I think Merc actually forgot about this, because it takes him a couple moments. And then it’s not even him who speaks. It’s Harrison.
“Yeah,” Harrison says. “I do remember that. But it was bullshit. Sasha never had a trigger.”
“Nope. She never did. I’m like ninety-nine point nine-nine percent sure no one ever really fucked with Sasha’s mind the way they might’ve—and I’m just using this as a ‘for instance’—Angelica.”
Merc lets out a breath. “Does James know about this?”
“Yeah. He does. He was part of some dark shit—as we are all aware—in his formative years. So even though I’ve never had any conversations with James about a trigger for Angelica, I’m sure he’s kept it in mind.”
“He never said anything to me. And maybe I don’t see him regularly, but we’ve met up at least a dozen times over the years.”
“I’m sure Angelica is fine,” I say. And I mean this. “She’s what, eighteen now? I hear she’s got plans for college this fall. I think if it were a problem, it would’ve shown up by now.”
“Wait,” Harrison says. “This trigger. It’s like… innate? Something genetic? Or it’s outside stimulus?”
“No one knows, Harrison. Let’s forget about Angelica and your girls for a moment. Let’s talk about Indie Anna Accorsi.”
Merc squints. “This is Adam’s girl?”
“Correct. She was triggered.”
“What?” That comes from Merc. Harrison actually gasps.
“One hundred percent. She’s gone off script so many times, it’s kind of a miracle she’s still alive. She tried to kill Adam when she was sixteen. That same day everything was going down in Kansas he was talking to my brother Santos. And Santos warned him to get rid of her. Same day, Merc. He goes home, catches her with a boy, was gonna kick the boy’s ass—as is his right—and she lost her mind for about two minutes. She fucked him up. I’m talking Adam was in the hospital for three months. Brain surgery and everything. He could barely walk when he woke up. Almost an entire year of PT to get back up to speed.”
“What the fuck?” That’s Harrison. Merc is silent.
“Then,” I continue, “she tried to kill them all a few years later. Even McKay. And I get that you don’t know her, but Adam didn’t raise her alone. He brought her up as responsibly as he could. Better than you did your girls, that’s for sure. And I’m not being disparaging here, Merc, because Adam did a helluva lot better than James too. He has a guy called McKay. A bonafide Company Zero trainer. He did all Indie’s care and feeding through the years. And Adam had Donovan too. AKA Carter. Which, OK, fine. It was probably Donovan-slash-Carter who triggered Indie in the first place. But there’s no way to know that for sure unless—”
“Unless I go in and pick apart his mind.”
I point at him. “That’s the logical conclusion, right? But that’s not what Adam wants you for. No one really cares about Indie’s trigger anymore. They think it’s over. She bounced back. Kind of. She’s stable now. No. Adam wants you to kill Carter, Merc. Kill Carter and save Donovan.”
“But if we kill Carter,” Harrison says, “then we lose the guy who has all the information.”
I point at him. “I never thought you were a stupid man, Harrison. But I have seriously underestimated you over the years.”
“Thanks?” He smiles at me. And I figure this is going way better than I could’ve hoped. I mean, I was kinda worried about explaining all this to people who, for all intents and purposes, have no real clue about what the Company actually is.
But they are following along quite well.
Harrison, obviously. Since he likes to play fill-in-the-blanks. But Merc’s silence says way more than his words ever could.
He gets what I’m saying here. And I haven’t even said it yet.
“So.” Merc paces across the room, then turns on his heel to face us. His next words come out as a sigh. “What’s this shit about the cure?”
“Well, this is where those Boston people come in. You see, Johnny Boston’s woman—her name is Megan—she’s a Company scientist. Kind of. Her father ran some genetic program out in the Caribbean and she was part of this crazy plan to make people immortal.”
Harrison’s laugh comes out like a bark. “What?”
“At the very least, they were working on longevity. Life extension. And they had some success with rats. Don’t laugh.” I point at Harrison. “Because it was a true breakthrough. It was never gonna work on humans, don’t get me wrong. The whole thing is stupid as stupid comes. But Megan’s father was fed up with his role in all this Company bullshit and he turned this success into something real. An injection. Which didn’t prolong life, it actually fucked up a lot of shit inside the Company elites who were taking it.”
“Whoa.” Merc puts up both hands in a full-stop motion. “Back up. What the hell?”
“It’s complicated. But basically, the doc set them up with an injection they took on the regular. Like monthly or something. I’m not real clear on the protocol, it doesn’t even matter. The injection made them sick but as long as they kept taking the injection, no one even knew they were sick.”
“Ohhhhhhh,” Harrison says. Yeah, he’s way smarter than I ever gave him credit for. “They stop taking the injection, then they get sick.”
“Exactly.”
“So they had them by the balls,” Harrison adds.
“Good and fucking tight.”
Merc is nodding like he’s beginning to understand. “Is this what happened to the elites then? When all those people suddenly died a couple years back.”
“No. Not exactly. See, the elites aren’t as stupid as we think they are. Or maybe they are? But they are super fucking suspicious of everything and everyone because they are such lowlife pieces of shit, they assume everyone around them is a lowlife piece of shit too. So they gave these injections to all their kids as well. An insurance policy, I guess. Because they made sure that Johnny Boston’s niece had that same injection. It’s kinda hard to kill your brother’s kid, even if it is for the greater good.”
“Oh, fuck,” Harrison says.
Merc actually grabs his stomach. Like he’s gonna get sick.
“Don’t worry, Merc. Trust me, if your kids had those injections, they’d have died years ago like the others.”
His relatively calm expression turns into panic. “The others?” It’s not a good look for him.
“I’m not being callous here, but the whole let’s-kill-the-Company-for-good take-three operation, AKA the estate massacre that went down a few years back, actually worked. For the most part. But there was a lot of collateral damage.”
There is a sudden heaviness in the room with us as Merc and Harrison try to picture what this might’ve looked like. I’m sure they are seeing Santa Barbara in their minds. Or Kansas. But neither of those two attempts even come close to what happened during the estate incident.
I look down at my feet. I don’t need to try to picture it. I was there.