Page 83 of Tango

“How do dreams usually end? With the sound of my alarm clock dragging me into a new day. But this time, I was really uncomfortable that my dream stopped so abruptly. It felt like I was about to get really important information. But I kind of let it go. It didn’t bother me until after I called Vivian.”

“Were you calling about the lab?”

“To find out how much formula she had on hand. If she needs more soon, I need to plan another batch run because I’m out at the Alabaster lab, which turns out to be a gift.”

“Really?” Chanti asked.

“If Amanda swooped into town to get some more—or any, I shouldn’t be talking like it’s a proven fact that she used it—but if she did want the formula, there was none to be had.” Piper stilled. “What was that look on your face?”

“I need to have a serious talk with you. It can wait for tomorrow, but you certainly need to sit down and listen to what I’ve figured out. And it has to be in the morning, so you have time to process before the party.”

Piper shook her head. “I was involved in a terrible event. I can cancel the party. Everyone would understand.”

“Nix that. You’re going,” Chanti was emphatic. “Now, going back to your dream. Vivian wears a lab coat like a dentist, right? You might be remembering your dream because Vivian’s working in the lab made the images surface in your awareness.”

“Maybe.” That didn’t feel right to Piper.

“Do you have any other lab techs? What about at Alabaster?”

“They have them in their cosmetics labs, but I don’t interact with them except at company events.”

“You’re going to a company event,” Chanti pointed out.

“For the billionaire elites. I think I’m the only peon who is allowed other than catering.”

“You believe the Harcourts are stealing your work to scam money off people. That might be the explanation.”

“Kill them,” Piper whispered. “I couldn't care less about the money. I’m worried about the deaths.”

Chanti pursed her lips for a long moment, then said, “Maybe. But Amanda was just in the hospital. If she was in imminent medical danger, they would have seen something in her blood work. Cancer and white blood cells, right?”

“Except she didn’t have blood work. I was eavesdropping at lunch. Brandon, that’s Amanda’s nephew, said they gave her a quick look, her vitals were normal, and she left. She could still be in very grave danger. I plan to tell Ria—that’s Lionel’s sister—tomorrow, since you insist I go to the party. If they did what I think they did, Lionel and Amanda need a doctor to follow them, stat.”

“Did they break a law?” Chanti asked

“I think you’re allowed to shoot anything you want into your own body if it’s not something regulated like street drugs. It would be unlawful for me to shoot a substance into their body.”

“Your dad didn’t cure himself. He didn’t use the drug.”

“We were unsure about the cancer risk at that point. We laid out the mouse studies that clarified that question. That’s what I’ve been working on since his death. When Dad was still around, the chances were that, by taking the formula, he’d postpone the syndrome but die of cancer. He’d be jumping out of the pot and into the fire.” Piper blew her nose for the last time and tossed the used tissue into the trash. “I was thinking about timelines. If Lionel and Amanda took the medication when I think they did based on the pictures you sent me. And neither one has the SSR1030P mutation—and it’s statistically unlikely that either does—then the cancer proliferation is already raging. It would have been a miracle sequence of events if Amanda had to have blood work in the hospital —like that kid who was in the car crash, and they imaged his brain, found the tumor, and saved his life—same for Amanda, only with a kidnapping attempt.”

“Would it have been a miracle?” Chanti asked. “Is there an intervention? Chemo or stem cells or something? What kind of cancer?”

“Pancreatic.”

“Oh?”

“Once they’re sick enough to get a diagnosis, which will be soon if it metastasizes to the liver the way it has in the mouse studies, then they have weeks to months to live.”

“Me? I may sound like a cold-hearted beeyoch, but I say let the billionaires suffer the consequences of their vanity as a cautionary tale.” She dropped a hand onto Piper’s knee. “I fully get why you’d think differently. I didn’t develop the formula. I’ve never met them. Having no hand in their possibly poor choices, it’s an abstraction in my mind. And really hard to believe this is something that’s playing out.”

“Even if I agreed with you—the whole FAFO of things—if they took it, that’s one thing. But we—I—speculated they might have given it to others first. If Lionel ignored my warnings about cancer, they’d probably also ignore the dangers of pregnancies. It could affect fetuses who are wholly innocent.”

“If there are anomalies that are visible on an ultrasound, then I don’t think the pregnancy would be carried to term, right?”

“Do they have ultrasounds available to the potential moms out in the Java Sea? I don’t know. Besides, I have mouse models. I didn’t do ultrasounds on them. So I don’t know about that either. What if the conditions in humans aren’t visible on ultrasound or in blood work? What if it’s blindness, deafness, intellectual or psychological disorders? I mean, what if this formula created psychopaths, a whole army of psychopaths?”

“Now you’re catastrophizing,” Chanti said. “What if they created the kinds of superhumans formulated in a lab for the military, and they could run faster, lift more, and learn all the languages and speak them fluently? Maybe you developed superhumans, and then they’d band together and enslave humanity?”