Passionate Obsession by D.M. Mortier
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Scientists
“Don’t think that we don’t know that you’re holding out on us,” Dr. Gloria Forbes hissed. She stared with growing loathing at Dr. Reiner. Every formula for the serum that she and Dr. Everette had come across had been different in some form or another. The differences were subtle, and they may have never noticed, except, when they changed facilities, one of the technicians had complained about missing a minor element in inventory purchase. The formula had been reviewed then against the formula that both Dr. Forbes and Dr. Everette had copies of. The discrepancies started to emerge, forcing Dr. Forbes to confront Dr. Reiner, who had been the originator of the serum.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dr. Reiner said defiantly.
“You want to play games, Dean?” Dr. Everette growled.
“It’s not a game,” Dr. Reiner bit out.
“Then tell us how we both supposedly have the formula for the serum, and not only are the formulae different from each other, they are also different from what the lab in Alaska has been mass producing!”
“Gloria, if they are different, it was not deliberate,” Dr. Reiner insisted. “I honestly thought I had perfected the serum.”
“What are you saying?” The stunned horror on both Dr. Forbes’ and Dr. Everette’s faces would have been comical under any circumstances except this one.
Dean was living up to his great-grandfather’s, his grandfather’s, and his father’s notoriously scatterbrained, absentminded scientist persona to perfection. The men in his family, although brilliant scientists, were a bit eccentric and plenty disorganized.It wasn’t deliberate, but it posed a significant risk to any organization relying on them to remember the process of their experiments. “When I found my father’s work on the serum, there were over one hundred different variations of the formula and the procedure. Apparently, this was the issue from the start with my great-grandfather. No one could remember precisely the formula or the procedure.”
“Are you telling us that, all this time, we were using the incorrect formula?” Dr. Forbes’ rage was on the edge of violence.
Dean swallowed audibly. “Well, one of them worked, because Katia survived.”
“And so she has. What is the problem then, Dr. Reiner? What formula did you use on her?”
“Well, that’s the thing, Gloria. I gave her the serum after she was pregnant and forgot to mark which one it was. So, I gave several variations and now don’t know which worked because, even with the formula in hand, I was changing ingredients and procedures.” It wasn’t true, but Dean knew that his reputation for disorganization would lend credence to his lie. While it was true that he gave her various serums, he gave it to her before she was pregnant, so clearly one of them had worked. Which one? He didn’t know precisely. What he did know was that none of the formulae currently in Dr. Forbes and Dr. Everette’s possession were accurate. He would never let them have any of the fifteen or so variations he had given Katia.
“You are a fucking imbecile!” Dr. Everette hissed. “We have been traveling around the world touting this serum to some of the most dangerous governments in existence, and you now tell us that we have been touting bullshit?!?!”
“I told you not to do that,” Dean insisted. “I told you that we had no proof that the serum worked!”
“Yes, but you didn’t tell us that we had no formula for the serum that worked before!” Gloria screamed.
“You have one day, Dean,” Dr. Everette gritted out in a deadly voice. He stared down at Dean with cold determination. “You have twenty-four hours to get us the correct formula. A formula you will use on your children and wife.”
“You can’t—”
“Save it! Twenty-four hours, Dean!”