Race Across The Sky Part 29

"You have to. Let go. Smile at the sky."

A halting hour pa.s.sed. They moved in perfect solitude.But June began limping noticeably, holding her side. Caleb could see the energy dripping out of her and onto the gray road. They slowed to a walk, and he took her hand.

"You can do it," he told her. "We can't be far."

And then a noise gathered from the distance. It reminded him of something, a thing he had heard before, a rumble of sound, increasing, accelerating. And suddenly their mountain road was cut off by an explosion of eighteen wheelers coughing black spray, speeding SUVs, small cars whipping past them, blurs of color, deafening sound, a horrid thickening of the air. Lily burst out crying. Caleb stopped, his chest heaving, body dripping sweat, staring unbelievingly as they faced the onslaught of Interstate 120. It shot across their quiet road on a brutal and unforgiving diagonal, cutting them off.

There was no way across.

June bent over, panting. Above him, the baby was unhappy.

Caleb exercised a deep squat, and June took her from the backpack and sat down on the last patch of gray earth with her. She stroked Lily's head as she rummaged through her yellow pack. Caleb watched the thunder of the interstate, hands on his hips. He turned as June found a jar of baby-food peas and popped it open. Bugs emerged abruptly from everywhere. The smell was so thick that he became nauseated.

"The shortest distance to the next town has to be along the shoulder."

June shook her head, feeding Lily, who was quiet now. "We can't be on the shoulder of that thing. Everyone driving by will see us. They're going to think our car broke down and call the police for help. We're not even a town away."

Caleb worked through what would certainly happen: the police would find that they matched exactly the description of the couple being searched for in Yosemite, unfit parents who had wandered off from a strange group from Colorado without proper food or clothing. Lily would be turned over to Protective Services, examined by an overworked local doctor who wouldn't stop to think about genetic malfunctions. They would place her in foster care. Who knows how long they would keep her? He saw what Mack had done by telling the rangers about their lives. The simple truth was enough to punish them in the harshest possible manner.

"Hold on." In his voice he detected a scratch of panic. "I'll run up the highway, find a phone, and call Shane. You stay here with Lily and rest. I'll be fine. By myself I look like a guy taking a jog."

"You don't look anything like that," she informed him.

Caleb squinted into the noxious haze. To the right of the interstate there were dense woods. Caleb stepped closer, saw something there. A few yards into them, a narrow path had been beaten by road workers and littered with candy-bar wrappers, cigarette b.u.t.ts, soda cans. It was separated from the interstate by a thin curtain of brush and trees.

A semi exploded past, and its sound sent Lily into tears.

"Take her with you," June told him as the baby cried loudly.

"What?"

"I'm not keeping her out here in the open, where police could see us, in this heat. With these trucks. She needs milk and shade."

June began pulling the rest of the money, the blue fleece pullover Lily had worn at night in the van, a bottle, diapers, a stained white sun hat out of her yellow pack, and began shoving them into the big Kelty.

Caleb was still confused. "What about you?"

"I need time to rest. I'll be fine."

June's breaths shook her whole body. She changed the baby, kissed her ten times, and buckled her back into the backpack.

Caleb stretched his back, lifted the backpack, and nodded. "We'll be back for you in an hour."

"Don't come back."

Caleb stared at her.

"I'll hitch there. Don't bring my baby back to this place."

"I'm not leaving you here in the woods." His frustration was mounting. His body was slowing down, and once it crashed there would be no restarting it.

"Just go to the first exit you see," June cried. "Go to the first place to get food. Call Shane. I'll meet you there."

"No, we could get confused."

"You can't miss the first place at the first exit. Sit in a window booth. Let her sleep. I'll see you in there."

Caleb looked around helplessly, staring at the speeding trucks in front of him, the trees to his right, the hot sky above, as if beseeching them for answers. From above him Lily started crying again.

"Take my daughter out of here."

Caleb shook his head no.

"Go!" June shouted at him.

And without another word, he started into the woods.

3.

In the lobby no security guards pounced on him.

Riding the elevator Monday morning, Shane suffered visions of the entire Commercial Department turning to watch him walk through the hall like a high school kid caught with contraband. But then he blinked and saw Stacey tossing him her baseball as if nothing had happened. During that short ride, Shane seemed to exist in a world where a dozen different realities existed simultaneously; all he had to do was pick the one he liked most.

He got off on the executive floor and started down to Dennis's office. Dennis's a.s.sistant Danielle saw him approaching, she picked up her headset and called someone, her voice intentionally m.u.f.fled, her brown eyes darting to him as he arrived. For his part, Shane stood with his hands clasped behind his back, studying a bright painting of a horse on the brick wall.

Some minutes later, Tonya Jackson, a large woman from Human Resources in a bright purple suit, and a slight young man who was clearly of the legal profession, walked into Dennis's office. The door closed behind them. Some minutes pa.s.sed. Shane spent them considering all the places he might take Nicholas this spring: a Giants game, music in the park. It would be great fun, he thought, to be a real dad, present. Then Danielle nodded for him to go inside.

As Shane entered the office he recalled his interview, just less than a year earlier. As before, Dennis sat, his torso towering above his desk, the gray hair over the young face, the Scottish black brows, his blue eyes as warm as ever.

He greeted him in his deep baritone. "Shane."

"Hi, Dennis," Shane replied breezily, returning the kind vibe.

Dennis sighed. "I'm really miserably disappointed."

"I'm right there with you."

"Can you please explain this to me? What were you guys doing?"

"I was doing some pro bono work after hours. It didn't affect my work here in any way."

"You asked me. You asked Dineesh. You even asked Anthony. And we all told you no."

"You told me not to apply for an orphan grant. And I didn't. What I do on my own time should not be a company concern. It doesn't impact the company in any way."

Dennis sat straight, his eyebrows arching. "You took a patented protein from our lab and cloned it. That's not acting as a private citizen, that's theft." He took an audible breath. "Unless, is that postdoc exaggerating?"

"Depends," Shane said, "on what he's saying."

Dennis rumbled, "He's a p.r.i.c.k."

"We can agree on that."

"Jon brought him in to talk. And as soon as he was finished telling us about you and Prajuk Acharn, do you know what he did?"

"What?"

"He asked for a job."

Shane smiled. "Really? He did that?"

Dennis shook his head in disbelief, and for a moment they almost shared a laugh. The moment pa.s.sed. "Jon told him we don't have any postdoc positions available. And the kid said then he wouldn't give an affidavit about what you guys were doing." Dennis rubbed a large hand through his thick gray hair. "Do you know why?"

"I don't."

"Because he doesn't want to hurt his reputation. He says no one will hire a postdoc they can't trust."

"Smart kid."

Dennis's eyes darted to the others, who sat together on a tan couch behind Shane like spectators at a ball game.

Tonya spoke.

"Did you and Doctor Prajuk Acharn isolate, clone, and humanize a therapeutic IgE antibody patented by Helixia?"

"I'm fired, right?" Shane asked Dennis.

"You were fired Friday."

Shane nodded. "I did some of those things. But I worked alone. I asked Doctor Acharn a bunch of questions, tricked him kind of. He didn't know what I was doing. As for the antibody, I can a.s.sure you that no protein created at this company was used for the purpose for which it has been patented."

He watched Dennis's dark eyebrows arch curiously at that.

From behind him the lawyer interjected angrily, "You removed a vector with patented material from our premises and copied it."

"I broke no law."

"You broke corporate policy."

"That," Shane agreed, "may be a different matter."

Dennis leaned forward, watching him intently. "Your postdoc said you're giving what you made to a baby?"

"He's all 'roided out. It's messing with his brain."

"You mentioned a baby to me, and to Anthony. A baby you knew."

A security guard appeared in the doorway.

"Hey, Jose," Shane nodded to him.

"Shane," he replied uncomfortably.

"What about Prajuk?" Shane asked them.

Tonya Jackson took that one. "Doctor Acharn is one of our most important scientists, and a trusted colleague of Steven Poulos."

A cool stream of relief flooded his chest. He turned back to Dennis. "I really loved working here. I think you guys are geniuses."

"It sounds like you've seen counsel. Whoever you saw, make sure you get even better."

Tanya stood and handed him a manila folder full of doc.u.ments and began to speak about the immediate termination of all benefits. When she finished, Jose followed him out of the room.

"Sorry, but I got to escort you straight out the building."

"Sure." Shane headed down to the lobby. Standing by the elevator, he smiled. "I've got a picture of my family on my desk."

"I'll get it to you, man."

Shane shook Jose's hand and walked into the cool day. He got into his car and without a second's pause drove out of the lot, past the McDonald's where Prajuk had first told him about closed and open doors, the Thai Orchid, where he had snuck quick dinners with Janelle before they were married. He took the short road to Greenway Plaza, stopped in the lot he had grown to love, and called her. He realized with a sharp pain deep in his side that he had just obliterated any chance she had of ever going back to her job.

She picked up frantically. "Why haven't you answered your phone?"

"I had it off during my . . ." It hit him then. "What happened to Nicholas?"

"Caleb's here."

He sat up straight, as some force lurched from the ground and slammed into his body.

"Put him on."

"Not here in the house. He's up in Yosemite."

"Yosemite Park?" Shane squeezed his eyes closed, trying to orient himself.

"He wants you to get him. He's at a hotel. The Groveland Hotel."

"You spoke to him?"