Rivalries: Chapter Twenty-Five, Part Two

 Notes: Time for the chapter of REVELATIONS! Yes, let's all have a come to Jesus moment, courtesy of the somewhat disturbing Dr. Mullins. Enjoooooooy :)

Title: Rivalries: Chapter Twenty Five, Part Two

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Chapter Twenty-Five, Part Two

 

Charlie thought he knew the power of the covert, the unseen. He’d been a part of an elite black-ops unit, he’d worked with analysts from the CIA on some of the most exclusive intelligence in the world, and he’d witnessed the below-the-surface might that people all across the world wielded.

He had never seen someone quite like Katherine Mullins before.

It started with the meetings. Somehow, in less than eight hours, she’d arranged for a meeting with not only Colonel Patterson and his lawyer, but Principal Cross and her lawyer, as well as representation for Roland, all in the same room. Charlie and Camille were allowed to sit in, but it was very clear from the moment Dr. Mullins called to inform them she’d arranged things that they were in no way running the show.

Where did a scientist get this kind of influence? Where did her clout come from? Was her research really all that important, or had it just led to revelations that allowed her to increase her personal power? Charlie didn’t know, and he didn’t really want to, either. What he did want was to see her kick some ass on John’s behalf, and as he settled into a hard plastic chair next to Camille in the hospital’s private conference room—which again, how did she get access to that?—he had the feeling that asskicking was exactly what was about to happen.

“Thank you all for coming out so early today!” Dr. Mullins said brightly. Her eyes were gleaming with eagerness, and her voice was so friendly it was cloying.

“I don’t know how you got this guy—” the colonel jerked his thumb at his lawyer, who looked cowed “—to agree to wake me up so goddamn early, but my position hasn’t changed. We’re not committing ourselves to anything before my wife wakes up, and that could be—”

“Probably fewer than twenty-four hours, given her last brain scan,” Dr. Mullins interrupted.

Colonel Patterson frowned. “How do you have access to that? That’s a HIPAA violation, completely illegal.”

“But it’s not,” Dr. Mullins replied. “Because your wife signed some very extensive paperwork when she became the liaison between G&J Pharmaceuticals and the military research facility I work for. It includes access to all of her medical records, at any time. Not just for the period in which we were working together.”

The colonel’s frown became a scowl. “Now I know that’s illegal, and unenforceable in court.”

“Your wife was compos mentis when she signed it, and it’s certainly not unenforceable in a military court, which is where the jurisdiction lies,” Dr. Mullins said. “What can I say, sir? Your wife is a decent chemist and researcher, but she would make a very bad lawyer.”

“You—” The colonel stopped and turned to stare at his lawyer, who nodded helplessly.

“She’s right,” the man murmured.

“But that’s not—”

“Let’s move on!” Dr. Mullins chirped.

Charlie exchanged a look with Camille. She seemed just as dumbfounded as he felt, lifting her shoulders in a helpless “I don’t even know” gesture.

“When your wife was working with the military, she was studying the effects of a drug intended to allow users to incorporate new information into their knowledge base while they were asleep. It would have been a game changer for the military—soldiers who could be put to use twenty-four-seven, who could continually refine their skills.” Dr. Mullins clearly had her patter down. Charlie wondered how often she’d given this talk. “Of course, the civilian implications would also have been phenomenal—image a drug that would let college students continue their studies while they were asleep, instead of cramming the night before an exam. Fantastic! A clear money maker, if it worked…which it didn’t.”

Principal Cross suddenly dropped her eyes. Her face was pale, so pale she looked like she was about to faint.

What’s her angle here?

“Early trials were a complete disaster,” Dr. Mullins went on in a disappointed tone. “The participants showed some incorporation of data at first, but their retention was terrible, and repeated doses began to affect their waking lives. They hallucinated, found themselves unable to speak or move at times, lost control of their executive functions. One of the soldiers involved in the study died.” She looked at Principal Cross. “I believe he was your son, wasn’t he?”

Everyone froze. Charlie could hardly believe what he was hearing—he knew something had happened to Principal Cross, something people didn’t like to talk about, but he had no idea her son had died…and in such a pointless way, too.

“The program was terminated,” Dr. Mullins went on, now addressing the colonel, whose jaw was tight. “Your wife, who had championed the drug, found herself having to abandon years’ worth of work. But she had a theory. Perhaps the trial participants had been too old to properly handle the drug’s effects. Perhaps a mind with more plasticity would do what she needed it to. She spent a bit of time refining the formula, then moved on to finding her next target demographic…teenagers.

“She must have been so pleased when you two became Roland’s foster parents.” Dr. Mullins folded her hands on the tabletop, her eyes glittering. “Perhaps she told you that it was the only way you could be parents, not that she’d ever wanted to before. I don’t know how she sold the idea to you, Colonel, but I did get a chance to look at Roland’s bloodwork—and yes,” she added with a dismissive wave, “I know, HIPAA, but I was brought in as a professional consultant when doctors failed to identify the rogue element in his results, so spare me.”

“This…it doesn’t…you can’t prove anything,” Colonel Patterson stammered. “Not until…this is all circumstantial at best!”

“I suppose in some ways it is, although it makes for very compelling testimony,” Dr. Mullins agreed. “But Principal Cross can corroborate a lot of this. At the very least, she is responsible for explaining her own role in allowing your wife, who was under a restraining order at the time, access to her private office.”

The colonel looked desperately at Principal Cross, who was staring at her hands. Her lawyer whispered in her ear, and she nodded briefly.

“When Linda first approached me,” she murmured, “I almost slapped her. She’d killed my son—how dare she show her face to me? All I wanted was for her to be gone. But then she started talking about George. She said he…” She stopped and wiped her eyes. “She said he was a pioneer. That she’d learned so much from her experiences with him, and that when she got the drug to work, it would mean that his death hadn’t been in vain. I couldn’t…I just couldn’t say no to that. So I helped her.” She looked straight over at Charlie. “It was wrong, and I’m sorry for it, but…”

“It was wrong?” Camille was practically vibrating out of her chair. “It was more than wrong, it was criminal, it was child abuse, it was abuse of your position of authority over your student!”

“And I’m sure I’ll pay for that,” Principal Cross said, sounding resigned. She looked at the colonel. “Linda and I both will.”

He couldn’t even speak. He’d gone gray, like a day-old corpse, like his heart had been ripped right out of his body. “Roland was telling the truth?” he said. “He…and I didn’t listen to him. I said he was lying, but he was telling the truth the whole time?”

“It’s probably for the best you never had your own kids,” Dr. Mullins said with false sympathy. “Imagine what little Frankenstein’s monsters they might have turned out to be.”

Jesus. Everloving. Christ.