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CHapter 043
Things were notgoing well, Rick Diehl thought, as he wiped pureed green peas off his face and paused to clean his glasses It was five in the afternoon The kitchen was hot His three kids were sitting at the kitchen table screa relish and
The baby, in the high chair, refused to eat and spat her food right back out Conchita should have been feeding her, but Conchita had vanished that afternoon She had becoly unreliable ever since Rick&039;s wife left Broads stick together Probably he would have to replace Conchita, which was a big pain in the neck, to hire somebody new, and of course she would sue hiotiate a settlement with her before she went to court
"You want it? Take it!" Jason, his oldest,with the bun into Sa Now they were rolling on the floor
"Dad! Dad! Stop hi me"
"Jason, don&039;t choke your brother"
Jason paid no attention Rick grabbed him by the collar and pulled him off Sam "I said, don&039;t choke him"
"I wasn&039;t He asked for it"
"You want to lose TV tonight? No? Then eat your own hot dog and let your brother eat his"
Rick picked up the spoon to feed the baby, but she closed herat hihed What was it that h chairs refuse to eat, and throw all their toys on the floor? Maybe it wasn&039;t such a good idea for his wife to have gone away, he thought
As for the office, the situation was even worse His ex�Csecurity guy had been hu Lisa, and now that he was out of jail, he was undoubtedly huirl had zero taste If Brad was convicted of pedophilia, that would be bad publicity for the company, but even so, Rick hoped for it Josh Winkler&039;s wonder drug was apparently killing people Josh had gone way out on a li, but if he were sent to jail, that would reflect badly on the cohter with the spoon when the phone rang And things became much, much worse
"Son of a bitch!"
Rick Diehl turned away from the banks of security screens "I can&039;t believe it," he said On the screens, the hated Brad Gordon iping open doors to the labs, touching Petri dishes everywhere, andon Brad had been recorded as he wentRick bunched his fists
"He ca," the security temp said "He must have had an admin card we didn&039;t know about, because his was disabled He went to all the storage points, and he contale culture in the Burnet cell line"
Rick Diehl said, "He&039;s an asshole, but there&039;s no probleapore"
"Actually, those samples were removed yesterday," the security temp said "Someone picked up the cell lines and left They had proper authorization Secure e-transmission of codes"
"Who authorized it?"
"You did It came from your secure account"
"Oh Christ" He spun "How didthat happen?"
"We&039;re working on it"
"But the cell line," Rick said, "we have other sites - "
"Unfortunately, it seems"
"Well, then we have customers who have leased - "
"I&039;?" Rick said He was starting to screaone? In the entire fucking world? Gone?"
"As far as we know Yes"
"This is a goddamndisaster "
"Evidently"
"This could be the end of my company! That was our safety net, those cells We paid a fortune to UCLA for therily, as the reality hit hianized, coordinated attack on apore; they had everything arranged"
"Yes We believe so"
"To destroy et those cell lines back Now"
"No one has theet Burnet"
"Unfortunately, Mr Burnet seems to have vanished, too We can&039;t seereat" He turned and yelled to his assistant, "Get the fucking lawyers, get fucking UCLA here, and get everybody here by eight o&039;clock tonight!"
"I don&039;t know if - "
"Do it!"
CHapter 044
Gail Bondfell into a routine She would spend the night with Yoshi, then coive hi, as soon as she unlocked the door, she saw that Gerard was gone His cage stood uncovered in the hallway, his perch unoccupied Gail swore She went into the bedroo She shook him awake
"Richard Where&039;s Gerard?"
He yawned "What?"
"Gerard Where&039;s Gerard?"
"I&039;m afraid there&039;s been an accident"
"What accident? What have you done?"
"The cage was being cleaned in the kitchen, and the as open He flew out"
"He did not His wings were clipped"
"I know that," Richard said, yawning again
"He did not fly out"
"All I can tell you is that I heard Nadezhda shriek, and when I ca out the , and when I looked, the bird was fluttering aardly to the ground Of course I ran downstairs to the street at once, but he was gone"
The bastard was trying not to senic anienes to other parrots"
"I a you, it was an accident"
"Where is Nadezhda?"
"She coht I would cut back"
"Does she have a cell?"
"You hired her, pet"
"Don&039;t call rey, but this is extreed "I don&039;t knohat to tell you"
Of course it ruinedall her plans They had intended to publish online the following month, and inevitably there would be cries from around the world that their claim was untrue Scientists would call it the Clever Hans effect, mere mimicry, God knohat else Everyone would deone
"I could kill Richard," she said to Maurice, the head of the lab
"And I will hire the bestavocat for your defense," he said, not s "Do you think he knohere the bird is?"
"Probably But he&039;ll never tell ht over a bird"
"I&039;ll talk to Nadezhda But he has probably paid her off"
"Did the bird know your name? The name of the lab? Phone numbers?"
"No, but he memorized the tones for my cellular phone He used to make them as a sequence of sounds"
"Then perhaps he will call us, one day"
Gail sighed "Perhaps"
CHapter 045
Alex Burnetwas in the middle of thethe sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political colu his sister-in-lahen he experienced an overwhel son, still in diapers Croas a wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate and heir to a pharmaceutical fortune He hired notorious DC attorney Abe ("It Ain&039;t There") Ganzler to defend him
It turned out that Crowley&039;s taste in love objects ell known in Washington, but Ganzler - as was his custoorously in the pressAlex and the child&039;sfe froinations" This, despite a well-documented hospital examination of the child (Crowley&039;s penis was snificant tears to the toddler&039;s rectum)
It was in the midst of frantic preparation for the third day of the trial that Amy, Alex&039;s assistant, buzzed her to say that her father was on the phone Alex picked up "Pretty busy, Dad"
"I won&039;t take long I&039; away for a couple of weeks"
"Okay, fine" One of the other lawyers came in and dropped the latest newspapers on her desk TheStar was running photographs of the raped child, the hospital in Malibu, and unflattering pictures of Alex and the kid&039;s , Dad?"
"Don&039;t know yet," her father said, "but I need some time alone Cell phone probably won&039;t work I&039;ll send you a note when I get there And a box of some stuff In case you need it"
"Okay, Dad, have fun" She thuh theLA Tiht for the right to access and print all court documents, however prelies were extremely reluctant to seal even those docu stalked or the anatomical details of children who had been raped TheTi also ations in their pretrial filings, knowing theTimes would print theht to know Yes, the public really needed to know exactly how long the tear was in the poor little boy&039;s -
"You holding up all right?" her father said
"Yeah, Dad, I&039; to you?"
"No I&039;anizations, but they&039;re not issuing any stateely silent"
"I&039;m sure you&039;re shocked by that," he said "The weasel is politically connected, right? Little dickhead Gotta go, Lexie"
"Bye, Dad"
She turned away The DNA matches were due today, but they hadn&039;t arrived yet The samples obtained had been small, and she orried about what they would show
CHapter 046
The lightsdimmed smoothly in the plush presentation room at Selat, Anney, Koss Ltd, the preee of an A past a wretched cluster of signs Gavin Koss knew froe was an i critical of America was surefire
"A than any other country in the world," Koss said "Of course, they iven the quality of Ah the darkness
"And the intelligence of the Ahter
"As one of our colureat majority of Americans couldn&039;t find their own behinds with both hands"
Open laughter They ar each other on the back as they drift ever deeper into debt" That should suffice, he thought He changed his tone: "But what I wish to draw to your attention is the sheer volued in space along thepast has its radio on, sending out even es In point of fact, it&039;s esties every day - or what is ists have deteres creates a kind of anesthesia, which becorained over ties lose iht, then Shinjuku, in Tokyo, then Piccadilly, in London "The saturation today is global Huge e-screen video, appear in public squares, along motorways, in tube stations, train depots We place videos at point-of-sale in retail stores In toilets In waiting rooes and aboard aircraft
"Furtheros, brands, and slogans appear on ordinary objects from knives to tableware to computers They appear on all our possessions Consus, shoes, jewelry Indeed, it is rare for a person to appear in public without thelobal public would turn the products, the idea would have seeistic glut, sensory exhaustion, and a diminution of impact What can we do no can we y? The answer ed dra toward the sky, shade beneath Then a snowy mountain peak A tropical island, an arc of sand, crystalline water, pal aes
"The natural world," Koss intoned, "is entirely without advertising The natural world has yet to be tain"
From the darkness: "Isn&039;t that rather the point?"