Fresh Start

Chapter 30
High Price

Greg Howe checked his watch. Belton had been gone for nearly three minutes. If he wasn’t back soon this thing could all turn pear-shaped very quickly. Greg was taking a big risk in bluffing his employer. His device worked alright, that was no bluff. But he had no intention of leaving it on, reversing the last three months of his hard work. The longer it ran though, the more problems would arise. Suddenly toddlers were able to speak to their parents in full sentences, make reasoned arguments, yell at them for changing them into little kids. Once they recovered from their initial embarrassment they would start causing some real problems. Kids might run away from home or get themselves into situations that they could suddenly handle with their full faculties restored, but which would become dangerous once he thumbed the other button and their mentalities immediately returned to toddler or small child level.

Greg kept him thumb hovering over the second button, wondering how long he could wait before pushing it. If he hit it too soon it would all be for nothing. Belton would see the kids in the mall had returned to normal and he would lose all his leverage. Then he’d really have to bluff because only he knew the chips only worked once. The second button permanently deactivated them, a fail-safe to ensure no one would really be able to reverse his accomplishments.

Greg looked over at the little boy on the leash. He treated so many patients he couldn’t recall them all, but no doubt he’d managed this boy’s transition within the past few months. It had apparently been a very successful transformation, given that the mum now needed to keep the boy on a leash to keep him out of trouble. Now though, the boy had his hands on his hips and a stern, comically serious expression on his cute little face.

“Will you take this stupid kiddy leash off of me mum. I’m not an animal!” he yelled in his squeaky little voice.

The poor mother looked flabbergasted by her son’s sudden return to teen awareness. “It isn’t a leash sweetie, it’s a harness. It’s just to keep you from getting yourself lost or hurt,” she tried to explain.

“I’m not going to get lost now mum. I’m me again. Don’t you see that I’m not a dumb little kid now?”

“Well… I… I just don’t understand it,” she admitted. “I’ve never heard of anything like this happening!”

As their argument continued Greg looked at the table next to them. The toddler girl in the high-chair had been handed several napkins by the baffled women after she’d insisted on getting clean but refused to let them do it. She was carefully wiping the yoghurt and other food from her hands, her face, her skirt, looking disgusted. As he watched her the sound of little footsteps caught his attention and he glanced over to see a tiny little boy, probably not even two years old toddling as fast as he could, winding his way between the tables of the food-court dressed in nothing but a disposable diaper. Behind him a woman pushed and empty stroller and called out, “Joey you get back here this instant or mummy will be very cross! Joey slow down!”

The boy looked back with scared but intelligent eyes, then continued his escape attempt, darting around a rubbish bin and hiding. Greg shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Things were already going too far. It had been nearly four minutes now. He touched his finger to the button. And Rowan Belton appeared back at the entrance of the food-court, rushing towards the table he’d just left. Greg moved his finger away, trying to look cool and collected as the panicked looking camp director joined him again.

“Back already,” he remarked.

“Look you’ve got it, whatever you want, just stop this,” Belton told him, sweating profusely.

“Then give me the password, right now.”

“I don’t have it with me! You think I just carry such things around?”

“You have your phone don’t you?” Greg asked, knowing of course that Belton never went anywhere without it.

“Well… yes… I mean…”

“I know you keep passwords stored in it Rowan. Look it up.”

Belton pulled out the smart phone and began working at it feverishly. Greg hoped he wasn’t sweating too. In fact he was just as nervous as his quarry. Finally he spun the phone around and slid it across the table. “There, you have the password, now put things right!” he ordered.

Greg looked at the password displayed on the screen and nodded. “Good. Now, there is just one more thing.”

Rowan gasped. “More?! What more could you want?”

“You’re right about the difficulties I’ll face after publishing. I’ll need money to set up my own lab,” he explained.

“Money? You think I have money?” Belton snapped.

“I know you do Rowan. Your wife was quite wealthy and you now control her assets, thanks to me. Consider it delayed payment for services rendered. Or consider it extortion. I don’t care as long as I have my cash.”

Belton looked sick. He was caught and he knew it. “How much?” he sighed.

Greg looked him in the eye as he said, “All of it.”

Belton’s hold body sagged as Greg took out an iPad and put it before him. “You’ll authorise the electronic transfer I’ve set up. It requires your password. I’m emptying the full value of your account.”

“You’re a bastard,” Belton muttered coldly.

“Life’s a bitch. Enter the password.”

Belton tapped the code into the tablet and hit enter. Greg took the iPad back and watched the screen, waiting. “Transfer Complete” flashed across it a few seconds later. A quick check of his account confirmed the funds were now there. It was over, he’d won.

“So, are you going to carry out your end?” Belton prompted him.

“Of course. I’m a man of my word,” he assured him, lifting the remote to show the man and pressing the second button.