Chapter 10

It was Thursday morning. Blaine tried not to bound from his bed and jump out to the balcony. He felt so much better. The Cure was starting to take effect.

Even though he had no deodorant, there would be no showering this morning. He’d happily put up with his stale slept-in smell rather than miss his chance at freedom. His clothes also hadn’t been laundered since the spot inspection. Despite several offers to have them washed, there was no way was he going to get caught escaping in a hospital gown!

Whistling, he put on his shoes and waited for the usual entourage to appear.

‘Morning, young Blaine.’

‘Hi Carl.’ Carl was back in full protective garb. Blaine wondered if he’d been required to burn the clothes he’d worn when escorting him upstairs with Sam.

The paramedic made the usual observations. At the end, he stood back and studied Blaine with gloved hands on hips. ‘Feeling better now, are we? Temp’s relatively stable and no seizures for two days!’

Unable to help himself, Blaine flashed a grin. ‘Yeah, it’s a good week.’ If he’d still had his wallet and phone, it would have been perfect. Perfect for escape, that is.

Shaking his head, Carl recorded the readings from each monitor and promptly disconnected the units. ‘No point having them going off when the system goes down—which should be soon.’

‘Do they stop working?’

‘No, it’s just that when the computers can’t get the readings they want, the alarms start to squeal. It’s the way it’s set up, for now. But I’m thinking you’re not going to need them for today anyway. Good to see, kid.’

‘Could you show me?’

Carl ran through each sensor and described what it did. Blaine had spent enough time in care to already know it all, but he needed Carl to provide him with a card. ‘Hey, can I have that?’

‘What, your report?’

‘It’s just a copy, isn’t it? I feel like doing some writing.’

Understanding registered in Carl’s eyes. ‘Sorry, Blaine. I’d not even considered how bored you might be here. I thought you were too sick to care.’

‘Even some cards would be good. Unlike most of my generation, I can actually play Solitaire without a computer.’ Blaine gave another cheesy grin. ‘You can incinerate them when I’m done.’

Carl chuckled. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Just give me a minute.’

Blaine swung between panic the network would go down before Carl returned and fear there were no cards in the facility. I wouldn’t put it past anyone banning poker here.

It was several minutes before Carl came back. ‘Found this in the tea room.’ He plonked a game of Monopoly onto a lowset table set against the wall. ‘Sorry, it was the best I could do. Maybe you could play against yourself?’

‘Thanks, Carl.’ Perfect. Monopoly cards would work just as well.

Of habit, just as his mother had taught him to do as a child, he counted another tick for hope, adding it to his growing tally. Nine.

Melissa gathered part of her special operation team together. Three handpicked researchers sat opposite her at the conference table occupying half her office. Besides Sam in security and Carl, everyone else was on a need-to-know basis. Even Carl and Sam only had enough details to secure their cooperation. The other staff generally accepted Blaine was undergoing some post-treatment follow-up tests. Nothing more.

Time was critical. They were no closer to discovering Ramer’s process and Blaine could not be held forever. She just hoped he never questioned her claim they had the right to keep him there. It was quite an extension of the truth and had nothing to do with regulating bodies or any other government organisation.

Dr Jonick held the floor. ‘I think the key is in those Cure meds Belinda Colton mentioned. Whatever it is, it keeps the whole thing balanced.’

‘Well, Eddie, I think you’ve just booked yourself an assignment.’ Melissa raised an eyebrow as Eddie’s face swung towards her. ‘Don’t we still have the same pharmacist as we did when Ramer was here? And aren’t you all chummy with him?’ She smiled. ‘Since you won’t be able to do any other work soon enough, why don’t you go and have a chat? See what you can discover about any custom combinations run through the tablet press, say, three years ago by a certain Professor Ramer.’

Eddie’s glare was half-mocking, half-provocative. ‘There’s something else I’ve noticed. Here. Check these counts.’ He slid a copy of some graphed results across the table. ‘I don’t like what I’m seeing. Has anyone flagged this before?’

Melissa essentially ignored him, then turned away to address the two other scientists. ‘I’ve instructed Sam to befriend him, but evidently Blaine hasn’t mentioned anything about the meds. Carl’s also had little success.’ She would see the paramedic and security guard when this meeting was done.

‘I’ve got the last set of results, but there’s nothing remarkable.’

Melissa reached across the table to accept the report. In the corner of her eye she saw Eddie push back his chair. By the time she turned her head, he was stalking to the door. The line of his back told her she’d offended him. She thought for a moment of calling him back. But before she’d decided whether it was in her best interests to pacify him, he was gone.

Eddie looked through some old recipe and tablet press usage log books.

‘That all you need, Ed?’

‘Yeah, thanks, Len.’

‘Just don’t go playing with the press. You have no idea how temperamental that lovely lady can be!’ He cast an eye over the mechanical contraption that punched tablets from powdered drug stocks.

‘I know, Len. I know.’

‘And if you need to ask anything, I’ll be in my office across the way.’

‘Great.’

Eddie flicked through the logs until he found a series of orders for Professor Ramer. The dates indicated a six-month period leading up to Blaine’s gene therapy. Each one had a series of codes, but they didn’t seem like chemical formulas. If they were shorthand for a drug, it wasn’t one he’d heard of before.

‘Hey, Len?’ Eddie blew a kiss to Len’s ‘lovely lady’ and headed across the corridor. ‘Did you make these up?’

Len came to the door. ‘Oh, that’s Professor Ramer’s Cure. No, he wouldn’t let me near it!’

‘Well, what does this stand for?’ Eddie pointed at a number of symbols in the description column. ‘RC-M-X2.’

‘That was Ramer’s code. I think it stood for Ramer’s Cure modification X2. Don’t ask me what the “X2” was for, ’cause I don’t know.’

Eddie stopped. ‘X2?’ He started to laugh. ‘X2. The supplement. We thought it indicated two vitamin supplements per day, not a drug code. But why would he call it a supplement?’

‘Mate, you’re talking to yourself.’ Len clapped Eddie’s shoulder and chuckled.

Eddie shook his head and offered a half-smile. ‘So who made them up?’

‘Ramer did.’

‘The whole mix?’

‘Yeah. Wanted to handle the prep for the clinical trials within his own team. Said it was too important to risk anyone else taking the blame, if it wasn’t right. Did up quite a few batches in the end. Enough to medicate half of Queensland!’ Len threw back his head and laughed loudly.

Eddie continued to stare at the dates and usage records. ‘Do you have any samples? Even just a powdered stock?’

Len shook his head. ‘He set it up, mixed his own batches, punched them out, and cleaned it up—except for once.’

‘And who was that?’ Eddie waited, thinking he might finally have some news that could put him in Melissa’s good books. Now there was a lovely lady he’d like to impress—despite the fact she’d just blown him off. Let her figure out the results herself!

‘That young research assistant Ramer had for a while.’

‘You mean, Luke Kastenholz, the RA he had before he left?’

‘Yeah, that’s the one. Both resigned about the same time, remember?’

For the first time Eddie really thought about this fact. Both Ramer and Kastenholz had left within days of each other.

What did that mean, if anything?

He shook his head, realising he was indulging a wild, invalidated notion. ‘So what did Professor Ramer get Luke to do?’

‘Just assist. But he probably knew a bit about what they were handling. Was a smart one, that, so I’m sure he’d have been in on the game.’ A deep crease rutted Len’s brow. ‘But why are you asking me? This would’ve all been in Ramer’s research notes. Why don’t you just look it up?’

‘Yeah, you’re right.’

Eddie knew he’d made Len suspicious, but there was no help for it. He cringed to think what the pharmacist might say if he knew just how low he’d sunk to stay hitched to the Hartfield research wagon.

‘Ed, it’s been a while since you’ve dropped by. Everything okay?’ Len folded his arms and reclined with a casual lean against the door jamb.

Eddie looked away. Len had been a great friend when he’d first joined ARI—and the pharmacist could read him like a book. In fact, he was the only colleague who knew the real reason behind Eddie’s abrupt return to Brisbane after many years of working in Melbourne. Perhaps that was why Len judged his behaviour less harshly than most.

‘Busy. You know.’ He shrugged.

‘Vague, evasive. You know.’

Finally Eddie lifted his head. ‘Look, Len, things have been different since Ramer left.’

‘No kidding.’ He let out a low whistle. ‘I remember the day that determined little blonde marched in here with her entourage of researchers. Made no secret of her ambitions to outdo her former supervisor.’

‘Wonder if Professor Ramer knew just how seriously she’d take that challenge?’ Eddie’s gaze drifted to a distant point. ‘One year. That’s all the time it took for him to tender his resignation after her arrival.’

‘And for her to be appointed Director in Ramer’s place.’ Len shook his head. ‘I liked Ramer. He never thought so much of himself that he couldn’t take time for the little people. Always seemed genuinely interested, even though his life was one constant schedule of meetings and deadlines.’

Eddie nodded. ‘Yeah, he was approachable. But Mel is, too. She’s just got different priorities.’

‘Look.’ Len shifted his position. ‘I know you think she’s a bit all right, but Ed, there’s something ... not right about her.’

Oh, Len, if only you knew ... Eddie almost shrank back as he considered his own swift entanglement with the appealing Dr Hartfield.

His research funds acquired under Ramer’s directorship had been ending, along with the project he’d been working on, when Eddie was offered a position in her group. He was still guaranteed some liberties in dictating the direction of his research, but she signed off on any grant applications and he essentially had to toe the line according to her priorities. He was increasingly required to dedicate time and grant money to advancing Melissa’s research interests, while she seemed to find the pot of gold for her own work time and again.

Since getting caught up in her most recent scheme, Eddie could scarcely look Len in the eye. So he’d started avoiding him.

‘Ed?’ Len’s voice drew Eddie back to the present. ‘If you ever want to grab a drink or just hang out with m’lady o’ the tablet press—’

‘But don’t touch her.’ He handed the records back to Len, who grinned.

‘Absolutely! Well, you know where I am. An’ I promise not to breathe a word of the latest gossiping gabbers’ instalment.’

Eddie snorted. Yeah, I know what people say about me and my ‘dates’. Let them talk! But as much as he pretended otherwise, it did barb him—and Len knew that. ‘Thanks. I’ll try and get up here more often.’

He returned to the lift, deep in thought. At the last moment he stopped short of pressing the button and checked his watch. Has the network gone down yet? Do I even care? No, today he’d take the stairs. In fact, he felt like a nice long walk away from ARI—and its beautiful Chief Scientist.

His echoing footsteps boomed up and down the stairwell, from the basement to the roof top green. Len’s final question sat like a shadow in the corner of his mind.

Where were Professor Ramer’s research notes? Had he left incomplete records, if any? That just didn’t seem like Ramer’s style.

According to the usual IP agreements, the lab books had to be kept at the Institute or by a designated authority directly associated with the project. Surely someone had to have them. Was that someone Melissa?

He thought it unlikely. Ramer wouldn’t have been so careless as to let his notes fall into the hands of his overambitious former PhD student and now number one rival, Melissa Hartfield.

But what of the RA? Why hadn’t anyone noticed he had resigned just days before Ramer’s abrupt resignation and disappearance? Could Luke be the link they were seeking?

He knew Melissa wasn’t going to be pleased with his news. In fact, he was certain she’d be livid.