GeneSix (7 page)

“It seems to me,” she said, “the higher you rise into public office, the more important it is for you to govern your behavior. You have to keep in mind your responsibility to the public, and if you don’t, then I intend to bring you down.”

“There comes a time, of course,” Jake said, reaching up to touch the gentle curve of her cheekbone, and letting his finger trail down the line of her jaw, “when it might be more important just to be quiet and let a guy kiss you.”

And he did. Lightly at first, and then more firmly. He reached toward a small stand by the side of the bed to set the wine glass down, but she simply let hers fall away as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him in for a deep, probing kiss.

It was a testimony to the high plastic content in the glass, probably purchased at a Wal-Mart for pocket change, that it bounced and did not shatter.

He awoke in her bed the next morning, and found by a glance at her alarm clock that
morning
was actually 1:10 in the afternoon.

He also found he was in bed alone. Mandy was sitting at her tiny kitchen table. She was dressed in a white terri-cloth robe that was as short as her skirt the night before. Beside her was a cup of coffee, and she was tapping away on the laptop.

“Good morning, sunshine,” she said, looking up from the screen and across the apartment at him.

He stretched, and winced as the sunlight coming in through the windows met with the pain in his head. After making love the night before, they had finished off the wine bottle, which was now lying on the floor by the bed, and had then attacked a second bottle which was now lying empty beside the first.

“How long have you been up?” he asked.

“Since about seven. I have stories to write and send in. One for the Press Herald that I just emailed over, and now an editorial for the school paper. A girl’s gotta work.”

He sat up. His head balked at this, like a gong going off. Mandy was apparently much more accustomed to drinking a lot of wine than he was. He decided to cheat a little, and he flipped the power-up switch. Not as much as he had at the bar the night before, but enough to make the hangover fade away. Within seconds it was gone.

He had to confess, though only to himself, he had allowed a little powering-up the night before, also, which kept the both of them busy well into the early morning hours and left Mandy falling asleep from exhaustion. Not that he heard any complaints, though.

“So, did you enjoy your evening?” he asked.

She gave him a grin. “You know what they say – once you go superhero, you never go back.”

Despite himself, he found he had to return the grin. “I suppose the same could be said about investigative reporters.”

He got up, pulled on his  jeans, and walked over to the table. He planted a nibbling kiss on the side of her neck, which she responded to by stretching her neck to one side to give him more to work with.

“Hey,” she said. “I’ve gotta finish this editorial. Then we can play.”

“Actually, I’ve gotta call the lab, anyway. Make sure Scott got home okay.”

“The lab? Doesn’t Egg-head Boy have an apartment?”

“Technically. Or at least, the government pays for one, but he usually sleeps on a cot in the lab.”

As he fished his cell phone from his jeans, his gaze fell on the laptop’s monitor. Black text filled it, double spaced. He said, “Do you ever have the fear you’ll mess up your pen names, and send the wrong one to the wrong paper?”

She raised her brows. “Believe me, that’s something I double check all the time.”

Jake dialed the number, and the phone was answered by April, the lab assistant. It was Sunday, but Jake was not surprised to hear her answer. For Scott, Saturday was just another day at the office. April’s voice was bright and chirpy. She was student assisting Scott in some of the experiments he was conducting. Of course, that really meant she washed a lot of test tubes, swept floors and answered phones.

“Doctor Tempest’s office,” she said.

“April, this is Jake. Did Doctor Tempest get home safely last night?”

“Oh, yes. He’s right here, involved in some work.”

Jake could hear him in the background. “April, give me the phone.”

Then, “Jake. Where are you?”

“Well, you remember Mandy, who I left the bar with?”

He could hear Scott’s smile in the way he formed his words. “You old dog.”

“I’m surprised you’re even out of bed, considering how much you were drinking last night.”

“Yeah, I put down a few. My head
was
pounding when I  woke up, but I activated a pain-nullifier field so I could get some work done. I’ve been working on computations all day.”

“Man, you sure know how to have fun.”

“Hey, take your time getting home. I’m going to be right here all day. Probably all night. This is going to be a long project. I can’t talk about it over the phone, of course.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have mentioned the pain-nullifier field, either.” This was one device the government wanted kept classified at the highest level. Its very existence could cause the pharmaceutical industry hundreds of millions, and possibly a lot of jobs.

“Yeah, but what the frig, you know?”

It was sometimes hard to believe Scott’s intelligence level was as high was it was.

“Well, I’ll be back in a while. Catch you later. Stay out of trouble.”

Jake snapped his phone shut, and stuffed it back into his jeans. “I’m going to grab a shower, if you don’t mind.”

She clicked the
save
icon, closed the laptop, and jumped up from her chair. “I think I’ll join you.”

The shower led to a third bottle of wine she had in her fridge, and they spent the afternoon in bed. She threw his clothes in with hers in the community laundry room in the basement, and they made love for the length of the wash cycle, and then after a quick run to the basement in her robe, she returned and let the robe drop to the floor and they went one more time for the length of the dry cycle.

Afterward, it was a trip to the corner grocery store for a couple more bottles of wine, and then to a pizza shop for dinner. And then, back to her room.

The following morning, he gave her a kiss good-bye, and began the journey by foot back to the campus. It was Monday, as far as he could figure. A weekend like that can make you lose track of the days.

He flipped open his cell phone and called the lab.

Scott answered the phone himself. “Yeah?”

“Well, that’s professional.”

“I’m
not
professional. That’s why I have you and April.”

“I was just checking in. I’m on my way back to the lab.”

“Yeah. I knew it was you. You’re on the corner of Rice and Williams.”

“How can you tell that? Oh, wait. That’s right. Your computer. It can trace any phone call almost instantly.”

“That’s right,” Scott said. “Should I send a car?”

“No, I’ll walk it. I should be there in a couple hours.”

“Oh, by the way, the paper’s here. You might want to check out the front page when you get here. But take your time.”

Jake walked along, his thumbs stuck in his jean pockets, feeling all was right with the world. The sun was shining, and even though it was early November, the temperatures were in the mid-sixties. He was powered-up a little, but not enough that he could not feel the warmth of the sun on his shoulders. There was a steady breeze, cool and refreshing, and the streets and sidewalks were still damp from a light rain the night before. You get lots of light rain in Boston in November.

He strolled onto the campus and to the lab building. There was a security guard, and Jake flashed his I.D., going through the motions of protocol even though the guard recognized him.

The guard said, “Good morning, Mister Calder.”

“Morning, Fred.”

Jake approached the elevator, then said the hell with the elevator and went for the stairs. He powered-down enough so he could enjoy the workout of running up four flights of stairs, taking two at a time. He felt exhilarated and wanted the rush that can come from physical exertion.

He hit the fourth floor and then walked down a long, tiled corridor. He flashed his I.D. badge at a little sensor by the handle of a steel door – another Tempest innovation – and walked into the lab. If the hidden sensor had not recognized his I.D., then the door would not have unlocked itself.

April was in a white lab jacket and jeans, pushing a broom. A cute, petite girl with brown hair tied into a tail behind her head. A few strands had already pulled loose and were trailing along a cheekbone. “Good morning, Jake.”

“Hi, April.”  He had told her to dispense with the
Mister Calder
nonsense, but Scott insisted most people call him doctor.

“Hey,” Scott had said. “I worked for that title. Hell, I’m a doctor four times over already, not counting the four other doctorates I’m going for.”

“Okay, then maybe we should call you Doctor Squared Twice Over.”

Scott had winced. “All right. I had that coming.”

As Jake walked into the lab, he realized April was sweeping up lots of tiny pieces of broken glass. “What happened?” he said.

“Doctor Tempest kicked the lab table, and a whole bunch of test tubes went crashing to the floor.”

“Why did he do that?”

She shrugged. She was accustomed to the doctor’s erratic behavior and was no longer ruffled by it. “It happened after he looked at the morning paper. He said a lot of words my father usually uses when he’s watching the Red Sox, and then kicked the table.”

Jake shook his head. Why was it geniuses had to be so unstable? He would, of course, not ask Scott because Scott would then proceed to inundate him with a three-hour reason as to why. “Where is the good doctor?”

“In his office.”

The office was a small room that opened onto the lab. The room consisted of a desk covered – entirely – with scattered pieces of paper on which were scribbled mathematical computations, and one computer that was, on the outside, an old outdated upright Mac. However, Scott had totally replaced the innards with a processor running on some theory Jake could not begin to understand but which made silicon microchips obsolete. The thing could actually hold a conversation with you. And on one wall was a poster of Leonard Nimoy with pointed ears.

Jake found Scott behind the desk with the Press Herald open.

Scott glanced up as he walked in. “Oh. There you are. Just checking the results of last night’s Patriot’s game. I was so busy with my computations I forgot it was on television.”

“Sorry, Scott” the computer actually said. “I should have reminded you.”

“That’s all right,” Scott said to the computer, then to Jake, “I wish I could figure out a computation that might explain what the hell is wrong with their offensive front line.”

Jake noticed a folded newspaper resting in the chair in front of Scott’s desk. “What’s this? We got two papers today?”

“I sent April out for a second copy. There’s a story on the front page that’s so incredible, I thought you might like one of your own.”

Jake shrugged, then picked up the paper and dropped into the chair. Scott was watching him over the top of the sports page as Jake unfolded his copy of the Press Herald.

The top headline, in big black letters, read, EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH BOSTON’S SUPERHERO JAKE CALDER.

The secondary headline beneath it read, A WEEKEND WITH CAPTAIN COURAGEOUS, by Kimberly Stratton.

“Uh-oh.”

“Now,” Scott said, calmly. Jake had forgotten how when Scott was really
really
angry, his voice took on a sort of eerie calmness. “Let’s talk about this incredible weekend of yours.”

Scott said, “Just what the hell were you thinking? Did you just feel, for some insane reason, inspired to tell her every single thing there is to tell? Regardless of how classified it might be?”

Scott was not being so calm now. His voice was rising a bit, and increasing in intensity.

“I..,” Jake’s hands were out before him, like he was reaching for an answer that was not there. The paper had fallen into his lap. “I really don’t know
what
I was thinking.”

Scott got up from his desk, and began to pace within what little pacing space he had in the limited confines of his office. Pacing was what Scott did when he was thinking, and when he was ranting. Jake knew this was going to be one of Scott’s ranting moments.

“I already had a call from the White House today. Our old pal, the Secretary of Technological Development. Did you tell her about him? Hmm?”

“No, I don’t think I mentioned him.”

“And why – pray tell – not? An oversight on your part?”

“Probably,” Jake said with sarcasm. One thing he was not good at was being yelled at, even if he was in the wrong. He felt his own ire rising.

“And you told her about the interdimensional teleporter?”