Under Loch and Key

by Kathryn Cockrill

  “Why won’t you let me see your phone?” His smile dropped. I crossed my arms as I waited for him to respond. On our lane, Becca had just harpooned the bowling ball towards the pins. It did not hit any of them. She skulked back to us, sulking as Jake jibed that she had proven how it was not done. Eli pocketed his phone,

  “It’s my turn.” He murmured to me, avoiding my eyes. I sat back against the hard, plastic bench as he went up to bowl. He didn’t normally hide anything from me. I startled as I realised Jake was watching me.

  “He’s probably talking to a girl and doesn’t want you to see, A. I wouldn’t worry.” He shot me a small smile, and I felt myself smiling back, even though most of me didn’t feel like it. Jake was good at that, making people feel happy despite themselves. A power he mercilessly abused on Becca, mostly when we were bowling so she didn’t stay mad at him. I uncrossed my arms and grinned down at Becca who was pouting as she watched Eli knock her further down the leader board.

  “Don’t stress Becca. I’ve got to go yet, and we all know I’m awful.” Eli walked past and sat back in the seat, but I refused to look at him. Instead I stood up to take my turn, selecting a ball at random and chucking it with no amount of grace down the lane. Somehow, it hit one of the pins, toppling it over, edging me past Becca’s score. I turned back with a guilty smile to see her mock-glaring at me. Jake high-fived me as I made my way to my seat on the bench. I still refused to look at Eli, even though I could feel him trying to get my attention. Becca spun round in her seat to have a go at me but stopped when she saw me resolutely ignoring Eli,

  “A, are you...

  okay?” I shook myself out of the memory to find Becca peering at me, one hand on my arm. Jake was behind her, watching with worried eyes. Our scoreboard blinked on the screen, the timer ticking down.

  “Yeah, sorry. How long did I zone out for?” I forced a smile on my face but didn’t miss the glance they shared. Jake checked the timer on the screen,

  “About five minutes. We thought you’d fallen asleep with your eyes open at first.”

  “No. I just…I remembered another memory.” They shared another glance and this time, it definitely wasn’t as subtle.

  “The same one?” Becca asked gently. I moved my arm out from under her hand, hating the look in her eyes. It looked like pity.

  “No, this one was here. You two were both in it. It’s when we went bowling with Eli just before the start of Year 13.” Jake’s face lit up,

  “Oh yeah, I remember that! It was when we all wiped the floor with Becca. That was the last time we all hung ou…” he trailed off as he realised what he was saying, and Becca elbowed him in the stomach.

  “Yeah, that was a couple of months before he disappeared. I’ve never even thought about that day since then, it was weird. But I was so mad at Eli, he wouldn’t show me what was on his phone.” Neither of them responded. I sighed, pulling at a lock of hair that had fallen in front of my face. “I know you guys are worried but I’m okay. Just confused as to why I’m suddenly remembering stuff from years ago.” I smiled at them both and stood up, “Right. Time to bowl. I plan to wipe the floor with the both of you.”

  It wasn’t until I was on my way home that I let the smile slip from my face. Something was bothering me about the memories. I rarely ever had flashbacks to Eli, not anymore. I think I’d gotten so used to everyone else pretending he never existed that I’d started to lose him too. But two flashbacks in one day, triggered by places I’d been to multiple times since his disappearance was definitely weird. I chewed my lip as I turned into the driveway, putting the handbrake on with more force than necessary. I didn’t get out of the car straight away. Instead, I opened the glove compartment and took out the notebook I’d stashed in there when everyone had given up on finding Eli. It was battered now, the pages bent from my fingers flicking through them so many times. I’d read and re-read every page in this notebook over the past three years so often I probably could have recited it. Not that there was anyone I could recite it to. Most of what Eli wrote hadn’t made any sense to me, but after the memory in Coffee Cup, I’d realised that one word had been repeated a lot. Gene. A lot of the time I didn’t press what Eli had been doing, the research. I’d known it was to do with biology and he’d drawn a lot of animal diagrams, but he’d never decided to explain it to me. What I did remember was that, the things I had overheard, sounded like they probably weren’t legal. Obviously, he was just researching it hypothetically, but that’s why I’d kept it from the police three years ago. I didn’t want him to come across as the villain in this, not for a hobby. I put the notebook in my backpack and climbed out of the car. My parents would be asleep by now, so I wasn’t going to have to pretend to be okay in front of them at least. I walked through the house and up to my room quickly. The door shut with an audible click…

  and I looked up to see Eli in my doorway. He wouldn’t look at me; instead he was looking at the floor, one sock scuffing my carpet.

  “What do you want Eli?” My words came out sharper than intended and I felt guilty as he flinched. Taking a deep breath, he looked up to meet my gaze. When he looked like this, I forgot he was the older sibling by almost six years. He was the one who was already at uni. But stood in my doorway he looked like a child.

  “I’m sorry Ari. For turning my phone away from you. I know it’s not a massive thing, but I know why you’re upset. It made you feel like I don’t trust you and I do. More than Mum and Dad, more than any of my friends. So, I’m sorry.” I stared at him for a few more seconds before shifting so I was sat up on my bed and smiled at him. His shoulders softened. We both knew I wasn’t mad at him anymore. When he made his way over to sit next to me seconds later, I could see he wanted to talk about something else but there was still something irking me,

  “Why didn’t you show me Eli? If you trust me, why didn’t you show me?” His shoulders hunched again, and I felt bad for making him uncomfortable, but I wanted to know. He was my brother. He shouldn’t be hiding stuff from me.

  “I don’t know. It’s not even that big of a deal. Look,” he pulled out his phone, opening his inbox. I leant forward but his hand was covering most of the emails. Thinking he was going to show me, I reached for his phone, but he jerked it away, dropping his hand for a few seconds, enough for me to see the sender of the top email, the unopened one.

  GAI.

  With hurried fingers Eli selected the email and pressed delete before locking his phone screen and turning back to me.

  “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone Ari? Now it looks like I did that as a reaction, but I was going to delete it anyway, that’s why I came in here.” He pushed his hair back from his face, the curly gold locks growing too long again. I was stuck. I felt like I should apologise but I was still a little bit hurt. I decided to say nothing and eventually, Eli sighed and pushed himself off the bed. He walked to my door and paused with his hand on the handle.

  “Ari…I’m still sorry...” The door opened, letting a sliver of the hallway light in.

  “I’m sorry too Eli.” I murmured as he slipped out. I don’t know if he heard me. As soon as my door had closed again, I flopped back onto the bed, telling myself that he wouldn’t be mad in the morning. I hoped not anyway. I heard him shuffling about in his room, the paper-thin walls letting far too much of the noise through. Instead of listening, I turned over and burrowed my head into the pillows.

  Hopefully he’d forget about the email by morning.

  The email. I wobbled as I settled back into reality, still stood by my door. On shaking legs, I made my way over to the bed, the memory another that I had apparently locked away. I’d completely forgotten how weird he’d acted over that email and the argument we’d had. He hadn’t been mad the next day, but there was definitely something off. After that he kept his stuff a little more private. I never said anything about it and neither did he, but in those few months just before his disappearance, I definitely felt like he was hiding something important from me. Grab
bing my laptop from where I’d abandoned it earlier in the day, I opened up my browser, tapping my fingers on the edge of the keyboard as I waited for it to load.

  GAI.

  I held my breath as I pressed search, the split second it took to appear feeling like an age.

  GAI, also known as the Genetics Advancement Institute was created in the early 2000’s by scientist Rick Laws. They have since been shut down due to legal and ethical violations.

  Underneath it listed the date of closure as 2015. That was only a couple of months after Eli went missing. I continued scrolling, eyes flitting over various news articles that explained the reasons behind the company’s closure. Most of them were vague, citing the same ‘legal and ethical violations’ as the summary had done and few expounded on what GAI actually did. Obviously, something to do with genetics but I couldn’t understand why that would have led to them being shut down. From what I could tell there wasn’t an official location connected with GAI; they could have been based anywhere. At the very bottom of the first page of search results was a blog entitled ‘The Gene Guider’. Clicking on it, I was confronted with various screenshots of the now defunct GAI website.

  GAI have come under fire again, and let’s be honest, none of us are surprised. They are flying far too close to the radar. Their website, which cites research into the scientific possibilities of embryo and stem cells to aid human health issues, has been called out for not revealing all of their intentions. The company recently put out a call for new scientists to work at their facility and, it seems, they should have been a bit more concerned with who they were letting in. One of the potential occupants left after the first interview, saying they had seen experiments that were nothing to do with stem cell research. Whilst the newspaper never released the report on what those experiments were, and GAI didn’t make an official statement, I think it’s safe to say that it must have been bad. We at The Gene Guider have our own theories; maybe some hybridisation? Mutations of the embryo’s? Let us know what you think in the comments!

  The writer of the post had inserted more pictures from the GAI website and its founder below that and when I scrolled down, I saw there were thousands of comments. A quick glance revealed they weren’t particularly positive. So why had the Genetic Advancement’s Institute sent an email to Eli? I pushed the laptop away again and pulled out Eli’s notebook, thumbing through the pages again. This time, another phrase stood out to me.

  Stem cell research.

  The rest of the writing underneath had faded but this phrase had clearly been indented into the page. Whatever Eli had written about it, he clearly felt it was important. I snapped the notebook shut and laid back onto the pillows. This was the first lead I’d had in over six months. I had no idea where to go with it though; with no location and a defunct company, there weren’t many avenues to follow. If Eli had been approached by GAI during the last few months before he disappeared, that meant it had probably happened whilst he was at university. He seemed to know who they were, even though he hadn’t opened the email. That’s the only reason I could think of that he would have reacted the way he did. So, it would stand to reason that he had received at least one more correspondence whilst at uni.

  I sat up again. What I needed was to talk to someone who would have been with Eli whilst he was at uni. Maybe someone in one of his classes or a lecturer. He was on a four-year course so they would all be in their final year, which meant that tracking one of them down wouldn’t be that difficult.

  But would he have opened his emails in a lecture?

  No. He would have done it somewhere private, like his room. I gasped aloud as the realisation hit me, and also admonished myself for not thinking of it earlier; because of the shortage of accommodation at Eli’s uni, he’d ended up with a roommate in first year. His roommate might have seen or heard something about GAI.

  Okay, this is actually a solid lead!

  I pulled out my own notebook with the research I’d been doing into Eli’s disappearance. Once the police had done their investigation they had, unknowingly, provided me with a list of people who could have helped. They’d interviewed every person on the list but had come up with nothing.

  Maybe it’s a case of asking the right questions…

  I quickly scanned the list, tracing my finger down the column with the subjects’ relation to Eli. Mostly they were lecturers, a few friends from home and employers, besides the family members, but on the back page were the words I’d been looking for.

  Caden ‘Cade’ Thomas – University Roommate.

  I grinned at the piece of paper in front of me. A quick search on my phone revealed that Caden had next to no security on any of his social media and, luckily for me, was still at the university, finishing his final year. Noting down his name and the dorm address, I put my notebook away and collapsed back onto the bed with a grin for the first time in a while.

  I hope you can help me Caden Thomas.

  Chapter 3

  I stood outside the main entrance to the university, trying to ignore the nerves that were unfurling in my stomach. It wasn’t like I hadn’t done this before. In the first year of my search I’d spoken to most of the people on the police list, but they were all from my town. I kind of knew them. This guy, Caden, was a complete stranger. All I knew about him was his name, dorm room and, from a blurry picture Eli had sent me from the first week of uni, what he looked like three years ago. I could have delved deeper into his social media but if I turned up knowing everything about him and then asked him for help locating my missing brother, that might come across a little creepy. I figured I’d just start with the missing brother. According to the address the police had listed, Caden had stayed in the same hall for his entire degree, which meant I, at least, had a vague search area. Ignoring the fact he could be in lectures, or at work, or out…

  It'll be fine. Stop worrying prematurely.

  I stepped onto the campus, hoping I blended in. I’d brought Eli’s old jumper out from the depths of my wardrobe and then stuck pretty casual. Given what I’d seen as I’d arrived, I’d done a good job. No one afforded me a second glance as I strode through, too focussed on their coffees and friends. I paused for a moment as I took it in,

  Maybe I should have done things differently and gone to uni rather than taking online courses.

  I watched three girls stroll past, laughing at something one of them said and felt a pang in my chest before taking a deep breath and shaking it off.

  Maybe if Eli hasn’t disappeared it would be different…

  I shook my head, banishing the rest of that thought. He had disappeared. I couldn’t go back and change my decisions now, especially not when they might actually bring me closer to finding him. I brought up the campus map I’d downloaded on my phone. The place was so big they’d separated it into different ‘villages’. I knew I needed the central village but, besides the safe guess that it was in the centre, I didn’t know how to get there. Tapping my screen to zoom in on the map, I looked around for a building I could match up; every building I’d walked past had a little plaque somewhere on the outside with its name, so it shouldn’t be that difficult. The nearest building to me was the Strathsbury building. I found it on the map and grinned; I was only a couple of minutes from the central village and, hopefully, my next lead. Setting off past Strathsbury, I continued walking up the pathway until blocks of accommodation appeared, looming out of the horizon. From here I could see there were a lot of blocks, but I had a block number too; 18. It didn’t take long to find 18, the same plaques on the accommodation blocks as on every other building I’d passed. As I considered my next move, a girl walked up to the block across from 18. She got to the door and passed something over a small box on the side which beeped and let her in.

  Shit.

  I hadn’t even thought about the fact the accommodation blocks would require key cards of some kind. Of course they would. Otherwise, random weirdos would be able to get wherever they wanted.

  Yo
u know you’re the random weird in this scenario right?

  I probably should have asked Becca before I got here but then she would have wanted to know why I wanted to know, and I didn’t need her looking at me with concern again. There was no way I could get into the block without a card and I definitely didn’t have one. Spotting a bench on the grass near the blocks I made my way over and sat there, keeping an eye on the doors of 18. If someone came out or someone went in, I could run over and grab the door, saying I’d forgot my key card. Crossing my arms, I settled back onto the bench, sincerely hoping it didn’t take too long; the benches were decidedly uncomfortable. The minutes ticked by, as did my patience.

  How much trouble would I get in for breaking a window and claiming I lost my keycard?

  As I sat contemplating a potential felony, a harried-looking girl hurried up to the doors of 18, struggling with a stack of books. I shot to my feet immediately, thankful that the stack of books she was carrying meant she was fumbling for her key card, and sauntered over, Eventually, she managed to swipe her card and nudged the door open with her elbow.

  She’s in, go, go, go!

  The door swung shut much quicker than it had opened clicking into place seconds before I reached it, panting.

  “No!” I tried the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge. Resting my forehead on the glass I tried to re-evaluate my plan. I couldn’t just sit around all day waiting for someone to appear and let me in-

  “You okay?” I spun around, already trying to come up with an excuse for whatever they’d seen, and froze.

  Caden?

  The guy in front of me was smirking, still waiting for an answer. His grey eyes watched me closely as I opened my mouth and floundered. That only increased the smirk. Taking a deep breath, aware that I needed to sound vaguely literate in order for this to work, I forced a smile,

  “Hi. Um, no, I’ve actually lost my key card. This is my block, could you help me…?” I trailed off, making sure I dropped my gaze on the last bit. He snorted quietly and I looked up to see him holding back a laugh.