Chapter 6
“Back already?” Cole sat lounging in the room’s only armchair, lazily clicking an old TV remote and working his way up and down the channels.
Jonah slept soundly in his bed.
“I saw Ivan and Tatiana,” I said breathlessly.
“What!” Cole shouted, then hastily glanced at Jonah, paused and lowered his voice. “Are you sure it was them?”
“Yes. Not at first though. Ivan looks like he’s got road rash on his face. His arm is hurt too. Tatiana is still perfect though.”
Cole’s features furrowed with concern. He massaged his face with both hands as though trying to erase my report from his memory.
Ilya and Faith came through the door to find Cole and me face to face in front of the kitchenette sink.
“This looks intense,” said Faith with an air of mild amusement.
Ilya looked anxious and said nothing.
“While I watched Gemma’s building, I saw Ivan and Tatiana, not my sister.” I shifted from one foot to the other, unable to stand still.
“What! How? Why?” blurted Faith, wide-eyed.
“What could they possibly still want with your sister?” said Ilya. He shoved a hand into his scruffy hair.
“I have no idea, but they walked out after I’d been watching for about an hour. I never saw Gemma, but they had to be in her room if they were there the whole time I was.”
“Or they were stalking her too,” said Cole with a disapproving look. Faith shoved his shoulder with no effect.
“Do you think they could have been looking for me? For us?” I asked.
“It’s possible.” Ilya looked out the window as though searching for something on the horizon.
“If he knows we’re here though, waiting for us at your sister’s dorm room is a pretty long shot,” said Cole.
“Maybe your sister is a variant too and he wants her for research,” said Faith.
I gasped.
“Don’t make this worse than it is,” said Cole with an eye-roll.
“Gemma is Irina’s half-sister–on the wrong side. It’s not likely the girl has any variant genes,” said Ilya. “No, I think the most sensible explanation is that my father wanted to personally check up on Rubin’s handiwork. He’s probably making sure Gemma has no memory of Irina. It’s a blessing you never made contact with her.”
“Your aunt, I mean, our aunt, what exactly is her variation?” I asked Ilya.
“She isn’t a variant, not as far as I know.” Ilya shrugged his shoulders.
“How is that possible?”
“The magic of genetics,” said Cole.
“Both our parents were freaks,” said Faith gesturing between her and Cole with her thumb.
“Yeah, as far as I know, our mom was normal,” I said, looking at Ilya.
“You can’t be one hundred percent certain she had no variation whatsoever,” said Ilya.
I sat down at the small hotel dining table and stared out the window at the rundown walk-ups across the street. It struck me for the first time that Ilya never knew our mother because he had never met her. I’d been mourning my mom, along with the rest of my family and my life. Ilya had nothing but an idea to mourn.
“Since everyone is here again, it’s a good time for me to give you guys the rundown on what I found on this Kingston guy’s thumb drive.” Faith stepped backwards to address the room.
“I’m actually going for a walk,” said Ilya, looking right past Faith. “I want to see if I can find our almost acquaintance from yesterday. The skin-changer I thought I heard. Whatever you guys think is useful, put it on the whiteboard.”
Ilya picked up his wallet off the counter and left. I wondered if he was too uncomfortable to listen to my thoughts and questions about his morning with Faith. Jonah stayed in his deep sleep. I reached out for one of the flimsy old dining chairs, turned it around, and sat with the back to my chest.
“Well then, what’s the scoop?” Cole clapped his hands and rubbed them with an inquisitive look. Jonah sat up in bed and I frowned at Cole.
“Kingston had reports about his own progress with variant plant strains. They were being cultivated alongside a strain of variant bees.” Faith pulled a strip of fabric from her pocket and tied back her dreads.
“He said something about bees. They were gone when Ilya and I got there, but I saw them in my vision. They were beautiful, like covered in an oil slick rainbow,” I said.
“Well, Kingston didn’t keep any data on the bees themselves, at least not in the files on his thumb drive.” Faith leaned back against the dresser and gripped the top.
“They were probably designed to pollinate his variant plants,” said Cole.
“Never mind the bees. Kingston
did
have a few quarterly reports from some guy named Dr. Peter Waynesburg. Kingston included a word processing file summarizing the reports,” said Faith.
“Did you read any of it?” said Jonah, still blinking into wakefulness.
“I haven’t picked through Waynesburg’s report data, but I read Kingston’s summary. It read like an open letter to anyone who might get their hands on his thumb drive. The reason he’s got Dr. Waynesburg’s reports is because they were both being blackmailed and wanted to find a way to burn Ivan, especially if one or both of them got killed,” said Faith.
“I’m sure Kingston didn’t have Irina’s gift, but to
know
you’re working for a man–or group–that might kill you. And to have your fear realized. What a horrible way to go,” said Jonah.
“Let’s worry about feeling bad for this guy when we find out what they blackmailed him with,” said Cole.
“What really matters is that Waynesburg owned a fracking company contracted with major energy players. According to Kingston, Waynesburg’s reports include data on the success of ecological disruption. It looks like he intentionally polluted his work sites. There’s also a separate report on seismic disruption potential. Waynesburg believed selective, strategic fracking could kick-start another continental shift, bringing with it a whole new global climate, if they weren’t careful about where and how their extractions were done. It seems pretty unlikely to me, but I know zero about this stuff. Cole, you really need to look at this guy’s notes and see if it’s even possible,” said Faith, picking up speed and energy as she spoke.
“There’s no way. Fracking operations don’t necessarily align with fault lines. How could Ivan–,” Cole’s voice trailed off as he rubbed his jaw, deep in thought.
“Kingston’s open letter also talked about ‘
The Compendium
men’ as though Ivan was one of a group,” said Faith. She retied the strip holding her dreadlocks back.
“Did he give any names?” I looked down to find my white-knuckled hands gripping the chair back.
“No, but we do have something good to go on since Waynesburg’s reports are addressed to Innoviro’s San Francisco office. The street address is the same one I pulled off the Victoria server when I hacked it.”
“We’ve got to get the hell out of Vancouver now. Maybe we should keep heading to San Francisco. We were going to go eventually anyway,” I said.
“Maybe it’s time to get some kind of law enforcement involved. If we’ve got documentation–real evidence, don’t we have something to hand over?” Jonah had become fully alert.
“On whom should we dump this fantastic disaster?” said Faith.
“Let’s give it to the cops and start working with them.” said Jonah.
I looked at him apologetically, but didn’t have a chance to explain.
“Irina saw Ivan and Tatiana at UBC,” said Faith.
“But, she wasn’t seen and didn’t make contact with her sister,” said Cole.
“All the more reason to call the cops.” Jonah looked at me with a furrowed brow.
“Screw the cops. I don’t think we’re in danger right now, but we can’t stay. Whether Ivan is on to us or not, it’s a bad idea to stay in the same city,” said Faith.
“Well, I do think we’re in danger. What can the police do to help us? They wouldn’t take any of this seriously simply because we’ve got some files. We’re going to get killed and it’s my fault.” The energy drained away from me as I propped my elbows on the chair back and dropped my face into my hands.
“Nobody’s getting killed. Irina, it’s not your fault we’re in trouble. We’re in trouble because we all have a connection to Ivan and didn’t stay on his bandwagon. Nobody thinks we’re in this situation just because you were the first of us to find out about the real Innoviro.” Jonah shifted in bed, trying to sit up straighter.
“We never blamed you. We had a harder time believing what Ivan was involved in because we ate his bullshit for longer,” said Cole, rubbing his temples.
“If there really is a Compendium plot, if Ivan really wants to unmake the world as we know it, a lot of people will die. Eventually, if not soon.” Faith sat down in the other dining chair as her energy level finally started to drain away.
“What are the chances all variants would make it?” I asked the group.
“Probably pretty fair that most of us would survive.” Cole looked at Jonah’s pale face as the latter rested against his headboard.
“If we let Ivan cause an apocalypse, whatever is left afterwards would be hell on earth for the rest of our lives,” said Faith.
“However long that might be,” said Jonah.
“Can we really stop him? I mean, isn’t this a pipe dream? What was I thinking, dragging you all into some mission to save the world?”
“Can we sit here and do nothing? We’re possibly the only people outside this Compendium group who know what’s coming.” said Faith.
“Hey, I’ve got a better idea than cops. Let’s call the newspapers. Let’s get a reporter involved. If we do some research and find the right person, we can bring him or her up here, show off our variations for proof and hand over copies of everything we’ve got.” Cole paced as he spoke.
I started making notes on the whiteboard about what we knew and what we wanted to know. We knew about human testing, plant cultivation, bees, fracking and pollution. The question remaining disturbed me even more. Who were the missing Compendium players? How could Ivan and
The Compendium
be stopped? Our goal involved exposing elusive and malicious rich men keeping dark secrets. It became more impossible by the moment.
All the while Faith clicked away on her laptop researching potential reporters we could contact with our evidence.
A sudden knock at the door startled all of us.
“Hey guys, it’s me,” said Ilya from outside the door. “I brought a friend. Is everybody decent?”
“Come on in,” said Cole. He crossed his arms and resumed pacing.
Ilya entered the room with a tall thin man at his side. The man had a receding hairline with long, fine hair hanging down his back. It hadn’t been brushed in some time. A faint odor of sweaty feet and old skin oil filled the room.
“This is Donald,” said Ilya gesturing towards the tall man.
“Hey,” said Donald sheepishly with a waist-level wave.
“Do any of you remember Josh Robertson?” said Ilya.
“Yeah,” said Faith as she looked up from her laptop.
“Sure,” said Cole.
Jonah nodded.
“Donald is Josh’s ex-roommate. He worked for Innoviro at the warehouse we found in North Van. And he helped move the seedlings out to Hope,” said Ilya.
“You worked for Innoviro?” I said.
“I’d been a tree planter, so Josh got me a job with their silviculture project here in Van.” Donald looked anywhere but our faces.
“Tell my friends what else Innoviro did here in Vancouver.” Ilya looked encouragingly at Donald.
“There wasn’t anything else. We raised crops the way the science guys told us. We were all let go when they closed the warehouse. I got a bonus for helping with the transfer to the site in Hope,” said Donald.
“Are you absolutely sure Innoviro didn’t have any corporate offices here in Vancouver?” Cole’s intense frown made our guest visibly uncomfortable.
“Really sure. That business lady, Tatiana, she had to work out of the warehouse when she came to Van. She was pretty pissed to be outside downtown,” said Donald, still avoiding eye contact with anyone but Ilya.
“Thanks, man. That was all we needed to know.” Ilya slapped a twenty-dollar bill into Donald’s hand. He nodded at Ilya and backed out of the room.
We all stayed silent for a moment digesting the news. Vancouver had no secrets left to tell us.
“You didn’t need to bring him here. We would have believed you,” Cole said, his irritation undiminished. “What if Ivan and Tatiana find him and he gives us away?”
“I seriously doubt that will happen. First of all, I’m sure they could care less about some old warehouse grunt. And second, couldn’t you smell him? That dude is living on the street,” said Faith.
“She’s right. The reason I found him is because I could hear him thinking about how great the Innoviro days were. He hadn’t had a paycheck for years before then and definitely not since,” said Ilya.
“So if Innoviro tested on street variants here in Van too, this guy would have been one of them,” said Faith. She wrote ‘No Van Variant Testing’ on the whiteboard and circled the text.
“He could have lied about it,” said Cole.
“Not to Ilya,” said Jonah, nodding towards my brother.
Ilya grinned.
“So I guess we should leave for San Francisco tomorrow.” I stretched my arms up already anticipating the discomfort of hours on the road.
“Not directly. We need a quick detour. Donald gave me Josh’s address. He’s living in Seattle now. Josh worked closely with my father, before I was really involved with the company. He might have information for us,” said Ilya.
“Or he might still be working for Ivan,” said Jonah.
“What would we really have to gain from seeing Josh?” Cole crossed his arms again and stopped pacing.