She got up and walked over to Lucas and gave him a hug. She sensed his tension. “Chill, Lucas. Great things await us.”
“Thanks, Bella. I needed that.’ He looked uncomfortable. “We need to decide about whether to transfer or not. The technology looks like it’s been improved, so the risks may be low.”
“I wonder where that location is and why Gramps picked it?”
25 – King Anthony
AVA PERDU LOVED HER NATIVE COUNTRY and did things to protect her homeland. She also loved her husband and did things to protect him and his business. Ava also loved Madeleine. She just didn’t do enough things to protect her.
Ava parked the white Toyota pickup truck in the gravel car park. She stepped out. The vehicle needed to be removed from the area of their recent activity and she’d left her men there to do some scouting on the trail-bikes. She noticed the number plates were still missing—they’d best fix that up when they return. Ava was concerned that no one had come out from the barn. They had either died from the heat or smoke, or they survived. The smoke would have got them. The authorities would recover their bodies.
She made her way to the king’s office. Anthony Perdu once told his wife that he sometimes felt disconnected from humanity. That he had it all worked out while others were still trying to figure it out and he was superior to them all—a secret king. And with that came huge responsibilities to lead those still lost to their destinies. So secretly she referred to him as the king and put up with his demeaning manner, for she was happy to be his little princess for now.
For close to four years Ava had supported him with the running of their biotechnology company, which specialised in drugs that assisted those with issues in the head, as Anthony liked to put it. He had an office at the rear of the manufacturing plant that he visited occasionally. Expensively furnished, considering the amount of use it got. He would visit it just often enough for the workers to know he was in charge.
Distance wasn’t the reason he didn’t visit. The building was on the outskirts of greater metropolitan Melbourne. It blended in with the surrounding hills with all design aspects of the building and manufacturing processes grounded in environmental sustainability. It was modular in design, resembling green and red Lego blocks. He didn’t visit much because they were city dwellers, and country things and country people didn’t agree with him.
He carried a photo frame the size of a paperback book wherever he went. Before seating at his desk he would always place the frame on the desk and touch two fingers to his lips and then touch the photo. It was a picture of their daughter, Madeleine. Ava would not look at the photo.
“Hello, dear,” Ava said as she entered his office and walked over to the large wall-sized window. She looked out across the grassy landscape as she readjusted to the office environment.
“Hello, dear.”
Ava turned and stared at her husband. He had his chair turned away from the desk, facing the large window, also taking in the magnificent view. She knew he would be thinking that all the wonderful things had come about because of his skilful entrepreneurship—money opened up so many opportunities. Yes, his innovations and courage had brought great things to the world and they’d become wealthy because of it. And Anthony truly believed the world would benefit greatly from the new drug he had now brought forth.
“One of my best scientists died recently, a Mrs Rose. But of course you know that.” Anthony said. “And although I loath using the word blessing, that’s what I felt because she was becoming a problem.”
Ava knew he’d think that way. He didn’t have the courage to do what was needed.
“They call it white anting in this country, love. They try and bring companies down from within. They eat away at the structure just like termites.” Ava reasoned that with her husband’s loathing of country things, he probably didn’t know what a termite was. Harsh, perhaps.
They had detected something was not right with Mrs Rose when she responded to one of Anthony’s articles on an online scientific journal. The article was about marketing his company and the marvellous new drug they were developing to help people. An anonymous commentary was made to the article. It was scathing, suggesting the effects of psychotropic medicines on humans included turning people into murdering machines and driving people to suicide. Ava had traced the IP address and identified the source as Mrs Rose.
Ava already had Mrs Rose under surveillance, at work and at home. She was indeed white anting: trying to destabilise, suggestions of killing off plants, removing papers that directed the development of the drug.
“She was from a different breed and was causing me sleepless nights, but you knew that.” Anthony continued. “Sad, what happened, as she had such a wonderful mind. If only we could have bottled her brain. But the wonder drug she produced will bring in millions—there’ll be no need for further developments, no need for Mrs Rose. Amazing timing.”
Ava admired her husband’s attempt to be emotional. She no doubt felt he had a small twinge of sadness and that was enough to satisfy the something that sent the request for sadness from within.
Ava did what she did for Anthony and for her homeland. But it wasn’t enough to draw out the man she was looking for. Not all come out to show their respect for the dead. Maybe second time around would be different, but then the dead don’t care.
26 – Who’s lost the plot?
AVA PERDU’S HUSBAND’S STYLE OF MANAGING GOT THINGS DONE. It got the drug through the development process, through the clinical trials, through the regulatory approvals. The combination of her persuasion skills and his greasing the necessary hands to smooth pockets of resistance ensured the drug entered the market. A market that had already been primed to diagnose illnesses they didn’t have, a gullible market, easy to manipulate.
Ava knew she and the company took advantage of such weakness, but the existence of such weaknesses infuriated her.
“Have you read this summary she wrote?” Anthony stood up as to give a speech, he read from his tablet device.
"There is an area in the temporal lobes that points to some kind of spiritual junction, where the soul and spirit connect with the human body. Experiments with activity levels in this area have confirmed this. We have been able to ‘switch off’ this connection by introducing a chemical imbalance. We believe there is a ‘sixth sense’ that picks up vibrations from the non-physical world—the sixth sense receptor converted these vibrations to a recognised pattern (like a voice, self-talk). This, we believe, is how God and his angels communicate with the physical."
“Don’t we just love these intelligent people who have lost the plot?” He continued.
"We are making a mistake with releasing this medication. It causes imbalances and allows other thought patterns to dominate, patterns easily influenced by enemies of God, namely demons. These entities contribute greatly to the negative thought process and influence man’s nature which is still susceptible to sin. It would be able to switch these thought patterns off. They’re cunning, these demons, as they can also masquerade as angels of light."
“Even the reference she makes to ‘we’ is misleading. Feedback indicates many considered her bordering on crazy. But people do what they’re told, and she was their leader.”
“So you’re saying there are no more ‘Mrs Roses’ floating around in our company. No more white ants?”
“That’s right.” Anthony said
Ava pondered further. “Sin. Demons. Do people still use those words, still believe in fairy tales?” Such things made Ava angry.
“Sadly, yes, but they’re a confused lot. Seventy per cent of the population of the USA supposedly believe in God but the percentage is a lot lower in northwest Europe—aren’t you glad that’s where we’re from? Think, we could have been born in the USA and had religion jammed down our throat.”
“Yes, so we need to spread the good news,” Ava said.
“That’s funny, that’s what they call it. The Christians.”
“Really? I wonder why?”
“Mrs Rose could tell you.” A small smirk appeared. “I let her ramble on a number of times. Her test results did show something I didn’t fully understand, but turning off a desire to seek a religious experience appealed to me, but from a different perspective—no seek, no soul, no Christianity.
“Aye, Aye.” Ava thumped her fist in the air. She felt those lingering feelings of anger dissipating.
“Their belief system is based on the continuity of the soul after death. There is no heaven, no hell, no eternal life.” Anthony continued. “It’s sad that we have to assist in forming correct beliefs. But we now have a large percentage of the market covered for mental illnesses, depression, and the like. And that’s a big market. How to get everyone on the new pill is the challenge—but maybe slipping the active ingredient into other medication is one way.” He smiled.
“We will leave that to the experts, love. But we will watch as our medication finds its way into those God-centred countries. What sort of world do you think we would have when only a remnant of people believe in God?”
“An interesting one. Like our home country—nothing but truth and freedom.”
<°)))><
The room had taken on a pinkish tinge. Ava looked outside and realised that the sun was setting and had brought the glow into the room. She moved to the comfortable leather guest chair and started to consider her strategies as she stared past her husband out in to the open grass fields.
She was dearly loved by her husband, who often told her how attractive she was, what an intellect she had, how very dangerous she seemed. Ava knew her husband felt above the law and believed he was untouchable—he’d say kings were a protected species.
They were well matched, driven by wealth and the survival of the fittest. They both had an interest in the Cult of Reason—a belief system intended as a replacement of Christianity, with its goal the perfection of mankind through the pursuit of truth and freedom. They had a fondness for logic and scepticism, accepted each other’s individualism and were protective of each other. They scoffed at those that sought out God, considering them weak.
Her eyes were drawn from the grassy fields to her husband’s eyes. She smiled at him. She saw the back of the picture frame he had on the desk. She knew the picture well: it was their Madeleine, wearing a white cap with the sparkling blue water of the Mediterranean behind her. It was taken at a resort—their last holiday together.
Ava took her daughter’s death hard. It is what it is. Reality. That’s what her husband said. He was over it, but she wasn’t. Not when she knew others had caused Madeleine’s death. Others like Isabella Rose. She had teased Madeleine. Ava had found the evidence in Madeleine’s social media accounts, and saw the change in her daughter. Too late.
Madeleine’s words became darker, talking about demons, saying that they would attack her enemies. Where had she got such talk from? They called her daughter the ‘Demented One’, the one who heard voices in her head. Why were young people so vicious?
“Why did you go to the house?” Anthony asked.
27 – Planting seeds
