Free Evolver: Apex Predator by Phil Hester, Jon S. Lewis, Shannon Eric Denton, Jason Arnett Page A

don't sound like a mother hen. Can I call you back tomorrow? Okay,” he said, nodding. “Okay. I love you. Talk to you tomorrow."
    He closed his phone and approached the guardhouse. "Hey, Dave," he said, waving at the guard. "How's it going?"
    "Jackson," the smiling guard said, drawing out the ‘n’ as long as he could. "Slow so far. Months since we saw you. How's college?"
    Jackson nodded as he pulled an ID card from his wallet, then handed it through the glass. "The girls are pretty," he said. "I'm here to break Dad out for dinner."
    Dave tapped the card on a small black box and Jackson Savage's info popped up onto a monitor. He frowned. "He didn't put you on his calendar, Jacks." He slid his finger across the screen. "Yeah, you're not here. I'm not supposed to let you in."
    A second guard arrived on a nearly silent golf cart. "Hey, Jackson," Joey, the second guard, said from the other side of the gate, drawing the cart to a full stop. "You here for your dad?"
    "Hi, Joey," Jackson said with a wave. "Yeah, he didn't put me on the calendar again."
    "Not supposed to let him on the campus, let alone into the labs," Dave said, sitting back. "But it's Jackson, so ---" he shrugged.
    "I'll take you up," Joey said. "Hop on." The little cart negotiated the blacktop drive past the company sign: EnviroTech Greener for the Future . At the front steps of the building, Joey put a hand on Jackson's forearm. "There's a new guy on the desk, kind of a hard case about rules. Let me talk to him before you come in."
     
    *
     
    The new guard gave Jackson a hard look as he walked past the reception desk to the bank of elevators. The boy waved good night to Joey and the new man and regretted it instantly. He stabbed at the up button three times and kept his back to the entrance.
    Riding the elevator up to the fourth level where his father's lab took up half the floor, Jackson remembered the shouting and his father's obvious disappointment at his choice of college. Dr. Benjamin Savage had rarely attended his son's sporting events, barely hid his disapproval of them, but did encourage the boy's natural scientific curiosity and brought him to the lab often. Jackson's last visit here had been to tell his father he was going to the state university on a track scholarship instead of his father's alma mater and it did not go well. They'd barely spoken in the months since and Jackson hoped that dinner outside the lab would help his father see the wisdom of the decision. Jackson was his own man, paying his own way now on his own skills. He wanted his own identity if he chose to pursue science as a career, though comparisons to his father would be inevitable.
    As the elevator door closed behind him with a soft chime, Jackson stopped for a second. It was late, but the building was too quiet. There should have been a hum of air conditioning, the sound of squeaky rubber wheels on the shiny tile floor, a fluttering of some kind here or there, maybe a vacuum. There was nothing. Cautious, Jackson found the door to his father's lab and a sense of dread chilled him. It was unlatched.
    The only light in the lab came from the back of the room so that he could only see shadows and silhouettes. "Dad?" Jackson put down his backpack and walked down a line of equipment that couldn't do half of what he imagined it did, some of which never seemed to be working or even used. He called out to his father again.
    Metal instruments clattered to the floor. He tried to see around and through a bank of metal shelves. "Dad --- is that you?" No answer.
    Jackson darted to the back of the room and saw instruments and broken glass and scattered papers as he approached the lighted section of the lab. He found his father laying on the floor, his leg broken and blood pouring from a gash on his forehead. "Dad!" He knelt down and cradled his father's head. "Can you hear me?"
    "I --- I'm sorry," Dad said. Jackson didn't know his father could move so fast until the syringe was deep in his