Survival Gene. Science Fiction Novel

Barkov choked down grapes. “What? Why?”

“Katherine’s identity is not confirmed. Her real name is Emily Housman. You lied to us. But Lippo will not call the police. He doesn’t want a scandal. Besides that, he won’t charge you for the eaten fruit.”

She raised her hand and pressed a remote control button. The elevator door opened. Andrew thought, She uses buttons on her remote control for security reasons – she doesn’t want the signal to be intercepted by an intruder’s device and duplicated at a distance!

“But… how did you find out her name?” he asked trying to think of how to explain away the deception, but seeing no solid arguments.

“Have you forgotten who he is? Even if you had brought a girl from Mars, he would have uncovered her identity. Farewell!”

Andrew realized that his mission had failed. The best solution in this situation was to go out without making a fuss and to try to obtain the information about the government’s plans another way.

“Have a nice day!” he said trying to keep his composure and giving the sign to Emily to follow him as he walked to the elevator.

“I won’t go anywhere,” Emily uttered in a quiet, but firm voice.

Barkov stopped and turned back. The girl was sitting and still eating grapes.

“Oh, the beauty can speak!” Rosalinda showed a not very sincere surprise.

“Emily, we’ve agreed that I make the decisions,” Andrew said. “Get up, we are leaving!”

“No. Your plan has failed, so the agreement is void. Now it’s my turn.”

It was clear from her tone that she was not going to give in. Should I drag her by force?

“Dear Katherine… I mean, Emily,” Rosalinda cooed. “If you don’t leave this premise right now, I’ll turn on our cutting-edge microwave system. I wonder how long you will endure. In fifteen seconds, water will start boiling under your skin. In thirty seconds, blisters will appear. In a minute, your skin will be charred. I start countdown. Ten… nine… eight…”

The girl continued eating grapes as if nothing were wrong.

Pausing between digits longer and longer, Rosalinda kept counting. “Seven… six… five… four… three… two…”

This time, unlike the demonstration earlier, a tingling of danger penetrated Andrew’s spine. But he had no visions of the source or the target. No rush of energy to counteract it. He knew he should act yet how?

“…one… Well, you have only yourself to blame! Zero!” She shouted the next word, “Danger!”

Barkov felt no burning. Strangely enough, Emily didn’t show any signs of pain either. Moreover, she continued to chew the grapes, taking seeds out of her mouth and putting them on the tray near the peach kernel. Her fingertips, however, were trembling noticeably. That’s a sign of excitement, not pain.

“Are you not hot?” Rosalinda asked with genuine astonishment.

The girl shook her head and looked at the elevator. Its doors closed.

Rosalinda’s eyebrows flung up. She directed the remote control at the elevator and pushed the button several times. The doors jerked, but did not move apart.

“That’s weird,” she mumbled examining the control from all sides. “It must have broken down.”

“Bad quality?” Emily guessed as she stopped chewing.

Rosalinda uttered a short shriek. The remote control slipped from her hands, her eyes widened. Freezing for a couple seconds, she suddenly turned around and rushed to the bamboo doors. The doors drew together in her face. The woman seized the handle with both hands and tried to move a door panel. She was not a successful. Seizing the other handle, she pushed it to the opposite side bracing with her whole body. The door was motionless.

“Lippo!” she yelled as she clutched her head in hands. “It’s burning! It’s burning me!”

“That’s strange. You said I would be charred,” Emily observed.

It came to Andrew what was going on: The girl had “heard” how electronics worked on the premises and intercepted control. It meant her brain was able to emit electromagnetic impulses as strong as the remote control lying on the floor at the moment. He’d sensed danger earlier, yes, but the danger hadn’t been targeted at him. Whether it was from Rosalinda feeling angry at Emily’s response or from Emily’s intention to get rid of the assistant, he didn’t know.

“Stop it!” he commanded. “You’ll kill her!”

Emily pretended to be surprised. “Me? I have nothing to do with it! Don’t you see that it’s a problem with their system?”

Rosalinda ran clumsily to the fountain, jumped into the lower bowl and tried to hide under water. The container proved to be too shallow for her plump body. No matter how she sprawled and clasped to the bottom, water covered less than half of her. The naked parts – forearms, ankles, neck, face – started to redden.

“The madam lied to us,” Emily continued. “Thirty seconds have passed, but there are no blisters. Perhaps she’s thick-skinned? All right, it doesn’t matter. It seems to me, the system has just switched off. She’s so lucky!”

Spinning twice more and snorting, Rosalinda stopped in her tracks as she raised her head above the water level and waited. A bit later she sat up. Wiping her face with her palms and pushing her hair back, she looked about. Her face expressed nothing but terror.

The elevator doors opened.

“Flee now! As fast as you can!” Emily advised.

Rosalinda flew out of the fountain like a ballistic missile from a submarine and ran to the elevator. Wet clothes stuck to her body and instead of concealing her rolls of fat they now accentuated them. Entering the elevator, the woman hit the button a few times desperately. The doors shut. A faint buzz of the elevator going down was heard.

A moment later the bamboo doors drew apart without noise.

“I guess everything’s working fine now,” Emily stood up and looked at Barkov with a pleased smile. “Shall we start looking for the hacker?”

A part of Andrew knew that Emily should be reprimanded. She was still under arrest and should have executed his orders – after all he was still a public officer! On the other hand, he was not like his boss Palmer who hated any initiatives of his subordinates.

I have to admit the girl did well. She’s smart. And she achieved her aim!

“Let’s go.”

They made their way to the open doors, but a tall, lean man of about fifty came out before them. He wore a black suit, a white shirt and black shining shoes. His dark blonde hair was slicked back and the tips of his neat thin mustache were bent up. He stood in the doorway, raised his hands slowly and clapped several times. “Bravo, Emily Housman! Bravo! You are a real godsend. I’m ready to hire you. How much do you want a year?”

“Who are you?” Barkov asked.

“The one you’re looking for. Let me introduce myself: Lippo Lorenzetti, a computer technology expert.”

He bowed courteously.

In appearance, he was a typical dandy of the end of the nineteenth – the beginning of the twentieth century. Andrew had expected to see someone totally different – a person in creased jeans and a shirt worn outside the jeans, twenty years younger at that.

“Glad to meet you. My name is – ”

“Andrew, I know your name. I studied your file while your companion played with my poor assistant.” A shadow of a smile flitted across his face. “It must be admitted that I had been thinking about replacing her for a long time. She’s been eating too many sweets lately. Hopefully you, Emily, eat carefully to control your weight! But this is not the main point. I would be very interested in a person who can control electronics by force of her thought. How do you do that? I’ve never seen anything like that in my life!”

The girl tried to object. “Me? I can’t control any electronics. Why do you think – ”

“Don’t lie to me!” Lippo interrupted her in a calm and self-confident way. “I have equipment all around, as you mentioned rightly in the very beginning. The sensors detected the signal coming from you. It was quite strong! Haven’t you tried to light up lamps? For a fraction of a second at least?”