“Jake.” Cal walked over and took the remote. “Go change your clothes.”
“I’m going.” Jake stepped over the walker. “And look at the mess he made. One small human being should not be making this much of a . . .” Jake paused. He bent down to the floor and picked up a red and white cardboard envelope. “Cal?” He turned around and held it up.
“Whoops.” Cal hurried to him and tried to take it. Jake held it from her reach.
“Are these our airline tickets to Atlanta for Monday?” Jake peeked in. “Why are the edges chewed?”
“Sorry.”
“I’ll put these away so they don’t become any more baby food.” Jake moved to the steps.
“Let’s not go,” Cal said, causing Jake to stop.
“We have to.” Jake hesitated before walking up the steps.
“Tell them to send the papers, Jake. I don’t feel like going.”
“Cal, like the wedding dress lady you keep blowing off, just go and get it over with. Okay?” Jake waited for a response. “Okay?”
“Okay, but you don’t want to go either.”
“Why would you say that?” Jake asked.
“Your face when you took that call.”
Jake took a deep breath. “It just took me by surprise.”
“Are you sure that’s it?” Cal asked.
“Positive. I’m going up to change. Now take care of that kid before he destroys my house any further.” Jake stood on the steps and watched Cal go over to the baby. He looked at the tickets again, and started up the stairs. The trip to Caldwell was now a reality, and he was looking at that reality in his hands. He hated not being honest with Cal, yet he had to do it. If Cal knew the reason Caldwell called, and it didn’t pan out--and there was a big chance of that--then Cal could be in for a world of hurt and let down. And since Jake vowed from the moment he met Cal to protect her, in his mind, not telling her the whole truth was protecting her.
Chicago, Illinois
March 11th - 11:40 p.m.
Billy chomped on the crust of his pizza as he flipped through another page of Cal’s high school yearbook. He chuckled and shook his head at her senior picture. “You’ve definitely gotten better with age.”
Not that he thought Cal was all that bad looking, it’s just he believed she was much too thin and boyish. Not much was mentioned under her name. She had good grades in high school and the teacher that he contacted at the school was able to tell Billy that Cal went on to become a teacher despite the fact that she was pregnant when she left high school.
The pregnancy and child information baffled Billy. How could she up and go on an experiment leaving her child behind? And Billy’s answer came when he traced her schooling and teaching to a small catholic school in Pennsylvania. A place she taught for years. Billy felt as if he hit the jackpot when he spoke to the gullible secretary at the school, telling her he had gone to high school with Cal. The secretary passed the message on, and the respondent to that message was a David Martinez, a music teacher there, Cal’s freshly former and slightly bitter fiancé’. And, according to David, Cal no longer lived in the state. She picked up and moved to North Carolina with some ‘big’ army guy, and she hadn’t taught at St. Joan’s in eighteen months. She quit shortly after her daughter, Jessie, was murdered by Cal’s ex-husband in a murder-suicide.
It all made sense. Hence the experiment. Cal’s escapism after her daughter’s death. Caleen Lambert-Reynolds was easy to find out about. She spoke to people, never left a bad impression. People remembered her, and little ‘I heard this’ clues led Billy on an eight hour easy information ride that pretty much painted his picture of Cal up until her daughter died.
But Major, or rather Lt. Col. Jacob Graison, was a whole other story. Even his credit history was highly classified. The most information he received was when Senator Johnson gave him the name of a friend at the Pentagon, and that lead still didn’t work as well as Billy had hoped. Three relatable pieces of information were all that Billy could get. One, the Lt. Colonel had been in the service nineteen years and worked his way up. Two, he was trained as and still trained the United States Army Rangers. And lastly, he had no family to contact. His entire immediate family was killed when he was a teenager.
Cal and Jake had so much in common, staunch military backgrounds, no family, and both had suffered horrendous tragedies in their lives. Billy wondered if these were keys to their being chosen to go, or better yet, their eventual success in the experiment.
Whatever the reasons, Billy would find out. He had a firm groundwork started. He had years to build up, and he fully intended on doing so. Learning about Cal and Jake, who they were and what they were, would teach Billy what he needed to learn, and what he had to be to be chosen as a participant in the next Iso-Stasis experiment. And that’s where Billy’s journalistic and personal objectives had to lie.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
March 14th - 5:45 a.m.
“Again.” Jake spoke in a near order. Steam came from his mouth as he talked, the contrast of his warm breath against the chilly morning air.
With a grunt, fist closed, arms tight to her in a defensive mode, Cal pivoted her body and swung her right leg up and out.
Jake grabbed her foot. “Nope.” He set it down.
Cal caught her balance. They were dressed alike. Gray sweat pants, white tank-style tee shirts. And even though it was cool out, they both exhibited signs of sweating.
“Again,” Jake told her.
Grunt, swing, catch.
“Cal, come on.” Jake let go of her foot. “You’re wearing down on me. You’re getting slow.”
“Fuck you.”
“Hey.”
Cal tightened her ponytail. “You’ve had me doing this for a while. We just ran three miles Jake.”
“In which you couldn’t keep up.”
“I thought it was our normal run, asshole.”
“No, no.” Jake held up his finger to her. “I told you, back to competing. Keeps things exciting between us.”
“Like the fighting doesn’t,” Cal mumbled.
“Excuse me?”
“Nothing.”
Jake folded his arms and looked down at Cal. “Again.”
First Cal huffed, and then she kicked. Her leg caught mid-swing, again. “Jake.”
“No, Cal.” Jake held her foot. “You’re having a problem with your kicks.”
“I’m having a problem with you. You’re fast, Jake. Anyone normal is not this fast.”
“And what happens if you go up against someone fast, huh? You cannot assume, Cal.” Jake told her as he still held on. “You should always assume your enemy is good. Never underestimate. Never. And if I was the enemy, you’d be screwed right now. What would you do?”
“This.” With an angry huff and grunt, Cal, using Jake’s hold on her as leverage, lifted her body in a quick jump. Then, bringing her left leg up from behind her, she flipped in a backwards spin, nailing Jake by surprise, and hard, in the jaw. Jake’s head flung to the right, and he released her foot. Cal dropped, catching her balance before she fell entirely to the ground. With her mouth open and breathing heavily, Cal, a little frightened, watched Jake.
Jake grabbed his jaw, his fingers touching the corner of his mouth as he slowly, tauntingly, lifted his head while giving a piercing stare at Cal. He pulled his fingers from his mouth and looked at the blood that was there.
Cal’s eyes widened when she saw him glance from his bloody fingertips to her with a madman stare. “Oh, shit.” She backed up, turned, and took off running.
Jake watched Cal run at an impressive top speed from the training area and down the hill. He ran the back of his hand across his mouth, wiped the blood on the side of his pants, and then while grabbing his jaw again, Jake smiled.
Caldwell Research Institute - Atlanta, GA
March 14th - 9:15 a.m.
The institute offered to give him a haircut for the big day, but he respectfully
declined, stating his ‘Do’ definitely needed some leverage in the length department and he’d just tuck it like a babe behind his ears.
His hair was blonde, but nearer to brown, with no style, and in a growing phase he claimed began after the Sarge-guy shaved him bald. He was thin and not too tall. Not a muscle on his body, yet he flexed often. Ricardo ‘Rickie’ Carteri was eighteen going on twelve.
Greg grew tired of having to turn off the cartoons while speaking to Rickie who sat Indian style on his bed watching. And Greg knew at that moment if someone asked him if he would miss Rickie when Rickie left the institute, he would have to say, that after the week that seemed like a year . . . no.
Greg had a hard time believing it, but he was eventually convinced. It took the reviewing of Iso-Stasis Experiment twelve tapes and multitudes of conversations with Stan for Greg to realize that, unlike what he thought, Rickie wasn’t mentally defective after the metamorphosis.
“Rickie,” Greg stated his name, grabbed the remote and shut of the television again. “Do you understand those?” Greg indicated the contract-looking document just laying half opened on Rickie’s lap.
“Dude, like, I signed them, right?”
“Yes, but I want to be sure,” Greg said. “Did you read them?”
“Only the really interesting parts. Now can I, like, watch the toons again?”
“No, Rickie. One more time. Rickie. Rickie?” Greg drew his attention away from watching the blank screen. “Any questions?”
“When’s the Cal-babe and Sarge get here?”
“I mean about the agreement?”
“What agreement?” Rickie asked.
“The papers you signed.”
“Oh,” Rickie lifted them. There was a small chocolate smudge on the left corner. “No questions. I, like, had a problem with the date until Dr. J. said it was right. Wow, six weeks I was like missing from the planet.”
Greg was giving up. “Yes, well, death will do that to you.”
Rickie snickered.
“I’ll make a copy of this and Nurse Leon can pack it with the clothes we got for you.”
“She’s a babe.”
Greg hesitated. “You think? I don’t find her especially attractive.”
“That’s because you’re old.”
“Thanks.”
“Not a problem. So, like, when is Cal-babe and Sarge picking me up?”
“They should be here in the next two hours.”
“Cool.” Rickie grabbed the remote.
Greg, seeing Rickie’s attention turn back to the television, decided to leave. He paused by the door. “Rickie, one more thing. Jake and Cal don’t know completely about you. We’re informing them today that everything is fine. We didn’t want to tell them until we were positive.”
“Okay.” Rickie laughed at the television.
“Are you sure they’re gonna want you to live with them? Because we can make preparations to secure other housing for you.”
“Dude.” Rickie set down the remote. “Like, they loved me. I was their adopted kid.”
“If you say so.” Greg opened the door. “We’ll send for you after they arrive. It may be a shock seeing you, so don’t come off too strong at first, okay?”
“Me? Dude, I’m mellow. They won’t even notice me.”
Somehow, Greg didn’t quite believe that, but what choice did he have. “I’ll have a copy of this for you.” Greg held up the contract and saw he received no response. He felt like he was dealing with one of his own kids when they were younger. Upon his leaving, Greg, just to be on the safe side, decided to prepare a secondary place for Rickie to be released to.
Las Vegas, Nevada
March 14th - 7:00 a.m. PST
Aldo never minded being woken up for important business. And he even realized that people on the east coast became time-zone illiterate when they got excited. But it was a good call. Ivan Petropolis received a check for one third of the eight million dollar experiment pool. He was Rickie’s investor. And by Caldwell releasing the check to Ivan, that told Aldo the tests were complete. Rickie was normal. Or about as normal as Rickie could get. Eating his breakfast and drinking his coffee, Aldo imagined in his mind Cal’s face when she saw and touched Rickie. He was happy for her, and he couldn’t wait until he knew it was safe enough to call her about it. Even though Aldo wanted to tell her about Rickie earlier with the news that he was fine, Aldo now didn’t want to ruin what could be one of the best surprises of her life.
First Class Section - Mid-flight to Atlanta, GA
March 14th - 10:20 a.m.
“What?” Jake asked, clueless when Cal tossed the pamphlet at him and turned from him facing the other way. “It’s a great idea.”
“Get your deposit back Jake, or you go on that honeymoon alone.”
“Cal, look at this.” He tried to show her. “Cabins, fireplaces, wooded area, seclusion.”
“It’s a survival fitness camp, Jake. No.” Cal pushed his hand away. “We spent seven months like that. No.”
“Fine.” Jake started to put the pamphlet away when he saw the stewardess, an older woman, walking down the aisle. “Wait, Cal, let’s get a third party’s opinion.”
Cal saw who Jake was looking at. “If she says no, will you stop with it?”
“Yes.” Jake signaled for the stewardess. “Ma’am.”
“Yes sir?” She bent in toward the two seats.
“Could you solve something for us?” He handed her the pamphlet. “Take a look at this and tell me if this isn’t a great honeymoon idea.”
Slowly the stewardess opened the pamphlet. Her eyes, filled with pity, shifted to Cal. She quickly closed it. “I’d say it’s an absurd honeymoon idea.” She handed it back. “I’m sorry, honey.” She laid her hand on Cal’s shoulder.
Jake’s mouth dropped open as the stewardess moved on. “She didn’t even read it.”
“Jake, you lose. She was the deciding factor.”
“Fine. No survival honeymoon.” Jake rolled up his pamphlet. “I’ll try something else.”
“Like something romantic.”
“This is romantic. I thought it would be great.”
“Jake, you would. You get sexually aroused by near-death experiences.”
“Cal, please. Moderately excited.”
“I stand corrected.” Cal looked over at him. “Speaking of moderately excited, how’s that jaw?”
“Great. It hurts. Good job.” Jake shifted it back and forth. He grabbed Cal’s hand and felt that it was clammy. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I don’t want to go to this,” Cal said with antsyness.
“It’ll be over soon.”
“I know. I just want to put it all behind me and move on. But we’re flying to the institute, and you’re showing me pamphlets of an Iso-Stasis honeymoon. Everywhere I look there’s a reminder of it.”
“And there always will be.”
“What do you mean?”
“Me.” Jake faced her. “Where did you meet me?”
“There you have it.” Cal lifted her hand and dropped it. “The biggest painful reminder.”
Jake said nothing for a second. He watched her serious face smile. “Oh, you’re joking. I get it. Kidding with me. Funny.” Jake forced a smile. “But could you let me know ahead of time that you’re going to joke so I don’t take you serious? I hate being ill-prepared.”
“How about I give you a two minute warning?” Cal asked with sarcasm.
Jake nodded, pleased. “Thanks. That’ll work.” When Cal shook her head at him, he shrugged and returned to sitting normally in his seat. He peered at the window momentarily, then unrolled that pamphlet in his hand, glancing down at it like a kid who failed to get what he wanted for Christmas.
Caldwell Research Institute - Atlanta, GA
March 14th - 11:20 a.m.
“The stewardess. The pilot. The ticket taker.” Cal rattled off a list as her and Jake walked down the hall in the office division of the institute. “Th
e security guard.”
“Make your point.” Jake walked quickly with Cal.
“My point? Is there anyone else today you can possibly be rude to?”
“Cal, do you think I care?”
“Well, don’t you think that you should . . .” Cal stopped walking. “Hey.” She smiled. “This is where I ran into you.”
“Other end,” Jake said.
“You’re right.”
“I know.” Jake reached for the office door and stopped.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look.” He pointed to the name plate on the door. “Who the fuck is Dr. Gregory Haynes?”
“My best guess, the next person you insult.”
Jake just glared at her, turned the knob on the door, pushed it open, and allowed Cal to walk in first.
^^^^
With the well-presented manuscript entitled ‘The Iso-Stasis Experiment: Merited’ lying on his lap, Billy sat in the former office of Dr. Jefferson and across from Greg. He reviewed some of the twenty-nine page preliminary report of experiment twelve, which had not yet been released to the institutions who awaited it. There was more silence in the office than talking. Still, Billy kept the pocket tape recorder going the whole time. Greg sat behind the huge desk, fingers forming a triangle and pressed under his chin.
“So.” Billy flipped a page. “A gas explosion occurred three weeks prior to the experiment’s end?”
“Yes.”
“Taking out all but John and Jane Doe. Who remained for the rest of the experiment?”
“Yes. Rules are rules.”
“Rules sir?” Billy looked up. “Sounds to me like you’re talking about a game.”
Greg smiled slightly. “More like if they want their compensation they have to stay.”
“The other participant . . .”
“As you can see in the report, three had broken mentally prior to the explosion. One was killed by a wolf attack. Wolves, as you know, are a big problem in that area.”
Amoeba (The Experiments) Page 7