An Intangible Pattern

Plans in motion

Alex awoke. Everything Hurt!
She groaned and painfully rolled over onto her side, reaching for the pain killers in her night stand.
The evening before, Arthur had insisted that she let him call out his family doctor. She was still running on adrenaline and though she was certain she was fine, one look in the bathroom mirror changed her mind. She was sporting a pretty bruise under her left eye, there were cuts across her cheek and nose and friction burns on the left side of her face and chin.
The doctor arrived shortly after and confirmed that, while she did not have a concussion, she had badly bruised her ribs and neck and she would need to refrain from strenuous activities for a month.
She lay back in bed waiting for the painkillers to take effect. Now that the initial giddiness of surviving the accident had worn off, her stomach sank at the thought of her car. She sighed and concluded it was unsalvageable, she could say goodbye to her savings.
Something second hand will be fine. So long as it works!
Gingerly, she eased herself out of bed and opened her suitcase, grateful she had packed a long, green, knitted dress that could easily be slipped over her head: the less bending down she had to do the better.
Arthur was sat at the dining table in the kitchen reading a newspaper, when she finally shuffled downstairs.
"Morning... or afternoon I should say. How do you feel today?"
"Not my best if I'm honest." She groaned and hobbled into the kitchen to put the kettle on. Arthur stood up wordlessly and reached up into the cupboard to retrieve a mug for her.
"Thanks," she muttered gratefully.
"Not a problem. Do you want some lunch, or just toast?
"Just toast I think. I'm not very hungry right now."
"Alright, take a seat and I'll get it for you. Don't strain yourself."
She didn't argue with him and sat down at the table, wincing in pain.
In a few moments he set her breakfast in front of her and joined her at the table.
"Where's Cat?"
"She's gone into town to pick some things up for you from the pharmacy, she'll be back soon."
"I appreciate it. I don't think I've ever been in this much pain."
"You do look like the walking dead."
"Thanks," she retorted sarcastically and munched her toast.
Arthur watched her guiltily and said, "In all seriousness, I feel awful about it. If there's anything I can do, just name it."
"It's fine. What did you need me for anyway? Cat said you were in trouble?"
Grimly, Arthur summarized the whole situation for her.
She sipped silently on her tea trying to keep her face as neutral as possible when he got to the part about Noah being stabbed.
"It's all just a dreadful misunderstanding! Noah wouldn't hurt a fly, but now it looks like he's tangled up in whatever those men were doing. We know we don't produce formula 52, but someone connected with us must be responsible because the drug they recovered from the bay is identical."
"Are you sure it isn't Noah?" She asked breathlessly, her heart pounding in her chest and her stomach in knots.
Arthur gave her a stern look and answered firmly, "I'm positive. I would bet my life, no, Cat's life on it. It's his life's work, there's absolutely no way he would do it!"
"And you want me to prove it?"
"If you can. I'm willing to give you access to everything: our accounts, our records, whatever you need."
"Let's start with your recent accounts and see if there are any discrepancies. That would at least support your story, but if you want me to track back through the last forty years, I'll need you to narrow it down or it could take forever."
"Noah has asked Graeme to help you with that, he was one of the original researchers."
An apprehensive look passed over Alex's features and Arthur was quick to reassure her, "Don't panic. Most of this can be done over video link, you won't be left alone with an alpha if it makes you uncomfortable."
She cast her eyes down and nodded.
"I'm going to set you up in my study and I'll get you a company logon and email address by Monday. In the meantime you can use mine to get familiar with the system...if you feel up to it that is..."
"Well, what else am I going to do?" She said with a resigned smile.
"You don't have to start right now."
"It's fine. It might keep my mind off the pain."
After she had eaten, he ushered her through to the office.
"Please sit here, now let me just log on..." he muttered as he typed his password into his laptop. Alex carefully lowered herself into the comfortable leather office chair at his old and battered, but still beautiful desk: clearly a prized heirloom Arthur refused to be parted from because it took up a disproportionate amount of space in the office, a detail that Alex imagined would irk her sister.
She glanced around the room she would be spending several weeks in: dark green walls, old bookcases and a big bay window with a view into the garden. It was cozy and old fashioned and she saw why Arthur liked it in here, it felt like a refuge.
"Here we go! So if you click here, this gives you access to the accounts, and this folder here has copies of all our receipts. Minutes of business meetings and other things are here..."
She watched patiently as Arthur guided her through the company's most important and exclusive documents.
"... By the time you're finished, I'm sure you'll know the workings of the company better than I do."
" I better sign a non disclosure agreement then."
"Do you think it's necessary?"
"I think it's a good idea. You might trust me, but your other shareholders might not be too happy. It just protects you and keeps everything above board."
"All right, we'll worry about it on Monday. Noah asked me to give him a call when you got here so you can get to know Graeme and ask questions, err... I haven't got around to telling him what happened last night. Would it be ok?" He scanned the cuts and bruises on her face.
Alex's stomach leapt uneasily at the thought of talking to Noah again but she nodded, anxious to get it over with.
Arthur bent over the laptop again and clicked around the screen. Alex took a deep breath as the line connected. After a couple of rings, Noah appeared on the screen, looking slightly worse for wear.
"Hello?"
"It's me. I've got Alex with me..."
Noah's face fell and he inhaled sharply at the sight of her, "Oh god! What happened?"
"I crashed my car," she answered dully.
"Are you alright?"
"Just bruised, "she said, averting her eyes from his worried gaze.
"Are you up to this?"
"It's fine. I'd rather have something to do."
Noah looked nonplussed, so Arthur interrupted the silence, "Let's just give it a go. You can always take a step back if it's too much, just let us know. I've explained the situation to Alex, but I've left the stuff about formula 52 up to you to explain."
Noah seemed to snap back to himself.
"Right... just a minute, let me get Graeme." He darted off screen and returned a few moments later with the old man. Graeme shuffled into view next to Noah and whistled at the sight of Alex.
"You've had a rough night, Miss."
"You could say that. Anyway, what is formula 52?" she retorted impatiently.
Graeme chuckled admiringly, "You don't waste any time do you? Alright, formula 52. The long and short of it is it was an experimental drug we developed back in 1964 while we were developing suppressants for omegas. Essentially, we were trying to speed up our research. It was a new technology, there weren't many volunteers because people were afraid it would make them infertile. So the omegas among our researchers put themselves forward as test subjects."
Graeme paused and sighed deeply, "However, we could only gather data from each subject once a month and there were only 22 omegas among the staff who were willing to volunteer. Essentially, we had to prove the treatment was safe to draw in more volunteers and test it properly and for that we needed a lot more data.
So, we developed another drug to induce heat on demand and a handful of the researchers, including my wife and Noah's grandmother, tested it on themselves.
Then, almost a year later, the first member of staff developed cancer, a man called Freddie. By the time he realized he had it, it was too late, it had already metastasized. It spread from his reproductive organs through the rest of the body and he died six weeks after his diagnosis."
Alex felt a pang of sympathy as the old man swallowed and coughed before continuing his story.
"So at the time we thought once, well that could just be bad luck; but from that moment on, we checked everyone's white blood cell counts weekly. Then the next member of staff, Kate, started showing symptoms. She dropped out of the study and was lucky, in that she survived, but she had to have a hysterectomy.
As you can imagine everyone got scared at this point and we lost six more volunteers. Of the remaining staff, seven developed cancer, our most senior researchers. The rest, who had not received formula 52, were fine. In the end we concluded that frequently inducing heat increased the risk of cellular damage to the reproductive organs and formula 52 was scrapped."
"Why did they do it?" Alex asked, stunned by his account of the horrific experiment. He met her eyes and sighed.
"You have to remember, it was a different time back then for omegas. Things were a lot worse than they are today. Omegas lived in constant fear, they were more isolated than they are now: they struggled to find employment, they were seldom seen in public until they were paired off with an alpha, you were lucky if you could study, early bloomers had to drop out of school and couldn't improve their prospects. There was no support, no protection: your only hope hinged on finding an alpha to protect you and you were lucky if you found one who wasn't a jealous brute." He smiled lopsidedly, at the self implication.
"There was no internet. You wrote to your prospective mates and even then you ran the risk of being raped the second you came face to face with them, and since they had your address from your letters and often your scent was on the paper, there were more than a few instances of stalking. It was hell!
What we were trying to do was give omegas some control over their own bodies. A way to live normal lives and prevent them from being socially ostracized. The omegas in our team were willing to give their lives for it and they succeeded...but we lost a lot of good people in the process."
"And someone is selling this drug to the public?"
Noah shook his head and interjected, "I don't think it's being sold to the general public. We'd have seen a spike in the number of cancer cases among the omega population if that were the case. I think something more sinister is happening, that they are using it in prostitution rings to control trafficked omegas. People who fall through the cracks and no one notices when they disappear."
Alex frowned, "and all you want me to do is prove it wasn't you?"
Arthur turned to her and nodded "Yes, but if you also find something that can help us figure out who is behind it, that would be invaluable to the police."
Alex's eyes flicked to Noah, he set his jaw as though reading her thoughts.
"Ok, fine. But we have to narrow this down. When do you think this information was leaked?"
Graeme folded his arms and muttered thoughtfully, "I think we started work on formula 52 at the beginning of 1965 and we scrapped it in about July 1966?"
"Well if we start there then?"
Noah nodded, "I'll take a look in storage for the archives tonight. I'll need a witness with me though, since I'm the number one suspect."
"Graeme and I will go. You should probably stay away from the evidence as much as possible," reasoned Arthur.
"Very well."
Alex turned gingerly to her brother in law, "Can you make sure you bring the accounts, inventory and internal communications from that time as well? Not just the lab reports. I'll need to build up an overall picture of what was happening."
"Of course, but that's a lot of information for one person to go through. Will you manage?"
"I can try. For now I'll analyze the recent stuff."
Graeme shuffled out of frame and they heard him say, "I'll head into the office and pick up the keys."
"I can borrow the van and drive us both down. I'll pick you up from work in an hour?" offered Arthur.
"That works for me." Graeme called out, his voice muffled as he could be heard leaving the room.
"I can see about finding you some help. I think this will still be a big job even after narrowing things down." said Noah once he was alone again.
The door clattered in the hall and Cat called out, "Hey I'm home, Arthur, can you help me empty the car?"
"Back in five minutes," apologized Arthur as he rushed off to help his wife.
Noah and Alex were alone.
"Alex? I just wanted to say I'm sorry that you've been pulled into all of this again, it wasn't my idea."
She shook her head, "I'm here now."
"Thankyou."
She looked down the camera at him, her battered face set in a look of defiance, "You should know Noah, that if I do find anything connecting you to this, I will expose you."
He smiled sadly and replied, "Well, at least I can trust you to be thorough."
The study door opened and Cat bustled into the room carrying a plastic bag with a green cross on it.
"Hey, oh hello Noah!" She dropped the bag on the table in front of her sister and scanned her face, "how are you feeling?
"Sore, but I'm alright."
Cat tutted at her stoic expression, entirely unconvinced. "There's some ibuprofen gel in the bag. It should help bring down the swelling." She glanced up at Noah and smiled warmly, "How are you getting on? You look a little peaky."
"I'm fine, thanks Cat. Just all work and no play as usual."
"You should come round for dinner. A change of scenery would do you good."
Alex tensed and drew her hand to her neck at the sudden pain it caused her. She caught the flicker of anxiety on Noah's face which he quickly covered up, with a genial smile, "Another time maybe, I should probably avoid your place for now, while the documents are being moved over. The police are still watching me."
Cat tutted in mock outrage and crossed her arms, "Always an excuse! At this rate I'm going to start believing you don't like me, well you better be here for the Christmas party, I'm not taking no for an answer!"
"It's not like that. I just don't want to bring suspicion on you and Arthur ..."
"I think it's more suspicious that you would hide from your family at Christmas time. Honestly, if you aren't here I will march down there and drag you. If the police want to follow you, well they're welcome to come in for a drink. You haven't been arrested..."
"Yet..."
"All the more reason to enjoy your freedom while it lasts." Cat beamed at him with a winsome grin.
Noah sighed, defeatedly.
"I'll try, no promises though."
"Not good enough..."
"Cat! Are you bullying the poor man!" chuckled Arthur from the doorway, "Sorry Noah, but if you don't do what she says, the police will be the least of your worries."
"I might just beg them to arrest me now." Noah quipped dryly.
Cat pouted and gave the men a sullen look, "Don't even think of it."
"Alright, I'll see what I can do. I'm going to go, I need to draw my new friends on a wild goose chase so they're too busy watching me to notice you and Graeme."
"Yeah, I better head off as well, it'll take time to move all of this stuff out of storage."
"Call tomorrow?"
"Sounds good."
"If you have any questions Alex, you can call me at any time. Speak later."
"See you." Arthur said before the call disconnected.
Arthur turned to his wife and kissed her cheek.
"I'll be back later. Want me to pick anything up while I'm out?"
"No, I got everything I needed."
"Alex?"
"Hmm?" Alex tore her eyes away from the screen and looked at him blankly.
"Do you need anything?"
"Oh... no. I'm good. I'm just going to get started," she got up stiffly and moved carefully out of the room, "I just need my laptop, all my programmes are on it."
Fuck! She thought as she got to the top of the stairs. She pondered Noah's parting words "speak later." It was clear he wanted her to call him, that they had more they needed to discuss, but with Cat keeping a watchful eye on her, when would she have the chance?
She clenched her teeth and retrieved her laptop from the bedroom.