The Fair & Foul (Project Gene Assist Book 1) (27 page)

Business feeds focused on the valuation of the large public technology companies. If the overseas market activity was an indicator, the following day was going to be a busy one on the trading floor.

Juliane’s vision flashed with incoming communication requests, the majority coming from Stuart. Fortunately, the alert did not trigger another wave of vertigo or pain.

Her assistant appeared in the corner of her vision. “Juliane, you need to come into the office.”

“What is it? Is it the factory? Have we gotten their final report?”

“You aren’t going to be happy.”

“Let me guess, they determined that the worker was a troubled individual. They weren’t able to find any evidence of poor working conditions or ways to improve the facility, all of his dorm mates have been transferred to a better place, and we won’t be hearing from any disgruntled family members. Meanwhile, nothing has really changed.”

“You would be right except—”

“Except for what?" Juliane rubbed her hand over her forehead. The small burst of energy from the caffeine in the tea had already drained away. She glanced at Chad and Nadia who were still riveted to the video screen, their hands now clutched together.

"I think this will be better discussed face to face," answered Stuart.

Juliane stifled a groan. Aloud to Chad and Nadia, she said, “As entertaining as watching Louis commit career suicide is, I have some work to do.” She left the apartment without waiting for them to respond.

Stuart’s avatar remained in the corner of her vision. “I’m on my way to the office now.”

She unclenched the fist which still carried the hard drive. She was somewhat surprised to have found she hadn't crushed it. She would take a more thorough look at the files after she finished the debriefing.
What am I missing?

When she arrived at her office, Stuart stood at full attention. “I hope that this means you are ready to give me a full report.”

He nodded. “You may want to take a seat though.”

She made no move to sit. Her assistant shifted his weight from one foot to the next. “Perhaps you have forgotten where we left off. You were going to tell me how this incident was somehow different from the last three.”

Stuart coughed once before speaking. “There won’t be any further incidents from the factory, and we won’t have to worry about disgruntled former employees or their families leaking information to the press, because there is no one left to report anything.”

Juliane’s forehead wrinkled. “And why did I have to come back to the office for this news?”

“They can’t, because they are all dead. Someone executed everyone there and then torched the whole complex. Not just the factory, but the worker’s village too."

Juliane gasped. "What? How is that even possible?"

Stuart shifted nervously from side to side. "The rumor is that whoever committed the act did it based on your orders.”

Juliane realized her mouth was hanging open and quickly shut it. She took a step forward. Stuart jumped back.

Juliane cocked her head as she took in Stuart's panicked expression. “And do you believe them?” Juliane took another step forward.
It just wasn't possible.
Her assistant’s matching step backward told her more than any verbal response he could have offered.

“I see." Her shoulder's slumped. Juliane felt that tightening pressure behind her eyes again. An icy rage filled her heart.
They can't all be dead. He had to be wrong. A story that sick had to be a lie. Why couldn't he see that?
She glared at Stuart. He thought she was a monster. She would show him a monster. "Under the circumstances, you must understand that your services are no longer required. I can’t trust my sensitive information with someone who doesn’t trust me, but I thank you for your professionalism.”

Stuart stood motionless for a few awkward moments. “Was there anything else?” Juliane asked.
I'll get to the bottom of this myself.
She knew she hadn't ordered anyone's death, but if even a fraction of story were true, someone would have contacted her much sooner.
Wouldn't they?
She had failed Betty. If only she had gone to the hospital the day before, she might have been there before the doctors gave her those sedatives.
Why had they given her sedatives?
Now she may have failed hundreds of others.

“I believe it would be best if you took your leave now, otherwise I might have to notify the security team.” She crossed the room toward the desk and pulled out her chair as her office began to spin. Out of the corner of her vision, she noted her former assistant back out of the room, but then he was out of her thoughts altogether before the door finished closing.

Left alone once again, her nails dug into her palm as she clasped her fist around the hard drive. The pain distracted her from the tears that threatened to consume her. Some dams could never be rebuilt. Opening her palm only long enough to expose the drive's connector, she accessed Betty’s research files. She would not focus on anything except the drive in her hand.

Juliane awoke on her office’s couch as the light from the rising sun inched across the room. She had become so engrossed by trying to solve Betty’s puzzle that she hadn’t realized how exhausted she was until it was well beyond the point of safe travel. As she had delved deeper into Betty’s theorem, she realized that the energy equation was only simple on the surface.

There were a few missing elements, but Betty's file appeared to be a bridge system which would connect a deeply buried thermal energy matrix storage system to an orbital solar power plant through wireless transfer at a previously unheard of frequency. However, as far as she could tell, it had nothing to do with the upgrade or her son or anything that would merit keeping it so secret.
A connection.
Another crack in the wall.

Juliane rubbed her temples. She had stayed up way too late reading over Betty's work. The few hours of sleep she had gained on the couch weren’t nearly enough. She needed coffee to fully recharge her batteries.

She stretched her neck and rolled her shoulders to work out their stiffness before walking over to her office's “kitchen cabinet”—a coffee maker and food-based 3D printer built into part of the wall. She inserted a coffee pod into one orifice and a puree cartridge in the other. As brown liquid poured into her cup, a tan paste was extruded onto a heating tray. Within moments, the smell of a fresh baked scone and Arabica blend filled the room.

The smell in both cases was more impressive than the taste. Neither appliance would win culinary awards, but they allowed her to fill her nutritional requirements and came in handy for days such as these.
Like eating at a hospital.
Betty was given sedatives because her son was in the hospital and she wasn't sleeping.

Together, the files represented a method of generating additional power. Power was already cheap, but Betty's proposal would make it nearly limitless. A single deployment of the system could potentially produce enough power to fuel half the planet. If Betty was right, it was the type of discovery that should be shared with the world and implemented immediately. Not hidden away. There had to be something else on the drive she was missing.
I wonder if he has been told yet about his mother.

Juliane frowned as an indicator light on the machine informed her that the device had initiated recharging mode. What if instead of powering small appliances, a building's power cells could help supplement people?
But if everyone was upgraded that would create too much strain on the grid. Unless
. . . Unless Betty's generator came online.

The texture of her food felt like cardboard. Betty asked her to help her son. Her four-year-old son.

She considered calling Alan.
His wife just died. He isn't going to take calls.
She issued another communication command. "Durham, it's Juliane."

"Yes?"

"Listen, I am sorry for how I ended our last call, but I need to know whether or not Alan's son is still in the hospital."

"Why don't you ask Alan?"

"Betty's dead, and if their kid is too, well, I just don't want to intrude on his privacy."

"I see. I will need to offer my condolences to him, but why ask me? Or Damien? You're both closer to him than I am."

"I was hoping you might ask your friend."

Silence.

"On behalf of another friend," Juliane offered.

"I'll ask, but you might wish I hadn't."

"I understand"—Juliane chewed her lip—"and Durham? Thank you."

After quick use of her office's shower, she pulled a spare set of clothing from another hidden cabinet and dressed quickly. She arranged for her clothing from the previous night to be sent out for dry cleaning and returned to her condo.

She picked up Betty’s drive and accessed the data once again. Now that her head no longer felt split in two and she could tell which way was up, Juliane identified the basic building blocks in Betty’s proposal. She closed her eyes, opening up her virtual senses to the building’s infrastructure, searching for inductive modules. She attuned herself to a few of their signals. The light on her coffee maker turned off as she adjusted her body to the inductive power flow's signal. It did not take long before she felt a rush much like a triple espresso.

Her vision showed an incoming call from Durham. "Well, you'll be happy to hear that the boy was released yesterday evening. I was told he made a miraculous recovery. My friend is simply beside herself."

"That's a relief!"

As she disconnected the call, Juliane heard an alarm sound from the food printer as it went into battery mode. If Stevie was okay, that meant that Betty was wrong about the source of his condition. Juliane laughed to herself; the printer could go offline permanently for all she cared. Based on the way she felt now, she wouldn't need it again anytime soon. Her smile lessened.
It was just in your head, Betty.
Juliane sighed. Betty might have succumbed to paranoia, but Juliane could still make sure her legacy was continued.

Juliane sat down to access the various newsfeeds before the workday officially began. Now to fix her own. She let the newsfeeds run in the background while she attempted to connect someone at the factory.
Betty had been wrong. Stuart had to be wrong too.

Nothing. She checked her contact's online status. Everyone was marked away.

Juliane frowned as she received another delivery failure notification.

The building's lower floors housed the last remaining phone bank, installed as a courtesy for visitors who might need backup communication. Juliane wasn't even sure the devices were still operable. She'd never had reason to use them before. Juliane rushed out of her office and into a waiting elevator. She punched a lower floor number with almost enough force to break through the keypad’s plastic overlay.

A young man in a business suit scurried through the lobby as Juliane crossed the room. The man nervously adjusted his collar before running out of her line of sight. Juliane took a few calming breaths while she attempted to access the personnel directory for landline numbers or mobile numbers. Each time she dialed a number, a recorded voice answered that all lines were currently out of service.

Spinning on her heels so fast they threatened to crack the tile floor, she ran back toward the elevator.
Perhaps
, she thought,
I will have more success visiting the factory's site in the virtual world.
She didn't have to have an established meeting connection to go there. She could just appear and then see who else might be using the location as a meeting site, just like the Internet chat rooms of old.
Alan did it all the time. Why can't I?
Her contacts might not be answering her pings, but there had to be someone goofing off in that environment who knew something.

Before she could reach the elevator, a bright light flashed outside the main doors. Turning her head, Juliane saw that several people were stationed just beyond the entrance. Another light flashed. At least a few of the people had cameras. “Reporters.” Juliane grimaced.

The various headlines that had been quietly scrolling in the corner of her vision became more insistent. She brought them up to her primary field of view. The stock market wasn't yet open, but analysts were already preparing for a tailspin of massive sell-offs in anything related to the world of technology. Reminders of similar events that happened nearly seventy years ago were only adding to the pre-open hysteria.

Then another headline, much further down in the world news report, caught her eye. Two American journalists had disappeared abroad. The pair had submitted their last report from a town close to the scene of a large factory explosion. Prior to their disappearance, the news source had asked the pair to investigate rumors of inhumane work conditions at the plant and now believed the pair were likely victims along with potentially hundreds if not thousands of other workers.

Juliane’s face paled. She knew the part of the world referenced in the article all too well. The factory she used served as the chief employer for the entire region. It was extremely unlikely that the story could be about any other factory than the one she used. A cold feeling settled deep in her stomach. She realized that Stuart may not have exaggerated as much as she had previously wanted to believe.

There wasn’t much else to the story. The local government was acting tight-lipped and was not releasing much more as to the exact size of the explosion or its cause. Rumors as to the explosion's source ranged from the improper use of equipment to a raid by a rival company.

Juliane glanced at the lobby entrance. She could hear the sound of a growing crowd.

Her newsfeed flashed back to market commentators discussing the tech segment. Juliane felt her saliva consolidate into a wad when one commenter brought up her company only to suggest that Juliane might have intentionally caused the fire in order to collect on insurance claims based on the company's sinking value. Juliane waited for someone to correct the commentator. The timeline of the explosion couldn’t possibly support his theory.
Or did it?
The memory of Stuart's expression as he made his report came crashing to the top of her consciousness. Stuart seemed to think so, and he seemed to think it was somehow her fault.