"Oh no," Lizzy replied with an aura of confident reassurance. "I held a conference with all the leaders and reiterated that there was no backing out; that once in, they were all in and would continue to be part of this until the end. When they asked me what would happen if they opted to back out, I reassured them..."
Before Liz could ask how, Lizzy answered.
"I said that if they tried to back out, they will be killed. If they continued to voice any more dissent, their families would be slaughtered in front of them. To drive my point home, I sent each member a care package. Inside each box was a body part, courtesy of Mulakhai and Ishmael, and a flash drive containing a video of how they got that way..."
Lizzy's own laughter interrupted her as the image of their reactions played in her memory. She pulled out her smartphone and showed Liz the video of the dismemberment.
"I was going to bring their heads to show you, but they were too big, and frankly, I didn't want to deal with the stench. You'd be proud of me. I did it personally."
Liz watched the gruesome video, and then put a soft hand to her daughter's face. "You truly are my blood."
"Thanks, mom," she replied, tilting her head into the touch.
Liz kissed Lizzy’s forehead then sat back. "You always were my favorite."
"Ah, thanks, mom. I knew you'd say it one day, though I didn't expect it this soon."
"What's wrong?" Liz said, noticing her daughter's momentary frown.
"It's just...I'm not sure if being your favorite is a compliment because my competition is between a lying idiot and a conniving sociopath.”
"Fair enough, dear, but know that even without their faults, neither share ourbond...Now, enough about business and family problems. Let us enjoy these next few hours."
Chapter 2
“The Plan”
Twin Lakes, Nevada
November 30, 2009
1333 hours
Years before, when the LIFE Corporation chose Twin Lakes as the site for their pharmaceutical manufacturing facility, many reasons factored into the decision, but two in particular were essential to their mission.
First, the land itself was situated on sovereign Wallauneka Indian soil, and leasing from the tribal council bypassed many state and federal questions. Additionally, the land was inexpensive, especially after LIFE “donated” large sums of money to build up the reservation's infrastructure.
Second, the geographical area had strong, consistent sunlight, thus allowing the manufacturing facility to be run by hundreds of industrial-grade solar panels, effectively creating a self-sustaining facility.
However, the Farm was not completely isolated. The nearby reservation was home to a community of a few thousand Northern Paiute, whose main strip of town was two miles to the East.
Separating the two areas were large boulders, sloping foothills, and uninhabitable terrain. The location was outrageously hot during the summer and freezing cold during winter.
This happened to be a particularly cold day leading into an even colder evening.
Twenty degrees,Albert Stone thought, dreading what the final temperature would be.I cannot wait to get back to Fiji.
The LIFE chopper touched down softly on the roof of the north side.
Albert watched the heat of his breath cling to the cold window. “Everything about the Farm is so dated,” he muttered, criticizing the facility. “This place makes me miss Headquarters, and I hate it there.”
He wiped the condensation away with his palm, and then went to lean back, but shadows moving through the sea of solar panels caught his eye.
Interesting, he thought.
Suddenly, two bright perimeter lights illuminated the front of the compound, and the shadows became defined as a group of five infected. Their bodies crashed into the gate and their arms pounded relentlessly against the chain links, skin scraping raw with no concern.
I cannot wait until we are done with this phase and those things,he thought, disgusted.
There was little possibility of breach, but within seconds, a squad of Guardsmen responded.
“Why aren't they shooting?” he whispered to himself, puzzled. “They're just talking with one another. They don't get paid to socialize.”
After observing longer, however, Albert solved his own puzzlement.
“Ah, it's a bet.”
Delighted, Albert watched six muzzle flashes. After each soft pop, he chuckled as heads exploded, and brains flew through the cold desert air.
In the end, five infected were slumped over one another in a grotesque pile of mangled corpses.
Despite the successful kills, Albert noticed the shooter being heckled by the others, and not long after, reaching into his pocket to pay out his loss.
“One shot too many,” Albert surmised, and then his eyes tore away from the scene as floodlights came on over the helipad.
Across the way, a sliding door opened vertically, and out from it walked Albert's point of contact. Dressed in a white lab-coat, the woman was lanky, frail, and to Albert's standards, hopelessly unattractive.
Following her like a dog was a pudgy, balding, middle-aged man clothed in similar garb. Despite the temperature, beads of sweat collected around the man's thick neck and brow.
Albert snorted. “It's about time.” He basked in the temperature controlled climate until the man and woman approached the door.
Albert grabbed a metallic silver briefcase, and then pressed a button, which automatically opened the cabin door.
Immediately, an extended hand from the facility’s manager greeted him. “Dr. Stone, what a pleasant surprise,” the woman said, tone indicating more surprise than pleasant. “It's good to see you again. I'm not sure you remember me. Doctor Beth Arnold.”
Albert neglected any eye contact as he brushed past the woman's hand
“Unfortunately, I do remember you. We have interacted three times in total. First, when Ms. Baron hired you four years ago. I didn't agree with that appointment, but she did. The second came after the building’s opening, and the last visit was three-hundred and ninety days ago, but for some reason, you feel the need to tell me your name a fourth time...”
The woman looked to her assistant in disbelief.
“And fat man,” Albert continued, “before you go unnecessarily reintroducing yourself, your name is Wilson Crowley, Ms. Arnold's assistant. And let me be clear. If I could forget either of your faces, I would. This is not a social call. I came here on business, and could care less about anything but.”
“I-I'm just surprised, sir. You caught us off guard. We weren't expecting your arrival until tomorrow,” Beth said, attempting to keep stride with Albert as he made his way to the building. She turned around and hissed, “Hurry up, Wilson.”
Following clumsily, Wilson replied, “Coming, Doctor.”
“Plans have changed,” Albert replied vaguely. In front of the door, he stopped, sighed, and finally made eye contact. “Tell me, Ms. Arnold, do you expect every one of your superiors to open doors and let themselves in? Are you always this bad of a hostess?”
Albert’s master access card rested in his coat pocket, but he wanted her to serve him.
Beth rushed to the panel on the side. She held her access card up to the magnetic strip and typed a series of numbers into the touch screen after being prompted.
“Sorry, one-second,” she said as her anxious fingers incorrectly pressed the wrong sequence.
“So the facility's manager can't get into her own building? Fitting,” said Albert as he shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Would you hurry up? I'd rather not freeze to death.”
Beth's second attempt was a success, and before the door had fully slid up, Albert walked inside but paused almost immediately. “Beforeyou forget,” Albert emphasized, “there are cases of Ambrosia inside the helicopter. I want them moved to my vehicle.”
“I will have that taken care of,” she said, passing the order to Wilson.
Dr. Crowley fumbled for the paper pad in hi
s chest pocket and the pen next to it. “I have just made a note of it and I will see to it shortly.”
“Does it look like I care about your notes or when you do it? Just get it done,” Albert responded, taking off again without waiting.
The third floor of the Farm was spotless, simple, and grandiose. Matted white walls rose fifteen feet high and nearly matched the rubberized walkways that extended twenty-five feet across.
"I trust you have administered the routes to the drivers?"
"Yes, Dr. Stone,” Wilson answered, stuttering. “I personally emailed the routes to the drivers and reviewed them on an individual basis. I have a fairly photographic memory and even now when I think about it, I might have some suggestions regarding-"
Albert stopped, released a frustrated growl and spun around. "I only asked if you administered the routes to the drivers. I did not ask about your photographic memory, nor do I care about any suggestions you may have."
In a brave, yet dangerous attempt to deflect, Beth interrupted. “May I ask why you are here early, Dr. Stone?”
“I would have been here sooner,” Albert said, continuing to stare at Wilson. His glare was just as intense and belittling as his words. “I have the ability to control many things but not weather...at least not yet. If you must know, there was an unfortunate accident at Blue Springs.”
“What happened?” both asked simultaneously and equally concerned.
“Infection. Everyone died.” The lie came without any sympathy. “How is everything here?”
As soon as the question was posed, Beth straightened up and looked nervously at Wilson.
“Is something wrong?”
“No,” she began, but then her answer changed to, “not really.”
Albert took a step at her in the way a lion does with a trapped prey. “Is it no, or not really? Those are two different answers.”
Sweat continued to drip down Wilson's brow, despite multiple attempts to wipe it away. “I- we- it wasn't our fault,” he attempted to clarify, but the words evaded him.
“We weren’t sure what happened, but well, it’s the manufacturing machine, it has stopped working.”
“What happened? What did you do to my machine?”
“Dr. Stone, maybe it's better if you see for yourself. We will need to take the elevator down to the ground floor.”
“I may have been absent for a few months, but I do remember my design…”
Indeed, Albert knew the exact specifications: the labs, the equipment, and every minute detail of the facility he had built to study existing diseases- and create new ones.
“You had better pray the machine isn't broken.”
1344 hours
Located on the northern side of the building, the 400,000 square foot warehouse was divided in half- one side for production, one for distribution- by a row of concrete pillars in place for structural support.
Against the western wall, was the LIFE Corporation’s prized achievement: the world’s most advanced vaccine synthesizer.
The size of two shipping containers wide and deep, the exterior of the mechanical genius was transparent glass, allowing the overseer full visibility of the interior pumps, hoses, holding stations, panels, cables, pods, chemicals, vats, tanks, fluids, and tubes, all intertwined and interconnected in complex intricacy.
As Albert entered the warehouse, his attention was not focused on the faulty machine, but rather on the east side, and more particularly, how the warehouse was nearly empty of finished product.
“Why are there only sixty completed pallets?” asked Albert, as he walked briskly down the grated steps. He gazed upon the packaged vials of Ambrosia, and continued, “Is this some kind of joke? This is considerably less than promised by this date and time.”
Albert took a series of steps to the loading dock where he pointed and said, “There will be five trucks arriving tomorrow, and unless my math is wrong, which it isn’t, the contents presently accounted won’t even fill half of one truck. I was patient at first, but I am getting severely pissed off. This is unacceptable! Now will one of you two idiots tell me what happened?”
“It's the machine,” Beth said nervously. “Please follow me. I'll explain.”
At the end of the synthesizer, Beth held up a completed vial of the pink substance. “It's producing vaccine but at a dramatically slower rate. Something happened to it early this morning. We've been working on it since-”
“I can see that,” Albert interrupted impudently. The half-dozen other scientists working in the room gave way as Albert walked up and down the multimillion dollar machine, searching for a cause or reason.
“We have been running diagnostics on it,” Dr. Crowley began, but paused when his voice cracked from nerves. “Everything appears to be in working order. We don't understand. There are no breaks, cracks, or superficial damage.”
“Why did you not call to report this, Ms. Arnold? You are in charge of this facility, are you not?”
“I-I-I was going to,” Beth stuttered, but stopped when Albert held up his index finger.
Albert's left eye began to spasm uncontrollably. He spun around, and out of public view, he removed a tin canister from his pocket. He placed a white pill under his tongue and allowed it to dissolve.
“With all due respect, Dr. Stone, I planned on reporting the issue, but I wanted to try to fix the problem first.”
“Let me ask you a question, Ms. Arnold,” Albert said, declining to acknowledge her credentials. “When you took this appointment, was it ever disclosed to you how we respond to failure and setbacks?”
Her eyes jumped back and forth from Albert to her concerned staff, but their concern was not for her. She knew that failure of any kind had the harshest of consequences attached to it. Her lower lip began to quiver as she answered, “It was. Failure will result in termination…”
Based on her response, Albert believed Beth assumed termination from employment, and she couldn't be more wrong.
“But I also know how much you, Ms. Baron, and the LIFE Corporation value initiative. I planned to resolve this matter personally, and by doing so, to save you, Ms. Baron, and the company from unnecessary worry.”
The next few seconds were awkwardly tense. The scientists and engineers exchanged nervous glances among one another. Wilson inched timidly away from Beth’s side. Everyone waited for Albert's emotionless stare to give any indication, positive or negative, as to what he was thinking.
You're a scientist and a woman, Albert thought, and a lousy one in both categories. If you hired her, which you never would have, but had you, she would be dying very painfully. Don't kill her just yet, have some fun with her first.
“Bravo, what a great job you've done so far,” Albert snorted. “You're lucky I am here to take a look, as I believe I know the cause.”
He took a seat in front of the machine's remote computer terminal, setting his briefcase closely to his feet. Within one minute of his fingers clicking rapidly against the keyboard and touch screen monitor, he located the problem.
“It's exactly as I suspected. It's not the synthesizer, you idiots, it's the power! The machine isn't getting enough. How did none of you think to check the power?”
There was a collective chatter of disbelief and mutual blame. The scientists scratched their heads, some pointed fingers, while few claimed to have suggested that. However, any and all problems within the facility ultimately were the responsibility of the person in charge, and blame fell accordingly.
“I, we just assumed that since it was working, it couldn't be power related-”
“Because you're a woman, Ms. Arnold, I won't entirely fault you for not understanding the complexity of the machine, but do yourself a favor and try to think logically about this. Just because it has power, doesn't mean it's completely or fullypowered. Being run entirely off electricity, this machine has minimum power standards to operate. Had they been less than essential, you would have seen the error message indicating such, but I will get to that i
n a minute. The system is intelligent, which, for those of you idiots like Ms. Arnold, that means in a situation such as now, the machine reduces power from other phases. For example, and in the most generic and simplest of terms, this machine is designed to operate in three phases. First, it will populate a culture, then incubate, and finally produce a vaccine. What that means is, under limited power, one part will operate while the others remain inactive. After the cycle has completed, each phase must restart. It is a fail-safe that allows for continuous production but at a slower pace. And you would have been told this had someone had the initiative to call and report the matter.”
“LIA,” Albert called out to the ghost in the room.
Less than a second later, the facility's (Limited) Intelligence Artificielle, or LIA, as it was informally addressed, responded.
“Yes, Dr. Stone?” said a female voice that originated from the speakers thirty feet above. The artificial intelligence system was an older model created by Systeme ANT to serve in a limited capacity, and otherwise, by request.
“Display the power grid on this terminal.”
LIA overrode the computer and pulled up an active, three-dimensional image of the facility and its extended property. The structural diagram blurred out, giving focus to a myriad of green lines that looked like interconnected sewer pipes.
“Pull up zone E3.”
LIA zoomed in to the location of Albert's request. That particular area had a small section of red surrounded by green.
“It appears to be a faulty converter for panels 60-220. Energy loss totals more than thirty percent.”
“And there is your problem,” Albert said, spinning around in the chair. He looked at Beth and asked, “Is there any reason why you didn't ask LIA for assistance?”
LIA spoke up when Beth had not produced an answer.
"I have been placed on hibernation mode by Dr. Arnold. As per emergency guidelines, or in the event of a systems malfunction such as this, I came online earlier and asked Dr. Arnold if she would like my assistance, but she declined."
The Longest Road (Book 3): The Other Side Page 7