C.T. Clark

Chapter 1

Bloodborne

The sun sets in Monrovia, Liberia, the last remnants of a scorching summer day. One could only assume the lush greens in the distance are beauties of the natural world that remain untouched by man or machine. But they are too far away to discern. All one can do is admire this paradise through a tiny tempered window. The window, no wider than a brick, was an inane touch to create an illusion of coziness. Instead, it serves as a reminder of the outside splendor that those inside rarely could embrace.

The green space wasn’t what drew the United Nations Security Council to the old skyrise hotel three miles from the African coast. When it refurbished the aging facility decades ago, the ongoing civil conflict in Liberia was the central selling point. It kept the tourists away from their spaceship of a building.

Inside, the guts of the structure were reshaped from the highest grade of available steel, its form adorned with extravagant curves and arches that served no purpose beyond frivolous aesthetics. Hidden within these fussy walls, the top-secret science lab was assembled with a few spare billions of contributions from member states. In its prime, this space redefined state of the art every day. Today, on this depressing day in 2003, the once-gleaming steel loses its luster. The spacious tables that once buzzed with scientific fervor now stand desolate, stripped of equipment and experimentation. It’s moving day.

Because of a bunch of sad-sack, visionless morons.

It’s their fault that he’ll have to do the unimaginable.

James Bricker hates being told what to do. But thanks to some government-puppet halfwit, there’s this minuscule window to imagine his next step in life. It is not how he planned he’d start his fifties. He packs a clean flask into a custom-fit foam casing. The foam fits perfectly inside a steel container. Of course it does. The government wouldn’t wish to see their eight-dollar flask damaged, so they needed to spend ten dollars on the custom foam to shield it from harm.

Bricker’s eyes feel heavy, the product of decades of sleepless nights. He certainly hasn’t caught any z’s in the last seventy-two hours. How some penny-pinching paper-pusher could undo years of progress on the most important work of his life is not a topic to be broached. Today, his sole refuge is the generous pour of whiskey on ice patiently waiting for him in his apartment. It’s his medicine for his laundry list of ailments, especially the recurring tremor in his right leg. Today, it’ll be just because.

Over his shoulder, a pair of armed military officers stand guard at a reinforced titanium sliding door. Together, they are less than four hundred pounds, and their hard-earned whiskers hold fewer than forty years between them. His shoes are older than these basic-training bootlickers. They couldn’t see nuance if it was spelled in bold letters on a piece of paper. By the look of their impatient scowls, they resent they haven’t been relieved for a lunch break yet. Poor babies. Bricker is perfectly content to make them wait indefinitely.

Bricker snaps the steel container shut, its metallic clang punctuating his frustration. He places it on a pile next to dozens just like it. Each case bears a stamped mark, haphazardly placed, announcing Property of United Nations—Phoenix Elite Initiative Discontinued.

Over his thirty-year career, it was always the same story: scientists pour their souls into groundbreaking initiatives, only to have their efforts extinguished carelessly by the whims of government overlords. There’s always a new shiny thing for them to pour their billions into, and the rest of the mere mortals obediently fall in line.

This time, it all hurts worse.

With the advancing precision of the genetic tools at his disposal, the art of cloning was nearing perfection. He knows he isn’t perfect, but if given the chance to follow through on this work and nurture the children, he would have reshaped the world for the better. With the DNA they had in stock, he was sure of it. The Rolls-Royce-riding, big-gov lawyer who drew up his reassignment paperwork was clearly on a mission to close that door.

But that’s not what hurts the most.

He was on the precipice of something genuinely earthshaking. He never bothered to tell anyone else in the lab his little secret, not even Kebe.

Bricker’s Liberian brother in science and long-time partner, Emmanuel Kebe, diligently scrubs the inside of a beaker, the bristles of a special brush dancing across the glass. More flecks of gray pepper his hair than when they first met. All that running and weightlifting he does doesn’t stop time completely. Bricker muses on the peculiar synchronicity of their partnership—a universe seemingly intent on balancing his crotchety disposition with Kebe’s unyielding optimism. Truth be told, Kebe stands among the world’s most esteemed scientists and has always had his pick of opportunities, but for some reason he always opted to stay. Any chemistry they’ve developed has brought out the best of each other, though that’s often been after colorful and articulate clashes.

“I’m not sure what I’ll do without seeing your smiling—” Kebe says as Bricker glances over. “Well, your regular face.”

A quiver shakes from Bricker’s otherwise tight lips. Over the years, nobody has made his gruff exterior crack like Kebe. Bricker didn’t get into this career to make friends, and he hasn’t—with one exception.

“You finally gonna learn to sail?” Bricker asks.

Kebe stifles a laugh, the noise chiming through the sterile laboratory air. “Nah. First, I’m going to try your funny American game of golf.”

“Keep your eye on the ball,” Bricker says.

“I thought that was baseball.”

Bricker checks over his shoulder again. The armed military officers grumble to each other, distracting them from their duty, just as he wants them. Calorie deprivation and dehydration can only serve him well today. It’s as close as he can get to lulling these babies to sleep.

About ten feet away, tucked behind a glass storage unit labeled Authorized Personnel Only rests a case of hundreds of crimson vials. A queasy exhilaration overtakes him. The lab is kept at a chilly sixty-five degrees, but typically Bricker doesn’t get goose bumps. Today, every fiber of his being drums with a vitality he hasn’t felt in decades.

It’s time.

Kebe’s voice breaks through his charged headspace as he looks up from the clean beaker. Concern etches his features. “Are you okay, James?”

A pair of deep, labored breaths escape Bricker’s lips, his long-practiced mindfulness techniques taking effect. He allows himself a moment of respite, a calmness settling within him. Meeting Kebe’s brown eyes, he musters the strength to confront the inevitable. “I’m sorry I have to do this.”

Without hesitation, Bricker reaches into his lab coat, prompting a raised eyebrow from Kebe. He pulls out a semiautomatic triple-barreled pistol cast in red brass. The custom black grip was designed to resemble the mythical basilisk, the serpentine enemy of the phoenix, a connection Bricker found all too fitting when he stumbled upon it. Though the center silver barrel points straight ahead, the two others angle outward, but are still poised to strike his target’s chest.

With one swift pull, three bullets pierce Kebe’s muscular chest. The bang of the three chambers is no louder than a typical handgun, but it’s as if each chamber competes for dominance, their collective echoes bouncing off the wall. Kebe crumples to the floor, his frame collapsing into a lifeless heap. A pond of blood forms along his right collarbone, staining his once-pristine white lab coat.

A twinge of remorse stabs at Bricker’s gut. He’s gone down an irreversible path. If there were another way to go about this, he would have taken it.

Before the military officers can react, Bricker readjusts his aim. With one quick bang, the two officers collapse simultaneously, their weapons slipping from their grasp.

Bricker hurries to the glass storage unit. He forcefully strikes the fragile barrier, causing it to shatter into a myriad of sparkling fragments. Brushing away the shattered pieces, Bricker clutches the coveted case in his hands. For a moment, he revels in his prize—these paper-pushers gravely underestimated the lengths he was willing to go to protect his life’s work. He cradles the precious cargo in the crook of his arm.

“Don’t do this, James,” Kebe says, his voice strained as he frantically searches for anything within reach to stem the bleeding from his chest. He drags himself over to his desk. Underneath is a red security button. Bricker and Kebe lock eyes in a brief yet poignant moment, eliciting an unexpected pang of care within Bricker’s hardened heart—a gush of empathy that catches him off guard. Nevertheless, he aims his pistol at his old friend, resolve hardening him from the inside out.

“This will not end well for you,” Kebe says.

Kebe triggers a screeching alarm. Gripping his pistol, Bricker turns from his old friend and hurdles the fallen officers. Kebe did precisely what I knew he would do. Bricker would have been foolish not to plan for it—and he’s no fool. He flashes his ID across a scanner. The titanium doors open into a long, sleek metallic corridor.

He knows exactly where he’s going—and has for months. He estimates he has a mere ten seconds until a swarm of armed guards converges on his location. They will likely deactivate his ID by then, so there will be no more easy passages. He kicks over a commercial-sized metal waste basket, causing it to clatter on the ground. Swiftly tearing away the lining, he unveils his large, military-style backpack. In one fluid motion, he slings the weighty backpack over his shoulder, carefully tucking the case of vials under his arm like a football.

The added burden strains his weary muscles, threatening to buckle his knees under the weight. Balance is his primary enemy today. The wobble in the legs will be his undoing. He presses forward, his mind locked in a delicate dance between the nervous and musculoskeletal systems, desperate for them to cooperate for a few more minutes.

Strobing lights flash all around, blinding him momentarily. Within moments, a group of military officers appears before him, their guns raised, closing in rapidly. “Freeze! Show us your hands!” yells one of the officers.

With a stumble, Bricker turns and sprints the other way. He reaches into the depths of his coat, retrieving a smoke bomb. He pulls the pin out with his teeth and tosses it behind him, releasing a billowing gray cloud that engulfs the officers, shrouding the walkway in a haze of disorienting smoke.

Bang!

A bullet pinches Bricker in the leg. A searing pain rips through his left hamstring, his better hamstring. His delicate balance quakes. All his concentration goes toward staying on his feet, and the case of vials slips from his grasp, tumbling through the air with wild abandon. Upon impact with the ground, the plastic lid springs open, sending the vials cascading to the tile floor, where they shatter upon impact, bursting into a million pieces, the sound of broken glass ringing in Bricker’s ears. His mind races, desperate for a solution, but all he finds is panic.

“Oh God, no!” Bricker shouts. He hadn’t planned for this. Frantically, he reaches for a large fragment of a shattered vial, his trembling hands attempting to capture the spilled blood. It’s useless. Desperation grips him as he fumbles for another partial vial, inadvertently flicking it away down the hall into the billowing cloud of smoke. The blood from the separate vials swirls together into one massive puddle.

The last resort. Bricker dives chest first into the blood. He swirls his arms in the red lake, trying to soak up as much as possible. A stampede of footsteps closes in on him. Bricker emerges from the pool of blood with a desperate roll, his lab coat now a grotesque palette of crimson stains. He fires into a trio of officers who emerge through the smoke, and three more rounds into the fog.

Regaining his footing, he runs. He reaches an intersection. Behind him, rushing officers burst through the clouds and hurdle their fallen comrades. In front of him, another group turns the corner. Straight ahead, a window that overlooks Monrovia.

“I said freeze!” the lead officer yells. “If you have a clean shot, take it,” she tells her team.

Bricker adjusts his backpack over his blood-soaked lab coat. He empties his magazine through the glass. Cracks spiderweb across the surface, splintering the window into a fractured mosaic. He dives headfirst through the cracked window and into the clear, empty skies, nine stories up. Glass particles erupt into a haze of dust, and the wind gusts through what’s left of his gray hair. The crisp sunlight hits his battered body.

He rips a cord on the shoulder strap of his backpack. A parachute springs open. The violent jerk of the unfurled chute sends a shiver down Bricker’s back.

At street level, a black SUV idles in the fire lane. Reaching the earth, Bricker dumps the backpack and limps toward the getaway ride. Clutching his balled-up lab coat, he stumbles into the passenger door.

He has won.

Chapter 2

Officially a Disaster

21 Years Later

Tension broils in a packed lecture hall of the College of Chemistry. Multinational corporations of all stripes have flown in for this presentation. Some are here for the information; others are here to scout the talent. The only time you’d find these types in Switzerland at this time of year is for a luxury ski retreat. Yet, everyone’s routine has been disrupted on this particular day at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

To say Adam Eberhardt is anxious for this moment is an understatement’s understatement, surpassing any conventional measure of anxiety. Much like his unruly, unkempt hair, his anticipation points in every conceivable direction. Positioned at a lab bench surrounded by an array of liquified chemicals, the young German man prepares a demo, an endeavor no less unnerving than his previous gig.

Before the impending presentation, he diligently carried out his duties as the enforcer of name tags at the welcome table, a post that only intensified his unease. Titans of medicine, weapons manufacturing, and consumer electronics scribbled on the ultra-cheap name tags. His job was to ensure the guests slapped the stickers on their fancy-schmancy embroidered suits. It was a price of admission some of the head honchos did not enjoy paying. While his university had recently refurbished the wooden roof of the lecture hall, they opted against splurging on lanyards. It’s a decision that feels incongruous on this momentous day that warrants greater prestige.

Within the sea of expectant faces, Adam spots a refined gentleman with blue eyes framed with mocha-colored bifocals. It is his mentor, Professor Louvet. If Louvet is nervous about his protégé’s presentation, he isn’t showing it as he sips from a thermos. He probably has good job security since he’s been at the university for two decades and has brought in five hundred million dollars of grants. Louvet practically lives on campus. Adam has seen the pictures of his six grandkids on his desk, so they do exist. Adam has never understood why he’d spend so much on eyewear to look at photos when he could fly to see them. Or take a train. But one thing is for certain: Louvet would have known how to get those lanyards.

The bigwigs are not accustomed to the shoulder-bumping, standing-room-only crowd they find themselves in today. Approximately thirty percent have already peeled off their name stickers, and there’s not enough time to compel them to put them back on. He’ll have to devise a solution to address that problem in the future.

In the presence of all these fancy dressers, Adam can’t help but think the twenty minutes he spent on the internet searching for “cool-looking man clothes” was a waste. He suspects the main concepts were lost somewhere between the inspiring images and his application. Perhaps if he had searched for clothing suitable for “gorilla-sized” people, it would have worked out better. Unfortunately, in his haste this morning, he forgot to wear socks. Though standing by this lab bench of beakers is quite a responsibility, it’s not every day Adam has a front-row seat to witness the birth of a star.

Emerging from this nebula is a twenty-four-year-old wunderkind. Margot prepares her laptop on the nearby podium like any other day. However, the swirl of tension in Adam’s gut defies any known description. He is far more anxious about Margot’s presentation than Margot herself appears to be. Her title slide spans the giant projector screen: Nuclear Medicine Applications for Patient Care—Margot Czarnecki MD–PhD—September 13, 2024.

Though most of their college peers do not look like academics, Margot defies expectations. Some might be surprised to see someone so young captivate this crowd, but she’s been waist-deep in this research for a while—eight years, to be precise. Adam has never seen her in the knee-length black dress or checkered blazer she’s wearing today. She must have borrowed them from a friend, because there’s no way she’d spend money on such clothes. Margot wears whatever practical things she can thrift. The lone exception is the elegant silver watch on her left wrist, part of her daily ensemble. After all, she says time is her most valuable asset.

Margot came to the university at fourteen, one year earlier than Adam. There has never been any confusion regarding their respective abilities, especially not in the eyes of Professor Louvet. That’s all quite okay with Adam. Everyone knows she is special—except her. Adam is happy to just be near her. Academically, figuratively, and most certainly literally. Of course, she does not know that.

Margot’s words flow confidently as she clicks to the next slide in her deck. “With greater use of integrated imaging, clinical nuclear medicine can reach into diagnostic radiology and oncology. Yet there are concerns before nuclear medicine becomes the quintessential modality. The financial advantages of diagnostic radiology and an insufficient pool of qualified nuclear clinicians handicap its present-day usefulness.” With the bright lights on, Margot owns her moment.

Margot gestures to the lab bench Adam mans off to the side of the stage. She reminds him of an old silent-movie actress in a film he saw once, but he doesn’t remember her name. Her blond hair has streaks of brown and glints of auburn like a warm log in a fire. Women budget so they can have streaks like that, but hers are natural. She might have done something to it today. It usually is wavier. And, of course, her legs. They’d be nice legs to have for walking, or standing, or other things legs are needed for.

“Adam?”

Adam snaps out of his daze, immediately aware of the weight of everyone’s eyes upon him, including Margot’s. Oh God, what did I miss? She’s so totally staring at him. Three seconds is long, but six seconds is twice as long as three seconds. A vertical line carves between Margot’s tense eyebrows. “Are you ready?”

“Oh . . . uh . . . yeah.” Demonstrating potential synergies between proton therapy and boron neutron capture theory by incorporating boron into tumor cells. Yep, that’s what we’re doing.

Disoriented, Adam reaches for a beaker. On the way, his elbow nudges a graduated cylinder filled with liquid ammonia, teetering it precariously. Reacting swiftly, he lunges to catch it but inadvertently knocks over an entire row of flasks, triggering a symphony of shattering glass. The acoustics of the finely crafted wooden ceiling amplify the collective gasp that resonates in Adam’s ears. The anxiety swirling in his stomach activates hyperspeed.

His muscles seize up, all but his eyes—they dart back and forth to capture the audience’s reactions to his blunder. The enormity of his failure engulfs him, and he absorbs this massive defeat. “Uh . . . that’s my bad.”

Margot puts a hand to her temple because, well, where else is she supposed to put it? She turns to her audience. “I’m sorry, but it appears we will be unable to conduct the radiopharmaceuticals demo today. After this session, we will email links to those of you who opted in to our mailing list, and we will perform the demo live via web conference once we can reset. For now, I’ll continue with the presentation.”

On hands and knees, Adam scrambles to salvage the situation. With some rags and a random tissue he finds in his pocket, he hurries to soak up the chemicals. She can continue if he can keep the different substances separated.

The fluid cools his fingertips as the chemical pools slowly inch toward one another on the parquet floor. It’s a futile pursuit, but he can’t quit. Each dab of the rag flings particles from one pool into another. He’s sure Margot won’t ever look at him again, so his last three years of obsessing have likely been pointless.

Adam’s thoughts are interrupted by wisps of smoke emanating from the pooled chemicals, drawing comments from the crowd and interrupting Margot’s presentation again.

“Don’t worry, that’s just a little boron,” Adam says, trying to calm the concerned audience. A pungent, malodorous gas invades his nostrils. Though overwhelming disgust flows through his nasopharynx, he does everything he can to keep it from showing on his face.

As billowing smoke fills the room, the shrill screech of the fire alarm jolts the room. The sprinkler system unleashes torrents of water, soaking everything in its indiscriminate path. The guests flood the exits, their heads shielded by an assortment of makeshift defenses, including file folders and purses.

The relentless downpour collides with the chemical concoction, rattling off a cacophony of firecracker-like snaps and pops. Each crackle feels like a piece of Adam’s soul splintering away. This was her moment.

The sprinkler relentlessly showers Margot, transforming her from a poised and confident presenter to a drenched spectator, her clothes clinging to her form. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath as if she can’t bear watching her dream walk out the door.

“Margot,” Adam says, his words tumbling forth. “I’m, you know, so, so very sorry. I know how hard you worked for all this.”

Margot brings her fist to her mouth as if to censor herself, her hurt eyes holding back emotion. “Adam, I can’t do this with you right now. Thank you for volunteering and offering to help.” Margot shakes her head as she marches over to a nearby side exit. She flings open the creaky, weathered wooden doors, their hinges protesting against the force, causing them to crash against the wall. As she exits, the doors gradually swing shut behind her.

It’s officially a disaster.