Ghost of a Smile (13 page)

“You say that like it's a bad thing,” growled Happy.

“You make it sound like we volunteered to be ghost finders,” said Melody.

“Didn't you?” JC said innocently. “I positively jumped at the chance.”

“Yes, but you're weird,” said Happy. He looked back down the stairs. “I'm pretty sure that leaving is no longer a viable option . . . Whatever's in here with us, it won't give up on us that easily. The higher we go, the more doors close behind us. We are climbing up into the belly of the beast . . .”

“Then try not to think too much about the eventual way out,” JC said briskly.

They'd reached the next set of swing doors, giving out onto the next floor. Huddling together before the doors, they listened carefully, but all they could hear was their own massed breathing. The atmosphere was so still, it almost had a presence of its own. JC put his head right next to the door, straining for even the slightest sound or trace of movement. He bit his lower lip thoughtfully, straightened up, and looked back at Happy.

“Can you sense
anything
?”

“Not from out here,” said Happy. “I swear something in this building is interfering with my talent. And I mean deliberately, not as a side effect. Something is targeting me. All right, yes, I feel like that most of the time, but this time I have evidence. There's a psychic weight in the atmosphere, an unnatural oppression . . . Trying to sense anything here is like listening for bird-song in the middle of a thunderstorm.”

“A simple no would have sufficed,” murmured JC. “You're sure it couldn't be some kind of basic phenomenon, a result of the drug trials?”

“No,” said Happy. “Something's doing this to me.”

“Or someone,” said Melody.

“Oh right,” said Happy. “Thanks a whole bunch. Cheer me up, why don't you?”

“I have tried being cautious and sensible, and a fat lot of good it has done me,” announced JC. “I am therefore kicking that plan in the head and reverting to standard operating procedure.” He slammed through the doors and strode arrogantly onto the next floor, shouting
“Anybody here? Anything weird and unnatural and quite probably illegal, make yourself known! We are here to solve mysteries, whether they like it or not, and dispense beatings to the ungodly!”

“I really hate it when he does that,” said Melody, following JC in.

“If he wants to be a target, let him,” growled Happy, bringing up the rear.

“No-one ever holds the door open for me any more,” said Kim, ghosting through the closing doors.

The whole of the second floor had been made over into one long science laboratory, with shining white walls and surfaces, and tables weighed down with impressive equipment, all of it stretching away into the distance. Fierce fluorescent lighting picked out every detail with almost painful clarity, with not a single shadow to be seen anywhere. The odd partition rose up here and there, presumably to close off the more dangerous procedures; but otherwise, everything was open to view. Work-benches, workstations, computers here there and everywhere, and equipment so complicated the eye seemed to slide right off it, unable to get a hold. Melody pressed forward, grinning widely and making cooing noises, her eyes sparkling as she took in the wonders before her.

“This is fantastic! I mean, look at all this techy goodness! Some of this equipment is so advanced, even I can't be sure what it is! This is way beyond state of the art, JC. I've only ever seen some of this stuff in really specialised trade magazines, usually in the
We're still running tests and crossing our fingers so don't expect to see this anytime soon
department. Available somewhen in the next decade, if you're lucky, along with the flying cars and personal jet packs. Okay—once we are finished with this case, I get dibs on everything. We are hiring several trucks and taking it all with us. I claim salvage.”

“I don't think it works like that, Melody,” said JC.

“It does if I say it does,” said Melody. “I have a gun. Finders keepers, losers can sue me. The scientists working here clearly didn't appreciate what they had, or they wouldn't have gone off and left it. Which means it's all mine on moral grounds.” And then she stopped and looked about her thoughtfully. “Odd . . . Everything here appears to be still turned on, still working . . . as though people just stopped in the middle of what they were doing and walked away.”

“See!” said Kim. “I told you! Exactly like the
Marie Celeste
!”

“It's not normal to be that enthusiastic all the time,” said Happy. “If I didn't know she was dead, I'd swear she was on more pills than me.”

“But where are the scientists?” said Melody. “Seriously, why would they just walk, leaving everything still running?”

“Probably legged it once they saw the trial was going seriously wrong,” said Happy. “As any sane or sensible person would.”

“Getting bored with that song,” said JC. “Not listening, not listening . . .”

“They're not gone,” said Kim. “They're still here.” She nodded to herself, then realised the others were looking at her. She shrugged. “Just a feeling . . .”

“Melody,” said JC. “Find another computer and bully some answers out of it. Starting with exactly what is ReSet, and what is it supposed to do? And, in particular, what were the researchers expecting or hoping to achieve with this latest drug trial?”

Melody was already sitting before the nearest computer, which was still humming busily, its screen filled with an image of Stonehenge at dawn. She hammered away at the keyboard, and the computer made a series of important-sounding noises as it replaced the Stonehenge screen saver with a series of scientific files. Happy looked over her shoulder, was quickly baffled, and went back to wandering around the floor-length laboratory.

“I'm picking up something, JC, but it's hard to pin down anything distinct. There are a lot of emotions still hanging in the air. All of them quite definitely human. Fear, panic, anger, guilt, and a whole lot of
get the hell out of here
. Pretty much what you'd expect, for when everything's gone tits up big-time. But it's all . . . vague. Group feelings, rather than individual residues. Odd . . .”

“Found something!” Kim said happily. “JC, come and look! I think it's a company brochure.”

She was trying to pick it up, but her insubstantial fingers kept passing through it and the desk beneath. She said a few baby swear words and stepped back. JC picked it up. He leafed through the heavy glossy pages, doing his best to ignore Kim hovering behind him.

“This would appear to be an in-house organ,” he said. “Not meant for outside eyes. Basically, preaching to the company faithful. Lots of
Good times are on their way, bonuses for all, your names will go down in history so work hard for the company good
. All the usual corporate bullshit, to keep the little drones happy and hard at work. The bottom line seems to be that the company was promising a cure for pretty much everything, through the wonders of genetic manipulation. But, of course, not quite yet. All jam tomorrow . . .”

“What?” said Happy. “Is this like when I was a kid, and my mum would make me take a pill with a spoonful of jam? I miss that.”

“It's from
Through the Looking Glass
,” said Kim. “You know—jam tomorrow, jam yesterday, but never jam today. You must know it—it's a children's classic by Lewis Carroll.”

“I have a hard time believing Happy was ever a child,” said JC. “I think he was born nervous, sweaty, and trying to cadge free medications off the midwife.”

“I never read any Carroll,” said Happy. “I did try, but it scared the crap out of me. I was a sensitive child.”

JC flipped quickly through to the end of the brochure. “Reading between the lines, what I see here is mostly qualified apologies. The theories are sound, but they don't have the funding to produce real results. Nothing here about ReSet.”

“Found it!” said Melody. “Drop your linen and start your grinning, Auntie Melody has found the mother lode!” She beat a brief victory tattoo on the desk with both hands. “Not a single decent firewall in this thing. It's almost like these files wanted to be found. Anyway, gather round while I dispense wisdom and wonders.”

They all did so, and she continued, her attention still riveted on the monitor. “The scientists here at MSI stumbled onto something impressive while looking for something else, which is always the way. But you were right, JC, they had to go outside the company to get the extra funding to make it work. And if I'm reading this right, I mean absolute shed-loads of money. The people on this floor needed some pretty expensive items, a lot of it quite blatantly illegal. And even immoral. We're talking half a ton of human stem cells, and even more human organs. Along with equipment so cutting-edge they must have boosted it right out of the testing labs. Oh, this can't be right, I'm looking at invoices for hundreds of human hearts, kidneys, livers, bone marrow . . . you name it, and it's here somewhere. Where could they possibly have got it all?”

“I'd guess third-world countries, executed Chinese prisoners, any number of civil-war zones,” said JC. “Trafficking in human organs is the second biggest illegal trade, right after human slavery. Sometimes I think we're going after the wrong monsters. What were they doing with all those organs? And the stem cells?”

“Strip-mining them for something specific they needed,” said Melody, frowning. “To make ReSet.”

“Who exactly was it that supplied the extra funding?” said JC.

“No names,” Melody said immediately. “Whoever it was went to a lot of trouble to remain strictly anonymous.”

“Could it be Crowley Project?” said Happy. “I mean, this is the kind of nasty shit they'd get off on.”

“None of the usual signifiers,” said Melody. “But everything was kept carefully compartmentalised, so most of the scientists didn't know what the guy on the next bench was working on. It was all on a strictly need-to-know basis. Perhaps so no-one would know enough to feel properly guilty. This goes far beyond proprietary information, JC. We have to contact the Boss, get them to pry open the company records.” She stopped and looked up from the monitor. “You know, I have to wonder, even if we succeed, if we'll be allowed to walk away from this case, knowing what we know.”

“Welcome to my paranoid world,” said Happy. “Cold, isn't it?”

“We don't know nearly enough yet,” said JC. “And anyway, I'd like to see MSI come up with anything that could stop us.”

“Don't say things like that!” said Happy. “You'll be saying
What could possibly go wrong
next!”

“Face front, brave little soldier,” said JC. “If we can survive what's going on here, we can survive anything.”

“Did you have to say
if
?” said Happy.

“What else have you got, Melody?” said JC.

“The extra funding did the trick,” said Melody, scrolling quickly through the files. “They came up with a real miracle drug. They called it ReSet. According to this, it was a completely new wonder drug that could actually repair all damage to the human body by forcing it to reset itself to factory conditions. The miracle cure that all Humanity's been waiting for—a single drug that would fix whatever was wrong by putting everything back the way it should be. From broken bones to tumours, from viruses to organ failure. No more medicines, no more surgeries, no more transplants. Hell, ReSet could even cure the common cold! But then they tried it on actual test subjects . . . and it looks like ReSet did far more than was expected.”

“I really don't like where this is going,” said Happy.

“You're not alone,” said Melody. “Listen . . . what's happened here is the result of the first actual drug trial on human test subjects. Everything else had been strictly computer models and simulations or experiments with the organs and cells they'd acquired. They didn't do any animal testing—apparently whoever was supplying the funding was in a hurry. The order was to go straight to human testing, and no-one here had the authority to say no. And the researchers were given very strict instructions on how the drug was to be administered. The test subjects, the volunteers, had no idea what they were getting. Poor bastards were told it was an allergy test. They were all given injections of ReSet, right here in the laboratory, and then watched closely for twenty-four hours. Nothing happened.

“I'm looking at the clinical notes. Round-the-clock observation, all life signs carefully monitored, regular blood tests . . . Nothing. Since there were no obvious reactions, and no biological changes, the test subjects were allowed to return to their living quarters, on the floor below. So the scientists could get into a real screaming match over whose fault it was that nothing had happened. They thought the drug trial was a failure because there should have been immediate signs. After twenty-four hours of sod all, they were tearing each other's hair out.”

“LD50,” said JC. “They expected half the test subjects to die, or nearly die, then recover, thanks to ReSet.”

“Exactly,” said Melody. “But the test subjects had barely been gone an hour when the first emergency call came through, from Room Seven. Things really went horribly wrong. Jesus, JC, some of this makes seriously scary reading. A lot of it is notes, made on the run by scientists half out of their minds, meant to be fleshed out later. Anyway, the scientists went down to Room Seven, accompanied by building security staff. That's probably what we heard, in the corridor. And then . . . a lot of people were killed, in and around Room Seven. There was a struggle. First the researchers attempted to restrain the occupant of Room Seven, who was freaking out big-time, then the security people waded in. They couldn't control him. Says here they used Tasers, and that was when the killing started. The man in Room Seven just . . . tore them apart, and kept on killing until the survivors turned and ran. And then . . . he killed himself. Maybe because he couldn't stand what he was turning into. What he was becoming.” She paused, clearly shaken by what she was reading.