Marcus strides into the garage. Jeremy and Sarra are talking here, standing on either side of the motorbike. Pushing them aside he slings one leg over.
“I’m coming with you,” says Sarra.
“No,” says another voice and they turn to see Helena following. Pulling on a pair of leather gloves Helena sets about mounting the bike—no easy task in a tight pencil skirt and high heels. After a few seconds of writhing she somehow manages to make her position look graceful, with both knees bent to one side and her arms wound tightly around Marcus’s waist. “This one’s mine,”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to see a man about some medicine,” says Marcus and with that the exhaust pipe exhales a jet of blue flame. Jeremy and Sarra move aside as the bike screams down the drainage outlet and out into the lake.
Waves crash around them as Marcus guns the motorbike directly for the shore. Within a few minutes of waking, Marcus had started putting the pieces together. Ever since hearing the last words on the lips of the man he’d tried to save, he’d known that Wormwood was involved.
Then he had woken up dying.
Finding the Professor wasn’t going to be a problem, because Wormwood wasn’t hiding. Infecting Marcus wasn’t unusual behaviour by Wormwood’s standards and so it was clear: Erasmus Wormwood was trying to send Westcrest a message.
Marcus banishes these thoughts and concentrates on the approaching shoreline (and maybe a little on the feel of Helena’s arms snug around his waist). He crests the shore, passes expertly through a copse of trees and emerges a few moments later on a quiet city street with nobody the wiser.
That Wormwood is here in Genoa City is all that matters. Marcus knows the Professor will have an antidote; after all, playing god involves saving lives as well as taking them. Conor had easily located Wormwood’s laboratory by cross-referencing confidential pharmaceutical sales records.
Marcus can feel the poison acting on him now, the muscles in his arms are starting to twitch. He increases the speed of the bike, causing the city to blur around them. Suddenly it lurches sideways and Marcus tumbles off and onto the asphalt, dragging Helena with him.
Marcus begins to vomit as Helena drags herself upright and kicks off her heels. Her shins are bleeding in several places and her blouse is torn. The bike has come to rest a few metres away, on the footpath. Its wide front wheel is still spinning.
“Marcus,” says Helena as he wipes vomit away with the back of his hand.
“What?” He says gruffly, turning his eyes to follow the direction that Helena’s arched finger is pointing.
“We’re here.”
The sign above the door reads: Wormwood Pharmaceuticals.