Deadly Design (9780698173613) Page 16

  “I’m sixteen, and you want me to accept that I’m going to die?”

  His slight cough intensifies, becoming more and more out of control. He takes a white handkerchief from his pocket, holds it over his mouth, and I watch as white turns to red.

  I feel nothing, nothing but a burning sensation in my eyes, as if the fluid that constantly bathes them has been turned to acid. My legs are gone. Even my heart seems to be frozen in silent disbelief. I am nothing but eyes looking at a half-dead man and feeling the angry spirits of dead teenagers all around me. They didn’t want much. They never asked for perfection of mind or body. They just wanted to breathe, to feel, to live. That’s all I want.

  “Connor was a great person,” I say, and I see him, his smile and charisma. “James was amazing too. Triagon had a great sense of humor. I never got to meet him, but I know from his blog. Alexis and Hannah and”—I feel a special stabbing in my chest—“Amber were beautiful, gifted women. You had no right to kill them. And you have no right to kill me. At least give me a copy of your research. Maybe I can find someone who can use it to save me.”

  “I will give this part of my research, my very sacred research, to the person I deem worthy of continuing it. But no matter who that person is, he or she won’t be able to help you. There simply isn’t time. I’m sorry. And just in case you’re wondering, it’s quite secure. No one will be able to access it without my consent.”

  “I’m begging, all right? Is that want you want? You want me to beg to you like you’re God? Okay. Fine. Just help me!”

  Dr. Richard Sharp walks toward me on thin, faulty legs. When he’s close enough, he stops and places his palm against my chest. “Your heart will betray you.” He turns and walks toward his bed. “I’m getting tired,” he says, sitting on the edge and sliding his feet out of his slippers. With great effort, he reclines against the mattress. “Can you send in the nurse on your way out? I need my pain medication.”

  I walk to his bedside and am surprised that his eyes are closed. I could easily lean over him, take a pillow from the bed, and press it to his face. He wants to win the race, why not let him win now—today. He deserves to die. But he’s right, I don’t want to spend what time I have left locked away. I want to spend it figuring out how not to die. I’m not going to die. I refuse. I don’t care what he says. He’s not God. I’ll figure it out, then once I do, I’ll figure out what to do with the next two or three hundred years.

  32

  Cami’s asleep. She tried to fight it, tried to hold her eyes open and keep me company on the way home from James’s funeral, but about an hour from town, she lost the battle. Truth is, I’m kind of glad. I needed quiet. I needed, still need, time to process everything.

  Seeing James displayed in the entryway of the church was . . . I still can’t believe it was real. There was a receiving line like after a school play, when all of the actors line up in the hall so people can congratulate them on a job well done. But no one was congratulating James on his heart attack. No one was shaking his hand or embracing him, or even talking to him. They just filed past. Some tried to look at him, but turned quickly away as they wiped their eyes. Others stared for a long time, like they were waiting for his chest to rise, for his eyes to open, for his mouth to curve into one of his glorious grins.

  Cami looks so peaceful sleeping, but I keep looking at her chest, making certain that it’s rising and falling, because Death seems to be everywhere now. He stands beside me, and if he gets bored, he might just reach out with his scythe and take her or Mom or Dad. He might as well take them if I die. They won’t live through losing another child.

  I haven’t told anyone about my conversation with Dr. Sharp. Cami wanted to know everything, and I told her that he’s working hard, trying to come up with a solution, but that he’s old and sick, and maybe she shouldn’t get her hopes up. Maybe I should have told her the truth. Maybe I still will, but that morning after I left Sharp’s condo, she was so hopeful and I couldn’t tell her. Not then. And not today.

  “We’re home,” I say, slipping my hand into hers.

  Cami yawns and stretches her legs out as far as the Smart car’s interior will let her. “Sorry I fell asleep.”

  “It’s okay. It’s been a long day. I’m just glad you went with me.”

  For a moment, we just stare at each other, then I lean over and softly put my lips to hers. We get out of the car, and lightning bugs flash on and off around the yard.

  “You coming in?” she asks.

  “Just for a little bit,” I say. We’d left early this morning for Kansas City. I need to go home and see my parents, but I also want to talk to Uncle Jimmy.

  He’s in the living room sitting on the floor next to Josh. They’re playing video games but not Call of Duty or Black Ops. They’re playing Mario Kart, racing around on the deck of a cruise ship.

  “Who’s winning?” I ask.

  “I am,” Josh yells, and I have to smile, because Uncle Jimmy picked Princess Peach and Princess Daisy as his characters and they suck. He’s obviously letting Josh win. “Will you play me, Kyle?”

  “Maybe in a few minutes,” I say. “I kind of want to talk to Uncle Jimmy for a second.”

  “I’ll play you,” Cami says. “Just let me change real quick.”

  Jimmy stands. “Want a beer?”

  “He’s sixteen,” Cami says, then looks at me and smiles. “But he’s mature for his age, so . . .”

  “No thanks,” I say.

  Jimmy opens the fridge, takes out a bottle of beer, offers me a bottle of water, and I take it.

  “You want to go outside?” he asks.

  It’s nice outside for early August, and the neighbors might be thinking so too. They might be sitting out on their decks or patios with citronella candles keeping the whine of mosquitoes away. They might be able to hear things spoken in neighboring backyards.

  “How about your room?”

  Jimmy looks at me, intrigued. “Yeah, sure.”

  Cami’s coming out of her room wearing a large nightshirt. She looks at us, somewhat concerned, as we enter Jimmy’s room, and he shuts the door.

  The room isn’t exactly how I would have expected it. The walls are painted a deep blue, and Spiderman wallpaper borders the ceiling. The bed’s small, a single size. The sheets are Spiderman, but not the red comforter that somehow ended up on the floor.

  “It’s the kid’s room. He’s sleeping with his dad while I do a little work in the basement. Then I’ll head down there, and he’ll get his Spidey room back.” Jimmy sits in a kitchen chair next to a folding table with a laptop on it. I sit on the edge of the bed. “Matt wanted me to tell you that he’s sorry it took so long. He was really frustrated, and marines don’t like being frustrated.”

  “It’s okay. I know he did his best. Dr. Sharp seems to have some pretty intense security. But there might be more he can do for me, if he’s interested.”

  Jimmy smiles. “Why don’t we ask him?”

  He pops open his laptop and starts tapping on the keyboard. In a few minutes, Matt’s face is on the screen.

  “Jimmy!” he calls, a big grin on his face, then he sees me kneeling in front of the screen. “Hey, Kyle. Man, I’m really sorry about your friend. But I’m glad to see you too. Did you get my message, Kyle?”

  “What message? I’ve been away from my computer all day.”

  “At the funeral?” Matt asks. “So rotten. Only eighteen years old. Sucks. But I wanted you know that even though I ran into some major firewalls with that doctor, I think I finally figured out how to get around them. He’s got a master computer guy working for him, and let me tell you, he pissed me off when he ‘gave’ me the information I’ve been working my ass off trying to get. But it just made me more determined to hack into their system. And I think I’ve finally done it. Or at least I’m close.”

  “Seriously, that’s awesome.
I need to find out how to get his research.”

  Jimmy looks at me, confused. “I thought you met with him,” he says. “He’s trying to help you, right?”

  “I met with him, but he’s not trying to help,” I say, and now Jimmy knows I lied to Cami. “He planted a genetic code in all of us so that we’d die at the age of eighteen. But he wanted to hurry me along. I’m supposed to die at seventeen. That gives me about four months. And he doesn’t care. His experiment was to see if he could kill us, and it worked. But if I can get hands on his research, maybe I can find someone who can help.”

  “You are not going to die,” Jimmy says, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Not on our watch. Right, Matt?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “If the research is stored in a computer file, I’ll find it.”

  “He said something about finding a successor, someone to carry on his work,” I say. “If you can access his contacts, maybe you can find out who it is. Dr. Sharp’s got terminal cancer. He won’t live that much longer. He’s looking for someone he can trust to carry on his research, and it’s not good. Killing all of us was just the start. This guy wants to kill everyone, and I mean everyone. He wants every person on Earth to have this genetic sequence that will make them die when they’re fifty.”

  Matt’s staring hard, and I can feel the intensity of Jimmy’s stare from beside me. “You’re fucking kidding, right?” Jimmy says.

  “I don’t think so,” Matt answers. “I’ve seen the kind of security this guy has. It’s better than some of the military stuff I’ve run into. Even the phone was some type of special Android that normal programs couldn’t hack into. But maybe I can find a path to who he’s considering giving his research to.”

  “What if Dr. Sharp finds somebody as crazy as he is? Somebody who thinks it’s a good idea to put a kill switch in every person on Earth? How can we let that happen?” I ask.

  “My dad just turned fifty,” Matt says. “We just had a big party for him. He’s still got twelve years before he plans on retiring, and some asshole scientist thinks fifty years is enough. I’ll figure it out, Kyle. I promise, man. I will find whoever this is, and we’ll get that research.”

  Even on the screen, Matt’s a good-looking guy. It’s Friday night, and he’s at home alone on his computer. He should be married now. He should be the golden boy for the military, but he’s not. And he’s not wearing a button-down shirt like he was at the truck stop. I never asked Jimmy what method Matt had used to try to kill himself. It didn’t seem right to. But now I can see the place where a rope had tightened around his neck, had torn through his skin and scarred him. No leg. No sense of manhood, and a constant reminder that there was a time when he didn’t want to live anymore.

  I like the light I see in Matt’s eyes, and I love the determination in his face. He’s alive, and for now anyway, he wants to be. And he wants to help me.

  “I’m not going to your funeral, Kyle,” Jimmy says. “I’ve been to enough of those. Matt, if there’s anything I can do, you tell me. Anything.”

  Matt runs both his hands over his short blond hair and grins. “Commence Operation Save Kyle and Everyone over Fifty.”

  I know it’s too small of a word. But small words can sometimes be the most powerful. Words like hope or hate or love. And so I say the only word I can think of for this particular situation: “Thanks.”

  33

  “Claudia Bartholomew,” Matt says, and this time he’s not on a screen in Uncle Jimmy’s bedroom. He’s sitting at the kitchen table in Cami’s house.

  “Who’s she?” Cami asks. She knows everything now. Not so much because I told her, but because I filled in what she missed when she was listening in through Jimmy’s bedroom door.

  “When I finally got into Sharp’s phone records, her name came up the most,” Matt says. “There are a couple of other possibilities—an immunology expert in Boston who looks promising, and a super-smart guy who graduated from medical school when he was eighteen. Dr. Sharp has had contact with both of them, but this Claudia Bartholomew, she’s a genetics specialist from Saint Louis, and she’s made several trips to Wichita over the past few months.”

  Matt opens a large manila envelope.

  “Before you get your hopes up too much, she might not be coming to Wichita to see him. I know for certain they’ve had several phone conversations, but she’s been seeing patients at the VA hospital here and in a few other states. She’s working on some way of helping veterans by using stem cells.”

  The door leading from the garage opens, and Cami’s dad walks in. He tosses his briefcase on the kitchen counter, then turns to look at the four of us sitting around the kitchen table.

  “Hello,” he says.

  “This is Matt,” Jimmy says, standing. “You met him when I was in the hospital.”

  Cami’s dad, a slender man with short brown hair, comes forward and shakes Matt’s hand. “Yeah, I remember. How are you?”

  “Okay,” Matt says.

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “And you sort of know Kyle,” Cami says, getting up from her chair just as Jimmy sits back down.

  Her dad shoots me a smile and a wave.

  “I saved you some dinner,” she says. “I can warm it up.”

  “That’s okay. We ordered pizza for the producers’ meeting. I’m beat.” He gives us a weary smile. “I think I’ll see if Josh wants to watch some cartoons with his old man. Let you guys get back to whatever you’re up to.” He heads for the living room, but not before giving Cami a one-armed hug.

  Matt looks at me and gets back to the business at hand. “I found a picture of Claudia Bartholomew online.” A photo slides from the envelope. In it, Claudia Bartholomew is standing behind the podium at some sort of conference. I pull the photo closer, and I’m struck by how familiar she looks. Then it comes to me. She’s the woman who came out of the elevator at Dr. Sharp’s condo.

  “I’ve seen her,” I say. “She was at his apartment the morning I went to talk to him.”

  “Are you sure?” Matt asks. “I hacked into the records at the airport, and she took a flight into Wichita on August third. What day did you go to Dr. Sharp’s?”

  I glance at the calendar stuck to the front of the refrigerator with a pineapple-shaped magnet. “It was August seventh. That’s when I saw her coming out of the elevator. She had to have been seeing him.”

  “So when is she due back in town?” Jimmy asks.

  Matt pulls another paper from the envelope. He glances over various dates and times. “She’s got appointments again at the VA in two weeks.”

  “Then I can talk to her,” I say.

  “And say what exactly?” Jimmy asks.

  Matt lifts his brows in agreement. “If you ask her about Sharp, about his research, if she is involved, she’s liable to lie and say she doesn’t know what you’re talking about. His master plan isn’t exactly legal, and if she’s buying into it, who knows what kind of a person she is.”

  “Then I need proof,” I say. “If I can find proof that she’s involved, maybe I can blackmail her into helping me.”

  “What? Threaten to go to the police?” Matt asks. “You’d have to have some pretty solid proof. How are you going to get that?”

  “You said she’ll be back at the VA in two weeks, right?”

  Matt nods.

  “She’ll probably be meeting with Sharp again. Maybe he’ll even give her his research then. Do you know if she has an office at the VA?” I ask Matt.

  “I’m sure she does.”

  My heart’s beating faster. It’s talking to me, telling me to do whatever I need to so that it can keep beating.

  “I have to find a way to break into her office,” I say. “Is there any way to find out exactly where it is?”

  Matt thinks for a moment. “I doubt she has a permanent office. It’s probably just one she uses when she
’s in town. But I know some people at the VA. Me and Jimmy are a little more familiar with that place than we’d like to be.”

  Jimmy frowns. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He leans back in his chair, both hands going to his head, and I’m not sure if he’s scratching his scalp or feeling for the scars left by the IED.

  “I can talk to some people,” Matt says. “See what they know.”

  “If we can find out when she’ll be there and where her office is, I’ll sneak in and take a look around. Maybe she’ll have something on a flash drive or in her briefcase or something.”

  They all nod like it’s a great idea. Truth is, it’s an idea, and right now, I’ll grasp at anything.

  “We’ll come up with a plan,” Jimmy says. “We’ll get you into that office. And even if you don’t find much, any connection might be enough to scare her into helping you.”

  “Or maybe,” Cami says, “she’ll help you because it’s the right thing to do.”

  I force a smile, but right now, my faith in doctors isn’t exactly at an all-time high. What I really need is faith in myself. It might take a genius to figure out how to keep me alive, but I’m going to have to be the one to convince him or her to do it.

  34

  I look at Matt’s text message, holding the phone under the desk so my teacher doesn’t see it. Dr. B at VA, 8-25. Today’s August 21. In four days, Dr. Claudia Bartholomew will be at the Veterans’ Hospital, and I’ll get into her office, hopefully.

  “Where’s your homework, Mr. McAdams?” Mr. Olson flips through pages of graph paper, no doubt looking for my name on our algebra assignment, but he doesn’t find it.

  I sit up straighter at my desk and slip my phone into my pocket. I so don’t need this shit. Who gives out homework the third day of school, anyway? All I care about is getting through the next four days. According to Matt, Dr. Sharp’s been in contact with at least a dozen doctors and researchers, including Claudia Bartholomew. But she’s still our lead contender. She’s the one he calls the most, and she reciprocates. To make matters even more interesting, Matt found out that Dr. Sharp recently booked a one-way ticket to Saint Louis, where Claudia Bartholomew lives. Maybe he’s planning on spending his last days with her, combing through every detail of his experiment.