The Pain Colony

by Shanon Hunt

  “Oh my god!” She jumped out of her chair, her hand over her mouth. There it was, her own name and signature, right below Bradley Elliott’s, exactly like the invoice Craig had presented yesterday.

  But this one was for $120,000.

  She sat down on the edge of the sofa and hit the back button to open the next folder, LXR100801 KIBRA Gene Construct—Amnesia. Her hand was shaking as she opened the invoice.

  Another signed by her. $70,000.

  One by one, she opened and printed each invoice and lined them up next to each other, eight different constructs targeting genes for pain, memory, and sleep regulation. Over $1.4 million had been paid to Spiragene for work across these projects, every invoice signed by her and Bradley Elliott.

  She had no experience with corrupt business practices, but she’d seen enough legal dramas on TV to know full well that whatever was going on here would be perceived by an auditor as illicit. One forged signature could perhaps be explained, but a string of them implied that Austin and this Bradley guy were trying to hide the payments. Why else would they have kept her in the dark about Spiragene? And if the FBI couldn’t find Austin, it would be Allison who’d have to explain who Bradley Elliott was and why she hadn’t captured these payments in her financial documents.

  Kiran would know what to do. She dialed his number and was sent to voicemail. “Kiran, hi, this is Allison Stevens. I wanted to talk to you about something I found during the audit. If you could ring me back, I’d appreciate it.”

  She gathered the invoices, put them in an envelope, and resumed her research. Each project was exactly as it’d been described to her. Some of the early research seemed quite simple, just a small origami package to carry a single, small DNA nanorobot to a specific target cell. Over time, the projects became more sophisticated. The most recent program, still ongoing, appeared to be a gene delivery project related to amnesia. The DNA origami contained what appeared to be eight or ten nanobots within an intricately folded scaffold that more closely resembled a wadded piece of paper than a clamshell.

  Her phone rang. Kiran?

  “Allison Stevens.”

  “Yes, hi, Ms. Stevens. My name is Vincent Wang, with the Drug Enforcement Agency. I was looking for Dr. Harris, but your receptionist said he’s unavailable and referred me to you as the acting CEO?”

  Allison sat up, flattered by the title. “Well, yes, I guess I am. What can I do for you?”

  “If I could have just a moment of your time, I was hoping you could help us. Our team is investigating an illegal drug found in Arizona, and we’d like to ask you a couple questions.”

  She already wanted this call to be over. “Oh, we don’t do any work out west. I’m sure I can’t help you.”

  “I understand, but we’re really desperate for a lead, and perhaps you could help us move in the right direction. Eight people have died on this drug, and the DEA is doing everything it can to find the source so that we can stop the deaths. It’s really important.”

  “I’m really sorry to hear that.” She opened her email and began scrolling through the new mail.

  “I won’t take too much of your time. We’ve learned that Quandary Therapeutics is doing genetic research and clinical development with gene therapies. Can you tell me, are you doing any research in pain management or chronic pain?”

  Apparently, we are. “Our research is primarily in DMD and other degenerative diseases.”

  She flicked down to an email from Jakob’s physician in Norway. Maybe her favorite young patient had advanced from doing somersaults to cartwheels. She opened the email and began skimming it.

  “And do you use CRISPR Cas9 gene editing technology?”

  “We do. Our DMD drug, Enigmax, which is in the clinic right now, uses our own CRISPR platform. It’s a brilliant drug.”

  Her stomach dropped. Jakob had taken a turn for the worse.

  “Ms. Stevens? Did you hear me?”

  “Uh, I’m sorry, what?”

  “Have you done any research targeting neurons using CRISPR Cas9?”

  “No.”

  But she was only half listening as she read: Jakob has regressed in his ability to run. He can still walk but has a slight list to the left.

  “Thank you so much,” Wang said. “Just one last question.”

  She continued reading. I’d like to set up a call with you to discuss additional dosing. This is quite urgent, as the family is traveling to the site today to meet with me to discuss discontinuing his treatment.

  “Have you ever heard of a drug named LXR102016?” Wang asked.

  No, no, no! They couldn’t stop the treatment.

  “Huh?” was all that came out.

  “Lima, X-ray, Romeo, one-oh-two … ?” Agent Wang prodded.

  If you could call me at your earliest convenience … the email concluded.

  She glanced at the clock. It was already the end of the day in Norway. Shit.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr.”—Allison looked down at her notebook—“Wang. I just realized I’m very late for something urgent. Could we continue this another time? I’m very sorry. I have to hang up.”

  She disconnected the call and quickly dialed Dr. Johansen but only got his voicemail. She left a message.

  Damn it! He couldn’t take Jakob off the study. It was too soon.

  She sat back in her chair, her hands clasped tightly, willing her phone to ring.

  Chapter 18

  Malloy opened his office door and looked out over the room. Wang and two other agents were on the phone working their way through a list of small biotech companies that had done some early work in gene therapy. Not that a mad scientist would have set up a nice, respectable shop in biotech-land. It was far more likely that they were looking for a disgruntled geneticist who’d left to conduct his own research. Biohackers were the loose cannons of biomedical research, scientists who didn’t appreciate the strict regulations of the Food and Drug Administration for testing drugs in humans. He’d seen several documentaries on biohackers who dosed themselves and their friends with untested gene therapies.

  They were looking for a needle in a haystack, sure, but he was elated to be working on anything that might produce a lead. They’d been crawling around in the dark since the case had been assigned to him. At least now they finally had a concrete starting point. They had a haystack to start combing through.

  “Ms. Stevens? Hello?” Wang was shouting into his phone handset.

  Malloy stuck his head out of his office door. “What …?”

  “She hung up on me,” Wang answered, a look of disbelief on his face. “I haven’t been hung up on since my first wife left me in the eighties.”

  Malloy smirked at his genuinely shocked expression. Apparently, Wang hadn’t done much field work. “Why’d she hang up?”

  Wang still held the receiver in his hand. “Said she was late for something important. What could be more important than a call from me, Vincent Wang, DEA agent extraordinaire?”

  “Oh, that reminds me,” Malloy noted, then raised his voice. “Everyone, we’re having coffee cake in the kitchen to celebrate Melanie’s upcoming wedding. And listen, no making bets this time about how long the marriage will last.” He lowered his voice. “And while we’re on the subject, Garcia, you still owe me a hundred bucks from last time.”

  “I’ll come in a minute,” Wang said, beginning to dial the phone. “I can’t let this go. I’m calling her back.”

  “Not now. Cake first. Melanie needs your blessing and good wishes. Again.”

  Wang hung up and rubbed his Buddha belly. They exchanged grins.

  Malloy’s own phone vibrated. Darcy. He stepped back into his office and closed the door behind him.

  “Hi, sweetheart.” He grimaced. “Sweetheart” had been his name for Suzanne—not that Darcy would know that, but he wanted to preserve his relationship with his late wife. She was the first love of his life and the mother of his son. She deserved to have a part of his heart all to herself, including her
own pet name.

  “Hey, babe. I just stopped by your house to drop off groceries. You’re welcome. While I was there, you got a call from Jessica Heffner.”

  He racked his brain. “I don’t know a Jessica Heffner. What’d she want?”

  “She didn’t say. She hung up rather abruptly, actually.”

  Was that a hint of jealousy in her voice? Did she really think he was dating other women? It had taken him over a year to find Darcy, the one woman out of thousands of desperate over-fifties who were looking for a second or third or fourth chance. He had strong feelings for Darcy and he knew, despite Robbie’s intentions of setting him up with an online dating profile, that his swipe-right days were over.

  “She didn’t leave a number, so I just thought I’d let you know.” Her voice trailed off.

  She seemed to be waiting for him to say something, but he had no idea what. What would he have said to Suzanne? Well, if she calls back, ask her to meet me at the motel—and bring some blow. But his days of witty comebacks were also in the past. Deflection was his new MO.

  “Thanks. Do you want to go to Joe’s Crab Shack for dinner tonight?”

  Silence. It wasn’t what she’d wanted.

  “Sure, Pete,” she said with a sigh. “That’d be lovely. And in the meantime, I’ve packed your fridge with fruits and veggies. If we’re going to be together for a while, I’d like to believe you’re not on the verge of a triple bypass.”

  He grinned. “Bye, Darce.”

  ***

  Garcia was standing outside smoking when Malloy returned from the deli.

  “I’ve crawled social media for every known fuckwit out there calling himself a biohacker of genetic drugs. Shocking how many people are into this do-it-yourself CRISPR stuff.” Garcia stubbed his cigarette out and followed Malloy through the door. “Nothing yet on keywords LXR or elixir or that gene SC9-whatever or chronic pain. It doesn’t seem to be in mainstream biohacking. I have a buddy looking into the deep web, but it’ll take some time.”

  Malloy set his ham and Swiss on rye on his desk, fell back into his chair, wrung out from the two-block walk in the ninety-nine-degree heat. His appetite was gone.

  “Maybe we’re coming at this the wrong way.” An idea had struck him on the way back with his lunch.

  Garcia raised an eyebrow.

  “How do we find the source of a new street drug?”

  “We beat the street. Work our way from the bottom up, starting with the users.”

  “Exactly. We’ve been approaching this backward, looking for the kingpin. We have to work the layers.”

  “Last I heard, dead guys don’t talk, boss. We’ve already gotten everything we can from the vics’ families.”

  “We’re spending too much time on the victims we know, trying to figure out what links them. Let’s focus on the Does. Think distribution. They lived on the street. How did they get access to this drug? Sure as hell wasn’t from an encrypted website.”

  Garcia rubbed the back of his neck. “At a shelter? A soup kitchen?”

  He shook his head. “The victims weren’t near each other in proximity. Two in Arizona, two in Nevada.” He opened his sandwich but didn’t pick it up.

  Garcia eyed it. “What about a mobile food truck? One of those community trucks that drives around giving out sandwiches? Don’t some of them provide first aid and shit?”

  Exactly what he’d been thinking. “It’s a place to start.”

  Without another word, Garcia left his office.

  Malloy leaned over and picked up the vial found in Vespe’s car, holding it between his thumb and index finger, inspecting it carefully. If a mobile unit of some kind was making the rounds, recruiting subjects to participate in a study, they would need to set up a dosing schedule. They’d have to meet up with subjects at specific times to do the injections.

  He grabbed the zippered bag that held the other two vials and the syringe and pulled out the syringe, then stood and untucked his shirt. With one hand, he groped around his lower spine while aiming the syringe with the other. Jordan was right. The angle was too awkward for self-dosing. But if Mark Vespe hadn’t been dosing himself, then why did he have vials and a syringe in his possession? Maybe there wasn’t a mobile clinic making rounds. Maybe the victims had help. Help from a friend.

  He shuffled through the files on his desk until he found the file for Karen Richmond, the ultramarathon runner. He thumbed past the interview notes of the family members and friends and stopped when he saw a page titled “Previous Employer, Jane Rocher, Albertson’s Grocery Store, Tempe.”

  Malloy reread the excerpt he’d glossed over before. “Ms. Richmond was terminated upon returning from extended medical leave for sciatica, having failed to provide a note from her physician. Ms. Richmond stated she was in the care of her father. Mr. Richmond confirmed that to be the case, but—”

  She’d had help. They’d all had help.

  “Garcia,” Malloy called out. “Shit.” He got up and opened his door. “Garcia!”

  Garcia leaned out of the kitchen holding a forkful of this morning’s cake.

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “Lyle Richmond lied to us. Get him back in here. Immediately!”

  Richmond. That son of a bitch.

  Chapter 19

  Layla sat on the leather sofa in Dr. Jeannette’s office as the therapist poured the tea. Finally, Dr. Jeannette handed her a cup and sat down opposite her in a rolling desk chair.

  Layla was grinning. She couldn’t help it. She hadn’t stopped grinning since she walked in. Still, she waited to be addressed.

  Dr. Jeannette laughed. “Okay, you silly girl. You know Brother James couldn’t wait to tell me about your cleanse. But I can see that you’re ready to explode. Tell me.”

  Layla sat forward on the sofa, trying to keep her composure. “Dr. Jeannette, I saw him. I saw him! I couldn’t believe how real and vivid it was. But it wasn’t like you told me it would be. He was—”

  Dr. Jeannette’s smile had disappeared. Layla saw disappointment in her face, the look that she’d grown to know so well over her many sessions.

  “He was what, Layla?” Dr. Jeannette smiled again, but Layla could see that something was very wrong. Her smile was forced, the corners of her mouth slightly twitching. She had gripped her teacup tighter but wasn’t drinking from it.

  Something inside Layla told her she was in serious trouble. She was bad. She’d failed again.

  She dropped her cup and lurched forward, heaving. “S-sorry.”

  She coughed and heaved again. Her mouth filled with acidic bile, and she sprang off the couch and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her. She dropped to the floor over the toilet, spitting the contents from her mouth. The heaving continued for nearly half a minute until she could sit back and catch her breath. She was sweating and panting. Her hands were shaking. But she wasn’t thinking about her physical condition. She was thinking about failure. Dr. Jeannette didn’t approve of what she’d just said. It was just like when she’d first started induction.

  It’s difficult to believe that your poisoned life was filled with trauma and abuse, Dr. Jeannette had told her. Our minds don’t want to believe that, so it creates a better world in our imagination. It’s a coping mechanism.

  But Dr. Jeannette, I don’t feel abused or traumatized, she’d insisted. I feel like I was loved.

  Dr. Jeannette returned to her computer, as if Layla were no longer in the room.

  Did I say something wrong?

  Dr. Jeannette removed her glasses and dropped them back onto her desk. She glared at her.

  Layla, I don’t know if you’re the girl I thought you were. I don’t know if you’re fit to be pure if you cannot accept the truth about your past. I think we may need to consider terminating your program here at the Colony.

  She’d asked Layla to leave her office. Layla had sobbed all night. The next day, she’d visited Dr. Jeannette first thing after devotions and asked forgiveness for her stupi
dity. After that, she had never denied her poisoned life of abuse again.

  Layla gripped the toilet seat. She was so stupid. She was going to lose everything. She’d lose her purification, be expelled from the program. She’d be sent into the impure world, back into her poisoned life. She wouldn’t be special. She wouldn’t be superior.

  She heaved again and coughed, spitting more acid in the toilet. Her tongue tasted dry and sour.

  “Layla, honey, are you okay?”

  She croaked. “Yes, sorry.”

  She started crying.

  “Are you sick, sweetheart?” Dr. Jeannette was just outside the door, but she didn’t enter the bathroom. “Shall I call medical?”

  Layla couldn’t stand. Her body was shaking, and she felt weak. “Yes, Dr. Jeannette. I’m sorry. I think I’m very sick.”

  She flattened against the cool ceramic tiled floor. Sweat soaked her hair and clothes. Just the idea of being forced out, stepping outside the Colony walls and taking that first breath of poisoned air, made her shiver with terror. The horrors of the impure world. The hate, and the crime, and the desperation. She would surely die. The poison would fill her lungs, then her veins, and she would rot and die.

  She curled into fetal position. Please Father, don’t make me leave. Please, Father, don’t make me leave. The chant continued even while she was lifted onto a stretcher and taken to the infirmary.

  Chapter 20

  Allison waited all afternoon for a call from Jakob’s doctor. Disheartened, she finally started packing up her things to go home. Maybe she’d hit the gym after work instead of going for a run outside. New Jersey summer afternoons were like a steam bath.

  Her desk phone rang, and she hit the speakerphone button.