Deadly Design - Emarsan Page 0,68
decks or patios with citronella candles keeping the whine of mosquitoes away. They might be able to hear things spoken in neighboring backyards.
“How about your room?”
Jimmy looks at me, intrigued. “Yeah, sure.”
Cami’s coming out of her room wearing a large nightshirt.
She looks at us, somewhat concerned, as we enter Jimmy’s room, and he shuts the door.
The room isn’t exactly how I would have expected it. The walls are painted a deep blue, and Spiderman wallpaper borders the ceiling. The bed’s small, a single size. The sheets are Spiderman, but not the red comforter that somehow ended up on the floor.
“It’s the kid’s room. He’s sleeping with his dad while I do a little work in the basement. Then I’ll head down there, and he’ll 2 0 2
Copyright © 2015 by Debra Dockter.
FOR REVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY--NOT FOR SALE
get his Spidey room back.” Jimmy sits in a kitchen chair next to a folding table with a laptop on it. I sit on the edge of the bed.
“Matt wanted me to tell you that he’s sorry it took so long. He was really frustrated, and marines don’t like being frustrated.”
“It’s okay. I know he did his best. Dr. Sharp seems to have some pretty intense security. But there might be more he can do for me, if he’s interested.”
Jimmy smiles. “Why don’t we ask him?”
He pops open his laptop and starts tapping on the keyboard.
In a few minutes, Matt’s face is on the screen.
“Jimmy!” he calls, a big grin on his face, then he sees me kneeling in front of the screen. “Hey, Kyle. Man, I’m really sorry about your friend. But I’m glad to see you too. Did you get my message, Kyle?”
“What message? I’ve been away from my computer all day.”
“At the funeral?” Matt asks. “So rotten. Only eighteen years old. Sucks. But I wanted you know that even though I ran into some major firewalls with that doctor, I think I finally figured out how to get around them. He’s got a master computer guy working for him, and let me tell you, he pissed me off when he
‘gave’ me the information I’ve been working my ass off trying to get. But it just made me more determined to hack into their system. And I think I’ve finally done it. Or at least I’m close.”
“Seriously, that’s awesome. I need to find out how to get his research.”
Jimmy looks at me, confused. “I thought you met with him,” he says. “He’s trying to help you, right?”
“I met with him, but he’s not trying to help,” I say, and now 2 0 3
Copyright © 2015 by Debra Dockter.
FOR REVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY--NOT FOR SALE
Jimmy knows I lied to Cami. “He planted a genetic code in all of us so that we’d die at the age of eighteen. But he wanted to hurry me along. I’m supposed to die at seventeen. That gives me about four months. And he doesn’t care. His experiment was to see if he could kill us, and it worked. But if I can get hands on his research, maybe I can find someone who can help.”
“You are not going to die,” Jimmy says, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Not on our watch. Right, Matt?”
“Yeah,” he says. “If the research is stored in a computer file, I’ll find it.”
“He said something about finding a successor, someone to carry on his work,” I say. “If you can access his contacts, maybe you can find out who it is. Dr. Sharp’s got terminal cancer. He won’t live that much longer. He’s looking for someone he can trust to carry on his research, and it’s not good. Killing all of us was just the start. This guy wants to kill everyone, and I mean everyone. He wants every person on Earth to have this genetic sequence that will make them die when they’re fifty.”
Matt’s staring hard, and I can feel the intensity of Jimmy’s stare from beside me. “You’re fucking kidding, right?” Jimmy says.
“I don’t think so,” Matt answers. “I’ve seen the kind of security this guy has. It’s better than some of the military stuff I’ve run into. Even the phone was some type of special Android that normal programs couldn’t hack into. But maybe I can find a path to who he’s considering giving his research to.”
“What if Dr. Sharp finds somebody as crazy as he is? Somebody who thinks it’s a good idea to put a kill switch in every person on Earth? How can we let that