Wilde Storm

by S. E. Babin

  “I think it was probably a little more involved than that.”

  He spread his hands out in surrender. “You must ask him. I was not involved, nor was I kept in the loop.”

  A thought occurred to me as we sat there. I sat up straight. “Telomeres,” I gasped and stood to fling open the door. “Telomeres!” I shouted to Aaron. I ran back into my father’s office and rummaged through the bottom drawer. Once I found the compartment and figured out how to get it open, I pulled out a note, set of keycards, a disturbing looking needle, and GPS coordinates. I waved it to Aaron and Masters. “I think I’ve figured it out.”

  I hurriedly opened the note and frowned.

  Watson grinned. “You can’t use the DAR. Sherlock has blocked all forms of entry other than through the front door.”

  Of course he knew about the other lab. “Sometimes I don’t get him,” I mumbled.

  “He does have his ways,” Watson said. We headed down to the garage and once we chose an SUV large enough to carry all of us, we realized we had another problem: there was no wheelchair access.

  “Can you carry her?” I asked Masters.

  “It’s painful for her, but I can.”

  Aaron clapped a hand on his shoulder. “We hope this will be the last time you have to.”

  Masters’ face flushed red and a suspicious wetness filled his eyes. He looked to Alanna for permission, who stared at him with wide blue eyes. I tossed Watson the keys and got into the passenger side. Aaron climbed into the back, Masters lifted his little girl into the SUV and sat with her cradled as comfortably as possible across the middle seat, Watson jumped into the driver’s seat, and we headed out.

  19

  We were still in Austin, which surprised me. My father had a fondness for places out of the ordinary, but this time, it made sense. We pulled down a barely visible path off the main winding road. A few miles later, Watson braked sharply, eliciting a cry from Alanna and a grunt of warning from Masters.

  “Sorry. It’s been a while.”

  He reversed the vehicle a few feet and turned sharply on a road I couldn’t tell was there. A few moments later, my ears popped and a building appeared in front of me. I gasped and jerked in surprise.

  Watson put it in park and we piled out of the vehicle, with Masters coming out last, holding his daughter carefully.

  Watson told me to keep the access key and used his own. I felt all warm and fuzzy about it since just a little while before he looked like he wanted to murder me. Seconds later, we had access to the building. Like many things belonging to my father, this was modern, sleek, and full of chrome. It was very much unlike his private quarters, but I guess everyone was different in a space that was their own rather than where they worked.

  No one greeted us. We walked behind Watson and eventually found ourselves in a large open area. The tables were just as stark white as the walls, but they were empty of any tools or implements.

  “Is anyone here?” I asked.

  “Always. The first floor is reserved solely for your father. He pops in periodically if something tickles his fancy or he wants to check a theory.”

  I looked around at the stark place and a thought occurred to me. “He has all of his research backed up, doesn’t he?” The loss of the lab was still a massive blow to the compound, but if he had everything backed up, it wouldn’t be so devastating.

  “Not everything. Once a week, techs take samples here. All electronic data is saved and sent immediately.”

  “Well…that’s something, I guess. Better than a total loss.”

  “We need a bed,” Masters interrupted us, still holding his daughter.

  Watson walked over to one of the walls and pushed a complicated series of numbers. The empty wall in front of us opened to reveal a small equipped room as well as a small hospital. Masters brushed ahead of us and laid his daughter down. He stroked her hair back from her face and whispered words I couldn’t hear. When he stood, he speared us all with a fierce look. “I will wait outside.”

  In Masters’ speak, this was code for, “If you screw this up, I will kill you.”

  The door swished quietly behind him.

  “Penelope?” Watson inquired.

  “My father manipulated both the hypothalamus and the telomeres in the DNA to stop the aging process. But telomeres are not just used for anti-aging. When they fray, shorten, and degrade, it damages the cells by preventing them from dividing properly. The DNA loses part of itself every single time, sometimes losing entire genes in the process.”

  Watson and Aaron were both nodding.

  “So, if we figured out a way to draw out the poisoned cells and repair the damaged telomeres—”

  Aaron’s eyes widened. “We may be able to just sit back and watch those babies do the work to heal her damaged cells.”

  Watson looked intrigued, but shook his head. “I don’t think she has enough time. Telomeres take months to repair themselves.”

  I nodded. “Which is why I think we should take a sample of her blood first. We remove some of the damaged cells…” I took a deep breath, “and extract some of the telomeres in my DNA to see if it boosts the healing patterns.”

  Aaron was first to speak. “No.”

  “We use a sample first. I would never do something to someone unwilling. And if it works, we speak to Masters.”

  “Penelope—”

  Watson interrupted. “Why your DNA?”

  I explained the sunburst pattern Orion had found and the abundance of long telomeres. He paled as he realized the significance of it.

  “Brilliant,” he whispered. “A sample cannot hurt.”

  Aaron gave Watson a hard stare. “She’s a child.”

  “She’s dying.”

  “What about the future?”

  “If this works, and that’s a huge if, we leave it up to Masters to decide if he wants Alanna placed in suspended animation. If he does, it will give us time to keep the sample and ensure there is no dangerous cell mutation.”

  “And if he doesn’t?”

  I felt sick to my stomach, but I said it anyway. “Then we move forward and hopefully save her life.”

  “This is the same thing you suspected your father of doing. Experimenting on people.” Aaron’s voice was filled with anger.

  “And is that not the same thing every researcher does when testing new drugs?” Watson asked.

  Aaron couldn’t refute it, but he was still furious.

  “We are trying to save her life, Aaron. That’s all. It would have been almost the same thing if we’d figured out how to remove the DNA from your serum. But it’s flawed and we are running out of time.”

  One sharp nod was all he gave me. I opened the doors to speak to Masters.

  20

  Alanna was a trooper as Aaron took the blood sample. Sympathy poured through my heart for her. To think of all the needles and drugs she’d been exposed to since her illness revealed itself was disheartening. And here we were doing the same thing.

  The lab explosion destroyed the chip I created to isolate her diseased cells. While I lamented the loss of it, if my gut was right, we wouldn’t need it anymore.

  Masters hadn’t decided on the suspended animation yet, but he did want us to press forward with the telomere experiment. Once Aaron had given Alanna a Tinkerbell Band-Aid, he switched out syringes and took a sample of my blood. I didn’t get a Tinkerbell Band-Aid, though. He threw a cotton ball at me and handed both the vials over to Watson.

  He was still mad at me.

  I snagged a bandage from the table and slapped it over my puncture wound. I waggled my fingers at Alanna, who returned it with a sweet, dimpled smile, and headed back to the lab tables. Watson had dragged down a high powered microscope and prepared the slide for me. I snagged the stool and took a look at Alanna’s sample.

  Poor kid. Her cells were ravaged with the disease. I said a silent prayer up to anyone who was listening. I usually had a sense about things and had the feeling this would work. I ju
st didn’t know what the future would hold for her. Perhaps the safer path was just to offer the immortality serum. But if we did this, if we could do this, it would open up whole new worlds of medical research, and while I knew I could never release the formulation because my altered DNA would be at the crux of it, we could help those who belonged with us. And today, that was enough for me. I pushed away from the scope, squared my shoulders, and took the vial of my DNA over to the other table Watson had set up for me.

  Several hours later, using phenol, I had extracted multiple strands of my DNA. Once it was purified and no traces of any serum or blood remained, I got to the real work of it.

  I took another small sample of Alanna’s blood from the vial, used the same process to extract her DNA, and carefully went to work splicing my telomeres with hers. When it was finished, I stood up from the table and wiped my face with the back of my arm.

  I’d check it in a few hours and do my best not to think about it. Orion had said my DNA had morphed and changed in the short time he studied. I hoped the same thing would happen here, but without any of the disturbing side effects.

  We sat outside the lab making small talk for the next few hours. Alanna had fallen asleep, so we all had gone outside, leaving the door open a crack so we could hear her if she started to stir. Masters was a man on the edge, jittery and nervous.

  “If this doesn’t work, or you think we should stop, I can give her the serum. I want you to be one hundred percent okay with this.”

  “The serum is a onetime deal for one person. This has the potential to save everyone with Batten disease.”

  It did, so long as I was willing to act as a guinea pig for a while. I was willing, just maybe not right away until we’d one hundred percent perfected it. I glanced at my watch. “I’m going to go in and check.”

  Masters swallowed hard.

  I reached over and patted him on the arm. “I’ll be right back.”

  I crept in through the doors, not wanting to wake Alanna. My throat was dry. My heart was pounding. I stood in front of the microscope, whispered a prayer, and looked inside.

  And I promptly broke into a sob.

  The doors flung open and all three men burst in. Alanna jerked awake.

  I turned wide, teary eyes to them. “It worked.”

  Masters fell to his knees and sobbed like a man who’d just been given a second chance at life.

  21

  Watson leaned in to stare at the perfectly formed DNA. The telomeres were about twice the size of normal, so it was obvious her life would be extended. I said as much to Masters, who nodded. “It means I don’t have to lose her any time soon, especially now that I have a whole lot more time on my hands.”

  I grinned. A whole lot of time or immortality—whichever.

  Aaron was a lot more reserved. “We need more time. You don’t just think something works and inject it into a human body.”

  I agreed. “I think we should spend a couple days here. If it remains stable, we allow Masters to make the final decision.”

  “I think that’s wise,” Watson said.

  “I’ll need a few more blood draws for myself and we’ll need to make sure Alanna can handle the filtration machine.”

  “I’ll make sure it happens,” Aaron said.

  Watson watched Aaron walk away. “I’m going to head back to the compound and try to start rebuilding the lab.” He ran a hand through his hair in a nervous gesture. “I just wanted to tell you how proud of you I am. We don’t always get to be the good guys, or at least it doesn’t feel that way sometimes. But today, we did something good.”

  I flushed with pleasure at his words. “We still have a couple days to go, but I’m cautiously optimistic.”

  He stepped closer and pushed a strand of hair away from my face. “Whatever may come, I want you to know I will stand by you.”

  I eyed him skeptically. “Quite a change of heart from a little while ago.”

  He had the grace to look sheepish. “Your father contacted me a few hours ago.”

  “Ah. He talked some wisdom into that stubborn head of yours?”

  He grinned. “Something like that. Or perhaps he just reminded me of what I’d be walking away from.”

  My breath caught in my throat.

  “You may be impetuous and foolhardy and you may have caused us months of heartache, but you’re also brave…and brilliant. And I would be a fool indeed to leave any stone unturned when it comes to you.” He caressed the line of my jaw with the back of his fingers.

  I shuddered underneath his touch. His gaze went molten.

  A polite throat clearing jerked us out of the moment.

  “There’s a smart little girl present.” Masters leaned in. “And she’s too young to learn about the birds and the bees, so cut it out.” He softened his words with a smile. “I owe you a debt I can never repay.”

  “You repaid the debt when you saved our lives,” I said. “This was my pleasure. But please, let’s celebrate when we know for sure.”

  The happiness didn’t disappear from Masters’ face, but his mood did somber some. “Listen, I wanted to ask if you’d be willing to keep an old guy like me on the books.”

  Watson grinned widely. “Are you asking to stick around here?”

  “That I am.” Masters scratched the side of his face. “I’m good with a gun, great with technology, and I don’t say much.”

  I snorted with laughter.

  Watson extended his hand. “Welcome to the team. Permanently. We’ll work on better quarters for you and your little girl once we get the lab repaired.”

  Masters shook his hand and went back over to Alanna’s bedside.

  Two days later, I was about to peel myself out of my skin with impatience and annoyance at Aaron. When he wasn’t being surly, he was obsessively running the calculations for the filtering machine over and over again. I tried to be polite, but he was driving me crazy. It finally came to the time where we could make a decision about the sample.

  I viewed it one more time and smiled as my heart lifted in excitement. It was stable. No changes occurred to the DNA and all the diseased cells were now healthy. I brought Masters over, showed him, and offered him the choice. We could place Alanna in a state of suspended animation for a month or two to allow more time to ensure the tests were fully successful. Or we could filter out the poisoned cells and use the telomeres I’d extracted from my DNA to repair her cells.

  “With everything going on right now and Moriarty on our tail, I think we should go ahead and go forward.”

  Aaron opened his mouth to object and Masters cut him off with a heated, dangerous glare. “She is going to die if we don’t do something. And immediately.”

  He was right. Her respiration had started to suffer in just the couple days we were in the lab. Her color didn’t look so good and she was barely eating.

  Aaron started to speak again and once more, Masters cut him off. “This is my decision. Do not question my intelligence or my love for her. Sometimes we have to make dangerous decisions to save the ones we love. This is mine.”

  Aaron’s gaze filled with sympathy. “I understand.”

  And just like that, they’d made up. I wished girls were like that.

  “Okay. Aaron?”

  Aaron pulled out the modified filtration system and began the process of hooking Alanna up.

  We were making history with only a few people the wiser for it.

  Not quite the way I’d imagined it, but being with only close friends didn’t lessen the joy I felt in helping my friend and the person he loved more than life.

  22

  Two Weeks Later

  A soft knock sounded on my door. I pulled it open and heaved in a gasp of surprise. Alanna stood there, grinning widely at me.

  She was standing. Not without assistance. But still standing. She held on to her father’s arm. Her curls were brushed to a burnished gold and her blue eyes were shot through with health and vigor.

  I’d finally done
something right.

  “Come in!” I said with a grin.

  “No, we’re on our way out to town. We just wanted to stop in and show you how she was doing.”

  Once we’d gotten home, Masters had retreated into his quarters with his daughter. I’d stopped by a few times, but he would never open the door for me. Too overcome with emotion, he’d assure me she was just fine and he would check in when he could.

  It went against my better judgment, but I left him alone. I couldn’t imagine what he was feeling. To have someone snatched back from the brink of death…it would be enough to do anyone in.

  But now he stood there, pride beaming in his face.

  “You look lovely, Alanna. Please keep me posted on how you’re feeling. In a couple weeks, we’ll need to get you back to the lab. If anything strange happens, let me know right away.”

  “Yes, Miss Penelope,” she said, giving me another dimple-filled grin.

  I winked at Masters. “Stay out of trouble, heartbreaker.”

  I shut the door on his retreating chuckle.

  All had been silent since we’d returned from the lab at Lake Travis. Everyone was still giving me a wide berth, especially Louise. I didn’t think we’d ever get passed me punching her out.

  Watson had taken it upon himself to oversee the lab repairs and in just a couple weeks, great progress had been made. In another month or two, it would be like nothing had ever happened.

  I hadn’t been idle either. Using the master key Watson had given me several weeks ago, I had been quietly snooping through the compound. With a few texts to Masters, he’d discreetly disabled the surveillance systems during the times I needed to be out and about, with us never having to see each other.

  Technology was pretty great.

  I’d narrowed down the spots I suspected my mother had been taken to three. Turned out, there was a false door in my father’s study leading me to hundreds of year’s worth of dossiers on his opponents. Sherlock Holmes had a whole lot of enemies. One of them was now mine.