Chapter 10

Merritt Island, Florida 2025

"Oops! Hi." I smiled at the uniformed marine as I slipped out of Allen's room. His name was Walter and he loved NCAA basketball, his wife, and rhubarb pie. In that order, or so he claimed.

"Good morning, Doctor Pinchbeck," he nodded at me, looking up from his Sports Illustrated.

"Is it morning already?" I rolled my eyes and Walter chuckled, and all the guards knew about Allen and me. Our affair was a very badly kept secret. I made my way to my own room, hoping for a couple hours sleep anyway.

Or maybe just a long hot bath. I needed less sleep than most people and like many things about me, I wondered if that was my DNA or just ... me? I had no way of knowing, and it was probably both, but I did enjoy the convenience of being able to get by on just a few hours rest out of a very busy day, maybe one full night's sleep out of every four or five. My energy seemed to be wearing Major Fuller a bit thin however, and that made me giggle while I soaked in my tub.

Our rooms at the crew's quarters were VIP apartments really; single bedroom, full bath, a study, living room and small kitchen. We had our own guards, our own catering and maid service. We even had our own secretaries, for lack of a better word. Warden was one that came to mind and my own was a sunny and attractive young woman named Rio, as in river. She'd come Stateside from Puerto Rico and she had the binder memorized, being the bright, vivacious girl she was.

"You've got zero-G evac procedures all morning. Lunch with Dale Watersman, twelve to one..."

"Who?" I looked up from my breakfast.

"Watersman? He's with Time magazine, they're running the profiles every week for two months, starting in October. Remember? Your studio session is in three weeks..."

"Studio?" I frowned.

"For the cover?" Rio wrinkled her pert Hispanic nose, tapping her small computer. "You get, um ... The week of November third. I want an autograph on mine."

"I just want to go to Mars," I sighed and I'd grossly underestimated the amount of public relations work I'd have to endure on this job.

"Playboy still wants to know if you'll do the February 2026 issue," Rio laughed. "They sent a check for five million by courier, all you have to do is sign for it."

"Where is it?"

"I sent it back," she rolled her eyes and I nodded. "After lunch more evacuation drills, in the tank with Doctor Chin."

"Evacuating a space ship twenty-three light years from earth?" I sighed. "What's the point? Chin doing the Playboy thing?"

"No," Rio smiled. "They didn't ask her, so far as I know."

"Oh, she's gonna be mad. Don't say anything."

"I won't. Then tonight, dinner with..."

"I won't be making dinner," I shook my head. "Whatever you've got tonight, cancel it."

"You've got a meeting with the people from Mayo, the teleconference..."

"Reschedule it," I told her. "I'm unavailable tonight."

"Why?" she looked at me.

"Personal reasons," I said. "Nothing goes in your book, understand? Call it ... Female problems, okay?"

"Jen..." Rio sighed.

"I'm serious, take my calls after five until ... Whenever. I'm busy." I stared at the girl until she nodded and Rio was a good assistant, but she wasn't going to be very happy with a blank spot in her diary.

"I need a number," she told me and that was an argument I wouldn't win.

"I'll be in Maryland, up at Bethesda," I said, going back to my breakfast. "I have a friend in the hospital."

"Alright," she nodded.

"So, how does it feel to be the world's first xenobiologist?" Dale Watersman was older, in his fifties and smart. He could be quite charming when he wanted to be, with a generous smile and pleasant voice. We'd been talking for thirty minutes already and I'd found myself enjoying our little lunch.

"Heh," I smiled at him. "Well, I'm not a xenobiologist yet. We have to find something first."

"Sure, but you have to be pretty excited about it, Doctor."

"I'm very excited, yeah," I nodded and this was all well practiced. "Part of the mission is obviously to search for and find extraterrestrial organisms. Such a discovery would be the achievement of a lifetime and a credit not to me, but to all those people who have contributed in so many ways to create this opportunity."

"Sure," Dale smiled and he'd heard that before. "So what makes you qualified, Dr. Pinchbeck? Why were you selected for this mission?"

"Xenobiology," I laughed lightly and took a sip of wine. "When the requirements were being drafted, some big brains at IAS in Princeton and the Rand people, the Thinkers, they had to define what Xenobiology meant."

"What skills a xenobiologist would need, you mean?"

"Yeah, exactly," I agreed. "And so among other things, a background in genetics, immunology, virology, ummm ... Biochemistry..."

"And you're a geneticist..."

"Yes. I'm also a virologist, that was my first specialty and so I naturally have a strong background in..."

"A virologist, right," Watersman jumped on that like he'd been waiting for it. "And you worked for the Army, yes? At Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. What did you do there, Doctor?"

"I worked on IDSR, Infectious Diseases Survey and Response," I told him. "I headed up a team of international doctors and scientists to manage viral outbreaks worldwide. It was ... hard work, but rewarding."

"Sure," Watersman nodded. "And so that's the response part, the survey part though ... I understand you did some work for Fort Dietrich? What was that about?"

"Oh, that's, uh, not a subject I'm able to discuss really," I cleared my throat. "I'm sure the Pentagon can answer that better than I can."

"Well, I asked the Pentagon and they told me that, among other things, you were on special assignment through your office at CDC to something called Project Tempest."

"There you have it," I smiled at him and let the awkward silence hang.

"May I ask what Project Tempest was?"

"Tempest was part of a United Nations joint initiative to catalogue infectious disease in developing nations and produce a vaccination program that would be effective against a broad spectrum of contagions."

"That's pretty ... broad, Doctor," Watersman chuckled.

"I'm not at liberty to discuss the details, that has to come from World Health Organization and ... I'm sorry."

"The Christian Science Monitor, last month, reported that the Central Intelligence Agency may have been subverting UN sponsored programs to conduct field exercises in biological warfare..."

"I'm sure I don't have any comment on that," I said behind my frozen smile.

"Was Tempest part of..."

"Tempest was a viable program directly administered by the World Health Organization to the benefit of 34 countries and some three billion people, sir." I leaned forward, staring the man in the eyes. "I'd suggest you take these questions up with Geneva rather than spreading rumors which can only undermine the efforts and sacrifice of so many good people."

"I see," Watersman pursed his lips.

"Our time's about up," Rio was right there to save me, leaning close and touching my shoulder.

"Right," I nodded up at her.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Watersman. I'm afraid Dr. Pinchbeck does have a schedule to keep," Rio smiled at the reporter who was looking decidedly unhappy.

"Thanks for the ambush, Dale," I stood up. "I won't forget it."

"Hey, nothing personal, Jen..." he said, but I was already walking away.

"If Time Magazine ever calls..." I looked at Rio, " ... for anything? Tell them to fuck off and die."

"No problem," she frowned and Rio was a little unhappy with Watersman herself.

Tempest was secure, I knew that anyway, but still ... It would be bad if any trace of the project, the real project I'd run through CIA/DARPA, was ever exposed. I hadn't lied, not exactly, but the details of my work were necessarily secret. The irony was that my long involvement with the government was both my ticket into the Deep Space Survey and a very large black mark on my record. A lot of the scientists, those in the academic community at least, had little enough love for governments and I'd taken a beating as my application had been advanced through the screening process.

Strange as it may seem, being selected for the biggest scientific endeavor in human history was as much a popularity contest as anything else. That's why I was doing fluff, like interviews for Time magazine, to sell myself to the public, as much as selling the program itself. Watersman had taken advantage of his opportunity and I understood that, but I very much resented it as well. The man should be careful though, some rocks just aren't meant to be looked under and I'd found myself liking Mr. Watersman.

"Acute myelocytic leukemia." I flipped through the medical chart and it was all bad news. "They're giving you monoclonal antibodies..."

"And chemotherapy." The old man looked tired, pale and thin. Hardly dapper anymore.

"And chemo," I nodded.

"Be glad you'll never suffer this, my dear." Mr. Fox closed his eyes for a moment.

I pulled a chair close to his bed.

"It's undignified." He opened them again, looking at me as I sat close. "I heard you had an interesting lunch."

"Oh? You heard about that, huh?" I wasn't surprised.

"A little bird told me," he sighed, the air rattling out of his lungs.

"Watersman tried to hit me with Tempest," I shrugged. "There's nothing there."

"I know." He closed his eyes again.

"Does it hurt?" I glanced up at his I.V. and he was getting meperidine already.

"Oh yes," he smiled. "You received my gift."

"The files?" I nodded. "There was more than I expected."

"Hmmm ... I should have kept some then." He licked his thin white lips. "Death is an unfinished business."

"The immunotherapy might work," I said moving to rise. "You need to rest."

"No. Stay ... Ask me what you came here for."

"I came to see you." I settled back into the chair.

"Too soon for that," he chuckled softly. "You came to ask me something. Like a good daughter."

He sighed and I looked at him for several minutes.

"Where's Ronald?" I asked gently.

"It's in the files," Mr. Fox breathed, but he was avoiding the question and perhaps on his deathbed the old man had found a conscience.

"Not the baby," I shook my head. "Abduction of the placenta in the second trimester? I don't believe that either."

"I knew you wouldn't." His eyes were closed again and I wished he'd look at me.

"Where's my brother?"

"I told them," he breathed slowly. "They always underestimate you."

"Mr. Fox..."

"He's gone, Jennifer." His eyes opened and the old man turned his head. "I couldn't do anything."

I looked down and felt a great sadness inside.

"I saved you." He made a satisfied sound deep in his frail chest. "I got you in, they can't touch you now."

"What do you mean? DSS?"

"Yes." He coughed softly and looked at a cup with a straw in it.

I held it to his lips and he nodded gratefully while he took a small sip.

"What to do with you?" Mr. Fox smiled. "You frighten them, you see? After all this time..."

"You tried to talk me out of it."

"Only because I knew I couldn't, darling girl." He reached for my hand, barely stretching his limb and I gave the man my fingers to hold.

"And you got me in," I frowned.

"It wasn't easy," he barely nodded. "Everything is so hard these days. It's good to sleep."

"And I thought you just wanted a failsafe."

"I do." His grey eyes weren't dulled by the cancer or the pain and he looked right through me. "You're going because you're the best."

"Oh, you're sneaky," I sighed. "Now I don't know what to believe."

"Believe in yourself, dear." He closed his eyes.

"Goodbye, Mr. Fox." I let the old man go and I was free of him now. He'd given me that much at least, after taking away everything else.

Ronald was in the files, but only as a number. An experiment terminated after twenty-two years, three months, and seventeen days. It had taken me two hours to find it and then it was just a bad photocopy of an interagency memo.

More than ten years spent with one eye always open, hoping to spot him through a window, or walking down the street. I could close both of them now. My brother was dead.

I drank a lot. Too much and I cried. For Ronald, for our baby, for my parents. I cried for me and I felt almost better afterwards, but not really. Nothing was changed. I had two cartons of files, my whole life on paper. From my mother's original request for a research grant, now classified top secret/compartmented information to the TSCI order terminating the project less than an hour after public announcement of my selection as a scientific member of the Deep Space Survey.

I'd become untouchable then and I understood that some of those persons responsible for my existence were anxious to see me terminated. Not for any specific reason, merely for insurance. Tying up loose ends, as it were. Mr. Fox had saved me and so far as anyone would ever know, I no longer worked for him or the CIA, or anyone but NASA. But I did and that was our little secret. The one Mr. Fox would soon take to the grave and I would take into the depths of space.

That was more responsibility than a half-drunk, genetically engineered, 28 year old woman needed at two o'clock in the morning.

"Hello?"

"Hey sleepyhead," I giggled into the phone, feeling cheered at the sound of his sleep slurred voice.

"Hey new girl," Josh sighed happily. "I was just dreaming about you."

"Liar."

"Well..."

"Don't stop though," I whispered, curling up on my bed, hugging my teddy bear to my breasts. "I like it."

"Yeah, we were by the river," Josh chuckled and he was coming more awake. "Having a picnic lunch."

"Oh, yeah," I closed my eyes, wanting to see it.

"You were still thirteen though, strangest thing."

"Really? How old were you?"

"My age," Josh sighed. "Thirty-three and all I could do was look at you."

"Ohhh..." I pouted, "What kind of dream is that?"

"You woke me up, remember?" he laughed lightly. "I was just reaching for you too."

"What a tease," I smiled into the phone.

"You were wearing that green dress you used to have. The one with..."

"The yellow flowers?" I giggled. "God! That was horrible!"

"No, no ... I loved that dress."

"You never told me," I sighed. "I would have worn it more often."

"You should have," Josh agreed. "When you used to lean over, the top would fall open and..."

"What?" I gasped happily.

"Yeah, you didn't know that?" he laughed. "I always thought you did it on purpose."

"Oh no." I closed my thighs on my bear, my big one from Germany. "You saw me ... What? All of me?"

"Oh yeah. Those hard little nipples you used to have, like Bazooka bubblegum."

"Bazooka?" I rolled my eyes.

"God yeah, Jen. I thought that was the sexiest thing in the world," Josh said. "Looking down your dress."

"Hmmm ... I miss you."

"I miss you too. What are you doing now?"

"Hugging my bear, lying in bed."

"No..." he chuckled, " ... I mean the astronaut stuff, what are you guys doing?"

"Oh, boring stuff. We have to know how the spaceship works and what to do if we drive into the moon and..."

"Yeah," Josh chuckled. "You have to come back."

"I know."

"Will you marry me, Jen?"

"Yeah," I giggled.

"I'm serious," Josh swallowed hard and I smiled. "Will you be my wife?"

"You can't ask me a question like that over the phone."

"I could come there and ask," Josh said. "My truck's working good."

"Heh!" I laughed. "You can't even find the gas to start it, how are you going to drive all the way to Florida?"

"My old man stashed a five hundred gallon tank at the mill," Josh chuckled. "He said he wasn't ever gonna drive plastic."

"He never did either, I bet."

"Nope. Pop never did."

"Well, save your gas for when I come back, okay?" I said, feeling a little sad suddenly. "They won't let me go if I get married."

"I know," Josh laughed.

"Ohhh ... I see now," I laughed with him. "Trying to pull a fast one on me."

"I'm just an old dirty saw tooth, baby."