Flame in the Dark (Soulwood #3)(61)
I finished composing a group text to JoJo, Rick, and Soul with the contents of the note. I finished the text with Meet with the new girl? I know the library layout.
Rick instantly sent back, Yes. Occam as backup.
I gave Occam the address and sat back against the seat, thinking, giving myself a good work-related reason to not look at Occam. He had called me Ingram. I liked that a lot more than I ever would have believed.
? ? ?
“It has to do with paranormal beings,” Mary Smith said. I looked at her blankly. “The research on all the lab animals? It has to do with vampires and werewolves.”
The blank look stayed on my face. I assumed that Mary wasn’t her real name. I had no idea who she was. The werecats had mentioned smelling vampires on their reconnaissance of the research facility, but vampires and weres tended to live in a state of perpetual warfare. “Vampires and werewolves? Together?” I clarified.
We were alone in the computer lab, the on-again, off-again sleet keeping the regulars away. The room was chilly and we were both still wearing outerwear, Mary in a red plaid zippered jacket, me in my regular winter coat. She wore no makeup and had yellowed teeth that protruded in front. I wasn’t sure the teeth were real, because she talked in an odd lisping accent, as if unaccustomed to the shape of her own mouth.
Mary nodded, her hands in her pockets, fists clenched, no chance of leaving fingerprints. “The director of the vampire and werewolf program is trying to genetically reverse engineer paranormal blood. He wants to find all sorts of medical applications for it for profit. He devised a cross-matching protocol back twenty years ago, looking for immune response. He has more lab data on vampires than the vamps themselves. He’s sequenced the vampire genetic code, and now he’s looking for all the differences.”
The blank looks were working, so I gave her another one. I vaguely knew what sequencing a genetic code meant, but had no idea about the relevance to a company’s R&D outcomes, possible future products, and profit margins. Nor did I yet know if the vampire research was real or a figment of her imagination. And I didn’t know what it had to do with my cover about abused animals. “Okay. That sounds expensive and time-consuming. But I don’t really care about vampires or were-creatures. I’m interested in rescuing animals.”
“The company’s intent is to find out if there are applications for life-extending and cancer-fighting and virus-fighting properties. Except this employee”—she pointed to herself—“thinks that there is another purpose. I’m not sure what, but I have ideas based on conversations I’ve overheard.”
“Like what?” I asked, thinking about Candace’s conspiracy theories. I was discovering that conspiracy theories gave me a headache.
Mary had freckles on her nose and her hair was cut short and worn like a red ball of curls. It looked good on her. Better than my multicolored wig did on me. Maybe that was why I had a headache coming on, wearing a wig.
“The second-floor researchers are experimenting on chimpanzees and pigs, with werewolf blood and vampire blood,” she said. “Some super-secret DNA studies with genes implanted in human embryos—with an emphasis on curing humans of genetically caused diseases.
“The third-floor lab is working with vaccines against a virulent plague that hit the African Congo. The plague was kept out of the media”—she lowered her voice—“even though it killed every single human in two villages in the bush, striking and killing before anyone could get away. And the new Ebola vaccine doesn’t work on this strain. DNAKeys is the only pharmaceutical company working on it, in conjunction with someone at CDC—though that’s unofficial thanks to a funding cut. Keys is using vampire blood for that one, in a biosafety level four lab, which is nothing but a disease-infested prison. They’re testing the Ebola under controlled circumstances on chimps and three species of macaques.” Her eyes filled with tears and focused on me fiercely. “The doctors are giving the animals diseases and then trying to cure them, but none of them are staying alive for long and they are so sick. When the animals die, they cut them up. It’s horrific. And there’s more . . .”
She nattered on for several more minutes, talking about things that sounded like Internet urban legends and myths. I wanted to tune her out. I was doing a lot of that lately, and on one hand it seemed foolish to ignore possible witnesses and covert sources, but on the other hand, there was only so much conspiracy stuff I could handle.
“Okay,” I interrupted, shoving my hands into my pockets, mimicking her body language. My Spook School interrogation technique trainers would have patted me on the back. My self-defense trainers would have given me a failing grade for hiding my hands, making sure there was no way on earth I could protect myself if Mary Smith—surely not her real name—attacked me. But it was cold, cold, cold in the computer lab. I didn’t think the heat was on at all. Could computers freeze? “What else?”
“What else? Are you kidding me?”
“Not really. You told me that what the research lab is researching, and the results they’re hoping for, could be good or could be bad. That’s the way life works—good or bad. And you haven’t said anything my animal rights group could get excited about without catching Ebola. We want to help, but not die a horrible death over it.”
Mary sat back in her chair, nostrils flaring, hands still in her pockets. “No. You don’t understand. DNAKeys has goals and they aren’t sharing them. They want to end human lives or make humans unable to procreate, or maybe unleash the Ebola virus and wipe humans off the face of the planet. No one knows. It’s all hush-hush research and testing, compartmentalized in various sections of the facility. And they have werewolves and vampires captive. In cages,” she emphasized. “Like animals. With the animals.”