Trispero Page 11

  Oh man, oh man. Jason barely got to the bridge before the car screeched to a stop behind him. The traffic on Montlake was completely backed up so there was no way the car could follow him. The lights on the drawbridge started to flash a warning. He knew he was supposed to stop, but there was no way he was going to do that today. He ducked under the gate and sprinted across the bridge as the bridge worker stuck his head out and yelled at him. The yells fell on deaf ears as Jason continued across the bridge. Safely on the other side with the bridge going up, Jason began to shake so badly he pulled off the sidewalk and puked until his breakfast covered the grass.

  The bridge was coming back down when Jason came back to his senses. He was standing right next to the parking lot for the hospital, and there were now three people wearing scrubs standing around him asking him if he was okay.

  “I’m sorry, it must have been something I had for breakfast.”

  As soon as they saw he was fine, they moved on. Jason got out his phone and punched in three numbers.

  “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

  “I was riding my bike over Montlake when a car tried to run me off the road.”

  “Are you injured? Do you need an ambulance?”

  “No, just scared. They were crazy and followed me.”

  “Are they still there? Are you in danger, sir?”

  “No, I lost them over the drawbridge.”

  “Did you get a license plate number, or can you describe the car?”

  Jason clenched his hands and stretched his feet before answering, “No mam n it was a late model blue sedan. I didn’t get the plates or see the driver.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I think the best thing would be if you came in and filed a report.”

  Jason knew she was right. “Thanks for your time.”

  Jason realized nobody would have seen anything. They would think he was a crazy scientist losing his mind. He got back on his bike then remembered Lily. I have to call the principal. He knew he had to move before they came back so he carried his bike up the pedestrian overpass to cross the street. At the top of the overpass, he made the call to Lily’s principal.

  “Mr. Roy, I’m going to her classroom right now to go check on her, okay? After hearing that Lily was safe, Jason was able to calm down and focus. It must have been the interview. They must be trying to scare me. They know where I ride my bike, what car I drive. What do I do now?

  Jason finished the ride to work and took his bike into his building. Instead of locking it in the bike cage he took it up the elevator to the lab. On the way up he had taken great care to stay in crowded areas except when going up the elevator. After securing his bike in the storage closet, he sought out his senior assistant, Spencer.

  “Hey, Spencer, how are things?” Jason asked.

  “Our sequencing finished last night around midnight. That thing has been running for weeks now.”

  Jason nodded. “I am having some issues with my daughter, so I will have to check things remotely this week.”

  “It’s too much data, Jason. You need to have a ton of bandwidth to run it from a remote desktop. Unless you are plugged in at another lab you aren’t going to be able to get it done.”

  Jason thought a moment. “All right, let’s transfer the information to my flashdrive so I can take it with me. Putting it on the cloud will be hard and not secure enough.”

  Almost everything they did was on the university’s cloud server these days, so the need for removable storage was not as common as it used to be. Jason and Spencer both went through their desks trying to find something big enough to work. Jason went through his desk and whenhe found something that would work, he laughed and held it up for Spencer to see. It was a scaled down version of his Mustang that doubled as a hard drive. You just opened the hood and it turned into a port you could plug in to your computer. It worked, but was really a gift Jason had never used so it had plenty of storage space for what he needed.

  Jason looked down at his watch. It’s not even lunch time yet. I need to figure things out before Lily gets out of school. Even with the direct connection it would probably take an hour to download and format the data. They set about getting the download started while Jason considered what his options were. I need to get out of town for a little while to figure things out. I can do my work remotely. I’ll also need to get schoolwork for Lily. Jason didn’t have a second home or a rich family he could call on. He didn’t want to take a flight but wanted something remote. Rachel’s family. They have that place on Orcas Island.

  “Hey, Spencer, I need to make a few phone calls while this downloads. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, dude, no worries. I need to check on our latest mouse translocation group.”

  Jason left his assistant in the lab and went off to make his phone call. The only person with access to the cabin was Rachel’s sister, Debbie. When Rachel was alive, they had been very close. The last decade they tried to stay in touch, but they only saw each other once a year since Debbie moved to Ann Arbor. Neither Jason nor Debbie’s parents were still around, so they were the only family each other had. Since she didn’t have any of her own children, Lily was the closest thing Debbie had to a daughter.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey Debbie, it’s Jason. I need your help.”

  The conversation didn’t take long. Jason already knew the cabin well enough; he just didn’t have a key. Now that he knew where the key was he needed to get back to Lily. He retrieved his bike out of the storage closet. Going home would be somewhat of a challenge as he didn’t want to take his normal route, and didn’t want to take a main artery that would make him an easy target. Jason went out the basement car deck instead of the front of the building and crossed over to go behind his building up to University Bridge. He carefully stayed in the parking lots and off the bike trail until he got to the bridge. The pedestrian lane had a concrete barrier, and the bike lane was just adjacent to the cars. He carefully waited until it was clear and used the pedestrian walkway to get over the bridge.

  After getting over the bridge, it was easier to stay on back roads up to his house. Jason wasn’t a spy, but he knew that being predictable could be dangerous. He left his bike in his neighbor’s driveway with a note. The side door was not visible from the street, so he jumped through his neighbor’s back yard and snuck into his own house. He didn’t want to bring Lily home, so he packed a bag for her and himself. Jason then climbed back through the yard and walked to Lily’s school. He had already left a message with Lily’s principal and teacher, so she was waiting for him with a list of assignments. Jason walked with Lily back home and knew there was no way they could avoid being seen when he got Lily into their Mustang. He was just hoping to reduce their exposure. After leaving the house, Jason backtracked several times getting out of Seattle trying to make sure they weren’t followed. Jason wanted to catch the 5:30 ferry to Orcas Island.

  “Daddy, where are we going? Is everything okay?”

  There were a lot of things Lily didn’t know, but she had an innate sense of people. Even though Jason hadn’t mentioned anything to her, he could tell that she knew he was upset by her demeanor.

  “I’m not sure, sweetie, but I think some bad people may not like what I said on TV, so I’m going to take a little vacation with you so I can think. Is that okay?”

  “Where we going?”

  “Aunt Debbie’s cabin.”

  “In that case, yes, yes, yes. Will she be there?”

  “No, sweetie. Just you and me.”

  “Okay. I bet we can still have fun.”

  Lily fell asleep in the backseat. It seemed that no matter how long they drove or what time of day or night it was, she would be asleep within five minutes. Jason’s mind had a million scenarios running through it, so much so that he almost missed the turnoff to Anacortes. It was a quiet time of year for the ferry, so they easily got in line. The sun was fading below the horizon by the time the ferry took off. Jason had spent much of his life in this
part of the world and had certainly been on this ferry many times. Tonight, with his daughter in his arms and the sun setting over the Olympic mountain range, Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, and the Cascades, he could not help but have the profound feeling that things would be all right.

  16

  ANN ARBOR—2014

  The day after his meeting with Missy, Nate assumed the best way to avoid suspicion was to continue business as usual. Instead of doing anything in the library, he spent the day with Julie in the lab trying to brainstorm a solution for the problem they were having trying to find a new vector for their project. The vector they were using was inserting the gene that stimulated cancer in some of their animals. They had isolated the cancer stimulating oncogene and were now just trying to work on a retrovirus that would insert their gene deeper. They continued to pore over the data, but Nate knew Randal’s early work was the key to his current problem. In addition, it justified, scientifically, why Nate could go back to Gibson and why he would have been looking at project immune boost to begin with.

  After working with Julie most of the morning on tactics, Nate spent the entire afternoon preparing the documents to get permission from Gibson. Running back and forth made the day go by fast. All the better as Nate was ready to go home as soon as possible. He had never found himself looking at the clock before. Julie was usually telling him it was time to go, or Debbie would call. Debbie knew him and had programmed his phone to go off when there were things to do. Time to go.

  Nate walked outside and took a deep breath. As much as he loved being outside, the lab was usually his sanctuary. Today it felt like a trap. He was happy to be out, he needed to be out. It was a beautiful day, so he rolled down the windows and continued his enjoyment of being out of the lab. Today he was going straight home and enjoying dinner with his wife. As Nate pulled into the driveway he couldn’t shake the vision of Debbie sitting on her feet in the chair reading a book last evening. Debbie’s visage helping to offset the increasing sense of foreboding at Nate’s increasingly complex situation.

  Nate should be home any minute now. Debbie got up from her chair to look out the front window when the phone rang. She turned her eyes from the widow to her cell phone. It was Jason. The hair on the back of her neck went up as she remembered her conversation with Nate last night.

  “Hey, sis, how ya doing?” Jason said.

  “Things are a little crazy, honestly. How are you? What’s up?”

  There was a pause before Jason said, “I’m in a bit of a situation and could use your help.”

  Debbie lowered her voice. “What kind of help, Jason?”

  “Lily and I need to get away and were hoping to use the Orcas Island cabin. I wanted to make sure it was okay with you.”

  “Of course you can use it,” Debbie said releasing a sigh. There was nothing to worry about. She was just being paranoid. “There is a spare key in the ceramic turtle by the side door. What’s going on with you?”

  “I don’t know. Strange stuff’s been going on. I thought maybe I was just overreacting, but someone tried to run me off the road on my bike. It seems like I’ve made some enemies with all of my talk about genetics and selective termination. Oh, and one more thing. I had a creepy interview on the news yesterday with some weirdo from Gibson Labs. I know Nate works there.”

  Debbie froze and tried to sound calm. “It’s funny you mention that. Nate told me that he was worried someone at Gibson Labs was unhappy with you. I thought they were just a bunch of geek scientists, though. Their idea of being mad would be to send you a computer virus or change your Facebook profile.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on. I just want to keep Lily safe.”

  Debbie paused. Safe. Were any of them safe? “Go to the cabin. Enjoy yourself Jason. I gotta let you go. Nate just drove up. Travel safe and call me when you get there.”

  Debbie came out to meet Nate before he could get in the house. She could feel her heart beating so took a deep breath before opening up to Nate. “Jason called. You’re not the only person with unusual things going on.” Despite her efforts to relax, her words came out forced, almost frantic.

  “Sweetheart, slow down and tell me what’s going on. You look like you’re going to pass out.”

  “Jason was in a news interview with someone from your work last night and feels like he is being threatened. He’s going to get out of town with Lily for a while.”

  “Jason’s the most capable person I know, second to you that is. Since I have you to protect me everything is gonna work out. I’m nervous, too, but these are genetic researchers not the mob.”

  From his office, Conrad Gibson could see most of downtown Ann Arbor. His phone rang. The caller was a young man running surveillance on Dr. Nate Amsler for him. Gibson had him posing as a college student studying in the park just down from Nate’s house. It was working surprisingly well.

  “Sir, I picked up some of the woman’s phone conversation with our directional microphone. She just got off speaking with someone named Jason.”

  “Jason? That’s very interesting. I wasn’t expecting that. I forgot she was his brother-in-law. It seems I have a little of my own research to do. Keep them under surveillance and let me know if anything else interesting happens.”

  One of Conrad Gibson’s favorite sights was the bell tower at the university’s north campus. From his vantage point, all of the students looked like ants going from class to class. It had a flow to it that was almost hypnotic if you watched it long enough. He remembered those days. There was nothing they couldn’t do. Adults didn’t know anything; his generation was going to solve the world’s problems. He started out as an engineer, but quickly realized engineering wasn’t going to solve much of anything or fix the world. Genetics. That was the answer, if we wanted to cure cancer and disease. If we wanted to cure mankind, he needed the code first. Gibson looked out the window again. A flood of students flowed across a small side street with no care for traffic laws. That place was their domain. If you wanted to drive through campus, you had to wait for them. He turned and caught his reflection in the glass and realized he was now one of the adults who didn’t know anything. He could see the wrinkles on his face and knew that he had been born at least twenty years too early.

  He thought about Jason Roy. The man is an idiot. He thinks that just because he loves his cute little daughter that we should fill our streets with people who can bag groceries and stare blankly at you while they smile. We are all evolving. We have evolved with the intelligence to map our own genome. Genetic therapy is the ultimate in Darwinism. We have exponentially increased natural selection. Unfortunately, people are beginning to listen to him, and if he discovers whatever link he is searching for, it will undo decades of work. We cannot afford that. I doubt I will see the changes coming in my lifetime, especially if Roy has his way. I may not have Roy’s research yet, but I do have resources beyond his comprehension.

  17

  ORCAS ISLAND—2014

  Jason carried Lily out of the car. He had already found the key in the turtle and unlocked the door. The island was so small that it had taken them only twenty minutes to get from the ferry on one side to the cabin on the other. They had left so abruptly that he stopped at East Sound, the biggest town on Orcas, to get some groceries. It was pretty dark by the time he got off the ferry so he was glad to have his GPS system since none of the landmarks he used were visible. Jason carried Lily in. The cabin was a very small two-bedroom that had been in the family for years. It was so dark that Jason hoped Debbie hadn’t moved anything since he was out there last time. Jason knew the layout and carefully traversed the living room to the bedroom on the left, which was where Lily always slept. There were no linens on the bed, but Lily was so soundly asleep that he didn’t think it would matter tonight.

  The fuse box was in Jason’s room on the right. It was very dark so Jason needed the light on his phone to turn on the circuit breaker. The cabin had power, but Debbie usually kept the circuit breakers off
when it was unoccupied. There were no overhead lights, just a few lamps in each room, barely enough to read by. Jason sat down on the couch and took stock of the cabin. Nothing had changed since they were here last time. A decent living room with a twenty-year-old couch and one overstuffed chair. Lily always sat on the floor. The kitchen was small but ample with a stove and refrigerator. Even if they were twenty years old, they worked. Jason placed the few groceries he had retrieved en route into the refrigerator. The most important thing to Jason, other than Lily, was the satellite dish for cable and internet. He had it installed last year so that he could get some work done while he was in the cabin. As he sat down, he instinctively had the urge to pull out his laptop and get some work done even though it was late. Jason knew he needed to get some sleep so he chose to check on Lily and go to bed instead. Lily was lying on her side, her silhouette barely visibly in the dark. Jason carefully made his way to her bed and gently kissed her forehead before returning to his room. He was too tired to get undressed so he lay down on the empty mattress and was asleep almost immediately.