by Garton, Ray
FRANKENSTORM 5
Chaos Theory
RAY GARTON
PINNACLE E-BOOKS
Kensington Publishing Corp.
www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Title Page
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Copyright Page
1
“I’m alone now, so I can speak freely,” Corcoran said as he leaned back in the chair again and put his feet back up on the desk. “Things have gone straight to hell. A disaster, top to bottom.”
“What kind of disaster?”
“Well, I told Sylvia about some of it, and—”
“You haven’t told me. What kind of disaster?”
“The worst. These, these, I don’t know what to call them, these lunatics, these vigilante militia lunatics come bursting in here and hold everyone at fucking gunpoint while they release the test subjects.”
“The monkeys?”
“No. The, uh . . . the off-the-books test subjects.”
There was a long silence on the line, then: “I see. And how did they know about them?”
“I have no clue! None!”
“None at all? You have no idea whatsoever how this could have happened?”
“Look, there are a couple of guys who do nothing but make trouble for us. Or try to make trouble for us. One is that Internet radio host I told you about. He does a show about conspiracies and, I don’t know, the Illuminati’s plan to enslave us all, or whatever, and he got it into his head that something suspicious was going on here at Springmeier because Vendon Labs and DeCamp Pharmaceuticals were involved with and have a long and fruitful relationship with the government, and—”
“Breathe, Jeremy. Are you high?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I haven’t been doing anything.”
“I know you too well. That you haven’t been doing any drugs would be ridiculous. Go on with your story.”
“Well, the show is on the Internet, so it’s heard everywhere, but it stirred up all the paranoid nutballs here, and apparently this militia, this armed, paramilitary group of gun-loving thugs just broke in. As far as I know, they’ve killed our entire security team! Just killed them!”
“You’re sure about that? The entire team?”
“According to the leader of that mob. His name is Ollie. One of our janitors seems to know him.”
“Is that so? One of your janitors?”
“Yes. That’s not important, though.”
“You don’t think so? You’ve had a catastrophic security breach and your janitor is friends with the man who leads the team that pulled it off and . . . you don’t think that’s important?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t think—”
“That’s becoming a problem, Jeremy, the fact that you don’t think. The fact that you do drugs and throw sex parties and you’re becoming more and more careless all the time. I’m afraid we’re going to have to reevaluate your relationship with Vendon Labs, Jeremy.”
Corcoran laughed. “Be serious. Where are you going to find anyone who can do what I can do for you? Nobody else could have done for you all the things I’ve done over the years. That includes this. Yes, this project may be fucked, but I’ve been doing what you were paying me to do, and with more time, I would have finished. What do you care if I do drugs or have a party now and then as long as I get the job done?”
“Getting the job done includes maintaining the security and safety of your facility, you know that. I strongly suggested that you let me send someone in to manage things, but you wouldn’t—”
Corcoran lowered his feet to the floor and sat up straight in the squeaky chair. “I don’t work under anyone. After all the years I’ve—with the career I’ve had, you want me to—I shouldn’t have to work under anyone.”
“Are you done sputtering?”
“Well, I don’t think I’m being unreasonable to think that someone of my status—”
“Your status, Jeremy, is as follows: You are a sixty-eight-year-old man who still tries to pass for sixty-five, who’s rapidly falling apart, but who insists on living like a twenty-year-old and who takes drugs like a rock star. All of those things have begun to outweigh any talents you have. Talents that are slipping, I might add, because the drugs are destroying your brain. And your mind. You used to have a few leadership qualities in addition to your talents as a scientist, but not anymore. You’ve made that clear with this disaster.”
“You are not going to lay this at my feet! The biggest problem here from the beginning has been Fara. And now she’s talking about going public with her story. She claims she’s sent some recording to that radio host I told you about. If you want to blast somebody on this team, it should be her.”
“She’s not in charge of the project. You are. You should stop thinking of yourself as irreplaceable. You’re not that Dr. Jeremy Corcoran anymore.”
“Then . . . then what Jeremy Corcoran am I? I’m still the Jeremy Corcoran who did all those great things for you, those things others laughed at when you told them what you wanted. And some of those things . . .” He leaned forward, put an elbow on the desk and his forehead in his hand. When he continued, it was in a whisper. “Some of them were terrible things. What I did to those people in that little Italian village. The things you’ve had me do to our own soldiers. And those children. My God, what you had me to do to all those children you kept in cages. Cages! I mean, Jesus, it’s almost funny, it’s almost hilarious”—he giggled—“that you’re ragging on me for doing some drugs!” More giggling. “It doesn’t make sense. You guys? Children in cages, drugging people, messing with their minds without their knowledge, putting things in the water supply. Me? I like drugs and I enjoy sex with one or more people at once, as much of it as possible, preferably while using drugs. But I’m the bad guy here? Me?”
“You’re looking at it the wrong way. No one is saying you’re a bad guy. We never minded the drugs as long as you remained useful to us. But now the drugs have destroyed in you whatever it was that was useful to us. Do you understand? It’s simply a matter of . . . moving on. And there’s plenty of young talent out there, don’t make the mistake of thinking there’s not. Most of it is coming from Asia, but it’s out there in abundance. You are no longer able to fulfill our needs, so we have to look elsewhere. In fact . . . I think it’s time for retirement, Jeremy.”
Gooseflesh crawled across Corcoran’s shoulders and upper back and the small hairs on the back of his neck stood erect and his scrotum shriveled up tight until his testicles were snugly tucked away. He had been working for these people most of his adult life. He’d done plenty of other work as well, of course, but working for Vendon and DeCamp was how he’d made most of his money, and it was on that work that most of his reputation was based. He knew these people, he knew how they thought, how they worked. He knew about enough of the cold, cruel things they did to get what they wanted to know that all the stuff he didn’t know about was far worse.
When dealing with these people, the word “retirement” could be taken in more than one way.
“What, uh . . . what kind of retirement do you mean . . . exactly?”
“What kind of retirement do you think I mean, Jeremy?”
When he did not respond, the voice at the other end chuckled.
“Have the test subjects been contained in the building, Jeremy?”
“As far as I know. So far.”
“Encouraging. That must be the goal of everyone there, do you understand? Keeping those people inside the hospital un
til we get there.”
“We? You’re coming here? When?”
“You’re in the middle of a hurricane right now, but the moment the weather calms down sufficiently, we’ll be sending in a team to solve the problem and . . . clean up this mess.”
Corcoran found that he had no saliva left in his mouth. He rolled his tongue around, then tried to swallow, but gulped loudly instead.
“The problem?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Which . . . problem?”
“The problem we’ve been discussing, of course. You see? You’re difficult to talk to when you’re on drugs, Jeremy. It makes you . . . foggy and unreasonable. You can no longer afford that.”
Drugs had nothing to do with it. Corcoran was paralyzed with fear. He was wondering if they would be sending a team to solve the problem of the released test subjects . . . or the problem of Dr. Jeremy Corcoran.
“Is there anything else you want me to do until you get here?” he said.
“Just keep everyone inside. Including yourself, Jeremy.”
The connection was severed.
Corcoran always became clumsy when he was nervous and afraid, and he nearly dropped the phone three times before getting it back in his pocket. He pushed the chair back, leaned down, and started opening Fara’s drawers. He knew she smoked, she had to have cigarettes around here somewhere. The craving for a smoke was suddenly pawing at Corcoran’s throat. He found an unopened pack of Pall Malls in the bottom drawer on the left and began digging at the plastic wrap on the box. When he couldn’t peel it off, he clawed at it with his fingernails, tearing it off the box. He opened the box, pulled out a cigarette, and put it in his mouth. He hadn’t smoked cigarettes in a long time, but he always carried a lighter in his pocket. He lit the cigarette with a trembling hand, sucked the smoke into his lungs, and went into a fit of hacking coughs. He looked around for an ashtray and snuffed the cigarette out in the potted plant on the end table by the couch.
What he needed was a joint. But he didn’t have one. Everything was in his quarters. He was freezing his ass off in scrubs and his coat was in his quarters. He didn’t want to go back there. Even his car keys were there. But should he feel the need to make a quick exit, he always kept a spare key in a small magnetized box under the left rear fender in case he found himself without access to his keys.
He paced the office in the candlelight and wondered if he could drive through the storm. Even if he could, where would he go? He lived there at Springmeier. He had no friends in the area, he knew no one because he hadn’t wanted to know anyone. It was a rural area filled with pot farmers, potheads, artists, and nut jobs waiting for Armageddon. The only locals who interested him were the college students, of course. He’d spoken at the university a couple of times and managed to lure a couple of them back to Springmeier for a tour of the facility. Not a real tour, of course, but something that would pass for a tour. Then an offer of Dr. Corcoran’s magic dust, and like the horses in the Kentucky Derby, they were off.
Those days were over. This whole project was over. And now Vendon Labs was sending a team to clean up. That was the fat lady singing. That meant things were really over. For some people, anyway. But this time, Corcoran was certain he was one of them.
The possibility had never entered his head. He’d always known he was safe because he was too valuable. If that was no longer the case, then this project wasn’t the only thing that was over. His whole world was over, because that had been the only thing in his whole life that he could rely on. That value had been his security.
Now it didn’t come to him as a possibility, but as a certainty, because they were talking retirement. Not censure, not suspension, none of the disciplinary measures, no, they leaped way over all that in a single bound and went straight to retirement.
They were not going to give him a gold watch or a box of Cuban cigars.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” he muttered as he paced. “Now. Go now, take my chances with the storm . . .”
But having no destination in mind made him pull away from the idea. He had never done anything unless he had a destination or a goal in mind, an outcome, a place to go, something. Without that, he wouldn’t know what he was doing.
Maybe the problem was that he’d always known what he was doing. He’d always tried to control his environment so everything worked out the way he wanted. He was able to do that in a lab, but doing it in real life was a different proposition altogether. That did not, however, keep him from trying. Maybe it was time to simply jump into the abyss and leave here with nowhere to go, no living family, no real friends.
Corcoran’s mother and father had been great scientists who, among other accomplishments, had helped found DeCamp Pharmaceuticals. Corcoran had grown up knowing that he would become a great scientist who would do great things for the world, but he would do it through DeCamp.
As a boy, he’d sailed through school, leaving everyone else in his dust, and had degrees before most boys his age had kissed a girl. Everything he had done, every decision he’d made had a specific goal. He reached that goal significantly sooner than the average scientist, and before long he was doing work that other scientists more seasoned than he would dismiss as something from the plot of a comic book, government-funded work that was usually of secret variety, with an appropriate cover story. Great work that no one outside of those projects would know he’d done. With no one watching, there were no rules.
He had always been brilliant, always been lauded and respected and awarded special treatment because he was such a genius. If all of that was over, then his life was over.
He stopped pacing. Don’t be crazy, he thought. They’re not going to ruin your life. They’re going to kill you. This has nothing to do with whether or not I have anything to live for. The question is do I want to live?
He decided he did.
He went to Fara’s small closet and searched for a coat he could wear. The only one that was acceptable was a shapeless blob of black corduroy with a fuzzy wool collar and cuffs. He put it on, went to the door and slowly, cautiously pulled it open to see what he could see in the corridor outside.
He heard activity in the direction of the intersection with the main corridor and he could see the bright little spots of light that were the headlamps worn by Ollie’s men. Without a light, Corcoran hoped he could blend into the darkness enough to get by them. He stayed close to the wall as he neared the intersection, then hugged it as he rounded the corner. Ollie was talking to his men and all their attention—as well as their headlamps—was on him.
Corcoran couldn’t see the double doors that opened onto a foyer, which in turn opened onto the parking lot behind the building, but he knew they were down there at the end of the corridor, only twenty yards away.
No slowing down, no stopping to think. He heard sounds in the darkness around him, things blowing and rattling over the floor, voices in the other direction, but he kept moving forward as quickly as possible without running, hoping there was nothing directly in front of him in the dark, hoping he could cross the span of darkness without interruption, without encountering anyone, without being noticed, and as he hoped those things, he closed the distance and then—
—he was there.
He pushed into the foyer to find one of the double doors to the parking lot blown all the way open against the wall. He leaned into the wind as he stepped through the open doorway and out into the storm.
The wind threatened to knock him over and the rain soaked his coat quickly as he slowly made his way to his parking spot, fighting the relentless force of the wind.
His attention was caught by a pair of headlights below flashing red and blue lights just beyond the gate. A police car. After a moment, he realized it had slammed into the guardhouse.
Two figures were approaching the police cruiser. Once they were close enough to be illuminated by the car’s lights, Corcoran recognized the figures as his test subjects. Former test subjects, anyway.
His Jeep was gone.
“Motherfuck!” he shouted, but it was swallowed up by the storm and even he couldn’t hear it.
2
The police are here, Latrice thought as she stood in the kitchen, and you’ve got blood all over you. Get your shit together, girl.
She left the kitchen, but instead of entering the living room, she went down the hall and found the bathroom. She closed the door and locked it.
The bathroom was a spacious mess. The clothes hamper was full and more dirty clothes were piled on the floor beside it. An unflushed turd lounged at the bottom of the toilet bowl and towels were everywhere—on the counter, the back of the toilet, the side of the bathtub—except hanging on towel racks.
Latrice inspected herself in the mirror. She was wearing a navy blue sweater and grey slacks. The sleeves of her sweater had been pushed up to her elbows and her right hand and forearm were covered with blood. There was some on her left hand, too, and it was spattered on her face. There were a few speckles of it on the front of her sweater, but somehow, she’d managed to avoid getting her clothes bloody.
She turned on the faucet and let the water get warm, then she grabbed a bottle of liquid soap and lathered up her hands. She scrubbed her forearms and washed her face, found a towel that appeared relatively clean, and dried off. Then she dabbed the spatters of blood from her sweater with some tissue until it was no longer visible.
She’d been watching CSI long enough to know they’d be able to find enough blood on her to send her away for good. But she didn’t plan to stick around long enough for that to happen.
She leaned on the edge of the sink, looked at her reflection, and took some deep breaths. Then she lifted her right hand and rubbed her eyes with thumb and fingers. A headache was creeping in like a morning fog, gathering behind her eyes. She was beginning to feel achy, probably because every muscle in her body had been so tense for so long.