Salt in the wound

It's cold. Very cold and dry, it makes my nose bleed sometimes. I saw my brother at a ball game once, several years ago. He was being followed so I didn't say hello. This was right before it all went to hell and I ran.

The holidays suck out loud when one is alone in the world. I've decided not to be alone for much longer. Found a back way into an Argentine railroad company hiring process and I have interviews set up. They think I'm a dude named Alex. It's a very long way around the problem of trying to get back some of what I've lost. I just need to get close. It will most likely take me years. Ive nothing better to do and I'm too much of a coward to jump off a building. But I think I'm just nuts enough to take the old bastard with me. He was featured on a journal recently and I almost puked.

Taking down the ped

Follow-up to the jerk and the 14 yo. She is now living up near the bay and is hating life as a child. She's got issues but that's not my problem. Kate continued to get crank calls so I had a friend to a little snooping on the guy; he has a light criminal record, petty stuff: shoplifting, drunken disorders, nothing too mean until messing with lolita. He seems to honestly think he's still in the ballpark with people much younger than himself. Hasn't grown up yet...maybe. I think he's a child molester in the making. Maybe we caught him early. But what to do about it? Well I've fashioned my own special salt peter. It reacts to ph levels as well as saliva and resides in the simple epithelia.

Dark Matter Swallowed

It all fell apart so rapidly that I nearly missed it. There was nothing left to do but run again and hide. I found a nice hole and just stayed there for a very, very long time. Until I felt ... I don't know. Safe is a ridiculous word. I'll never be that. Gone or dead are my only options now. I felt 'gone'. I feel gone. Hoping.

They have it all, whomever it was that found us. But this is all old news and sometimes I can pretend it wasn't real. I have become someone else and the other two mes are gone. Work, gone. Friends and associates, gone. Resources and contacts, gone. Not gone are the millions of reasons some very smart and powerful people want me dead. Not gone, knowledge and the creations in my mind that they would love to get from me.  Not gone, fear. It has been allowed to dwindle over these several years.

Something recent brought me out of hiding. For the first time in forever, I was moved to help someone. Drama is hard to ignore. Nauseous compassion.

I saw some men run off the road while I was out watching the sunset, taking photos of birds and shit. I saw the whole thing from my vantage point, even took photos.

One car screeches to a stop and a guy gets out. He starts shooting a gun at a second car that comes around a blind turn. That second driver hits the breaks and there's smoke and glass and bullets flying all over the place as they return fire. Driver in the first car floors it in reverse and rams them off the road and down the gully. His friend is still shooting as he gets to the edge of the road, looking down at the wreck. He fires a couple more times and yells "Rich says f*ck you and die." He gets back in his car and they are gone.

I sit there in my blind for a while wondering what I should do, if anything. I take a peek through my telephoto, snap a shot. I climb down, 30 or so meters plus the ten from my perch.  I have an ounce of humanity left, I guess.

I am close enough to hear the hiss and tick of the metal and smell fuel, and I wonder if the whole thing is going to blow us all to hell. I think I mumbled just that when the driver says something I don't understand. He has managed to drag himself partially out of the car, which is wedged sideways in the trees. He is stuck in the brush and just laying there, breathing hard. The other one is still in his seat belt and looks dead but then he opens his eyes for a sec.

 The passenger is most in need so I climb inside.  That is when I hear the phone, still in the hand of the passenger. Someone is yelling, "goddammit, what's happening?" I tell him his friends need help and tuck it into the passenger's pocket, still on.

I feel bad about leaving them, but they have guns and badges and someone trying to kill them. Not my kind of party. I apply what little first aid I can and hang around until I heard sirens. I wonder if they will live? Is it care of curiosity?

Oh, I also left the SD card.

Human Trial and Error

Seems like we are spinning our wheels. So many months of trying and the human subjects still burn too fast. Looks too much like an illness or infection rather than disease or aging. Fine for dealing with unwanted peasants but the royalty? No way. Frustration eats at us all. But we are too close to turn or quite with this one. We joke at marketing the finished product. Most laugh but a couple of us have to be watched. The fear grows in me. I need to stop this whole thing. But then I see what our enemy does to us all and I renew my faith that I might someday make a difference. If I can keep hold of the tiger's tail.

In the mean time we are doing just fine with the progress in slowing the machine. Due to egocentric gum-flapping we have no trouble identifying and bringing down pieces of the corporate machine, slowing their growth and output. It's turned into a long-haul game.

My old enemies as still sniffing around looking for me. But I am fortunate that they haven't figured out the direction I chose to put my research to work. Easier to hide as a little fish that isn't trying to compete with the government hit squads.

Take a Deep Breath..and Hold

Many long months! Christ, the ups and downs are insane. But the progress is impressive. We've solved (well, with a little stolen help) the structure of a major cell for Methuzula. In a few weeks we expect to own the liver. 

One of our greenies has proved to be a most excellent recruit. We are so close now to the new pill that will break specific cell mitochondria within weeks to the point of death from age-related disease. Our mouse/rat models are dropping like flies. The disease process is actually frightening to watch; rapid and exponential cell age and destruction, causing heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, prion-related mental degeneration; whatever the subject is predisposed to. And the cancers! I'm afraid,  but the work goes on. 

We are trying to fine tune the process so we can control, on some small level, the speed of progression. Otherwise the tool is too sharp for anything but a catastrophic, first strike weapon. A doomsday machine, or a very limited use pill. Autopsies on John Q are pretty routine and all our pills would go undetected due to burn, however this one will puzzle the pathologists, specially during an autopsy on high-value targets. Nothing in nature works like this so once it is used folks will be working on trying to break it. But if we can bring it down a peg or two, calm it, focus it to attack a single cellular structure rather that systemically, we can create liver disease, heart disease, dementia, any number of options for killing or disabling a target. As with all our products, exposure is just a touch away and the catalyst is the target's own mitochondria. Once the tetramer crosses the cell membrane and locates it, blamo, the fuse is lit and the mito burns up and starts f*cking up everything it makes like the host is 110 years old and the body's T cells don't even recognize there's a problem. And the best part is if Methuzula is spotted and identified, the public will wonder if the monster was created by the phamas in their run to make drugs to keep everyone young and beautiful. 

This could be the one.  Exhale.

Scratching my head

So obvious, now that we see him. This will require a slight change in our program. Since RJ has decided to hide in plain site while outside the barrier, we will take advantage. In some ways this will make the things a bit easier. We know where he will be most days at 0530. But getting under his nose will be more of a challenge. We are working on scenarios. IMHO, just sitting on the curb near the cans should work, however, we are seeing an elevated level of personal and professional paranoia that we have no data to justify. It is warranted, tho. The industry he works in is heating up dramatically and the risks are unprecedented. We don't want to spook him. If he demands a relocation, we may never be able to track him. We still haven't determined how he is returning each night. The other thing that bugs me is why he has the body double living at the real site. Perhaps because that is where he, himself is expected to be, required to be? 

He's riced! Of course! Can't have the person anywhere other than where tracking says he should be. Nice. Is his double riced as well? No, that would cause confusion. Is the double his ruse or the company's? So there must be someone else keeping an eye on RJ. Perhaps lots of someones. But if we could figure out the decoy so quickly, why not others?

Too many  questions that I am not trained to answer. Too many that I don't even know to ask. this is Wil's area. Tactics are no strong suit of mine, never have been. 

Word Search

"What's missing from this picture?"

Holly asked me while studying the blueprints. Took all of a couple seconds to find our oversight: a back door... an escape route. The lab has to have one. The blueprint shows only one way in and out of an underground set of rooms. No way in hell a researcher will work in a room with only one way in or out. Too dangerous. So, it had to have been left off. And if any additional exit was omitted, what else was left off? 

Gene has a friend who is a specialist in surveillance who will be well paid to find out. We can do no more. That whole end of the building is shielded for light, heat, sound, movement, anything else my limited experience could come up with. Why they would bother to shield a building that is housed on a very secure military base is beyond me. Holly laughed and said "cause of people like us less than a quarter mile outside a silly fence".

The good news is Gene may have figured out who RJ is masquerading as... a sanitation worker. Yup, the garbage man. He thinks RJ is coming and going via a sanitation truck that shows up every morning to manage the public receptacles on the corner.