Fresh Start

Chapter 27
Blackmail

One Month Later:

It was supposed to be his private time with his family, the only time each week he got to really enjoy being with his babies, but Howe had to ruin it. Rowan Belton had been enjoying his one free afternoon when Howe rang him at his secret cabin. He’d been fearing this call for a week, ever since he’d had to take action to stop his old friend from going rogue and destroying everything they’d built. Since then he’d known it was likely their partnership would have to come to an end, but he had no idea just how far Howe was willing to take this thing.

“What do you want, you know this isn’t business time,” he rebuked the doctor.

“This is the only time we have to talk about this and you know this can’t wait,” Howe replied calmly.

“Look whatever it is, it will have to wait. You know what the weekends mean to me.”

“Oh I know exactly what they mean to you and that is why you’ll want to meet me. Otherwise some others may find out how you like to spend your weekends,” the doctor said in a cool, calculated voice.

Rowan narrowed his eyes. He’d always feared this day would come. He’d known he was taking a big risk trusting Howe, but he always had the job to hold over his head. He was the only one providing Howe with the opportunity to conduct his little unethical experiments. Apparently Howe had forgotten that. It was time for someone to give him a reminder.

Lowering his voice Rowan turned his tone to threatening. “You seem to have forgotten who pays your way my friend. How many other camps do you think will hire someone with your reputation without a recommendation from me? How many of those will let you continue your research?”

“My research is worthless if no one knows about it Rowan. You have less on me than I have on you. If you want to take your chances with the authorities go ahead and hang up now, then say goodbye to your family. If not, meet me at the Hanwell Mall in two hours.”

Rowan swallowed silently. The bastard had him. He couldn’t risk losing his family. It looked like he’d have to play Howe’s game after all. “Okay Greg,” he sighed, “I’ll be there.”

“Good, see you soon,” the smooth voice replied before the line went dead.

Rowan headed out of his private room and back into the main cabin where Millie was keeping the babies entertained. Harry and Lucy were sitting on their bottoms on the floor facing each other playing footsies. Harry wore an inside-out and backwards yellow Sesame Street t-shirt that didn’t quite reach his belly-button. From there down he was naked as usual. His sister wore her favourite holey, stained purple Dora the Explorer t-shirt and pink tights. Both were giggling and squealing playfully as they wiggled their toes together in some sort of silly toddler game. Baby Patty was creeping on her tummy nearby, leaving a nice trail of spittle across the carpet as a string of drool hung constantly from her chin.

Heading over to their sides he was assaulted by a barrage of calls for ‘daddy’ that he had to ignore. He went straight to Millie, who was currently wiping the spit bubble blowing Patty’s lips again. “Millie I’m afraid I need to go out for a bit. Can you watch them for the afternoon?”

“Of course I can. I’m just sorry you have to head out now,” she said sadly.

“I am too. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he assured her. Kneeling down he pecked goodbye kisses on Lucy and Harry’s cheeks and the bald top of Patty’s head then hurried out the door before they started crying.

It was a bit of a drive to the mall and the whole way there Rowan was fuming. How could that jerk take him away from his family like this?! Of course he had that same bastard to thank for his family. It was Howe’s programming that emptied their heads of all those complex adult ideas, all their education, their memories and made them the playful, docile, messy little nudists and dribbly-droolers he loved. But that made this betrayal all the more painful. He’d trusted the man with his deepest secrets and now he threatened to turn him in to the police!

As he walked into the mall he felt his cell phone buzz in his pocket. Drawing it out he found it was a text from Howe. “Meet me in the food-court” it said. Rowan headed straight to the bustling food-court, gazing around the teeming lunch-time crowd for Howe. Finally he spotted his old mate sitting at a table at the far side of the court. Howe saw him too and waved him over. Rowan gazed around, wondering what it was about this place that appealed to Howe. It seemed a very odd place to meet for a blackmailing session. Was this some kind of trap? It didn’t make any sense to him, but there was no way around it, he had to go to the table.

As Rowan took his seat Howe sipped at his McDonald’s milkshake, his face impossible to read. For a good thirty seconds they sat across from each other in stony silence. Finally Rowan spoke. “Well here I am. You ruined my fucking afternoon, so congratulations.”

“We both know why your afternoon has been ruined Rowan. You screwed me. You ruined my research,” Howe stated in a strangely quiet tone.

“I ruined your research?”

“You deleted it. You went in and wiped every copy of it from the hard drive. You knew I was about to submit it for publishing. You sabotaged me.”

Rowan sat in silence for a moment and collected his thoughts. Then he pointed out what should have been obvious to the doctor from the start. “You can’t publish that research. You had to know that Greg! It’s illegal, don’t you get that? You didn’t get informed consent, you broke ethics rules. If you publish that it will destroy you!”

“Ethics rules aren’t written in stone. A breakthrough like this, people will thank me for what I’ve done. Look at the invention of the smallpox vaccine. Under current ethics rules it never would have happened and millions would have died.”

“Don’t you bring out that old chestnut! This isn’t the same thing. You’d be destroying yourself. As a friend I couldn’t let you do it.”

Now Howe seemed to grow particularly angry as he cried, “You did it to save me! That’s a lot of bullshit and you know it. You did it to save yourself, to keep that little fiefdom of your running. You didn’t give a crap about me.”

Rowan considered his response for a long moment, then nodded. “You’re right, but so what? I save myself and I save you, good result for both of us.”

“I don’t need your help friend. I agreed to help you with your problem for one reason only, to do my research. Well I’ve done it and I’m going to publish it. I know you keep back-up copies of everything in the mainframe. I need your password to retrieve my work.”

Rowan shook his head. “You’re crazy if you think I’d give you that.”

“I have video tapes of what happened to Harry and to Patty. I have photos of them now,” he warned.

“You turn those in you burn us both and still don’t get your research. You won’t do it.”

Howe nodded as though he expected that response. “You think you’ve got me beat, eh Rowan? But I know one thing you care about more than your reputation. You care more about the kids we’ve changed,” he explained, taking out a strange black remote with two buttons.

“What the hell is that?” Rowan demanded, suddenly concerned by this curve ball. He hadn’t seen that coming at all.

“For the last three months I have put a chip inside each of the kids we dealt with. Each chip is actually an ingenious device, of my invention, which has the ability to effect parts of the brain when activated. When active it massively increases activity in those regions of the brain. Essentially the child will suddenly be bombarded with old memories the programming suppressed and areas that our programme made dormant will light up, restoring their intelligence. And all that takes is the press of this little button. Every child within range will suddenly wake up, their old memories, intellect, personality available to them again.”

Rowan was horrified by the very idea of it. All the kids he made extra changes to would remember them. He could be in some very serious trouble. He shook his head in horror. “You wouldn’t. You’ve always thought this was the right thing. You wouldn’t reverse the procedure in hundreds of kids.”

“My research could help thousands, it would be worth the sacrifice,” Howe shrugged.

“This is all a ruse. That thing is for your garage door,” Rowan insisted.

“I assure you it is real. That’s why I’ve asked you to meet me here, at lunch hour, next to the play place. How many of the kids in here might have come through our camp over the last few months? Well, if you want to test me you’re about to find out. Oh, and one more thing. I also put the chips in your three kids.”

Rowan gasped with true panic. But he couldn’t speak, couldn’t believe it was really possible. Howe only waited a moment, then shrugged and thumbed the button.