Rise of the Plague (Book 1): Endemic Read online

  A ping from her computer interrupted her thoughts. The file had downloaded and opened up. Mara snapped out of her daydreaming as to the possibilities of what this all could be, and looked up in distress. Gazing into the monitor, she held her breath as she scrolled through the first few pages. She glared at the screen without blinking, until her eyes nearly began to water.

  Scrolling to the next page, she let in a gasp of air, "Oh my God in heaven, it’s a virus," she said aloud, placing her palm down on the desk, leaning in toward the computer as if to get a better look. She then clicked on a video attachment in the center of the page. As the video played, she cupped her hand over her mouth and stared in fundamental disbelief. When the ten minute video had finished playing, she scoured the email reading chemical makeups, test trials, experimental results, and so on. She found information on a preliminary retro-virus and its own claims of success against the serum in the nonhuman subjects tested. Finally, she sat back in her chair silent. She needed time to try to process the things that she saw and read. She swiveled her chair around and faced the wall behind her desk. Placing both hands on the armrests of the chair, she closed her eyes.

  “What is he thinking?” She whispered to herself.

  Mara found that she talked to herself quite often. She had only been caught a handful of times by other people, but she found that it helped her work out barriers that stood in her way.

  “Why did he bring me into this? This is ridiculous.”

  She spun back around toward her desk. Opening her top drawer, she fished out a small key with a cork key chain on it. Edward was absolutely right to be so worried about this stuff being secure. I do not even want this serum in the building, let alone in my office. I'm locking it up.

  She sprang out of the chair with enough momentum to whisk her all the way across the room, to the small refrigerator located in the far corner of her office. An exquisite, rectangular mirror, framed in bamboo hung above the refrigerator. As she pulled at the lower-right corner of the mirror, mounted on the left side with hinges, and it swung out toward her. Seeing her medium sized wall safe, located within the wall gave her a sense of relief. She inserted the small key into the keyhole opening the safe door. The nearly empty safe contained a few files, two flash drives and about three hundred in petty cash.

  Kneeling down, she opened the stainless steel refrigerator. With her hands trembling, she could not immediately locate the serum. The contents of the fridge were not in the order that she had left it in this morning, and there were no hold tags on anything inside the fridge. Frantically, she began shuffling bottles & prefilled syringes, but could not see the syringes she needed to find. Where is the Serum? She rifled through the shelves three more times, but the results of her search were the same each time. The serum was gone.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  As Joe and Kate hoofed it from the carnival ticket booth, the sun floated just above the horizon, leaving the sky with cotton candy-look, painted in an array of orange and blue hues. The Harvest Carnival is an annual event that has taken place for the last seventeen years in the parking lot of Willow Lake Marketplace in the small, coastal town of Port Steward. It’s open on all sides, as there is no admission fee to enter. The lone ticket booth is situated on the south side of the parking lot. Behind the ticket booth, the Tilt-a-Whirl, Scrambler and Orbit rides are set up. To the far left is the Ferris wheel, towering over all of the other rides and capable of accommodating up to thirty-six riders. Its bright lights can be seen for blocks. Adjacent, is the Graviton—a twirling anti-gravity ride, followed by the Zipper, Carousel and a roller coaster named The Snake Pit. Beyond the rollercoaster is a concession stand serving traditional carnival eats, and the midway with dozens of games to play and prizes to win. The bustling carnival was alive with people, by the light of twinkling, colored lights, as families congregate at the Carousel and teens flock toward the midway.

  Walking through the lively carnival, Kate took notice of a group of people near the midway gathered into a circle. At first she thought it could be a street performer with a growing audience, but the no one appeared entertained. Two carnival paramedics were knelt down in the crowd and a dark haired man with a radio dashed from the scene to the Port Steward Emergency Services booth.

  Oh, no. I hope nobody is seriously hurt.

  “So what’s your sister up to tonight again?” Joe asked as they made their way to the line at the concession stand.

  “Studying,” Kate said turning her attention to her father. “Plus she has work early in the morning.”

  “It’s Friday, why would she be studying on Friday?” He wrinkled his forehead, adjusting the collar of his black tee shirt adorned a white cross over grey spider webs on the left side.

  Kate knew that look all too well. That look alone, spoke paragraphs in questioning her honesty. She had been caught in a few white lies covering up for Roxy a couple weeks back. Ever since, Dad has been more inspector-like. It made no difference to him that Roxy was nineteen, he still had to be as over protective as ever.

  “Call her if you don’t believe me, she’s at home. But she might be ticked that you forgot,” she offered, before longingly scouting the teens preparing the carnival foods. The scent of buttery, saltiness from fresh popcorn hung in the air, taunting her hunger.

  “Forgot what?”

  “Exactly. She has the aquarium experience next week. It’s all she’s been talking about for the last six months. She’s all worked up about it and is cramming all weekend. She wants to impress the marine biologists that will be there. You know, she’s hoping for that scholarship that will get her into a university—in California,” Kate said, smirking.

  Joe winced, “Oh, that again. Thanks for the reminder. I don’t know why she wants to go to school on the west coast. We have plenty of universities around here.”

  As Joe approached the front of the line, Kate looked back toward the crowd she’d seen, but backside of the midway games blocked the view. Her dad ordered two corndogs and a bag of cotton candy from the boy at the window. The kid handed the goods to Joe along with his change and a flirtatious smile directed toward his much younger daughter. Shaking his head with a look of disgust, he handed a corndog and the cotton candy over to Kate—who couldn’t help but giggle.

  “So tell me, how was your day and how’d practice go?”

  “It was good,” Kate said, tearing off a piece of the cotton candy and letting it melt on her tongue.

  “Did you put away your gear in the garage like I asked?” He probed.

  “Uh,” she smiled sideways and sunk her shoulders, “I forgot. I left the duffel bag next to the hutch. My bad, as soon as we get home, I’ll put it away, I promise.”

  “As soon as we get home,” he confirmed, tucking his free hand into the back pocket of his faded, black jeans and taking a bite out of his corn dog.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lex raised his eyes from his laptop at Angie as she vigilantly peered into the microscope at a slide of organically grown vegetation. Their study of organic vegetables progressed at a predictable pace. Angie had been Mara’s lab technician at Angora for over a year now. While Lex knew Straight-Arrow-Angie appreciated the opportunity, he also knew that nothing stays the same for long. Lex had seen Angie on many recent occasions eagerly checking new position postings on the other floors within the facility. Lex, on the other hand, who had been on for slightly longer, loved the exploratory laboratory. He had no interest in transferring or moving up within the ranks, feeling comfortable with this lab and with Mara. Instead, he chose to goof off in his spare time when Mara wasn’t around, which he knew pissed Angie off, but he wasn’t about to let miss prudent ruin his hard earned gaming time. They had both started out at another Angora facility in Blue Falls, before transferring to the Port Steward lab. Angie had been in a genetics lab in Blue Falls, while Lex had worked in the fish bowl. A circular room with walls of glass, so that visitors and children on field trips could crowd around and observe chemistry in action fr
om outside. Lex took satisfaction in working in the fish bowl, but there had been no time to goof around in a room made of glass, plus he had to cover his tattoos with his sleeves at all times and keep his hair presentable. When he saw the posting for a position in a basement, exploratory lab, he let nothing stand in his way.

  “Lex, do you think that you could give up the gaming for a second, and get over here and help me with these slides?” Angie asked impatiently, her green eyes glaring at him from above the microscope.

  “Yeah, I think I know what tactic I am going to use on the next level,” Lex closed his laptop and galloped tauntingly to Angie. “I gonna go all mission impossible, and launch a super spy plan of action.”

  “Wow that sounds great. Take a look at this,” Angie said dryly, motioning at the microscope.

  “Hmmm,” Lex adjusted the focus, “This—”

  Suddenly, Mara’s office door burst open. She briskly emerged from the doorway. With a wild-eyed, clenched-jaw look upon her face, and stiffness in her shoulders and arms, she strode closer to the lab techs. Lex and Angie instinctively stood up straight, as Mara drew closer.

  “Has anyone been in my office?” Mara whispered, through gritted teeth. Her eyes darted back and forth between Lex and Angie, while she gradually smoothed her hands over her hips.

  “Just you Mara, we’ve been out here,” Lex said in a flat tone. Mara would not be charmed by his sarcasm right now. “Can we help you out with anything?”

  Lex could see through the phony smile. As Mara drew in a long breath through her nostrils, trying to maintain her composure, it seemed obvious that her level of control neared its limit.

  “Not just now, I mean, has anyone been in my office while I was out?” Mara asked.

  “Yes,” Angie squeaked, pulling at a button on her lab coat.

  Lex adjusted his stance to face Angie, looking at her in bewilderment, eager to find out who had been in the lab during Mara’s absence.

  “Angela, please tell me who went in there and why?” Mara asked in suspense.

  This had to be the first time Mara had ever been so worked up in front of them, another first—calling Angie by Angela. He thought for a fleeting moment that Angie had allowed some outsider into the lab somehow, and they had stolen something from Mara’s office. He couldn’t help but let a smile form on his face, but he bit his lip in an effort to disguise it. Is miss goodie-goodie busted?

  “I just got in. Lex wasn’t here yet, late as usual,” she tossed him a salty glare. “I began setting up for the Kale Project, when Mr. Meadows came into the lab. He said there had been an incident upstairs. One of the pharmacy techs had made a mistake in ordering the supplies for the flu shot clinic. He said, that security reported that some of the vaccines were delivered to our lab by mistake. I told him, we haven’t worked with flu vaccine in months, and I thought security may have been mistaken.

  “He said security x-rays all incoming packaging and a package was delivered this morning to our lab. He had a bill of lading and a print out of the x-ray scan, it clearly showed influenza vaccine.”

  Taking in a deep breath, Angie began to twirl her copper colored, straight hair, as an expression of anxiety began to dampen her ivory features.

  “He asked where it may be, I took him to the cold storage cabinets, and we searched them,” Angie looked to the south end of the lab at the cabinets she referred to. “We didn’t see them anywhere, and he seemed impatient. He made me nervous.”

  Mara nodded, “Angie, continue. Did you go into my office next?”

  “Yes, he asked if it may be anywhere else. I told him, the only other place it could have been was in your office, in the mini fridge. He went into your office and I followed. He found the syringes right away and asked why there were hold tags on them. I told him, I didn’t even know about us having the vaccine in the lab and had no clue why they were on hold. We looked at the x-ray print out of the vaccine, and they didn’t have hold tags on them,” Angie’s rosy lips quivered. She seemed as if she were a child about to be scolded by her mother.

  “He took them,” Mara said shaking her head. “Okay. Do either of you know when this flu shot clinic starts? Is it this week, tomorrow, what?”

  Lex creased his brow and rubbed his fingers over his mohawk, “Um… Mara, it was today. It had just wrapped up as I got in.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “No word on the whereabouts of this Haley girl? Fine then, thank you for the update Randy. I am pleased to hear that this issue has been resolved without incident and that your team has already returned from the assignment,” a man said, hanging up his office phone, as he heard a knock at the door.

  “Come in!” he shouted after a heavy sigh.

  The man sat behind an imposing, oak desk, lacquered to a high shine. The immaculate desk has no dust, scratches or scuffs. It is wiped down nightly by the cleaning crew. James Meadows has fired six members of the cleaning crew, in the last four months, for not having an eye for perfection when it comes to his office. Arguing, that if they can't be detailed in their work, especially in the boss’s office, how could they be trusted to do a respectable job with the rest of the building? After all, this is a laboratory hospital, cleanliness being the upmost of importance.

  His appearance is even more of a priority than his office. He waited on his visitor, seated in a two thousand dollar, ergonomic chair, and clothed in a charcoal designer suit. A crisp white button up shirt adorned with a solid black tie peeked through the blazer, and a white gold Rolex draped across his wrist. His hair is short, jet black with white and silver gleaming through on the sides above his ears. Being the Chairman of Angora, a prestigious lab running some of the nation’s leading research, he maintains a strict fitness regimen to maintain his health and appearance. He is immodest of his rather muscular body at age sixty-two, making him feel unparalleled to the other slouchy businessmen he interacts with. His face is covered in golden, soft flesh, and large, deep-set wrinkles around his eyes, mouth and forehead that look like a satin sheet gathered into creases.

  “Come in!” he growled again as he stood from the chair.

  The door whirled open and Mara strode in slinging the door shut behind her. Her quick pace and firm steps, conveyed that this was not the free spirited scientist that usually strolled through the laboratory halls.

  “Dr. Brandenburg, I didn't expect you. Did we have an appointment?” He leaned over the desk looking at his date book. “Amy took a late lunch. It's really been a zoo today.”

  “No. We do not have an appointment," her voice, rigid and to the point. "Do you have a moment that you can spare?”

  “Sure, Mara, what's on your mind?” His face stiffened as he raised an eyebrow.

  This tone she spoke in—caught him off guard. Intrigued at this rare challenge to his authority, he thought he might let this one play out and see where it goes, for now.

  “Did you come to my lab while I was out, today?” She demanded.

  “Yes, I did,” he smirked in amusement, leaning against the front of his desk, folding his arms.

  “Did you take syringes from the refrigerated box in my office that had hold tags on them?”

  “Yes, I did,” he nodded with a benign grin, feeling somewhat amused by her demeanor.

  Pausing, she swallowed hard and insipidly asked, “Where are the injections now?”

  He burst into laughter. “You’re so serious. What’s going on?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, raising her voice, “That's because I am serious. Where are the syringes?”

  “We used them for the clinic today,” keeping his voice low and his words paced, he began feeling slightly offended. “There were several employees from very promising investors. Granted, there were a few that were from small, local businesses as well, but it’s all good publicity for us. As it is, the intern in pharmacy slipped up. That imbecile had some of it mistakenly sent to your lab, causing a panic in the pharmacy,” he sighed with disappointment, taking a seat in his chair. />
  “Don't worry,” James continued. “We were able to locate the shots and get them where they belonged. It's really not a problem. I think you handled it well. I have every confidence that you were going to take care of it when you got back from your appointment, but we needed them during that time. Your tech, Angie, took excellent care of me. We found them with relative ease. I know you’re in the basement Mara, but it would be courteous of you to at least take some interest in our calendar. To, at minimum, know when we are having events like the one today. Regardless, you may relax, it's all taken care of now. Will that be all?”

  Mara's eyes hit the floor. She stood before him in silence, but seemed troubled.

  “James,” she murmured, shaking her head, “Did you see that the syringes had hold tags on them?”

  “Yes, a nice touch, just in case the—“

  “It wasn't a nice touch,” she interrupted, her voice became rigid again, “They were on hold for a reason.”

  “Dr. Brandenburg, I respect you as a brilliant scientist,” he spoke unrushed with poise. He stood again from his chair, in disappointment at her conduct. “It may be wise to watch your tone when speaking to the chairman of the organization that employs you. May I also point out, that you did not log the reason for the hold on the product, in neither the hold log nor on the hold tags themselves, leading your technician and myself to believe that they were not really on hold.”

  She stood in silence scowling at James on the brink of tears. As her shoulders dropped, it became obvious that she struggled with an issue of some sort. Mara had never been called into his office under unsavory circumstances and had never been reprimanded in all her time at Angora. James allowed her to run her benign experiments on new vaccines and organic foods, with little supervision. Angora needed an exploratory lab for tax purposes and he knew that it would be a good fit for Mara and would someday, pay off for him to have her in that lab.