The Leaves in Winter (36 page)

Colin dragged the back of his hand across his bloody nose. “If you won’t believe anything I say, then the truth is worthless.”

“Then unlock the goddamn door and let me off this roof.”

Colin took a step closer, his chest pumping with excited breaths. “I have to try. I don’t want to but I know what’s going to happen if I don’t. Faye knows it too. She doesn’t want to be here any more than you. She didn’t join The Project because we’re friends again. We’re not. She joined because something bigger than all of us is happening. If we don’t stop it, we have no future.”

“That’s right. Someone is trying to trigger a pandemic. For the good of the planet, they want to collapse the population. Would you happen to know who that might be?”

“You’re jumping to conclusions.”

“And you’re a puppet. The people above you cherry-pick the facts for you.”

“Like the thing in
Kansas
? The poultry virus? Is that the big pandemic you’re talking about?”

Janis stomped off. “Why waste my time. You all hide behind a mask.”

Colin ran after her, grabbed her arm and spun her around. She swung at him again. He caught and held her by the forearm. She struggled in his grip.

“I don’t know if you’re right or not. But let’s say that you are. Is tipping your hand a good idea when the bet is so big?”

“Let me go!”

“All of this 3rd Protocol bullshit is new to me. I’ve been locked in a hole, trying to figure out what sterilized a billion kids. You want the truth? OK, here it is. We kidnapped Alyssa to find out why she’s the only one not affected. She’s special, that’s why she needed protection.”

“Oh, really! Well, you manage to screw up everything, don’t you. Protect her? She’s lying in a coma!”

“I swear to you! Egg extraction is and never was part of The Project. Ask Faye, she’ll tell you. She doesn’t need to do that. You should know that. And even if we did, we’ve had Alyssa for over a month. We could have harvested an egg during her regular cycle. Think about it; we don’t need dozens of eggs to study the DNA. Ask Rebecca; whoever did this took a lot of eggs.”

“How do I know what you sick bastards are doing? As usual, they say The Project is one thing, but why waste an opportunity to do so much more.”

“Why for God’s sake would we risk the life of the one person in the world that might be the key to saving humanity? That’s what we’re talking about; because if we don’t fix this, it’s over in a generation.” Colin let go of Janis.

“And what if it’s all about delayed fertility? No one is really sterile; they just won’t get fertile until age 25. It was designed that way, as you probably already know.”

Colin stepped into her space. “You think The Project designed that? Is that the big 8-Ball conspiracy you like to talk about?”

“Or maybe it was designed 15 years ago by a secret group who wants to change the world. It’s the same group Eugene Mass used to belong too, but he quit and bought NovoSenectus. Is that enough of a conspiracy for you?”

“Fifteen years ago?”

Janis yelled into his face. “Yeah, the group called it 1st Protocol. They used a suicide gene from a GAMA stolen from Naval Labs, a microbe that eats plastic. The same thing got dumped in the
Sargasso Sea
.”

A flash of recognition hit Colin. “You know about that? You say a group engineered this 15 years ago.”

“Don’t look so surprised. It’s the same group that’s orchestrating these animal studies in Germany and Japan on animals – like the one in Kansas, all conveniently coming to the same conclusion – the explanation is delayed fertility.”

“Did Knockout Mouse tell you this?”

Janis was startled. “How do you know that name?”

“After your stunt last night, we got permission to access everything, including your email. We checked the computer at Bright Hope Farms.”

Janis turned and walked away. “It doesn’t matter. Put me in jail. I’m not helping you.”

“You won’t work with Faye?”

“Faye works for you. What do you think?”

“Wait!” Colin ran after her. “There’s something you have to know.”

“Don’t bother.”

“It’s something even Faye doesn’t know.”

“Just like you to keep secrets.”

“It’s about what happened 15 years ago.”

“Let’s not go there.”

“It’s not about us.”

Janis halted and turned around. “It was never about us, was it?”

Colin ran a hand back through his hair in desperation. “I didn’t want to do this. I wanted to stay in the background – let it be just you and Faye.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

Colin shouted, “Because it was the only way to get you down here to be with Alyssa! After what you did, they insisted I run everything directly. I didn’t know if Alyssa was going to live. I owed it to you, at least to see her again.”

Janis ignored the sentiment. “What didn’t you tell Faye?”

“The reason why I didn’t tell Faye is because I didn’t think of it until a minute ago.” Colin looked defeated. He stood in the middle of the roof with nowhere else to go but the truth. Surrendering to it, his body relaxed.

“So what is it?”

“I believe you.” His statement contained all but said nothing.

“What?”

“I believe your conspiracy. I suppose Faye told you all about The Project…”

“Oh yeah, I know all about how you blackmailed Riya for
GenLET
. I’ve also heard about the master database you keep.”

“You should also know that 15 years ago, I was part of a government project. It’s not the project we argued about before the divorce. It’s the one I couldn’t tell you about. I had to help infiltrate a plot. Someone wanted to create a pandemic.”

“Faye told me. She said you almost blew it. At the last minute, you had to scramble to sabotage the agent.”

“That’s right. We substituted a benign payload into the sputnik.”

“I guess that explains why Faye and I argued so much at USAMRIID. We were given Ghyvir-C to study but something wasn’t right with it. She preferred to ignore the signs. I didn’t.”

“It’s worse than that.”

Janis could see the color drain from Colin’s face. He turned to face the western ocean. Limp with regret, he fought to bring himself to speak the words that had occurred to him only a minute before.

“You said something…you said the group called this thing 1st Protocol.”

“So what?”

“I know what happened now. I know what went wrong.”

“This just occurred to you?”

“Yeah. Stupid, huh?” Colin shook his head and looked to the sky. “No wonder we’ve all missed it for so long.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Group – the one Knockout Mouse told you about. I’ll bet they’re the same group my project was trying to uncover 15 years ago. The same group we sabotaged.”

The realization hit Janis. “Oh my God – you sabotaged 1st Protocol.”

“That was the plan. But now we know something went wrong.”

“What could go wrong with a benign payload?”

“That’s the billion dollar question – a dollar for every child now sterile.”

“What are you saying?”

Colin turned to her. “I believe you. The Group wanted to release 1st Protocol. In secret, they wanted to delay fertility. My project went after their threat. We assumed they wanted to start a pandemic. We tried to sabotage it. But something went wrong. Something in the way we sabotaged it must have turned delayed fertility – into sterility.”

The impact of it washed over them.

An added weight of remorse pressed down on Janis.

“You mean if you had just left it alone, all we’d be facing is delayed fertility.”

Colin nodded acceptance of his confession.

Janis turned away, her gaze searching the ocean’s horizon for clarity.

Colin explained. “No one knew the truth, neither The Group nor The Project. The Group thought everything was OK because delayed fertility wouldn’t show up until the next generation came of age. The government project I was on concluded we had scored a big success. Obviously, the benign payload must have worked – there was no pandemic.”

“That still doesn’t explain what Eugene Mass is doing now.”

Colin stepped up alongside her. “No, we don’t know the answer to that. The Project was too busy swiping
GenLET
from him. Besides, it’s hard to believe the unthinkable, especially when groups like New Class Order are shouting it.”

Janis sighed. “It was all so unnecessary.”

“It was an accident.”

“An accident waiting to happen.”

“It’s not what we intended. I promise you, the payload was benign.”

“If it was so benign, then how did it get changed?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Does anybody know?”

“If they do, they’re not telling me.”

“We should be finding repressed fertility; instead, the children are sterile.”

“I know, it doesn’t make sense. We double checked the payload. We even gave it to primates to test it.”

Janis flashed back to a memory. “So that’s why at USAMRIID I found those requisitions for primate studies. One day they were on the computer, the next day they were gone.”

“Yes. Someone forgot to lock down access rights. For a brief time, they were visible in your lab.”

A puzzle piece dropped into place for Janis. She shook her head and gave a laugh. “Faye argued with me; told me I was being paranoid for thinking something else was going on. Why would primate studies be necessary for Ghyvir-C? Giant viruses infect amoebae, not humans.”

Colin confessed, “We did test after test, before and after releasing the agent. We thought we were taking every precaution.”

“Those primate studies – did they include a test to see if offspring of infected animals would be able to reproduce when they matured?”

“No.”

“Of course not.” Janis sighed away her frustration.

“Why of all things would we test for that; we didn’t know.”

“Unintended consequences from good intentions – that should be the last line written about human history.”

“It’s not over yet.”

“Close enough. They’re still out there.”

“The Group?”

“The Group…and
Mass.
The Group has plans for a 2nd Protocol.”

“To do what?”

“Put a cap on lifespan at age 70.”

“That’s insane!”

“Not if you believe extreme measures are necessary.”

“Ridiculous. Some of them are probably older than that.”

“Why should they care? In all likelihood, they have
GenLET
too.”

For the longest while, the two of them stood side-by-side, staring out to sea.

Struck with a sense of completion and resignation, Colin reached into a pocket. He handed Janis a key.

“Here – to the stairwell. Do what you want.”

Janis paused then took it. Holding it in hand, she didn’t move. At first, the act of giving her the key seemed disjointed, but then she thought of all the follow-on messages he was sending her by offering her freedom. But freedom into what?

“If I walk down those stairs alone, what happens to me?”

“Every boss has a boss over him. That’s the way it works.”

“You can’t guarantee a thing.”

“Never could.”

“I hate the way you manipulate people.”

Colin shoved hands in pockets. “I don’t make the rules and I don’t control what others do. You made the wrong enemies by what you did last night. I have no power over that.”