“Fix you?” Rachel asked.
“Wipe my mind. The body is what they needed. A consciousness could be recreated and all the training re-implemented.” I wasn’t looking at them anymore. I was staring at my past, remembering everything that had happened in my life before Earth. Tears welled up in my eyes, and when I realized it, I came back to them, cleared my throat, and smiled. The tears disappeared quickly. The tenderness in Rachel’s eyes almost made me start bawling again.
“Shit,” I muttered, wiping my nose.
“How long have you been here?” Xen asked.
“Since eighty-three.” I silently thanked Xen for changing topics.
“Justin?” Rachel interjected. “You said something last night that I didn’t really understand … about Mag.” I looked at her expectantly. I knew immediately what she wanted to ask. “You said you two were made for each other.”
I nodded. “She was created along with me. She even shares a lot of my DNA. She’s kind of like a sister. That was the other part of their plan, but she couldn’t be wiped. They would have terminated her and grown a new one to match the new me.” The old killer in me, the one full of rage, added, “I couldn’t allow that.” Then the rage faded and the sadness took hold.
Xen and Rachel saw the melancholy welling up, and neither of them ever would have thought me capable of it. I’m sure it drifted there on my face like a tide-pool, swelling and then receding quickly as I got my control back.
A smile popped onto my face, and whatever sadness had been there disappeared in a flash, replaced with elation. “Xen, break out some of those cigars! This is a big day for me.” Neither of them could tell if my happiness was natural or forced, but they rolled with it, not wanting to press me. “You two are the first people I’ve ever told any this stuff to. I’m not as alone as I used to be.” I smiled at them both as warmly as I could. “Thanks,” I said sincerely.
“For what?” Xen asked.
“For letting me trust you. You don’t know what it’s been like all these years.”
Rachel squeezed my hand. “So, nobody else knows anything?”
“Well, Yvgenny knows something is odd about me. He’s known me since I first got here … literally. I haven’t changed in appearance in all those years. At first, he bought the story about having Lazarus syndrome, why I didn’t appear to age. But like you, he’s seen and heard enough to know something’s up. He’s just too polite to call me on it. Like I said, we sort of found each other.”
“Sounds like you really trust him,” Rachel observed.
“With my life. But he does work for who he works for. Knowing would do him no good, so there wasn’t any reason to say anything.”
“Is there anyone else?” Xen asked, handing me a cigar.
“There is one,” I said a bit ominously as I pulled out a cigar cutter and lighter from my jacket. Xen and I unwrapped our cigars.
“Hey!” Rachel interjected. “Don’t leave me hanging. I love Cubans.” We looked at her with raised eyebrows and then smiled at each other.
Xen pulled out one more cigar and handed it over. We passed around the clipper and then the lighter. Wisps and streams of smoke drifted into the jungle, carried mostly intact through the trees.
“So, who’s the other one?” Rachel asked as she leaned back, pulling on the cigar like an aficionado.
“A spook.” My voice went cold, and both Rachel and Xen saw a brief glimpse of the cold-blooded killer that I keep hidden away within. “This was just before 9/11.” I looked at Xen. “Me and this guy had a night similar to what you and I just went through. I thought he was a friend. Turns out he cared about was sending me to a fucking lab … in pieces.”
“Is he still alive?” Rachel asked carefully.
“He was when I last saw him. I barely got out of that one. That’s one of the times Mag really pulled my bacon out of the fire.”
The three of us spent the rest of the day talking about my home world and what life was like there. I avoided talking about the work I used to do, saying I didn’t want to remember, which was true, but anything else they wanted to know was fair game. As the conversation evolved, what became clear to both of them is that life is pretty much the same all over. There are good people and bad. Some have power and some don’t. They all eat, sleep, fight, love, and make babies.
“It’s a universal constant,” I said during a philosophical moment, “an endless sequence of events that brings joy and despair to every living creature … life and death. All you can really do is give and get as many smiles along the way as possible before you check out. That was the last lesson my father taught me.”
O O O
I poured them each a snifter of the Elegancia and prepared to talk about what came next. I looked at Xen. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”
“What?” Xen peeked over his snifter.
“After I sent you that chemical data, how did you get hooked up with SolCon?” I avoid the topic of Natalia.
“An acquaintance gave me a list of companies that took proposals for grants and research projects. I sent it out to a few of the bigger ones. Dow, PetroChina, and SolCon were among them. A few weeks later, I got a bite from SolCon. It came from Natalia personally.”
“When was that?” I asked around a freshly lit cigar.
“It took me a week to review your data and formulate some options, and another couple of weeks to put together the proposal. She called me about a week later.”
“And they set you up at the SolCon facility in Paramount?”
“Yep. They’ve got a pretty big operation there. Much bigger than DiMarco’s. I had a lab to myself, and only talked to Natalia about the project. I started working only a few weeks after she first contacted me. That’s why you didn’t hear from me during that time. You know how focused I get.”
“Yes I do,” I said, smiling. I did some quick figuring in my head. “And I’m guessing that Natalia moved to her new house a couple of weeks after that, right?”
“That’s right. How did you know?”
“The timing works out. It also means a few troubling things.”
“Like what?” A look of concern crossed his face.
“Well, it means that even if we get DiMarco and shut him down, we may have an even bigger problem.”
“What?” Xen was openly scared now. He was having a difficult time coming up with anything worse than hired killers gunning for him.
“Pyotr Nikolov.”
Fear shifted to confusion on his face.
“The U.S. head at SolCon?”
“Yeah. You know him?” I was hoping he’d crossed paths with the Russian. I wanted … needed … any information on Nikolov I could get at this point. My guts told me DiMarco wasn’t even a small fry compared to the Russian.
“I only met him once, and only in passing. At a corporate dinner. He seemed nice enough to me, although a bit impersonal. Cold even.”
“We’ll, let’s just say that SolCon is just his day-job. I’m thinking he knew all along about Natalia. I’m also pretty sure that he’s the one who put things in motion to make you both dead, but he didn’t seem to care that much when it didn’t happen.”
Rachel flicked some ash off her cigar. “Knew what about Natalia?”
I scratched my head, putting things together. “I think he knew all along Natalia was Interpol.”
“WHAT?” Xen shouted. He looked like a deer in headlights.
“You didn’t know?” In the back of my mind I heard a cat dash out of a bag and run for parts unknown. I guess there wasn’t any reason he should. I took a sip of scotch and watched surprise churn in Xen’s features. He blinked in disbelief and shook his head silently. His mouth kept opening and closing as he tried to say something, but no words came. He looked at Rachel, seeking wisdom, but she only shrugged at him. “I wish I knew what game Nikolov was playing,” I continued. “This is all starting to feel like a chess board now, and Nikolov’s moving all the pieces.”
&n
bsp; Xen’s shoulders slumped, accepting the revelation, and he finally found his voice. He decided to get down to business. “There is one thing, Justin. Like I said, I only talked to him that one time, but I got the sense that he was smart … like smarter than me … smarter than everyone in the room. That kind of smart … scary smart.”
“Yeah, I know,” I agreed. “Rachel? You ready for VeniCorp?” I changed topics to avoid something I wasn’t ready to deal with yet. I looked at her with a mix of concern and affection. I needed to get used to the thing growing between us, and it wasn’t in my pants.
“Hell, yes.” She squeezed my hand again.
“Xen, how about you? Think you’re up for a little sneak and peek at VeniCorp?”
“Is it going be like Grady’s?” Fear edged into his voice.
Magdelain appeared out of the jungle and curled up in the sun on the patio behind me. She could smell a good sneak and peak a mile away.
“Well, I can’t promise it won’t be, but it’s unlikely. It should be rent-a-cops, if anything, and a little breaking and entering. I doubt there will be anyone there.”
“I don’t know.” Xen slowly shook his head.
“If you don’t want to go, I understand. I wouldn’t ask at all, but we’re going to hit Jackie Shao’s PC. It’s on a disconnected network. It may just be a standalone, and while I have a good idea of what we’re looking for, you’d be able to dig deeper and faster than I will. You guys are both chemists. You think the same way.”
Xen thought for a bit, and we watched him go through an internal debate. “Jackie is a piece of why they came after me and Natalia, right?”
I nodded. “Pretty much. It’s not a straight line. Hell, Jackie may not even know about you, although I doubt it. But it’s all part of the big picture, and I can’t be certain all the loose ends get tied up unless we go in there.”
“Okay, I’m in.” He looked at me and smiled. “But if I get killed, I’ll never forgive you.”
We all laughed.
“Don’t worry,” I assured him confidently, “I won’t let anything happen to either of you.”
Xen’s face went serious again. “I hope you’re right, Justin … I hope you’re right.”
“Okay. Let’s go back and get ready.” I turned around and looked at Mag who sat up and looked at me expectantly. “Why don’t you stay here tonight Mag? We’ll be out on the streets, and this is no big deal. There’s no point risking you getting seen, okay?”
She nodded her head, but with some disappointment.
I looked back at my two human friends. “Formal attire, if you please.”
“What?” They said in unison.
“Everyone wears black tonight. It’s etiquette. And evening gloves.”
***
Back-Up
We walked out of the parking garage, down the street, and approached the building. As I had hoped, the streets were clear. We crossed through the parking lot where the Audi had been and went up to the main entrance. I pulled the Prox II card out of my pocket and swiped it over the reader. The light went green, and the door-latch clicked. I pulled the door open and motioned for them to go inside. We walked quickly across the lobby, and as we entered the hallway, Xen and Rachel grabbed their hoods and pulled them over their faces. I slipped the pack off, slid my coat on, then replaced the pack. As my features dimmed to near invisibility, my companions stared at my visible head perched six feet above barely visible shoes. The rest was like looking through a pane of distorted glass.
“What the fuck?” Xen blurted.
“Nifty,” Rachel cooed.
“Business suit,” I said to both of them and pulled the goggles and hood over my head. I pressed the UP button. The door dinged immediately, we stepped in, and I pressed the three button. “Jeepers Creepers” by Tony Bennett played over the speakers.
Rachel and Xen looked at my goggles—the only thing really visible on me. They looked at each other, looked at my goggles again and started giggling. I could only shake my head, the goggles appearing to sway with a life of their own in mid-air, which made them laugh even more.
“Alright, alright. Game-faces. Let’s pretend this is serious, shall we?” My goggles shifted back and forth, glancing at both of them a few times.
Xen put a thoughtful finger to his temple. “I’m reminded of the story of a pot, a kettle, and shades of obsidian,” but he and Rachel stopped laughing and sobered up a bit.
I pulled down the facemask, and the goggles disappeared. I palmed the Prox card in my hand. “This should be easy.”
The door opened, and we stepped out into the empty reception area. If anyone was actually watching, this would get hairy fast, but corporate offices, even those owned by goombahs, rarely have twenty-four-by-seven eyes on security cams. I walked up to the door and swiped the card over the reader. The latch clicked, and Xen opened the door. As we stepped in, our motion set off the detector above the door and a loud, piercing BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! erupted above us.
“Shit!” he cried an octave higher than normal. Then he turned and bolted for the still-open elevator.
Rachel and my shifting outline calmly turned in the doorway and stared at Xen as he practically dove into the elevator.
“Xen,” I spoke quietly and calmly as the poor guy hammered at the down button over and over again. “Hold up a second.” I stepped into the office, put in Jackie’s code on the panel just inside the door, and the alarm stopped. The elevator doors began to close, but Xen stepped out before they did, a slightly embarrassed look on his face.
I leaned out into the office doorway and looked at him. “SOP,” I explained in a friendly, almost parental tone. “You get thirty seconds to disarm the system before anyone is notified. You okay? Need to change your shorts or something?”
“I’m fine, damn it.” He walked past Rachel who was unsuccessfully trying to keep a straight face. “Nobody says another fucking word,” he added with venom.
Rachel motioned, locking her lips and throwing away the key, but she shook slightly, trying to hold in the laughter as she followed Xen inside.
“The good news is that nobody is here, otherwise the alarm would have been off.” The door swung closed behind us. “Our luck is holding so far.”
I headed to the left towards the glassed off area at the back of the mostly dark office. We walked up to the door that opened into the lab. I slid the Prox card again, opened the door, and we stepped in. Rachel hit the light-switch, and fluorescent lights flickered to life, exposing a fairly elaborate lab facility with a half-dozen desks and a wide array of equipment.
“There it is,” Xen pointed to a large cubicle in the far corner.
“How do you know?” I asked.
Xen walked over to the wall of the cubicle, slid out the nameplate from the bracket on the wall and held it up. It had JACK SHAO printed on it. “See?”
“Smart ass,” I said with a smile on my face.
“I learned from the best.”
“Gee, I wonder who that could be,” Rachel added. Xen and Rachel stared at me deliberately, and they both chuckled. Rachel and I walked up behind Xen who had already sat down at the desk. There were two workstations in the cubicle.
“Just as I thought. That one,” I pointed to the one on the left. “No network cable or antennae.”
Xen moved the mouse, and the screen sprang to life. SHAOJ was in the user-field, and the password field was empty. “What’s his password?”
“I don’t know,” I said simply.
Xen and Rachel turned to me slowly with stunned looks on their faces.
“What?” I paused. I was toying with them and let the seconds tick by. “Don’t worry, I have a plan.” I reached into an inner pocket and pulled out a small gray box with a cable attached to it. “Here, this will do the trick, but it could take a while.”
“How long?” Rachel held her hand out so she could examine the device.
I handed it over. “Well, there’s good news and bad news.”
&nbs
p; “What’s the good news?” Rachel looked at it closely.
“It can take as fast as a few seconds.”
“What’s the bad news,” Xen asked.
“It can take as long as thirty minutes to run through the permutations.” I almost sounded apologetic … almost.
“Thirty minutes?” Xen was appalled.
“I’m afraid so.”
Xen shifted in his chair. “We can’t stay around here that long, Justin. I’m barely holding it together as it is.”
“Wait a minute,” Rachel interrupted and reached between them to pick up a sticky-note hanging from a calendar on the cubical wall. “What’s this?” She held it out for them to read. In printed letters it spelled out A-U-F-V-R-0-9. “Could this be it?”
“Only one way to find out,” I said. “Try it, Xen.” Xen looked doubtful, but he typed in the capitalized letters and hit the ENTER key. The screen prompted: The Username or Password is incorrect. “Try lower-case.” Xen typed it in and got the same response.
“Wait a minute,” Xen said. “Let me see that.” Rachel handed him the sticky-note, and he looked at it for a minute, thoughtful furrows creasing his brow. His head cocked to the side and then a clever smile crossed his face. He turned to the keyboard and typed in some characters. He turned to us both and hit the ENTER key with a flourish. The login prompt disappeared, and the desktop came up on the screen.
“How’d you know?” Rachel asked.
“Think of it like a license plate,” he suggested, smiling.
She went through the options. “O-fever … aw-fever … ah-yu-fever … I don’t get it.”
Xen enjoyed watching her go through the puzzle. “Think like a chemist.”
Rachel’s head turned to the side as she wracked her brains for the answer. I was motionless for a few seconds, then I turned to a periodic chart of the elements on the wall.
“Gold fever,” I said quietly. “Nice work, Xen.”
“What?” Rachel was still confused. I reached over and pointed at one of the elements on the chart.
“AU is the symbol for gold,” I explained.
“And all caps,” Xen added, “just like it is on the sheet.”
Chemical Burn Page 26