The Mother Code

by Carole Stivers

  It was a colossal undertaking—genetic engineering of the entire human race. The key would be to administer the antidote before the subject was exposed to IC-NAN. This would limit the number of lesions that would have to be dealt with later. Then, administration would have to be continued regularly. Everyone on earth would need prophylactic treatment, unless or until humans evolved to live in their new IC-NAN-laden environment. And there was always the risk that the antidote NAN might cause other, unexpected side effects that hadn’t shown up in their testing. But Colonel Richard Blevins seemed only to disparage the magnitude of the challenge. Indeed, the colonel discouraged collaboration among the science teams. It had become clear to James that he could know no more than was necessary to complete his limited portion of the total mission.

  Locking the door to the cold box, James turned to face his lab mate. “Rudy, do you really think they’re taking this program seriously?”

  Rudy ran his hand thoughtfully over his balding pate. “How do you mean?”

  “I don’t see anyone worrying about trials. The antidote can’t be vetted without statistically valid human trials. And what about scale-up? If, as you say, the synthesis is so tricky, how are we going to make enough for everyone? Not to mention that a stable dosage form still needs to be worked out. Don’t they understand—”

  Rudy removed his lab coat, hanging it carefully on a hook by the door. Turning, he laid a gentle hand on James’s arm. “As I told you, I used to feel the same way about IC-NAN—that they were not serious about it. In fact, I fully anticipated cancellation. But then when we completed the project, I was told that a dispersal system had already been developed. There was already a bioreactor, ready for scale-up.”

  “Someone else was carrying the ball.”

  “Yes. These projects are carefully parsed, information shared only on a need-to-know basis. I pray each day for success. And I am certain that our government will aid us in any way possible.”

  “But you saw the most recent projections regarding the spread of the infected archaebacteria. We only have another two years to come up with a complete solution—if that.”

  Rudy paused, seeming to consider his reply. “This depends upon what you would call ‘complete,’” he said. “I must admit, I have been wondering . . .”

  “Wondering?”

  Rudy looked at the floor, not meeting his gaze now. “Please, do not tell anyone I told you this, James. But . . . I have heard a few things. I think that now . . . they realize that they must be content to save a chosen few.”

  James felt the energy draining from his limbs as he followed Rudy down the hall to their cramped cubicles. Sinking into his chair, he stared at an old photograph of his mother and father, the only personal item he’d brought with him from Emory. In the wake of his frantic message from the back of the government limo two years back, he’d had to constantly reassure them that all was well. For all they knew now, he was still at Emory, still attending faculty dinners and slaving his way toward tenure.

  He missed them, dearly. But he’d distanced himself, fabricating endless excuses for his failure to honor their invitations home. And as time passed, he’d found himself wondering: Was his current course—holding back the things he cared about most—just another version of what they’d done to him for as long as he could remember?

  The only child of Abdul and Amani Said, he’d always enjoyed the keen sense of their love. But every bit as keen had been his sense of the distance at which they kept him. They prayed behind closed doors, in a language he never learned. His “Christian name” was just that—Christian. And even his last name was different from theirs. They’d taught him to pronounce it like the English word—he said, she said. Not like the folks at Wheelan Farms, the Southern California hemp operation where his father worked as foreman, pronounced it. “Sure, Mr. Sah-eed,” they would drawl. “Do you want that delivered today, or can it wait ’til tomorrow?”

  Surely, everything his parents had done was for his protection. As much as they loved their faith, as much as it was an integral part of them, they’d taken great pains to insulate him from it. But he couldn’t stay insulated forever. At some point, he’d have to face his own reality. He was facing it now. The way he was treated here at Fort Detrick, held at arm’s length . . . Even Rudy stumbled sometimes, stopping in midsentence when James asked too many questions. Slowly but surely, James had become aware that he was being kept in the dark, even more so than Rudy and the others. He suffered no delusions. As one of Pakistani descent working within the close network of U.S. government security, he would always suffer extra scrutiny.

  He grimaced. In the same way, his parents might one day have to come to terms with the reality of the secrets he now kept—the reality of a global, man-made epidemic. Of course he hoped that the IC-NAN epidemic would never spread. But each day, he was more certain that it would. It was only a matter of time.

  He reached out to flip on his computer screen. The symbol of the Department of Defense, the eagle and its crown of thirteen stars, appeared as he waited for their scheduled meeting to begin. Finally, he heard the loud click that signaled the sign-on at Langley. He imagined a dark office at the other end, Blevins sitting alone at a small desk. But then he heard other voices, chatting quietly.

  “Dr. Said, are you there?” It was the colonel.

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “Dr. Garza?”

  “Yes.” Rudy’s voice echoed through his microphone from the adjacent cubicle.

  “Good. Then we’ll begin.”

  The symbol disappeared, replaced by the live image of a small table around which were seated five people. Colonel Blevins and another, taller man with massive square shoulders were in military uniform. A petite, redheaded woman and the overweight, dough-faced man beside her, both of whom looked vaguely familiar, were clad in business suits. The fifth was . . . Irena Blake, the vice president of the United States.

  “We have some guests here at Langley today,” Blevins said. “General Joseph Blankenship, director of the CIA.” The taller man in uniform raised a finger. “Henrietta Forbes, secretary of defense.” The small woman waved unenthusiastically toward the camera. “Sam Lowicki, director of national intelligence. And of course, you know the vice president.”

  James squinted at his screen. This wasn’t just an update. Decisions had been made. He watched as Blevins turned to his assembled group. “On this call we have Dr. Rudy Garza and Dr. James Said from Fort Detrick.”

  In the room at Langley, Sam Lowicki leaned forward. “Gentlemen . . .” He stopped to clear his throat, loosening his tie. “First, I’d like to thank you both for your efforts. I know this can’t have been easy for you. We all know you’ve done your best.”

  “But . . .” James whispered to himself. But what? He could feel his pulse, nearly bursting in his neck.

  “At this point, we’ve decided that it’s time for a . . . realignment of priorities. Dr. Garza?”

  “Yes?”

  “You’ll be responsible for human trials on your antidote candidates. When we determine which one is best, we’ll go full tilt on that one.”

  “But . . .” James couldn’t stop himself.

  “Yes, Dr. Said?” It was Colonel Blevins, looking pointedly now into the camera.

  “As you know,” James said, “we only have one viable antidote candidate at the moment. And how can we conduct human trials without screened subjects?”

  “We have volunteers,” Blevins said.

  “But who—”

  “That’s none of your concern,” Blevins said, cutting him off. His normally ruddy face grew even more flushed as he sat back.

  “Dr. Said?” It was Sam Lowicki again. “You’ll be assigned to a new project. This will require relocation.”

  “Relocation? Where?”

  “Los Alamos, New Mexico.”

  “New Mexico? But
my—”

  “Your department at Emory has been informed. General Blevins will brief you on your new assignment within the hour. Again, we thank you for your service.”

  James sat back, stunned. His body felt molded to his chair, his arms limp at his sides. General Blevins? When had Blevins been promoted? And why?

  9

  AS THE MEETING room emptied, Rick sank back in his chair and loosened his tie. Sweat had wet the collar of his dress shirt, and his right leg thrummed with pain from the place that had once been his calf. He fumbled in his pocket for the small plastic bottle. Over the past few months, he’d been forced to go back on his pain meds. But in the interest of maintaining a clear head, he’d thought better of taking them that morning.

  He dug the heels of his hands deep into his eye sockets. At least the pills he took now were only for the physical pain. He liked to think that the mental scars he’d sustained in the field had long since healed over. Letting the Narcodol do its job, he thought about Rose McBride, remembering their first interview.

  Remembering all their meetings since.

  Prior to bringing her on, he’d treated Captain McBride like any other mission. Without her knowing, he’d learned everything he could about her. After finishing an undergraduate degree in psychology, she’d started her military career advising psyops and performing psych evals on prisoners of war in Yemen. Interesting. She’d come back home to earn a graduate degree in computer science, specializing in cybersecurity. Impressive. As part of cyber ops in Afghanistan, her tireless investigation into an intricate web of secret communications had led to the capture of a notorious terrorist and arms trafficker, code name “Zulfiqar.” Amazing.

  But then, he’d met her. Closing his eyes, he imagined her face, the way she moved. He imagined her lithe, expressive hands tracing arcs in the air as she summarized rafts of seemingly unrelated findings, bringing to life the tale of the data. Her blue-green eyes flashed as they caught the glow of her screen . . .

  Rose claimed to be unmoored, a plant without roots. But she was the most grounded person he had ever met. She knew who she was. She knew what she was about. She saw through to the heart of everything. And when she looked at him, he was sure that she saw through to his heart.

  He’d tried to reason away his feelings. Of course she would make him feel that way—an open book, there for the reading. Out in the field, he’d encountered his share of psych officers. They were expert in deconstructing you—it became second nature to them after a while. But this was different. She hadn’t interrogated him. She hadn’t challenged him. Yet in her presence, something in him, a line of defense he hadn’t even known was there, had fallen away. And since he’d met Rose, the face that looked back at him in the mirror each morning was different. It was a face he could live with; the face of someone he could at least aspire to be.

  He clenched his fists. His feelings for Rose McBride were getting the better of him. She was a subordinate, working on a sensitive mission. To even imagine a relationship with her went against every code of military ethics that had been drilled into him. He had to get a grip.

  Still, he was determined to promote her. And so far, Dr. McBride had made that task an easy one. With her expertise in big data, she’d made light work of mapping the movements of suspect archaea species around the globe. She’d collated information from numerous international science agencies, coordinating the deployment of teams to collect the samples shipped to Fort Detrick for further investigation. He hadn’t had to tell her much. Used to clandestine operations, she wasn’t one to ask questions. Her attention to detail had been impeccable. And her findings had spelled their doom. She’d clearly demonstrated that the spread of infected archaebacteria was more rapid than the initial models had predicted. Over the past nine months, DOD had only confirmed her projections.

  Because of this—and only this, he told himself—he’d lobbied for putting her in charge of the Presidio recommission. And so far, her work had once more been commendable. Offering only mild incentives and the assurance that their new neighborhoods would “greatly benefit” from their presence, she’d managed to sweet-talk the last holdouts along the former Main Post into relocating to much less desirable offices in downtown San Francisco.

  Now, with the New Dawn project at Los Alamos, he’d have her in—all in. And that was important, because only those inside the team would even stand a chance of getting the antidote. He could admit it now, if only to himself. He wanted her to have the antidote.

  He keyed in Rose’s number at the institute, and she picked up immediately.

  “Congratulations, General,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You’ve been promoted?”

  “Oh . . . yes, you heard about that. It’s just brigadier general . . . only the one star . . .” He was silent, his thoughts swimming. “Captain McBride?”

  “You may call me Rose, if you wish.”

  “Rose? Uh . . .”

  “Your text message said something about a new assignment?”

  “Yes. We’re wrapping up the Presidio recommission. Now we have something more up your alley. Computer programming . . . But it would be best to explain it to you in person.”

  “Do you need me to come to Washington?”

  “No, we’ll be meeting in Los Alamos tomorrow. At the XO-Bot facility.”

  “The place where they design those space robots?”

  Rick smiled. Space robots. “Yes,” he said. “Can you make it there by sixteen hundred hours?”

  He heard a crackling on the line. “Uh . . . yes . . . I can fly out first thing in the morning.”

  “Good.” Rick sat back, his heart beating a little too fast. “Good. I’ll send flight details. We’ll have a car take you to the airfield.”

  He keyed off, his index finger glued for a moment to the small red icon on the console. He always looked forward to their time together. But this would be a difficult meeting, the first time she would really understand what had been going on all along. He wanted to be the one to tell her, and he wanted to tell her to her face.

  But first there was the matter of James Said. Shaking his head, he keyed in the doctor’s secure number.

  “Yes?” Said was angry—that much was clear.

  “I’m sorry,” Rick muttered into the phone. “I couldn’t risk getting into an argument in front of—”

  “I see. But now can you tell me what’s happening? Why am I going to Los Alamos?”

  “The archaebacteria are spreading faster than we’d hoped. And as you know, the antidote won’t be sufficient—”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “We do. Even if we can get something to work in a few individuals, you know as well as I do that we don’t have time to save the world.”

  A deep sigh rattled the line. “All right, so you trust Dr. Garza and his team to carry the antidote project without me. But why are you sending me to Los Alamos? What could possibly be going on there that’s more important than the work I’ve been doing at Fort Detrick?”

  “We need to make babies,” Rick said.

  “Babies?”

  “Children who are immune to this thing. It’s one of the reasons you were brought on in the first place.”

  “In the first place?”

  “Dr. Said, may I be candid with you?”

  “Please.”

  “I objected strongly to your initial placement on the team. I believed that we already had enough firepower on the NAN project. But even I wasn’t privy to the whole story.”

  “Which is . . . ?”

  “Blankenship and the team at Fort Detrick always had another plan, a backup. And they were sure that based on your previous research, you’d know how to get this done.”

  “But . . . babies? Who would feed them? Who would raise them?”

  “We’re working on that.”
/>   “The survivors? The ones who take the antidote? Will they be the ones who—”

  “Dr. Said, we don’t know. We don’t know if there will be any survivors. We need to cover all our bases. We need alternatives. There’ll be a debriefing tomorrow afternoon at Los Alamos. You’ll be on a military jet by oh seven hundred. You’ll receive details via your secure hookup. Just pack for overnight. You can get your things in order afterward.”

  Reaching across the table, Rick cut off their connection. No time now for questions. And besides, he had no answers. Babies. He was trying not to think too much, about the children already living in this poisonous time.

  10

  MARCH 2062

  THROUGH ROSIE’S HATCH window, Kai searched for Alpha-C in the darkness. His heartbeat slowed as he discerned her outline in the moonlight. They’d found another one yesterday—yet another one who was supposed to have survived, its bot destroyed, its tiny body long dead. In a year of searching with Sela and Alpha, it was the third one. The disappointment was less painful with Sela by his side. But it was painful nonetheless.

  “You are sad.” Rosie’s voice sounded deep in his mind.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “There is no reason for sadness.”

  Kai shook his head. Wasn’t there? Silently, he waited for daybreak.

  * * *

  NEXT TO HIM in her Mother’s shadow, Sela chewed slowly on something that looked like a spiky green stick. “Here.” She offered him a piece. “I found this yesterday on our way back. It’s supposed to be used in a tea, but if you don’t have any water you can just chew on the twigs. It helps clear your head.”