Jarred
"This is hopeless." He groans slamming his head on the table.
"Between the three of us we should be able to crack this." Jenna says.
"We've tried everything we can think of." Jason says.
They're all gathered in front of the computer screen watching the same enter key window. They have been at it for hours with no luck.
"Maybe it's something obvious but also hidden." Jason says.
"Geeh Jay that really sums it up." Jenna says rolling her eyes.
Jason sticks his tounge out at her while Tyler stands up. He walks around looking at all the machines and equipment in the lab. Jason ignores his siblings and follows him.
"Did you see something?" He asks.
"The staircase at your house has all those pictures of you guys on it." He says looking at the machines numbers.
"Yeah. Mom and dad put it together." Jarred says.
Tyler doesn't look at Jarred as he speaks.
"You don't have a picture of it?" He asks.
"Even if I did we ditched our phones on the drive here in case we were being tracked." Jarred adds.
"I remember what it looks like." Jason says.
His words make even Tyler look away.
"How could you possibly?" Jenna asks.
"I'm always looking right it when we're at the table." Jason answers.
"Are you sure?" Jenna asks.
Jason stands up and grabs a pen and some clipboard paper from the table. He draws seven squares and begins explaining.
"The one in the top left corner is of Jarreds 9th birthday when he had that ridiculous Paw patrol cake. The second is Jenna at that cycle race in Amsterdam. Then it's me at my third karate tournament and then all three of us at the school play when I got to play lady Trumane during the Cinderella production." Jason says.
Tyler takes the piece paper in front of Jason and brings it to the keyboard.
"Jarred was 9 in the first picture" he says typing it in.
"Jenna was 12 in the second one." Jason says following Tylers train of thought. "I was 7 in the next one and Jenna and I were 10 and Jarred was 11 in the last one."
Tyler types in all the ages and the usb drive opens.
"Holy shit! You did it." Jarred says scrolling down the documents inside.
"So what is it?" Jenna asks.
"It's a trail. There's some documents with mom and dads research from their time studying the infection. A bunch if encrypted emails from the people who hired them with instructions on how to proceed and this..." Jarred clicks on a video.
In the video a man in blue t-shirt is strapped to a table looking like he's having a seizure. His clothes are soaked with sweat and his skin is pale but the worst part is his disfigured features. His fingers are abnormally long and twisted, patches of his skin have turned into scales and his eyelids are sagging over his eyes.
"He's turning into an infected." Jason whispers.
The man continues shaking on the table his voice turning to screeches and his clothes beibg ripped off him. Before long the camera itself begins to shape as the last trace of man is erased and the creature is born. The infected tares off it's restrains and rises to it's feet with a screech.
It jumps out of view and begins destroying something, there's the sound of a scream and blood splatter rains on the lense. The camera shakes again and a womans severed head rolls into view with her mouth still open trapped in a scream.
"Shit." Jarred says.
"This is it, the smoking gun. The undeniable proof that can take down Maxwell and his friends in high places." Jenna adds.
"Except that's not what mom and dad want us to do. They told you to hand it over to him." Jason says.
Silence falls over them while Jarred finds another document. He opens ut an finds an algorithm created list. He scrolls down it and reads all the names on it. There's names, ages and suspected locations aswell as pictures.
"What is this?" Jarred asks.
They all lean in and examine the list. It's seven pages long but only two of them are decoded.
"I think it's some kind of list, opening the usb must have decoded the first part of it." Jarred scrolls down to the coded names and finds another enter key window. "If we want the rest we'll need another key."
"But who are these people and why are they so important that they had to be hidden like this?" Jenna asks but even as she says it Jarred watches the puzzle solve itself in her head.
"They're members of the infected." Tyler says.
"Mom and dad must have used the data they got from studying Jason to develop an algorithm that uses medical records to develop a likely list of possible infected members." Jarred says.
Jason shakes his head and walks away.
"This is the real reason why Maxwell would trade in that list for me. With it he'll be able to hunt down every infected teenager in the world." He says.
"We can't give this to him." Tyler argues. "The guy invaded your house and has tried to kill us at every turn. If he gets this list he'll go on a fucking scavenger hunt."
"We don't know that." Jenna says mostly to herself.
"His been chasing Jason for 16 years, I'm pretty he's committed enough to do that again." Jarred adds.
"No way, my psycho father is not getting this list. Fuck what mom and dad want." Jason says.
"Jason come on-"
"Fuck what mom and dad want." Jarred says cutting Jenna off.
She looks at him with wide eyes.
"You can't be serious." She says.
"Jen this entire list only exists because mom and dad created it using information they got from experimenting on their infant son. Clearly their judgement is not the best." He argues.
Jenna shakes her head still holding on to the hope that their parents are better than this.
"Jenna this isn't about your parents or us anymore. Maxwell is dangerous and relentless, we've been able to survive him so far because you have rich parents who build safe house where we can hide out. These other kids have no idea where their powers come from, they're sitting ducks just waiting for him." Tyler says holding Jennas gaze.
She looks at the list and Jarred can almost see her mind racing. She sighs and nods.
"You're right. So what do we do?" She asks.
"The list isn't complete, we need to find the other key." Jason says.
"Where?" Jarred asks.
"Your parents hid the first key in your house, a place you guys saw everyday. What's another place you can think of that you spent just as much time in?" Tyler asks.
Jarred exchanges looks with his siblings and they immediately know where it is.
"Knight pharmaceuticals hq." Jarred says.
YOU ARE READING
The infected
FantasyJay's life was already pretty complicated. Adopted into a White family when he was born and having to try to navigate the world as a Black,Queer, adopted 16 year old. But things only get worse when strange things begin to happen to him and nightmare...
