Tripple Chronicles 1: Eternity Rising (28 page)

Camden
motioned to Aldretti that he needed to leave, and along with Ganesh and Quinn
walked to Camden’s rooms. Camden quickly grabbed a folder he had put together
for his meeting with Rhys, then they all piled in an elevator to go to the
thirteenth floor. When they stepped off into the corridor, they could hear
moaning and ranting coming from one of the rooms.

“So, I guess
we just follow the mellow sounds of crazy?” Quinn asked, grinning from ear to
ear and bouncing on the balls of his feet. Camden and Ganesh stopped, turned
and gave him identical disapproving looks and Aldretti, who had looked nervous
since they got on the elevator, chuckled and fidgeted with his fingers.

Just then,
two attendants dressed in white, a man and a woman, bustled out of the room
where all the noise was coming from. The man wiped sweat from his forehead and
the woman was holding a syringe.

“If you’re
here to see Rhys, it’s not a good time,” she said as the four men approached.

“I can
wait,” Camden offered.

“Suit
yourself,” the man laughed, “But I can’t guarantee he will be any use to you
today. He doesn’t travel well, plus we are adjusting his meds. You must be…”

“Camden
Riles.” He reached out to shake the man’s hand.

“I’m Terry,
and this is Rita,” the man answered. While the rest of the group made their
introductions, Camden looked into the diamond shaped window, half expecting to
see
himself
sitting there with a fat bloody lip.
Instead, there was a skinny, graying man who was writhing and moaning, doing
everything in his power to fight his restraints.

“Is he
always in straps?” Camden asked.

“Depends on
the day,” Rita answered. “Since it’s just the two of us here, we have to keep
him strapped down more often. And as you can see, today is obviously a strap
day.” She tried to smile but it came off crooked and uncomfortable.

“Aldretti,
you know your way around up here. Do you think you could find us a couple of
chairs?” Camden asked.

Aldretti
instinctively crossed his arms and stood against the wall, not wanting to be an
errand boy for Camden, who exhaled with a huff at his reaction.

“It’s for
your comfort as much as mine,” he added.

“Make that
four chairs, Aldretti,” Ganesh said as Aldretti disappeared into a nearby
closet.

“Quinn, I
guess you need to cancel the rest of my day until further notice,” Ganesh
continued.

“No, go,
I’ll be fine here with Aldretti,” Camden said.

“You are
going to trust Aldretti to protect you if something happens?” Ganesh asked. “No
offense, Aldretti,” he called down the hall.

“What can
happen? The man is strapped to a table,” Camden said.

“He’ll be
quite sedate in a few minutes,” Terry chimed in. “When he comes to again,
depending on his mood, we can maybe let you in to see him.”

“Just don’t
expect to get much out of him. It really has been a bad day,” Rita added.

“I’ll take
what I can get,” Camden smiled. “Ganesh, why don’t you meet me in my rooms
tonight for a scotch. Around 6:00?”

“Sure,
okay,” Ganesh answered, “But I’m coming back up here in an hour to check on you
anyway.”

Camden
smiled and sat down in the chair that Aldretti had just set against the wall
outside of Rhys’s room. He opened the folder he’d brought with him and looked
over his notes and drawings. Aldretti sat across the hall from Camden and
rested his head against the wall. He looked extremely bored. Rita and Terry
went back in the room with Rhys, and a few minutes later, the moaning stopped.

Camden
realized he had nodded off, in the chair outside of Rhys Krell’s room, when the
sound of the door opening startled him awake. Rita walked out and Camden looked
at his watch. He had been sitting there for forty-five minutes. Both of his
feet were asleep and there was a crick in his neck. He looked over at Aldretti,
who was sitting with his feet outstretched, his arms folded, and his head
hanging down to his chest. The door had apparently not stirred him.

“He’s awake
if you want to talk to him,” Rita said.

“Is he
lucid?” Camden asked.

“He’s
awake,” she repeated, “And calm. It may be your best chance today.”

“Thank you,”
Camden said and shook his legs one at a time to wake his feet up. He grabbed
his folder and walked in the room after Rita. Terry had Rhys sitting up, still
strapped to his bed, and was feeding him something that looked like pudding.
Rhys didn’t acknowledge that Camden had walked in. He was focused on collecting
drops of drooled pudding from his chin and testing its elasticity between his
fingers.

“Are you
sure he can help you?” Rita whispered to Camden.

Camden
ignored her, cleared his throat, and walked over to the other side of Rhys’s
bed.

“Hello Rhys,
I’m Camden…Camden Riles. Do you remember me?”

Rhys still
did not acknowledge that anyone was speaking to him. Camden tried again.

“Rhys,
you’re here because I need your help. I want you to look at this drawing and
tell me what you think.” Camden pulled out of the folder his prototype idea for
simplified space travel and put it directly in Rhys’s line of sight.

“What do you
think of this drawing, Rhys?” Camden asked again.

Suddenly,
Rhys seemed to stare at the picture. His eyes widened with fear and he looked
at Camden directly, then back to the drawing, then frantically back and forth
between the two.

“Rhys?” Rita
asked in a calm voice. “Rhys, are you ok? Do you need to rest now?”

“I know
you!” Rhys shouted at Camden.

“Yes, you
do, it’s Camden Riles.”

“No. No! I
know you. I know this….” he pointed at the drawing. “I’ve had this dream
before! I’ve had this dream before!” Rhys screamed the same sentence over and
over and started pulling against his restraints and convulsing in his bed.
Camden jumped back with shock. Rita ran to Rhys’s side and pulled a syringe out
of her dress pocket.

“I’ve had
this dream before!! This is a bad dream! It doesn’t work like that! It can’t
work! It needs the fluctuation component! Bad dream. You’re the
killer…..killer
…” Rhys’s voice trailed off and his eyes
closed as Rita pulled the needle she just poked him with out of his neck.

“I’m sorry,”
she said to Camden. “He gets like this, especially with change. You can try
again tomorrow if you like.”

“What did he
mean? He’s had this dream before.” Camden asked.

“It’s hard
to tell,” Terry answered. “His rants are pretty normal. The paranoia, less so.”

“Was he
lucid? Did he really recognize me?”

“It’s
possible he recognized you, but if so, his brain shuffled you right into his
delusion,” Terry said. “Really, I wouldn’t think too much on it.”

“Right,”
Camden said. “I’ll come back tomorrow.” He walked to the door and saw
Aldretti’s startled face pressed up against the small window.

“He’s going
to be pissed that he missed all this,” Camden said under his breath and raised
his shoulders and eyebrows at Aldretti as if to say ‘oh well’.

At 6:15 that
evening, Camden was at his small dining table, pouring scotch and relaying his
encounter with Rhys to Ganesh and Quinn. Aldretti had the night off and another
of Mace’s lackeys sat outside the door.

“That is
bizarre,” Ganesh said. “The dream thing. It’s just weird.”

“Could you
imagine not knowing if you were awake or asleep?” Quinn asked. “And he said
that you are the killer? I wonder what that means. Maybe he doesn’t even know
he killed all those people years ago. He was quick to pin it on you though,
huh?”

“That’s
enough, Quinn,” Ganesh said.

“No, I doubt
any of it means anything. The man is crazy…it’s just that…oh, never mind,”
Camden said.

“What?”
Ganesh and Quinn asked in unison.

“It’s going
to sound ridiculous, but he seemed to recognize the drawing, before he
recognized me. It wasn’t until he looked at the picture that he was even aware
I was sitting there.”

“You’re
right,” Ganesh said. “That does sound ridiculous.”

Camden threw
his hands up and then interlaced his fingers behind his head and Quinn, as
always, was too amused to contain his laughter.

“Keep it
together, Quinn,” Ganesh said. “I mean, it sounds ridiculous because the man is
seriously crazy. He may have had his eyes on that paper, but he could have been
looking at rainbows and unicorns, for all we know.”

“You’re
right,” Camden said and sighed deeply. “Of course, you’re right.”

Quinn
stepped out of the room to use Camden’s bathroom and Ganesh wasted no time in
bringing up the subject of their earlier conversation.

“Can you get
the money? We need to hire Maeve, and soon,” Ganesh whispered as soon as the
bathroom door closed.

“Yes, I can
get the bloody money. I’ll have to send a letter with your boy, Bearden, to get
to the lady at the desk in Tripple Laboratories. Tell me again why we need this
‘daughter’ of yours.”

“We need to
get Mace out of the way. Pike won’t be as effective without him doing his dirty
work. It will buy us some time. And, we have to be able to get things from Lee
when he figures out how to stop the biomachines. Bearden does okay with passing
notes, but we need someone flawless to transport any vital technology.”

“You don’t
trust him, do you?” Camden asked. “Bearden.”

“Between you
and me, I saw him talking privately with Mace Magner two days ago. So, yes, I
have my suspicions.”

“Too bad, he
seemed like such an honest boy,” Camden said, not taking any part of this plan
as seriously as Ganesh wanted him to.

“Look, if
you can help get Maeve into the Tripple Laboratories, she can do the
rest.”
 

“Lee won’t
like it. I’m sure he wouldn’t object to the reason, but having those kind of
eyes in his lab, I doubt he would allow it.”

“Then we’ll
have to do it without his knowing.”

“That will
be tricky. He barely leaves and then there is the girl, Dana, who is always
there.”

“It won’t be
a problem. Just get her in and Maeve can take care of the rest,” Ganesh said.

“
Greeatt
. I can’t wait to help a highly trained assassin
break into my best friend’s lab and steal his work.”

The bathroom
door opened and the two quickly changed the subject back to Rhys.

At 7:00,
Andreas arrived at Charisa’s home. It was a small, but quaint looking townhome
in a very clean and safe part of town. There were wildflowers growing in the
front and delicate yellow curtains in the windows. Her door was bright green
and the cheerfulness of the place settled some of the nerves Andreas was
feeling about his date. She opened the door wearing a white and pink sundress,
even though it was still the cool season. He’d brought her flowers and a nice
wine that she eagerly accepted, then kissed his cheek. Charisa’s cooking
smelled delicious and she blushed with delight when Andreas told her so. He
poured wine for both of them while she arranged the flowers she’d place on a painted
blue wooden table. They chatted a little about their work, grinning at each
other while sipping their wine, and then Charisa served dinner. The evening was
going as pleasantly as anyone could hope for on a first date. They made easy
small talk and exchanged stories from their childhoods. They laughed at each
other’s jokes and when Andreas helped her clean up, he stole a kiss right there
in the kitchen. Charisa poured them each another glass of wine and asked him to
come and sit with her on the couch. Then, the mood changed.

“Andreas, I
want to talk to you about what happened in my office this morning.”

“It’s okay,
I know now that you’ve had a terrible week.”

“No, not
about the crying… about Mace Magner.”

“The Major?

“Yes. When
you saw him in my office this morning, he was…threatening me.”

“What? Are
you sure? What would he have to threaten you about?”

“Keeping my
mouth shut about Luke, apparently.”

Andreas
looked confused.

“What about
Luke?” he asked.

Charisa
explained everything to Andreas, starting with the morning that Mace had met
her in the coffee house, to the plan of planting a self-destruct code into the
new biomachines, including her new suspicions of him kidnapping Luke. When she
finished, she just looked at him with wide hopeful eyes and waited for him to
respond.

“Wow,” he
said finally. “That is a lot to take in. I think I need a moment.” Andreas
began to pace around her small living room with both hands on his head.

“I know it’s
a lot, but I’m going to do something about it,” Charisa said.

“Like what?
Are you even one hundred percent sure that you were threatened and…and…you
can’t be sure about the Luke thing. It’s very sad, but this isn’t the way to
deal with a death.”

“I am sure
and I was dealing with Luke’s death the way any good friend would… for a whole
week, but he’s not dead. I know it. I have to take Mace Magner down…go to the
press or something.”

“And in the
mean time you will destroy the military’s weaponry program,” he said with a
hint of mocking.

“No, only if
the biomachines get out of control. Really it’s more like an insurance plan
that the government doesn’t know it has,” Charisa answered. She took a deep
breath. “So?”

“So what?”

“Will you
help me?” Charisa asked. Andreas burst into a short frantic laugh and sat back
down.

“Look, my
loyalty is to the government and you shouldn’t even be saying such traitorous
things…especially to an almost stranger.”

“You saved
my life, we are definitely not strangers.”
 

“And I would
do it again, but if you start pursuing this and get caught, I may not be able
to save you again. This is very hot water you are trying to jump into.”