The River (25 page)

Jake was right.

Project Ankh
was
a success.

She wrapped both arms around her father, comforted by his familiar embrace. He kissed the top of her head, then hugged her so hard she couldn't breathe.

"Ok, you can let go now, Dad. Before you smother me."

Sending her a rueful look, her father stepped back and ran a restless hand through his hair. Deliberately, he flipped his middle finger at the surveillance camera.

"They're watching us, Del."

"Yeah, probably listening too," she said. "
Bastards!
"

"I'll second that."

He hugged her again.

"When are we getting out of here, Dad?" she whispered.

"You won't be here long―neither will your friends. Thanks for coming after me, honey. Your heart's in the right place. Remember that.
"

"They think I have the cure but I don't," he said in a normal voice. "This secret file they're after is a figment of the Director's imagination."

Del gave him a startled look.

Is there really no file, Dad, or are you saying this for show?

He released her and gave her a wink.

"So, Del. How are things in 2005?"

"Grab a chair," she said. "We've got a lot to talk about."

Desperate to quell her fear and unable to talk about escape plans, she filled her father in on the last seven years. She told him about the investigation into his disappearance. Afterward, she described his empty-casket funeral and the celebration of life that his old poker buddies had thrown in his honor.

"How's your MS, Del?"

She stared at the wall.

Should she lie?

"I was in remission for over a year."

"When did it start again?"

She shifted uncomfortably. "The last few days. But I'm on a new medication."

She paused. "Or I would be if I hadn't lost my pills. I'll have to go on injections when I get back.
If
I get back."

"Have faith," he said, squeezing her hand. "How's your mom?"

"Remarried."
To an asshole.

He smiled. "Probably less than a year after I was presumed dead."

Her lip curled in disdain. "Four months actually."

"So she's happy?"

"They divorced a year later. Now she's married to Ken."

"Is he a good guy?"

"Yeah, good and drunk most days. He's a lecherous pig."

Her father's expression was sad. "Your mother deserves better."

Del gazed at him for a long moment. "She
had
better."

"And Jake, how'd you find him?"

"Through Arnold's journal."

"That journal," her father chuckled. "Arnold would write in that thing practically every day, making notes of our formulas and keeping track of events."

Leaning forward, he dropped his voice even lower. "How the heck did you decode it?"

"Miki Tanaka," she replied. "The girl who drowned. She was a classmate of Peter's, my―"

She caught sight of her father's face. "What?"

"Del…"

His expression turned deadly serious as he rose and summoned her to the small sink. Under the guise of washing the dishes from her lunch, he ran the water.

She gave him a questioning glance.

He kissed her cheek.

"They can't hear us if we make some noise, Del."

"What's going on?"

He handed her a glass to dry. "I, uh, don't know how to tell you this, but…
Peter
is not who you think he is."

She gawked at him. "He's one of my students, Dad. Just a sweet, shy kid."

"His name isn't Peter Cavanaugh. It's Vance A. Paughter. We haven't seen him here much over the past year, but every couple of months he returns. I always wondered where he went."

"Why didn't Jake tell me last night?"

"He just found out, today."

She thought about Peter, with his awkward glances and timid smile. She recalled the times he had been away for a week or two. Looking after his sick grandmother, he had said. It was difficult to accept that he had actually flown back to the Nahanni River and stepped through a time portal into 2031. Or that Peter had fooled everyone at the university―especially her.

Suddenly, everything began to make sense.

Francesca hadn't been the one responsible for sending the canoe down the river.
Peter
had! And he must have been the one who gave her the unfiltered water. He had tried to sabotage their trip.

He probably took my pills too.

Her father gripped her shoulders. "The man you knew as Peter was sent by the Director to spy on you, to see if you know anything about the file."

"So it
does
exist!"

"Shh!" he cautioned, eyeing the camera behind him. "Not here."

She was about to argue when a deafening siren went off. Muffled angry shouts filtered through the door and heavy footsteps thundered down the hall.

Her father frowned, one ear pressed to the door. "Damn!"

She grabbed his arm. "What's wrong?"

"Someone's loose, trying to escape."

A security guard came and silently spirited her father away, leaving Del alone, terrified. She felt a shiver of dread race up her spine and settle between her shoulder blades. It wasn't easy being separated from the others, not knowing…waiting.

The alarm abruptly shut off, signaling the end of the chase.

Del pressed her ear against the door, but the hallway was silent.

I hope they make it out of here…whoever it is.

Hans carried a barely conscious Francesca into the nearest room―an empty operating room used by surgical teams to decapitate live adult specimens. A metal table with a thin plastic covering lay unoccupied in one corner. Beside it, a small draped cart held an assortment of surgical saws, scalpels and IV supplies. Unused monitors and other equipment bordered the walls of the room―abandoned. For now.

Reaching the table, he dropped her on it, his eyes skimming over her body. He brushed his lips against her ear.

"Don't you know who you're dealing with? Here, I'm God! I can give life…or take it."

He bit down hard on the soft cartilage.

Francesca cried out and the sound made him hard again.

"Vance may be back," he said, stroking her silky-smooth skin. "But I'm the one who brought in over twenty million dollars this year. I'm the one who ensured that the stem cells are created, and I'm the
only
one who deserves you."

He reached between her legs and spread them slightly.

He'd remove her panties in a moment. For now, he wanted to take in the sight of her.

Slowly, he moved to the head of the table. Bending over her, he licked along the line of her jaw, tasting her fear. He stroked her face, one finger trailing over the bruised lip.

"We can create dozens of cells, you and me. And if you cooperate, I'll give you your youth, Francesca."

The words were barely out of his mouth when he was head-butted into the wall. Ignoring the searing pain, he spun toward the bed.

The stupid bitch is conscious!

Frenzied green eyes locked on his, and they were brimming with revulsion. Francesca jumped off the table and stood near the door, her breasts heaving with each ragged breath.

In one hand, she held a razor-sharp scalpel.

His mouth stretched into a tight smile. "So that's how you want to play, is it?"

"I'm not playing, asshole! Come near me and I'll slice you."

His heart beat faster with anticipation. The woman had guts―he'd give her that. But she didn't have a clue who she was messing with.

Once she submits to me, I will truly be God.

"I love it rough, my dear Francesca."

His voice was deceptively calm.

"And I'll guarantee you a visit at least three times a day to prove that to you."

He laughed when her hand shook. The sharp blade glinted in the light, but he wasn't afraid.

A millisecond of hesitation. That was all he needed.

And as soon as he got it, he lunged at her.

The scalpel slashed at him, cutting into his shirt and nicking his forearm. Annoyed, he whipped around, kicked her with one foot and sent her crashing into the wall. Francesca quickly straightened and threw herself at him. But he ducked and gave a swift elbow jab to her ribs. The scalpel clattered to the floor and she grunted and dropped to her knees. Then she grabbed the blade handle and scurried as far from him as she could.

"You can do better than that," he sneered.

Her eyes flashed contemptuously as she waved the scalpel in the air. With a bloodcurdling shriek, she flew at him again. This time she wrapped her legs around his waist. She sliced the air inches from his neck but he warded off the blade, his fingers digging into her arm, squeezing, bending it back. Her other arm gripped him around the neck, and for a moment he couldn't breathe.

The bitch was trying to strangle him!

He reached up with his free hand and shoved the side of her face.

Forced to let go of him, she fell to the ground but her foot lashed out, hooking the back of his leg. With a quick jerk, she pulled him down on top of her and a loud, stunned gasp escaped from her mouth.

Hans smirked when he heard the soft crunch of her ribs.

"I'll make you scream with pleasure."

Francesca's eyes greeted him, wide and terrified. Her lashes fluttered softly against her cheek. Her mouth gaped open and she whispered something breathlessly.

"What's that?" he snapped. "God can't hear you!"

She's like a fish out of water. A goddamn wet fish!

He felt a flash of heat in his chest. Frowning, he reached between his stomach and Francesca's chest. When he pulled his hand away, it was covered in warm sticky blood.

"You bitch! You stabbed me!"

Panicking, he peeled himself away, ripped open the front of his shirt and searched for a wound.

But there wasn't a scratch on him.

He let out a gleeful laugh. He was invincible.

Standing over Francesca, he leered down at her.

Then he scowled.

She wasn't moving!

That's when he noticed the spreading pool of blood and the glaring blade lodged deep in her chest. The blood bloomed outward, like a rose slowly opening its petals.

His smile twisted into a glower of rage and he clenched his fists, gazing into her fading green eyes.

"You haven't had the serum yet! You'll die!"

He watched in disbelief as her lips curved into a smile. Her mouth opened and she struggled to speak, but all he heard was a gurgling rasp coming from the back of her throat.

"What?"

She tried to speak again and he pressed an ear against her lips.

What was she saying?

A strangled gasp erupted from Francesca's lungs. With a dying breath, she uttered three words that made him tremble with fear.

"You're…no…God!"

Jake slumped on the bed and stared off into space.

I'm partly to blame for all of this.

Forcing his mind off Francesca and VanBuren, he thought about the Ankh serum. His research at Bio-Tec Canada had led to the discovery of the serum and that didn't sit too well. He and Francesca had been working on one of Lawrence's original projects for the past six months. They had hoped to solve one of the major barriers that nanotechnology faced. The emission of excess heat.

Because it took hours for the nanobots to repair a single cell, a few molecular machines produced enough heat to virtually roast a small lab mouse from the inside out. Jake had discovered this firsthand, after he walked into the lab one morning and found five of their test subjects roasted alive.

They were back to square one.

Until three months ago, when he had remembered something that Lawrence had said years earlier. Something about AQP-5. It was so obvious that he could have kicked himself.

That morning,
Jake had arrived at the lab after a long jog around the park. His face was flushed and he was sweating heavily. The first thing he reached for was a cloth to wipe his brow.

That's when the connection hit him.

Working on mice, he had overlooked the AQP-5 factor. If overheated due to exercise, humans sweated and body heat was released as the sweat evaporated. The water channel aquaporin-5 found in human sweat glands had long been thought to be crucial to thermoregulatory sweat secretion. If the amount of AQP-5 expression could be safely stimulated and increased, it stood to reason that more sweat would be created.

Consequently, most of the excess heat the machines produced would be eliminated through the sweat. That would give the bots enough time to repair the damaged cells.

That was their project's fundamental core.

According to the 2009 article, he was obviously heading in the right direction. If he could find out more, dig into some of the Centre's records, he would know exactly what they needed to do.

If he ever got back to Bio-Tec.

The door opened.

Lawrence hesitantly walked in, eyes drawn.

"TJ told me what happened to Francesca. I'm sorry."

"I should never have brought her here. But she insisted on coming, damnit! She came here because of me."

Jake saw the doctor's curious expression and he sighed.

"I broke it off with Francesca months ago, when I realized that she deserved more from me."

He moved to the table and sat down across from Lawrence.

"And now?"

"We're friends, Lawrence. And co-workers. Nothing more. It kills me that I couldn't stop him from raping her. Jesus! He was savage!"

"VanBuren is an addict."

"To the serum?"

"Yes…and to youth. He's been injecting himself for years, all for a chance at youth and longevity. One hundred and forty years of it."

"Who the hell wants to live that long? I couldn't stand watching all my family and friends grow old and die while I stay…young."

"Some people will do anything, Jake. Go to any extent to look younger, feel younger. Others will go to any extent to be healthy, not suffer from pain or dis―"