by Shanon Hunt
“Why?”
“They attach all these electrodes to us to monitor our vitals, and then we have to just sit in a room alone with a stranger and have this completely awkward conversation, like ‘What’s your favorite food?’ or ‘Did you ever have a pet?’ Then we talk for a couple of minutes, and depending on our vitals, we either pass or fail. Sometimes they’ll bring in someone else, and we gotta do the whole conversation part again. I just try to be as friendly as possible, but who knows what they’re looking for.”
Personality assessments and intelligence tests were conducted in her program, as well, but this psychosocial test was new to her.
“This one time, I was alone with this hateful woman. I asked her what her favorite food was, and you know she said?”
“What?”
“Babies. Can you believe that? She said, ‘Babies. Have you ever tried them? I like them with ketchup.’ I know she was just trying to be mean or scare me or something, but that’s totally rude, don’t you think?”
Layla could feel her eyebrows draw together. In her experience at the Colony, nothing was spontaneous. That hateful answer was intentional. What could they have been hoping to evoke from this young woman?
“I had to take deep breaths because I was scared I’d failed,” Caitlyn said. “I think they want us to be calm and not get angry or upset.”
They passed a small yoga studio, where a dozen or so girls rolled back on an exercise body ball.
“If they do fail, where do the displaced carriers go?” Layla slowed her pace to peer at the contented faces of the women. What a life.
“Um, I don’t know.”
Salvage. Don’t fuck up, Catie, or you’ll end up in salvage.
Layla’s head spun back around. “What did you say?” Profanity was forbidden in the presence of a Colony leader.
Caitlyn looked at her feet. “I said, I don’t know where they go.”
Layla gaped at her. Had Caitlyn said salvage? Had she imagined it?
Caitlyn scooted ahead, continuing the tour. “Um, this is our testing center. There are a bunch of different rooms with different equipment and stuff. It’s closed today because we only do testing on Mondays and Thursdays.”
“Is it unlocked? Can we walk through?”
“Yeah. It’s pretty boring, though. The waiting room is all we can see. The testing rooms are locked. Only the technicians can open them.” Caitlyn badged them inside. “The rooms have no windows, only a mirror that’s way too high up to even see your reflection in. I don’t know why they did that. Maybe it makes the room feel larger or something.”
The outer door opened into an unimpressive waiting area with oversize chairs and a water cooler. Both opposite corners opened to a long sunny hallway. One side was covered in windows to the outside of the building. The other side was lined with doors evenly spaced about six feet apart. That made sense: a central observation room with viewing into each of the testing rooms made the job easy for one or two observers. Her eyes drifted to the high ceiling. Not a full two stories, but certainly one and a half.
“Where’s the staircase?” Layla didn’t realize she’d asked the question aloud until Caitlyn answered.
“Oh, there isn’t a second floor. It’s just these rooms.”
Layla kept walking until she reached a door marked Medical Personnel Only. Her badge certainly wouldn’t open this door, but James’s supervisor key code would, and she’d seen him use it enough times to have memorized the number long ago. Being the boss’s girl had its perks.
She had just reached out to press the numbers when she heard Caitlyn behind her.
“Oh hello, Dr. De Luca.”
20
March 2024, California
Nick parked the pickup in the El Pueblo parking lot, threw his backpack over one shoulder, and hurried down North Alameda Street. God, he hated LA. He couldn’t fathom why all these people chose to live in this grimy, overpopulated city, when the desert southwest, with its wide-open space and big sky, was just a few hours away. Like most inner cities, the streets of LA were clothed in trash. Even wealthy cities had been crushed by the economic depression, and there simply weren’t enough resources for regular garbage collection. Garbage cans overflowed, and the wind dragged paper cups, plastic bottles, and Styrofoam containers down the unkempt cobblestone sidewalks and gutters.
Union Bagel Shop was barely wider than the door he stepped through to enter. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his wrist and appraised the customers. Even though it had been a few years since he’d seen Jordan Jennings, he was certain he couldn’t miss the guy: rail-thin and slouchy, like someone who always felt self-conscious about his height, and that mop of hair, which Nick was sure had never seen a pair of scissors or even a comb.
But not one of seven customers at the small tables resembled Jordan Jennings.
“May I help you?” asked an Indian girl from behind the counter. She looked to be fifteen or sixteen, and he didn’t have the heart to say he was just waiting for someone.
“Yeah, I’ll … uh…” He lifted his eyes to the menu above her, as if expecting it to offer something that every other bagel shop in the world didn’t. That guy better not have stood him up, because he had no way to call him back to chew him out.
An older man stepped up next to the girl—her father, maybe, who spoke with a strong accent. “Sir, we have fresh batch of bagels, just from oven. Come this way. Very delicious.” He opened the waist-high swinging door and motioned Nick inside. “Fresh bagels, come take your choice.”
“It’s okay, I’m just waiting—”
The man caught his wrist. “Please, sir.”
Confused, Nick followed him through the kitchen and out a back door that led into a drab cement hallway. The man spoke quietly, even though they were alone. “Dr. Jennings is waiting for you. His lab is at the end of the hall, down one flight of stairs.”
He wanted to roll his eyes. Was the drama necessary? The stairwell was grungy, with filthy aluminum stairs and a handrail he refused to touch, and when he reached the bottom of the stairs, he expected to enter a basement parking garage. But as he flung open the door, he nearly swallowed his teeth. He’d stepped into another world.
The wide low-ceilinged room, maybe the size of an indoor tennis court, was brightly lit by fluorescent lights. Three long black countertops in the center of the room held machines and robotic equipment—Nick could only assume they were genetic research instruments—lined up end to end. The room smelled like bleach and fast food.
“Hey, man, thanks for coming.” Jordan Jennings sidled up carrying a large soda cup from McDonald’s. He didn’t offer a handshake, but Nick wasn’t surprised.
Nick nodded toward the room. “What is this place?”
“This is my lab.” Jordan’s long dreads bobbed up and down proudly. “Guess you could say we’ve gone underground, huh?” He laughed at his joke. “Come on, this way. Meet my friends.”
Nick followed him into what looked like a college dorm common area, with two beat-up sofas, two unmatched recliners, a coffee table covered in McDonald’s bags, and of course a foosball table.
A man and a woman sat obviously waiting.
Jordan gestured to the woman, who looked to be in her late twenties. A long pink scar stretched from her eye to her upper lip. “This is Jenna Wolfe. She’s a dog walker by day and in charge of our animal studies by night.”
“Hey,” she said with a nod.
“Gang fight?” Nick asked as he sank into one of the recliners. He immediately regretted the crass joke.
But Jenna didn’t seem even slightly offended or embarrassed. She sat forward, with her elbows on her knees, as if inviting him to have a closer look. “I was mauled by a chimpanzee.”
Jesus.
“And this is Abder, computer analyst and hacker extraordinaire. His dad owns the bagel shop and much of what remains of LA.”
Abder reached over the coffee table for a firm handshake. “He doesn’t just
love me for my money. That’s what he tells me, anyway.”
“So why all this secrecy?” Nick asked. “Why are y’all hiding out?”
“Because if they knew what we’re working on, we’d all be dead.” Jenna’s duchess of doom demeanor was a bit much for Nick.
“Who?”
Jordan made a few swipes on his phone and held it up. “We call them the company, as in ‘We’ve got company.’”
“Or like every conspiracy movie you’ve ever seen,” Abder added.
Nick looked at his watch and moved to the edge of his chair. “Listen, Jordan, I was hoping you had something on the Malloy-Garcia case.”
“Huh? The what?”
“You don’t remember? Peter Malloy’s victims with the spinal ports? The LXR drug?”
Jordan frowned and shoved his phone into Nick’s chest. “Brah, look at the picture.”
Nick’s shoulders drooped. He’d just driven an awfully long way for some new insight into his story. He was tired and hungry. The last thing he needed was a new conspiracy theory. But he took the phone.
The image was an outdoor restaurant filled with people. Jordan leaned back on the arm of the recliner and pointed. “These two here”—a man and a woman wearing business attire sat at a table, deep in conversation—“and these two”—two men. “They hired us to cure the virus. And then they tried to recruit us to join the team.”
“To cure the virus? The lyssavirus?” Nick felt his mouth go dry, as his eyes flew up to Jordan’s face.
“Get this,” Jordan said. “About a year and a half ago, when Abder and I were at the Broad, we were approached by some guy who said he was from the NIH to run an analysis on a DNA sample. They were looking for point mutations—specifically, any insertions or deletions that seemed abnormal. We didn’t ask questions. You know, a job’s a job, and the NIH is a US government-funded research organization.”
Nick shook his head. “But that was way before the virus—"
“Wait for it,” Jenna said. “He hasn’t gotten to the punchline yet.”
“So anyway,” Jordan continued, “I gave the gig to Abder, and Abder ran the analyses and reported back to his contact at the NIH. Done.” He scrolled through his phone again. “Check it out. Time goes by, say five, six months. It was right after we came out of quarantine. I was still in Boston at the Broad, but I flew out to deliver this talk at UCLA. I had this theory that our prime editing platform could kill the virus. Prime editing is all the shit now. You remember how CRISPR worked, right? Don’t get me wrong, CRISPR is genius, but what it’s best at is snipping, and if your guide RNA doesn’t get the scissors to the right spot, the wrong gene could be edited. CRISPR’s been known to make huge mistakes like that. But even if it gets to the right spot, you still have to provide the new DNA piece and cross your fingers that it gets installed correctly.” He shook his head. “So many ways it can fuck up.”
The last time Nick had talked to Jordan, he couldn’t stop talking about how CRISPR would change the world. Now he thought it was crap?
Jordan’s finger stopped scrolling, and he tossed the phone onto the couch beside him and leaned forward, draping himself over the coffee table. He grabbed two straws from the rubble of plastic cups and laid them in a parallel line, then slotted french fries between them to create what Nick had to assume was a DNA ladder.
“But prime works differently. Instead of chopping out this whole chunk of gene, it just nicks one strand.”
Abder handed him a pair of scissors and mumbled to Jenna, “At least he didn’t use my basketball shoelaces this time.”
Jordan snipped one of the straws. “So one strand is cut like this and the pegRNA, the little helper smart car, comes rolling in and delivers a new DNA segment to attach to the strand, like this.” Jordan pulled a ChapStick from his pocket and attached it to the end of the cut piece of straw. “This new bit, the ChapStick, is accepted into the DNA strand, and this old section of straw that’s flailing off to the side is removed by the cell machinery. But now you can see that the ChapStick doesn’t match the straw on the other side of the ladder. This mismatch has to be resolved, so we send a different RNA smart car to snip the other side.” Jordan cut the straw opposite the ChapStick. “And that’s it. The cell machinery is triggered to repair the broken strand, and it does that by perfectly matching up with the edited strand.” He looked up expectantly at Abder.
“Sorry, man.” Abder shrugged.
“I gotcha.” Jenna reached into her purse and produced a small tube of Vaseline lip balm. “Best I can do.”
Jordan lined up the ChapStick and the Vaseline tube and joined them using a french fry. “And that gives us a perfectly edited DNA strand. No mistakes.” He beamed at his kindergarten science diagram.
As much as Nick hated science babble, Jordan did have a way of dumbing it down for the slow-witted likes of himself.
Jordan picked up his phone and continued scrolling through photos. “Anyway, so in my talk, I explained how my programmed gene edits would target the genome of the virus and stop the destruction. The process might’ve taken several doses over weeks. Problem was, I couldn’t get a sample of the virus to run tests with, the cleanup by the government was too thorough.”
Nick nodded. After the virus had been released, satellite imagery and drones were used to identify hot spots where the virus had gone on its rampage, killing hundreds at first, then thousands a day. Nations deployed their militaries to the sites in such force, setting up barriers monitored by soldiers with full armor, machine guns, and flame throwers, that by the time the troops cleared out, there wasn’t so much as a blade of grass still alive.
“Most genetic research sites had already closed up shop in the wake of the economic collapse, so no one was even asking if the problem could be solved by science. Even though I had a great theory, I couldn’t prove—oh, here it is. Yeah.”
Jordan held up his phone. It showed a woman in business attire leaning an elbow on a bar table. Based on the angle of the shot, it looked like the picture came from a body cam.
“Not sure I see where this is going,” Nick said. “Who’s this?”
“She told me she works for a top-secret government organization, and she pulled out a vial of what she said was the viral DNA. She wanted me to test my prime editing theory.”
Nick perked up. “Did you do it?”
“Hells yeah, I did. But here’s the punch line. I gave it to Abder first to analyze the genetic code, and guess what? Abder recognized it. He has an eye for genetic structure. He pulled the analysis from that original NIH contract, the one from months before, and sure enough, it was nearly identical.”
Nick leaned in, his elbows on his now trembling knees. His voice had dropped to barely above a whisper. “Are you telling me the US government had the lyssavirus before it was released? They knew about it?”
“I don’t know if they knew what it was, but they definitely had it.”
“I knew it!” Nick exclaimed, with a loud clap of his hands. Finally, some real, tangible evidence.
“Tell you what it wasn’t, though. It wasn’t a lyssavirus.” Jordan tied his mop of hair into a man bun and secured it with a rubber band from his wrist, a sign that Jordan was getting serious. “We still don’t know what it is. Maybe they don’t either.”
The gravity of what Jordan was suggesting didn’t escape him. If they didn’t know what they were dealing with, how would they ever be able to eradicate it?
“So what happened next?” Nick asked.
“We dragged our feet, or at least that’s what we wanted them to think. They’d check in, and we’d tell them we were working on it, we were having trouble with uptake, that kind of thing. But we were just trying to buy time, because we wanted to run our own animal studies.”
Nick glanced at the duchess of doom, who took a drag off an e-cigarette.
“A couple of weeks go by. Then one morning I walk into work and there are all these guys in suits going through my lab. Government types
. My boss comes up to me and says, ‘Pack up your office, we’re closing.’” Jordan’s expression darkened. “There weren’t just white collars there, either—cops or maybe military, I’m not sure, carrying loaded rifles like they were holding up the place. They took everything, I mean everything: vials, reagents, flasks… And they took my lab notebook.”
“Jesus. Who were they?”
He shrugged. “No one ever told me. I’m not sure my boss even knew. That was the end of the Broad and my lab.”
Nick gestured to the lab next door. “I’m guessing that’s not the end of your story, though.”
Jordan smirked. “A paranoid nutjob like me? A guy who wears a body cam pretty much every day? No freakin’ way would I put all my virus in one basket. And my lab notebook—well, my real lab notebook”—Jordan reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a black composition notebook, battered and folded in the middle—“never leaves my person.”
Government men with armed military backup. Nick’s mind flashed to his apartment. Every thought, every hunch he’d ever had about the origin of the virus was written on a card and hung on his living room wall. The unsettling realization made him reach back to make sure his laptop was still in the bag.
“So what happened after they closed you down? Did they get what they needed?” Nick’s mind was already racing through his next steps. He’d have to get names from the NIH. Could Nyla run a forensic analysis to identify the original viral DNA? Maybe he could ID the woman who’d given Jordan the vial. So many leads, so little time.
“They got two vials of my prime-edited CNS stem cells, so yeah.”
“But what they didn’t get was our animal data, which I had at my lab in Ashland.” A wisp of smoke drifted from Jenna’s mouth. “And that’s unfortunate for them because what we’ve been seeing is pretty disturbing.”
“Something new?”
She glanced at Jordan, who shrugged weakly. Abder was shaking his head, his expression positively bleak.
“Something different? Something even worse?”
Her tone was flat as she pushed herself out of the sofa. “Brace yourself. This is monkey business on a whole new dimension.”