under the public’s radar. The founders of Vitura are master architects, master craftsman of a transnational corporate structure that operates above mundane global affairs. Its reach extends beyond politicos and state rulers. It’s omnipresent.” She lit another cigarette and smoked in silence for a few moments while she reminisced about Vitura’s greatness inside her head.
Tomas coughed.
That brought her back to the present. Dr Greer snuffed out her cigarette and continued, “Andy and I have been working at Vitura’s San Diego campus since it was incorporated eleven years ago. Most employees at Vitura are independent contractors on one-year contracts or less as another layer of security. Because of our longevity with the company, your father and I have become privy to information that most employees at Vitura Pharma wouldn’t even have the slightest inkling of.
“Vitura is getting too big to remain hidden. It knows this and has been planning proactively to announce its presence to the world on its own terms. The initial deployment of IHS in Guangzhou, China next month is going to be their coming out party.”
She paused long enough to light another cigarette.
“You see, Vitura, while headless, does have its own int
ernal ideology. Vitura sees the big picture. And one of the tenants of that ideology is a desire to control nature for the betterment of mankind.
“One of Vitura’s cells is a think-tank devoted to creating theoretical models of the company’s long term survival in a world where billions of people are born every decade. Projections have shown that an increasingly overpopulated world will eventually destroy itself and Vitura. Their solution: If the population could be eased back down to less than five billion, many of the world’s problems would go away or diminish to a manageable extent and Vitura could thrive. With current technology, hunger, disease, green house emissions, even poverty is curable if we could put a reasonable cap on the world’s population.
“So the think-tank began to create models of a world where the population is selectively culled, in critical areas where disease and war would most likely threaten humankind with annihilation. They submitted a request to Vitura’s San Diego campus. Our contribution to the cause was an engineered chimeric virus that can be deployed then rendered inert before spreading out of control. How? By creating a virus that infects through human-to-human contact, is easy to diagnose and containable with efficiently managed quarantine zones.
“And the best part is, the think-tank believes that once governments see the effectiveness of IHS, that they will open their coffers and pay Vitura to cull their populations.”
Tomas had enough of this nonsense. He didn’t trust a word she said. She must be one of those stalker types who feed off the misfortune of others, he thought. “Give me a break lady. This isn’t a Bond movie. There are no global conspiracies. You’re off your rocker.” He rose and stormed towards the door. As he reached for the knob, he heard a barely audible ‘click.’ He turned back and saw that Dr. Greer was pointing a pistol at his head. “Sit down, Tomas. Your father warned me that you are impulsive and emotional. He was right - you’re more impetuous than a schoolgirl. And hand over the memory card. If you want proof, you have all the proof you need in your possession.”
Tomas backed away from the door and dipped his hand into his pocket, fishing out his phone amid crumpled wads of dollar bills, Andy’s keys and the forgotten envelope. He ejected the card and flicked it across the table. It slid to a stop next to the ashtray.
“I’m so glad you didn’t throw it out with the ashes. There was no other way to smuggle out the files. Employees are searched and sent through a backscatter full-body scanner when leaving the premises. I knew you were in town and figured it was just a matter of time before you came snooping around the facility for your father so I planted the card in the urn.” She set the gun on the table and reached down into a bag beside her chair, brought out a tablet and inserted the card. After typing in a complex series of codes, she handed the tablet to Tomas.
“That’s all the information you need. I’m confident you will come around once you have taken a look at those files. Take your time,” she said. “We have five hours before the night shift changes at the facility. You should be able to slip in with the rest of them to save your father then.”
Tomas began flipping through the files. His quick mind, his degree in biology and his fascination with chemistry as a teenager allowed him to read into the files near the level of a second year lab tech. The files were solely from Vitura San Diego. There was no mention of other ‘cells’ as Dr. Greer called them. Nearly every file had to do with IHS. Along with the documents, were photos of animal experimentation as well as video.
Tomas gasped when he delved deeper and found a file unabashedly called, Human Trials.
Vitura had been recruiting homeless in San Diego, LA, Phoenix and Las Vegas to take part in benign experiments using placebos and faux questionnaires. However, some homeless, the ones too schizophrenic or addicted or senile to be missed, weren’t so fortunate. They were ruthlessly experimented on. Photos, video and detailed observations of bloated moaning zombie-like creatures leaking greenish fluid out of their orifices and splits in their skin, were catalogued and organized neatly in the files. Some of the homeless were used as food for the infected; some merely bitten, scratched or sprayed with viral goo to see how long it took for the fever to take hold.
An hour had passed before Tomas had had enough of the carnage, ruthlessness of the scientists and the unethical treatment of their subjects. He was cognizant of Dr. Greer in many of the videos and photos, tablet in hand, barking orders to her underlings as they experimented on the infected. He could feel the glass of wine from earlier turning in his stomach. He ran to the bathroom, got down on his knees and puked burgundy across the lip of the toilet bowl.
He splashed cold water on his face and went back out to face Dr. Greer who now looked to him like a monster. She sensed the change in his demeanor and said, “Yes, I was head of clinical trials of the virus. And yes, I am personally responsible for the deaths of forty-two ‘volunteers,’ I have no excuse for my actions. My ability to remain detached and impartial during those experiments is a talent that I am ashamed of, but it is the talent that I was recruited for. Mr. Bertrand trusts me because I am the one who will fry in the electric chair should any of this become public. I am responsible and there is nothing I can do to change the past.”
She went to the mini-bar, poured a scotch and tipped it back.
“I loved your father, Tomas. All my life, I have been alone. My family was killed in a tragic accident when I was very young. Science and research have been my life. I’ve never had any lovers until I met your father. But I want to attempt to atone for my sins. I want to take my knowledge of Vitura and IHS and put a stop to their plans before they kill millions of people with what is essentially my baby, the virus that I helped create and bring into this world.
“With your help and with the wealth that your father’s death has brought you, we can put a stop to Vitura. Inside those files is research and discoveries that I have been a party to that we could patent … hell, inside those files is enough research to synthesize a vaccine for IHS. We could inoculate the world, Tomas, and save millions, possibly billions of people.”
“But Andy isn’t dead. You said so yourself. This check,” Tomas pulled the envelope out of his pocket, “is useless if it’s all a fraud.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you, my dear. The man that you know, as your father is dead. His body is still alive; but technically, Andy is brain dead. Like those creatures you saw, he is still walking around, but only because he is trying to find others to infect. He is no longer Andy, no longer my Andy.” Tomas could see that she was actually tearing up. “We need to put him down. Then I can move on. But I can’t do it. If I try to do it, they’ll surely catch me.”
She came up close to Tomas and put her hand on his shoulder, “Your father has a spare uniform and badge. Go to Vitura at exactly three a.m. and enter when you see the change of shift. Use his badge to get through the gate and into the research building in the rear. Then it will be a simple matter to gain entrance to the laboratory level and light him up.”
“Light him up? Do you really think I’m going to burn him alive?” Tomas was close to a nervous breakdown. This day was too much for him.
“You’ll have to. If you get too close, he could bite you and you’d be infected as well. Incineration is the only way. Then get out and leave for Canada immediately.” She walked over to her bag and pulled out a wad of hundreds, “Here’s two thousand dollars cash. When you’re finished, drive straight to the airport and buy a ticket home. I’m crossing into Mexico tonight with these files. From there, I’ll take a plane to Panama and charter a vessel to Australia. I have contacts over there who can help us. After a few months, I’ll find my way back to Canada. If both of us are successful, I will contact you for a meet and we’ll discuss how we’re going to take down Vitura. Now go Tomas and be brave. Do it for Andy. And keep that check in a safe place. It’s seed money for saving mankind.”
And with that, Dr. Greer opened the door and practically shooed him into the hallway. “Andy would have be
en proud,” she said before shutting the door.
Tomas was alone in the hallway.
He took out the forgotten envelope, realizing he hadn’t bothered to open it earlier. The check inside was written out to Mr. Tomas Overstreet for one million seven hundred and forty-seven thousand dollars.
Chapter 4: Groundwork