Looking at the screen, Cyrus didn’t see anything remarkable on the display. There were two sets of side-by-side DNA results with sections of the normal, short grey, black and white, horizontal bars highlighted in colored groups. But what he was seeing meant nothing to him. Below what he recognized as DNA annotations were other groupings of codes and equations that were indecipherable.
Cyrus looked at Gertrude with a blank expression on his face. “Really? Is this supposed to mean anything to me? I wasn’t hired for my understanding of biology.”
“I’m not sure why you were hired at all,” Gertrude snapped. “Clearly Voss and his clowns sent you to spy on me. Either that, or—”
The expression on Gertrude’s face changed so suddenly that Cyrus wasn’t sure how to interpret it. She turned her back and examined the display. Question was clear on her face. Lost in thought, she lumbered several yards across the floor before lowering herself into a very awkward and crooked position on a wheeled stool. Not bothering to adjust herself, she set the tablet on her lap and began rapidly tapping the screen with the fingers of both hands. Her cane, forgotten, fell to the floor with a crash that echoed in the confines of the large laboratory.
Cyrus watched Gertrude for at least a full ten minutes. She tapped and swiped fingers across the screen with reckless abandon. Clearly she was up to something, or maybe onto something was a better description. Whatever it was, it had consumed the entirety of her attention. While he waited, Cyrus continued to pull at the restraints that were cinched tightly around his wrists. It was futile effort since they hadn’t given so much as a fraction of an inch since he first started working on them.
Finally looking up from the tablet, Gertrude studied him oddly. He didn’t understand her stare; it was both foreign and clinical. He felt like she was looking at him for the first time, but it somehow seemed more like he was under a microscope rather than strapped to a bed in front of her.
After another uncomfortable stretch of silence, Gertrude turned to Ashley who was still strapped to the chair a few feet to her right. “You really couldn’t Read him, could you?”
The hatred in Ashley’s stare was impossible to miss. And though Cyrus was sorry for the pain Gertrude had caused the young woman, he was at least glad to see that Ashley had derived strength from her false grandmother’s betrayal. There was a cold determination in her eyes that made it clear she wouldn’t be helping the woman in any way. The events of the last twenty-four hours might just as easily have caused the young lady to collapse; that she remained strong and functional spoke of some powerful inner strength. She would need it before they found themselves clear of the mess Gertrude Waterford had created.
“Do you really need to ask?” Ashley said in a cold dry voice. “Are you going to pretend that you don’t have my home bugged?”
“Like you pretended that you could Read him when you couldn’t?” Gertrude countered.
Fire danced in Ashley’s eyes. Had she not been bound to the chair, she would’ve sprang from it and torn the old woman limb from limb—Cyrus was certain of it.
“You spent a great deal of time together after that,” Gertrude continued. “Were you ever able to Read him? Did you ever get any kind of sense from him?”
At first it looked like Ashley wasn’t going to answer. It was the only way to fight back against the woman who had taken so much from her. But then she seemed to think better of it. Cyrus realized that Ashley had given a great deal of thought to the very same questions that Gertrude was now asking.
Shaking her head slightly, Ashley avoided meeting Gertrude’s eye. She wanted to understand almost as much as her grandmother, but she couldn’t bear to acquiesce to the woman in the process.
“And William couldn’t Push him,” Gertrude concluded. If she was aware, or even cared about Ashley’s feelings on the matter, it didn’t show.
“And I know damn well that he tried to Push you,” Gertrude said, directing the statement at Cyrus. “He only attacked the lab when he couldn’t Push you into doing the job for him. He must’ve tried like hell, too. But he couldn’t do it.
“The question I should’ve been asking was; what makes you so special? No one has ever been naturally resistant to William or Ashley. I developed the neuro-dampener so I could protect myself from their abilities while they were growing up.” Gertrude subconsciously massaged the tiny patch located behind her ear.
Cyrus knew that something had happened recently to alter the delicate balance on which Gertrude relied. William had somehow recently become more powerful. It was the only way to explain how he had been able to subvert the patch Gertrude’s security team wore. He wouldn’t have been able to attack the underground facility without first finding a way to defeat the countermeasure.
“So why are you so special?” Gertrude asked again.
Cyrus offered no response. He’d grown tired of her games and was looking for a way to end all of it. At one point he’d been curious about these questions himself, but that curiosity had passed. Nothing remained except anger, as he set a cold gaze upon Gertrude Waterford.
“There’s nothing special about me,” he said at last. “This is all in your head. You’ve lost your mind, Gertrude, and you’re hurting good people. It’s time to end this.”
Continuing as if he hadn’t spoken, Gertrude held up the tablet display once more. “This is the answer,” she said. “It’s all right here. The work is too perfect, too refined to be Voss’s people, and well beyond anything Onyx can produce. They don’t have the technology. No one has the technology for this. Tell me about Arlington.”
“Arlington?” Cyrus asked. “What’s Arlington?” He sensed the weight in the word, the damage it could do, but it held no meaning for him.
After studying him for a long moment, Gertrude seemed confused by his response—or perhaps the sincerity of it. She raised a hand and signaled to someone standing in the background, someone located behind the vertical backboard where Cyrus was restrained.
When the man stepped into view, Cyrus felt the blood surge through his veins. He’d been waiting to find the face of the last man in Gertrude’s security detail, and when Hondo stepped into view it was a tremendous relief. Though Cyrus had arranged for Hondo to insert himself into the team, he’d only contacted the people necessary to make it happen before having to go dark once more. He had no idea if Hondo had been successful in arranging the accident for the team’s medic, let alone whether he had successfully infiltrated the team.
“This is Mister Fenway,” Gertrude introduced. “But I believe the two of you have already met.”
Cyrus felt his heart race once more at Gertrude’s accusation. If she was aware of their relationship, things wouldn’t end well for either of them. He would be responsible for getting his friend killed. Still, Cyrus maintained his best poker face and sent a questioning look in Gertrude’s direction. “Excuse me?”
“Peru, about a year ago,” Hondo clarified. “Does that ring any bells?”
Cyrus was surprised. He’d run into Hondo in Peru about a year back. Hondo’s Delta team was working to secure a mining operation that had been plagued by sabotage and theft. Cyrus was working undercover at the mine at the time, tracking shipments of a new and exceedingly rare superconductive material that was a byproduct of what was being extracted from the same company’s silver and gold mines.
The overlapping operations were responsible for bringing Cyrus and Hondo together for their first encounter. It was odd for Hondo to reference the incident in front of Gertrude, he thought. Particularly since both of their operations were highly classified at the time, and as far as Cyrus knew, remained so. If Hondo had told Gertrude about Peru, it meant something.
His mind spinning, Cyrus realized his friend’s play and quickly went with it. He smiled. “That’s right, I remember you. A year ago? Sounds about right.” He needed to make conversation and give Hondo a chance to explain what line he’d run on Gertrude. He realized that Hondo needed to establish a shared past of
some kind, and though he didn’t know the reason for it, he knew his friend wouldn’t improvise the precarious maneuver without a damn good reason. And it was Cyrus’s responsibility to play along.
“You go by a different name now,” Hondo accused. “And it makes me wonder… Why is that?”
“I’ll admit,” Gertrude interjected. “That part has me curious, as well. Why would you use one name in Peru and another here in the States? And how does that factor in with your test results? I was certain that it made you a part of Arlington, but that doesn’t fit with what I see in the examination of your telomeres.”
Now Cyrus was completely lost. He was only vaguely familiar with telomeres, and it meant that Gertrude was referring to his physiology again; more specifically, his biology. As best he could recall, telomeres were a sort of protective end cap for chromosomes that shorten with each cell division. It was essentially part of the aging process. But he had no idea what Arlington was, or how it was related to telomeres or Gertrude’s examination of his chromosomes.
“You’re a perfect genetic neutral,” Gertrude said, as if the vague words explained everything. He felt her eyes probing him for some kind of response, but all he had was honest confusion, which is all he could offer in reply.
“Genetic neutral?” Cyrus asked. “What in the hell does that mean?”
Again, he felt her eyes probing him for signs of deception, but he knew she wouldn’t find any. He was entirely lost. He had no idea what her accusation meant.
“You really don’t know do you?” she said quietly. The question was a statement, more to herself than to him, as her mind attempted to work through the facts. He wasn’t sure Gertrude was even aware she had said it out loud.
“The human genome contains a little more than twenty-four-thousand separate genes,” Gertrude explained. “Through examination and extensive experimentation, I’ve discovered that certain sequences of genes activate abilities that are generally latent or dormant. Think of these genes as tiny genetic light switches, to put it into crude terms that you can understand.”
Crude was good, as far as he was concerned. He just wanted some answers.
“When you flip one on, something might happen to the host body or something might not,” she continued. “But if you flip the proper sequence of switches? Well, then the extraordinary latent abilities of the human body and mind begin to surface.
“The first trick is to locate the proper switches. Or, more accurately, the proper sequences of switches,” Gertrude continued, “In the past, it’s been a crude process of trial and error that has resulted in truly unsatisfactory results.”
With those words, she motioned in the direction of the large glass tanks over Cyrus’s shoulder, and when his eyes met with the visual example of what she referred to simply as trial and error, Cyrus felt the acid roil in his stomach, and the pure and utter rage build in his mind. Those monstrous mutations were the result of her playing with her so-called genetic ‘light switches’, and the idea sickened him. It seemed a great deal like a person playing God.
“On the very rare occasion,” Gertrude offered a sly smile and glanced in the direction of Ashley. “The results were much more positive, and quite impressive.”
Ashley’s abject horror was clearly visible on her face. She stared at the tortured and disfigured twist of limbs and flesh inside the massive glass tanks, and Cyrus knew that she was realizing the same thing he was. Those tanks literally contained her brothers and sisters. They shared DNA and were early attempts at what Ashley and William would eventually become. The sad truth was that those failed specimens were more her family than Gertrude Waterford had ever been.
At first, it looked like Ashley was going to be physically sick. Her eyes moved from tank to tank off into the distance, further supporting Cyrus’s supposition that more horrors were present in additional tanks beyond his sightline. But when Ashley’s gaze shifted and fell on Gertrude once more, it had resolved into a visceral mask of pure hatred. Cyrus suddenly fully realized Gertrude’s motivation for killing William Waterford. While the look in Ashley’s eyes clearly expressed her silent desire to see Gertrude removed from the earth, William had possessed the unrestricted power to make that desire manifest. Once William had demonstrated his ability to defeat the patch Gertrude wore, his fate had been sealed. He had become a danger that the old woman could no longer afford.
“But, based on what I see here,” Gertrude said, interrupting Cyrus’s thoughts. “You’re absolutely unique. It actually explains why Ashley can’t Read you and why William couldn’t Push you.”
There was a supremely satisfied smile on the woman’s face that told Cyrus his test results also represented something more to her. And as much as he hated to further fuel her ego, he needed to understand the ramifications of his own genetic sample.
“What?” Cyrus asked in a dry, reluctant voice. “What do my test results tell you?” he insisted.
“They tell me a great deal,” Gertrude said. Her immense satisfaction was practically written across her face. “They tell me that you’re something special, and they tell me that you were never subject to Darwin’s laws. But, most importantly, the results of your scans will advance my research by decades.”
Cyrus didn’t understand how. “You’re saying that I have genetic markers similar to what you’ve been producing in your experiments? That I have the genetic make-up necessary to read minds or influence thoughts?”
He didn’t buy it. He had never experienced anything even close to that in his entire life. If he were pressed, the only thing that could be considered special about him was his near perfect memory. But it was a far cry from the sort of supernatural abilities Gertrude was trying to invoke in normal people.
Gertrude laughed at Cyrus’s question; not just a chuckle of amusement, she laughed hard, until she had grown short of breath. “No,” she said at last. “You have no abilities of the sort! You appear to be a perfect genetic neutral, the antithesis to everything I’ve worked for. It’s actually what makes them unable to influence you,” she explained. “Every switch I flipped in them to activate their latent talents? Those same switches are set to the exact opposite in you.
“It makes you immune to their abilities, but it also makes you the ideal roadmap for my future research!”
The smug smile on Gertrude’s face triggered a rare response in Cyrus. He felt an uncontrollable rage welling up within him, and for once he had no desire to check his emotions and maintain any degree of self-control. Before he even knew what he was doing, he found himself pulling savagely at his restraints. Though they offered very little play, his arms thrashed violently at his sides, and his legs kicked and smashed against the thin padding of the gurney’s mattress.
Cyrus surprised himself with his own feral, vicious desire to crush the life from the old woman. She was more a monster than anyone he had ever met. And that was saying something, given the type of people his work put him in contact with.
Realizing his rage would do him no good, Cyrus was about to back down when he caught Hondo’s movement in the corner of his eye. Hondo had stepped near, drawing Cyrus’s focus. He gave Cyrus a quick wink, seeming to encourage his frantic effort. And while Cyrus didn’t know what his friend had in mind, he went with it. His effort of bucking and thrashing against the restraints doubled in violence.
“Ma’am,” Hondo said over the racket emanating from Cyrus’s fit. “If this man’s as important to your work as you say, maybe I should sedate him before he does serious damage. He’s already taken a hard blow to the head; he’s likely already suffered a concussion. At this rate, he’s liable to have an aneurysm.”
Surprised by the violent outburst, Gertrude quickly gave her approval.
* * *
Watching the medic carefully, Ashley had been struck by the unusual thoughts moving through his mind. While the members of the detail were concerned with other matters, this man was focused entirely on helping Cyrus escape his restraints. At first she was cert
ain that her grandmother—that Gertrude was messing with her, and put the medic up to forcing these strange ideas to the forefront of his mind—but Ashley quickly realized that is wasn’t a trick. At least not on Gertrude’s part. Somehow Cyrus had managed to get a friend inside the underground lab, and that man was trying to help them escape.
Throughout Gertrude’s conversation with Cyrus, Ashley had been eavesdropping on the thoughts of everyone in the room. While Gertrude’s mind remained firewalled thanks to the patch she wore behind her ear, and Cyrus’s was still beyond her mental reach, she was able to listen in on Cyrus’s friend, Hondo, and the four other members of the security team.
Two of the security men were bored beyond reason, looking forward to concluding their work with the old woman and more or less figuring out how to spend the money they were making on this assignment. One of the others was preoccupied with thoughts of the underage Vietnamese girl who constituted his ‘girlfriend for hire’, and the fourth guard was obsessing over his perverted co-worker with the Vietnamese hooker girlfriend.
It was a sick bunch, and a perfect example of why she hated her ability to read minds. Today was the one day that it seemed to be working to her advantage. She saw Cyrus’s eyes grow cold in a way she’d never before witnessed, and a moment later he began thrashing against his restraints. She didn’t need to Read him in order to know that he wanted to kill Gertrude every bit as much as she did.
But then she heard the voice in Hondo’s head. Hondo’s first concern was for Cyrus and that he might hurt himself in the futile effort. He had suffered a blow to the head prior to being brought to the lab? That was news to her, and she realized that a great deal must have taken place while she’d been unconscious. They had called it a seizure. She wasn’t sure what happened, but she felt like a part of her soul had been torn from her body—and she blamed Gertrude for that.
Hondo had quickly seized on a clear plan. He suddenly reversed his position and wanted Cyrus to continue the assault on his bindings. If he could convey the message to his friend, he thought he could convince Gertrude to let him sedate Cyrus. It would be an opportunity to slip his friend a weapon—possibly even free him from a restraint in the process.
Dangerous Minds: A Cyrus Cooper Thriller: Book One Page 21