Chapter 44: Chapter 44

The three-hour flight back to Kansas City was excruciating. Cadence was in constant contact with Mrs. Carminati as she worked to figure out where Aaron might be going. She explained that he had come in early, at around 8:00, went into his office for just a second, thanked her for all of her hard work, and then left. She thought he was acting a little strangely, so she went into his office where she could see the security cameras, something she never did before--she assured Cadence--and saw him enter Christian's lab a few minutes later. There were no cameras in there and she wasn't sure what he had with him when he left, but he seemed to have something in his hand. She said he had arranged for the plane to be ready himself, but didn't file a flight plan and the transponder had been turned off.

Cadence asked her to make contact with air traffic control and see if she could determine where he might be headed. In the meantime, Cadence periodically checked in with Christian to see if his memory had been jogged at all. The beads of sweat on his forehead, despite the air conditioned cabin, made her think there was more to this story that he wasn't telling her.

The trip from the airport to headquarters was both dangerous and quick. Cadence was driving Aaron's preferred Aventador, and she covered the distance so rapidly, Christian, a seasoned veteran, was actually holding on for dear life. She screeched to a halt outside of Aaron's office building. Christian's lab was next door. "Okay, go check your lab. I'm going to go check his office for anything Mrs. Carminati might have overlooked, and I'll meet you back here," she directed.

He nodded, and ran off to his lab. Cadence ran through the doors of the office building, waited a few seconds, and then followed him.

She stood outside the open door quietly for a few minutes, observing. "Shit... shit... shit..." he was mumbling as he desperately searched through what appeared to be a wall safe which clearly took a key. He turned and surveyed the rest of the room, knocking a few graduated cylinders and other scientific paraphernalia to the floor in the process.

"What's missing?" she asked stepping inside the room.

Christian jumped, clearly not expecting her to be there so quickly, or at all. "Oh, uhm, nothing," he said. "I just... I thought..."

"Christian, cut the bullshit," she warned him, stepping up next to him. "You're hiding something from me, and I need to know what it is right now."

He hesitated, glancing at her but unable to meet her eyes. Finally, he said, "I promised Aaron I wouldn't talk about it to anyone."

"Okay--then I'm no one, but I need to know what's missing because wherever he's at, he has it, and that's the only way we are going to figure it out. I have a horrible feeling that he's in trouble, and I need to fix that. I'm not losing anyone else--not today."

Christian took a deep breath, and pounded his good fist against his lab table. "All right. For the past couple of months, I've been working on a re-Transformation serum. For Guardians. I was getting really close with my trials. I just had a couple of things to work out, but it wasn't ready yet."

"And he took it?" Cadence asked, extremely confused.

"It looks like it," Christian admitted. "But I have no idea why. He asked me about it last night when he stopped by. He asked me how close I was, and I told him, I thought I had it. But, Cadence, I still had a few tests to do. Without that serum, I'm going to have to start all over again..."

"Without the serum?" she questioned. "Christian, don't worry about your serum right now. We need to figure out why he took it. What's he intending to do with it? And, if he thinks it's going to work--and you're saying it might not--what will happen if it doesn't?"

"Well, I know the answer to that," Christian replied dismally.

Cadence wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer, but she asked the question. "What will happen if he uses it on... someone... and it doesn't work?"

"Then, that Guardian will die," he said solemnly.

The lump in her throat formed instantly and was almost too large for her to speak. "And what are the chances that it won't work?" she questioned, bracing herself for the answer.

He sighed and ran his hand through his blond hair. "Uh, well, there's a good chance it would work... on most Guardians. I mean, in the trials with blood samples that I performed, it bonded and reversed the genetic code about eighty percent of the time."

"Okay," she nodded. "Eighty percent, that's... that's good."

"Yeah, it would be," he went on, "but every time it failed, it was in blood samples with extremely high concentrations of Guardian encoding on the strands."

"So...?"

"So, basically, in layman's terms, the better the Guardian, the harder to change them back to human," he explained, not meeting her eyes.

She nodded in understanding. "And he thinks it works?" she asked, still trying to maintain a sense of calm.

"I think so," Christian agreed.

"And why does Aaron think the serum works?" Cadence clarified.

"Well, when he asked me last night, I didn't tell him the percentages, exactly. He just asked me if it was ready to go, and I said yes. I didn't know he was going to.... I thought I'd have a chance to do some more work before we actually used it. "

"What else did he say?" she asked, fighting back anger at his deception.

"He asked me if I was certain, and I told him I was pretty sure."

"That's what you said?" she questioned, nodding.

"I think so. I think I said, 'Should be good to go,' or something like that," he confirmed.

Cadence leaned back against the lab table, crossing her arms. "And he didn't say anything about taking it, or needing it for... anyone? Nothing?"

"No," Christian insisted. "Nothing at all. I had no idea he was going to take it. None."

Cadence couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her mind began to calculate all of the possibilities, and what she could do about it. She didn't want to believe the most obvious reason why he would take it--it just didn't make sense to her--but then, nothing was making a whole lot of sense right now.

Before she could voice her primary concern, Christian said, "You don't think he'd actually use it on himself, do you?"

She looked at him for a second before replying. He looked like he was on the verge of a mental breakdown himself. However, that didn't change her answer. "Can you think of any other reason why he might take it?"

"I don't know," Christian admitted, shaking his head. "Maybe someone contacted him, wanted to change back into a man in a hurry, and he didn't waste time letting the rest of us know about it."

"He wouldn't do that," she said dismissively. Suddenly, the weight of Christian's words hit her, and she realized what it was Aaron was trying to tell her the night before. "Shit," she exclaimed. "A man--he said he was going to be the best man he could be for me. Damn it, Christian! He is going to use it on himself. We've got to find a way to stop him."

"Okay..." Christian said, clearly trying to think of something he could do.

"There's no way to force his IAC on?" she asked. Christian had designed and installed them, so he would know.

"No," he said definitively. "What about his cell phone?"

"Hannah said he left it in his hotel room," she replied. "Maybe if I can figure out where he went and get there before him..."

"He's got a four-hour head start on us," he reminded her.

"Mrs. Carminati, were you able to get a hold of air traffic control?" she asked over the IAC.

"Yes," she replied. "I was just about to tell you. The plane was spotted in New York airspace just a few minutes ago, headed east."

"East," Cadence repeated aloud. "Okay. Thank you!" Then to Christian, she said, "If he's headed east, where's he going?" she thought for a second, but it didn't take her too long to realize. "He's going home!"

She immediately got Hannah on the IAC and forced Jamie on as well, even though he had just woken up and was extremely groggy. "Hannah, where would he be going in Ireland? Do you have any idea?"

"He bought some property there a few years ago," she remembered. "It was in Killarney, near Torc Mountain, I think he said."

Cadence nodded. “Of course it was. That's where he was born. All right. I'll get over there as quickly as I can and see if I can catch him,” she decided, resolved that she would get there in time. "Christian, if he's already taken it, what can I do to reverse it?"

"Nothing," he said, shaking his head. "Once it's administered, there's nothing you can do."

"That's not necessarily true," Jamie chimed in.

Cadence had added him for just such purpose. "All right, friend, what are my options?"

"Well, it is a long shot," Jamie admitted, his voice still fragile sounding, "but if you administer a double dose of Transformation serum it might counter-act whatever this serum is doing--if you get it in him in time. I don't know for sure that it will work--at all--but I do know that we were able to save some Hunters once who were having negative reactions to re-Transformation serum. But it's very rare that it actually works. Remember I told you, Hunters with negative reactions almost always die, Cadence. It's not a sure shot at all. But it's worth a try."

"Okay, I'll take it with me. Do you know where it is Christian?" Looking over at him, she could see tears streaming down his face, but he nodded the affirmative. He silently walked out the door, crossing the hallway to Jamie's lab. "What else? Anything else? Anyone?"

"Don't give him the pain medication," Jamie warned.

"What?" Cadence exclaimed. "Why not?"

"It's too risky," Jamie explained "We don't want anything else to potentially interfere with the juice."

"But... that will be excruciating," she reminded him, thinking of the severe pain she had been in when she had gone through the Transformation process herself.

"I know," Jamie confirmed. "But hopefully, he'll pass out quickly."

"Now that we know where he's going, can we get someone on the ground already in Ireland to attempt to intercept him?" Cadence asked.

"We can try," Hannah admitted. "But there aren't a lot of us left over there. There's not even a headquarters closer than London. I'll get on it," she assured Cadence.

Somehow, Cadence knew that wasn't going to work. "Would they have the serum?" she asked Jamie.

"No," he replied. "We don't let very many people administer that stuff. It's too dangerous. That's why we insist everyone come to KC to Transform."

"Shit," she mumbled. "All right, I'm going to get on an airplane, and then I'll check back in with you guys," she said, physically rushing to the door.

Christian met her in the hallway with the requested items placed discretely in a bag marked "Insulin." He asked, "What do you want us to do in the meantime?" as she grabbed them and headed toward the exit.

"Pray!"