The Legacy (6 page)

He looked up at Pip in alarm. ‘They’re not drugs,’ he said, watching bodies tumble out of the containers – dead bodies, black, shrivelled-up bodies. The men were jumping back as they took in the horror that lay in front of them. Some were running away, others were prodding the bodies to see if they were alive.

‘No,’ Pip agreed, his gaze fixed to the screen, his clear blue eyes clouded suddenly. ‘No, they’re not.’

‘They’re like the woman,’ Jude gasped, fear gripping at his chest like strong, icy hands.

‘The woman? She looked like that?’ Pip asked, his voice urgent and low.

Jude nodded. ‘Exactly the same,’ he said breathlessly.

Pip didn’t say anything; he just kept looking right ahead at the screen.

‘Pip?’ Jude turned to him anxiously. ‘What does this mean? What happened to them?’

‘A very good question,’ Pip said gravely.

‘It’s Pincent Pharma, isn’t it?’ Jude said through gritted teeth. ‘I’m going to upload this on to the Web. Tell the newsfeeds. People have to see this.’

Pip turned to him, his eyes cloudy, and shook his head. ‘No, Jude. Now is not the time to act. Now is the time to wait.’

‘Wait? For what?’ Jude asked incredulously. ‘Stop pushing me away. I can help. We should be broadcasting this. We should be using this to let the world know that Pincent Pharma is corrupt, that it’s killing people! Let me be part of the fight, Pip. Please.’ He looked up hopefully, desperately, his eyes passionate, his fists clenched. And for a moment, he thought Pip was going to say yes; for a moment, Pip looked like he was really considering it.

But then he felt himself crash down to earth as Pip shook his head. ‘A broadcast isn’t necessary or desirable, Jude. News of this will get out eventually, I assure you.’ He got up and started to walk away.

‘That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?’ Jude asked desperately. ‘What do I say to the men? What do I do?’ He looked down miserably at his handheld device. ‘Do you even realise what I’ve got here? Are you even aware that I worked for months on this communications network? That it’s unrivalled as far as I know? Do you care that I don’t just film attacks; that because of me, you or I can speak directly to the leaders of the soldiers, send for back-up, give orders when dead bodies spill out of lorries instead of drugs? Do you?’

He stared at Pip defiantly, angrily.

Pip looked back at him, then nodded. ‘Of course I know, Jude,’ he said quietly. ‘Tens, maybe hundreds of lives have been saved because of what you have done.’

Jude started in surprise. Pip had never so much as said thank you for the network, never seemed to show any interest in it. ‘So what do I tell them to do?’ he asked.

‘You tell them to go home,’ Pip said quietly. ‘And then you track the lorries back through their journeys. I want to know where they came from and where they stopped on their way. Can you do that, Jude?’

‘Track lorries? Sure, I can do that,’ Jude said heavily, turning back to the images and feeling his blood turn cold at the sight of them. ‘I can do whatever you want.’

.

Chapter Four

Richard stood at the window of his large office, looking at but barely seeing the panoramic view of London, the symbol of all his power and success. He felt ill, felt tired, felt . . . scared.

Power and success. Already it felt as if they were evaporating. He walked over to his desk and gripped it. Slowly he breathed, in, out, in, out. He would find an answer. He always found an answer.

But even as he told himself everything would resolve itself, he found his mind flooded with doubt. For so long he had buried all thoughts of Albert Fern, of his protestations as Derek led him to his death. ‘
You don’t have anything, Richard . . . Without the exact formula you know nothing . . . The circle of life must be protected
. . .’

Richard shuddered. How he hated his former boss, his former father-in-law, the man who had treated him with such contempt, forcing him to undertake menial tasks in the laboratory when it had been clear he was meant for greater things. But Richard had had the last laugh. It had been an article he’d happened upon while at university that had convinced him he should go and work for Albert – an interview in which Professor Fern had made an offhand remark about his pursuit of the cure for cancer, saying that he feared they would cure ageing before they cured every strain of that terrible disease. He’d done his research and from what he’d read, Albert had seemed to be the real deal. So Richard had waited for an opening, for a job to come up in his laboratory. And when it had, he’d been ready.

Everything had gone to plan too. More to plan than Richard had allowed himself to dream. Except . . .

He moved towards his large leather chair and sat down heavily, then pulled out from his top drawer the papers he’d stolen from Albert’s desk on the day of his death – meaningless scribbles, equations and streams of letters that even the most brilliant scientists had been unable to interpret. All Richard could hear in his head was Albert’s taunts about the circle of life. The circle of life? What was it?

Angrily, he let the papers fall from his hands back on to the desk. Several times over the years he’d almost thrown them away – they were meaningless drivel and he hadn’t needed them. Despite Albert’s protestations, his team of scientists had been able to recreate Longevity, as he’d named it, from the professor’s original sample. The drug had sailed through all testing and trials and had taken the world by storm, and Albert Fern had been recast in the history books as a genius who had died of natural causes before his great discovery had been accepted, adopted and legalised.

Richard knew that the scientific community would never have accepted the story that he himself had invented the drug, and Albert’s ‘sad and untimely’ death allowed the drug’s genesis to be fabricated, manipulated and, most importantly, kept as opaque as possible. Meanwhile, he had taken his place at the helm of the most powerful company in the whole world. But now . . . now . . . now he needed the formula, needed to understand Albert’s scribbles. But instead of helping him, they were as impenetrable as ever. He could almost feel Albert mocking him from beyond the grave.

Richard brought his fist down on the desk so hard that the papers jumped up in the air. ‘What is the bloody circle of life?’ he shouted. ‘Is it the formula? Where is it? Where is it? You bastard! You bloody sanctimonious, conniving bastard!’

Even as he shouted, he knew he had to stop this momentary lapse of control. Anger would solve nothing. But this was anger that had been building up for years – anger and fear that one day Albert’s words would come back and haunt him. Richard always liked to have all ends tied up; it was why he had told Derek to dispose of Albert rather than lock him up somewhere. Neat ends enabled you to move forward. Opponents, problems – they had to be dealt with efficiently, not left to fester. And he had succeeded too, except for the formula. However much he had told himself that he didn’t need it, that an exact copy was perfectly adequate – more than adequate – he had always suspected, known even, that this ragged end, this unfinished business would come back and haunt him. When Dr Thomas had been blathering about viruses mutating, Richard had dismissed him immediately. He knew what the problem was. Derek knew too. He suspected that they’d both been half expecting it for years.

He had to think. He had to think hard. He would find a way forward – he always did. And in doing so, he would turn the situation to his advantage. There was always an opportunity in crisis, however desperate things seemed.

His phone started to ring and he looked at it with loathing – it would be Hillary Wright, head of the Authorities, haranguing him for more information, for explanations. Dead bodies were not easily hidden in a world where no one died; illness was not easily explained away when Longevity stopped even the tiniest of infections from taking hold. As he’d predicted, the number of deaths was growing – single figures had become double and now there were hundreds of corpses piling up at Pincent Pharma, buried in hastily dug shallow pits. Pincent guards were taking them when they were ill, before anyone could witness the horror, the blackened corpses. Thankfully, living forever had meant that most marriages had broken up – a lifetime’s commitment was now rather too long for most to stomach. With no children any more the vast majority of people lived alone, making it much easier for the Authorities police to take them away in the middle of the night and bring them to Pincent Pharma to die and to be examined.

Richard ignored the phone. Hillary could wait, he decided. She would have to – he had to think, had to find a way through the maze. So far he had evaded her questions, lied to her when necessary. He would not admit there was a problem until he also had the solution. He needed the formula; that was the quest. But how? It was like a puzzle, a game, only one with terrible consequences if he lost. Could he dig up Albert’s body? Bring him back to life? Torture him into revealing the exact formula?

Nice idea, he thought wryly.

But no. There had to be another way.

He stared again at Albert’s notes. Impenetrable scribblings, little doodles around the page – he’d got his best scientists to work tirelessly in an attempt to interpret them, but to no avail. The formula could not be concealed within their pages; it must be hidden somewhere else. But where? Richard had ransacked Albert’s house, his car, his office – everywhere. He’d examined everything – after his death and then again a few weeks ago when one death had turned into five and he’d realised that something was wrong.

Sighing, he scrunched up one of the pieces of paper and threw it across the room. But as he did so, his eyes were drawn to something on the page beneath – an image he’d seen somewhere before. A picture of a flower. He’d dismissed it as a doodle, but now . . . He knew he had seen it somewhere else. Where? He didn’t know. He closed his eyes, tried to picture the place he’d seen it, but . . . nothing. Then he opened his eyes again. Underneath the drawing, in tiny letters, was written, over and over again, ‘The circle of life. The circle of life. Must be protected.’

There was a knock at the door and Derek walked in, silent as always. ‘I wondered if there had been any . . . progress,’ he said.

Richard looked up and shook his head miserably. ‘The circle of life,’ he said, sighing. ‘All I have is this stupid drawing and his scribblings about the circle of life.’

Derek looked thoughtful. ‘That’s what he was shouting when I took him away,’ he said.

‘The circle of life? But what was he talking about? Did it have anything to do with the formula?’ Richard asked uncertainly.

Derek didn’t say anything for a moment, then he walked back towards the door. ‘You’ll find it, sir,’ he said quietly. ‘I know you will.’

Richard sighed heavily. ‘The one person who believes in me,’ he said. ‘I wish I had your confidence. Thank you, Derek.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Derek said smoothly, and left the room.

Jude looked around cautiously to check that no one was watching him, but he needn’t have worried; as always, Pip was nowhere to be seen and Sheila was lying sprawled over some cushions reading a romantic novel that one of the supporters had donated a few weeks ago.

Quickly he looked back at his computer and adjusted the sound levels so that no one but him would hear what the cameras were picking up. Pip might not think he was as clever or brave as Peter, but Peter wouldn’t be able to do this, Jude thought to himself, adrenalin coursing through his veins.

He could feel a light film of sweat cover his body which, bearing in mind the temperature of the Underground, had nothing to do with heat. He was scared. Excited. His neck muscles were tense, his eyes wide, because he’d done the impossible – done what no one else had even attempted. He might not be a hero in Pip’s eyes, but Sheila believed in him and that had given him the idea. He’d got into the Pincent Pharma security system, which wasn’t in itself terribly challenging – he’d been doing that before he’d even met Pip. Network security had been his bread and butter in the Outside world and there was nothing he didn’t know about firewalls and chinks that let him go wherever he wanted. But now things were different. Now he’d made the leap into the most protected area in Pincent Pharma. Now he was seeing what no one else could see.

He hadn’t expected to get into Richard Pincent’s camera system on his first attempt, though. He hadn’t expected to be sitting here a few hours later watching him up close.

Silently Jude watched as Richard stared at some handwritten notes in front of him. Then, hearing someone approaching, he quickly turned the volume down even further and got ready to minimise the screen. But it wasn’t Pip, it was Sheila. He considered minimising the screen anyway, but he didn’t want to. Not now. Not when he was this close.

As Sheila approached, her eyes widened like saucers. ‘That’s . . .’ she said anxiously.

Jude nodded. ‘Shhh,’ he whispered and Sheila sank silently into the chair next to him, her face white.

‘He keeps looking at that picture,’ Jude said under his breath. ‘And muttering about the circle of life.’

Sheila looked at him worriedly and he put his arm around her. ‘Don’t worry. You’re safe here.’ She leant into him and as usual he felt his chest lurch.

‘What’s the circle of life?’ she asked under her breath.

‘I don’t know. But I think this image has got something to do with it. Look.’ He zoomed in on the flower. ‘I’ve seen it before,’ he said. ‘I know I have. But I can’t remember where.’

Sheila looked at it carefully. ‘And why is he looking at it?’

Jude looked at her for a few seconds, then looked around again to check no one else was near. ‘I don’t know,’ he said cautiously. ‘I mean . . . I don’t think Richard Pincent knows either, to be honest. But he keeps staring at it and he was shouting before, asking what it was.’

‘Does Pip know you’re doing this?’ Sheila asked, frowning.

Jude shook his head.

She appeared to digest this for a second, then she leant forward. ‘Richard Pincent’s got a very nice room,’ she breathed. ‘Big windows. And it looks really warm.’

Jude nodded. ‘Yeah, well, when you’re Richard Pincent I guess the normal rules don’t apply.’

Sheila nodded. Then she looked at Jude intently. ‘The other day. You were going to tell me about my parents. Will you tell me now?’

Jude looked down. ‘Your parents? It was nothing. I didn’t find anything – that’s all I wanted to tell you.’

‘Really?’ Sheila asked suspiciously.

‘Really,’ Jude said, not meeting her eyes.

‘That’s a shame. Because I know what it is. The picture, I mean.’

Jude raised an eyebrow. ‘The picture Richard’s looking at? How?’

‘I just do,’ Sheila said with a little shrug.

‘So tell me,’ Jude said, raising an eyebrow.

She turned to look at him; she was so close he was sure she could feel his heart thudding in his chest and wished it would calm down a bit. ‘I’ll only tell you if you promise to find my parents. Properly find them.’

She was staring at Jude intently and he felt himself getting hot. Pip wouldn’t be happy about it, but then again Pip was never that happy. And after all, this was Sheila they were talking about. She probably didn’t know anything. She was just making stuff up as usual.

‘OK,’ he said.

‘You promise? You cross your heart and hope to die?’

‘What?’ Jude screwed up his face. ‘Why would I do that?’

‘It was in a book I read,’ Sheila said earnestly. ‘You have to say it. That means I know you’re telling the truth.’

‘Fine,’ Jude said with a little grin. ‘I cross my heart and hope to die. So? What is it? If you really do know.’