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SexedUp

Page 9

by Sally Painter


  “What can I get you?” the waitress asked.

  Randi looked over the hologram menu.

  “I’ll have the seafood platter and ice tea.”

  “Maybe you would prefer something else, Dr. Mayers,” the waitress smiled stiffly. “Like a generous helping of the truth?”

  Randi pursed her lips together and stared up at the young woman. She was tall and thin and wore her red hair in a ponytail.

  “This is the only way I could meet you safely. Just pretend we’re discussing the menu. Now, what I’m about to tell you is going to sound impossible, but I’m risking my life and the lives of thousands by telling you this.”

  “What about the fettuccini—is it any good?” Randi asked, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “Thousands?”

  “Please don’t create a scene.”

  Randi nodded.

  “First of all, your company was responsible for the explosion in the lab.”

  Randi tightened her hands in her lap and gritted her teeth to keep from screaming her outrage over such a wild accusation. She hardened her stare on the waitress.

  “Please look at the menu and try not to show any emotion. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think you prefer the truth over cover-ups.”

  “W-Why…” her voice broke off, “why would my company do that? They were on a mission to—”

  “They were on a mission, only not the one you thought.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, there are right-wingers in disguise within Sexed Up. They never wanted men to be created. They espouse the current government’s belief that the destruction of men was God’s will.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I didn’t think you would. When I bring your ticket at the end of the meal, it’ll have an address on it. Go there at sunset and you’ll see I’m telling you the truth.”

  “I’m not going anywhere—”

  “Did you love William?” the woman asked, staring down at her.

  “How do you know about him?” Randi bit back the tears threatening to unravel her strained control.

  “I know everything. I’m with the group you thought you were working for at Sexed Up. Please, if you want to know the truth, go to the address.” She raised her voice. “I’ll have your order in just a few minutes.” She turned before Randi could question her further.

  It wasn’t possible. Sexed Up? Not Ellen. So who? The Board of Directors? Why would they go to so much trouble? All they had to do was destroy the DNA before they ever gave it to her. Unless…” Her mind whirled. Unless not all of them were right-wing anti-male. It would only take one. Randi couldn’t believe it.

  Her mind filled with discussions she’d had with Ellen. She remembered the look on Ellen’s face when she’d played the surveillance vid of Dr. Eastman and Leachum. Ellen had been shocked and extremely nervous. She knew it wasn’t Ellen. Yet the CEO hadn’t fired Eastman. Instead, she’d gone into great detail how she would keep her on payroll and feed her misinformation. Who could Randi trust? Ellen? The waitress?

  It was impossible to eat so she asked for the check. When the waitress handed the hologram tablet to her, the woman leaned over to whisper, “You have nothing to lose if you go, but everything will be lost if you don’t.”

  Randi started to respond, but once more the perky redhead pivoted and disappeared into the next dining room. She turned the small chip over and sure enough there was an address scratched on the back of it. An address in the seedy side of the city and she wasn’t sure she wanted to go, especially at sunset. Randi tucked the chip in her pocket and swiped her card through the slot in the table to pay the bill. She looked around for the waitress before leaving but the young woman wasn’t in the main dining area.

  Randi left the Pier Shrimp House and started down the boardwalk taking the long way back to her office. The pounding surf and constant caw of seagulls grounded her frayed emotions and in the brilliant afternoon light, the incident seemed absurd. Yet…how had the waitress known William’s name? And she spoke about the truth the same way he had.

  “William…” Her lips trembled over his name and she swiped at the tears.

  She owed him the truth. She took a deep breath and entered the office building from the ocean side. She rode the elevator to the top floor, staring out across the vast Atlantic Ocean until the doors pinged open and she turned to exit, nearly colliding into Ellen.

  “Oh Randi, I’m so glad I bumped into you. Ride back down with me. I’m late for a luncheon. Sexed Up is receiving the Critic’s Award for your latest design, George. Which I lovingly call Georgie, the sex orgy. He is one delicious bot.”

  Randi nodded and reached over to press the ruby on Ellen’s bracelet.

  “What’s wrong?” Ellen asked.

  “Is that it then?” Randi frowned at her.

  “What?”

  “It’s been months and not once have you mentioned reviving the project.” Randi tried to keep the anger from biting her words.

  “The only decent DNA sample is gone. What do you want me to do, Randi? Pull it out my ass?” Anger flashed over Ellen’s face.

  “If William’s DNA survived from that clinic nearly two hundred and fifty years ago then surely other samples were salvaged.”

  “As a matter of fact there were five,” Ellen sighed.

  “Ellen?” Her heart thudded hard. Her boss had told her there were no other samples. What else was the CEO not sharing with her?

  “We bought all five. Unfortunately, the other samples were corrupt. We couldn’t revive the cells enough to be viable.” Ellen flipped her hair over one shoulder and trained her stare on Randi.

  “What?” Randi stared at the woman, trying to decide if Ellen was telling the truth.

  “I didn’t see any reason to tell you.”

  “I just can’t believe this,” Randi shook her head and paced the tight confines of the glass elevator.

  “Look, you have to let this go, Randi. I certainly have. It was a huge expense, but George is going to more than make up for the loss.”

  “And that’s all it’s about? Money?” she asked, staring at Ellen, longing to find a small thread of hope she could latch on to.

  Ellen shrugged.

  “We just roll over and die then. Literally. We let the elite inherit the earth?” Randi glared at her, beginning to believe the waitress was right. Maybe she didn’t know Ellen. Maybe Ellen was the one who had sabotaged the project. She mentally shook her head. That didn’t make any sense. Ellen had wanted this project to be successful as much as she.

  “If you know of some other way to do this, then please tell me. I’m eager to resume the project, but what can we do?” Ellen asked.

  “I don’t know.” Randi ran her hand through her hair. “It’s just…I don’t know, Ellen.”

  “It’s time to let it go and get on with your life.” Ellen put her hand on Randi’s shoulder.

  Oddly, instead of finding the consoling touch comforting, Randi felt threatened.

  “Anyway…” Ellen moved to look out the glass elevator wall and then turned to face Randi again. “I wanted you to ride down with me because I needed to give you a heads up. Our investors are coming into town tonight and I’ll be conducting a tour for them tomorrow, so if you could make sure your lab is tidied up and no secret projects out in the open.”

  “We have no more secret projects,” Randi reminded her.

  “Well, your latest sex replacement, Antonio, certainly isn’t common knowledge.”

  Randi nodded.

  “Just make sure it’s all perfect and once they’ve been through the lab, why don’t you make it an early weekend. You don’t look so good.”

  “Thank you, Ellen,” she said with hopefully a sincere smile, when in reality she wanted to scream at her boss and demand to know if she was the traitor. Instead, she stood silently in the elevator while the doors opened and Ellen stepped out.

  “And congrats on the award you’re winning for u
s today. Anything you want me to say in the acceptance speech?” Ellen smiled from the rear lobby.

  “Just that George represents a dream for the future,” she said as the doors started to close. “A dream that died,” she added. Ellen’s face clouded into a pensive frown and Randi smiled slightly as the doors closed.

  Chapter Eight

  As the sun disappeared along the watery horizon, Randi regretted having walked to the west-side docks. She was risking her life by coming here and it would be a bigger risk walking home. No cab would venture into the area after dark. Still, she had to know the truth. If there was a hidden truth. Part of her longed for there to be more, while another part of her just wanted it to be over. She didn’t know how to make it end—how to stop the pain. So here she stood, staring at the house that matched the address on the gold chip she held in front of her.

  The house was so dilapidated and in such an extreme state of disrepair, she worried about stepping onto the wood porch, fearing the movement might jar it into tumbling upon itself like a set of dominos. She took a long deep breath and stepped onto the rotting porch, careful to dodge the missing pieces and jagged gaps.

  She reached to grasp the rusty handle on the torn screen door when the Victorian glass door behind it creaked open and the waitress from the restaurant stood smiling at her.

  “I was worried you wouldn’t come,” she said and pushed the screen door open.

  The faded wood frame creaked on its rusty hinges and Randi caught it but didn’t enter, still not sure about entering the house.

  “I just want to know what this is about,” Randi clipped, glancing over her shoulder. The hairs along the nape of her neck tingled and she sensed someone watching her.

  “Come in, the interior is much nicer,” the woman said and turned into the house.

  Randi started to comment how she found that impossible to believe, but the waitress disappeared inside the dark, abandoned house. Standing in the open doorway, Randi’s nostrils prickled with the scent of neglect.

  “Over here,” came the whisper and Randi took a timid step inside the dusty foyer, noticing the expensive tile floor, now caked with mud and all kinds of debris.

  She lifted her stare and saw a small light shining a few feet away and slid her feet in front of her, afraid to lift them lest she trip over a pile of garbage.

  The waitress retraced her steps, shining the flashlight beam in front of Randi.

  Relieved to have the light, Randi picked her way through the stacks of discarded clothing, chairs and mostly unrecognizable trash. How could the waitress believe this was better?

  “Down here,” the woman said and opened a side door.

  “I’m not going down there,” Randi said as the musty cellar smell assaulted her nostrils.

  “It’s okay, Randi. We don’t want to hurt you. We just want you to know what really happened to William.”

  “I know what happened to him.” Her voice cracked under the onslaught of sudden tears. “It took a while, but the cause was identified…degradation on a cellular level.”

  “And who provided you with that data?”

  “What?”

  “Sexed Up did, right?”

  “I looked over the data.”

  “Do you really know who you can trust, Randi?” the disembodied voice asked from behind the flashlight beam.

  “Well, I’m not going down there. So you can just tell me whatever it is you think you know, right here.”

  “Just a little bit of faith, Randi. Don’t you owe it to William to find out?”

  “Don’t you dare tell me what I owe William.” She swallowed back the rising lump.

  “Randi?” a male voice sounded from the cellar.

  Her pulse quickened.

  “Who’s that?” she asked. A man? Impossible? The only man she knew was William and that was not his voice. William’s voice was deep and rich—the echoing voice that had called her name was a melodic tenor.

  “He’s one of us. There’s so much more than what you’ve been told. Please.” The woman held the flashlight higher and motioned with it for Randi to follow her.

  “One of us?” Randi echoed.

  “Come, we have to go about five steps and then we’re there.”

  Randi’s pulse pounded out the fear raking through her. She hated dark places and this house gave her the creeps, but she’d come this far and was not about to turn back after hearing a man’s voice. She counted each step, listening to their footfalls in the silence.

  Earth scents surrounded her and the girl flashed her light from the steps as Randi descended the last one. Her feet met hard earth.

  “One last door,” the woman said and stepped through it.

  Randi followed her and jumped when the doors closed like an old-fashioned elevator and overhead lights flashed on. She blinked against the blinding light and realized they were actually inside an antiquated elevator.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked her guide, who pressed a round button with the number five on it and they began to descend. “That man’s voice. Was it real?”

  “It was real,” came the response behind her.

  She gasped and turned to find a man standing behind her.

  “Oh my God!” she panted, trying to grasp that a real man was standing there. He was middle-aged with a receding hairline and stood a couple of inches shorter than she, which placed him around five feet and six inches tall.

  “It’s okay. My name is Allan Templeton,” he said and extended his hand.

  Numbly, Randi shook his hand.

  “Dr. Templeton’s genes survived the cataclysm, along with William’s and around twenty other males,” the waitress said.

  “Twenty?” Randi released his hand to clutch the wide metal railing that ran around the elevator walls.

  The car stopped and the doors opened.

  “Easy now, Dr. Mayers, I know this is a shock to you, but there’s no way to ease a person into this reality. Please follow Jess.” He nodded to the waitress who now stood outside the elevator in what appeared to be a hallway. A very white and antiseptic hallway that reminded her of ancient photos of hospitals.

  “Welcome to the future, Randi,” Dr. Templeton grinned and shoved his glasses back up his nose until they returned to their proper place. “We’ve been here for nearly twenty years, ever since our research was outlawed, trying to revive the cells a few dedicated women managed to save and keep in protective hiding. They call themselves the Guardians of Life. Rather appropriate I think, don’t you?” He nodded for Jess to proceed and the young woman led them down a lit corridor.

  “But how? I don’t understand…” Randi was confused and attempted to grasp what he was telling her.

  “We allowed the sample for William’s DNA to be placed on the black market. In fact, we are the ones who sold it to Sexed Up for twenty million dollars.”

  “Why?”

  “We needed to expose our enemy. The Right Wing is as determined to stop us as we are to revive as many males as we can. You did what all the scientists on our staff couldn’t. And using your research, they were able to revive me. And then I began to revive the others.”

  “What?” Randi looked back at him. “How could you? My research has not been compromised.”

  They had come to an intersection. The tunnel ended and became a series of hallways and open areas, resembling lounges.

  “My colleagues implanted a memory in William’s genes before they sold the DNA to Sexed Up. The memory of this secret group. They knew if you were successful then he would regain the knowledge of his life as well as the memory they’d imbedded. He contacted them and while you were busy in the secret facility, he transferred your research to them and they revived me.”

  “Wait…what?”

  “I know you feel betrayed, but he was only doing what he felt was best. What we all feel is best for our world.”

  “Was that why he was killed?”

  “No. We had hoped that wouldn’t become necessary,
but as it grew closer to the time for activating the clones in your secret facility, our sources indicated the plant was going to be destroyed and William would be executed.”

  “So you did nothing to stop it?” she asked, trying to rein the outrage blistering her.

  “It wasn’t like that at all, Randi,” he said and touched her arm. “Just a little further.” He guided her down another hallway and past what appeared to be a lab, but the window in the door was covered in a dark film.

  “So you tried to save William?” she asked, worried this group was a radical, far left-wing and not a more moderate, level-headed group.

  “All shall be revealed,” he grinned and motioned for Jess to stop. “Please, this is my office, come in.” He opened the door and let Randi enter first. He paused to whisper something to Jess and then joined Randi in the antiquated office. “Please have a seat.” He indicated the table in the corner and she sat down in one of the chairs. He sat down across from her.

  “I just don’t understand. If you knew all this, why didn’t you contact me? I would have…”

  “Believed me? I don’t think so. Correct me if I’m wrong, but up until Jess’ call, you thought Sexed Up wasn’t responsible for the explosion and William’s death. You still don’t believe your company ordered the explosion and William’s assassination.”

  She tilted her head in a side-ways nod.

  “So we couldn’t really contact you until now.”

  “Why now?”

  “Because the traitor has been identified. We know who the real leader of the underground arm of the right-wing is.”

  “Ellen?” she asked, squinting as though preparing for a physical blow.

  He nodded, peering over the rims of his glasses.

  “Oh God,” Randi sighed. “I just can’t believe it. Ellen set it all up?”

  “We put the word out there were more DNA samples as a way to draw her out after the initial first sale. She went to great lengths to find them and was never fully satisfied when the other samples were found to be corrupt. She’s on a mission to make sure there’s no viable DNA left.”

 

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