“We don’t know how,” Rex said. “That’s part of the problem. But we need to get the word out that people can get immunity from chimeras.”
“And since Chimerica won’t do anything about it, we figured we needed to talk to CLAD, and see if they will, the same way they got out word about Wells’s link to the super-flu.” I said. “They might be crazy, but at least they seem ready to act. And apparently, they know how to get the word out.”
Claudia sat there for a moment, processing it. “Could we take a pod there? I can pay for it.”
Rex shook his head. “The pods don’t go outside the city, much less across the river into New Jersey.”
“Okay…how about we take a pod to my dad’s factory and borrow his car? It’s not that far.”
Rex and I looked at each other. “Sure, that would be great,” I said.
“You’re sure he’ll let you borrow the car?” Rex asked.
She nodded. “He actually asked me if I needed it today. Said I could drive him to the plant and then take it, but I…” She shook her head. “I needed a break from him, to be honest, from pretending he’s normal and everything’s fine.” She abruptly picked up the phone and ordered the pod.
When she was done, I put my hand on her shoulder. “Speaking of your dad,” I said. “There’s more.”
“What is it?” she said, tensing up, as if preparing for yet more bad news.
“CLAD is planning on crashing the Wellplant network.”
“Really?” She screwed up her face, thinking. “Why?”
I shrugged and looked at Rex.
“They’re bomb throwers,” he said. “They want to topple Wells’s empire. I guess they see Wells and Wellplant and H4H as one big enemy front.”
“They might be right about that,” she said.
“But the people with Wellplants would be incapacitated for forty-eight hours, or that’s what Cronos said. Their Wellplants would stop working.”
She looked down, thinking about it for a moment. “You know what? I’m okay with that.” She looked back up at us. “I mean, I’ll be worried about my dad, but I’m worried about him now. And it’s not like he wasn’t just incapacitated by that system upgrade or whatever it is. Maybe if he gets back to his old self for a couple of minutes, he’ll see what a mistake he’s made.”
The pod pulled up out front and tooted its horn. Claudia shot to her feet. “Let’s go,” she said, and Rex and I followed her out the door.
Chris’s factory was less than ten minutes away, and on the drive there, Claudia peppered us with questions about Wells and the flu, about Chimerica’s reluctance to get involved, and what we hoped CLAD would do.
“Ideally, CLAD will use their resources to get the word out about the immunity virus, that people can protect themselves just by shaking hands with a chimera, or whatever,” I told her.
“Didn’t they just send out a fax?” she said. “I mean, there are fax machines at the library. My dad has them in every office. Could we just send it out that way?”
“Well, theoretically,” I said. “But we’d have to figure out where to send them all. And it wouldn’t just mean looking up the fax numbers—we don’t even know the names of the people or companies or agencies or whatever we’d want to send them to. Especially not in other countries. By the time we finished researching and were ready to start sending faxes, half the world could already be dead from Well’s super-flu.”
She grimaced at me. “Well, when you put it like that…”
“CLAD has already proven they have a system to get information out widely. But also, we want CLAD’s help trying to figure out how Wells is planning on releasing the virus.”
“There must be all sorts of ways to do that,” she said.
“There are,” I said. “But none of them seems to be enough to achieve the critical mass that Dymphna suspects he has in mind. It’s all little bits and pieces.”
“On our way here, we saw one of those Wells Life Sciences vans at the Water Department’s reservoir,” Rex said. “The same kind we saw on the news, leaving Wells’s place in Delaware.” He turned to me. “We thought maybe they’re using the water department to spread the flu. You could infect a lot of people that way, maybe even millions, but not enough for what Dymphna suspects.”
Claudia nodded, thinking about that. Then she looked up and said, “We’re here.”
The pod pulled over in front of a tall fence surrounding a nondescript brick building. A metal sign on the fence said BEMBRY SUPPRESSION CHEMICALS.
The gate was closed and unattended, but Claudia walked up to the security panel attached to the fence next to it. She pressed a button and held her face in front of the plastic bubble housing the camera.
A scratchy voice came through the speaker: “Bembry Chemicals, how can I help you?”
“Hi, Cheryl,” Claudia asked. “It’s Claudia. I’m here to see my dad.”
“Oh, hi, sweetie. Um…this is Nancy. Cheryl’s out sick. I’ll tell Mr. Bembry you’re here.”
Claudia turned to us looking slightly troubled. “Usually they just buzz me in.”
We waited silently, maybe not trusting that the microphone in the security panel wasn’t listening in. After a few minutes, the front door opened and Chris stepped out.
He smiled when he saw Claudia. She stiffened at the sight of him.
“Hey, kids. Hi, pumpkin,” he said. He seemed like he was hiding distress, the smile on his mouth totally not matching the deep ache in his eyes. He walked up to the fence but didn’t open the gate.
“Hi, Dad,” she said, her voice quiet and guarded. “Can we come in?”
“Well, um, sorry, but actually today’s not the best day. We’ve got a lot going on and it’s kind of a mess, so best not to. What’s up?”
“Um,” she started, her voice breaking before she got it under control. “Can I borrow your car?”
“Now?” He laughed an odd, awkward laugh. “Wouldn’t it have been easier if you’d just dropped me off this morning? But sure, yeah, of course. I said you could. It’s parked around the corner. Do you have your key?”
She held up a key ring and jingled it. “Got it.”
They stared at each other for a second longer, then he nodded and said, “Okay, great. And don’t worry about bringing it back here. I’ll grab a pod home.”
“Okay.” She paused, like she wanted to say something else, then quickly said, “Thanks, Dad.”
“Sure thing, pumpkin,” he replied. “Be safe, okay?”
“You too,” she said, then turned on her heel and walked away.
Chris nodded and walked back toward the building. Claudia wiped her eyes and hurried away from us. My eyes found Rex’s and we paused before following her. She seemed like she wanted a tiny bit of privacy, so we let her get a few steps ahead.
We followed her along the fence, past a large double gate, then around the corner. Ahead of us was Chris’s dark blue Audi. Claudia pressed a button on the key fob, and the running lights came on.