by Rebekah Blue
Then he frowned. “Unfortunately, there’s a thirty-five percent wastage rate. Our friend here thinks he might have solved the problem. Why don’t you let him run you through the formula changes while I check whether the ward sister’s ready for us?”
“The ward sister?” Charlie asked, but Professor Stanhope was already striding away. She turned to Jamie. Or Julian. “Please don’t run me through the formula. I won’t understand a word of it. In fact I barely understood a word of that. The Starweed serum’s working?”
Jiminy nodded. “Don’t worry – it’d take ages to explain all the chemistry, and I’m about to knock off for the day. Basically, we’ve achieved permanent increases in strength, stamina and healing ability. Single dose – no need for boosters or top-ups or repeat treatments. It’s a really exciting breakthrough.”
“And the wastage?”
“That’s the problem we’re working on now. In just over a third of test subjects, the changes are accompanied by massive increases in aggression, violence, hallucinations, bleeding on the brain, seizures and death. But hopefully we can get those numbers down. I think I might have cracked it with this newest batch.”
Charlie stared at him, horror creeping up her spine. “The wastage is people?” she said.
But he’d returned to his last experiment of the day, and as he carefully watched the bright blue fluid he was drawing into a pipette, he said, absentmindedly, “I don’t deal with the actual trials – I just send the serum in and get the data out.”
Charlie was dumbstruck. How could he not care what was being done with his research? Why hadn’t he made it his business to find out, to look beyond the narrow confines of his particular scientific specialty?
But then she realized she’d been guilty of exactly the same thing. She’d messed around happily in her greenhouses, tending to her Starweed seedlings. She’d flown out in her Cessna and gathered the wild-growing weed and brought it back to hand over to the lab rats or to hybridize with the laboratory-grown specimens…and she’d blithely accepted that what she was doing was going to help people, not harm them.
She’d thought she was going to be freeing bear shifters from the shackles of addiction – instead she was going to be helping to create super-soldiers. And if the serum wasn’t intended to cure the bears in the Badlands, what would happen to them when the Starweed was crop-dusted with the herbicide she’d helped to create? The same thing that was happening to Art right now. A slow, miserable death.
“I…I’m not a chemist,” she’d stammered that night by the light of burning Starweed. I don’t know…”
Art had leaned closer – close enough to kiss her. “Don’t you think you should find out?” he’d said.
And that was exactly what she intended to do.
“They’re ready for us in the critical care ward,” said Professor Stanhope. He didn’t offer any explanation, just began to walk away, expecting her to follow. That was like him – he was an absolutely brilliant man, but when it came to basic human interaction, he was a buffoon. For Professor Stanhope, small talk was a discussion about quantum particles. His funny little ways had their upside, though. Anyone else wouldn’t have been able to miss the sick fury she knew must be written all over her face, but he didn’t notice a thing.
“Why are we going to the critical care ward?” she asked as she trotted to catch up with him. She’d never been in the medical wing of the facility before. She knew Dynamic Earth did a lot of work with shifters with genetic disorders…
Ha. Yes. Like bears who are super-strong (and loyal and brave and kind…) but dependent on Starweed to survive.
“I’m afraid there’s been another attack by a berserker. Dr. Atkins has asked me to take you to see the young man. He’s being treated by our critical care personnel.” Professor Stanhope ushered her through a set of heavy double doors.
Every surface was spotlessly gleaming white, and it had the sterile, antiseptic smell of hospitals everywhere. Nurses in crepe-soled shoes moved soundlessly across the floors. Charlie couldn’t help but notice that most of them were large men whose biceps strained the sleeves of their scrubs and whose eyes were wary and alert. She had no doubt they were qualified – Dynamic Earth didn’t hire incompetents – she just wondered what other training they had. They didn’t look like they spent a lot of time kissing boo-boos and mopping fevered brows.
They came to a stop outside a closed door and Professor Stanhope fished in his pocket for his inhaler, rattled it, then took a deep, wheezing draft. Then he walked into the room, leaving Charlie to trail behind him.
Dr. Atkins was in deep, serious conversation with a nurse – this one female, plump, and pretty in a wholesome sort of way – she brought to mind gingham aprons and home-baked apple pie. Stage dressing, said the new, cynical part of Charlie. She didn’t like it – it didn’t feel like her – but she thought maybe she needed to listen to it. Art needed her to listen to it.
“Thank you, nurse,” said Dr. Atkins. “Remember – the best of care. Whatever he needs to help his recovery, Dynamic Earth will provide it. Expense is no object.” He turned his attention to Charlie and Professor Stanhope. “Thank you for coming,” he said gravely. “Charlotte, it’s important for you to see this, but please don’t stay too long. Rhys’s health is precarious. His parents are being flown in and we can only hope…” He shook his head, clapped Charlie on the shoulder in a fatherly way, and left.
The nurse finished checking a beeping readout on a high-tech looking machine, and followed him out.
Charlie turned her attention to the bed, where a young man lay unconscious, his thick lashes fluttering against his high cheekbones as if he were suffering a bad dream. A sandy scruff covered his strong jaw and his lips, though pale, were full. She thought that under other circumstances, he would be devastatingly handsome. But at the moment he just looked…broken.
Professor Stanhope picked up a clipboard from the end of the hospital bed and flipped through the thick sheaf of notes. “Fractured ribs, punctured lung, ruptured spleen,” he said. “Compound fractures to both legs, dislocated shoulder, spiral fracture to the left humerus. Subdural hematoma, multiple fractures to the skull… Even for a lion shifter…” He trailed off, not out of delicacy, but because there was no need for him to finish the sentence. They both knew this might be the kind of damage it was impossible to heal. Whoever had done this to him had broken damn near every bone in his body, then crushed his skull.
And it all just confirmed for Charlie, if she’d had any doubt left at all, that this was more stage-dressing. Poor Rhys’s injuries were real enough, but he wasn’t the victim of a berserker. That part was fake.
He looked like someone who’d been attacked by an enraged, drug-fueled psycho of a bear. And he was supposed to, to the layman. She thought about how the movies couldn’t film winter scenes when it was snowing, because the real snow didn’t seem real to audiences used to special effects. About how bottles and windows in movies were made of sugar, because the average man on the street didn’t have any instinctive understanding of how much damage glass could do to a human being’s skull. This was the same thing.
Rhys looked how the average human – even the average shifter – might imagine the victim of a savage attack by a deranged bear. But the truth was, he was in far too good shape. Oh, he was seriously hurt. Charlie really didn’t know whether he’d survive for long enough for his parents to see him. And lord knew the poor guy was injured enough – but not as injured as he would have been had someone like Art been trying to kill him in a drug-fueled fury. If a bear with the berserker strength and the blind rage of a drug high had wanted to pulverize Rhys, they’d have had to scrape him up and bring him back to the facility in a bucket.
Charlie looked at the broken young man for another long moment. Then she mentally steeled herself and said, “I need to talk to Dr. Atkins.”
Professor Stanhope nodded. “He’s waiting for you.”
She’d known he would be.
Chapter Fifteen
Dr. Atkins was signing paperwork when Dr. Stanhope knocked and ushered Charlie into his office. They’d walked a circuit and were back near the laboratories. The CEO kept scribbling for a few seconds (very busy, very important) before tucking the papers away in a drawer and smiling at Charlie (but never too busy for you, my dear).
He didn’t rise to greet her, but instead loosened his tie, gestured at a chair, and said, “Forgive me – it’s been a long day.” There were faint dark shadows under his eyes, and his suit jacket was slung over the back of his chair, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He seemed weary and a little distracted. It was very cleverly done.
“You look tired,” Charlie said.
He nodded. “I’m very concerned about the increase in berserker attacks,” he said. “Did you know I have a son about Rhys’s age? When I think that it could be him lying there, fighting for his life…”
Charlie hadn’t seen any evidence of an increase in attacks – just one critically injured young man whose condition was, admittedly, heartbreaking – but she probably wasn’t supposed to think about that. A matter of only days ago, she wouldn’t have.
“Poor Rhys,” she agreed. “Do you think he’ll survive, Dr. Atkins?”
He shook his head gravely. “I don’t know, Charlotte. The medical staff are doing all they can.” He pounded his fist gently on the arm of his chair. “It makes me feel so helpless.”
Charlie knew exactly the line he was feeding her, and she gave it to him. “I just wish there was something I could do to help.”
Dr. Atkins, on cue, looked surprised. “Oh, but there is,” he assured her. “You’re absolutely crucial to the success of this project. Not only were you intimately involved in creating a herbicide that would kill Starweed but not the other native foliage, you’ve made more flights out into the Badlands than any other pilot. We’re relying on you for intelligence about where there are still growths of wild Starweed.”
He got up, opened a wall safe, and produced a large map, which he unrolled over the desk’s surface. He laid a green marker pen on top of it. Charlie was aware of him watching her carefully.
He already knows where the Starweed is. He wants to see whether you’ll lie.
She uncapped the pen, pulled the map towards her, and started marking the areas where Starweed still grew, as carefully and accurately as she could. Behind her, she thought she heard him give a small, satisfied sigh. She didn’t smile.
Her hand jerked and the marker slipped on the paper, leaving a wiggly green line, when there was a sudden clamor from the direction of the medical wing. An insistent, blaring alarm.
Charlie thought quickly. “Oh no, it must be Rhys. You go, Dr. Atkins. I know how worried you are about him. I’ll be fine here.”
She could see from his hesitation that this interruption wasn’t part of the plan, but she just put her head down and continued to mark the map with the remaining outcroppings of Starweed.
Dr. Atkins made a decision to commit to his role, and hurried off.
Charlie worked quietly for a couple of minutes, then she crept to the open door and checked the corridor in both directions. Empty.
She slipped silently down to Professor Stanhope’s lab, where she stopped, squared her shoulders, composed herself, and strode in as if she owned the place and straight over to Jeremy-Jiminy’s bench. Fortunately he hadn’t been delayed by any last-minute work, and had clocked off. Nobody paid her any attention – they were all too busy with their test tubes and Bunsen burners and petri dishes.
It was only a moment’s work to grab a canister of the new version of the serum she’d seen him working on.
At precisely the wrong moment, a pretty Asian woman, who somehow managed to make the white lab jumpsuit look good, glanced up at her questioningly. Charlie grabbed a bunch of papers to cover her confusion and held them up, grinning, hoping the woman wouldn’t notice the canister tucked under her other arm. “Just grabbing some things for…uh…” Crap, what was his name? “…for J,” she finished lamely. “Pretend I’m not here.”
The woman’s attention was drawn by a bleep from her work area, and Charlie took the opportunity to slip out of the lab and back down the corridor to Dr. Atkins’ office.
And just in time, too, because no sooner had she started marking the map again than he returned. He swept his gaze over his desk drawers, his filing cabinets and the wall safe. Nothing had been disturbed. The safe’s dial hadn’t been tampered with. Although the interruption hadn’t been planned, it had confirmed for Dr. Atkins that Charlie wasn’t snooping where she shouldn’t be, and that meant she must still be in the dark.
Ha! How stupid was he?
But then she realized. It wasn’t stupidity – it was arrogance, and skewed priorities. She was sure that wherever the serum was stored for use in trials, it was absolutely bristling with security.
But he didn’t give a damn about the newer version of the serum still being developed in the labs. He wasn’t particularly interested in a version of the serum that didn’t have a thirty-five percent “wastage rate”. He didn’t care if the serum burned out his test subjects’ brains, as long as enough survived to give him his army of super-soldiers.
Dr. Atkins had worried that Charlie might snoop in his office, because he considered the work he did there very important, so he assumed she must too. It had never occurred to him that she could get what she wanted by blending in with the nameless, faceless, disposable lab rats.
He looked over the map and nodded his satisfaction. “This is excellent work,” he said. “I knew we had the right woman for the job.” He pulled up a chair to sit next to her and placed an avuncular hand on hers. Charlie repressed a shudder. “You said you wished there was something you could do to help. This is your opportunity. Your plane has been repaired and refueled, and is ready to be loaded with the herbicide. Will you be the one to dust the Badlands and end the scourge of berserker attacks by Starweed addicts?”
He must have misinterpreted her hesitation, because he said, “It might seem low-tech, but the technique has been used to great effect on the population of locusts in India and East Africa. It’s a proven method of eradicating pests.” He gave a thin smile.
Pests, she thought. Pests, not people. Less important to you than insects.
“Of course I will,” she said. “Whatever it takes to stop innocent people being hurt by monsters.”
Chapter Sixteen
The hangar was enormous and housed several aircraft – the chopper that Dr. Atkins, Professor Stanhope, Gary and the engineers had flown in on, still grimy with reddish-gray dust. Dr. Atkins’ private jet – glitzy and top of the line, intended to impress potential investors – and a number of smaller aircraft, including Charlie’s little Cessna. It looked dinky, battered and old next to the glossy, expensive Dynamic Earth equipment. But she was comfortable flying it. It was hers.
The plane had been refueled and the crop-dusting apparatus had been installed and tested – a metal frame below the rear edges of the wings, fitted with dozens of nozzles that would send out a fine mist of the Starweed-specific herbicide. The net effect would be that as she flew her plane over Darwin and out towards Cottonwood, she’d be leaving behind a poisonous cloud that would settle over the Badlands and kill the Starweed – and by extension every bear with the berserker gene. There would be no more Starweed, ever. They would become sick, and weak, and they would die. Art would die – if he wasn’t dead already.
That was Dr. Atkins’ plan, anyway. Charlie had a different plan. The engineers had finished tinkering around with the plane, ticking off pre-flight checklists and completing other last-minute tasks, making sure the Cessna was air-worthy. They left the hangar, laughing among themselves, probably heading for the cafeteria and its famously enormous breakfasts.
The engineers’ departure left just Charlie and Gary in the huge, echoing space. He was dressed in a navy-blue jumpsuit again, and she realized he wasn’t just security, but really
did know his way around an airplane as well. He gave her a smile – or the nearest thing to a smile for Gary, anyway – and handed her the checklist so she could run through it herself pre-flight. She scanned it quickly but thoroughly, because if everything went according to plan, she wouldn’t have time to double-check anything. And if things didn’t go according to plan…well, in that case, she’d probably be thinking of death by plane crash quite wistfully, given the alternative she’d be slowly and painfully undergoing.
Her palms were damp, and she rubbed them on the thighs of her white jumpsuit to dry them. Her heart was pattering hysterically in her ribcage. It was okay if she looked a bit nervous, she reassured herself – this would be her first time back in the cockpit since her crash. Nobody would think it was weird if she was a little jumpy.
“Everything look good?” she asked Gary.
He nodded at the checklist. “Went over it myself. She’s running as sweet as a nut.”
“Thanks.” She yawned hugely and stretched her arms over her head, hoping it would be catching. “It’s way too early for this.”
Gary yawned too, giving her a good view of his tonsils before covering his mouth. He must have been up for several hours if he’d been part of the team repairing and refueling the Cessna. Good.
Charlie watched carefully as he shouldered a large canister marked with the interlocking circles of the biohazard symbol. He set it down close to the Cessna’s landing gear and hooked it up to deliver herbicide to the Cessna’s tanks. Once the poison had started flowing, he returned to their conversation.
“Why such an early start, anyway?” Gary asked.
“Dr. Atkins briefed me yesterday,” Charlie told him. “It’s all been carefully timed so that by the time the last of the Starweed has worn off and the berserkers are more docile, security and rehab teams will be in place to administer the serum and offer follow-up care. A lot of these people will be left without jobs, or they’re estranged from their families. Dr. Atkins wants enough people on the ground to be sure everyone gets the resources they need.”