Chapter Twenty-Eight

Gabriel

Gabriel laughs till he almost chokes on a handful of potato chips. He’s watching Marco and Valerie on the security feed in the lab from home. He can’t believe it’s taken Marco this long to catch on to what’s been going on right under his nose this whole time, let alone Valerie. He wonders if she found out the truth on her own, or if Marco finally told her. He probably did, he’s short on friends these days. In all fairness, the two of them did do their best to snuff out her previous suspicions. Maybe she shouldn’t have second-guessed herself.

Even though he’s home alone, he shouts at the projector, as if they can hear him on the other side.

“It’s all been right in front of you the whole time, ya idiots!”

They’re just as helpless as they look. He’s so far ahead of them, it’s silly. He knew from the start that Marco could appreciate the big picture, but he didn’t expect such blind loyalty from him. Of course, he was never going to take the old man to the other side in the end. He’s too much of a square, and Valerie, she’s turned out to be the idealist he always knew she would be.

Life after death is not something Paul, or even he, ever planned to share with their mere coworkers. Paul was always on the fence about Marco, but they easily agreed that Valerie was not the kind of person that believes the end justifies the means. Now, it’s up to Barry and Sabrina to make sure he program stays funded, and continues under the radar.

When he first got the alarm notifying him that his personal terminal had been accessed, his knee-jerk reaction was to lock Valerie and Marco out of the entire lab system, but he didn’t. He decided to be patient and wait to see what they were up to. He doesn’t care that they’ve deleted all of the prototype’s share files. Neither of them ever meant anything to him anyway, and at least he can’t be blamed for doing it himself now. He would’ve done it himself for fun if he’d known they had so much personal interest in them.

What annoys him the most in all of the project, is that they’ve all wasted so much time raising those specific two women. They were both troublemakers then, and they still are now. Thousands of minds have been cached since gluteal aldehyde preservation became a thing. They could’ve brought back anyone, but no, Paul made it personal. He wanted to see the process work on someone fresh, from start to finish, for himself.

Even after Five-One and Two, he still hasn’t been able to prove out a viable synapse recovery technique. He isn’t about to bring another random person back either, just to test a process out. They’ve learned that lesson well enough. Paul is going to start pulling his own weight in all of this, one way or another.

After wiping his oily hands off on the sides of his shirt, he starts slamming away on the keyboard sitting atop his food-baby. In the message he’s sending to the remaining members of the research board, he’s informing them on the details of what Valerie and Marco have just done with all the project files. He recommends that it’s time to pull them from the project. They’ve both done their parts and aren’t needed anymore.

It’ll be easy to simply send Valerie back to AMF, but retiring Marco will be more difficult. He has a feeling the old man has countermeasures in place for if they ever decided to not honor their end of the bargain. He can feel it. In the time it takes for him to microwave another jar of cheese dip, someone already replies to the group message. It’s Barry. He grumbles at his poor luck,

“Of course that creepy old codger is still at his desk.”

He shakes his head upon reading the reply. He could’ve guessed as much. Barry has requested that the remaining Five-Series prototype be seized and contained immediately. He also mentions that he will personally see to its handling and storage, for the sake of security.

He knows the old pervert just wants the pretty one for his private purposes, but he doesn’t care. It’s none of his business as far as he’s concerned, and it’s only a matter of time before she is noticed on the outside anyway. Dr. Morgan cannot be allowed to parade Five around like she has been.

He replies back to the group with a recommendation on who to task with the reposession. Given their reputation as indiscriminate handlers, Mikel and Ray are his top picks. The rest of his superiors all agree that Barry has the company’s best intentions in mind and decree that he be responsible for cleaning up this phase of the project, before moving on to the next.

While shoving more snack into his face, he changes the display back to the smut he had on before the security notification interrupted him. He was thinking about Dr. Morgan’s sweet round ass and was going to try to find a look-alike on the internet, but now the mood is gone.

It looks like Barry decided to not tell the others about having already started phase two. It makes him wonder if Marco isn’t the only one with his neck on the chopping block. All he has to do is surmise who Barry would rather not share eternity with. It’s not a streatch. He’d better start covering his own ass too.