Resurrection America Page 6

  He often thought dealing with Morris was half the reason the Pentagon had cancelled his program. The top brass cited ethical concerns as their reason for shutting him down, but a decade of fighting the Jihadis hadn’t left many scruples in the military. If he’d delivered a weapon that worked, the chiefs would have worked out any moral issues that got in the way.

  But the program had racked up only failures while devouring resources from America’s much-diminished military budget. Dislike of the Genysis founder only made it easier to scrap the program and shutter the whole project. The fools had missed one of the great discoveries of the twenty-first century by only a couple of years. Lucky for the country, Keefer had never given up, selling Morris on the idea of continuing in secret.

  Relying on Brandon Morris had been a flaw in the project from day one, but access to the tech, let alone Morris’s cash, had made it a necessary evil.

  “You’re her boss,” he said. “Just tell her to come back to your offices for an important meeting.”

  “You don’t know this woman,” Morris said. “She thinks she’s on to something. If I call her off, she’ll just push harder.” The man groaned and Keefer hated him for his weakness. “I told you we should just do this overseas. It would have been so much easier.”

  “We’re past that now.”

  “I could have built everything you have up there. I still don’t understand why we couldn’t have just done this in Asia. No laws. None that the authorities would have used, anyway.”

  Keefer clenched his jaw until his teeth hurt. They’d had this conversation a hundred times, but the man would never really understand why the project had to be conducted on US soil. Why it had to be Americans that saved America, not some backward culture that ate rice and fish and prayed to Buddha. Or worse, bent down to Mecca five times a day. No damn way that was going to be how America took back its rightful place in the world. But it didn’t matter that Morris didn’t get it. Not anymore. There was no turning back.

  “We’ve been through all this. It had to be here. Nowhere else,” Keefer said as calmly as possible. “But we’re wasting time. What’s done is done. Our first round of diagnostics checked out. We’re online and on schedule to start tomorrow.”

  “But she’s going to trace this back to me before that,” he said. “After we’re operational, it won’t matter. But if it doesn’t work, if something goes wrong before … this wasn’t part of the plan.”

  That’s what it always came down to for Morris. Getting caught. Tarnishing his reputation as the wunderkind destined to save civilization from itself through technology. He didn’t care about the mission, only himself.

  “Nothing’s going to go wrong. And if it does, it’s not going to trace back to you. I promise,” Keefer said. He took pleasure in knowing that, if the mission went south somehow, all arrows actually would point to Morris as the crazed mastermind behind everything he was doing. When you needed a patsy, why not use one of the most well-known men in the world?

  “I’m nervous,” Morris said. “I think we should postpone. M … maybe we should … you know … rethink this.”

  A ringing filled Keefer’s head and he felt his heart rate ratchet up. The headache that’d been waiting in the wings erupted with full force, stabbing behind his right eye. The idea that they could be so close to changing the world, only to have this ass even utter the word postpone, filled him with a blinding rage. If he’d been in the same room with the young man he might have choked him with his bare hands. He stood from his chair and slammed his hand on his desk so hard that pain shot up his arm.

  “Don’t you dare turn weak on me, Brandon,” he said. “This program is days from being operational. Don’t you ever suggest we do anything except push forward, do you understand?”

  “Y … you … you can’t talk to me like that,” Morris stumbled. “I … I pay for––”

  “You knew the stakes going into this. You knew what we intended to do. But maybe you didn’t fully appreciate who you were going into business with. I want you to listen close, because this might be the most important thing you ever hear. Are you listening?”

  “You can’t talk to me like––”

  “I asked you, are you listening?” Keefer shouted into the phone, channeling every drill instructor he’d ever had into his tone.

  A long silence followed. Keefer thought for a second that Morris might have hung up, but then a small voice came over the line. “I’m listening.”

  “If you do anything, and I mean anything, from this point forward to jeopardize this project,” Keefer said, his voice so calm that it was almost a whisper, “I’ll kill you. If I die, one of my men will kill you. And before you wonder if I can make good on that threat, I want you to look around the next time you take a walk on the grounds of your fancy estate, or work late in that beautiful corporate headquarters of yours, or slide into the back of a chauffeured car. When you see people near you, people who look like they’re just doing menial tasks, they’re likely men I put there. Men loyal to me. Men who will do anything I tell them.”

  “Keefer … I didn’t––”

  “And when I do it, when I kill you, I’ll take my time. I’ll get creative. As much of a genius as you are, you can’t even fathom the things I’ve seen done to the human body. After it’s over, after you beg for death as a mercy, other people will hear about what you had to endure, and their balls will crawl into their stomachs just from the description of it.”

  There was a chugging cough on the phone. It sounded like a gag reflex, and it made Keefer smile.

  “Playtime’s over, Brandon,” Keefer said. “Shit just got real. Do you understand?”

  Silence.

  “I said, do you understand?”

  Morris’s voice came back soft and frightened, like a child. “Yes, I understand.”

  “I’ll deal with Cassie Baker,” Keefer said. “If you think that would be best.”

  “Yes … whatever you think,” Morris said. “Thank you.”

  Keefer smiled. It felt great to finally speak his mind and to reassert himself at the top of the food chain. “Don’t worry, Brandon. Tomorrow you’ll have everything you want. Together, you and I are going to change the world. Great progress can only be derived from great sacrifice.”

  “I haven’t heard that quote before. Who said that?” Morris asked.

  “I did,” Keefer replied as he hung up the phone.

  11

  Rick figured he’d bought himself some time, but only one day. He intended to come up with some other reason to delay when it came down to it. With the festival going on, and him being the only law enforcement in town, it wouldn’t be too hard to concoct a minor emergency he needed to deal with. His head was still spinning from Cassie’s sudden appearance. He’d thought he was over her. Over the side-splitting ache he got from missing her. Over the embarrassment of having the only marriage proposal he’d ever given be rebuffed by a woman unwilling to leave her career behind.

  To be fair, she’d begged him to move to Denver and marry her there, but he couldn’t pull that trigger. The two of them, as stubborn as they came, took what could have been one of the best nights of their lives and turned it into a fight for the ages. Hopeful discussion about options for working things out turned into finger-pointing and judgment. Once it got down to an argument of who was being more selfish, the knife was lodged squarely in the back of their relationship. Three days later, Cassie was gone, back to Denver and a high-flying career saving the world from itself, and Rick was left with an empty house, memories of their time together, and the dream of what might have been if she’d stayed.

  He’d considered playing the part of peace-broker. Even tried to bring himself around to the idea of leaving Resurrection for the city life, making a trip down the mountain to wander the streets and try it on for size. But it didn’t fit him. Resurrection was more than just a town to him; it was a way of life. It was what he’d held onto through all the shit he’d faced with the Jihadis
. Somehow, if Resurrection died, then he felt like he might not be able to make it either. Leaving it behind wasn’t an option for him. Besides, in Denver there were too many people, too many sudden noises, too many things to trigger memories he didn’t want to have.

  The guy who led his support group–none of them liked to call him a therapist, just their guy–told him it showed that he hadn’t really dealt with all the stuff in his head yet, only buried it under a thin layer of dirt. He suggested moving might be a good step for Rick, force him to confront some of the demons that had followed him back home. It all sounded well and good, except for the part about dredging up the past and dealing with it. As far as he was concerned, that part of his life was just some bad dream that enough time and distance could wear down, like rain hitting a sand castle on a beach. Even the artificial limb attached at his left elbow felt real enough that he could almost forget the real flesh and blood arm he’d left out in a Middle Eastern desert. Almost.

  But, in his heart, he knew the past always had a sneaky way of catching back up. Cassie was proof of that.

  “You taking her up to the mine?” Bertie asked, falling into step next to him as he walked through Town Square away from the stage.

  “Tomorrow,” he said. “She needs to get into the old lab to check on something. I’ll need to rig some safety gear, just in case.”

  Bertie walked in silence for a few steps. He looked over and saw the pinched look on her face.

  “What?” he asked.

  She stopped. Part of him wanted to keep walking, but he couldn’t bring himself to be rude to her, so he pulled up and waited.

  “I like Cassie,” Bertie said. “She’s smart, nice, and about as pretty as they come.”

  “And?”

  “And I think you have time to take her up to the mine today, let her see what she needs to see, and then have her get the hell back down to Denver where she belongs.”

  Rick tried to suppress a grin and failed. They lived in a small town so everyone knew everyone else’s business. When Bertie had found out what happened between him and Cassie, the full extent of her maternal protectiveness had been on full display. Rick had half thought Bertie might make the trek down to Denver to give Cassie a piece of her mind. Hell, she may have actually done it without him knowing. He saw that same look now, only she likely thought she was protecting Dahlia and Charlie this time too.

  The problem was that he did have time to take Cassie up to the mine. The story about getting the gear ready was the only thing he’d been able to come up with on the spot. Fortunately, Cassie seemed to have accepted the explanation. Bertie wasn’t going to be as easy. She knew it would take all of ten minutes to grab what he needed to make a trek into the mine. What he really wanted to tell her was that if he took Cassie up to the mine, and she saw the militarized fencing around the property, she and Genysis were going to go ape-shit. Good-bye secrecy. Good-bye fifteen million. But that was exactly what he couldn’t say.

  “I think it’s better to go up tomorrow,” he said. “After the festival.”

  Bertie looked skeptical, but didn’t say anything. That just made it worse.

  “With Manny on his leave of absence, I need to be here.”

  “You understand that it might seem to some people like you’re looking for a way to keep her around for an extra day?”

  Rick didn’t need to ask who some people were. He was already on his way to find Dahlia. “That’s not it. The machine she needs to check out is on the lab level. That’s a few thousand feet underground. I’m not going down there with just a flashlight and a granola bar.”

  Deidre Jacobs, the self-appointed festival decorations committee chair, walked up. “Sorry, Bertie, but we need you over at the stage,” she said. “Millie wants to put balloons across the front, but it looks just horrible. Horrible. Like a little kid’s birthday party. We need you to settle it.”

  Bertie didn’t take her eyes off Rick. “I’ll be right there,” she said.

  He gave her a wink. “Duty calls.”

  She stepped forward and punched him in the chest. Hard.

  “You’ve got a good thing going. Don’t mess it up.”

  He watched her walk away, Deirdre waving her hands frantically toward the stage. Not for the first time, he considered that Bertie must have the patience of a saint to do her job. He’d certainly benefitted from her gentler qualities over the years, but the sore spot on his chest where she’d punched him was a good reminder that even she had her limits. He liked the idea of Keefer negotiating with her. Knowing Bertie, the town would end up with twenty million dollars for its trouble.

  That was if he could just keep Cassie off the mountain for a couple of days and not destroy his relationship with Dahlia in the process.

  Bertie had that part right, he did have a good thing going, and that was usually the time when he messed it up. He realized he didn’t want that to happen this time. He had to make sure his beautiful, rich, brilliant ex-girlfriend arriving unannounced in town didn’t send things spiraling in the wrong direction.

  He found Dahlia in the building that used to house Miller’s Hardware Store. As it had been abandoned for the past five or six years, the festival committee had commandeered the storefront as its headquarters. It looked like a politician’s campaign office the night before an election. Signs piled in a corner. Flyers being copied on an ancient, wheezing Xerox machine. A group was putting together welcome packages for the vendors ready to ply their wares to the large crowd expected in the morning. Dahlia stood behind a table to the side, folding brochures, and barely looked up when he came in.

  Conversation in the room fell a few octaves when he stepped through the door, staying just loud enough not to make it completely obvious that everyone in the room knew that Cassie Baker was back in town. He ignored the sidelong looks and went over to the table where Dahlia studiously had her head down, doing her work. He walked behind the table and picked up some brochures to fold.

  “I forgot to thank you for lunch,” he said quietly, aware the people in the room were doing their best to listen while trying to look like they weren’t.

  She nodded. “No problem.”

  He leaned over, wrapped an arm around her waist and gave her a short kiss on the lips. “I appreciate it. I really do.”

  She tensed up at first; months of keeping their relationship secret made such a public display of affection a shock. But when he pulled back, she was both blushing and smiling.

  “You’re welcome,” she said. “Now start folding.”

  He did as he was told, taking note of the other grins around the room, coupled with knowing, satisfied looks. Dahlia nudged him playfully with her shoulder and he knew they were all right.

  Now, all he needed to do was keep Cassie off the mountain for a couple of days and everything would be fine.

  12

  Cassie made the turn onto the mountain and headed up toward the mine.

  She felt a small pang of guilt after promising Rick that she’d wait until after the Fall Festival to go up the mountain with him. He’d been so adamant that she figured it would just be easier to agree than to argue. She intended to at least see if there were any obvious signs of activity up there. Besides, she technically wasn’t breaking her promise. The mineshaft itself would be locked up so she couldn’t get in even if she wanted. She was going up to the mine by herself. Her promise was that she wouldn’t go into the mine. Big difference.

  But she knew Rick wouldn’t think so.

  Seeing him had been unexpectedly emotional for her. Of course, she’d known that she’d see him on her trip, and that it had the potential to be awkward. But the whole thing was more intense than she’d imagined. That he was the last real relationship she’d had didn’t help either. For the last three years, she’d been married to her career and it hadn’t left time for much else. There’d been the periodic fling to blow off some steam and get her head on straight, but nothing that even came close to resembling an actual adult relati
onship.

  Seeing the town had also filled her with mixed emotions. She saw how her life could have been. Wife of the town sheriff, mom to a kid or two, maybe running a small consulting business from the back room of a house out in the woods. There was an appeal to it, especially on the days when catering to the massive ego of Brandon Morris, CEO of Genysis Corp, felt like babying the most truculent child on the planet.

  But her life in Denver put her on the cutting edge of science. Seeing Rick’s prosthetic arm, a Genysis product, brought that home more than the accolades from her scientific peers or the awards that crammed her office. At the crossroads between the machinery and Rick’s nervous system were algorithms that she’d created. Each movement was in response to neural firing, but it was her work that translated that not only into fine motor skills, but also into a passable reproduction of a nervous system. The result was a new life not only for Rick but for hundreds of thousands of amputees from the war. The brain-machine interface Genysis had developed with her work at its core was light years beyond any BMI tech anyone else was able to pull off. When she wondered if it was worth the sacrifices she made, she only had to meet a single soldier using Genysis tech for her to stop feeling sorry for herself.

  Besides being a royal pain in the ass, she had to admit that Brandon Morris was an unmitigated genius.

  The shielding he’d developed to replicate the conditions in the mountain labs was so out of the box that even peer-reviewed articles on the technology still led to calls of false data. But it worked and, instead of conducting experiments in the depths of the world’s mines to shield from radiation, Genysis could now operate anywhere in the world. While it hadn’t been good news for towns like Resurrection that enjoyed the income from their operations, it’d led to exponential growth of their work. In fact, they’d accomplished their original ten-year goal of a fully functional artificial limb in only two years. But they were on the edge of doing so much more. Actually unlocking the power of the human brain to connect to wearable tech was within reach.