The God Organ

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  A flush of defensiveness swelled up in him, but he wondered if Audrey would mind him going out to grab a drink with an intensely attractive coworker. “No, just giving her a heads up. She’ll be busy anyway.”

  “Oh, okay.” Jacqueline made no effort to hide her disbelief. She let down her hair. It fell in waves over her shoulders.

  Matthew put away his comm card without calling Audrey and held up a solitary finger. “One drink.”

  As they left LyfeGen, crowds of protesters mingled around the sidewalks and accosted employees, despite the security guards pacing around with crossed arms and stern faces. Matthew had gotten used to the crowds and the constant heckling. Still, he hoped that the company’s lawyers would be successful in petitioning the city for a permanent ban to the protesting. Until then, LyfeGen employees could do nothing more than carry on as usual.

  Jacqueline and Matthew pushed through to the opposite side of the street. She quickened her pace and beckoned him to keep up with her, teasing him with each glance back. He caught up when they cut around the corner at Giordana’s Chocolates and grasped at the arm of her coat.

  “Slow down, now,” he said.

  “You can’t keep up with me? I have, like, ten years on you.”

  He laughed. “Can’t be that many. Besides, you never know what kind of crazies you’ll run into around here.”

  “Oh, you’ll never know.” She slung her arm through his, striding down the street. “Be a gentleman then and escort me to safety.”

  Men and women in suits and business attire, fresh from work, filled Grape Street Piano Bar. Because of the biting cold outside, the windows were covered in steam on the inside. The humidity created by the mass of people took Matthew’s breath away when he first opened the door. Resounding laughter, clinking glasses, and the boisterous sounds of conversation influenced by stiff drinks greeted him and Jacqueline.

  With eyes wide and an unbelieving smile on his face, he leaned over to Jacqueline in an effort to be heard over the din. “I thought we were going somewhere more relaxed than this.”

  “Live a little.” She grinned.

  “Are we going to be able to find a seat somewhere?”

  She shrugged. “I doubt it.”

  They squeezed their way through to the bar. Jacqueline scrolled through a touchscreen full of drink options. Each time she selected a drink, a hologram appeared in front of her, looking as succulent as it did real.

  “I’m going with the Marilyn Monroe Martini. Apple brandy, grenadine, delicious.” She licked her lips, then pressed the button marked “Final Selection” and danced out of Matthew’s way.

  “What do they have on draft?”

  She frowned and then donned a playful smile. “Don’t be like that. There’s no need to be manly and boring. I saw you slobbering over those martinis.”

  “Fine.” He squinted at the touchscreen menu. “I’ll go with the Grasshopper.”

  She patted him on the back. “Bold. Minty, white chocolaty. That’s what I’m talking about. Drink something you actually like.”

  When a server delivered their drinks, Jacqueline sampled Matthew’s before handing him the vivid green concoction. She nodded her approval and whisked him away toward the piano, once again pushing through the warm, oblivious bodies.

  “So we’re going to get some live music, too?”

  “That’s right,” she said.

  He looked closer at the piano. One of the legs appeared slightly transparent and he slid his hand through it. “Wait. That’s not even a real piano. It’s just a projection.”

  “Oh, we have a regular detective in here.”

  Matthew’s cheeks flushed and he laughed. “Anyway, what are you up to this weekend?”

  “Asking me out on a date already? My, that’s awfully forward of you.”

  “Come on, I’m just trying to make conversation.”

  She placed a hand on his arm and feigned concern. “Oh, would you rather talk about your plumbing problems with your wife?”

  He broke the one-drink vow as she coaxed him into a classic martini.

  “James Bond-style,” she said. “Shaken, not stirred. Does that make you feel manlier?”

  A third and fourth followed for Matthew, while Jacqueline sipped slowly on her second Marilyn Monroe. She placed a third order of both the Banana Cream Pie and the Gibson Martini. While she approved of the Banana Cream Pie, she puckered her lips at the Gibson. Matthew laughed. His head felt light. As he looked about the room, lights blurred in long streaks and the sounds of nearby conversations blended together. The piano player belted out a nauseating ballad that several of the more inebriated bar patrons accompanied with their own off-key, slurring voices.

  Matthew put his arm around Jacqueline’s shoulder as she laughed. “You know, I really haven’t had the same tolerance since way back when I was an undergrad. Oh, God. I’m afraid I’m pretty toasted.”

  She leaned her head against his. Her warm cheek pressed against his.

  “Work has been crazy,” he said. “But I’m glad I’m in it with you. We’re productive and fun.”

  She laughed again and draped her arm across his shoulder. Matthew faced her and wrapped his hands around her back. She smiled and leaned up, and he leaned down to meet her. Her wet lips met his and a shudder shot down his spine.

  He pulled away.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. The sobering reality of the situation temporarily cleared the fog from his mind but he didn’t extricate himself from her embrace.

  Jacqueline offered a consolatory smile. Her eyes glimmered, even in the dull light of the bar. “It’s okay. I won’t tell.”

  “I really shouldn’t have done that. I mean, I love Audrey.”

  “I know,” she said. She rubbed his back as his gaze fell.

  He took a step back and stared at the poorly projected piano hologram. “It’s just been difficult. We’ve been fighting. I feel like she’s been trying to take advantage of my position at work.”

  “Oh?”

  “She just wants to know the scoop. But it’s her job. I should be able to understand that. I mean, I’d be willing to do almost anything for mine.”

  “You would. I know you’re a devoted guy. You care about what you do and how it’ll help people.”

  His head moved up and down, almost dizzying in his current state. “I do.”

  “I’m sure she respects that,” she said. “I mean, if your wife really loved you, truly respected you, she wouldn’t ask you to compromise your career.”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “About what?”

  He waved a hand through the air. “All of it.”

  “Don’t be. Maybe it’s time to go home for tonight.”

  He took a handful of breath mints on his way out and stuffed them into his pocket, hoping that they’d be enough to hide the alcohol on his breath.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, sunshine,” Jacqueline said, stepping into a taxi.

  Matthew waved goodbye and slipped into his own. One by one, he stuffed the mints into his mouth and chewed them. When he arrived home, Doug greeted him at the door, whining loudly and winding in between his legs as if he were a cat. Matthew stumbled over the dog, almost falling, but managed to make his way toward the bathroom.

  “What’d you end up doing after work?” Audrey said, glancing up from her work. Her computer sat open and a mass of projected datasheets and written documents were projected across the kitchen table. “Did you work out again?”

  Saved, he thought. Fortunately, he had improved his habit of working out to relieve the stress of his increased responsibilities at LyfeGen.

  “Oh, yep, just worked out.” He mustered all the focus he could to ensure his words came out clearly. “It’s hard getting back into the swing of things, but it feels good. I’m going to shower real quick. Probably already stunk up my clothes. I would’ve just worn my gym shorts home, but it’s a bit chilly for that.”

  “Probably.” Audre
y’s eyes had already fallen back to the projections. “Better go wash all that stink off you.”

  He threw his comm card on his nightstand, stripped and climbed into the shower, hot water washing over him. He thought he heard Audrey’s footsteps creaking on the wooden floor in the hallway and into their bedroom, and he hoped that she’d refrain from joining him.

  After he had dried off, he found her asleep. A wave of relief swept over him as he crept into bed. He turned away from his wife toward the nightstand where his comm card sat and checked it to ensure his alarm for the next morning was set properly.

  He saw the messaging client still open and hoped that he hadn’t drunkenly sent out any communications. After shutting down the application, he fell back onto the pillow and closed his eyes. Thoughts of Jacqueline and that stolen kiss raced through his mind and quickened his pulse. He tossed around as he tried to fall asleep. Tempting memories of Jacqueline’s lips and her piercing eyes pursued him until sleep finally took hold.

  Chapter 16

  Audrey Cook

  November 7, 2064

  The stink of alcohol and sweat rolling off her husband had stung Audrey’s nostrils. A brief flash of fury at his lying to her shot through her, begging her to react to his claim that he had been working out. It was absolutely preposterous and he had to have known better than that. He had a PhD, after all.

  But another desire had encouraged her to act calmly.

  As he showered, she searched his comm card and made a copy of all his correspondences and files. She had already torn down the ethical and moral wall she’d built for herself the first time she snooped through his card and this time she felt less guilty. Especially since he’d just lied to her. He’d been enigmatic enough since their falling out at the Embassy Room, avoiding her probing about his workday and offering only monosyllabic responses to her attempts at conversation. Stealing into his comm card had become a habit, even an addiction.

  She’d been intrigued both by his strange behavior and the message she had stumbled upon about his new research project with Jacqueline Harper. She couldn’t stop herself from transferring the contents of his card and as many files as she could pull from his network to her own computer. It was far too easy to swipe into his comm card, rather than pursue a fruitless labyrinth of dead-end contacts at LyfeGen.

  When he had crawled into bed beside her, she’d wanted him to leave, so she could dig into the fresh data. She’d closed her eyes, praying for sleep, as Matthew tossed and turned beside her.

  ***

  The sun peered into the window and lit up Audrey’s face. Curiosity pulled her away from the bed where Matthew still slept.

  She opted to work from home and pored through the documents and conversations on her computer. She preferred her kitchen table to the busy office to keep her freshly acquired files from prying eyes, given the ethical and legal boundaries she was flirting with, and trusted that Doug wouldn’t rat her out.

  Audrey continued to work as Matthew came down the hall. He appeared disheveled despite the ironed purple collared shirt and fitted khakis he wore.

  Audrey hid the files she sifted through.

  “Morning.” He strode past her and grabbed his coat from the hook by the door. “See you tonight.” He offered no smile or gesture of affection.

  Audrey reopened the documents and renewed her investigation.

  When she came across the unlabeled note from Jonathan Grieves with three attachments of medical records, she took a deep breath. She stared at the files for several seconds before giving in and opening them.

  Now, she was no longer flirting with the possibility of illegality, but instead embarking on a full-blown affair with it. She tried to reconcile the guilt by figuring she could claim the information from the records had come from a source she was ethically obligated to protect. More likely, if someone caught her with the records, she’d end up on the receiving end of the legal hammer.

  In any case, she perused the records of Arthur M. Peel, Geoffrey J. Dunt, and Elizabeth A. MacMahon, all deceased. The three records listed the same cause of death: embolic stroke.

  Their medical histories were varied. Arthur had had his appendix taken out at the age of twenty and contracted pneumonia a couple years later. Geoffrey had a virtually clean bill of health. Elizabeth broke an arm when she was ten and shattered her femur at sixteen. Amongst a list of routine checkups and doctor’s visits, immunizations and some select medical procedures, Audrey found two common elements in each of their reports: they had all had a Sustain implanted and all three had died of a stroke, just like Joel Cobb.

  Arthur died at the age of sixty-four, which wouldn’t be completely unreasonable for a stroke. Geoffrey lost his life at fifty-five and Elizabeth at thirty-four. There was no trace of traumatic injury in Elizabeth’s records that might predicate a stroke, and thirty-four was too young for someone who, besides a few broken bones, showed no risk of suffering one.

  Audrey reread the reports, trying to make sense of what was going on. When she could glean no other significant data, she expanded her research to the Net.

  Arthur Peel was a partner in a firm specializing in business law. News articles detailed his firm’s involvement in several mergers and acquisitions, a few as recent as two weeks ago when Chronos Conglomerate, a company that owned a horde of mining ventures, had executed their purchase of Kind Systems, a microchip manufacturer.

  Geoffrey Dunt was another relatively easy find. He had been the Vice President of Finances at Integrative Gene Systems. Interestingly, the company was a known rival of LyfeGen.

  She wondered if the fact that they had each had generously compensated jobs had anything to do with their deaths. The thought that there was something more at stake than just a systematic failure of a tissue-engineered organ nagged at her as she searched for the third victim.

  Spending the better part of an hour investigating public records and listings she had difficulty finding Elizabeth MacMahon. She wasn’t as well advertised as the two men. Fortunately, Audrey found a personal page on Usverse of an Elizabeth McMahon who seemed to match the description in the medical records. Unfortunately, most of this woman’s personal information was kept private.

  The dates of their implantations all varied widely, too. Elizabeth’s had been implanted a little over a year ago. Arthur’s Sustain experience spanned almost a decade and Geoffrey’s Sustain organ was almost six and a half years old. Besides their cause of death and the Sustain organ in each of them, Audrey needed another common thread to form a decent investigative piece. She sensed a deeper story afoot.

  Returning to Geoffrey, she tried to put together a rough history of the man. A shiver went down her spine when she saw he had worked at LyfeGen several years ago. She reconsidered her intuition that Joel’s death was enigmatic enough to suggest foul play and wondered if there might be a slim chance of a connection.

  Hoping to come across another clue, she spent the afternoon going through the rest of Matthew’s files. Plenty of raw data and lab write-ups regarding his research project bubbled through the files, but nothing else of particular interest to Geoffrey’s connection to LyfeGen. In fact, it appeared that no one in Matthew’s correspondences had even noticed the link.

  Her research slowing to a standstill, Audrey called her most reliable contact at LyfeGen.

  “Hello, Audrey,” Stanley said.

  “Hi, Stanley. I’ve got some names and I want to know if they mean anything to you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Okay. Arthur Peel. Geoffrey Dunt. Elizabeth MacMahon.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I might know something about those names.”

  “Okay, I’m all ears.”

  “You know I can’t just offer my services for free. I’m risking my neck here.”

  Audrey’s fingers drummed on the table. “What’ll it be this time? Tickets to the Lyric?”

  “No, no. Easier this time. I just want to know why y
ou’re asking about these names to begin with. An odd assortment, wouldn’t you say?”

  She’d expected a more extravagant request. “Yes, but I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “Audrey, Audrey. I supply you with each and every tasty morsel you want and you refuse to return the favor?”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “Okay, then. I have nothing else to say.”

  Audrey exhaled and stood up from the kitchen chair, stretching herself out toward the ceiling. “Fine. All three have recently died.”

  “And?”

  “And they all had a Sustain.”

  “Give me something more.”

  “They all died of an embolic stroke. Just like Cobb.”

  “Ah, there’s the plot twist. Here’s what I can tell you. Arthur Peel was a relatively close associate of Joel’s. Joel often used his services when LyfeGen sought to purchase another company. Of course, you probably already knew that.”

  Audrey cursed inwardly at herself, frustrated that she had called Stanley so soon. She would have realized that if she hadn’t grown so anxious to figure Geoffrey out, forgoing good research and giving in to curiosity.

  “Maybe not?” She could almost hear Stanley’s lips curling up into a sneer. “Anyway, Geoffrey also spent some time in Joel’s company.”

  “I know that,” Audrey said. “Before he moved to Integrative Genetic Technologies.”

  “Right. He was a rather ruthless man. More of a pirate really. Grisly, savage, and merciless when it came time to ransack a sinking company. He managed the acquisitions and licensing at LyfeGen. While the financials always worked out in our favor, Joel was never a fan of Dunt’s rape-and-pillage approach. So it’s my opinion that Joel might have aided a headhunter in sending Dunt to Integrative Genetics Technologies. Of course, I can’t offer anything other than hearsay, but I’m sure Joel didn’t want to enrage the brute by firing him, especially when the Board approved of Dunt’s financial acumen.”

  “I see. What about the woman, Elizabeth MacMahon?”

  “Unfortunately, she’s a mystery to me. But I might posit that she’s somehow involved in LyfeGen as well. Shall I work my magic for you?”