The Gambit (29 page)

She laughed and nodded her head in dismissal of my trivial statement.

“Well, in light of all the science I’ve learned in my life. Some facts are just hard to fathom. Don’t you think?”

My face scrunched up from her words.

“Examples?”

“My favorite, one I’m certain you know. Atoms. They never touch.” I nodded, rolling my eyes in response. I knew that from the eighth grade. “Don’t give me that look,” she scolded.

“Sorry.”

“Anyway, they never touch. Their electrons, although incredibly close, never touch. There is always space between the atoms. Also, the volume of an atom according to physics is 99.99 percent to the umpteenth-power repeating—empty space. The physical matter that makes up the visible world is but an infinitely small fraction of the whole. We are all quite literally empty space. We are the universe observing itself.”

What a parallel. I was impressed.

“So, perhaps my thoughts emit a frequency…a cosmic resonance, per se. Perhaps the rest of the known universe can pick up that frequency, and it returns another back to me. It could be measurable, one day. Who knows?”

“Is your PhD in Metaphysics?

“Funny.” Her face was deadpan.

Beep
. The electronic lock clicked open. I whipped around to see Professor Trantham in his pajamas with four stony-faced men in black suits behind him. I met eyes with Emily. Her hands were shaking as she held the vials. The sound of their dress shoes hitting the tile floor grew closer.

“Professor Trantham!” Emily gasped shakily. “What are you doing here so early?”

He didn’t respond, just lingered by the entrance. The four men approached our station. That’s when I knew it—we were screwed. My ex had squealed.

“This laboratory is off limits to all students and professors alike. The CIA has full control over these premises’ by executive order. Effective immediately.” The tallest of the men announced those words emotionlessly. The other three went for the vials in Emily’s hands and the specimen that laid on the station. She drew back, holding on to the vials.

“This is ours!” she struggled to keep a grasp, and they forcefully pulled them away. She staggered backward from their strength. My heart was pounding in my chest.

“Ms. Stevens, it is in your best interest to cooperate with us.”

“Is it?” she spat, and her nostrils flared.

“I wouldn’t recommend attempting to find out the contrary.”

Did he just threaten her?

Emily’s mouth hung open in fear. The tallest one, who I assumed was the leader, mumbled something into his watch, and then turned back to us. His jawline was strong. His face was square, and he sported a buzz-cut. The others cleared our workstation before I could even take a second glance at what they were doing.

“Everything in this lab is property of the federal government. If you do not comply with our requests, we will charge you with tampering of evidence from the Danger Zone. Which infringes H.R. 1649—a crime punishable of up to twenty-five years in prison or loss of citizenship and becoming a known traitor of the United States.”

My breathing was shallow. A cold line of sweat formed along my hairline. I glanced back at Professor Trantham. His head was hung towards the floor.

“This is ridiculous. We have rights!”

A minuscule smile emerged on the man’s face. He was amused. He knew he had the power to do whatever the hell he wanted.

“Sorry to be the first to inform you, but in matters of National Security, you have no rights.”

My stomach clenched up. Pure, undiluted terror swept over my body. My blood felt hot and a vein pulsed in my forehead.

“National Security my ass,” I coughed.

The man didn’t react. His lips pressed together, and he held his composure.

“Are we almost clear?” he asked.

“Clear.” One of the other agents behind me answered.

“Good. Destroy all of it.”

Emily shook her head in desperation. “No, no! You can’t!”

Excellent
.
She remembered our emergency plan
.

I felt the cold metal handcuffs clamp around one of my wrists. My instincts caused me to jerk my arm, and my head was slammed against the workstation.

“Don’t resist,” a voice behind me said.

The clicking noise of another pair of handcuffs sliding shut caught my ear. Emily was now in the same position as me. From across the opposite side of the table, our eyes locked. She gritted her teeth and her forehead creased from strain. Her prediction came true. She had warned me for days, but I didn’t listen.

“Did you do what I asked you?” I whispered across the table.

Emily’s lips tugged into a smile, and with her cheek pressed into the metal workstation, she nodded
yes
.

We were jerked upright violently and pushed towards the lab door. The tallest one stepped in front of me, blocking my path. The agent held my wrists and waited. Emily was led out ahead of me.

“What did you just say to her?” His eyes turned to slits.

“Nothing,” I muttered. He wasn’t the least bit pleased.

“I
heard
something. She nodded back at you.”

I exhaled heavily and puffed up my chest. I wouldn’t budge for this prick.

“Fine. Take him away.”

“You can’t arrest us,” I said as we began to walk away.

“We aren’t—yet. You and the girl are being detained for questioning.”

The ride across town was silent. The kind of silent that was unsettling, which caused my thoughts to race endlessly. It was a conscious effort to hear something other than the soft hum of tires on pavement. I was shoved into the back of a black Yukon Denali. Emily must have been in a separate vehicle. After the leader noticed me whisper something to her, there wasn’t a chance in Hell we would be taken together.

There was a faint red glow emanating from the controls on the dash. The stick shift was a faux-mahogany, and the doors had a trim in the same material. An advanced navigation system was jutting out from the dash. I spotted the police lights hidden in the corners of the windshield. This SUV was loaded.

I was glad our tax dollars were being spent so prudently…not. No, instead, our Post-Confinement tax dollars were going to the extortion of innocent citizens like myself. All for conducting research that violated the heinous law the government enacted to keep the lie hidden from the public. They were scared. Scared that our research might abate the trust people had in the EPA’s findings. I exhaled slowly and glanced between the two men in the front seats. They weren’t talking, just fulfilling their orders. I wondered how much their salaries were. Perhaps they were paid enough to keep quiet about the corruption taking place.

My face flushed with heat. My breath shuddered from just thinking about what had just occurred in the lab. I owed over two-hundred thousand dollars in student loans to two of the most renowned universities in the US, and now I was being punished. I was being told by the feds that I could not conduct research. Research that was not harming anyone, nor a threat to National Security. To Hell with them. They fucked with the
wrong
scientist.

I stared at my reflection in the two-way mirror across the room. I knew they were watching. The agents had led me in here a few minutes ago and left without saying a word. I sat at the end of a long, rectangular table. There was a box of doughnuts and a pot of coffee sitting in the middle with a few Styrofoam cups nearby. It was as if they were trying to say,
‘Hey, open up to us. Oh, and here’s a donut. Maybe that will make you feel a little more at home
.’ I snorted, shaking my head at the thought. They had released me from the cuffs. I guess they saw a thin white guy in a lab coat and figured I wasn’t a real threat. If only they knew.

The door swung open. It was the same tall agent who did all the talking back at the lab. The leader. Why wasn’t I shocked? I was certain he wanted to get to the bottom of what I whispered to Emily. He pulled out the plastic seat and sat down. His face was vacant, and his eyes were sullen. He poured himself a cup of coffee, all while acting like I wasn’t there. I didn’t care how long he took. He wouldn’t make much headway with me regardless.

Finally, he glanced up and met my eyes. There was a manila folder he had brought in, and from it he removed papers and began sorting through them.

“So, Stefan, is it?”

Why did he ask such a dumb question? He knew exactly who I was.

“Yes.”

He didn’t answer right away, just kept his impassive expression. “Salutatorian of your high school class back in New York, graduated Magna Cum Laude with your bachelor’s from Columbia University, got your master’s at MIT, and continued to pursue your PhD there in Nuclear Engineering. You are quite the overachiever, wouldn’t you say?”

I didn’t even bother answering. It wasn’t worth my breath.

“Now let me ask you a question,” he began, setting down his papers. “What is an up and coming Nuclear Engineer doing wasting his time testing animal tissues? Why bother?”

I bit the inside of my bottom lip, trying to hold back going off on him. It infuriated me how he was playing dumb.

“It’s a side-interest,” I muttered.

His forehead scrunched up. “You got your specimen in Manhattan, judging by your research. I mean, last time I checked, Boston to New York is nearly a four-hour drive. Hardly a side-interest, I’d say.”

I glowered at him. I wanted him to know I didn’t like him, and everything he stood for. I knew though, the longer I stayed quiet, the more intense the questioning would become.

“Emily Stevens. What is her involvement?” My Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he said her name. I didn’t want her to be the least bit responsible for this.

“None. She just assisted me with the handling of the specimens.”

“I find that kind of hard to believe.”

“I find
a lot
of things hard to believe,” I spat back.

The man snorted and let out a hiss-like laugh. “Is that what compels you? Driven by the notion that the EPA lied about what type of radioactive isotopes were found on Black Monday. I wonder who would believe you, when that story has been forgotten of long ago.”

“I have proof.”

He revealed a smile so sinister it was disturbing. His eyebrows quirked.