The God Organ

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  “Sounds great,” the man said, voice bridling back irritation. “Then we can pretend we never met, that none of this ever happened.”

  “What are you going to do when you all own LyfeGen? Keep making those god organs?”

  “That’s the plan. That’s always been the plan, anyway. Of course, we’ll need to rebrand them. It’ll take a couple years, but it’s going to pay off in dividends.”

  “Just remember to keep sending some of those dividends to my accounts. Or your Sustains might cause strokes, too.”

  “That won’t be a problem.” Clearly unsure of whether or not the woman was joking, he spoke in a calm but concerned tone. “When will you be flying out?”

  “I’ll be leaving to—”

  Monica’s comm card buzzed, flashing red. She swallowed hard as adrenaline barreled through her blood vessels, her heart beating wildly.

  For a couple of tense seconds, there were no voices from the office, no shuffling of feet. Monica stood and sprinted back down the hall from where she’d come.

  The man’s voice rang out after her. “Stop! Now!”

  She glanced back quickly as she rounded a corner and recognized Whitney Brayson sprinting past the receptionist’s desk. The unmistakable brown hair and almond eyes. Her round face. The almost childlike innocence of the woman’s facial features, as if she were in a permanent state of daydreaming.

  She couldn’t stop. If everything she had just heard was true, Brayson wouldn’t be likely to spare her life. Not when she and this man were so close to getting away.

  Footsteps echoed down the hallway after her. She shoved hard into another door to enter a stairwell. The man was in the lead now. Monica didn’t hesitate for more than a second, but she recognized him. As she fled down the stairwell, boots clacking against the hard concrete, the door burst open. He was gaining on her.

  “Stop! I’m not going to hurt you!”

  Monica sprinted down the stairs. A second clanging of the door above her announced that Brayson was still in pursuit. As she scurried down the next flight, she thrust one hand into her pocket to retrieve her comm card. Brayson’s and the man’s footsteps grew louder, and they called out for Monica to stop.

  Her heart raced. Adrenaline pumped through her. Every nerve burned with the need to escape.

  She used one hand to steady herself around another bend in the stairs while she accessed her comm card with the other. For a brief moment, she lost her footing and used both hands to stay upright. The comm card flew away from her on the landing. It clattered against a wall and fell down.

  Brayson and the man appeared only half a floor behind Monica. She could make out the man’s face now, one she recognized from the day she had fixed the connection in the boardroom months ago. He had been discussing the purchase of LyfeGen, the desirability of both the company’s intellectual property and the trade secrets that protected the Sustain from NanoTech’s grasp. It was his words that had inspired her to see if she could unravel LyfeGen’s secrets. Everything rushed back to her in an overwhelming tide of fear and realization.

  Unable to spare the seconds it would take to retrieve the comm card, she left it and pushed through the last door to the ground floor of NanoTech. Bathed in darkness, she hoped she would have a chance, however fleeting, of escape.

  She ran for the lobby. The streetlights filtering in silhouetted the shadows of two people across the tile floor. Had Brayson and the lawyer called someone else to cut her off?

  Hoping they hadn’t noticed her, she turned and ran back toward the familiar pathways that led to IT. Maybe she could slip out the emergency exit there.

  Brayson and the lawyer spilled out of the stairwell, with the lawyer leading the chase. “Stop running!”

  While he yelled, Brayson didn’t say a word. Monica heard her breathing heavily. At least one of her pursuers might be too fatigued to follow.

  She dodged into the IT room and dropped to the floor. Scurrying between the cubicles and desks, she dared a peek. The lawyer stood in the doorway. He flicked on the lights as Monica crawled past Sam Parson’s office toward the emergency exit. It was only fitting that she had to pass his office one more time before she left NanoTech, this time, hopefully, for good.

  The exit door was just around the corner. More than likely, the lawyer had no idea what the layout of the room was, since he spent his time on the upper floors in conference rooms and the IP office suites.

  Monica ran.

  “Stop right now!”

  He was too far away, though. He couldn’t stop her now. She would be out in the streets of Chicago again. She could get lost there.

  There might be people on the streets, traffic passing by, anything to protect her, to distract her pursuers.

  Just as she reached the door, a heavy weight struck her from behind. She slammed to the ground, her elbow and shoulder crashing into the hard floor.

  Dazed, Monica looked up into Whitney Brayson’s wild eyes. Brayson was fighting to catch her breath, but her face was full of smug victory. The lawyer skidded to a stop as he caught up to them.

  Monica fought to stand, but Brayson kicked her legs out and she sprawled along the floor again.

  “What do we do with her?” the lawyer asked.

  “There’s really only one thing to do.” Brayson said. “Shoot her.”

  The lawyer opened his mouth to argue, but stopped. He took out a compact pistol that had been tucked into the back of his waistband. For a moment Monica marveled at the gun, wondering to what lengths the lawyer must have gone to obtain an actual handgun in Chicago.

  Her curiosity was quickly squelched by fear.

  The lawyer pointed at Monica, his arm shaking. “I’ve never actually done this before.” He shook his head. “I can’t do it.”

  “Fine,” Brayson said. “Give it to me.” She tugged the pistol from the lawyer’s hands.

  “Please, don’t,” Monica said. “I’ll do anything you want. I won’t say anything.”

  Brayson clicked off the safety and the lawyer turned away.

  Her eyes narrowed in concentration as she leveled the gun at Monica.

  She closed her eyes.

  Chapter 45

  Monica Wolfe

  December 4, 2063

  A violent bang vibrated through Monica’s skull. She felt nothing, her eyelids squeezing tighter.

  She didn’t scream, nor did she struggle. She thought she was still on the ground. There was a tightness in her chest, but she felt no pain.

  Maybe she was dead.

  A heavy weight fell across her body. Her already bruised arm screamed in agony and she let out a surprised yelp. Something metal clattered across the floor. The flashing silver and gray settled in front of her eyes.

  The gun.

  Footsteps pounded forward, voices rising and falling. “Police!”

  Monica turned her head, pushing the weight off her. Whitney Brayson slumped against the floor.

  Dead?

  A subtle but evident rise and fall in Brayson’s chest warranted a gasp of surprise from Monica. She scrambled to get back from the woman. Brayson wasn’t dead. She would kill Monica. She would shoot her again.

  The clicking of handcuffs and more voices to Monica’s right, just out of her peripheral vision, did nothing to distract her from Brayson. The woman’s chest continued to inflate and deflate with her labored breathing.

  Two hands grasped Monica’s shoulders. A face, curved and pink with rosacea, appeared in front of hers. Monica stared straight through the woman’s face.

  “Monica? Monica Wolfe?”

  Her shock dissolved as her name was repeated. “What’s... what’s going on?”

  “Are you okay?” The cop, kneeling beside her, held Monica’s wrist, as if checking her pulse, anchoring her to reality.

  “I guess so,” Monica said, patting her chest in disbelief. “I wasn’t shot?”

  The woman shook her head. As Monica recovered from her shock, the woman displayed a badge. “We were c
alled by Audrey Cook. She said you needed to talk with us.”

  Monica sat up straighter, feeling too vulnerable and weak on the ground. Her forehead scrunched in worried wrinkles. “What about her?”

  The cop shook her head again. “She’s out cold. Zapped her out just in time. I’m Officer Morris. I have to admit, we didn’t expect this much on our call.” She flashed the plastic, non-lethal pistol to reassure Monica.

  “How’d you find me?” Monica stood.

  Morris followed, standing in front of her. “Ms. Cook told us to meet you here. Said you had something to show us. She sounded worried.”

  “Really? That’s all it took?” Monica raised an eyebrow skeptically, regaining her bearings as her heart settled. The lawyer was handcuffed and restrained by Morris’s partner.

  Monica was thankful for the messy, brief note that she had left on Audrey’s comm card. She cringed, remembering that she had almost left without leaving any indication of her intentions for Audrey to find. If the journalist hadn’t woken up and seen the message...Monica hated to think about where she would be at this moment.

  “Truthfully? We got the shit end of the stick.” Morris winked. “We’re the new kids on the squad, you know?” As she spoke, she secured a pair of handcuffs around Brayson’s wrists.

  Memories of her prolonged initiation into NanoTech’s IT department and the mundane tasks Sam had doled out to her resurfaced. The man had been insistent on reminding her where she stood on the company totem pole. “I get that. So they all thought this was some kind of wild goose chase, huh?”

  “Whether it was or wasn’t, it looks like we got here at the right time.” Morris offered a reassuring smile. “Ms. Cook said that it had something to do with the bombing and all those Sustain deaths. I think we would’ve ignored the call completely if it hadn’t been for her involvement in the biotech community.”

  “I can understand that. Well, she may have been right. I do have something that’ll make your trip out here worthwhile.” She frowned, quiet for a moment. “But I think I’m going to need a lawyer present before I can say much more.”

  Mortality of the God Organ

  By Audrey Cook

  Late Tuesday night, a bomb blast tore through the otherwise peaceful night in the Chicago suburb of Foxwood. Witnesses at the Cypress Place apartments two blocks down reported a flash of intense light, followed by a boom. Plumes of smoke and a column of fire rose from the apartment building.

  Despite the apparent intensity of the blast, there was only one fatality: Jacqueline Harper, a LyfeGen researcher. One suspect, Hannah Boyd, is in custody. Boyd is believed to be a religious terrorist, a member of St. Gemma’s Church, associated with the earlier Tuesday bombing at LyfeGen headquarters that resulted in 66 deaths and 230 wounded. St. Gemma’s was led by the late Pastor Franklin Gray. Gray, who had a lengthy record of criminal charges, was allegedly murdered shortly before the smaller bombing at the former ProlifiTEC laboratories in Foxwood.

  Boyd publicly confessed to her role in both Gray’s and Harper’s deaths. She claims to have acted on “God’s intended purpose for [her].” Boyd called Harper “Satan’s blood daughter,” decrying Harper’s role in the “sacrilegious corporation that is LyfeGen.”

  Strangely, Boyd continually referred to Harper as “Charlotte,” causing confusion amongst law enforcement officials. Her court-appointed defense attorney dismissed her ominous claims, attributing them to the mental duress she has recently endured. Boyd did willingly lead investigators to the cache of improvised explosives at St. Gemma’s Church. Furthermore, the young woman admitted to being responsible for the bombing tragedy at LyfeGen’s impromptu conference and the emergency evacuation of the LyfeGen building on Tuesday.

  Public outcry toward an overzealous Chicago Police Department looking for a scapegoat and a lack of strong evidence against former NanoTech employee Cody Warren led to his release the following day. Further investigations into his whereabouts and activities revealed that the unemployed former maintenance worker had recently sold an improved version of the Revolution Robotics maintenance and repair bots that he had worked on at NanoTech.

  When asked about his windfall sale to Revolution Robotics and his reaction to his arrest, Warren had this to say: “I made enough to leave this rat’s nest for the rest of my life. Good riddance.” He refused further comment.

  While Harper cannot defend herself, her death and the immediate investigation conducted by officials at LyfeGen and the Chicago Police Department initially offered damning evidence regarding the woman’s role in the Sustain sabotages. Chief Gabrielle Lawrence said that “enough evidence exists such that Jacqueline Harper would be arrested and charged with conspiracy, multiple counts of murder, bioterrorism, and technological abuse.”

  The law is clear that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty, but that does not mean one is actually innocent. Given Harper’s mix of technical acumen, convoluted relationships at LyfeGen, and the unfortunate death of her ten-year-old son, all signs seemed to indicate that the ambitious researcher orchestrated a nefarious plot of deception and death.

  A preliminary examination of Harper’s life inspires sympathy for the dedicated bio-researcher.

  Harper cofounded ProlifiTEC while still a post-doctoral researcher at Northwestern University. The company developed viral vectors to deliver genetic therapeutics and was a mild success. LyfeGen’s CEO at the time, the late Joel Cobb, took an interest in the company’s therapeutics and, with the Vice President of Research Preston Carter’s encouragement, purchased the company for its intellectual property. Not only did they acquire a large amount of IP that was included in future iterations of the Sustain organ, but they also hired many of the existing employees at ProlifiTEC. Jacqueline Harper was one of those employees.

  According to another acquaintance of Harper’s, she was particularly keen on joining LyfeGen because it came at a pivotal time in her life: her son’s diagnosis of cancer coincided with the purchase of ProlifiTEC. An anonymous acquaintance revealed that doctors had found a fatal brain tumor. Reportedly, Harper’s son was given just six months to live at the age of nine. Despite a barrage of targeted therapeutics, radiation, and chemotherapy, her son’s tumor continued to grow.

  Harper allegedly hoped that working at LyfeGen would improve the odds of enrolling her son in one of the preliminary clinical trials of the Sustain organ for pediatric patients.

  But her son’s brain tumor did not fall into any of the categories that qualified for the clinical trials. She appealed directly to several other clinical researchers and even regulatory researchers within the company. Her son died at the age of ten, while Harper was still trying to convince anyone who would listen to help him.

  She spent a couple of weeks away from work, but returned with an unexpected vigor and determination, according to coworkers. She had taken a special interest in expediting the Sustain organ through regulatory approvals. In fact, coworkers and former bosses at LyfeGen had only positive things to say about her work upon her return.

  “Of all the employees in the research division, she stood out as a rising star,” said one source. “Without her, I don’t think we would have had the pediatric Sustain approved for as many conditions as it currently is.”

  But Harper’s activities after work hours appeared suspect. Her relationship with her husband had deteriorated after their son’s death, and Harper became involved in an alleged romantic affair with a coworker, Dave Stemper. Stemper later died in a suspicious automobile accident—a case recently reopened under investigation for foul play. Hannah Boyd claims that Harper, in disguise, befriended her and convinced her to deliver the explosive on the day of the LyfeGen bombing.

  Harper was initially lambasted by news streams as soon as Boyd’s story was made public, but continuing investigations may have posthumously proven the innocence and framing of Jacqueline Harper.

  A protected whistleblower, a former NanoTech employee, divulged information that revealed a more complic
ated conspiracy. This led to the arrest of at least one top NanoTech executive, Zachary Stevens, along with a former LyfeGen employee, Whitney Brayson. Brayson was arrested on several charges, including conspiracy, attempted murder, and bioterrorism. She is thought to have adopted an alternative persona (posing as Harper, amongst other identities) to manipulate others, such as Boyd, in her ploy. Records indicate that Brayson went so far as to rent a car identical to Harper’s for the ruse.

  Intellectual property lawyer Zachary Stevens has been arrested on identical charges to Brayson’s, and both are currently in custody. The case has been transferred to federal authorities, who have explained that ongoing investigations may yield further charges for all involved.

  According to authorities and the anonymous whistleblower, Zachary Stevens and Whitney Brayson acted in an effort to discredit the clinical reputation of LyfeGen’s Sustain technology to manipulate LyfeGen share prices. Stevens allegedly positioned NanoTech to take over LyfeGen’s technologies to both eliminate a leading competitor and become a leading player in patient-specific therapeutic delivery technologies. Brayson was positioned to receive a substantial share in NanoTech ownership via an off-shore account in the Cayman Islands, uncovered through a recorded conversation between her and Stevens.

  In addition, public records reveal Brayson exercised stock options in a private investment account to short a substantial position in LyfeGen shares, enabling an enormous profit in the case of a severe drop in LyfeGen share prices.

  Such a drop occurred immediately after the bombings on Tuesday, only hours after Brayson had exercised those stock options. All of Brayson’s and Stevens’s known assets have been frozen.

  Brayson’s documented relationship with the late David Stemper and her unique position as an engineer in the productions and receiving departments presented her with the opportunity to alter the genetic sequences used in the production of Sustain products. Such alterations are thought to be the cause of the recent outbreak of strokes caused by Sustain organs. In addition, Brayson allegedly targeted individuals with ties to LyfeGen’s purchase of ProlifiTEC in a concerted effort to frame Jacqueline Harper.