D Carpenter - Infertile Grounds

“Go find him!” Arthur exclaimed.

There were at least twenty men in the room – most of them direct reports to Carl. Arthur stepped back inside and addressed them.

“Just so you know,” Arthur said. “This is an entirely separate issue than what your primary concern is right now, but Carl Moscovitz has been under investigation by Internal Affairs. Unfortunately, it seems Carl has left the building and is unwilling to cooperate in our investigation. If he contacts any of you for help, I expect you to let me know immediately. I have people out looking for him.”

The room was silent as Arthur looked at each of Carl’s men individually.

“I know that this is a shock, but we have to focus on the matter at hand. I want everyone in this room focused on finding Sarah Burns and any of her accomplices. Carl Moscovitz is secondary right now, but if you do happen to hear from him or hear anything about where he might be, you will let me know immediately. Are there any questions?”

Silence. Arthur paused briefly before proceeding with his briefing. Carl slipping away was unfortunate, but now that everything was out in the open, he had complete control, and that was exactly how he liked it – no power struggles and he could focus one hundred percent on the task at hand.

Carl would turn up. There’s no way he could slip away so quickly and disappear and, like any other scumbag, they always make mistakes.

Chris held his breath as he pressed his ear against the heating grate straining to hear the conversation in the room below. He recognized Sarah and Seth’s voices; the other two were unknown to him.

“He may have lied,” Sarah said. “But then the dose of sodium pentothal I gave him was designed to alter his higher cognitive function and make it far more difficult for him to lie than to tell the truth. It made him much more loquacious and cooperative. I’d say he was telling the truth.”

“So you think that we should unload the tractor trailer and continue as planned? Like nothing has changed for us?” Chris heard a male voice ask. “Christ, if someone like Chris Foster could find us so easily, It won’t take long for the government to find us if they really start to look.”

“I know, Mike,” Sarah replied. “But, frankly, he lucked out when he decided to follow Albert. It was a one-in-a-million shot. Had he arrived an hour later, Albert would have left already and Chris would be still sniffing around in Malibu right now. Now that Mark’s here with the rest of our stuff, I say we just press forward as if he never existed.”

There was silence for a minute.

“So what are you going to do with him?” A woman asked.

“I’ll take care of him,” Sarah said. Her voice was icy and Chris shuddered. “It’s early. If we hurry, we can have the truck unloaded before it gets dark. I’d like to have it done before Albert gets back with the Carriers. Seth, go get the others started,” Sarah said.

“Are you going to kill him?” The woman asked, shock clearly in her voice.

“I didn’t say that, Camilla,” Sarah replied.

“Good, because that’s not—”

“Then what do you propose we do with him?” Chris recognized Seth’s voice.

There was a long pause before Camilla replied, “I don’t know but I’m not participating in cold blooded murder. Lock him up or something. Keep him out of the way until we can figure something out.”

“He’s going to have to be dealt with at some point,” Seth said. “What good is locking him up? He’s seen us. Probably even saw you outside. You think he’s going to just walk away and never talk to anyone?”

“I said I don’t know, Seth,” Camilla snapped. “But we’re not killing him and that’s that.”

“Sure thing boss,” Seth replied. “You tell me what to do and when, OK? I thought you were providing financing only? When did you get into the operations side of this?”

“We don’t need this right now,” Sarah said. “He’s locked up and we’ve got a lot to do. We can deal with this later. Besides, he could prove to be an asset or a bargaining chip if it comes down to that.”

“So what’s our schedule?” Mike asked.

“It’s going to happen fast,” Sarah replied.

“Tonight I’m going to expose the Carriers to the virus. Then Seth will drive them to the airport tomorrow. They all have tickets, credit cards, cash, and lots of Gen96. They’re going to go on lengthy tours of the world, just like I told you and the old man back at Camilla’s place. We’ll restock them as the need arises. In forty-eight hours, there will be no turning back.”

“I’m glad that it’s going to happen fast – less waiting around,” Camilla said.

“You’ve got the virus with you?” Mike asked.

“It’s in the truck. They’ll be unloading it soon,” Sarah said. “Once we get the Carriers out of here, we can all rest a little easier. At that point, all we can do is track and resupply them. We’ve got software that’ll make that easy enough.”

The faint sound of footsteps pounding on the basement stairs reverberated through the house.

“Let’s go give them a hand,” Sarah said.

The voices faded away. Chris lifted his head from the vent in the floor and crawled over to the window. Pain shot up his arm with each movement. He peered out through the slit between the edge of the shade and the window frame and watched as they unloaded the truck.

Forty-eight hours kept racing through his mind. How was he going to stop them? He was on his own – a software developer turned entrepreneur was all that stood between Sarah Burns and her twisted vision of the future. Jesus, what he wouldn’t do for his cell phone now. A call to the FBI or Pell – anybody to talk to, to receive some much needed advice, or better yet, to just toss this all over the fence and get the hell out of here. They got paid and had the skills and people to deal with situations like this.

He went over to the sturdy door and tried the knob again. Locked. He ran his fingers around the frame hoping to find a weakness but it was pointless. The only other way out of the room was a fifteen-foot jump out the window which was securely screwed shut top and bottom. Maybe, as a last ditch effort he could break the window and make the jump. That sounded noisy and dangerous and he certainly didn’t feel physically up to it right now.

He dropped down onto the bed. He still felt drowsy after the injection and he struggled to think straight. What to do? How to get out of here? His mind wandered as he fought sleep. He had read recently that the US had one of the highest child poverty rates in the developed world. Maybe their plan wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Look at all of the unwanted children in the world born to parents who didn’t understand the responsibilities of parenthood or that did understand and simply didn’t care – byproducts of lust. The desire to reproduce is bred deeply into each and every human being.

What about those religious countries where women were not able to access contraception or where it was so expensive it was beyond their means? Christ, even here in the US you can’t get access to birth control without a prescription which means it’s unavailable to the poorest in our own society. Eons ago, the future of the human race was dependent on its ability to reproduce effectively but that time had long since passed.

Maybe Gen96 was the best thing, in the long term, for the planet. It would have been an interesting topic for debate club back in school. He could easily argue it either way but this wasn’t debate club, this was reality. Chris knew that playing God was just wrong. Releasing a virus that could potentially mutate was not the way to go. What if it sterilized all men permanently? Where would we be?