Confessions of a Murder Suspect

77

I waited for Hugo to fall asleep, then slipped out of bed and got busy prowling through the files on the computer—work that was grueling, boring, and maybe even pointless.

The data was all highly technical. There were symbols instead of words. Chains of symbols instead of paragraphs. What text I could interpret was just as Uncle Peter had said—all very specific to the work of Angel Pharma.

I spent an hour opening folders before I came to a file marked “Prometheus.”

I got a strong and heady feeling that I’d just found the right door. Maybe? Was it okay to hope? Please?

The Greek myth of Prometheus had been Malcolm’s favorite. From the time we were toddlers he’d told us the story about the Titan, a champion of mankind, a wily guy who outwitted the greatest god, Zeus. Prometheus had stolen fire and given it to mortals. That ticked Zeus off, so he gave Prometheus a major Big Chop: Prometheus was chained to a rock, and every day his liver was eaten by an eagle… only to grow back at night… and then get eaten all over again the next day. Try to imagine that.

In light of what I’d learned, I wondered if my father saw himself as Prometheus, the giver of gifts to humanity through his mysterious pills.

I opened the Prometheus folder and found hundreds of documents that I could actually read—and mostly understand. This was the treasure trove of information I’d been looking for. I skimmed and absorbed and comprehended charts and lab notes and monographs describing the pills.

Uncle Peter had told me that the pills were largely made of natural ingredients. And that was true.

Mostly true.

And also—it was a gigantic lie.

Take this formula, from page 631, for instance: Harry’s red sleeping pill contained St. John’s wort and passionflower, potent apothecary herbs that promoted healthy sleep and balanced moods and also made pretty decent antidepressants. But there was another ingredient in that compound—AP-T1-4—that I didn’t know and was unable to find on the Internet.

What was it? What did it do? What kind of side effects could Harry be having from it?

My blue pills were called HiQ. They contained natural ingredients that enhanced brain function, including uridine 5'-monophosphate, a nucleotide that stimulates neurons in the brain. But along with the list of natural ingredients and fillers, I found another mystery component: AP-33a.

My yellow capsule was called Lazr. Lazr was made of bacopa monnieri, a plant extract that improves memory and motor learning. Like the other pills, Lazr also contained an unknown additive: AP-101.

According to my growth chart, I’d been taking Lazr since I was one year old. Fifteen years!

What was AP-101? AP had to stand for Angel Pharmaceuticals. But I found no mention of any of the mystery ingredients in any other Angel Pharma materials or on their websites.

The next file I opened looked like a log of some kind. Each notation had a date and time, followed by descriptive notes about my brothers and me. One from just a few weeks earlier caught my eye: “Tandy showing increased levels of concentration thanks to extra dosage of HiQ, e.g., reading for six hours with no distractions or movement other than turning pages.”

How could my father have known I was reading for six hours straight without moving? I remember the novel well; it was one I’d self-selected, for once, because he and Maud were out that day. But if they were out, how did he know what I was doing? Who spied on me for him? I already knew that Uncle Peter was wrapped up in all this, and Samantha had been keeping secrets with my mother for years. Could it be possible one of them was also watching us for our parents?

I closed the Prometheus folder and thought about my father as a tireless Titan, developing performance-enhancing drugs at Angel Pharma, using these drugs to help his own kids achieve every kind of success, and then exporting the drugs to be used on kids in other countries, with the grand goal of spreading Angel-like perfection throughout the world.

Had my father really been a morally driven, visionary genius with a superior intellect? Or had he been a crass capitalist exploiting his own children for profit?

Was he courageous or shameless?

I thought I knew the answer.

My father was both.