by L K Hingey
The architecture was incredible, and the mix of square and curved walls played tricks on Kimber’s mind. Two smooth concrete support pillars rose up from the center of the room, both polished as brightly as the floor. Green spirals had been spun around the base and the top of the stout pillars, tying the design of the offices into the lobby. If not for the absence of natural light, Kimber could have forgotten that she was underground.
Kimber doubled back to the staircase. She wanted to check possible routes of egress, and although she still had to search the locked rooms, she needed to know how high the stairs went. If the staircase went all the way to the first floor of the clinic, she could bring Tristan down here! She had never seen anything like this place and knew he would be intrigued. Kimber clung to a sliver of hope and raced up the first flight of steps. She was quickly met with disappointment.
As Kimber turned left around the first landing, she could see that the balcony above the offices below was where the staircase ended. The top of the staircase opened to the right into a short hallway that ran into a large conference room. The room was walled off by the same thick panels of glass as the offices downstairs and featured a large glass table surrounded by plush office chairs, each chair embroidered with a name. But the impressive amenities and elegance of the space were not what made Kimber reel.
Bodies sat in the chairs with their heads down on the table. There were also bodies lying around the feet of the table and a few crouched along the far wall, covering their heads. From what Kimber could see, they all had taken bullets to the head. Since they were so deep underground and the air was not well circulated, the bodies were not nearly as decomposed as the ones on the surface. Kimber could see that they had all been wearing matching lab uniforms with their access cards clipped onto their white coats.
Kimber did not need to go in to put the details together. She looked sadly at the names emblazoned on the chairs. They had all been doctors. Her eyes swept over the names and suddenly, her mouth went dry. Kimberly Thatcher, M.D. was inscribed in silver thread on the eighth chair. There were twelve chairs in total and the two closest to the door had been shoved out of the way. Kimber could barely see the names, but could make out Nicolas Quinn, M.D. and COL Roberts, Franklin. Her head was spinning as she counted the nine bodies in the room.
She wished she had Tristan here to confer with. It seemed the attack on the soldiers outside the I.B.R.P. room had not been an isolated event. Kimber began to pace. She wanted to sit for a few minutes and sort it all out. The best she could surmise, was that the leadership of the Bureau had not wanted the people who had been working in, or above, the labs to join in the refuge of the caves. But... why? Kimber raked her hand through her hair.
The workers must have known about Inanna. Shoot, Kimber thought, they had probably helped DESIGN Inanna. And there would have been no way to hide the reality of the impending flare from the scientists once the Bureau vacated the laboratories. Once the city was sealed, the Bureau obviously would not have wanted the location of their safe haven spilled to the panicked public.
So, they just gathered them up and shot them all? Kimber asked herself with a shiver. How had her mother escaped sharing their fate? And seeing as how eleven people were accounted for, where was the twelfth body? Kimber’s mind was on fire.
Kimber was not particularly keen on going into the conference room, but she could see a clipboard, electronic screens, and papers scattered around on the desk. Curiosity got the better of her, and she held Kimberly’s access card to the keypad. The doors slid open. Kimber tiptoed into the chamber nervously, being careful not to disturb any of the resting souls. She scooped up the clipboard, gathered as many papers as she could, and exited the room as quietly as she had entered. She realized she had been holding her breath, and as the doors closed, Kimber exhaled deeply.
She was shaking as she brought the pile of papers down into the lobby. At least this space was clean and bright so she could sort out her thoughts freely. Kimber sank into a chair that sat around a coffee table in the center of the room and started to sift through the contents of the clipboard. The metal teeth gripped several packets of papers, the top packet containing a list of roughly two hundred names. The first two dozen or so names were highlighted in red, and the last few dozen had been auto filled with Orphan: age 3 or under.
Underneath the massive list was a biography on each of the ten scientists detailing their blood type, age, schooling, and marital and family status. Kimber flipped through the pages to the biography on her mother. She scanned over the information pausing where the marital status read married. She should probably have been used to surprises by now, but her jaw dropped. Her mother was married? The biography read zero children and then contained details on her work focuses and scientific publications. Kimber tried to digest some of it, but the words became a useless blur.
A sadness fell over Kimber. If her mother had been married, what had become of her husband? Kimber was smart enough to separate sentimentality and reason, knowing that Kimberly’s husband would not have been her biological father. The thought felt like a dagger to the heart, nonetheless. Kimber tried to shake off the astonishment and kept searching. Her mind was foggy as she pulled the pile of loose papers onto her lap. The pages were filled with details on Inanna: supply manifests, personnel manifests, medical plans, engineering data, water projections, fuel requirements, horticulture estimates, and biosphere considerations. There were also pages that outlined the strategy for the birth of the Auroras.
Kimber stared down at the statistics that had predicted whether she and her fellow species would be born viable, and more importantly, if they would be fertile. Lastly, there was a packet stapled together that contained profiles on the chosen mothers of the Auroras. Kimber flipped through the first few, recognizing the faces and the first names of the Mothers. She picked up the clipboard with the two hundred names and confirmed the names listed in red were the Mothers. Kimberly, or any Thatcher, was not on the list.
Kimber set the papers down, deep in thought. Clearly, Kimberly was not supposed to have been a Mother. Kimber sighed and organized the pile, leaving it on the coffee table. She would have time to ponder later. Right now, she had to check out the rest of the rooms and maybe even the other floors, before getting back to Tristan. She walked over to the first of the doors and opened it, again using the keypad.
The heavy steel door swung open and Kimber walk into a large bay. The room was vast and more industrial looking than the lobby. Exposed piping ran along a rough concrete ceiling and snaked down the walls. The floor was the same polished concrete, which helped to cheer up the looming space some. Stations had been set up around the room, topped with computers, lab equipment, and jars of preserved plant-life.
It looked like this space had been a botanical laboratory. Aquariums and terrariums were built into the walls and soil samples filled many clear jars that were stacked about the room. Kimber walked around quickly, looking for papers or anything else of importance. She saw a tray of glass tubes labeled freeze-dried tardigrades atop one of the workstations. She didn’t know why, but she felt compelled to grab one. She wrapped it safely in the leather fold the jerky had been in and tucked it at the bottom of her bag.
On her way out, she examined a hexagonal stand in the center of the room. A beautiful glass terrarium sat on top of it, under a massive light that had been built into its six-sided lid. Kimber suspected it was a special UV/ X-ray emitting bulb used to simulate the austerity of unfiltered cosmic rays. Built into the lid of the terrarium was also a series of water misters. Kimber recognized the shriveled-up moss in the cage, laying crumpled on a bed of stone pebbles and black dirt.
She did not have time to fawn over the plant though and continued her search dutifully as she let herself into the room next door. This room was set up in a similar way to the botanical lab with a few key differences. Atop the workstations ran a long glass cage that was divided into many small compartments. The cage only took up the back ¼ of the desk’s dep
th, but the cage spanned at least twenty feet in length on each side of the room. In it were housed the skeletons of all sorts of different animals, including lizards, mice, rats, snakes, and small birds. They were all labeled with their scientific genus and whether they had undergone grafting of any kind. Most of the animals in the cages had.
Another difference between the two rooms was that instead of the ornate hexagonal terrarium gracing the center of the room, a more robust rectangular cage had been built here, extending from the floor to the ceiling. Like the thin cages on the desks, this central cage was also divided into sub compartments. Oddly, there were gloves built into the sub compartments. Kimber assumed this was for the purposes of drawing blood or administering drugs, perhaps under exposure of high doses of radiation.
Kimber circled the large arrangement of neatly labeled cages. The majority of the sub compartments were labeled with a genus of snake species, and surprisingly, a handful of the tanks were empty. Kimber peered inside. Could the snakes in the zoo be the same ones that had been caged here? She had never researched the lifespan of a snake, but if snakes were like most reptiles, it was safe to presume they could live relatively long lives. If not, perhaps the viper’s offspring were the reptiles on exhibit in Inannian’s zoo. Kimber made a mental note to research the subject someday and kept looking around.
Around the room were animals suspended in jars of liquid. Perhaps these were the milestone achievements of the laboratory’s genetic research, embalmed forever to encourage further advancement. There was one especially large jar at the far side of the room in which a brightly colored yellow snake with orange ribbons had been preserved. Its body was neatly coiled, and its venomous jaws had been propped open. Kimber did not like to see the animal this way, but it was impossible to look away.
As she drew closer to the snake, Kimber began to notice more jars tucked away on shelves and atop the many desks in the room. Something uncanny about the jars caught her attention, and as she inspected them, she was shocked to see that many of the preserved animals had additional limbs. One large lizard, labeled adolescent iguana, looked like it had grown two tails, the smaller of which was stunted and misshapen. Kimber looked around and grimaced, realizing how many jars were in the room.
Kimber walked around, scrutinizing the embalmed animals. There was a grouping of small jars holding mice next to a larger grouping of jars that contained songbirds. The mice stared vacantly at her, and as Kimber stared back, she felt queasy. The mice all had more than two eyes. The birds did not have additional appendages like the rodents did, but instead had skin that grew on and in their feathers. Some of the skin had grown so thick that it hung off the bird’s bodies in small pink flaps, or worse, wrapped over the hosts’ heads, growing into the eyes and ears of the tiny avian creatures.
Kimber was stunned. When the DNA, the core strands of deoxyribonucleic acid that define the composition of every living thing, of the mammals and birds had been fused with the tardigrade DNA, it apparently had caused some drastic adaptations. Though the tardigrade’s famous “extra” sets of genes were extremely useful in healing, they must have caused the growth cells to continue multiplying beyond the normal programming of mammal and avian DNA. The only jars of animals that seemed impervious to the maladaptation, were the varieties of preserved vipers.
There was a stack of papers on the desk near the jars labeled HOX genes: Subset Homeobox in printed lettering. Kimber picked up the papers and skimmed over them. The writing was highly scientific, but Kimber was able to gather that it was not a synopsis on why the additional appendages were occurring, but more specifically, why the limbs were growing in anatomically incorrect places. The article attributed the Tardigrade’s lack of HOX genes for this grotesque phenomenon.
HOX genes, found in the DNA of most animal species, encode the correct positioning in growth cells. They essentially signal the cells to go to preprogrammed areas of the body for multiplication. The body of a tardigrade, unlike most complex organisms, was comprised of identical segments, like the homologous parts of an earth worm. Or a snake, Kimber considered. What it all meant, was that since tardigrades did not have HOX genes, they lack anatomically accurate position-signaling.
In short, the first few waves of animals that had been fused with the tardigrade DNA had be given the short end of the stick. Not only did they have too many copies of growth cells, they lacked proper guidance on where and when to send these additional cells. Kimber marveled at the science behind it all and did not envy those who were responsible for the research and experimentation. She wondered if the scientists would have been able to figure out how to isolate and utilize the best of both species of DNA, had they been given more time.
Kimber kept the HOX dissertation to add to her stack of papers outside, and as she glanced at the colorful viper one last time, her mind wandered to her own genetic makeup. If the scientists had been able to isolate the extra copies of repairing genes, while preserving the functionality of the HOX genes, would she have ever been born? And if human DNA could be grafted straight to tardigrade DNA, would the genetically modified humans be able to pass their adaptations to their children? Or would scientists have to continue to extract fertilized eggs, conduct the necessary grafting, and then reinject the altered embryos into the womb?
Kimber scanned the large room one last time before she walked out. She had so many questions that she wanted to ask her mother. With a sigh, she placed her new handful of papers on top of the stack already on the coffee table and wondered how Tristan was doing. The lights were still on, so that was good. Kimber sent up a silent prayer that they did not go out on her. The dark would be the very least of her problems if the power cut out. What she was most concerned about was the elevator.
Kimber looked towards the third door. One more room to go, after which, she could quickly check out the next couple floors and then get the hell out of here. She had a hunch that the floors above may have been responsible for preliminary testing, which would perhaps send the more promising findings down to this executive level. She walked to the final door. She had gotten used to the keypads, and as the door swung open, she expected the room to be similar to the previous two: industrial, expansive, and full of strange sights. This room delivered all of that and more. Kimber gasped in horror and forced herself to walk forward, fighting every instinct to back away and run.
Chapter XVI
Every cell in Kimber’s body was screaming to leave as she stepped into the third room. This room was the largest of the three, and though the lighting, the exposed piping, and the rough concrete of the tall ceiling resembled the previous two bays, there were no plants or petrified animals in here. Instead, Kimber realized that she had stumbled upon what she was looking for. She had stepped into the laboratory for the genetic research and testing on humans.
There were two bodies in the room and many liquid-filled jars that crowded the shelves and desk stations. Kimber could not bring herself to look into the jars, instead letting her eyes dart around as she tried to swallow her panic. A desk wrapped around most of the room, with multiple built-in spaces for hospital beds to be set up. Around two of these bed stations, tracks had been built to hold up curtains. Both curtains were pulled open and the body of a woman was lying on one of the tables.
A man’s body, wearing a military uniform, was lying on the ground between the woman’s bed and the door. Like the workers who had been murdered in the conference room, many of the details about this man were discernable. He was lying outstretched towards the door, uniform sleeves rolled up, with a long syringe in his hand. Near him lay a black briefcase with a name patch sewn on: COL Roberts, Franklin.
At least this solved the mystery of the missing twelfth person, Kimber thought grimly as she stepped around the man and made her way over to the workstation. The two must have been connected, although Kimber did not yet see how. The lady who was lying on the table had been dressed in a hospital gown. She was still hooked up to an IV, Kimber assumed for sedati
on, but there were no drugs left to be administered.
Kimber looked at the woman’s hospital wrist band. Sophia Cortez, DOB: April 6th 2156, Blood Type: A+. The name, like the name Thatcher, stuck in her mind like tar. Kimber chewed on it for a few seconds and then the realization hit her like a lightning bolt. She recognized Sophia Cortez from the list of names in red. Sophia had been on the manifest of the Mothers! Somehow, Sophia had never made it that far. But Kimberly had.
Kimber looked to the Colonel lying at the entrance to the room, and at the syringe in his hand. Had this military officer, probably an Army doctor, helped Kimberly escape certain death by impregnating her with an Aurorean embryo instead of Sophia? Kimber was reeling from the idea that the embryo in question was not just some hypothetical test subject in a medical experiment... it had been her. She had been the embryo that saved Kimberly’s life, while Sophia Cortez, the woman who was supposed to have been her mother, was sentenced to death.
Kimber looked around in a daze. She now understood why Kimberly had said she had done and seen things that haunted her every day. Numbly, Kimber looked around the room. In the jars were human versions of the attempts to graft animal DNA with tardigrade DNA. Small fetuses floated in the translucent yellowish liquid that ranged from the size of Kimber’s hand to the size of a small infant. She was horrified but was in too much of a stupor to look away.
Tiny babies with too many arms and legs, too many eyes and ears, and incorrectly placed anatomy were all on display. How could people work in an environment like this? Kimber shivered. She wondered if they had preserved each failed attempt in order to keep the gravity of their work in the forefront of their minds. After all, every failed attempt had been a life lost. Or, was Kimber simply trying to humanize the research teams, which included her mother, by attributing the scientists with compassion for the fetuses?
Vials of freeze-dried tardigrades sat in racks upon the desks. As Kimber traveled farther back in the room, she found the remnants of the first attempts at human-animal grafts. None of them had gone well. As tears welled up, Kimber looked away, forcing her brain to kick into gear. Evidence. Papers. Data. She needed something to prove what had been happening down here. She refused to disturb any of these tiny souls by shoving a jar into her knapsack, but also knew that if she returned empty-handed, the council would dismiss her claims as outlandish fabrications.