The Mind Virus

Chapter 14 - Part 1

Cities and towns came and went as the freeway meandered around or cut through them, but Terry was now approaching his final destination. A sign for the first exit into Cedar Grove appeared, and with a flick of the turn signal, he took it.

A folder full of papers sat in his glove box, representing all the information he'd gathered on the virus that he was afflicted with. He marveled at how easy it was to collect everything he'd needed. While he hadn't been able to find out anything concrete about the organization itself that was behind the manufacturing of the weapon, he knew one thing, and that was that they did not run a tight ship. He had started out by impersonating the man who went by Mr. Bach – the man that he had brutally murdered and buried in a shallow grave – and gathered some information about the weapon from his superior, a man that went only by "Jack," that way. In truth, the man himself hadn't given that much information since he didn't know everything there was to know, but in a fortuitous twist of fate, clearly suspecting nothing, Jack gave Terry some addresses of the engineers that had designed the weapon, and told him that he'd phone ahead, essentially authorizing them to give any information that was requested of them. Terry couldn't believe his luck. It almost felt like a trap. It was all too easy.

From that point on, after collecting a few email addresses and phone numbers (which he'd only text, never call), it was a simple matter of telling whichever party he was writing to that a third party had told him to contact them – which was sometimes true, sometimes false – and they'd spill their guts as desired. As long as Terry was signing off his messages with "AB," the initials that Bach had used in such messages, he would get anything he wanted.

That wasn't the only homework he had been doing, though. He had heard whispers while exchanging messages with members of the organization. Apparently someone had been digging deep into the deaths that their weapon had caused – not the weapon that Terry had dutifully mailed back to them when he was naive and innocent and didn't know what it was – but the other weapon that was stolen from them and had made its way to Cedar Grove. He hadn't dared ask too much lest he blew his cover, but from what he could glean, it seemed that this someone was with the police, and strangely enough, they didn't want him dead just yet, which was possibly a first for anyone who crossed them. Perhaps they didn't think he was a proper threat for whatever reason, but whatever the case may be, Terry had managed to get a name out of it all – James Ford. His luck didn't run out there either. There was a James Ford from Cedar Grove listed in the phone book, with number and address all conveniently present.

It was this address that Terry was driving to. He didn't know whether this Ford fellow would be at home right at that moment or not, but if he wasn't, he was just going to wait outside his house until he arrived. Terry had never been to this part of the state before, and he was in awe of how beautiful it was. It was certainly much greener than Terry was used to. The oak trees that seemed to line the side of every road were a welcome sight compared to the cemented urban hellscape that he was used to. Cedar Grove definitely had a sort of rural character, in spite of it being legally categorized as a city. It was serene, Terry though, and the deluge of fresh information and new memories kept him from reminiscing about old times and giving the virus more fuel to hurt him.

He pulled into a dirt road with multiple houses dotted alongside it. What an adorable neighborhood. All the residences had ample space between them, something that he wasn't used to at all with the dorms he lived in. If he hadn't just driven in on the freeway, Terry would guess that he was deep in the countryside. 7575 – this is it, he thought as he read the numbers on the houses. There was a car sitting in the driveway. Good news – it meant that someone was home. Terry parked his car alongside the Intrepid that was already there, got out, walked to the door, and knocked on it three times.

After what seemed like a lifetime of jingles and jangles as keys found their way into the keyhole, and creaks and groans as the doorknob was turned, a disheveled mess of a man opened it up and stood on the threshold.

"Hello, I'm looking for James Ford," Terry said politely.

"Yeah, you got him," Ford said.

"Are you the detective investigating the spate of suicides?"

Ford glanced down at two cast-covered hands before looking back up at Terry and saying, "Not anymore, no."

"Did they take you off the case?"

"Not exactly."

There was a moment of silence as Terry thought of what he could say to make this half asleep-looking man more receptive.

"What happened there?" Terry said as he gestured to Ford's hands.

"Consequences happened."

"Consequences to your investigation? Someone tried to stop you, to get you to stop what you were doing?"

Ford's eyes widened. "And what would you know about it?"

"More than you think. I know what causes the suicides. I know how they can be stopped."