Love in Electric Blue (Westlake Enterprises) (9 page)

They didn’t speak, watching each other, trying to see more than the other would allow. Then J.D. nodded, turned, and left her before he took her to bed again. “Lock up after me.”

He exited the apartment, found his car, and sat there in the cold December night trying to organize his scattered thoughts. Not sure how to feel or what to think, he finally started the car and went home, sure his future had never been more unclear.

Chapter Seven

Benjamin Carter put the headset over the sobbing young man strapped to the lab table. Jerry Allen could manipulate electricity. Oh, the boy fussed and protested that he couldn’t, but witnesses had confessed to strange occurrences whenever Jerry passed. Light bulbs flickered, monitors blew, radio stations fizzled into static, and Jerry often had the disconcerting habit of shocking people when they touched. The boy’s father had been only too happy to share the boy with Carter’s scientific team after a healthy donation hit his bank account.

Carter grimaced at the sight of the weeping teenager. How sad that his once fruitful career had degenerated into this. Where he’d once had state-of-the-art equipment, people with genius IQs begging to work with him and subjects lining up at the door to help further his tests, now he had to make do with a couple of mildly intelligent graduate students, a few holdover scientists from the old days and a psychotic head of security who liked to play Rambo. It was all so embarrassing.

He leaned over Jerry and tightened the straps around the boy’s wrists, hard enough to leave marks.

“Uh, Dr. Carter?” one of the graduate students acting as his assistant spoke up. Out of turn, as usual. “Don’t you think the strap is maybe a little too tight?”

“I’m sorry, David. Would
you
rather take charge?” Carter’s condescension was palpable. “Perhaps your expertise might prove useful where mine has failed. I’m sure General Thurmen would love to know that
you’re
on top of our new weapons capabilities for the army. After all, I’m just here for show, aren’t I?”

David’s head snapped up and he locked gazes with Benjamin, then quickly murmured an apology and stepped away. Probably remembering that the last student to suffer a similar setdown had been let go. Killed actually, but David couldn’t know that. If Benjamin hadn’t been so short on people, he’d have given Lennox the order to terminate David as well.

“Thank you for that much,” Benjamin sneered and turned back to his computer, aware David had scurried away. Finally. He punched in a series of codes and watched as the device accumulated the potential energy in the subject. “Now, Jerry, we’re going through another series of tests, but these are quite different from yesterday’s.”

The boy ceased struggling, no doubt relieved to hear it. Yesterday, Benjamin had utilized a drug designed to enhance the boy’s sensitivity to electrical current by decreasing his natural resistance. Unfortunately, Mike—the latest graduate biochemist Benjamin had hired and the only one worth keeping—had injected the wrong dosage, which caused Jerry no small amount of discomfort as the nodes which had been attached to his body burned into his flesh, where they remained.

“I just want to go home,” Jerry pleaded and struggled again to be free. No doubt lying in wet clothes made him uncomfortable as well. But a wet body decreased resistance, and Carter needed to amplify the current
and
voltage to properly conduct his tests. Common misconception held that the higher the voltage, the more danger to a human. But that didn’t account for current.

Or in his niece’s odd case, her ability to harness electricity and swim in it as if pushing through water. She maintained her own unique resistance, able to both allow and withstand currents that would cause a normal person’s organs to explode.

He’d lost the only other person with her scope of ability due to the government’s interference and a blasted fire. In the years since that debacle, he’d failed time and time again in his search for a new subject to power his device. The Carter Device, he was thinking of calling it once it passed the tests.

He didn’t think this boy had it in him, but he was so frustrated. Scientific progress beckoned. He had to push the male to his limits and beyond. At the least, he’d have more data.

“Now, now,” Benjamin admonished. “We’ve had this conversation before. You’ll go home as soon as I finish this last batch of tests and not before. Today I’m merely going to see if your intake potential has increased at all. It should, if my data is correct, but we’ll see.”

Benjamin turned up the dial on his right and watched with fascination as the boy’s body shook. He waited a full five seconds before he increased the voltage, keeping the initial current steady. Jerry’s results looked pleasing. Benjamin continued for a full minute, alternately turning up the voltage and current in small increases.

“I think we’re seeing some real progress.” Excited, he ignored Jerry’s cries, determined to reach the next plateau. Continuing with a hope that was dashed all too soon, Benjamin was forced to call a halt at the yellow level.

Damn it. So close, yet not close enough.

He shook his head in disgust as the boy seized, his body smoked and he lost control of his bodily fluids.

Again they hit this roadblock.

“Mike!”

His one good assistant appeared momentarily.

“Clean him up and dispose of him,” he barked.

Mike called for one of the cleanup men, and they transferred the boy out of the room on a separate gurney.

Benjamin’s frustration boiling, he strode out of the room to his private study. At this rate, he’d never find the answers.

He took out his old journal. Creased at the binding, the hard leather cover had a lovely patina from years of constant handling. He’d been so close once. Ten years ago seemed like only yesterday.

Joshua Moran and Lizzie, his niece, had played key roles in his quest for the ultimate weapon. Their unique brain chemistry and function had enabled him to see wonders and experience their world for such a short time. Never before had he reached the blue level with any of his other subjects, nor seen the world in an alternate reality of hazy energy and linked existence. The Carter Device had been so close to success…

He studied his notes again, always searching for something he’d missed. He refused to consider that his results had only to do with Joshua and Lizzie. If he’d had longer to study them, he would have extracted a common answer evident in all humans. The knowledge, the science, was the truth of success. Joshua and his niece were important, yet ultimately expendable. And they would have been if he’d had the time to properly research and dissect them.

The initial chemicals he’d used on Lizzie had increased her tolerance to electricity. She’d been shocked by a bolt of electricity and developed her ability. But years of testing, success and failure, had given him the know-how to boost her system.

And then he’d been lucky enough to find Joshua, a boy
born
with such gifts. When he’d hooked them up together, their potential had quadrupled.

When Benjamin had tested his prototype device and
shared
their ability, that one glorious time, without any ill effect, he’d hit the mother lode. He’d not only been aware of their power, but in control of it. The capacity for destruction had been incredible. Success had been within reach. The government had promised him millions to deliver. He’d been on the cusp of becoming a national hero, where his contributions to science would have made him a household name.

And then Lizzie, that little bitch, had destroyed
everything
.

Her perfidy had ruined his life’s work. Thanks to Lennox, he’d learned that
she’d
been the one to make the call to his enemies. And his dreams had crumbled into ash.

Determined to rebuild, he’d done just that. It had taken years, a lot of trial and error, but Benjamin had done his best. Still, he’d never found another like Lizzie or Joshua.

He flipped through his journal and stared down at a picture of his niece, Elizabeth Remington Sinclair. She was the spitting image of her mother, his sister, whom he’d loved until the day she’d died. The day she’d given him the idea to pursue his research in its current direction.

They’d all been out walking together in the woods behind their family estate. He, his sister Catherine, her husband, Todd, and little Lizzie had walked into a thunderstorm. A bad one that’d seemed to come out of nowhere. Lightning had arced and struck around them. Fascinated, he’d stood and watched in awe. Then disaster had struck—literally.

A bolt of lightning speared them where they stood. It knocked him and the others off their feet. He suffered a concussion after hitting a nearby tree. Catherine and Todd died on impact. But Lizzie was drastically changed.

Only five years old and she’d lost everything…and became his personal miracle. Benjamin had taken her into his home and showered her with attention, if not the affection she’d always seemed to crave.

Her affinity for anything electrical fascinated him. She would sit in front of the television for hours, switching through channels using only her mind. She’d caused constant darkness throughout the house, blowing fuses and light bulbs until he’d helped her to develop some control. Until he’d given her the drugs that helped her manage her skills.

Already legendary in the scientific community for his innovative thoughts and intelligent mind, he’d been recruited by the government’s defense department to create a better weapon to help defend the nation. They wanted a supergun.

Benjamin had a broader vision. Why not change the very backbone of the army—the soldier? Lizzie had been his inspiration. Seeing what she could do gave him ideas. Why not make the basic ingredient of the nation’s fighting force a weapon? The new and improved soldiers would tear through the enemy before anyone knew what to do with them, no guns necessary.

With Lizzie on his team, the opportunity was possible. But with the addition of Joshua, it became probable. Until little Lizzie had defected and ruined it all.

Benjamin swore, concerned that they hadn’t been able to find a trace of her in over a year. He closed his journal and pushed a button on his phone. “Send Lennox to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Moments later, a tall, thin man, with black hair, skin so pale it appeared white and a disconcerting disfigurement, entered the study and sat down across from him. Lennox had a puckered scar that ran from his left brow, over his eyelid, and down to the corner of his mouth. A holdover from the fire that had ruined the Institute, the pink scar stood out from his pasty face, looking like a cosmetic affectation one might wear for Halloween.

“I’ll need you to dispose of Jerry. He didn’t have what it took, unfortunately.”

Lennox’s black eyes narrowed. “What? Not another one?” He leaned forward with an earnest expression and respect, the only reason Carter tolerated his oddities. “Why not use me? I’ve told you time and time again I can take the pain.”

Carter sat back in his chair and studied his head of security. Lennox had been one of the few survivors of the Institute’s takedown, along with Carter and his niece. Then, Lennox had been a young scientist eager to prove his worth. But between the fire, the explosions and the battle with the Feds, Lennox’s mind had grown damaged. In the years since, he’d gradually lost much of the intelligence that had once so impressed Benjamin. Now his talents ran more toward brutality and body disposal.

“We’ve talked about this before, Lennox,” Benjamin said carefully. He was always cautious around the man and treated him with kid gloves. Some of the things his head of security had done did not bear repeating. Still, better to have the monster on his side than against him. “I need you too much to risk your health. You’re much too valuable to waste on these piddling experiments. Once we have Lizzie back, then I’ll take your request into consideration, when I know I can safely use you.”

Lennox appeared to accept the excuse and stroked his cropped hair. “About Lizzie, I have some very interesting news for you.”

“Oh?”

“Our hacker got lucky, and I followed up with an eyes-on report. Lizzie is headed to Mexico on a private plane to meet with one of our investors, Lee Brooks.” He paused. “She’s traveling with a man who bears a striking similarity to someone we thought we’d lost years ago. Joshua Moran.”

Carter stared at Lennox in shock. “That’s not possible. She killed him. I watched her fry the boy the night it all went to hell.”

“She must have fooled you, sir. Fooled all of us.”

“I had no idea.” He was flabbergasted. “I mean, I thought him dead. There was no reason to look for him. His name never reappeared anywhere, and even the Feds reported him burned alive. Said they found his bones in the wreckage.”

“Yes, sir. A cover-up, I’m thinking.”

“But he’s with her? Both our quarry,
together
?” Like a sign, highlighting Benjamin’s destiny. A second chance.

“We’ll want to verify it’s actually him, but our computer comparisons don’t lie. There’s a 98.2 percent probability this man is Joshua Moran. Their facial alignments are identical.”

“It’s him. Yes.” Benjamin could
feel
it.

“I’m to assume we turn up the heat?”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Carter said, unable to contain his excitement. “But subtly. I want to know what they can do. Don’t capture them yet. But I definitely want them followed after Mexico.”