Project Aquarius (The Sensitives Series Book 1) (4 page)
Read Project Aquarius (The Sensitives Series Book 1) Online
Authors: Colleen Jordan
CHAPTER FIVE
Drea
The tiny music classroom, across the hall from the auditorium, was in a forgotten corner of the school. Ten computers were crammed into the windowless room, which also housed a small closet that masqueraded as a recording studio. Despite the less than stellar digs, it felt like a peaceful respite from the hurried pressure of Phipps Academy.
Drea arrived at the music lab just as the bell rang. She threw her North Face bag on the ground and slumped into the computer chair closest to the recording studio door. She was happy to be assigned this seat as it afforded her the opportunity to look out the doorway into the hall when bored and also have the easiest access to the studio when inspired. And it didn’t hurt that Matt had convinced the teacher he had to sit at the computer next to Drea–– something about a hacked firewall and easy access to social media.
Whatever his reasoning, sitting next to Matt’s floppy hair and beautifully coordinated outfits was enough to make Drea high for at least two periods after Music Comp.
Mr. Pretty Pants sidled in a full minute after the bell, taking his assigned seat next to Drea. The teacher, Mr. Conte, didn’t seem to notice Matt’s tardiness; he continued to drone on and on about melodic structure.
Drea double-clicked her project folder on the desktop and remembered that she was learning to compose strings, not her favorite assignment. As she donned her headphones and hit the play button, her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t been able to eat anything besides a granola bar because of the test anxiety, but now that it was over, she was famished. But she would have to wait three and a half more periods until lunch. Ugh.
Drea began working on a cello track, low and slow building the tension of her song. But her stomach wouldn’t quit. Neither would her heart.
Her heartbeat was racing crazy fast for the second time that day. Drea held her hand to her chest. The feeling worsened each second. Her palms were sweaty yet cold and her vision started to blur. Suddenly, her throat tightened and it became difficult to swallow.
Then the feeling of impending doom intensified.
She looked at the clock. 9:08 a.m. Time had slowed to a crawl and Drea swore the gliding second hand had stalled out completely. All her saliva had dried, making it impossible to talk.
Go away panic attack, go away.
Drea looked over at Matt and noted his complete lack of distress. He was wearing his signature bulky headphones, jamming to his latest electronica creation. He smiled at her in a way that warmed her inside.
Drea hit pause on her track and floated for a moment in complete silence. Her arms began to shake, her breath became increasingly shallow and then with no warning she followed an urge she wasn’t even aware she was having. Drea jumped up from her computer, with her headphones still connected, and ran the five steps to the recording studio. Her monitor, jarred by the tugging headphones, fell off the desk. Matt jumped up and reached out instinctively to grab the doomed piece of equipment. But he was too late. It shattered on the floor.
Then as if in slow-motion, Drea grabbed Matt by the back of his shirt, opened the recording studio, and pulled him inside, landing on top of him in the dark.
CHAPTER SIX
“Have a good day,” said the pimply twenty-something through the drive-through window.
Sara raised her coffee in a salute. “God bless caffeine. Have a good one.”
That was the closest thing Sara Owens ever got to prayer. She was a spiritual person, but not a religious one, and she believed in showing gratitude for the little things, even coffee, especially coffee. She was relieved to find that Dunkin was open at 6 a.m., not a fact she had hoped to learn, but one that was necessary when her boss texted her at 3 p.m. on a Sunday to say there was a mandatory staff meeting set for 7 a.m. Monday morning.
This wasn’t the first time. GenetiCorp was fond of mandatory last-minute staff meetings, sometimes to explain new corporate rules and other times to make the staff aware of a new deadly pathogen in the building or an exciting genetic discovery that wouldn’t be made public for years. However, the meetings were usually scheduled at the end of the workday with 24 hours notice. The short 17 hours notice and the early morning start time made Sara think the company had some particularly important news. She secretly hoped it was a real emergency since the announcement had ruined the rest of her weekend by polluting her thoughts with images of returning to work extra early on Monday.
Sara wondered how many call-outs there would be, as she drove the tree-lined back roads of Brighton, through a repeating matrix of houses stuffed together on small lots. She wasn’t brave enough to be one of them as she was eager to please her boss, Dr. Shin. This was her first gig out of grad school and she had been with the company less than a year. She couldn’t afford to make a bad impression.
When GenetiCorp recruited her from MIT the previous spring, she had been surprised at their aggressive offer. They initially sent her to China for work on cataloging the human genome. China was not something she would have picked for herself, but she was willing to do anything to get ahead with an up-and-coming lab like GenetiCorp. After a few months, when she finally had adjusted to the culture shock, she was abruptly reassigned back to Cambridge to be part of a noetics research group due to the findings in her dissertation.
She was shocked to find that GenetiCorp had found a place for her on their coveted Noetics Team so soon after graduation. Noetics, or the link between consciousness and the human genome, was her real passion. Other scientists, even within GenetiCorp, looked down on noetics research as pseudo-science, but Sara was confident one day it would somehow change everything.
She was flown back from China First Class and set up in a cozy condo in Brighton, the mortgage subsidized by GenetiCorp. From lowly lab peon, to big time lead researcher in a matter of months. There certainly were perks to being higher up in the company.
Getting up early for the meeting was not one of them. But strangely it had also filled Sara with a sense of purpose. She sipped on her scalding coffee at the traffic light before the bridge. The commute was actually pleasant for once. Mem Drive was much less congested at this hour. And she felt energized and unusually awake thanks to the caffeine.
When Sara pulled into the GenetiCorp parking garage, she was shocked to see that it looked more like a bustling Wednesday afternoon than a super early Monday morning. There wasn’t a single open space on the first level. Finally, she found one in the corner of the third level of the garage. It was a slightly smaller space penned in by large cement pylons covered in yellow paint. COMPACT CAR was stenciled in large block letters on the pavement. Sara decided to chance it. She took a deep breath and slipped her small Toyota Corolla into the tight space. She was able to open her door just enough to squeeze out.
Sara made her way to the garage elevator and pressed B7. The touch screen pinged a bright blue and requested the mandatory thumb scan. Sara obliged and was granted immediate access. She liked that part; it made her feel like a secret agent.
Her clearance level allowed her to go directly to the underground auditorium bypassing the check-in process in the lobby. It saved her a few minutes each morning, which she used religiously to stop and get a large coffee.
When the shiny stainless doors slid open on B7, Sara was shocked to find a sizeable throng of coworkers milling around. There was a mixture of suit jackets, lab coats, and a menagerie of business casual interpretations. Sara fell into the latter category, always reliant on slipping her starched lab coat over her pathetic street clothes once she arrived at her workbench for the day. She felt suddenly self-conscious about her outfit choice for this important meeting: a faded tan polo paired with black slacks covered in cat hair. Swiftly, Sara tucked the slightly frayed ends of her polo into her slacks, highlighting her trim waist. She smoothed her clothing down, plucked a few obvious white hairs off, put on her best early morning professional smile, and trudged away from the elevator with her chin held high. Her mother’s advice,
Fake it ‘til you make it
, echoing in her head.
Everyone on B7 was chatting and seemed to be in good spirits. Quickly, Sara realized the source of the palpable happiness in the room. There was a full spread of pastries, yogurt, fruit salad, and even a cold cut and cheese tower with crudité. Apparently, the emergency meeting had warranted catering on the level of a cocktail party. Was it really only 6:55 in the morning?
Sara helped herself to a plate. She was piling on the pineapple when a voice behind her made her head turn.
“I’m so glad to see you.” The voice was urgent, barely above a whisper.
Sara turned to find her lab supervisor standing a bit too close to her left shoulder. “Oh, good morning, James.”
She was pleased to see that he had actually arrived on time. James was pushing forty and managed the perpetual look of a stressed post-doc. He even had the telltale graying temples.
“Do you mind holding my coffee while I load up on gourmet cheese?” Sara teased, tossing another wedge of Brie onto her plate.
James continued in a forced whisper, “I have to talk to you. Did they text you about this meeting?”
“Clearly. That’s why I’m here at the crack of dawn on a Monday. We all got a text.” She continued her way down the buffet, completely missing the urgency in James’ tone.
He lowered his voice even further. “No… an additional text.”
“What are you talking about? I was told to report here at 7 a.m. And against all odds I’m here,” Sara joked as she perused the largest tower on the spread. “Wow, smoked salmon. They really went all out this time.”
Very forcefully, James shoved his cell phone in her face. “Sara, something weird is going on. I got a threatening message from a blocked number. Read it.”
James, say your goodbyes to your loved ones. Report to work Monday and pack a week’s worth of clothing. Your work is your life now. Everything is about to change. Tell no one.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Darnell
But patience was not Darnell’s strength. He couldn’t wait any longer. He decided to take a chance and open the heavy freezer door just a crack. He had to look out and see what was going on. He couldn’t help it.
Through the slit in the door, Darnell could see his teacher, Ms. Harding, talking to the fat old lunch lady.
“What can I do for you, Laura? Is the teacher’s lounge out of coffee again?” said the old woman.
“No, I was just wondering if you’ve seen any of my students this morning?”
Ms. Harding’s voice seemed stressed. She was making a poor attempt to conceal it.
“At breakfast?”
“No… since breakfast. Have any of my kids cut through or anything?” Ms. Harding asked.
A tingling wave of excitement washed over Darnell. His teacher had already figured out he was missing.
“Here in the kitchen? No, surely not, dearie. I would have noticed that. Against health department code.”
Ms. Harding hushed her voice, “Right. I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble Pamela. I’ll keep it real quiet. Can I just take a look around? I’ve already checked the bathrooms and the janitor’s closet.”
Janitor’s closet. Nice. Darnell appreciated her detective skills. But in his experience, the maintenance closet usually required a key. Amateur.
“I’m not supposed to let anyone…” the old lady hesitated.
“I know. It will only take a minute. You’ve always been so good to me Pamela.”
“Fine,” the octogenarian sighed.
Damn, Ms. Harding certainly knew how to lay it on real thick. Darnell had to give her credit.
The women clanged around the kitchen, making an awful racket, like they were searching for him under the pots and pans. Drawers slid open and slammed shut. They shuffled the recycling around inside the bins. From his narrow vantage point, Darnell watched the broad side of the old lady bend down and search under the fryers.
“Well, I’d do a better job of looking if I knew who I was looking for, dearie.”
“It’s the new boy in my class… the, um, challenging one?”
“The same one who ran away from you last week?”
Ms. Harding lowered her voice again, “Yes. That’s why this is really time sensitive.”
“You lost him again?”
Darnell snickered to himself. Last week during recess he had snuck down the block to the convenience store to buy a candy bar. He had made it off school property because he had a head start from the playground and the security at recess was woefully inadequate. Still, Darnell figured the lunch lady had a point: a teacher losing the same student two weeks in a row didn’t look so good.
“I didn’t lose him! He ran away! He has a history of being a runner for Christ’s sake. He’s bombed out of a bunch of foster homes this year alone,” Ms. Harding defended.
Four, to be exact. It was April and this was Darnell’s fourth school and fourth shot at third grade. When he wanted out, he got out. There was no situation that could hold him.
“Oh…” the lunch lady’s voice trailed off. “One of the troubled kids. Don’t worry yourself too much, Laura. He’s well past saving. Foster kids are too damaged by the time they’re in grade school.”
Darnell’s stomach sank. He knew adults had given up on him before, but it still hurt to hear it. It was true though. He was a bad kid. Damaged goods.
“Well, I haven’t given up on him yet!” Ms. Harding said emphatically.
The sound of her words made Darnell want to vomit. He wanted to jump out of his hiding spot and call his teacher a liar. Everyone gave up on him. He was a hopeless case. He had proof. He had been told so more times than he could count.
Darnell’s face was hot with anger. His mind filled with angry words he wanted to use as daggers. He wished that his stupid lying teacher were dead!
BLAM! Suddenly, the lunch lady crumpled at the knees and hit the floor. A searing white-hot pain ripped through Darnell’s temples. His breath quickened and his heart raced. His brain felt like it was going to explode. The agonizing pain threw him backward onto the floor of the walk-in. The cold tile burned against his palms.
“Fight through it,” he told himself. “Man up.”
He tried to sit upright, but a terrible sharpness singed his eardrums and held him down. It was the worst pain he had ever felt in his entire life. Darnell knew he had brought the pain on himself, he knew deep in his core this was his punishment from God for wishing someone dead.
Darnell held his face in his hands and begged God, “I promise to be good. I’ll follow all the rules. I’ll listen to the adults. Please don’t kill me.”
As though in answer to his prayers, glowing shards of daylight flooded the freezer. For a split second, Darnell saw Ms. Harding’s face as she lurched past the heavy metal door. He felt elated, confused, and angry to see her again so soon. His prayers had been answered. It was a miracle!
Ms. Harding moved toward Darnell in a cascading slow motion fall. Terror was painted on her face. Her body made a sickening thump as her flesh smacked down on top of him. Everything went dark.
***
When he came to, Darnell felt sweaty skin pressed against his face.
“Get the hell off me!” he yelled as he wrestled with Ms. Harding’s body and jumped to his feet.
Something wet dripped on him.
“What the hell? Ms. Harding that’s nasty! What are you a kiddie-diddler? Get away from me.”
Darnell reached up and opened the emergency door latch. The dim daylight that trickled in from the kitchen windows made Ms. Harding’s limp body look dead.
He didn’t need to catch a body right now. He didn’t need to be on God’s bad side. His heart was beating straight into his eardrums to punish him. He had tried to repent, wasn’t that enough?