The God Organ

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  “I sense some hesitation, though, when we discuss our short-term future,” Gifford said.

  Crane nodded, looking both solemn and sad.

  “We still have the matter of identifying exactly why Cobb, Grieves, and the others died. I’m certainly concerned about that.” Preston didn’t like the direction this meeting was headed.

  “I want to know why progress has been so slow in that department,” Shaw said.

  “Well, anytime we need to acquire DNA samples and Sustains from the deceased, the paperwork naturally takes time. Regulations have to follow FDA protocol.”

  “That’s not the issue,” Shaw said. “We discussed a much prompter solution. One that’s more in line with our financial interests.”

  Preston scowled. “You mean you still want me to blame this on medical malpractice?” This time, he didn’t withhold his indignation. “We can’t be so brash as to throw groundless accusations around. Especially when it comes to the very people who are saving our patients’ lives.”

  Shaw’s permanent grimace seemed to tighten. “I want you to suggest that that might be an issue. You need to at least direct attention away from us.”

  “I won’t do that, especially given our lack of evidence in that department. Our relationships with medical professionals are crucial to our wellbeing as a company, not to mention it’s completely immoral.”

  Shaw sighed. “I expected you to say that.”

  “We need to be sure our products are safe, along with any additional therapies we may offer to complement the Sustain organs,” Preston said. “I know this may sound farfetched, but I think we may have larger issues at stake.”

  “And just what are you implying?” Shaw said.

  “I’m worried that someone is directly targeting LyfeGen employees—past and present—by sabotaging their Sustains.”

  Shaw laughed. “You have these worries because of only five deaths? That’s a rather measly sample size for a researcher like you to be concerned over.”

  “Five deaths is significant, no matter the reason. It’s too difficult to believe it’s only a coincidence. I believe, given the strange circumstances and our otherwise pristine safety record, that it’s entirely conceivable there’s a saboteur among us.”

  “We have to do what makes the most sense for the company,” Shaw said. “I’ve been patient with you and your attempts to solve this mess, but the company is hemorrhaging money.”

  The Board’s intentions were becoming frighteningly clear.

  “We aren’t interested in entertaining conspiracy theories, either,” Shaw said. “We have to act where you have not.”

  “I understand how our finances look right now, but you have to trust my research approach,” Preston said. “Joel did. Do you have any confidence in me at all?”

  Shaw stared silently at him for a few grueling moments. “Let me ask you a question: do you have any confidence in LyfeGen?”

  “Of course,” Preston said. “It’s the reason I’m here.”

  “Then, what will people think of that confidence when they find out you refused your own Sustain update?”

  Preston’s eyes fell to the table and his breathing slowed as he took in the heavy reality of Shaw’s words. He wanted to ask how they could possibly have found out in such a short amount of time, but it hardly mattered.

  “You can be sure that Dr. Hassan will be losing his medical license, too,” Shaw said. “You’ve ruined his career along with yours. And you’ve also shown us that some doctors cannot be trusted when it comes to administering our updates correctly.”

  Preston’s expression fell as he realized that he had unwittingly supported Shaw’s strategy of placing the blame on clinicians.

  Shaw’s expression, for once, calmed and the creases in his brow smoothed. “As of today, you will be announcing your voluntary resignation from LyfeGen, and stepping down as CEO.”

  Preston’s eyes were glued to the table. He clenched his hands nervously, palms sweating. “Who will replace me?”

  “Someone we know we can trust,” Shaw said. “Nayak has been on our side consistently, and will make a suitable CEO.”

  “Anil?” Preston gasped. “You can’t be serious.”

  The silent stares of the three men assured Preston they were, indeed, completely serious.

  “Fine,” Preston said, defeated. “When am I resigning?”

  After the call, he sat slumped in his seat, refusing to move for a while. He saw a peregrine falcon tear past the window, undoubtedly falling upon some hapless pigeon scrounging for bits of trash near the sidewalk below. Preston sympathized with the ignorant pigeon and its miserable existence.

  When he finally stood up from the chair, he peeked outside the office. Anil was nowhere in sight. Anil likely knew exactly what the Board had said and how Preston would feel. That conniving spider had retreated along one of his silky strings, likely seducing new prey to manipulate.

  Share prices had fallen, and the company needed news, any news, to bring them back up. The Board needed a scapegoat, and he was it. It was clear to him now. They had just needed him to push the company in the right direction, and they’d intended all along to sacrifice him once his job was done. His head was on the chopping block so the rabble could be satisfied seeing a leader go down. For the first time in his life, he felt utterly expendable and helpless.

  He picked up the lighthouse painting that Erik had given him and took it to his desk. The painting had never truly made its home in the office and neither had Preston. He stuck his hand in his pockets as he stared back out at the dreary winter day, his view obscured by gray Chicago skies and looming buildings. His fingers twitched in his pockets and hit the tiny plastic vial that he had taken from Hassan.

  This wasn’t over yet.

  Chapter 22

  Monica Wolfe

  November 18–19, 2063

  Typing madly, Monica flipped through her comm card. No one had come knocking at her apartment door to inquire about stolen data.

  But she had no data to show for her efforts, either. The software on Preston’s comm card had given her a false read. The treasure trove of data that she’d thought she had saved had turned out to be nothing. She flipped through the folders projected across her coffee table. Nonsensical text filled all the pages.

  To distract herself, she sifted through a Net stream about the history of computer hacking. After a few minutes, she realized how idiotic it was to be reading about hacking when that was exactly what she’d planned to do. The National Security Agency had probably already flagged her as a subject of interest.

  She shut down the feed and the projection fizzled out. For a moment, she wondered if it would be odd for someone as entrenched in the computer science field as she was not to be interested in hacking. Would a sudden, total blackout of the subject not be just as suspicious? She was damned either way. Screw it.

  Reopening the feed, she read into the early morning hours, until the sun began to rise above the horizon. The snowy fog that had draped the streets began to lift. Only then did she succumb to the heaviness in her eyes.

  The clamor of pedestrians and traffic woke her. From the sound of things, she had slept well into the afternoon. She popped a tooth-scrubbing tablet into her mouth and a refreshing tingling and bubbling sensation played across her teeth and tongue.

  After she had dressed, she picked up her comm card from the coffee table and pocketed it. For a second, she stood still, a tingle racing down her spine and a smile spreading across her face. She remembered one of the stories that she had read the previous night and a spark of inspiration took hold.

  She skipped down the stairs and out her apartment door, almost slipping on the ice outside. At a self-service convenience store, she grabbed a handful of cheap tracker comm cards.

  Contrary to their name, the cards didn’t track the user via GPS or keep a running tab of data stream subscriptions or histories. Instead, the comm cards simply tracked the minutes of usage, shutting down when
there were no more credits to pay for temporary network service. As such, the comm cards were a favorite accessory for drug dealers and illicit genetic-enhancement distributors alike.

  Monica had other plans for her tracker cards as she hustled out of the store and back to her apartment. For the remainder of the day, she cracked the cards’ tracking architectures, outfitting each with an operating system more similar to her own comm card. She disabled all the network connections, programming the cards to display false positive connections and a mockup messaging client. The messaging client was essentially useless, though she enabled each of the phones to automatically purge and send data within twenty minutes of activation to a single comm card address: another tracker card with network connections intact.

  After the cards were purged of all their data, she programmed them to automatically wipe clean the messaging client and all other stored data. There would be no trace of the software if everything turned out as planned.

  That functionality was easy enough. The challenge would be making these comm cards useful. She needed to obtain as much LyfeGen data as possible, and her inspiration from outrageous hacking stories of the historical 1990s and early 2000s gave her the answer.

  She loaded each of the cards with her software. Elegant and effective, she decided.

  Engaged in her work, the hours evaporated for her as quickly as a puddle in the desert. She felt confident in the simple programs and knew she should call it a night. However, her excitement got the better of her.

  She hailed a taxi via her comm card. Snow fell heavily as the vehicle wound through Chicago toward LyfeGen.

  When the cab stopped, she stepped out into the storm. Huddled figures still held vigil outside the building. There was only one police car parked along the street, positioned near the few individuals brave enough to continue their protests.

  For a moment, Monica admired their passion, almost jealous that they believed in a cause greater than themselves. Their willingness to subject themselves to abject conditions and ridicule was almost valiant, whether or not their positions were right. She felt a twinge of guilt for pursuing her own illegal, selfish desires, but the emotions Sam had inspired were enough to keep her pressing toward the LyfeGen building as discreetly as possible. She’d always dreamed of a plush office where assistants would come to do her bidding, but getting a job where she didn’t have to endure Sam’s unwanted advances would be enough.

  When she reached the building, she looked through the glass doors into the lobby. A lone security guard manned the front desk. Idling a moment, she figured that there were bound to be cameras keeping watch throughout the building.

  She pulled her hood up to obscure her face, then moved alongside the brick building adjacent to LyfeGen, trying to remain hidden. Walking as softly as she could in the crunching snow, she snuck to the underground parking entrance behind the building. The wind seemed to howl louder there, but a subtle buzz met her ears as she tiptoed along the narrow passage lined with snow-covered bushes. The buzzing grew louder. Instinctively, she dove behind an icy bush as a metallic glint shone off a light near the entrance of the garage.

  It was one of the controversial softball-sized security drones larger companies sometimes employed. She scolded herself for neglecting to consider LyfeGen’s use of automated security devices.

  The drone buzzed closer. Its infrared sensors would pick her up when it came within approximately twenty to thirty feet of her. If she ran, its motion sensors would undoubtedly identify her, sounding the alarm and spoiling her plan.

  She reached down and grabbed a pile of snow and ice from near her feet, packed it tight, and threw it at the drone.

  The snowball splattered against the opposite wall. The drone closed in. She had maybe ten more feet. She could still run.

  Packing another snowball, her fingers tingled red with the cold. This time, her aim was true. The snowball launched the drone against the opposite wall and it fell into a snowdrift. Monica grinned and charged behind the bushes toward the parking garage. She hoped the cold snow would obscure the infrared sensors or at least throw off the drone long enough for her to dash past it.

  When she caught her breath at the entrance to the garage, the drone had recovered and continued on its path toward the front of LyfeGen. While it hadn’t followed her, there was no way to be sure it hadn’t reported the incident to the security guard at the front desk. She would have to be quick.

  The gate to the garage was closed. A snowdrift had blown up against the recessed gate and Monica figured there weren’t going to be any cars going in or out this late at night. Her entire plan relied on her getting into the garage.

  Fortunately, she had prepared for this obstacle. With some tinkering, she had enhanced her comm card’s radiofrequency transmitting-and-receiving range. She expected the door to employ rolling code security, but was pleasantly surprised to find that LyfeGen’s parking security was even less stringent than she had anticipated. Maybe the security within the building had been bolstered, but that didn’t concern her.

  After spending an afternoon perched in a coffee shop across from the building, she had tuned her comm card to record outgoing radiofrequency signals in the range of 100–400 MHz. Sifting through the noise and incoming data, she found spikes of codes recorded each time she observed a car wheeling behind the building to park.

  Now, she replayed the RF code from her comm card. A swell of pride surged in her as the door drew up and she crept around the structure. Only a few cars sat in the garage. She reached into her pocket and withdrew the stack of tracker comm cards outfitted with her custom scripts. For the next thirty minutes, she crept through the garage and placed the cards in various parking spots to await their targets. There was no way to know whose car would park where, so her placements were random. She hoped that a scientist or researcher would pick up one of the cards in a goodwill attempt to locate the negligent owner.

  As she bent to place another card, echoes of footsteps bounced off the concrete walls. She tensed. Her pulse pounded in her ears and she held her breath, unable to locate the source.

  Nervous, she tiptoed between shadows and columns, unsure if the footsteps were any closer or if it was just her imagination. She sprinted to the exit. She pushed on the door, thankful that it wasn’t locked from the inside. As the door gave way, she slipped on an icy patch and sprawled out across the pavement. A throbbing pain coursed up her arm from her elbow and her tailbone. She let out a defeated groan.

  A hand from behind her grabbed her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  Monica turned to look directly into Preston Carter’s icy blue eyes.

  Chapter 23

  Matthew Pierce

  November 19, 2063

  Matthew sipped his coffee as he examined a virtual stack of paperwork at his desk. He’d spent the previous night with Jacqueline while Audrey tracked down members of the Lord’s Flock church, known for their zealous demonstrations against the Sustain.

  Jacqueline had sent him a document outlining suspicious activities and groups that might be responsible for the targeting of individuals associated with the Sustain organ. Most of the evidence was nothing but her personal suspicions, carefully encrypted to feign importance. But, as Jacqueline had predicted, Audrey had apparently taken the bait.

  “Your plan seems to be working pretty well,” he said.

  “Judging from Audrey’s stories, she’s digging up every lead,” Jacqueline said. “She’s pieced together some interesting stories. I bet she already suspected a conspiracy.”

  Matthew sighed.

  “Something wrong?”

  “I don’t know. It’s weird to be using her like this.”

  Jacqueline moved her chair around the desk, closer to Matthew. “She used you, Matt. She used you to push her career forward and she’s still doing it. Even though she knows you could lose your job, everything you worked your whole life to build, she’s selfishly pursuing her own interests. You might as well get something from it
.”

  “What the hell are we doing, though?”

  Jacqueline said nothing, but her mouth hung agape. A look of confusion drew across her face.

  “We have hordes of people literally waiting outside our front door, rooting for our failure. This entire company depends on our success. Not to mention, we’re supposed to be in the business of saving lives. And here we are, fooling around after work and getting my wife to do our investigative work. Goddammit.”

  Anger flashed through Jacqueline’s narrowed eyes, but dissipated as she donned a more pleading expression. “I know how important our job is. No one can say that we haven’t been pouring ourselves into developing these universal Sustain updates. And we’ve been racking our brains for weeks, determined to figure this mess out. That’s why I suggested we turn over some of these problems to someone with more investigative finesse and resourcefulness than we’ve got. It’s the best we can do.

  “And, with all this going on around us, I need you. You know as well as I do what it feels like to be completely alone. You said it yourself: Audrey never understood how you could get so upset over the results of an experiment or how important one little lab test could be in the scheme of things. I get that, though. You get that.

  “I want to be with someone who appreciates what I do on a much deeper level. And I want to be with someone who can make me forget all that when we’re lying in bed talking and laughing. There are times when our responsibilities scare the shit out of me. And there are times where I want to forget about them, even just for the moment.” She grabbed one of Matthew’s hands. “I can do that when I’m with you.”

  A calmness swept over him as he thought about what she’d said. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”