by RJ Plant
“Don’t be snide,” I said. “Just find it. And try to stick close to someone. Is there anyone there you trust?”
“There’s a lab tech I work with, Matt. I’ve worked with him for the past few years.”
“That’s your basis of trust?”
“He’s a friend. And if that isn’t good enough, he worked with me on Kazic. That should put him in danger as well.”
I shook my head. “Is there anyone else? Maybe someone not likely to be targeted for murder?”
She thought about this for a moment. “No. Like I said, I’m in a lab all day. Apart from pleasantries, I’d don’t really interact with anyone. I can restrict access to the lab though. At least, I should be able to.”
“That’s the first thing you should do today then.”
“Lock myself in a lab while trying to dig for information on Kazic. Got it,” she said, more than a little sarcastic.
“Good girl.”
Her eyes narrowed, the corners of her mouth slanting downward. She slapped me. I hadn’t expected it. Didn’t remember her having temper tantrums as a child.
“So violent,” I said. “And unnecessary.”
“I’m not a dog, Felix. I’m exhausted, and you’re following me around and telling me things that make you sound like a crazy person. So now I’m tired and I’m scared. And get your hand off my waist. I didn’t hit you that hard.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I touched my cheek, massaging out the stinging sensation. With my other hand I tucked the keys that I’d lifted off Kaitlyn into my pocket.
I followed her down the hall toward the front of the building. I could hear Conor’s laughter in the back of my head, feel him twisting in my body and the tell-tale burn.
“I’ll be waiting,” I said as we approached the front door. “When you get back, you can tell me all about Kazic.”
“If it helps.” She pulled open the door and stepped into the morning light.
I went back upstairs, took a shower, slept for a few hours.
It was just after ten when Shaina and Seth arrived. With supplies. And my medication. I took that first.
It hurt. Every time.
It’s fire in the blood. Not just hiding the fucked-up parts of DNA, but completely, albeit temporarily, changing it. It forced Conor away kicking and screaming, and it did feel like he was kicking and I could hear his screams.
Sometimes they broke through my lips. This was one of those times.
“Hold him, would you,” Shaina said to Seth, wrestling me back against the couch.
“Only because you told me to, not because you asked.”
The happy married couple in the crumbling world.
I smacked Seth’s arms away. When he reached to restrain my hands, he left his torso exposed. I leveraged a knee between us and extended out with my hip, pushing him away with enough force to make him gasp.
“Fine,” I said, sitting up.
“Felix?” Shaina asked.
“I’m me. Seth, you know better than to leave yourself exposed like that.”
Seth’s shock of hair hung down just past brown eyes. He was about at height with Shaina, which spoke more to her height than his. Where she was lean, he seemed underfed. Probably from spending his time mesmerized by a computer screen or whatever other tech nonsense he could get hold of and forgetting to eat.
“I knew you were fine,” he said, grinning.
“That’s a load. You’d have let Conor knock you out and level the flat.”
“Well, there is that.”
“You shouldn’t wait so long, Felix,” Shaina said.
“Preaching to the choir.”
“You remember what happened last time.”
“Shay,” Seth warned.
I stared intently at the floor, which had suddenly become the most interesting thing in the room.
“You can put your bags in the spare room,” I said. “I assume you’ll be staying a while. Unless Shaina continues to lecture me, in which case you’ll be out on your respective arses.”
Seth grabbed two bags that he’d abandoned at the flat door. One long and round, the other bulging in places as hardware strained against the canvas fabric, trying to escape.
Shaina sat beside me on the fraying couch. I leaned my head back, stared at the smooth white ceiling. I could just see the wall behind me, the yellow ending where the wall met the ceiling.
“I’m just trying to look out for you,” Shaina said, bumping me with her shoulder.
“I know,” I said. “I should’ve taken the meds before I left, but it slipped my mind. Won’t happen again, ma.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m younger than you are.”
“What do we know so far?” Seth asked, coming out of the back room holding a tablet, cables snaking behind him.
“Not a lot that’s useful,” I said, running a hand over my mouth. I told them what I knew.
“You’re right, that ain’t much to go on,” Seth said, though he seemed completely unbothered.
“When will you be in the agency?” Shaina asked.
“Rian said by the end of the week, if his pull works out,” I said. “Never known it not to.”
“Yeah, but you’re his muscle, big guy,” Seth said. “He can’t flex it if you ain’t there.”
That was true. Money, after all, got you less by the day.
“Maybe he can use his cuddly side,” I said.
“Does he have one of those?” Seth asked.
“When does Kaitlyn’s shift end?” Shaina asked, bringing the focus back to the job.
“Four.”
“Well then,” Seth said. “I’ll go set up.” I got the impression he’d be wringing his hands in delight if they weren’t occupied.
Seth followed me to Kaitlyn’s flat. I dug out her keys and unlocked the door.
Seth walked in, looked around, then turned back to me. “Audio and video. The feed will go straight to you and Rian. A silent alarm on every entry point. In and out before she’s home.”
I nodded and left him to it.
*****
27 October 2042, Dublin, United Irish Republic
Shaina was stretched out along the couch, watching the flashes going across several tablets, making sure everything was working properly as Seth set the equipment up.
“What do you think Kazic is?” she asked almost absently.
I shifted on the barstool. “Something important enough to kill for. Or dangerous enough. Or embarrassing enough.”
“I wonder why Kaitlyn reopened the project. You think someone instructed her to?”
Shaina got up and headed for the kitchen. She grabbed a glass from the press and set it under the tap of a water purifier. The purifier looked like it was housed in a tool cart, with wheels on the bottom for mobility. Its body was made up of pipes and hoses connecting to and from long silver cylinders and a main and secondary pump system. Gauges on the face gave notification of pressure, water level, and the like.
“Think we’re going about this the wrong way, so I do,” I said. “Kaitlyn could easily just not go back into work, hide somewhere not crawling with repurposed CCTV while we figure this mess out.”
“If she has value to GDI, they’ll find her anywhere,” Shaina said, leaning against the counter with her glass in one hand.
“She doesn’t actually know anything, though, does she?”
“Not remembering things isn’t the same as not knowing them. Besides, it’s not like the world is crawling with scientists or researchers or whatever it is she does. GDI probably still needs her for something. Or else why is she still alive?”
“Huh,” I said. “Maybe.” I grabbed my jacket from the arm of the couch and put it on. “I’m going out for a bit.”
“Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I’m hurt that you even feel you have to say such a thing,” I said on my way out.
I walked the block around the building, smoking and trying to clear my head. Didn’t see a single person. The whole
world seemed pretty empty after the War, but cities were becoming a thing of the past. Cities were for making money, and money hardly mattered anymore. You needed to barter if you wanted to live, and that meant growing food in the countryside—at least, where possible.
Buildings crumbled. No workers to fix them, no one to salvage the damage. Brick dust peppered the air with every gust of wind harder than a light sigh. Noises came from alley mouths and desiccated buildings. Noises that you couldn’t place, and you damned sure weren’t going to hang around long enough to.
Sully’s request was simple. Escort him to Boston. Follow him around and keep him safe while he looked for his daughter. And, I guess, actually help him look. Couldn’t get much more straightforward than that.
I wasn’t sure what kind of shape Boston was in. That would be something needing doing. Feel out the lay of the land, the extent of damage, secure supplies based on air quality and landscape.
Kaitlyn, though. This whole fecking mess of an assignment. God alone knew what I was getting into.
As if conjured by my thoughts, Kaitlyn rounded the corner heading home. I stayed down and back, watching her from across the street. Her back was straight, steps quick. She didn’t turn her head noticeably, but there was a sense that she was looking around. She rubbed her left shoulder with her right hand, then adjusted her bag strap.
She had good senses, could feel me watching her. She reached the door of our flat building and …
“Fuck,” I whispered as she rummaged through her bag.
I crossed the street at a run. At the door, I leaned around Kaitlyn and slid the key into the lock.
“Again with you?” she said, ceasing her search.
Her voice was a little higher than normal. With offense or incredulity, I wasn’t certain.
“Again,” I said.
I took the stairs ahead of her, knelt on the floor in front of her flat. “Drop something this morning, did you?”
She snatched the keys from my hand and moved around me to get into the flat. I followed. Thankfully Seth was long gone.
“Tell me about Kazic,” I said.
The lighting was cozy, nothing on overhead, just table lamps. A couch in fairly decent shape was against one wall, facing a chair and the front door behind it. A bookcase on the far wall was full to the point of overflowing. The flat had just one bedroom instead of two, but there was an actual dining area with a table and chairs.
A bit sleek for the times.
“Can I at least shower first? Eat?”
There was a hitch in her voice that called my attention. Fear. She seemed paler than this morning, a little darker around the eyes.
“Go on, have a shower,” I said. “Take your time.”
Kaitlyn bit at her bottom lip as she stared into the middle distance. I grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her down the hall, into her bedroom. I sat her down on the bed and tilted her chin to face me.
“A fecking shower, Kaitlyn. Be a big girl and take one. If I have to strip you down and put you in there, it won’t be fun for you.”
She grumbled something, and I stood up and closed the door behind me.
Her kitchen had limited options. Choose between canned or frozen. Choose between mushy or slimy. Choose between barely edible and less so.
I opened a can of green beans, a can of corn, started heating both in pots on the cooker. Bag of meat(ish)balls in the freezer.
Heat them in a pan with sauce … No sauce in the press. No sauce in the fridge. Plain meatballs. Good enough.
Two plates, two forks, divided the food evenly. I ate without her, the food manageable and slightly better than those damn powdered foods Seth put together.
Liquid bacon, he says. For fuck’s sake.
I thought I might have to go in after Kaitlyn, but she finally came out.
“Food’s almost cold,” I said.
She sat down, looked straight through the plate and fork all the way down to the lobby. Three more seconds of her staring and I would have made a Helen Keller joke. She finally stood, picked up her plate, carried it into the living room. She perched on the edge of the couch, the puke-green suede contrasting quite painfully with the yellow walls.
I came over, sat in the chair across from her, surprised by how uncomfortable it was. She ate quietly while I rested my eyes.
“You didn’t eat?” she asked.
“Finished before you came out.”
“Thanks for this.”
When she was done she took her plate into the kitchen, dumping it in the sink before bracing her hands on the countertop. Her shoulders hunched as she took a couple of deep breaths. She walked back in, sat down across from me. Her feet held her attention.
“Kaitlyn,” I said.
“Kazic, I know.”
“What happened today?”
Her head snapped up. Did she not think I’d notice?
“What happened?” I pressed. “Tell me. Something’s obviously got you spooked.”
She worried her lip a bit, then said, “Matt … He’s dead.”
“The tech? When?”
“Last night some time? This morning? All I know what my boss told me—Matt was attacked on his way home from work yesterday evening. He was dead when they found him.”
“It’s trimming the fat, so they are,” I said. “Is there anyone else that knows about that project?”
“Kent Barlow, the head of the Dublin base. I can’t say who else might know.”
“Tell me everything,” I said.
“All right, but Rian should be here too.”
8
27 October 2042, Dublin, United Irish Republic
I was looking over the books crowding Kaitlyn’s bookcase when Rian arrived. I turned my head enough to acknowledge him.
“All right there, boyo?” he asked.
“As rain,” I said.
He considered me for just a hair longer than I was comfortable with before turning to Kaitlyn. He held her by the arms, pulled her into an awkward hug.
“What have you got for us, Kait?” Rian asked, taking a seat on the couch.
Kaitlyn pulled a file from her bag and hugged it to her chest. For a moment she stood there like she had when she’d first gotten home, her eyes glazed. She shook herself, finally sat down, took a deep breath.
She started from the beginning.
“Kazic is built from the groundwork of Leif, a project that predates GDI and the War—a project that was not made public and very definitely crossed safety and ethics lines in a big way. After Kazic was shut down, someone must have taken or destroyed its files, so I grabbed everything I could find on Leif instead.”
Kaitlyn reluctantly handed Rian the file. He flipped through a few pages, looked at Kaitlyn.
“What exactly is this?” he asked, shifting his position to the edge of the couch.
“I did a little digging today—” she looked at me, not with a happy expression— “to see what I could find. In 1962 Anthony Kenna, a molecular biology prodigy at MIT, met with a young geneticist, Mýrún Ylva. The two made a particularly …” Kaitlyn broke off, tried to find the right words. “Scientifically progressive pair.”
Mýrún Ylva.
The name had my gut twisting, sent fire racing through my veins. I couldn’t breathe. It felt like he was coming. Rian glanced at me and I shook my head, steadied my breathing. The medication would hold.
“This is the proposal that got them funding from the U.S. government,” Kaitlyn said, handing Rian a short stack of papers. His face was unreadable as he flipped through them.
“Ylva and Kenna created a cocktail—passable as a vaccine for distribution purposes—that could theoretically boost brain function. At least that was the initial goal.”
“Boost brain function, huh?” I asked, growing more uncomfortable each time Ylva’s name was spoken. “Doesn’t sound like something the American government would fund.”
“Throughout the Cold War, they actually encouraged civilian academia,” K
aitlyn said. “They wanted to produce brighter, smarter minds. And this proposal seemed like a golden ticket. But all the subjects died, and the project was shut down. Even so, the first trial run provided valuable information, if not exactly what the two had expected. Eventually a different government agency picked the project up.”
She flipped a few more pages, stopping when she found the one she wanted. “A select number of subjects survived for a few days, which doesn’t seem like much, but in this case an inch is a mile.”
“How long did this go on?” Rian asked, visibly uncomfortable. Odd look on him.
“The first trial ran from 1964 to 1969. After making changes based on the findings of the first run, the project rebooted in 1976 under the moniker Leif, with a new formula and a much different goal than originally intended. It ended in 1995. They altered the cocktail again, and the final run, the one that created the chimera with two heads, so to speak, started in 2000 and was cut short in 2009 with Kenna’s murder.”
Chimera with two heads. It felt like I’d been punched in the chest. I stood up, paced a bit, sat back down in the uncomfortable chair, stood again. My heart was working too hard.
“Sit down, Felix,” Rian said.
I shook my head. Rian stood up, led me into the dining area.
“Am I a made thing?” I hadn’t intended to say that.
I let go of Rian’s arm. Didn’t remember grabbing it. My hand was shaking. The subcutaneous fire was spreading. It felt like Conor was bucking to get loose. I swallowed. Breathed.
“Does it matter if you are?” Rian asked.
“I feel like, yes, it matters a great deal,” I said, tried to be calm, failed miserably.
“You can’t be that way, Felix,” Rian said, putting a hand on the back of my neck, shaking me a little. “You can’t let knowledge of a thing you can’t alter change you.”
I thought of the conversation I’d had with Kaitlyn about moderation. I tried to be moderate, take in this new piece of information and tuck it away until it would be useful. So easy to say, and so bloody difficult in practice.
I was used to looking to Rian for comfort. But now he looked a little … nervous.
I pulled away from him and sat back down on the godawful chair across from Kait. She looked pensive, dark thoughts darkening her features.