Undisclosed (15 page)

His phoned buzzed in his pocket, breaking his train of thought. He pulled it out and saw he had received a text. Quickly looking over at the teacher to make sure she wasn’t paying attention, he opened the text. It read …

Get out now, you have 3 minutes!

Travis frowned. What an earth was this? He checked Ryan to see if he was playing a joke on him but he was plodding away on his assignment, which was a first. He glanced out the window and then scanned the room to see if anyone else had their phone out, but most were either working or falling asleep at their desks.

Another text came in.

You don’t listen! Make that 2 minutes now—you better move it they are literally on you!

Travis jumped up, his chair screeching and startling a few surrounding kids. He made his way to the front and asked to be excused from the class to use the washroom. The teacher was buried in a book; she peered over her glasses frames and gave a quick nod.

With that Travis stepped out into the hallway, casting a glance up towards the main office and then back down the other way. He hurried down the hallways, hoping to head out through back entrance, but when he reached it he realized that wasn’t going happen. Wrapped through the door handles was a chain and lock. He made his way back up the hallway, checking a few doors as he went, hoping to hide for a moment. Further down the hall he could just make out several men, similar in appearance, standing in the principal’s office. He recognized them as being similar to those who showed up at the hospital. He shot into the bathroom, panic beginning to rise in his chest. His breathing sped up and a wet pool of sweat formed in his lower back. He paced up and down, trying to think what to do.
Perhaps they wouldn’t find him?
No,
they would be told where he went.
He moved close to the door and pulled it apart just enough so he could peek out the gap. He was able to get a clear shot of his classroom, but nothing more. He could hear footsteps and the principal’s voice getting closer. They arrived at his classroom and the men waited outside while the principle entered. Outside the men waited; one of them looked down the hallway in the direction of the bathroom. Travis quickly closed the gap instantly. He could have sworn he had looked directly at him.

Panic had now given way to intense fear. He looked around and spotted a thin window at the far end of the room. He charged over to it and hurled himself up, pushing his feet against one of the sink corners. He unclipped the window and forced it open. Air gushed in along with particles of dirt that made Travis cough. It was no use; he dropped back to the tiled floor. He was slender but there was no way he was going to fit through that narrow gap. Maybe they would wait until he came out. He moved to the door and split it open even less than he had before. The teacher had returned and was speaking with the men, and after a brief exchange all three of them began heading directly towards the washroom. He felt like a penned animal. Any moment now they would be dragging him away to God knows where. He might as well give up. He couldn’t outrun them, they would just keep coming. Jack was right—why hadn’t he listened?
Stubborn idiot
, he thought. There was only one thing left to do.

The bathroom door swung open and the two men entered, the principal remaining outside. Travis heard them stride the full length of the bathroom, each door creaking as they pushed each door on the cubicles open until they reached the end one. Travis held his breath; it took every ounce of strength he could muster to keep himself from moving. If there was a time he wanted to be invisible it would be now. They were so close he could smell them. Silence and then the door crashed open.

“Where is he?” one of the voices stammered.

Travis heard the clatter of metal and the window being opened.

“Gentlemen, what is going on in there?” The racket they made obviously had not impressed the principal.

Travis heard the sound of a door creaking open. “What is this about again? Is he in trouble?”

Travis could hear their muffled conversation as they walked away and then eventually the door banged close. He let out a lung full of trapped air and pried back the ceiling tile panel and untangled his legs that he had wrapped around the metal pipes that hung above him. Easing himself down, he supported himself with his foot on the tank of the toilet, being ever so careful to make no sound and leaving the tile half open, just in case they returned. He edged his way over to the door and peered out. No one was there. There was no way he could return to his class, even though it was the last one of the day. He walked back to a stool and took a seat. His body was drenched in sweat. The heat from the pipes, despite being insulated, made it feel like a sauna in there.

Eventually the bell echoed out across the school signaling the end of the day. Travis waited until the hallway filled with kids before he made his exit and slipped through the crowd of overly excited teens, unnoticed.

There was no point in going home immediately. If they had the nerve to show up at the school in broad daylight, they would likely be scouting out his home. It would be better to return under the shadow of darkness. However, heading towards downtown was a big mistake. People were gearing up for the annual Trick or Treat parade on Main Street, and as usual everyone and his uncle turned out for it, cluttering up the streets and causing traffic to drag at a snail’s pace. For years they had kept it low key, a few stalls, candy and people in spooky costumes—nothing more than a sad event for desperately bored kids and the mentally insane. Obviously some smart cookie must have gotten Travis’s anonymous letter in the mail informing them of how lame it was, as the event had changed drastically.

Travis attempted to do a U-turn in the road, but it was futile unless he wanted to drive along the sidewalk, which seemed a good idea had it been any other day, but the last thing he needed to do was attract attention, and right now he wanted to stay as low key as possible. Who knew where the men could be. Crawling along behind the cars he watched the preparation of the floats.

The last three Halloweens had seen lots of floats draped with cobwebs and decorated with haunted houses, guillotines and gallows from local businesses and the school. It had attracted large crowds that had only increased with people coming from as far as Santa Fe. Most would bring their families just to see what new floats and attractions they had conjured up. It would start early, giving families and kids a chance to take it in, but as it went on throughout the evening it would take on a much darker tone. The event had become a haven for pickpockets and the evening a thief’s wonderland, with several homes being burgled while the owners were out. Add to that people running around with faces covered, no one would bat an eyelash if someone was grabbed in an ocean of faces. Paranoia was creeping in. He had to get off Central Avenue and find somewhere to kill time, a place to think.

The Bradbury Science Museum was getting closer—it was as good as any other place to stop. Travis pulled in and parked around the side. His bike would be out of view and if he had to exit fast he could do it without going out the main door.

Chapter Fourteen

Inside the lobby, a lot had changed since he had last been there. They had completely remodeled the place. Everything was new, including the layout and exhibits, even though many of them had been shut down for the Halloween High-Tech event. Still—some things had stayed the same. The smell of the place brought back a flood of memories from the few times his mother had brought him here when he was a kid. Every year they ran High-Tech Halloween. They had been running it since he was seven and today was no different. As he wandered through the lobby, he noticed the staff still busy putting the final finishing touches on exhibits, so busy that they hadn’t heard him quietly slip in.

Travis made his way in to the Research exhibit, one of four they had on display. Each exhibit had its own dedicated room, with life-size replicas of bombs, galleries of pictures, and historic artifacts encased behind glass. The Bradbury Science Museum was the only trickle of information the Lab gave freely to the public, and most would joke that it was only what they wanted you to know. The real truth about what went on there rarely got out. Oh, the rumors were plentiful and you could always find a kid ready to share overheard discussions their parents had. In reality the place had been created to show early exhibits of the Manhattan Project, but it didn’t stop people from talking.

Talk about the Lab had become the stuff of legends, like eerie ghost stories that you would only be told around the fire, late at night. The ones that occurred only in the seclusion of the Jemez Mountains, when groups of teens would hang out and drink. Difference was, unlike regular ghost stories where everyone laughed at the end, there always was a silence that would fall over teens, as if each story confirmed what they had known all along. However, the Lab wasn’t the only one tight-lipped about the place; most town folk would laugh off rumors, and others would change the topic quickly.

Travis was the only one strolling around the Research exhibit. He kept an eye on the entrance. It wouldn’t be long and the place would be swarming with parents and tiny out-of-control kids, dashing from room to room. He didn’t mind, though; at least he wouldn’t be as exposed as he would be on the streets and far less likely to bump into the men from the school. In the far corner of the room against the back wall, Travis spotted the area that covered the work conducted on the Human Genome project, the same project his father had headed up.

Clearly lit up beneath a dimly lit yellow light, the sign read:
The Human Genome—Understanding our genetic inheritance
.
In the nucleus of each of the cells in your body is a special gift from your ancestors, a unique instruction manual for the person that is you.
A swirling red DNA image that resembled a twisted ladder merging with a movie reel surrounded the descriptive text. Travis saw a small picture of his father in white overalls with a co-worker named Dr. James Evans beneath it. It was dated August 9th, 2010, and gave credit to their outstanding ten-year work on completing the genome sequence.

Travis’s heart sank as he thought of his father. Despite having been awarded a Nobel Prize for his pioneering research, he never made a big thing out of it; that just wasn’t his style. His father avoided large crowds, and from the smidgen of information he wrangled out of his mother, his father didn’t even want to attend the award ceremony. Instead, he had asked them to stick it in the mail. Had it not been for his mother’s persistent badgering he may never have shown up to collect it. There was so little that Travis really knew about his father, and though he had never told him, partly because he felt as if he lived under the large shadow Will cast, he deeply admired his father for what he had achieved.

Travis shifted slightly to the right, observing the next board. Through a series of images it relayed the genome mapping process they went through, using a comparison of a room piled high with loose papers that held over three billion letters—a task that was said to be the most monumental biology project ever untaken. A task that began with logical groupings of pages into chapters and books, numerical ordering of pages, to finally arrive at a library of encyclopedia-sized books that measured sixty feet high. And yet that was just the beginning; it still had to be understood.

Travis’s eyed widened.

Unlike Will, Travis was never one for biology, something his father could never understand. Even in this seemingly simple explanation his head was whirling to take it in, so it was no wonder he turned off when his father would discuss biology at supper time.

His mind wandered as he considered how this related to his father and the men that had come after him. The silence ended abruptly with the sound of his phone ringing. Ryan’s face came up on the screen; Travis touched the screen and was connected.

“Got some good and bad news, what do you want first?”

“Whatever.” Travis was still distracted as he continued reading the boards.

“Well the good news is, I was able to get inside that folder. The bad news is, there are multiple folders inside that are also encrypted.”

Travis groaned. “How is that good news?”

“Yeah, well, one of those folders is titled, ‘Edin Project,’” Ryan told him.

“Ring a bell?”

“Did you say Edin? As in E-D-E-N?” Travis spelled it out quickly.

“No, this is spelled E-D-I-N.”

“Are you sure?”

“Would it matter?”

He paused. “I don’t know,” he said. “Edin,” he muttered to himself.

Travis heard a shuffle of footsteps behind him.