“What do we do with them?” he asked.
I looked towards the glass again where the woman still watched me. She sniffed the air like a dog then bared her teeth at me.
“Eliminate them all.”
*
Jack
I moved as quickly as I could through the army of shoppers. I had been trying to shake the two goons for a while now. They hadn’t made a move to grab me yet. I assumed it was because they didn’t want witnesses. They stayed about half a block behind me, trying to look casual and failing miserably.
The department store was packed. If I could lose them and get back outside, I could get a cab and disappear.
I went up the escalator to the second floor – ladies wear. They waited until I reached the top before following. While I was out of their line of sight, I pulled off my jacket and shoved it into a trashcan. Grabbing a hoodie off a hanger, I slipped it on along with a navy blue baseball cap to hide my hair.
Removing the tags, I headed for the cashier. I handed her the tags, “I’m just going to wear these out.”
Handing over the last of my cash, I could see them from the corner of my eye. One went left and the other headed in my direction. Damn it.
A group of giggling teens was at the next cash register. I tagged along behind them as they left, trying to look like I belonged.
The goon didn’t give us a second look. He was scanning the floor for me. Once we reached the front doors, I broke away from the group and ran.
I made a beeline for the subway, then I remembered it was closed. I guess it would have to be the bus. The problem was – where could I go?
My aunt Ruth was in Cyprus on a second honeymoon. I didn’t want to drag her into this anyway. I didn’t have any other family to turn to. Maybe I could call someone else. I checked my bag only to realize I had left my phone at work. Damn.
I headed for the bus station. Once inside, I pulled out my laptop and logged on using the free WIFI. I looked up everything I could find on Gene Pharm. On the surface they seemed whiter than white, so I dug deeper.
I discovered several lawsuits had been filed against them in the last few years. Every one of them had been dropped. They definitely had deep pockets. I went through the contents of the flash drive again. There was mention of a scientist who had been removed from the project. Dr. Henry Kettering.
A quick search on him showed that he had also been fired from the company and he didn’t go quietly. He made a fuss about unethical experiments before going off the grid.
If this Kettering guy wasn’t a fan of Gene Pharm, then maybe he could help me. He didn’t seem to have a phone, but he was receiving social security checks.
I got an address then went to the ticket counter. I was out of cash so I would have to use my card. The problem was Gene Pharm were probably keeping tabs on card transactions.
I dug out my wallet and pulled out my emergency credit card. It wasn’t strictly legal, but it was under a different name. It would have to do.
A couple of years ago, I was arrested by the police for credit card fraud. I had been getting cards for students on campus and selling them for $100 at a time. Someone had ratted me out. Luckily I managed to get rid of the cards and any evidence before they took me in. They didn’t have enough to charge me with. I swore I would never do anything like it again, but I kept the card for emergencies.
As a kid, my mother was always in trouble with the law and she taught me that you had to be ready to go at the first sign of trouble. I lost count of the number of times we had to leave our house in the middle of the night. I guess that mentality stuck with me even though I hadn’t had to use it until now.
I approached the desk, trying my best to look innocent.
“Where to?” the heavyset woman asked.
“I’d like to buy a ticket to East Riverton, please.”
She printed out the ticket. The card went through without any problems. Mom taught me well.
Mom had been getting into trouble from a young age. As a teenager she was a wild child, always partying, committing petty crimes. Her parents kicked her out of the house when she was seventeen and she was pregnant with me a year later.
For a while she went straight, got a job as a waitress and one as a cleaner to support us. I remembered when I was six years old; we were out at a shopping mall. There was a new doll in the toy store that I desperately wanted. I cried and screamed, but Mom just didn’t have the money for it.
As she was trying to calm me down, a man who was in the store bought the doll and gave it to my mother for me. She tried to refuse, but he insisted she take it. It was a kind act by a stranger, but Mom saw dollar signs. I lost count of the times she would tell me to throw a fit to see what people would do for her. I think it was an addiction to her. I didn’t know any better so I went along with it. I was shoplifting by age eight and I was good at it.
The bus ride took an hour in total. I had no idea what I was going to say to this Kettering guy. I definitely wasn’t going to tell him about the flash drive until I was sure he wasn’t going to hand it straight over to Gene Pharm.
I got off the bus two blocks from his house. I did a walk by first to check for Gene Pharm agents. The street seemed quiet. I walked up the cobbled path and knocked on the door.
Chapter Four
Danny
“Dude, there’s someone at your door,” I said, peeking out from behind the curtain. It was a girl wearing a baseball cap and a hoodie. I could see several strands of red hair escaping the cap. She didn’t look threatening. Maybe she was selling something.
“Stay out of sight,” the doc whispered. I ducked behind a door.
So far all I had learned was that the guy was called Dr. Kettering, he used to work for Gene Pharm before he got canned and that I was in danger. Beyond that I didn’t know what to think. His house was small and he seemed to live here alone. The furniture was pretty sparse; most of his stuff was crammed into the dining room. He had several computers and lab stuff like microscopes.
He had been monitoring Gene Pharm, spying on them. They had hacked the cameras on the subway to see who had left the train. They had seen the nerd’s trick with the needle and were able to get my name from my police file. Kettering had been heading for the shelter when he saw me. He had hacked into their radios and had followed them across the city.
“Hi, are you Dr. Kettering?” the girl asked.
“Who’s asking?” he said.
I braced myself, ready to run in case she pulled out a gun or a swat team came crashing through the window.
“Um, it’s hard to explain. Can I come in?” she said.
“I don’t think so.”
“Please, there are people after me. From Gene Pharm. I thought you would be able to help me. I know they fired you.”
“You seem to know a lot about me. Including where I live. Now who the hell are you?”
“My name is Jack and I’m a hacker.”
What kind of name was Jack for a girl? I tried to get a better look at her, but was blocked by the door.
“Come inside, but keep your hands where I can see them,” the doc said.
She stepped into the hallway with her hands slightly raised. She was kind of cute. She certainly didn’t seem like an assassin.
I moved out from behind the door and leaned against the wall.
“Hey there,” I grinned. She barely looked at me. Charming.
“Start talking,” the doc said.
“How do I know I can trust you?” she asked.
“If you are on the run from Gene Pharm then we are on the same side.”
She glanced at me, then back at the doc. Finally she sighed and opened her bag.
The doc tensed, but she only pulled out a laptop.
“You should see this,” she said.
She managed to find a spot on the table and opened the laptop up and pulled up some files.
“I got an email this morning from a guy I went to college with. I don’t know why
it was sent to me, but it had files about some kind of virus. I think the virus was released on the subway this morning.”
The doc was scrolling through the files. The subway? So there was an antidote and a virus. This was getting worse by the minute. If it was the same train, which I’m sure it was, then I was lucky I got off when I did.
The faint smell of lavender filled my nose. It was coming from Jack. She was staring at the laptop waiting for the doc to finish. She was tall, almost as tall as me, with dark brown eyes. She had a cluster of freckles across her nose. Glancing over, she saw me watching her and scowled. She must have a boyfriend; or a girlfriend, who knew.
Finally the doc turned to face us, “This is very bad.”
He fell silent and I rolled my eyes, “Care to elaborate, doc? Because you promised me answers and so far you haven’t told me jack.”
“Huh?” the girl said.
“Oh, not Jack. I mean squat. He hasn’t told me squat.”
“Oh, right. Who are you again?”
“Danny. I was on said subway train this morning.”
She inched away from me.
“Relax; I’m actually someone you want to have around. Apparently I have the only known antivirus in my system.”
We both looked to the doc to fill in the gaps.
“I worked at Gene Pharm for over twenty five years. They’re always been ahead of the curve, not afraid to try something new. About ten years ago, I was brought in to work on some new virus. It was deadly, but there were certain attributes they wanted to isolate from it. We combined it with a serum, trying to create something that would enable soldiers in the field to recover from injuries. It had unusual side effects.
It was tested on animals. Mice, rabbits, even a chimp. The results were the same as the effects of the virus. It killed the host, but a short while later it…reanimated them.”
“Reanimated?” Jack laughed, “You’re not trying to say that they turned into…”
“I’m telling you what happened. They revived and when they did, they became highly aggressive. I don’t fully understand it myself. The subjects were destroyed and I thought the project was finished. Obviously they’ve still been working on it.
It can be passed onto others. If it was released into the general population it would decimate this country in a matter of weeks.”
That didn’t sound good. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know what the end result was.
“But there’s an antivirus,” I said, “So take a blood sample and make up a batch. Problem solved.”
“I don’t have the equipment to synthesize the antivirus. And I would need a sample of the virus too, so I could test one.”
“This is crazy,” Jack said, “I don’t want anything to do with this. I’ll give you all the files, then I’m out.”
“Gene Pharm would never let you just walk away. If this got out, the company would be ruined. And trust me, Breton, the CEO; he’s not afraid to make people disappear if they threaten him.”
Jack handed him the flash drive, “Fine, then I’ll disappear on my own terms.”
“You can do that?” I wondered if she could help me do the same.
She headed for the door.
“You can’t run away young lady. But there might be a way for us to blackmail them into leaving us alone,” Dr. Kettering said.
She stopped and turned around, “How?”
“If we got the sample, we could threaten to go to the media. We would have all the evidence we would need.”
“Where is the sample?” she asked.
“Gene Pharm HQ.”
Chapter Five
Lance
After a long shower, I finally felt human again. The sight in the subway still haunted me. All that carnage caused by something as simple as a virus. I didn’t give much thought when it came to the experiments that went on in the company. I focused on the business management side of things. My only concern now was that everything was kept quiet and out of the media. The public seemed to have bought the anthrax story so far.
I had finalized my report and was ready to give it to Mr. Breton. His decision over what to do with the infected overrode my own. He wanted them studied, not eliminated. It had been an almost impossible task trying to get them removed from the subway, but we had done it.
Breton was waiting in his office for me, seated at the desk, his hands folded on top of it. I could hear Vivaldi playing. His favorite. It was what he played to calm himself down.
“Sir,” I said. I set the file in front of him. He sat up straighter and pulled the file towards him.
“Sit,” he ordered. I lowered myself into the chair opposite him.
I have never seen a man more put together than him. He always wore the finest suits along with a blue silk tie. Never any other color only blue. His short hair was immaculately styled and I have never seen him anything other than clean shaven. It was all a mask that he hid behind, I’m sure, one I’ve never seen behind.
The desk was bare of any personal mementos. He didn’t even have any photographs. I knew he was married and that he had a son, but he never spoke about them and with the hours he kept in here, I doubted he saw much of them either.
He took his time going through the file, which included the doctor’s report and photographs of the infected. I noticed how his facial expression didn’t change as he went through them and I knew some of them were pretty graphic.
After a while he closed the file. “Where are the infected?”
“They have been contained. Some will be kept for study, the rest will be shot. The subway car has been completely sanitized then destroyed. There will be no evidence of this.”
“What about the boy? The one who was injected?”
“We sent men to retrieve him, but he escaped. We are looking for him.”
“If anyone finds out what he has in his system, there will be questions. I want him captured, but kept alive. I want to see how the antivirus reacts when he is infected. Are there any other problems?”
I knew from his tone, that he already knew about the rest, he just wanted to hear me say it.
“Before the intern was captured he sent out an email to a young woman. She went to a local precinct but left before handing over what she had. She’s gone too.”
Mr. Breton moved to the window and stared out at the skyline.
“This intern. The one who started all this. Where is he?”
“Dead. He was one of the victims on the train,” I lied. The truth was he was unaccounted for. But if I admitted that to Breton, I’d end up in some lab too. I would find the intern myself and eliminate him. He didn’t have any files or proof anymore. They were both found on the train. It was just his word against ours. My guess was he would lie low. Spratt and Reese were the immediate threat.
“Well at least that’s one stroke of good luck. I want the infected transferred to our facility in Trinity, first thing in the morning.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I want these two found by the time we are ready to leave.”
“You’re going to Trinity too, sir?”
“Yes, I want to oversee this personally. I don’t want any more screw-ups. Dismissed.”
I left the room in a hurry. Trinity housed one of our secret testing facilities. It was a small town surrounded by miles of desert. It was built over twenty years ago; I had never been there myself.
I went back to my office, which was a fifth of the size of Breton’s and take another look at the files we’ve acquired on Spratt and Reese. Both of them had criminal records. Spratt for petty theft and trespassing, never convicted. Reese for cyber-crimes such as hacking. Spratt should be easy to get. He was a stupid kid; he had no family and nowhere to run to. Reese on the other hand could be a real problem. If she wanted to, she could release everything she had. We had already put stops on all her accounts and were monitoring for any activity, but she could probably find her way around that.
My guess was that she was holdin
g onto the information because she knew what it was worth. It wouldn’t be long before she tried to make a deal with us. When she did, I’d kill her myself.
The door opened and Jenkins rushed in. He was one of our analysts, “Sir, we’ve got a hit on Reese. You’re not going to like where she is.”
“Where?”
“Kettering’s house.”
Henry Kettering. That old fool was interfering again. I wasn’t surprised to hear he was involved. Ever since he had been fired he had been trying to worm his way back in. First it was phone calls, then letters, and then when he couldn’t get an audience with Breton he had tried to storm the building. The guards caught him before he got past the lobby.
“Send a team. Hit them hard. I don’t want either of them leaving there alive.”
“Understood.”
*
Jack
I accepted the cup of tea, Dr. Kettering offered me. I couldn’t believe everything he had told me. His idea was crazy. He was talking about getting inside Gene Pharm HQ and stealing from them. There was no way in the world he could succeed.
The other guy, Danny, was going along with his plan. I wasn’t sure about him. He seemed like an idiot and he wouldn’t stop staring at me. Every time I caught him doing it, he would give me a goofy grin, which I’m sure he thought was adorable, when it was actually just annoying.
They were looking at floor layouts for the building. The fact that Kettering even had them suggested that he had been planning something like this for a while. Well I wasn’t getting dragged into it.
I wondered if I still had a job after not coming back today. TJ could be a jerk, he could fire me, but I was sure I could win him round. I hoped. I just needed to figure out a way of getting out of this. I considered going to Gene Pharm and handing over what I had, but after hearing what Dr. Kettering had to say about them, I doubted they would just let me go.
“There are a lot of vents throughout the building, you could go through those,” Danny pointed out.
After Zombie Series (Book 2): Before Page 4