Synthesis: Book One Page 9

  Chapter 9

  Kelley felt like crap while her car made the trip up to Genetitech's remote facility. After coming here over the last few weeks, she had come to see it as a place of business. Even after what she went through with Evan, Kelley still managed to get up, get dressed and come here to see Caleb come to life in front of her. The apprehension about Caleb's condition was finally pushing away her thoughts and fears of dealing with Evan in person again.

  Inside the security gate, she knew there would be no press or paparazzi. Even as they followed her from her hotel up and up into the mountains, they all stopped short at the gate. There was to be no press for the actual decanting of Caleb. She knew that the true reasoning was due to any “anomalies” that may result from the procedure. If he came out as some kind of hideous monster, Genetitech didn't want that going viral.

  When she eased her company Mercedes into a parking spot, she saw a brand new Maserati parked in the spot that was normally reserved for Marcus. Before she even got out, Marcus had descended on her car like an excited schoolchild.

  “Good morning Kelley! Are you as excited as I am? I haven't seen you since the fundraiser!” He blurted as she got out of the car.

  She gave him a genuinely warm smile. “Hey Marcus! I've been busy getting over a bug.” She hated lying to him, but the truth wouldn’t go over very well either... ‘Yeah, your golden boy raped me at the fundraiser. Good times!’

  “Oh, well it's good you were able to still come today.”

  While she walked to the large glass entryway, she saw Evan's tall frame standing just inside. Her stomach knotted up, and she felt her heart rate climb as the doors swung open with a hiss. He turned to look at her, and gave a little half smile that was probably supposed to look apologetic. Instead, it just personified his sociopathic tendencies that much more. Dressed in her usual silk top and tan skirt, she strode past him with a polite nod. Her eyes narrowed at him just a hint, and she knew by the look on his face that he wasn't going to try anything. Evan just went back to looking through a stack of papers while a crew of men dropped off boxes from a shipping company.

  “You know, your guy Caleb is really something else. He managed to have all of this stuff delivered on the very day he would be coming out of the tank. Isn't that something!?” He marveled.

  “Wait, is he the one who had that car delivered too? The one that’s in your spot?” She asked him. They paused to swipe their security badges before going into the deeper recesses of the facility. Once they were through, Marcus continued.

  “Yeah! Isn't that great? I showed up early this morning, and there’s a guy from Alta Vista Motors at the front gate. Says he's got a delivery for one Caleb Anderson.” He chuckled. “Next thing I know, there's more guys coming in to drop off boxes of clothes and some other stuff. He even had this setup and ready to go for when he gets out.” Marcus handed her a manilla envelope. Inside, it was filled with a passport, a social security card, credit cards, and a California driver's license.

  “How did he do all of this?” She wondered out loud.

  “I don't know, but it's impressive none the less.”

  Kelley stopped in the quiet hall as the barrage of information sank in. “Wait! Did you say his full name was Caleb Anderson?” She said with wide eyes.

  Marcus threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah! I was wondering when that was going to sink in! I hope you don't mind having the same last name.” He teased. Kelley saw the mag-locked room looming on the right hand side of the long hallway. She didn't know what to expect anymore. Her emotions had gone numb from all of the shock and excitement of the last four weeks, and she just wanted to have this over with.It was the that Marcus dropped another bomb on her.

  “Kelley, I hate to have to tell you this. Charles Dent is here to witness the decanting, as it were. It was the one and only condition that he wa able to get past our legal team. I still don’t know why he was so intent on seeing the fruits of his lost labor, but if it gets tem out of our hair then it’s well worth it.” He said, adding, “I know that you both have some history together, and I’m sorry if him being herer brings up any weird feelings.” Marcus finished with a consoling hand on her shoulder.

  “Um…, that’s okay.” Was all she could squeak out. The truth was, her mind was racing to deal with this new shocking turn if events. If she knew Charlie well enough, this little arranged visit had nothing to do with the project that he so stupidly snubbed. Now, she was darting her head around. She wasn’t in the mood to have Charlie stroll up unannounced with that stupid cocky smile of his.

  There was a trio of security staff, as well as her and Marcus just standing outside the door. They had to wait for the automated lock to disengage before they went inside. While she waited there, Evan came up behind her and stood just a little too close.

  “Why didn't you answer my texts or calls?” He hissed into her ear. She knew that she was just out of earshot of Marcus and the rest of the group. Part of her wanted to sidle in closer to the group and avoid Evan. The other part wanted to stab him in the neck with a sharp pencil.

  “Didn't you get the hint? I don't wanna be with you. I'm tired of dealing with your Jekyll and Hyde personality.” She said back to him.

  “I thought we had something!” He hissed in a lower tone of desperation.

  “Well, you did a pretty good job of destroying whatever it was that we had.” She said with a frown.

  “Charlie was right; you can be a frigid little bitch.” Evan's desperate whisper took on a lilting, all-knowing tone as he stretched out this last sentence.

  “Wait, what...,” Kelley was interrupted by the loud alarm that signaled the mag lock's release before she could confront him. As klaxons blared, a red light strobed above the door. Everyone went silent while they waited for the telltale thunk of the door.

  Finally, the door opened and the alarms went quiet. The whole group looked to one another and shrugged as the heavy door inched open slowly. The cylindrical tank was still there, and nothing really seemed changed, other than the status report on Evan's computer wasn't running a stream of code across it anymore.

  Evan strode dutifully over to the monitor and typed a couple lines of code into the program. He looked quizzically at the screen and typed more characters. “I don't get it. The program finished, and Caleb should be out by now.”

  “Did you have cameras setup in here to monitor the process?” Marcus asked. His true managerial authority was showing through his friendly demeanor as he came to grips with a possibly failed experiment. That is, a failed experiment with a lot of press coverage.

  “Caleb wouldn’t let me setup any kind of recording equipment. We had planned it, but he nixed it at the last minute.” Evan said, as he looked at the floor.

  While the silence in the room stretched out, some of the clothing boxes from the front room were being brought back to the lab. Evan kept to checking wires and tubing, Marcus pulled out his phone and placed a call to his assistant. Kelley walked over unhindered to the tank where he was supposed to be emerging from. She held her hand to it, and was surprised that it felt warm to the touch. Her mind was lost in thought when she caught half of phone call that Evan was making.

  “.....No, it didn't work. I don't know, he's not here. HE'S JUST NOT HERE! I know what's on the line, Charlie! I'll call you whatever I want, you little prick!” His voice fluctuated from a frantic growl, and back to a quiet hiss.

  With the calm numbness of a person in shock, she looked up at Evan as he smiled his malicious, cocky smile at her. She now knew there was something else preplanned between him and her ex-boss from DARPA. The question was what?

  Marcus hung up his call and made a hasty exit to go setup the damage control. The other techs that were in the room now left to go tend to other matters as well. Before she could do anything about it she was alone in this big, intimidating lab with Evan.

  “So..., it looks like your little boyfriend won't be joining us after all. It's too bad. I was hoping to
see the look on his face when I told him about us.” He teased.

  “What did you have setup with Charlie? I heard you on the phone.” She said with a slight quaver in her voice.

  “Oh, he's right over here behind the server racks. He snuck in while everyone was freaking out. You can ask him yourself.” Evan motioned with his hand like a game show assistant, and Kelley got to watch her sinister ex-boyfriend come walking from behind the towering nest of servers as if he was some kind of materializing apparition.

  He was wearing that same God awful suit that he always wore for work, and Kelley already knew that he wore a concealed semi-automatic pistol in a shoulder holster. With his hands held up in comic exaggeration, he clapped slowly while he made his way over to Evan.

  “Evan let me in early to witness the big reveal today. The original plan was for me to hide until Caleb came out of the tank. Then, I was going to pop out and 'persuade' Evan's boss to let us have Caleb and all his neat data and information.” Hh paused, patting the conceled bulge of the pistol with his hand, “There's a bio tech firm that Evan and I have been wooing for the last two years. Now, we call really sell them some top notch data.”

  Kelley felt her world spinning. Everything she knew was a lie. Coming down here was all a part of Charlie's plan to begin with.

  “But, since there's no Caleb, I may just have to settle for what we have now.” He said.

  “So setting this up wasn't Caleb's doing?” She asked the two.

  Evan stepped forward as he closed out an open window on his monitor. “Oh, that was the lucky part. Charlie and I are old fraternity brothers. When I told him about the Caleb Project, he was already aware because of the work you were doing for DARPA. We decided to let the project come to fruition, and then steal it.”

  “So, why are you telling me this? If it didn't work, you have nothing. Now, I'm gonna tell anyone who'll listen about your little plan.” Kelley said defiantly, her eyes forced into narrow slits. The anger and bravado was short lived. Charlie pulled out his black automatic and leveled it at her head.

  “The reason we're telling you is that there is still a shit ton of valuable information on the servers. As we speak, Evan is uploading it to a remote site in the Ukraine. In about five minutes, we'll be rich beyond our wildest dreams. It's too bad everyone here will die in that horrible explosion.” He said with mock sympathy. “Now, why don't you be a good girl and get on your knees.” He walked closer and motioned her to the ground with the gun.

  Kelley did as she was told. He body was wracked with emotions. The unfamiliar cocktail of fear, anger, and adrenaline washed through her system like electrified flood water.

  “Why did you have to fuck her? You always have a problem keeping things in check when women are involved.” Charlie admonished Evan. He just ignored him while he watched the upload status on the screen.

  “You think I would work this close to a piece of tail like that and not hit it? Man, you must not remember anything from the house, Charlie.” Evan teased him again.

  “I told you not to-”

  The door behind Kelley opened with a quiet click. It was an access to a small room that held only supplies, and a cot for when Evan got stuck at the lab. She craned her head to see who was going to be dragged into this mess next, and her mind and eyes faltered almost as she processed who was standing before her.

  Caleb.

  In nothing but bare feet and a pair of khaki cargo pants, he padded over to the box of clothes and fished out a shirt from the top of the pile. Every action he had was that of a man waking up from a long nap. He seemed groggy and almost unaware of the drama unfolding before him.

  His bare torso showed off his developed pectorals and rippled abs. While he struggled into the snug, tomato-colored Henley shirt, the two men simply stared at him with open mouths. After donning the shirt, he found a pair of hiking boots and slid them on as well. He ran a hand through his unruly, short-cropped hair and shook his head with a comical yawn.

  “Kelley, you cut your hair! It looks great!” He said. That trademark smile of his beamed while he came over to stand in between her and the two men. His blazing eyes looked down at her, and she was starting to feel that everything might be okay after all.

  “Kelley, I want you to stand up and get behind me. These two cannot hurt you anymore.” He said to her gently. With his outstretched hand, he helped her up and then gave her a quick, firm hug. She fought the tears that she felt forming, but there was no use. This was her guy! In the flesh! Literally! She was wrapped in his embrace, just like she had always dreamed of. The smell of his skin was fresh, if not tinged with a scent of new clothing.

  While the two men stood staring at one another, Charlie all of a sudden remembered that he had a gun in his hand. He cleared his throat and pointed it right at Caleb. As if in punctuation, he cocked back the hammer and said, “No one is going anywhere… Caleb.”

  Caleb smiled at Charlie and moved Kelley behind himself. She felt just a little safer with him standing before her like a solid wall of muscle and flesh.

  “Mr. Dent. I hope you're in the mood to take notes, because I'm going to relay some information to you and your little crony over there. I came out of the tank a couple of days early while you were all asleep in your beds. I had my identity and everything else arranged before I went under, but the car and the clothes were a last minute impulse buy. I totally forgot to arrange for that, HA! Anyway, I knew about your little side arrangement all along. I also knew that you would try to sell my data…, and you are. Typical. That's okay. Right now, I'm deleting it from both the Genetitech servers and the secret one in the Ukraine that you thought nobody knew about.” He paused while Evan clattered away on the keyboard frantically. Evan looked to Charlie with an ashen face and shook his head with a sober expression while Caleb continued. “Also, I should have told you that I have access to all of the data in the World. ALL OF IT! There is no escaping my reach. If you pick your nose in front of a shopping mall security camera, I know about it. Update your Facebook status? I know about it. Talk to your doctor about your little limp cock and the special blue pills..., Charlie? I know about it. You see, I am the physical manifestation of the Internet, the Digital Age, whatever you want to call it. I am immersed in it all the time like it's a part of me. I can control this technology-addicted world with a swipe of my hand.” Caleb finished his explanation with a little hand gesture. The monitor that Evan was standing in front of erupted in sparks and exploded outward. The resulting fragments scattered over the floor while he took cover.

  Charlie was undeterred. “Well, well, Caleb, very impressive. Now, in all of your super intelligence, did you ever consider that I would just put a bullet into your little creator here?” He walked around Caleb to where Kelley was standing and pointed the gun at her again. She tightened her grip on Caleb arms while he continued.

  Without even turning around, he laughed with quiet confidence and turned his head to smirk. “Oh Charlie, you forget how this game works. You see, I've already ran through all of the possible scenarios for this meeting. Not only that, I can dynamically adjust for variables in real time. Imagine, if you will, that we are all playing a game of Chess. The difference is, I've already played the next twenty games and won them all. On top of that, I'm playing fifteen other games as we speak. Data is pouring into me like water into a steam engine, and I am using it to crush you as we stand right here.” His definite tone confused and bewildered the men. Charlie stood back and put the gun back in its holster. He knew that he couldn’t shoot the main goal of the entire operation. Caleb knew that too. Now, he was forced to stand there impotently and try to find a new way around all of this.

  “Have you checked your credit rating this morning? If you had, you might have found out about the three yachts that I bought in your name. I think the IRS probably wants to speak with you about all of your embezzled funds as well.”

  While Evan chuckled at his cohort’s new found misfortune, Caleb leveled his ire a
t him as if it were a weapon.

  “I wouldn’t laugh too hard Evan. Right now, the proceeds from the fundraiser you hosted last week are making their way to a Swiss bank account in your name. It's too bad that I sent all the data for the account to the heads of Genetitech, as well as the IRS, and the Ministry of Judicial Services here in Costa Rica. I bet they're waiting at your house right now.”

  In one quick and smooth action, Caleb moved Kelley behind him again while he grabbed the gun from Charlie's holster. As if in slow motion, he completed the move and punched Charlie square in the throat, and he crumpled to his knees while coughing in a guttural tone. With Charlie out of commission, he handed the gun to Kelley and walked over to Evan. The man flinched and cowered slightly as Caleb stood over him.

  With his deep voice almost a snarl, Caleb said “I saw what you did to Kelley at the pool. There are cameras everywhere these days you know...,” With that, he head butted Evan with such force that he sprawled out over the desk behind him. Caleb walked over to where he landed, grabbed Evan's hair and punched him over and over again. Each blow landed with so much impact that Kelley could almost feel it reverberating off the walls. She ran over to stop Caleb from killing Evan with his bare hands.

  “Caleb! Stop! You're better than this!” She spoke while trying to stop his thunderous punches.

  Caleb stood back and held up his bloodied hand. He looked to her and smiled apologetically while he still held Evan by a handful of his hair. After letting go, Evan fell to the ground. His face was almost unrecognizable while he lay there unconscious.

  He turned and held Kelley again, as if for the first time. She could feel his heart beating in his chest. It was surprising to feel him in person. Every bit of him was real and amazing! He was a perfect representation of the man she had spent the last five years programming. Every rendered bump and pixel had been brought into real life.

  “How did you do this? All of this? What were you saying to them about controlling everything?” She began the flood of questions when her lab mode kicked back in.

  Caleb gingerly took the gun from Kelley and tucked it into his pants at the small of his back. “Kel, I would love to answer your questions. But right now, we have to get everyone out of here. Those two morons have a whole network of crooked agents and friends that were in on this little double cross. If they're not here now, they'll be here soon. Not to mention the bomb that's set to go off-”

  Marcus came back in with his phone to his ear. The jovial, albeit stressed and disheveled, man stopped in his tracks right as the whole scene sunk into his mind. His star employee was beaten and bloodied, and that Charles guy form DARPA was gagging and coughing up blood on the floor by the tank. And Caleb! The one thing central to this whole project that was thought to be nonexistent, was right here in the flesh.

  He dropped the phone and threw up. Everywhere. With his hands on his knees, he wretched and shook his head while Caleb came over to explain.

  “Marcus, I want to thank you for doing what you did. I'm a real, living person because of your company, and I owe you a debt of gratitude. Right now, you have to get all of you employees out of here. There's a chemical tank in the fourth sub level of this building with a kilo of C4 strapped to it. In about ten minutes, this whole place will be a crater. How many people are here?” Caleb said with authority.

  Marcus went white, and Caleb shook his shoulders to try and get his attention.

  “I need you to stay with me! How many people are here?” He said again with urgency.

  “Not many. The delivery guys have left, and the rest are just techs. Maybe ten, or so?”

  Caleb looked around the boxes and grabbed some more clothing. In a distracted voice he said, “Get them all out of here. Now!” He began stuffing the clothes into a large backpack.

  Kelley spoke up and motioned over to the two battered criminals. “What about those two?”

  “Frankly, I don't care what happens to them.” Caleb said, as he reached into Charlie's pocket and took out his phone.

  “Caleb-” She started,

  “NO! After what those two had planned for you? What they had planned for this place?” He kicked Evan's unconscious body and stared down at it with pure burning rage. “Especially this one. I saw what he did to you. I saw the fear in your eyes! There's a part of me that wants to find a dark place and take him a part. One. Little. Piece. At. A. Time.” He said slowly and deliberately while he circled Evan's form.

  “Caleb, stop it! You need to get yourself under control. If they die, you're a murderer. Do you want that on your shoulders?” She spoke calmly and reasonably to him. She knew that he would respond to reason. He did when he was a computer program, and he would still do it now.

  She watched the muscles in his jaw work while he thought things over. “I didn't create you to be a monster. You're a kind, gentle entity who was originally designed to help people. Now, do your job.”

  He stood back up and took a deep breath. “You're right. I'm sorry. We should get out of here soon though.” Caleb reached down and grabbed Evan by his torn shirt. As he dragged him toward the door, he paused and grabbed Charlie's suit coat and trailed the both of them behind as he walked out with Marcus and Kelley.