The Fair & Foul (Project Gene Assist Book 1) (25 page)

Another nurse entered the room and whispered into Dr. Thomas's ear. Dr. Thomas's lips tightened. "Keep trying," he encouraged Juliane as he spun and followed the second nurse back out into the hall.

Once again Juliane cursed the hospital’s lack of network connectivity. If she only had access to her full capabilities, she would be able to access a whole slew of data. She could compare Betty's condition instantly with any number of case studies. She could run a simulation program and help rule out treatment options. She could do any number of things, but she was helpless. To do anything, she would either have to find a way to hack into the hospital’s network or somehow get Betty’s chart and all of her vital sign readings outside.

Juliane looked at the monitors again, weighing her choices. Either option would drain vital minutes. Minutes that Betty didn’t have to spare.

“Betty, wake up!” Juliane tossed the chart back into its holder in frustration. She began to pace. “Why in the world wouldn't you call Alan?"

Juliane slapped the bed's railing, sending the chart clattering to the floor. "And you thought calling me instead was a good idea? What could possibly be going on in your head? I may have made the occasional bad decision, but that one has to be worse.”

She looked at the monitors again. Betty’s readings showed no response to Juliane's diatribe. One of the other machines beeped, and the first nurse appeared to make an adjustment before returning the chart to its place at the foot of the bed. She vanished once again. The sound couldn't have been loud enough to have been heard at the nurses' station. Juliane realized she was looking for communication ports along the walls, as if her eyes wanted to look at anything other than Betty lying still on the bed. All she saw were a handful of silver electrical outlets dotting the otherwise white walls.

Somehow the equipment must be communicating with the staff. Juliane became even more convinced that there was a form of private network managing the data inside the hospital walls. “Where one private network exists, so could others.”

“This is for your own good,” announced Juliane as she reached out to Betty’s prone form. As her open palm connected to Betty's exposed skin, Juliane exerted her will. With Louis, she had established the connection in a heartbeat, but this time, it was like her mind was pressing up against a brick wall. She issued commands, breaking up the data packets. She visualized her commands as tendrils of ivy upon a wall and pulled. Betty's defenses were no match for her. The wall crumbled. She could feel Betty’s mind open before her as she established the private connection. She could feel all of Betty’s hurt and could sense Betty’s life draining away as if it were her own.

Choking back a sob, Juliane closed her eyes and imagined their old lab, focusing on happier times. A few more seconds passed. Juliane wondered whether or not the effort had been enough. She glanced around the room. She hadn’t seen the interior of the lab in years and expected some of her memory to be blurred, but everything showed as clearly as if she were physically standing in the room.

Movement along the length of one wall caught her eye, and Juliane watched as shadows converged into a solid dark mass. The shape seemed to pull itself from the wall’s surface; some tendrils reached out farther than others, causing the mass to lighten as it stretched into a fine mist resembling the Betty that Juliane used to know.

“How did I get here?”

“You aren’t really here, Betty. It is just the virtual world. I just had to come up with a location that we both knew.”

“Where is my son?”

“I'm not sure, but I believe he is still in the hospital."

“I can’t stay here. I need to go back to him.” Betty began to run toward the lab door. The thought must have occurred to her that she didn’t need to physically leave the room as she stopped moving in mid-stride. She frowned as she spun back on Juliane. “Why can’t I wake up?”

“I wish I knew. It’s been what I’ve been telling you to do for some time now.”

Betty’s forehead knit in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Apparently, your doctors misjudged your dosage when they sedated you.”

“Why have I been sedated?”

“Your doctor told me that you were suffering from an episode of paranoia. Unfortunately, something in your body decided to fight the medication. I am not going to sugarcoat this. Your condition is now quite serious. Have you been taking anything recently that could have triggered a reaction?"

“I’m not taking anything. I never have been. They think I'm crazy, but it’s not paranoia when it is the truth." Betty's form began to pulse.

“We didn’t just undergo some cosmetic procedure," she continued. "We completely altered our DNA. The changes. They'll pass to the next generation, and might well kill us unless we find an alternative power source."

“Alternative power source? What are you talking about? The technology doesn’t need one.”

Betty's lips pursed as she scolded. “Of course it needs a power source, and right now, it is pulling from our natural energy reserves. The greater the processing need, the greater the drain. It's the same concept as your body burning calories during any other exercise. I started thinking about those times you passed out when you were still getting used to everything, and it was the only explanation that makes sense!"

"But I still don't see how that would destroy the human race."

Betty sighed. "All the mysteries of the world are open to you, yet you don't have a clue sometimes. It’s kids, Juliane. We all start out as kids."

"I know that. I was one once too."

"Were you? Then you should remember that kids aren't as strong as adults. They can be insanely energetic at times, but only in bursts, and my son is proof that they are being born with the same amount of processing speed as I have. My son, your kid—assuming you ever get around to having one—or any child of an upgraded person is going to have the same issue. They will simply burn themselves out, a whole generation gone unless we can find a way to teach them control at an early age."

"Or redirect the energy pull," suggested Juliane. Betty's paranoia had a certain degree of logic to it.

"I've tried that, but so far, the fix is only temporary and won’t last much longer.” Betty’s appearance had grown fainter as they were talking, reminding Juliane that she did not have time to waste on idle theories.

“Betty, I’d be happy to discuss all of this with you, but first, you need to wake up so that the doctors can help you.”

Betty laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. When their eyes met again, Juliane saw pity reflected back. "One day, with any luck, you'll understand." Betty faded further. "The doctors aren’t going to be able to save me because I won’t let them. My son is still alive only because he is pulling energy from me, but I am afraid he isn’t going to last long after I’m gone. I am going to need you to pick up on my work, not just for my son, but for the thousands of other children who are going to be born with this same condition.”

Suddenly, Juliane's vision of the landscape shifted. She was no longer in control. The lab morphed into a hospital complex, infinitely long, with children wasting away in their beds surrounded by helpless parents. Thriving cities emptied after a few short generations. Floating a short distance away, Betty was nearly transparent, having lost the majority of her form’s definition.

“And Alan isn’t able to help with any of this?”

The beds, children, and empty cities faded to black. Betty's semi-transparent form was all that remained, her head the only feature that still maintained some slight definition. Betty's voice hissed, “You can't trust Alan! Save my son. Chad knows where to find my research. Contact him. Do it quickly, while there's still time!”

Betty's face faded further into the darkness. Juliane watched her lips move, but no sound escaped. It was almost as if she had said, "I'm sorry."

Juliane's mind felt as if it was hit with a sledgehammer as she was pulled violently from Betty’s bedside. It began to throb, quickly outpacing the pulsing sound of the machines as the doctor and nurse rushed the bed out toward an operating room. Betty hadn't been out of view long when Juliane felt her private network connection sever as sharply as if she had been physically cut in two. Juliane knew then that Betty would never wake again.

Juliane felt another pain crest, but this one was more distant, and her shoulder made contact with the tile floor. Her body screamed as the pain spread and intensified. Just like when she had broken the connection to Louis, it felt as if she had a gaping wound in her brain, except, this time, it felt even rawer around the edges. Juliane's vision began to blacken.
No!
she thought.
Not again! Never again!
She did not know if she was fighting against the impending unconsciousness or the lack of the network. She no longer cared.

Juliane blinked to clear her blurred vision as she pulled herself back upright. A handful of personnel in scrubs rushed past, barely noting her presence. As she made her way down the hall, Juliane was hit by waves of vertigo. She was in a hospital, but she couldn't quite remember the reason she was here. Her shoulder throbbed as she crashed into the hallway railing. She wondered if it might be better to take a day to recover before returning to work. Juliane took more confident steps as her sight cleared. She would have Stuart begin rounding up the task force. The room spun again.

A patient, a young boy, was wheeled past her, strapped in a bed. A dull drone emitted from machines as they passed. Her vision blurred again as another wave of nausea hit. She hadn't felt this lethargic since she first severed the connection with Louis. A man in a white coat, looking much like a troll doll, rushed by. "Stay with me, buddy," he pleaded with the child.

"Are you all right, Ms.?" another male voice asked.

Juliane couldn't answer. It was as if the act of moving her lips required too much energy. The droning sound of the machine ceased, only to be replaced with a ping that reverberated in her ears. If she didn't get out of here soon, Juliane was certain she would go mad.

"I need you here stat," shouted the troll doll from down the hall. "We've got a reading." The person hovering near Juliane turned and sprinted toward the patient.

The sense of disorientation ebbed Juliane as the trio passed beyond a large pair of swinging doors. Why did the boy make her think of Betty?
Wasn't her son two?
It had been ages since she last saw them, or was it? Juliane turned and took a hesitant step forward, keeping thought of her own office out of her mind. A thought danced in the back of her mind just out of reach. There was something she was supposed to do. Something she needed to remember. But it was like the information was on another side of a wall. Getting around that wall would require a significant effort, and all she wanted to do was go home and sleep until next week.

As drained as she felt, suddenly Juliane had the strangest compulsion to seek out Chad. It had to have been even longer since she had last seen him. She fought through the exhaustion.
Did the hallway lights flicker?
With each step further away from the double doors, her vision cleared. By the time she made it to the exit, the ground was once again stable beneath her feet.

Juliane realized that she hadn’t bothered to confirm that Chad was still with the ACI before making the drive from the hospital. She accessed the online directory and released a breath as she spotted Chad's name in its listing. A specific office was not listed, but at least he should still be on the campus. Somewhere. Their old building would serve as a good starting point for her search.

As she made her way to the Gould building, she was struck by how every brick, every flower, along the ACI campus looked just as it had the day she left, as if the campus itself was impervious to the passage of time. A crow pecked at something on the ground as she reached the building's entrance, flying away only when she was close enough she could have picked it up had she wanted to.

Entering the building, she felt hollow. She had spent so many years here, but it felt as if her memories of the place could fit into the span of a handful of days. Lost in her thoughts, she was startled when she heard someone approach from behind her.

“Dr. Faris? Is that you?” Chad stood inside the hall. His disheveled hair surrounded his head like a fiery halo, making him appear even more like the stereotypical mad scientist than she remembered. His arms were filled with stacks of Manila folders covered in streaks of coffee stains. A pair of coffee cups balanced precariously on top.

“Chad! Just the person I was looking for!” Juliane smiled as Chad shifted his burden, jostling one of the cups and sending beads of coffee flying.
At least some things never changed
, she thought. She should have visited ages ago. Her smile faded. Why hadn't she looked him up over the last few years? She had always meant to, but it was as if every time she scheduled a moment to reach out, something would come up that required her immediate attention and the urge would evaporate.

“What happened to you? You just vanished. People here thought you might have died.”

“Really? What were they saying?”

“Well, some people thought you must have had another episode while at home and got eaten by random dogs; other people thought you must have perished in one of your crazy experiments.”

"That's one of the reasons I don't like to listen to gossip." Juliane laughed. "Ridiculous," she snorted. "What about you? What did you think happened?”

Chad paused before answering, and when he did, it was without humor or recrimination. “I just assumed that when opportunity knocked, whatever it was, you didn’t hesitate to answer.”

Juliane blinked. She must have been staring. She felt a heat rise in her cheeks and fought to control it.
Stop it, Juliane,
she thought. It was only Chad. There was no reason to react like this. After all the time they had spent together, of course he knew her. It was a good thing Betty wasn't with them. She no doubt would tease her relentlessly.