Tripple Chronicles 1: Eternity Rising (11 page)

Bearden
Leitner paced up and down the walk outside of Tripple Laboratories.
 
The letter in his front jacket pocket
was starting to burn a hole.
 
His
ticket to an assistantship of a lifetime and it would go unused.
 
Unless he thought of a way to get to
Dr. Tripple without looking like he was trying to break in. He would wait until
Dr. Tripple left for the day and approach him on the street.
 
It was starting to get cold out and
Bearden found a cafe two blocks away from which he could still see the exit
door of the building.
 
He ordered
vegetable soup and fresh bread and settled in to wait for his moment.

Lee Tripple
sat in his office staring at his phone.
 
This day had left him out of sorts. He was upset by Camden's
disappearance and angry with him for disappearing on the day he chose to
interview assistants.
 
He was also
nervous about having Dana with him in his lab all the time.
 
He had no idea how to teach and the
responsibility this girl was taking on was enormous.
 
Aside from a gifted brain, she would be forced to comply
with the secret nature of his work.
 
Discretion was a rare quality and though he believed Dana had it, only
time would tell.
 
Lee hated taking
risks outside of his experiments.
 
And here he was, bringing a complete stranger into his private world.

“It's
necessary to the project,” he mumbled to himself.
 

Just then,
his phone rang.
 
He answered
abruptly.

“Camden,
where the hell are you?” he grumbled into the device.
 

“
Oh
,..
Dr
. Tripple?” a sweet female
voice asked.

“Um
..oh
...
er
...Who is this?”

“Lee, this
is Enira from the club.
 
I'm
calling because I haven't been able to reach Camden and I'm really
worried.
 
I guess you haven't heard
form him either.
 
I mean the way
you answered your phone was...”

“Oh, no, I
haven't.
 
I assumed he would be
calling.”

“That
settles it then. I will go by his place when I leave the club.”

Her voice
was a little shaky.
 
Why was she
acting so concerned? Who was Camden to her?
 
Then, the realization hit Lee in the gut. Why was he so
annoyed to know this?

“You do
that, then,” Lee grumbled at her, and hung up.
 

Lee got up
and went back to his work.
 
“Wasted
time today, all wasted,” he said aloud as he started noting the progress of his
experiments.

Bearden
finished his soup and started tapping his fingers on the table.
 
He looked at the clock on the wall,
then down the street, then back to the clock.
 
He hated to be bored.
 
The waitress came by and he asked her for something to read.
 
She brought him a cookbook.
 

Twenty
minutes later, when Bearden was sure he could make a perfect fruit custard, he
closed the book and sat back with his arms folded across his chest.
 
He stared at Lee Tripple's building,
willing him to come out.
 
No
luck.
 
The paper envelope in his
pocket rustled slightly as he fidgeted and Bearden reached in and pulled it
out.
 
He looked down at the
writing.
 

For Lee Tripple Only

He flipped
it over and over in his fingers wondering what Colonel Ganesh had said about
him.
 
It would be wrong to read it.
He thought.
But if I knew what it said, it could help break the ice when I talk to
Dr. Tripple later.

Bearden went
back and forth in his mind for another five minutes and then broke the seal.

“Sergeant
Quinn,” Ganesh said with urgency. “Don't move, but listen closely.”

“Yes,
sir.”
 
They were both still staring
at the small device set in the light fixture in Ganesh's office.

“When I tell
you, move as fast as you can to my desk.
 
Grab my computer.
 
You will
need to toss it to me and then grab the small safe under my desk.
 
When you have the safe, we are going to
run out of this room and down the hall to the right.
 
Don't stop running until I do.”

“Okay, sir.”

“We will
have about ten seconds...maybe a couple more...maybe less.”

“What is
that thing, sir?” Quinn asked.

Ganesh
suspected that Quinn knew exactly what it was, hell; he probably put it
there.
 
What a charade they were
playing.

“It's a
pulse bomb...with a motion detector.
 
When you looked at it over the fixture, it activated.
 
It detects us both now, so when we move
it will detonate within seconds.
 
It will be silent but it has a force that will knock us both out, fry
our brains a little, and scramble all the computer data in a given radius.
 
Based on its size, I'd say ten to
fifteen feet...maybe more.”

Quinn's eyes
were two giant black holes, but his balance and concentration did not waver.

“Are you
ready, Sergeant?
On the count of three.
 
One
.......
two...”
Ganesh put his hand in front of Quinn's face hoping to confuse the sensor when
he moved and buy them a few more seconds.
 
“Three...”

Quinn moved
in a flash and employed acrobatics to get over the desk.
 
Ganesh could not see his movements
because he was still staring at the pulse bomb hoping his hand trick worked.

“Computer,
Colonel!” Quinn called out.

Ganesh
turned, grabbed the machine that had been lobbed at him and was out the door
with Quinn at his heels holding the safe. They ran about fifty feet down the
hall before Ganesh stopped.
 
The
two men stared at each other, holding the saved items to their chests.

“What now?”
asked
Quinn.
Ganesh, breathing a little harder from
the sprint, scrutinized Quinn who was looking at him with calm, eager eyes.

“Let's take
a walk around the grounds and have a talk, Sergeant Secretary.
 
My office will have residual energy
bouncing off the walls until tomorrow.
 
But first we need to secure my things. Do you have a locker in this
facility, or are you an implant?”

“I have a
locker, sir, I'll take you there.”

“Good. We'll
stop at the equipment station first and procure a strong lock.”

“Of course,
but you are welcome to use mine.
 
Now that we are a team and all.”

“I'm sure,
but after this little incident, I'll be trusting only one person...myself.
 
Let's go, Sergeant.”

“Right,
sir.
 
Follow me.”

Bearden
looked down at the handwritten letter in front of him.

Dr. Tripple,

My name is Colonel Samuel Ganesh and I am writing to you with great
urgency.
 
Our mutual friend and
colleague, Camden Riles was brought in to the government's technology division
and is being held as a suspect for the theft of a top secret material.
 
I don't know when or if he will be released
and while I am also a person of suspicion in this crime, it may be difficult,
but more importantly, unwise to contact me directly.
 
Camden's safety depends on it.

The young man delivering this message, Sergeant Bearden Leitner, will
act as liaison on our behalf.
 
He
is applying for an assistantship at your lab and it is imperative that you give
him a job...part time only.
 
He
must stay with his unit here so our communication is effective.

I am hesitant to put on paper what I must tell you next, but it is
also important that you know that the government's suspicions of Camden and me
are not without merit.
 
Camden was
in possession of the stolen material when he was picked up.
 
His arrestors did not find the material
and it is urgent that we get it to the safety of your laboratory without
drawing any more attention to Camden or me.
 
So, while I work out a way to get the material to you, you
can help Camden by telling me who Ari is.
 
Camden mentioned his name to me in confidence this afternoon.
 
If I can find him, I believe I can find
where Camden has the material hidden.
 

Send a sealed reply back today with Sergeant Leitner, but to protect
his innocence and to protect Camden, do not tell him the contents of this
letter.
 
Also, after you finish
reading, burn it!

Camden's life depends on our next actions and I know that he trusts
you and therefore, I trust you.
 
I
know that you will do right by him.

In confidence,

Ganesh

Bearden's
mouth gaped open and his eyes were drying out from not blinking.

“What the
hell?” he said to the paper. “You used me...you son of a bitch!”

His voice
began to gain volume.

“Bearden's
life's not important, his career be damned, just make him a criminal...a
conspirator...a traitor...no big deal!”

“Is
everything okay here?” The waitress had come over because people were starting
to stare at Bearden's outburst.

“No!
Everything is not okay!”

He jumped to
his feet, reached in his pocket and slammed some money on the table, grabbed
the letter and stormed out of the cafe.
 
He walked in a fury down the street away from Tripple Laboratories,
crumpling the letter in a ball and shoving it in his pants pocket.

Inside the
lab, Lee dropped his re-animation solution, 247, into a test tube with a
prepared sample of inanimate tissue.
 
He checked his watch, noted the time and waited...nothing.
 
After fifteen seconds, he added another
drop... still nothing.
 
He did this
several more times before he moved onto the next sample that carried a slightly
different genetic code, one he had altered himself.
 
This ritual was carried out for the next two hours on a long
table full of tissue variations hoping for some progress in his latest
obsession.
 
But when all the
prepared samples had been tested, without producing his desired result of
re-animation, Lee took the remainder of solution 247 to a smaller locked lab
off the main corridor.
 
Inside the
room along the perimeter were temperature controlled glass cases that held
solutions 1 to 246.
 
He printed out
a short summary of his notes from his electronic notebook and shelved the
solution and filed the notes beneath.
 
He went immediately to work at the mixing station in the middle of the
solution room to work on 248. It looked like a very sterile wet bar...for
monsters.
 
Bottles of every shape,
size, and color lined the shelves under the length of the table and in the
freezer, in airtight glass boxes, were eyeballs, fingers, and various other
body parts in different stages of decomposition ready to be thawed out and
prepared.
  

Normally,
Lee would remove his used samples from the main lab before retreating to one of
his back rooms, but Dana would be there in a couple of hours.
 
She could start learning the experiment
as she helped him catalog, preserve, and shelve the still dead tissue samples.
Better she sees that part before the preparation of the next set of samples,
Lee had decided.
 
If she ran out in
horror on her first day, he would have to interview all over again and the
thought of that made him cringe and shiver.

After a
while, Bearden stopped walking.
 
He
was unfamiliar with the section of town he found himself in but was not ready
to go back the way he came.
Why would
Colonel Ganesh do this to me?
He wondered.
 
His initial anger had
subsided,
leaving him with questions he would not be able to ask. He didn't regret
reading the letter, but now he knew too much and didn't know what to do about
it. Bearden assumed the material mentioned in the letter was the biomer. It had
to be. What other secret government material was in that place?
  

Colonel Ganesh must have had a damn good
reason to do what he did.
Bearden reasoned with himself.
Unless he's been corrupted and Professor
Riles paid him off to help steal back the technology he started.
 
Or maybe he knows something about the
program that made his actions necessary.
 
In that case, should I feel honored that he trusted me with this
information?
  
It could also
mean that he thinks I'm too stupid to find out he’s using me.
 
Maybe he's using me because I discovered
the catalyst...or because I was the idiot who asked him for his
recommendation.
 
Should I turn him
in? Major Magner would know what to do. Or should I help him and pretend I
don't know what he's up to?
 
He
didn't get his reputation by being a bad guy.
 
Either way, my career is screwed
. Bearden's thoughts
raced like a virus attacking clean flesh. He found himself sitting on a bench
outside a run-down village staring at the crumpled letter that he had
unconsciously pulled out of his pocket again.