Sid brightens. “You mean former Miss Universe Kandy Kane?”
“Enlarge Kandy Kane, Sid. Make a poster-size display. I want to get a better look.”
“But she’s not one of our suspects,” I say.
“A large picture of her right here over my desk will do wonders for this investigation. No one wants to look at a blowup of Rocket Packarod.”
Trenton says, “I need a warrant to snoop around Congress Drugs. If they know I’m coming, they’ll clean the place up. If there is a discrepancy in their product’s weight records, taken near the time of the poisonings, I may be able to find out who was there during those times and who took the anti-flavonoids.”
“The warrant’s no problem. Are you sure you can get in without being detected?”
Jersey pales. She knows that getting Trenton into Congress Drugs undetected is very dangerous, because the company has vicious trained animals and a tight security system.
It’s a sure sign she’s very upset when she asks, “Do you have any candy, Molly?”
I hand her the first piece that I grab from my bag. She opens her mouth and quickly swallows. “Was that a Chocolate Moon?”
“No, a Raspberry Swirl.”
I’m upset for Jersey. Anyone who can’t tell the difference between a Chocolate Moon and a Raspberry Swirl is in big trouble.
20
CORTLAND PULLS ME close. “Molly, going to Congress Drugs is dangerous. Everyone knows that the place is a fortress. How will you get in and out?”
“Jersey and I researched the birthdays of their executives and found someone whose birthday is on the day we will go. I’ll call ahead and say someone wants to send him a birthday cake from the Culinary Institute and ask if we could deliver it on that day.”
“Trenton can disguise himself as a cake?”
“No, he can’t disguise himself like a cake, but he can fold himself like origami. Jersey and I are going to hide him in one of the Culinary’s large gift boxes and say it’s a gift for someone else that we’ll bring in with the cake.”
The day we go to Congress Drugs, I bring a large birthday cake in a bright blue Culinary box to Trenton and Jersey’s home. I place it in their refrigerator while I wait for Trenton to fold himself.
Hearing about the process was one thing; seeing it another.
I cringe watching him roll up his sleeve to the shoulder and collapse his arm until it hangs like a wet cloth at his side. Then he folds it in half at the elbow and in half again until he can tuck it under his armpit. I grab the back of a chair to steady myself because I think I’m going to faint.
“It doesn’t hurt, Molly,” Trenton says. “If it hurt, I wouldn’t do it.”
“It looks like it hurts.” I lower my head and close my eyes.
“This is so handy when we travel,” Jersey says in a cheery voice that only makes me want to run. “I take Trenton in the carry-on case he made for himself and buy only one ticket.”
“Two for the price of one,” Trenton says, his eye color fading to that of water. I feel nauseous.
Trenton sees my distress. “Why don’t you go in the other room while I finish?” he says. “This won’t take long.” He steps into the box and waves me away with his other arm. I leave.
Soon Jersey calls, “Ready, Molly! You can come in now.” She has decorated the box with silver ribbons and golden flowers. And although it is very pretty, I look at it and think of a coffin.
We wheel Trenton to my rover and lift him into the trunk. The box is much heavier than it looks. I get the cake and slide it next to him. Then we attach signs to the side windows of the rover that say “Culinary Institute Deliveries.”
We stop at the entrance to San Andreas Farms. Congress Drugs is in the middle of the property. Two security guards find our names on their visitors’ list. We show them the beautiful birthday cake and give each two supersize bags of Peanut Butter Moons. Jersey sits rigidly next to me. When no one checks the other box, she relaxes and we roll through.
An apple orchard is on our right; an orange grove with its hypnotic orange smell is on our left. Ahead we can see the chrome yellow three-tiered Congress Drugs. From studying floor plans that we got from Lamont, we know that the bottom and largest floor houses the laboratory. Marketing and sales offices are in the middle. The top, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows with a 360-degree view of the San Andreas Farms that surrounds it, is Sandy Andreas’s office.
We park. We take out the cake and place it on the top shelf of a trolley. A guard approaches with a cat on a leash. A sign around its neck says “Kreplach, Vicious Cat of the Day.”
“It looks just like a sweet pussy cat.” Jersey says. “How vicious can it be?” She reaches out her hand to pat it.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the guard warns. He throws Kreplach a can of food. The cat claws it open, swallows the food, and then swallows the can.
“I see what you mean,” Jersey says thrusting her hands behind her back.
We show the guard our pass. He looks and nods.
“What’s in the other box?” he asks.
“More goodies from the Culinary.” Then, with some effort, we remove Trenton’s box and put it on the bottom shelf of our trolley. Kreplach sniffs the box. We stiffen. Kreplach moves away. Trenton has no smell.
We are escorted to Congress Drugs’ executive floor by another guard. I give him a box of chocolate-covered cherries. Jersey says I am overdoing it, but I tell her that giving candy is not something you can overdo.
The elevator opens. We see a long curving hall lined with clocks set to the local times on various worlds, along with some artwork. Ever since Drew’s commercial “Of the People, By the People, and For the People” had sent sales soaring, when Sandy learned that Drew’s inspiration had come from a pop song and dance from the United States on Earth called “Do the Constitution,” he decided to show off his knowledge of United States history by decorating the halls with important historical paintings.
The first one we pass is of George Washington next to a cherry tree throwing a rock across Delaware Street in Washington that breaks a window. The next one is of Lincoln eating a Gettysburger in a car that has a sign that reads Made on Mercury. Finally, outside of the office of the executive we came to see, is a painting of a black man named Jefferson playing the Monticello.
We push the trolley into the office and remove the lid from the cake box. The smell of chocolate rises. A secretary swoons. The smell moves through the open door into the hall. People emerge from their offices and beg for samples.
“For me?” the executive says with wide eyes and a wider mouth. “Who sent this?”
“Can’t say. We just deliver,” I respond. “Congratulations!” I start to sing “Happy Birthday.” Everyone joins in. The executive glows like the child he once was. We hand him a knife. “Cut the first slice?” I say.
While everyone’s mouth is salivating and all eyes are on the cake, we turn and roll the cart out the door.
His secretary watches. “Hey, where are you going?” she asks. “Is that another gift?”
“Yes,” Jersey says. “Another gift but for a different person.”
We open the door and step through. It closes behind us.
“That was close,” Jersey says, wiping little beads of sweat from her forehead. We push the cart slowly down the hall. I quickly glance at a floor plan imprinted in my palm and see that there is a storage closet three doors down on my left.
“Quick, Jersey, in here.” We open the door and push the trolley inside.
We take Trenton out of the box and cover him with a gray cloth. We take some items from the shelves and scatter them on top.
“Are you all right, sweetheart?” Jersey’s voice quivers.
Trenton makes a humming sound that Jersey apparently translates as “All is well.”
Jersey’s shirt is now drenched with sweat. She doesn’t move.
“Are you sure?”
Again another hum meaning yes.
“We have to go. We have to go now!” I beg. I give her a shove and push her toward the door.
Trenton waits. At midnight, he begins his ten-minute process: one minute to roll out flat, three minutes to rev up to a full shape, and another six minutes before he can stand. Every hour there is a security sweep of the laboratory. Existing door codes are replaced with new ones. Trenton knows the codes for midnight through three o’clock, but if the time sequence changes—meaning the hour code is reset for a longer or shorter interval—he may not be able to activate the next code.
He turns on his argon-fluoride laser, which generates ultraviolet light, and sets it to its lowest setting. He shifts his crystalline quartz lens and adjusts his immersion liquids to focus more finely. He leaves the closet and scans the hall. All clear. The stairwell is a few steps away. He enters and descends three steps at a time to the laboratory one floor below.
A double door leads to the laboratory; the outer one has an air lock; the inner door opens into the laboratory. When no one is inside the laboratory, the atmosphere has 50 percent less oxygen, making it deadly to humans. Only those with security clearance are given the code to make it breathable. But as long as Trenton operates on half power or less, this is not a problem.
Trenton inserts his pinky into the laboratory door’s keyhole. Nothing happens. He tries his index finger. Same thing. Finally he tries his thumb. It fits but sticks in the lock. Trenton rotates his hand until it separates from his wrist like the tail of a gecko lizard. He turns it with his other hand. Click! The door opens. Trenton deflates his thumb and removes it from the lock. He enters. The door locks behind him.
The security office has a hundred viewing screens. Suddenly one buzzes and blinks a red light. A senior guard, eyebrows arched, gazes closely. “I see something moving on the floor in the main laboratory,” he says to his junior partner. “It’s very strange. I’m getting an organic and inorganic reading. I’ve never seen anything like it. Did you see it?”
“Maybe a speck of dust on the lens,” the younger guard says, trying to hide his annoyance at being interrupted while watching a girl slide up and down a pole on a porn channel.
Trenton detects their reading. He lies down on the floor, shuts down three-quarters of his circuits, and waits. He only needs full power to make measurements and take holograms. His heart beats like a great slow clock.
“Now it’s gone,” the senior guard says. “I better be on the safe side and reprogram the lock codes. Instead of changing every hour, now they’ll change every fifty-five minutes.”
The junior guard, now peering at a large nipple on a huge breast, says, “I was just thinking the same thing.”
Trenton adjusts his eye cam and scans the laboratory. He slowly moves toward a sign that says “Research Personnel Only.”
“It’s happening again. I’m getting more readings,” the senior guard says.
Trenton hunkers down to half power and crawls along the floor. Then he brings himself to his lowest setting.
“Now it’s gone. But you must have seen that,” the senior guard says.
“Ooh, ooh, ah…ahh,” the junior guard moans.
“I’ll take that as a yes. But I think it’s a malfunction. Nothing flip-flops from organic to inorganic and back.”
Trenton finishes his scans. The fifty-five-minute code clicks. Each code is different from the previous one. He needs another thirty seconds to power up to full. Not enough time before the new series of codes that he doesn’t know secures the door.
He sees a large garbage bin and a sofa with several violet pillows. He shreds two pillows, climbs into the bin, and scatters the shreds on top of himself. He deflates himself the way he did getting into the cake box, shuts down 90 percent of his energy, and waits.
“I’m not getting any organic readings now,” the senior security guard says. “The time change must have deactivated whatever it was. It sure wasn’t a person!”
Jersey checks a home monitor that sends a signal to Mars Yard. “Do you hear what I am hearing, Lamont?” she says through tears. “I’m getting a very weak signal from Trenton, meaning he’s all right, but something’s wrong. He must be locked inside.”
21
THE NEXT MORNING, when the robo-maid enters the laboratory, it collects the garbage bin where Trenton is hiding, brings it to the basement and loads it onto a transport destined for a landfill. It hums exiting Congress Drugs. It gathers speed on the open road. No one sees one container roll off and its contents walk away.
Several days later I press the key code Jersey gave me to let me into their condo. Trenton and Jersey are standing close together peering at something on a table.
“Am I interrupting?”
“No, I was just showing Jersey how I put a nest into an egg. I call it a nest egg. I’m sure if I can market it right it will make us rich.”
“Let’s go in the kitchen. I have something that many consider a remedy for every condition. I take out a thermal container, put it on the kitchen table, and open it. “It’s chicken soup.”
“I didn’t know you could make chicken into a soup. But I do know how to make soup into a chicken.” Trenton reaches for a spoon. He dips it into the soup then brings it to his lips and tastes. “Delicious! Are the ingredients expensive or rare? Is it hard to make?”
“Actually, it’s cheap and easy; it recharged the batteries of millions for ages. Want the recipe?” I pick up a stylus and write the recipe.
Trenton scans it with his index finger. “I wonder if I can distill it into supplements.”
“It defies distillation. The essence is lost in translation.”
Trenton finishes the soup and barrels into his laboratory. We follow. He feeds his readings from Congress Labs into “Analysis” and punches several numeric codes. We hear grinding and whirling noises.
“What’s he doing, Jersey?” I whisper.
“Beats me, but he must have found something unusual. Grinding and whirling are serious sounds. Last time I heard them, he had spun gold into flax.”
“Can he reverse the process?”
“Are you serious? Would I be standing here if he could reverse the process?”
Finally Trenton turns around. “Hmm, this is very interesting. There is not one weight-loss discrepancy but four! Three were taken from the same batch of poisonous anti-flavonoids at three separate times, one on July 6, a second on July 10, and a third on July 12.”
“How can you be sure it was three different people?” I ask.
“I’m sure because each person had to put a check mark next to the sample to release a magnetic cover lock over the substance. Like handwriting, each check is different. All I know is that there are no signs of a break-in. They all had clearance and access, meaning they either worked there or were a guest.”
“What about the fourth sample?” I ask.
“The fourth sample was taken a week later, on July 19. It was very different. It looked similar but was harmless.”
“Harmless? Why would anyone go to all that trouble and take something that was harmless?”
“If the person taking it was in a hurry, they could easily mistake one white granular substance for another.” Trenton cracks his elbows and turns to me. “Have you made any progress with your hunch about an antidote to the poisoned Chocolate Moons? All you said was that you thought it had a French connection.”
“I still think it has a French connection. I even called the French Institute. But the operator who answered didn’t like how I pronounced s’il vous plait and hors d’oeuvres, and put me on hold. Finally I was connected to Dr. D. Gall, who transferred me to Dr. D. Gallstone, who transferred me to Dr. D. Gallbladder before I got disconnected and discouraged.”
“Well, keep trying,” Jersey says. “New clues, new insights.”
I check the time. “I wish I could stay and speculate on who took these substances, but I have to go pack. I finally got Cortland to agree to take me to the Nirgal Palace Hotel. Its way over our budg
et, but it’s our anniversary.”
Decibel Point lives alone in a large white loft in New Chicago. His living space is crammed into one corner; the rest is his laboratory. Decibel and his ex-wife, Pencil, divorced ten years ago. She now owns a chain of Freedom Plan ice cream parlors whose specialty is a kitchen sink filled with Freedom Plan ice cream, sauces, and toppings. The entire thing has sixty-two calories.
He is annoyed that she called. “I have better things to do than develop a fifteen-calorie ice cream sundae, Pencil. Besides, I think it would taste like flavored air.”
“You’re only saying that because even though you developed Freedom Plan foods, you never eat any yourself. You don’t care that you’ve grown so fat that people think you come from Earth. Even being divorced from you is embarrassing!” Click! End of conversation.
There’s another call. Oh no, Decibel thinks, seeing that it’s Rocket. “What?” he barks.
Decibel listens and then says, “Of course I know that off-planet labs with their loose regulations are working on edgy new products.” Long pause. “Yes, I probably could do the job.” Pause. “Pencil is fine. She just called. Wants me to cut the calories from a Freedom Plan ice cream sundae, but I told her it would taste like flavored air.” Pause. “What potential as a luxury item? I guess selling it wouldn’t be hard for a windbag like you.” Pause. “No, I didn’t know you bought Titan Drugs.” Pause. “Want me to develop another line of anti-flavonoids? We never finished testing the first batch. As you know people were poisoned from Chocolate Moons filled with the stuff.” Pause. “My own lab with state-of-the-art equipment? That’s tempting. I’ll think about it. But I haven’t forgotten we still have old business to settle.”
22
NIRGAL PALACE, MARS’S luxury hotel that circles the planet, is a bustling showplace of people who parade every hairstyle, cosmetic procedure and fashion. People from Earth are easy to spot because they are the heaviest, shortest and most overdressed.
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