Grandfather (12 page)

“
I used to come here all of
the time,” Edgar said. “Miss those days.”

“
Maybe you can after
Grandfa –” Ashton started to say but was interrupted.

“
Shhhhhh,” Edgar and Robert
said at the same time.

Edgar nearly jumped out of
his seat, as if he was ready to tackle Ashton. “What the hell ya
think you’re doing?” he whispered, looking around to see if anybody
had heard. They all kept their eyes on the screens floating in
front of them. They didn’t care about us.

“
Oops,” Ashton said,
putting his head down. “Didn’t mean to.”

“
We know,” Robert said,
forgiving him pretty quickly. “Just remember where we
are.”

“
That goes for you too,
Carsyn,” Edgar said.

I nodded, showing him I
understood.

We finished our
cappuccinos while Edgar told us stories about what he would do in
the city. Apparently they had movie theaters, places called malls
that had hundreds of stores all in one place, and even a place
where they could go and play games. He called them arcades.
“Arcades were my favorite places to go to as a kid,” he said. Edgar
having fun? Impossible. But then again, he
was
a kid.

The sky grew darker and
darker until the sun had completely vanished, leaving the
fluorescent lights coming from the city structures as the only
light source. The dark sure didn’t stop the people from walking
outside. It was just as busy.

“
It’s about that time,”
Edgar said, growing serious once again. We all threw away our empty
cups and followed Edgar outside and around the corner to where the
white vehicle was still sitting. Once again, Edgar and Robert
slithered their way through the crowd while Ashton and I were
pushed and shoved. I didn’t know if I could ever get used to the
city life as Edgar and Robert had. But I guessed I didn’t have to
worry about that since I was living under a mountain.

Once we were out of the
way of people, Edgar stopped. We all huddled together. “That’s it
over there,” Edgar said, pointing at a building across the road. It
was a good thing we were on a road not very popular, or else there
would’ve been people all around, making it difficult for us to get
in.

The building was a lot
shorter than the other buildings. Ten stories high. All the lights
were off with the exception of a few on the top floor. I was trying
to figure out how in the world we were going to track small vials.
“This building is huge,” I told Edgar. “It’s going to take us
forever.”

“
You think this is huge?”
Robert asked.

Edgar laughed. “Easy,” he
said. “I know exactly where to go. Came here many times for my
job.”

Ashton pointed at the
floor where the lights were on. “It looks like there are people
there,” he said.

“
Doubt it,” Edgar said.
“Those are offices. Lights always stay on.”

“
And besides,” Robert said
in a reassuring tone. “Most people have gone home for the day. It’s
8:00.”

“
Exactly,” Edgar
said.

I wanted to argue, of
course, but they knew more about what was going on. I was just
along for the ride.

“
Come on,” Edgar said,
crossing the road. We all followed him. I glanced around to make
sure nobody was watching. The only people I saw were those passing
by on the main road where the Starbucks was. They weren’t paying
attention to us. I kind of felt like everybody was just oblivious
to everything around them. Oh well. It worked in our favor. That’s
all that mattered.

Edgar approached a door.
Beside the door handle was a keypad with touch screen numbered
buttons. “What’s the code?” he asked, looking around to also make
sure nobody was watching.

“
0-6-0-5-2-0-7-6,” Robert
answered.

Edgar pushed each one, and
the door clicked. I checked one last time to make sure nobody was
watching. I was being paranoid. We were in the clear.

“
That passcode,” Edgar
whispered as he led us inside. “That’s the date of the President’s
assassination.”

“
June,
5
^th
,”
Robert said. “I didn’t even think about that.

Interesting.

Edgar closed the door
behind us. It was dark inside the building. Edgar reached into his
jacket pocket and pulled out a small flashlight. He turned it on,
revealing nicely painted white walls, the clean beige tiles, and
the shiny, slick furniture all matching. I wished the lights were
on so I could get a better look at the room, but it made sense to
use flashlights. It could look suspicious if somebody saw a light
on, I guess.

“
Follow me,” Edgar said. He
led us to what seemed like a metal door. Beside it, on the wall,
was a small screen. Edgar waved his hand across it, revealing a lit
up arrow pointing up and another arrow pointing down. Edgar tapped
the down button. It turned green. Above the door, there was a green
number ‘7.’ It changed to a ‘6’, followed by a ‘5’.

“
What’s this?” Ashton
whispered.

“
Elevator,” Edgar whispered
back. “We need to get to the bottom floor.”

“
And this will take us
there?” Ashton asked.

Edgar nodded.

“
Wait,” I said. “How do you
know where we need to go?”

“
Didn’t I tell ya I been
here many times before,” Edgar asked, annoyed. That sounded more
like the Edgar I knew. “The basement is where they store their most
important things.”

“
Well, these vials
certainly would be something extremely important to Grandfather,”
Robert said with a snicker. “So that’s probably exactly where it
is.”

The number above the door
stopped at ‘1’. There was a ding as the doors opened, revealing a
small, bright closet. Once inside, I noticed a much larger lit up
screen. This one had several numbered buttons. Edgar tapped a
button reading‘B3.’ The doors shut quickly, and my insides shifted
downward with the elevator. So surreal.

“
You were whispering. You
sure nobody will be here?” I asked.

“
Edgar’s sure,” Robert
said. “Whispering is an instinct when you’re robbing
somebody.”

“
We’ll steal the vials and
get out quickly.”

Ashton smiled. “I’m just
glad to be stealing from Grandfather,” he said. His eyes met mine
and his expression became hard. “I guess you wouldn’t care.”

My hatred toward him was
building. “Can’t you shut up about that?” I asked. “Worry about
what you think, not what I think. And besides –”

“Quit this nonsense,”
Edgar said angrily as the elevator stopped and the door slid open
with another ding. “I don’t give a damn what’s going on between ya.
Now’s not the time.”

Robert frowned at us.
Ashton actually looked ashamed. I really didn’t care. His attitude
was really going too far. I wasn’t just going to let somebody treat
me like that.

We stepped out of the
elevator and into a large room with rows and rows of rectangular
tables. On each of them, every few feet, were sinks, folders, and
tubes filled with different colored liquids. Alongside the walls
were large machines. They all had blinking lights on them. Of
course, I had no idea what any of them did and what the lights
meant. Edgar didn’t move as the elevator doors shut behind us. He
flashed his light around the entire room. Caution is
good.

“What is it?” Robert asked
when Edgar still didn’t move.

“This room,” Edgar said.
“It’s different than before.”

“What?” Robert asked,
worried. “Is it not here?”

Edgar slowly walked down
one of the aisles. We followed him. He looked at each table, and
stopped to examine one of the machines. He picked up a clear tube
with some sort of green liquid in it. His face cringed when he
sniffed it.

“
What is it?” Ashton
asked.

Edgar sat the tube back
onto the table, shaking his head. “Don’t know.”

I moved along the table. I
saw another tube, this one filled with a bluish greenish liquid. I
wasn’t going to make the dumb mistake Edgar made. I looked at the
other tables again. “There’s a bunch of different colors,” I said.
“What is this?”

“
Yeah,” Edgar said, picking
up another tube with purple liquid in it.
“Experimenting.”

“
Experimenting?” Ashton
asked. “On what?”

“
Don’t know,” Edgar said,
setting the tube back down. “Looks like they’re trying to make
something.”

“And whatever it is,”
Robert added, “it’s probably not good.”

Edgar agreed.

“Why are they all
different colors?” Ashton asked.

“Because,” Robert said.
“They’ve not discovered an answer to whatever they’re trying to
figure out.”

“Exactly,” Edgar said,
glancing around the room again.
His eyes
stopped past me. He pointed, so I followed his attention to see a
glass door. It was dark on the other side, but blinking lights
coming from what I assumed to be machines inside. Edgar walked to
the door quickly. We did the same. He turned the knob. It didn’t
open.

“You think they’re in
there?” Robert asked.

“I bet they are,” Edgar
said, placing a hand on the glass door.

“What is this room?”
Ashton asked.

“It’s refrigerated,” Edgar
said.

I felt the glass door. It
was cold.

“
Probably the best
condition to store the virus,” Edgar added. He kept his face close
to the glass door, hoping to get a better look at what was inside.
But it was too dark.

“Look,” Ashton said. We
all followed the direction of his finger to another small dark
screen on the wall. “Will that help?”

Edgar looked at
it.

“Maybe,” he said, waving a
hand across it. The screen came to life. This time, I only saw a
black square. No numbered buttons. Edgar put his thumb over the
black square. A red line ran across the screen before making a
beeping noise. The screen turned green.

“Your fingerprint?” Robert
asked. “How’s that possible?”

Edgar smiled. “Can’t
believe it. Guess they never took my fingerprints out the system
once I quit. Surprising since I’ve not been working for a few years
now.”

“So you could get
anywhere?” I asked.

“Basically,” Edgar said.
“But they’ll change it in the morning once they realize they’ve
been robbed.” Edgar opened the door. The room lit up automatically
as we walked in. Alongside the wall were several more strange
machines. In the middle was a long table. A few other unfamiliar
devices sat on it. This one, unlike those outside of the small
room, didn’t have tubes of liquids on it.

Robert nudged Edgar on the
shoulder and pointed to the furthest corner. I followed the
direction of his finger to see a round black device on the ceiling.
On it, a red light flashed every second.

“We’ll be on video,”
Robert said.

“Don’t worry about that,”
Edgar said, placing his briefcase on the table and walking around
looking at the machines. “Their security system is one floor above
us. I know how to delete every damn thing.” He walked around the
table and stopped in front of a smaller glass door. It reminded me
of a small refrigerator.

“Is that it?” I
asked.

Edgar said nothing. He
opened the glass door. A thick smoky vapor rose out. Edgar stuck
his hand inside and brought out a silver vial about three inches
long.

“Open the briefcases,”
Edgar said, slowly reaching for more. Robert sat his briefcase on
the table and opened it. Ashton and I did the same. Edgar carefully
began putting the vials in Robert’s briefcase.

It was a good thing the
inside of the briefcase was cushioned, I thought. Or else, the
vials could easily break. But as Edgar placed them inside, I still
became nervous. I mean, what if I somehow dropped one? Who knew
what the substance would do to me. I pushed the thought out of mind
in order to keep my head clear.
Relax
, I told myself.

“What do they say on it?”
Robert asked.

“That’s the odd thing,”
Edgar said. “They don’t say anything. You said this was their first
batch, right?”

Robert nodded. “Takes
about a year to create it, from what I’ve learned.”

“Good,” Edgar said, taking
a break from handling the vials. “With any luck, this is all there
is.”

“Oh yes,” Robert said,
joining Edgar to help him with the vials. They moved very slowly.
“From what I heard, this is all there is.”

Ashton and I just watched,
hoping none of the vials would get knocked off onto the floor.
.After he and Robert filled up the first briefcase, Edgar turned to
us. “Make yourself useful. Go out there and see if there’s anything
suspicious. Don’t want you handling these vials.”

Ashton and I glanced at
each other. Neither one of us wanted to be alone with the other.
More importantly, everything looked suspicious to me. Ashton
probably thought so too because we had never seen any of this. I
didn’t know what Edgar wanted us to look for. But I didn’t
argue.