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Daniel pursed his lips. “Okaaaay, I’m going to pretend I understood any of that. But my questionstands. Are there any applications for warfare from your research?”
C.P. crossed her arms over her head physician and researcher’s fleece.
Formerhead researcher, that was, he tacked on.
Then one side of her lips lifted in a smile that absolutely did not reach her eyes. “Not that we’re aware of. But you know, just because you’re not looking for something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
As Gus hopped onto the pediway that progressed out to the remote parking lot, he had a hard time believing that it was the last time he was making this smooth, gliding trip. And in the manner of a final passage, he found himself absorbing details he’d never noticed before: From the tube-like nature of the corridor to the all-white, George-Jetson-techno-futuristic design of everything, it all made him think of what an airport in 2050 was going to look like.
One thing wasn’t new. At the end of the ride, as he stepped off and the double doors automatically opened for him, he once again felt as though he’d been shit out into the garage.
While the stainless-steel panels clicked shut behind him, he stopped and looked back, marveling at how you didn’t always know when you were going to do something for the last time. When he’d come into work today? After he’d gone home to his rentalhouse for just a shower, a change of clothes, and a bowl of cereal?
He hadn’t known his work with C.P. Phalen was going to end.
Walking over to his Tesla, he remembered arguing with her about the damn thing. And then he thought about nothing in particular as he drove out of the garage, hooked up with the rural road, and eventually found his way to the Northway.
His commute back and forth to the lab was a good twenty-five minutes in each direction, even if you assumed he went eighty, which he always did because his version of rush hour was either crack-of-ass early or red-eye late. And as for why the distance was necessary? Walters, New York, where C.P. had located her lab, was in the middle of nowhere. If you wanted to live in a town where you could order Thai food and get it Ubered to your door? You needed to put in the miles.
The next thing he knew, his headlights were washing over the front of the condo he’d been in for the last three years. Thanks to renting the modest, two-story crib, he’d banked plenty of scratch—in the back of his mind, he’d always known he wasn’t staying permanently, so there was no reason to commit a bunch of cash to a real estate anchor. Good thing he only had two months left on his lease, not that it would have mattered.
His new boss had put his money where his mouth was—
I’m not just putting my money where my mouth is—I’m putting my life on it.
As C.P.’s voice barged into his head like a squatter pitching a pup tent in the front yard, he punched the garage opener as if his forefinger were a fire poker.
Great. If these sound bites were the way shit was going to go from now on? He was going to lose it.
As the horizontal panels took their sweet time ascending their track, he glanced around at the condo development. There were probably fifty units circling a central core, and most of them had an extra vehicle in their short driveways or parallel parked on the street in front because no one had a two-car garage. Landscaping was kept to a minimum, but maintained well, and the streetlights were glowing peach in the darkness, turning the cold night into something that made him think of an old-fashioned movie set.
North Dakota, huh, he thought as he drove forward and turned off the Tesla.Guess it’s as good a place as any—although talk about remote.
Then again, that was the point, wasn’t it.
Getting out, he went to the door into his kitchen and hit the button mounted by the jamb as he opened things up. Inside the condo, he tossedhis keys on the counter and then stalled out. The fact that there was no one to call with his news—and he wouldn’t have had the energy to go through it all anyway—was kind of depressing. But the former was the consequence of his focus, and the latter something that could be cured with a trip to his refrigerator and a fucking nap.
On that note, he went over, cracked his icebox, and reached in for a Coke. Two cardboard boxes with half-eaten takeout were molting in a field of single-serving condiments, and instead of throwing them out, he just let that door shut itself.
Bet Frigidaire would have been surprised to know that their product could be used as a calorie crypt.
He cracked the top on the Coke and looked out to the front of the condo. There was a mail slot in the door, and the pile of unopened mail that fanned out on the square of entry tile was another mess caused by his neglect.
For all his IQ, he’d never been any good at the nuances of adulting, and yeah, it was true, he hid behind the noble pillars of his Very Important Work to blow off things like registering his car, doing his taxes, getting annual physicals. Thank God for online banking or his credit score would have been in the double digits.
As he wandered across to the envelopes and flyers—because he didn’t know what the hell else to do with himself—he frowned and got down onhis haunches. Putting the soda aside, he picked up a large manila envelope that was on top of the scatter. When he turned it right side up, he read the handwritten inscription that included his name and address, and then noted, at the bottom, the red letters:HAND DELIVER ONLY.
“What the fuck?”
Letting himself fall back onto his ass, he went to open the flap, only to find it taped shut to within an inch of its inanimate life.
He got up and went into the kitchen with whatever it was, and he needed a full minute to find a sharp knife because he never cooked and always ate with the plastic stuff that came with his takeout. Digging the tip of the blade into the layers of packing tape, he reflected on how he had no more interest in cleaning dirty cutlery than he did in dealing with his Visa bill—
What came out of the envelope… stopped the whole world.
It was a legal document that, after he scanned it… twice… seemed to suggest…
… that one Catherine Phillips Phalen, being of very sound mind, had given to him all of the rights to the ownership of Vita-12b, its precursors, and any forthcoming research associated with the compound.
