Yesterday's Gone: Season Three (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (22 page)

Boricio wasn’t willing to wait another day.
 

He had waited too long already. Rose could already be a full month into recovery, and
should
have been a month into recovery. Instead, Boricio had allowed Will to warm his hands beneath the fat of his ass.

Boricio was sick of the month-old argument, and angry at the old man for standing so decisively in his way. For a guy with a third eye, Boricio was sometimes shocked at how much shit Will was blind to.
 

Will kept saying, “We’ll talk about it later,” but later was a word that couldn’t be measured, so fuck it with a meter stick.
 

Rose wasn’t getting any better. If anything, she was getting worse. Her days were often filled with pain and her memory wasn’t coming back. She was also having trouble with her short term memory. There were a few days during Boricio’s visits that a glimpse of the past would come forth, and she’d smile and remember a snippet of their life together. And those moments helped to bridge the distance between them, helped her feel comfortable with him and not treat him like a stranger. But the next day, the memory was gone, and it was if she’d never remembered anything. The coldness had returned.

Some days, he felt as if she were looking at him for the first time.

And each of those stranger’s glances was a knife in his heart.

He would take a hundred, hell, a million, such knives if she weren’t also in constant pain.

From the waist down, she felt nothing. And likely never would again. But the parts she could feel anything, she usually felt only pain. Boricio couldn’t stand to see her in such misery.

He had to go over his father’s head and see Dr. Williams, the lead scientist overseeing research on the vials.
 

Williams was instrumental in Luca’s success, and would be a fool to ignore the data and deny Rose the same fighting chance. He may have been many things — egotistical, obsessive, unable to relate to humans — as far as Boricio could tell, but he wasn’t a fool. Especially not when compared to Will, who was becoming more of a fence-sitting philosopher than a man driven into action by curiosity. Telling the difference between philosopher and fool was increasingly more difficult for Boricio.
 

Boricio did wonder for a small moment if maybe he was wrong, and he was perhaps overestimating Williams’ willingness to bend the rules. Then Boricio thought back to the wide smile slathered all over his face in the aftermath of Luca’s tests and felt certain that Williams simply needed the right question asked in precisely the right way to give them both the only answer they wanted.
 

Boricio reached the middle of the hall and the pair of access elevators and stepped inside, with someone coming in behind him. He pressed 7, then set his hand against the graphite-colored palm reader, fingers evenly splayed.
 

“Access: Denied. Insufficient Clearance Level,” the display read.

What the fuck?
 

Boricio tried again, pressing harder. The green lines on the display rose, then fell, then turned red.
 

“Access: Denied. Insufficient Clearance Level.”

Boricio started to breathe slowly, exactly as he’d been practicing to steady the rising anger, but a thick wad of air was suddenly trapped in his throat, and his clenched fist was shaking at his side, one bad second away from flying into the hard alloy of the elevator door.
 

“You okay, Mr. Bishop?”
 

Boricio slowly turned to face Richard Styley, the dweeby systems designer from Level Three who had followed Boricio into the elevator.
 

“Yeah, Richard, I’m doing great. Thanks.” Boricio smiled, the need to slam his fist into the door of the elevator making itself too comfortable to leave — a lot like Styley, who stood three feet from Boricio staring.

“Can I help you with something, Styley?”
 

It must have been something in the way he said it, because Styley took a dweeby step back from Boricio and started shaking his head furiously back and forth. “No, Mr. Bishop,” he said. “You just look upset, so I was seeing if there was something I could help you with. Like maybe you were having trouble with the elevator.”
 

No, I’m not having any trouble with the elevator. I’m having trouble with a know-it-all philosophizing dick tip, fuckyouverymuch.
 

“No,” Boricio shook his head, unclenching his fist and relaxing his fingers. “No trouble at all, Richard. I just forgot what I was here for, and I hate it when that happens.”

“I know how that feels.” Styley smiled, though Boricio thought the smile looked thinner than a summer sweater.
 

Boricio nodded, then pressed 5, and set his hand on the scanner. The green line went up and down, then dinged as the elevator began to move. Boricio ignored Styley as the man pressed the 6 and put his hand on the scanner.

The elevator doors dinged closed. Boricio quickly scowled, then scrubbed it from his face before the doors opened to Level Five a few seconds later. He stepped from the elevator before the doors were even half open, ignoring Styley as he said a meek “Goodbye,” and marched down the hallway toward Will’s office, trying to keep his calm, despite an inferno of rage burning inside him, licking an inner certainty that Will had revoked his access to Level Seven.
 

Boricio spent the entire hallway breathing in and out and in and out as he tried untangling the pretzeled thoughts and twisted circles threading through his head. Another 15 minutes of Boricio’s practiced breathing, or hell, even a long hour of Lamaze wouldn’t be enough. He stormed into Will’s office, barely able to keep accusation and anger from owning his voice.
 

“Wanna tell me why the fuck my security clearance has been downgraded?!” Boricio yelled. “I just tried to get to Level Seven, like I have every day since you dragged my ass and entire life onto this island.”

Will calmly looked up from his desk, sighed, then held Boricio’s angry gaze for a half-minute or so before turning his attention back to the thin stack of sheets scattered across his desk. He stared down for another second, then shook his head and pushed the papers into a pile toward the corner.
 

“Boricio,” he said, “I don’t want to fight, not about this or anything else.”
 

“If you didn’t want to fight, then you wouldn’t have done sh…
stuff
behind my back.” He watched his language, giving Will nothing to bitch about and only the facts to argue. Boricio swallowed and breathed, waiting for Will to respond.

“I understand how you’re feeling, and hear what you’re saying,” Will said, “And I’m sorry you’re angry. But I did what I had to do and stand by my decision. Unfortunately, you weren’t around when I made it. If you were standing beside me, I would have told you.
I
certainly have nothing to hide. Can you say the same?”

Boricio’s fingers curled back into their fists.
 

Will shook his head, sighed, and then stood up and walked around his desk to face Boricio.
 

“I’m not afraid of you, Boricio. I am your father. And I will do what is right, always. I’m sorry about Rose.” He cleared his throat. “Truly I am. But there’s nothing I can do. What’s happened has happened, and the best thing we can do now — the healthiest thing for us to do together — is to accept that reality and do what we can within the realms of proven medicine, not the vials. What I cannot allow to happen,” he bored his eyes into Boricio’s, “what I
will not
allow to happen, is for you to go over my head again. That isn’t good for Level Seven, Son, and it’s definitely not good for our family.”
 

“I didn’t go over your head,” Boricio said. “Or behind your back. Unless you’ve suddenly been named as head of the Remedy Project and didn’t take me out for a steak to celebrate, then I beg to fucking differ.”

Will had walked around to Boricio’s side of the desk, but the words spilled from Boricio’s lips without a single breath taken, and nearly every word from the inside of a snarl made him take a surprisingly large step back.
 

Boricio finished. “You’re a
consultant
to the Remedy Project, Will, a
consultant
just like me, not in charge. And what I thought had to be done with Luca didn’t require your particular brand of it
ain’t gonna work
, so I took it to Williams, who knew I was right, and helped to save
your
son from the death sentence
you
were all too willing to accept.”

“It was wrong,” Will said. “And
you
were wrong.
Are
wrong. The only reason you’re even allowed to step foot inside this facility is because I brought you in and put my name beside yours. You may be too old for me to be your legal guardian out there,” Will pointed past the wall of his office, “but in here, that’s exactly who I am, like it or not. I gave you full access and you abused your position.”
 

“Sorry that your memory’s only working in bits and pieces, Pops, but the truth is that you brought me into Level Seven to bail you out, and we both know it.”
 

“I never needed you to bail me out, Boricio,” Will said. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Well, you sure as shit needed me to help you ‘deal with all the assholes and politics of the job,’ or is that not the exact words you used when you asked me to come work here?”
 

Boricio took another step toward Will. “I’m the only one in here who gets you, and that’s why you need me. So what are you gonna do if you downgrade me,
Dad
? How are you gonna get by?”

“I managed before and I’ll manage again, but
this
is unacceptable. I will not be held hostage by my son, or made to feel as though my instincts are frail. You don’t know everything, Boricio. Some things you don’t know on purpose because you can’t. And there are times when you have to be okay with that. Despite your access, and our relationship, I am privy to classified information that I cannot legally share with you.”

For the first time, Will’s eyes held a hint of apology. “I’m sorry, Boricio, but that’s the way it is. This is one of those times where you just have to trust me. Honestly, after all these years I feel it’s the least I deserve.” He shook his head. “You have no idea how much acid you give me.” He pushed his hand against his stomach, as though the acid was leaking.

For a second, Boricio felt so bad he wanted to vomit, but the bear inside him knew it was all bullshit. Will was making excuses. If Boricio knew something that Will needed to know, then he wouldn’t give a dozen undigested kernels worth of crap whether it was classified or not.
 

Boricio said, “What am I supposed to do with my day then, Will, huh? If I’m not heading into Level Seven, then what in the hell am I doing? Why even be here? I might as well go to New Orleans and be a cook.”
 

“No need to be all dramatic, Son,” he shook his head, now standing beside Boricio. Will set his calm hands gently on Boricio’s shoulders, and looked him in the eyes. “This isn’t a forever decision. It’s temporary; difficult to make but the right thing to do. The downgrade is in effect immediately because I felt it was necessary. The second I no longer feel that way, it will fade like a hangover. I promise.” Will smiled at Boricio. “Okay?”

Boricio didn’t say anything because he didn’t know what he could say. No, it wasn’t fucking okay. He was about to nod anyway when Will said, “There’s plenty to do, Boricio. Marshall needs all sorts of help on his lab work and filing. Wilson, too. Most of Level Five in fact. There’s more than enough to keep you busy for now.”
 

Will suddenly brightened, as if only at that moment realizing the true abundance of available work.
 

Boricio wasn’t smiling.
 

“What in the hell are you saying, Will?”
 

“I’m not saying anything,” Will shook his head, suddenly flustered. “Except that there’s plenty of work to be done and that you don’t have to worry about having nothing to do.”

Boricio said, “Well, then maybe you can clarify. Because what it sounded like you said was that you wanted me to be an administrative assistant for all the Dilberts on Level Five. Did I misunderstand your message?”
 

Boricio’s shoulders felt like they’d grown three feet. Something inside him enjoyed watching Will retreating back to his side of the desk, and the way his pores were practically bleeding fear.
 

If Boricio couldn’t get the respect he deserved, he’d damned well settle for fear.
 

“Boricio,” Will said. “Be reasonable. I’m not asking you to leave. I’m asking you to be patient, and to trust me.” He leaned across the desk, either less afraid or swallowing his fear. “I promise, I’m only thinking of you. As much as you think you deserve my faith, and you do Boricio, I deserve yours too. And I asked for it first.” Will gave him a weak smile then said, “Please believe I know what’s best. At least this time.”

Boricio shook his head. “I can’t do that,” he said. “Because you don’t. You didn’t know what was best for Luca, and you don’t know what’s best for Rose.”