by Greg Cox
A manila envelope rested beside her on the bench. She picked up the envelope and handed it to the younger scientist, who had to step forward to receive it. “I was hoping you could explain this,” she stated.
The temperature in the garden was cool and comfortable, yet beads of perspiration broke out upon Singer’s unlined brow. He gulped as he opened the envelope and drew out the documents inside: several sheets of stationery marked with his own handwriting. Beneath a carefully cultivated tan, the American’s face went pale.
“How did you get this?” he blurted. “You’ve been reading my mail?” He tried to muster an air of righteous indignation, with only partial success. “You had no right ... this was private, personal!”
Such predictable behavior saddened Kaur. “Now, Joel, you know we have to maintain the tightest security here. Secrecy is essential to the project. You were told that from the beginning.” Perhaps we chose him too hastily, she thought with more than a twinge of regret. If so, then this is partly our fault.
“But it’s just a harmless letter to a friend, an old classmate from Columbia,” Singer insisted. He waved the sheets like a paper fan before the seated woman’s eyes. “Read it yourself. It’s all just small talk.”
Kaur was not swayed by his protestations. “First off, all contact with the outside world was to be strictly supervised. Those were the rules. Second, you and I both know that this letter is not nearly as inconsequential as you meant it to appear.” She gave Singer a rueful look. “Did you really think we’d forget that cryptography was a special hobby of yours? It’s in your file, Joel.”
Confronted thus, Singer looked unsteady on his feet. He tottered slightly, looking about plaintively for some sort of support amid the flowering bushes. Finally, he staggered backward and sat down awkwardly upon one of the lotus-shaped fountain’s sculpted marble petals. “I can explain,” he murmured weakly. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
[48] “It took us several weeks to crack the code,” Kaur admitted, paying little attention to Singer’s feeble denials, “but what we found is disturbing. Very disturbing.” She did not need to reclaim the actual letter to recall the most damning passages. “In this letter, you confide to your friend that you were having ‘second thoughts,’ that you had accidentally discovered something that disturbed you.” A look of extreme disappointment surfaced on her face, rising up from deep within her. “I thought you shared our devotion to the future, Joel.”
“I do!” he exclaimed immediately, then caught himself holding contradictory evidence between his own fingers. “Mostly, I mean.”
“But—?” she prompted him, wanting to conclude this matter as efficiently as possible. If it were done when ’tis done, then t’were well it were done quickly, she thought, referencing Macbeth, but first it was important to learn just what had led the young researcher astray, if only to prevent future mistakes—and sacrifices—of this nature.
Mercifully, Singer did not waste any more time proclaiming his innocence. “Look, I was nosing around on Level Four, hoping to scope out something more exciting than the routine stuff I’ve been working on lately, when I stumbled onto what looked like one of your pet projects.” He raised his voice, hoping to claim the moral high ground. “What the hell are you doing breeding antibiotic-resistant streptococcus? Don’t you know how dangerous that is? I saw lab rats in the final stages of some kind of complete cellular breakdown. The bacteria were literally eating away at their flesh!”
“Naturally,” she replied serenely, unruffled by the young scientist’s accusations. “That was the intent.” She made a mental note to increase security on Level Four. “You needn’t worry, though; all of our special children possess a genetic immunity to all forms of streptococcus.”
“At the moment, I don’t care about your precious whiz kids!” Nervous trepidation gave way to anger as Singer vented his previously hidden qualms. He rose from his seat on the edge of the fountain and began to pace upon the courtyard’s red cement tiles. “Hell, I’m smarter than average, ninety-ninth percentile and all that, and even I’m freaked out by these pint-sized mega-geniuses we’re [49] manufacturing, especially that precocious little four-year-old of yours, the first creepy chip off your block.” His gaze drifted automatically toward the director’s swollen belly, as if envisioning an even more unnerving prodigy to come. “But what about the rest of us? What about the billions of ordinary people out there? Do you know what this superbug could do to them?”
“Of course I do, Joel.” She waited patiently for him to put the pieces together, mildly surprised that it was taking this long. Was he, perhaps, not really as bright as advertised, or was he just in denial? She suspected the latter.
But no amount of willful self-delusion could shield him from the ugly truth forever. She could literally watch the realization sink into his consciousness as the blood slowly drained from his face. It made an interesting case study in somatic responses to psychological stress.
“Oh my god, that’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Pruning the herd to make room for your Master Race? In with the new, out with the old.” His entire body was shaking now, rocked by tremors of shock and remorse. “Nobody told me about this part! I thought we were working to help humanity ... !”
“That depends on how you define ‘humanity,’ ” she said, carefully probing his responses. In truth, she was more interested in analyzing the turncoat scientist than converting him. “The future of the species is here at Chrysalis.”
“No, it’s inhuman! I see that now. There’s nothing human about this entire insane project.” His tone swung between outrage and pleading. “We’re talking about a flesh-eating bacterium here. Millions of innocent people wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Ah, I see, Kaur observed, understanding at last. A misguided reverence for individual human lives, married to excessive identification with a soon-to-be-obsolete mode of humanity. We’ll have to watch out for that in the future, especially with American candidates. If nothing else, his volatile, highly emotional reactions made it clear that certain aspects of the project’s long-term agenda should remain known only to the upper echelons of Chrysalis’s leadership. Why burden the likes of Singer, or even Walter Takagi, with foreknowledge of the dreadful sacrifices to come?
[50] Unfortunately, she judged, there was little that could be done to salvage Singer himself at this point; his counterproductive prejudices were doubtless deeply rooted. “Thank you for speaking so freely,” she told him sincerely. “You’ve provided me with everything I need to know.”
The finality in her tone reached him even through his mutinous outburst. “So, what now?” he confronted her. “Are you putting me on the first plane back to the States?”
Kaur shook her head. “I’m sorry, Joel. I wish I could.” She removed a small brass bell from her pocket and rang it once. In response, two massive Sikh security guards appeared at either end of the garden, blocking both exits. Stern, unforgiving faces regarded him from beneath both turbans and bristling black beards. Their uniforms were blue, the color of the unstoppable monsoon. Automatic pistols in hand, they converged on Singer, who began to shake uncontrollably as his mind grasped the rapidly shrinking shape of his future.
“Wha—? No!” he exclaimed, his eyes darting back and forth in a futile search for an escape route. Kaur quietly retrieved a sharp kitchen knife from her discarded dinner, in the event that the condemned scientist attempted one final act of fruitless violence before the guards took him into custody. “You can’t do this!” he shouted hoarsely, tears streaming from his eyes. “I’m an American citizen! I haven’t done anything!”
Kaur refused to look away from the pathetic spectacle of the youth’s final moments. She felt she had an obligation not to shield herself from the consequences of her own decisions, no matter how unpleasant they might be. To surpass Nature, she reminded herself once more, I must be crueler than Nature. That painful truth was rapidly becoming her mantra.
“Please,” Singer begged a
s the guards flanked him on both sides and began to drag him away. The scene was not unlike, she thought, a defective piece of DNA being sliced from the main sequence by a pair of specialized enzymes. “I won’t tell anyone anything, I promise! Just let me go and you’ll never hear from me again.”
I can’t risk that, she thought, her face a mask of cool detachment. No [51] final appeal was possible; she had already consulted with the other senior members of the project and they had all agreed to abide by her ultimate decision. Singer was talented, but not irreplaceable; they could not allow him to endanger the future of human evolution.
The youth’s pleas for mercy echoed in the garden’s stillness even after the guards took him away, or so it seemed. Sarina Kaur sat alone with her thoughts, inhaling the genetically enhanced aroma of the orchids surrounding her. What a tragic waste of fine genes and an excellent education, she realized sorrowfully. Her only consolation, besides the certainty that everything that must be done was utterly necessary, was the knowledge that Singer’s superlative DNA, his natural mental and physical gifts, would continue to contribute to the project long after the man himself, with all his confusion and misplaced sympathies, had ceased to exist.
What a shame that we can’t change minds as easily as we rearrange genes. She felt the developing fetus stir within her, reminding her in a very visceral fashion of all that was at stake. I can only hope that our next recruit will prove worth the risk of bringing him or her into Chrysalis.
CHAPTER FIVE
HOTEL PALAESTRO
ROME, ITALY
MAY 15, 1974
OKAY, WHERE ARE YOU, WALTER? Roberta thought impatiently, nursing an overpriced glass of 7-Up. Perched on a stool near the entrance to the hotel bar, she scanned the crowded lounge for any sign of Takagi, but couldn’t locate head nor hair of the young man she had met upon the Spanish Steps earlier that day. Ready when you are, she urged the tardy scientist, while “The Way We Were” played loudly over the bar’s Muzak system.
Not that she was alone, exactly. Takagi’s silent partner, the Son of Kong, was only a couple of yards away, just as he had been for most of the afternoon. At the moment he was taking up pretty much an entire booth at the rear of the lounge, nursing a single glass of dark red wine and smoking a cigarette. Roberta wondered if he was tipping generously for the privilege of camping out in the booth indefinitely.
Doing her best to ignore her apparently constant companion, she peeked at her watch. To be honest, she was a bit early. Since parting company with her target at the Spanish Steps, Roberta had felt the last six hours drag on interminably. At first she’d tried to attend a few more scientific panels, just to maintain her cover, but her intriguing encounter with Takagi had left her too keyed up and restless to even pretend to concentrate on the finer points of nucleic-acid hybridization.
[53] Instead she had used the modern (and then some) miracle of matter transmission to zap back to the office to check out “Walter Takagi” via the Beta 5. It had been not quite eleven A.M., New York time, when she arrived, and Seven had apparently left the office on some errand, but she used her voice-activated typewriter to dictate him a quick report on her progress, which she left on his desk. Checking her office calendar, she’d seen that Seven already met with a Mr. Offenhouse earlier that morning. Hopefully, Offenhouse had proven just as promising a lead as Takagi looked to be.
She’d been annoyed to discover evidence of an interloper at her usual desk, but guessed that Seven had sent the temp home right after his meeting with Offenhouse, which was just as well; at least she didn’t have to explain to some clueless newbie how she’d materialized without warning in Seven’s office. The last time that happened, she’d had to tranquilize that poor girl prior to rearranging her memories, a delicate and distinctly unnerving process that Roberta was in no hurry to repeat.
The modified Smith-Corona dutifully transcribed her verbal account of the day’s events. By the time she finished the update, the Beta 5 had dug up everything there was to know about the youngish Japanese geneticist.
Turned out Takagi was his real name, and he was an up-and-coming expert on microbiology, currently on sabbatical from the University of Osaka. He was also, Roberta learned, unmarried, the oldest of four siblings, an avid bridge player, right-handed, a dues-paying member of the Official Gamera Fan Club, and allergic to shellfish. (The Beta 5 was nothing if not thorough.)
Nothing terribly incriminating there, she had concluded, but then again, they had never known for sure that there was anything overtly illegal going on. It occurred to her that she still couldn’t be certain that there was a link between Takagi and all those missing scientists. But there’s definitely something rotten in Rome, she reminded herself. Why else would someone go to the trouble of having her followed?
She’d lingered a bit in the empty office, hoping to catch Gary Seven should he come back. She was reluctant to page him via her servo [54] unless it was a genuine emergency; who knew what he was up to at the moment. Eventually, though, she had to transport directly back to her hotel room in Rome, just in time to order a plate of il pesce for Isis, change into a snazzy little black dress, discover her shadow still lingering in the hall outside her room, and hurry down to the bar to wait for Takagi.
And wait, and wait. As torturous minutes passed without any trace of her quarry, Roberta grew increasingly anxious. Had she given herself away somehow? She compulsively replayed their entire conversation upon the steps, searching for any minor gaffe that might have aroused Takagi’s suspicions. What if this whole prearranged rendezvous was merely a ruse by the seemingly friendly scientist to keep her occupied while he skipped town? How on earth would she ever track him down again? She sure couldn’t spend the rest of her life attending scientific conferences in the hope of running into Takagi one more time. If I let him get away, she thought, Isis will never let Seven forget how I screwed up.
Granted, she still knew exactly where Takagi’s companion, the gigantic Latino, was, but she could hardly expect him to lead her to the truth as long as he kept sticking to her like glue. How do you spy on the person spying on you? she thought, wincing at the notion. Paradoxes made her head hurt. Better to stick to Plan A, and make nice with Takagi, assuming he ever shows up!
Her gaze was fixed so intently on the entrance to the bar that she failed to notice anyone approaching her from behind until someone tapped gently on her shoulder. Roberta spun around on her stool, hoping to see Takagi.
To her surprise and disappointment, however, the tapper turned out to be a blond woman, in her early twenties, with a strained and distinctly desperate smile on her reassuringly wholesome-looking face. “There you are!” the golden-haired stranger said loudly, then leaned in to whisper to Roberta, “Please, let me pretend we’re together.”
What the heck? Roberta wondered, caught off guard. Looking past the other woman, though, she spotted a small pack of young male scientists hovering only a few feet away, scoping out both women as [55] though they held the cure for cancer hidden somewhere in their cleavage. Each man was clutching a bottle of beer, and they were strutting and posing and trying to look as cool and debonair as a bunch of inebriated science nerds can be. Oh, I get it, Roberta thought, grasping the situation in an instant.
“About time you got here!” she exclaimed, playing along. She patted the empty stool next to her, which she’d planned to keep free for Dr. Takagi. “Here, I was saving you a seat.” She leaned sideways to address the lurking party animals. “Sorry, guys, but we’ve got a lot to catch up on here. Girl talk, you know?”
Disappointed, the amorous biologists drifted away in search of other prospects, leaving Roberta alone with the new arrival. “Thanks!” the younger woman said, her voice clearly identifying her as an American: A college student, Roberta guessed, attending the conference on her own. “Gillian Taylor,” the grateful stranger identified herself.
“Ronnie Neary,” Roberta supplied, shaking Gillian’s hand. “And no problem. We American chicks nee
d to stick together, especially abroad.”
“I’ll say!” Gillian agreed. Her rosy cheeks, pearly smile, and corn-fed good looks clearly marked her as a daughter of the American heartland. For a second, Roberta was briefly reminded of those robot housewives she and Seven had stumbled onto in Connecticut earlier that year—Gillian was that cheerleader pretty and well groomed—but it was also clear that there was a lively and genuine personality behind her cheerful auburn eyes. “Some of these wild and crazy geneticists are a little too eager to pass on their DNA, if you know what I mean.”
“Tell me about it,” Roberta said sympathetically. She’d had to fend off a few unwelcome advances herself. “I think the male-to-female ratio at this conference is about ten to one. Reminds me of a science fiction convention I went to once; in fact, I think I recognize some of the same faces.”
“You’re probably right,” Gillian laughed. The bartender swung by and she ordered herself a glass of wine. “So, are you here for the conference, too?”
“Definitely,” Roberta said sincerely, before bending the truth a [56] little. “Genetic engineering is my favorite pastime; at least, I hope it will be someday.”
“Really?” Gillian asked, sounding intrigued. “I’m into marine biology myself, but I’m fascinated by the notion of preserving endangered species through cloning. There’s talk of starting a genetic repository, where we can save tissue samples from any of the hundreds of species threatened with extinction, from the bald eagle to the humpback whale. In theory, someday it might even be possible to bring back a species that has already died out, provided there’s enough leftover genetic material to work with. The Russians are even talking about resurrecting the woolly mammoth, using DNA harvested from frozen carcasses in Siberia.”