“Hey. What’s up?” he asked, closing the door softly. I huffed and glared at him,
“You’re late.” He pushed his hood down from his face, revealing his long, dark hair no longer caught up in the loose bun from earlier. I watched the frown cross his face as he looked at the dashboard clock.
“Yeah, by two minutes. Are you seriously mad about that?”
Why am I mad?
I didn’t know what I was mad about, I just needed to be mad at him. Turning away instead of answering, I shoved the key in the ignition and started the car. I’d already got the route ready on my phone, so I didn’t need to talk and right now I was thankful for that. We sat in silence as I pulled away from the curb and started down the road. The streets were empty at this time, even though it was still a little light; there wasn’t exactly a bustling nightlife scene. As we drove along, curtains twitched and shadows graced the windows.
Probably the local neighbourhood watch outraged that someone dared to drive down the street.
The atmosphere in the car was about as welcoming as the houses outside. Part of me felt bad for snapping at Caden for being two minutes late; he didn’t deserve it. But I was trying very hard to fight against the fact that I was beginning to like him, in case this all turned out to be nothing but another dead end. I was sure once the adventure disappeared, so would he. We passed the last of the houses, pulling out onto the main road which was thankfully pretty empty. I saw two cars go the other way, their headlights momentarily blinding me before fading into the shadows and leaving us alone in our bubble. Clearly it was a good night for sneaking around.
The silence stretched on as Caden resolutely stared out of the window. I was itching to say something but instead I turned on the radio. The car was filled with an awful screeching sound, causing us both to jump, followed by static. My hand scrabbled as I frantically tried to turn it off. Eventually, Caden reached over and pressed the button, returning us to our bubble of solitude. I half smiled, hands back on the steering wheel, checking the sat nav.
“Your destination is ahead on the right,” The tinny voice of the sat nav filled the heavy silence.
It only took another couple of minutes and we were pulling into the industrial estate. Caden sat up from his slouch, looking around at the buildings we passed. I, on the other hand, was scanning for any witnesses. Luckily, I didn’t see anyone as we reached the building we needed and seconds later I had turned off the car, plunging us into dreary darkness. Neither me or Caden moved, the only sound our breathing. I could feel the tension building up as he stewed.
This whole night will be a bust if neither of you talk to each other. Get it together Ari.
Unbuckling my seatbelt, I turned to face him with my leg tucked underneath me, one knee leaning on the handbrake. Even in the low light I saw his eyes flick over to me and then back to the dash.
“I’m sorry.” Now that I’d said it, I couldn’t take it back. There was another moment of charged silence, the air in the car seeming to move like molasses before his shoulders relaxed.
“It’s okay.” We didn’t say anything else. I grabbed my backpack from the back seat and opened the car door, careful to shut it quietly. Everything seemed to echo in the open space, even footsteps. As Caden walked around the car to meet me, his steps ricocheted off the concrete. Together we slunk towards the building. From the outside it looked pretty unremarkable, a large grey cube with metal panelled siding and no windows. As we approached, I pulled my torch out of my backpack to shine on the door. The doors were also metal, secured with a chain and padlock which didn’t seem particularly high tech.
Maybe this is just another empty warehouse. It doesn’t seem like a high-tech underground research facility.
Caden stopped at the door, fumbling with something in his pocket while I started walking around the rest of the building, looking for any kind of clue as to what was in here. At the back of the building, looking out onto fields, a bunch of material had been dumped. Kicking at it with my feet, I identified some chicken wire and a bunch of old padlocks. Nothing was branded and nothing gave any indication that Eli or GAI had ever been here. Suddenly, the air was shattered by a loud clang followed by a clattering of metal. I stilled, the sound echoin across the space, waiting for the ensuing cars or people to come running. The rest of the world stayed silent. After a couple of breaths, I made my way to the front of the building. Caden was nowhere to be seen. I jogged forward, ready to start yelling his name when I saw the padlock and chain in a heap on the floor. The front doors were slightly ajar and inside I could see a flickering light. Turning off the torch I slipped through the doors, my backpack dangling by my waist so it didn’t get caught. As soon as I was through, a hand shot out and grabbed my wrist.
“Shiii…!”
“Shhh. You wanna get us caught?” Caden’s voice came from the darkness, the eerie space around us making it all the more creepy. I prayed my heart would stay in my chest as I answered,
“You’re the one who broke into a building!” I snapped, making sure to keep my voice low. Caden released my wrist and stepped forward, coming into the staccato of the flickering light. Shadows danced across his face, slightly green hued as he grinned at me. In this light even his All-American smile looked creepy, stretched by the sporadic flashes from the bulb.
“You wanted to know what was in here didn’t you? Now you can.” I tried to tell myself I should walk out and leave the building, and Caden, behind but I couldn’t do it. Now that we were in, the desire to look around was growing.
“How did you even get in?” I hissed. He held up a contorted paperclip and winked.
I don’t want to know how he learnt that.
Instead of interrogating Caden on his previous lockpicking antics, I walked forwards. Scuttling accompanied my footsteps, most likely rats, and I prayed they wouldn’t scuttle over my feet. I was balanced on a razor’s edge with my nerves as it was. The room seemed mostly full of old, damp cardboard boxes littered on metal tables. At the far end of the room was, weirdly, another room erected from plywood boards. I could hear Caden picking his way across the floor behind me, catching his feet every so often on some of the metal wiring that had been strewn across the floor. The flicking light was at the far end of the building, a single bulb that was clinging on to life, illuminating tiny blasts of the room every couple of seconds. Everything had a damp feel to it, a musty smell, the darkness more cloying than the star-guarded air outside. I did not like it. But there had to be something in here. I was sure of it now. Caden appeared by my shoulder as I paused to look at the smaller room; he tapped my arm and I turned to face him.
“I’ll start looking in the boxes. You take that room.” I nodded and made my way to the rectangle in the plywood that appeared to be a door. There was no padlock on this one but there also wasn’t a handle. I shoved my shoulder against it and felt the wood give way a little. On the next shove, I heard a splintering sound.
I’m gonna go crashing through this door, I can see it. I hope there’s not a rats’ nest or something the other side.
Taking a deep breath, I shoved the door a final time and felt it completely give way, sending me tumbling through. There was no light whatsoever managing to filter into this room and the smell had only increased. Wrinkling my nose, I shone the torch around and suppressed a whimper. Most of the room was taken up by another metal table, but this one seemed to be stained a rusted colour that looked decidedly like dried blood. With a hand over my mouth, I edged forward, careful to avoid touching the table itself. Up close I could see the blood splatters, now completely oxidised. Next to the metal table was a stand with a tray. As I looked at the tray, my breath caught in my throat. On it sat a handful of needles, the exact same as the one that was found in Eli’s room.
Please don’t let that be his blood.
My stomach churned at the thought. Moving around the stand, I started towards the back of the room, torchlight shaking as I tried not to look at the table again. The very back o
f the room contained a small workbench, again made from metal. On it was a stack of papers and something covered in black material. I wedged the torch into a gap between some of the equipment so it was shining on the papers and pulled some gloves out of my pocket.
It would be just my luck that I’d pick up something nasty.
The top paper was the same article I’d found in Eli’s notebook, talking about the HFEA. I moved that one aside and rifled through the rest of the stack; a lot of them were similar articles, focussing on the use of rats in embryo research. I paused at the last piece of paper, eyes straining to make out the words. Unlike the other papers, all of which seemed to be printed off articles, this one looked handwritten; or at least a photocopy of something handwritten. The only words I could make out from the scrawled writing were ‘Test Subject 1’ and ‘not viable’; the rest was illegible, the scrawl more like a bunch of wiggly lines. Going to return it to the pile, I passed over the beam of the torch, one word standing out on the back of the last paper. Turning it over, I couldn’t help the small grin that tugged at my lips.
‘Genetics Advancement Institute’ was written across the top of the page, along with the address of this industrial estate. It looked like headed paper of some kind, although most of the header had faded. I tried to make out the rest but it was too degraded.
But, this proves GAI were connected to Eli’s disappearance. Maybe I should take this as evidence… Although, if anyone comes back to check on this place and sees anything out of place, they might go too far underground for me to find again.
I replaced it at the bottom of the stack, making sure they were as neatly lined up as they had been when I came in. The only other thing left unturned in the room was the covered box to my right. I almost left it, since I’d at least gotten something useful already but the niggling voice in the back of my head told me it could have been important. As soon as I moved a corner of the fabric covering it, an intense, musty smell wafted up. There was an undertone of something mixed in, almost sweet but still wrong somehow. I couldn’t quite make it out. Before I changed my mind, I flicked the fabric away from the box and realised it wasn’t a box at all.
It was a cage.
The bottom was covered in sawdust and there was a food bowl and water bottle tucked in the corner. Whatever had been in here had clearly been a rodent of some kind, judging by the droppings… and the smell. As I went to cover the cage back up, something tucked in the far back corner caught my eye. I was trying to make it out when the realisation hit me.
Don’t throw up. Do not throw up in here.
A dead rat was curled in the back corner, starting to decay, finally putting a name to that sweet-but-off smell. But it wasn’t completely normal. Even from outside the cage, I could see that the tail wasn’t bare skin as normal rats’ tails were but covered in scales and bony feathers stuck from the very end. It didn’t take much to come to the conclusion that the rat had been used for some kind of experiment. My mouth twisted in sympathy and I covered the cage back up. I’d seen enough. Quickly, I made my way back around the table and out into the main room. I could see Caden’s shadow moving over by the furthest wall, so I began to make my way over there. I didn’t know how much to tell him. I couldn’t tell him about GAI, not when I barely knew about them or what they meant. I was still chewing my lip as I walked within reach of him. He paused as he heard my footsteps, his hands rifling through one of the cardboard boxes. I hoped he had gloves on.
“Did you find anything?” he whispered, even though we were the only ones in here. I got it though; I didn’t want to talk loudly. I felt like we were being watched.
“Kind of.” How much should I tell him? “I found needles that were exactly the same as the one the police found in Eli’s room.” I trailed off, letting him take that in. His shoulders tightened and he paused for a moment before he turned around and pulled me in for a hug. My brain short-circuited briefly before I hugged him back. When he pulled away, I couldn’t see his face.
“I’m sorry Ari.” Hearing him call me Ari was a bit of a punch in the gut. Eli was the only person who had called me Ari. “I know it must be hard finding all of this.” It wasn’t great but I’d been searching for so long, part of me was actually happy to find something, even if it was a metal table covered in blood and a deformed rat. Not that Caden needed to know about that. I mumbled something non-committal, thankful that most of my face would be in darkness then cleared my throat,
“Did you find anything?” Looking around at the reams of cardboard boxes, I was hopeful he had found at least one more piece of the puzzle.
“I found a lot of medical equipment, like the vacuum-packed sterile stuff, and some really old food.”
Oh.
“Oh. Well at least I found the needle, that means we’re on the right track.” He murmured in agreement and closed the cardboard box he’d been looking through. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t think we’re going to find much else.” I tugged on his sleeve and we started walking towards the door. Checking my phone, I was relieved to see we’d only been here for an hour which meant we could get back and I could get in the house before my parents asked any questions. Outside, the sky was completely dark, the moon barely a slither. Caden shut the doors and locked the building back up, the padlock clicking easily into place like we’d never been here. As I waited for him, I looked out over the fields that surrounded the industrial estate. Without the light pollution from the streets, the stars were really easy to see. Looking up at them felt more peaceful than I’d been in years. I didn’t even realise that Caden had walked up next to me until he touched my arm. I jumped, flashing him a quick smile but I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the stars.
“Eli used to point out all the stars to me when we were little. We’d go into the garden after we thought our parents had gone to sleep and sit on the grass and then make shapes out of the stars. I’m pretty sure my parents knew but they never stopped us.” I hugged my arms to my chest at the memory, surprised when Caden’s arm came around me as well.
“My little brother loved learning all the constellations. He was so good at it.” I stilled, not wanting to say anything and interrupt him. I didn’t know anything about Caden’s personal life and I didn’t want him to clam up now. “He even won a prize for a model he made of them. I was never that smart.” His voice was so soft and wistful, and I didn’t need to see his face to know he was smiling. He hugged my shoulders once before dropping his arm and walking towards my car. I waited a few seconds before I followed him, hating how my shoulders felt cold now.
Do I feel like this because I trust him or because I like him?
He’d risked his life for me twice and now he’d talked to me about his family. Plus, the more I was around him, the more I could see why he and Eli got on. I told myself I liked Caden because he reminded me of Eli but as he made another joke about the size of my car, I wondered if maybe I liked him for himself.
Chapter 5
I spent the weekend researching everything I could find about GAI. They were difficult to pin down, with nowhere listing an address or any credible information really. If it hadn’t been for Eli’s notebook, I would never have found the industrial estate. That, it seemed, was the only helpful thing in the notebooks though. I’d leafed through each one, back to front, and so far, all I’d concluded was that Eli really needed to work on his penmanship. It was almost as bad as the writing I’d found in GAI’s old building. I sat back in my desk chair, spinning it around as I tried to figure out my next move. I couldn’t go back to the building, not this soon, but as it was, I didn’t have any more leads. I’d even researched experimentation on rats but that had brought me back in a full circle to the articles in Eli’s journal talking about embryo and stem cell research. There was nothing about rats with scales and feathers, although I doubt there would have been. From what I’d read, even the embryo research was strictly monitored by multiple agencies because of moral concerns raised by the public, so rats that had be
en modified to have scales would definitely have come under fire.
I glanced at my phone again as I spun around but the screen was still black. Caden hadn’t contacted me since I dropped him off at the campus over three days ago. Given the possibly illegal activities and the sharing of personal memories, I had at least expected a text. Maybe even a phone call. But no, I’d had zilch. He’d been quiet on the way back in the car, playing with the sleeve of his hoodie and only talking when I directly asked a question. It was almost like telling me about his brother had made him take a giant step in the other direction. Weirdly, I felt the exact opposite; I’d had a lot of time to think whilst he hadn’t been texting me and everything he’d done had shown that I could trust him. I was bursting to tell him the other stuff I’d found in the building, but first I needed to tell him everything I hadn’t said originally and for that, I needed to talk to him. I stopped spinning around on the chair with a jerk, staring at my phone. Maybe if I concentrated enough… the screen lit up with a buzz and I leapt towards it only to slump backwards when I realised it was just a text from Becca. She was talking to me again, but I knew she was worried I was getting too wrapped up in looking for Eli. Obviously, she didn’t know the half of what I’d done but she could tell I was doing more than just sifting through my own memories.
Throwing my phone back on the desk, I stood up, stretching. I had barely stood up today and my muscles were letting me know. Even my desk chair had taken on a butt-shaped imprint. Padding across my carpet, I grabbed a clean top out of my wardrobe and wandered to the bathroom, wanting to feel at least a little bit refreshed even if I had no plans to leave my room for the rest of the day. I caught sight of my own face in the bathroom mirror as I splashed water on my arms and neck. Did I look like Eli? I could kind of see the sibling resemblance between us but where he was harsh, I was soft. He had obvious cheekbones and a strong jaw, and my face was rounded with a button nose. His hair had always been short, a messy halo around his head in a sunlight-dappled blonde whereas my hair fell in dark waves to my chest. He was tall, I was short, he was toned, I was curvy. The only thing that we had exactly the same were our eyes, both a sea green colour. The longer it was, the harder it got to remember him, but I knew his eyes. He used to tell me that we could talk to each other in our minds because of our eyes and, up until I went to secondary school, I believed him. Shaking away the memory and wiping the water off my arms, I pulled my old t-shirt off and put the clean one on before walking back to my room. The t-shirt went in the laundry basket and a purple pillow from my bed joined the campout at the desk (to save my butt and the chair). Sinking back into the chair, I cast a quick glance at my phone and paused when I saw the little light flashing that told me I had a message.
Under Loch and Key Page 7