Project Cain (Project Cain)

by Geoffrey Girard

I told him I just wanted to check out some of the stuff Ox was talking about. The dead scientists. The experiments and all. And this was true, partially.

  He stared at me awhile, deciding. He looked way tired also. And probably felt just as trapped as I did in his own way. He tossed me over one of his smartphones.

  I couldn’t really remember any of the names Ox had rattled off. Parts of names at best. So I just did a search on “DNA scientists killed” and “bioweapons scientists murdered,” and, like, thirty million results popped up.

  List of Dead Scientists

  Dead and Missing Scientists

  Mysterious Deaths of Top Scientists since 9/11

  100 Dead Scientists We Should Never Forget

  More names. So many names. Some I even now recognized because of Ox. Top scientists who’d died mysteriously over the last twenty years.

  “Suspicious” didn’t quite cover it.

  Then one name jumped off the page like it had burst into flames and jumped up out of the smartphone’s screen.

  Dr. Cornelius Chatterjee.

  I’d seen the name before. I even knew what the guy looked like.

  His framed picture was up on the wall at DSTI.

  He’d worked there. He’d worked for my father.

  And then someone had killed him.

  • • •

  OK, MAYBE someone had killed him.

  Two years ago, he’d hanged himself. According to a couple of websites, his family said there was no way he’d done such a thing. They complained to authorities about that, but apparently, in the end, they’d just left the country or something. Chatterjee’s name was now on several lists. Just another guy good at genetics who’d “died prematurely.”

  I immediately told Castillo what I’d found.

  He already knew about Chatterjee.

  How? I asked. (And what else hadn’t he told me? Everything, probably.)

  What the hell do you think I’m doing all day? he asked, and tapped one of his laptops.

  I admitted I had no clue. I was also trying to sound like a jerk, trying to imply that he wasn’t doing anything all day. That things were exactly as they’d been before we’d first met. We might as well both be standing in my bedroom. I think Castillo got my implication.

  Chatterjee, he said, paying attention to me for the first time in forever, is one of several employees who’ve died mysteriously while working at DSTI. But I don’t see how that helps me find these six kids.

  Why do you do this? I asked then.

  What do you mean? he asked.

  Why are you doing this? Why are you helping them?

  DSTI? I don’t care about DSTI. I’m doing this . . . He thought, then said: I was asked to help find these people. And finding people happens to be something I’m good at.

  Asked by the government? I confirmed. (I was developing all sorts of new ideas this week about what the term “government” meant.)

  Sure, he said. As good a word as any.

  You were in the war with Ox? I asked.

  Castillo replied that he and Ox were at times “in the same operations.”

  I asked how long he’d been in the Army.

  You done with my phone? he asked.

  I wasn’t, and he knew it, but he’d successfully found a new way to tell me to shut up.

  • • •

  I then Googled my own father.

  There were half a dozen images of him online. (More now that he is dead.) Pictures of him receiving awards or giving them or sitting at a table with other scientists. It was the first time I’d seen him since he’d left me.

  I looked at him now as if I were looking at a total, utter, outright stranger. I could have been looking at anyone. All those years eating dinner, watching movies, going places, and I’d had no idea who this guy really was, what was really going on his mind. But that was the thing. How many kids ever really know what’s going on in their parents’ minds?

  Some parent somewhere is always planning a divorce, sampling her kid’s Ritalin pills, secretly mortgaging the house a third time to cover gambling debt, meeting some lover at some motel, sneaking drinks in the garage, stealing from the company, thinking about putting a shotgun in his mouth, collecting weird porn, and so on and so on and . . . And mostly, us kids just bop happily along, oblivious until it’s really, really bad. Until the conclusion is in perfect sight and utterly unavoidable.

  Like now.

  I wondered if my father was on this dead scientist list now. Already gone. Another victim of some huge inexplicable government conspiracy. Would someone be reading about my own dad on some site in a few weeks? Maybe both of us? Listed as a car crash, a murder-suicide thing. Truth of the matter: I maybe wished he were dead. That way I’d know he was innocent.

  I read a couple of news articles about him and DSTI. More breakthroughs in genetic engineering. Funny. In not a single article did they mention cloning serial killers. Or the development of weapons for the United States military.

  Ox had said that these things always take time. That in fifty years everyone will know that some small company outside Philly cloned serial killers as a part of some military testing. But in fifty years no one would care. There’d be other more horrible things to worry about then. Not a bunch of guys in their seventies claiming to have been part of some secret test when they were kids.

  I then looked up Program F, the fluoride thing Ox had mentioned.

  It was one of the few in his list I could recall at the time, honestly. (I’ve since heard the list a dozen times.) I mean, what could fluoride possibly have to do with clones or dead villagers in Afghanistan?

  A lot, actually.

  • • •

  When the United States first started building atomic bombs in the 1940s, it discovered that one of the by-products of manufacturing so much uranium for nukes was a shitload of fluoride. Millions of tons. Even more was being created by the emerging industries of rocket fuel, plastics, and aluminum. Unfortunately, fluoride poisoning was proving even more deadly than radiation. It was totally toxic hazardous waste.

  Local crops and livestock were dying. Plant workers and nearby citizens experienced crippling arthritis, uncontrollable vomiting and diarrhea, severe headaches, and even death.

  Lawsuits started. But the United States government, and the companies building bombs and jet fuel and aluminum washing machines for the USA, didn’t want lawsuits. They wanted more bombs and jet fuel and washing machines. So the scientists who’d worked on the Manhattan Project (the same who’d injected citizens with plutonium) were given a new mission: Figure out a way to make the public THINK fluoride is GOOD. That way the growing lawsuits wouldn’t have a prayer in the court of public opinion and would then fade away forever.

  The American scientists visited German scientists (ex-Nazis, all), who’d been using fluoride for years. All during World War II, when THEY’d been the ones making rocket fuel and aluminum weapons, the Nazis had put their fluoride waste into the drinking water at their death/work camps because it “made the prisoners docile” and “eventually led to sterilization.” The plan was to eventually use the fluoride-laced water in ALL occupied territories. The whole world would become brainless sterile sleepwalkers under the waving red swastika banners.

  While the ex-Nazis were explaining this to the Americans, they added a little “oh, yeah” sidebar to the conversation. When using the fluoride-laced water, the Nazis had noted that—along with the sterilization, the death, and the damage to the parts of the brain that managed creativity and determination—the prisoners had, well, whiter teeth.

  The American scientists shouted “Eureka!” or something similar.

  If they could prove to all Americans that fluoride was a GOOD THING, the lawsuits would go away and all those new factories and military projects could continue to spew out fluoride into the world. And white teeth could, surely, be seen only as a good thing.

  First they went home and secretly put fluoride into the water of a city called Newbu
rgh, New York. They told no one in Newburgh they were doing this. They then secretly collected blood and tissue samples from the people with the assistance of the New York State Health Department and local physicians. People thought they were getting routine blood tests or having a little mole removed. They, in fact, were being analyzed and itemized.

  The United States government called this Program F.

  Their studies proved that fluoride, even at low levels, was dangerous.

  Deadly. Poison. BAD.

  While making teeth whiter, it actually created more cavities. Hollowed teeth. It also—scarier, and as the Nazis had discovered ten years before—affected the central nervous system. Lowered IQs. Increased immobility. Long-term use would lead to issues ranging from arthritis to Alzheimer’s disease.

  These reports were buried. As if they’d never happened. Locked away for forty years.

  No further testing was ordered.

  Next the men who owned these fluoride-producing factories spent hundreds of millions of dollars working with the government to convince Americans that fluoride was a GOOD THING and should be in our water. Doctors and scientists were enlisted (paid) to support the government’s claims. Advertising and marketing experts were brought in to help with the PR. Scientists who disagreed were dismissed in the press and at their universities as fools. Most were fired. Ruined professionally and never heard from again. (Just a few years ago, a Harvard experiment confirmed lower IQs, increased fatigue, and recordable brain damage, with likely links to autism, ADHD, and Alzheimer’s. The leader of the team was fired.)

  Meanwhile, the companies making all this fluoride waste were now SELLING it to the United States. One of the largest, I.G. Farben (owned and operated by American tycoons Ford and Rockefeller, and the Federal Reserve), also owned a small company called Colgate. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Maybe it’s in your bathroom right now. I.G. Farben sold itself its own toxic waste and got Americans to pay for it at a 20,000% markup. They didn’t know how to get rid of it before without getting sued, and were now being paid millions by states and cities to deliver it every day.

  Within three years, with no further testing than that done at Newburgh, and the deadly results buried, more than half of the United States was putting fluoride in its water. Forty-two of the fifty largest cities. Most other countries absolutely refused to fall for this scam. But this is the country with the most to lose if the scam fails.

  Today 70% of Americans drink fluoride-laced water.

  • • •

  If the United States is willing to knowingly poison two hundred million people, ignoring the truth in the name of money and continued military dominance, you really think they give one single shit about killing a village of poor farmers halfway across the world or, say, a couple of dozen clones?

  • • •

  I tried looking up Castillo on Google. But I didn’t know his first name yet and couldn’t find him. I would have given anything to have just one more thing about the guy.

  Then I searched for Amanda Klosterman and Mandy Klosterman (guess a whole day of thinking about her, it was bound to happen) and finally found her. There was a link to her Facebook page and an article in a local paper about her being on her school’s swim team. I read the swimming article, hoping there’d be a picture or something, but the picture was of some other girl. I was creeping bad. So I didn’t click on her Facebook page. I didn’t like-like her or anything. She was 1,000% just a friend.

  But I’d realized—after all the years, however many it really was, I’d spent on this earth—she’d been the only person who’d ever truly given a damn about me. Even if only for a week.

  • • •

  I looked back over at Castillo. He’d finally fallen asleep in his chair. Chin down on his big tough-guy chest. I’d watched him do this once before. He’d pop awake again in twenty minutes, not much more. He slept even worse than I did. (I didn’t yet know why—that as bad as some of the memories in my head were, memories that weren’t even all mine technically, his were worse.)

  I historied back to the search on my dad. Just kinda looked at his picture again.

  I suddenly needed to talk to him, more than anything else in the whole world. I was getting so anxious, it felt like my skin was literally catching on fire. I had to get out of this room NOW and talk to my dad NOW. Right NOW!

  And Castillo sleeping was a sign from above that that’s exactly what I should be doing too. With such a persuasive sign, phone in hand, I decided to sneak outside. Make my call and be done before Castillo woke up. And even if he did, so what? What was he gonna do about it anyway?

  Yeah, right. It took me, like, ten minutes just to quietly turn the door handle. I was absolutely terrified of Castillo waking up. But not, clearly, terrified enough to stop.

  Finally outside, I called my dad using the special number he’d given me.

  Worth a try, right?

  He picked up on the first ring.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Dad?

  Dad, hey, yeah . . . it’s me.

  Jeff.

  I’m good. I’m . . . I want to go home.

  I don’t know. Pennsylvania somewhere. There’s this—

  No. There’s this guy.

  His name is Castillo.

  I don’t think so.

  I think he’s with, like, the Army or something.

  DOD?

  Yeah, Department of—

  No.

  He wouldn’t do that.

  No, he won’t. He wouldn’t—

  I’m not a baby. Where are you?

  No, it does matter. Where the fuck are you?

  Yes, I am. I am “upset.” I’m . . . I don’t understand what’s happening.

  You didn’t tell me anything.

  You didn’t tell me anything.

  You’re lying. You’re always lying.

  What happened?

  At DSTI? Massey. What happened there? What did you do?

  It does matter. It’s everything. Did you . . . Did you kill someone?

  I don’t understand what that means. I—

  Yes. Yes, I’m listening to you.

  No. No. I don’t understand what any of that means.

  No, I never will. Where are you?

  Are the other guys with you? David? Ted—

  Yes, that’s who Castillo is looking for. And you . . .

  No, I don’t think so. I’ll . . . No. It’s just me. I wanted—

  When are you coming home?

  No, Haddonfield is home. That doesn’t— When are you coming home?

  Then come and get me. You—

  Why not?

  Come and get me.

  Why? What . . . What did I do wrong?

  Then why did you take them and not me?

  I don’t believe that.

  You hate me, don’t you.

  Another lie.

  Well . . . I hate you.

  Dad?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The woman in the black dress covered the whole world, her absolute darkness continuing for as far as I could see in any direction. I stared up at her, defeated, sitting with my back against the motel wall just to keep from crumpling to the ground. I was still outside. It was cold, the parking lot quiet and still. I don’t know what time it was. Two moths fluttered just above my head by the outside light, slamming themselves against the bulb, killing themselves, just to get away from the woman’s terrible shadow.

  She’d somehow swallowed all the surrounding streets and buildings. Trees, mountains. Everyone. Above, the whole sky. Everything. The stars shimmered within. Small, lost. Futile. Trapped above forever in her unbroken grasp like teeny white sheets over lifeless lumps or like twinkling dots on a map. Her untold victims. Her brood. Thousands upon thousands scattered far and wide. Both the killers and the killed. Victims all. One star shined the brightest and largest of all but still so small in her immeasurable gloom.

  I imagined that desolate single star as my father. Caught somehow
in “Her” mysterious sway. She’d apparently first called to him when he was a boy, reaching out across eternity. An inherited memory from another age, he believed, from an ancestor who’d lived more than a hundred years before. And who was I to disbelieve him? Just as I saw the faces of Dahmer’s victims, my father had seen her. Calling out to him, luring him, for decades until finally, I figured, he’d succumbed. Now, I feared, he was finally hers. Maybe always had been.

  And when my dad had hung up, I’d looked up to the night sky and finally seen her for the first time. What I’d seen in that motel room, in my dream, had been only a hint. This was she in her full glory. Terrifying and beautiful. And then I surrendered. What else could I do? In nightmares I’d had, there’d always been a point when I knew to quit. The THING chasing me was simply too strong, too powerful to escape or defeat. It was better just to stop running. The fear of the thing catching you was surely far worse than the actual end. It was, in the dreams, always a comforting thought. Surrender. Of course, I always woke up just as the THING—whatever it was in the dream—got me. Not now, though. When this Evil was ready to fully claim me, as she had my father and so many years before, it would just happen. This time, there’d be no waking up.

  • • •

  I eventually somehow pulled myself back to my feet and then slowly got the door open again. Castillo was still asleep in the chair. I tiptoed into the room and the darkness from outside snuck right in after me. I could feel its fingers on my back and I would swear to this day that the room grew darker as I entered. I crawled into bed and carefully laid the phone on the desk between our beds. I’d already deleted the history of searches I’d made and my call to my dad. I don’t know why. I didn’t really care anymore what happened or what Castillo thought of me. In the morning, I would ask him to take me to DSTI. They, at least, knew what I was.

  A factory, a source—of Evil.

  And while I didn’t really expect the black-dressed woman, that Evil, to sweep down and claim me in the flesh, surrendering to DSTI seemed the next best thing.

  • • •

  I lay awake, my thoughts finding solace only in the darkest corners of the room. Castillo startled awake. Scratched at his week-old beard. Looked around the room like he’d never been asleep. Started to work again. Finally I faded in and out of sleep myself.