The Gene of Life

by Tetsuo Ted Takashima

  “Lighten up, Doc. It’s no big deal.” His voice sounded much cheerier than the first words out of his mouth—just like old times. “I can do you that sort of favor any time you like. I would’ve never expected you to come to me with a request like that. I won’t ask why; you seem stressed. Or, like, really stressed.”

  “You’ve gotten good at understanding people.”

  “Oh? Am I doing you another favor by not prying?”

  “You are.” Max heard him chuckle. “I’m counting on you, kid.” He was about to end the call.

  “Doc . . . I wouldn’t bother if it were the president calling me with this request. But I’ll do it for you. I won’t ask why for now, but please tell me someday. I’m too curious.”

  “I’d love to, if I ever get the chance.”

  “Take however long you need to—I’ll be waiting. If I have one virtue, it’s patience. But you already know that. Besides, I know I won’t be dying before you anyway.” He chuckled again.

  Max recalled what the boy’s mother had told him three years prior: “You’re the first person he’s smiled at besides me. I wonder if you two have something in common.” Then she’d hurriedly taken that remark back—this had been at the psychiatric ward of a university hospital in upstate New York.

  Click. The sound of the phone hanging up on the other end. Max kept his phone to his ear for a while, listening for a voice he knew wouldn’t be coming. There could be no cold feet now.

  CHAPTER 29

  Max woke up to a noise. He’d lain down on the sofa and fallen asleep. Katya was standing by the door. The floor and desk were covered with blueprints and photographs. Max got up and sat in a chair. Katya stepped over the blueprints.

  “Your eyes are bloodshot.”

  “I’m leaving for Aztec Labs soon.”

  She looked surprised, and silently began to pick up the photographs and blueprints. Max looked outside. The vans were still in the same place.

  “I’m going alone.”

  Katya stopped moving and looked up at him.

  “It’ll be a dangerous job, and it’s got nothing to do with you.”

  Katya put the blueprints on the table and stood in front of Max.

  “You have some nerve, Professor. You’re the one who wrapped me up in all this. Ninety-five percent of it is your responsibility.”

  “What about the remaining 5 percent?”

  “My curiosity.” Katya stared at Max, her eyes blurry with tears. “I want to help you—and Aska, too.”

  Max looked at the blueprints on the table. “The place is like an exhibition hall for surveillance cameras and infrared sensors. No idea how many there are,” he said, pointing at the red marks.

  “Even if you’re lucky enough to sneak past the walls into the grounds, you’ll be spotted by the time you enter the building. The only thing going our way is there doesn’t seem to be a minefield on top of everything else.”

  “We just have to pray that’s the case.”

  “It doesn’t seem feasible unless you take a small army in with you,” she said, eyes glued to the blueprints.

  “How did you figure out the layout of the rooms?” Katya pointed to text on the blueprint. Laboratory, P2, P3, P4 laboratory, changing room, dining room, restroom—that text wasn’t there the night before.

  “I thought about how I’d set it up. This is how I picture it given the locations of the rooms, the electrical system, and the plumbing.”

  “What’s this thick pipe?”

  “It’s the main water pipe. It’s three feet or so in diameter and is linked to the sea. A person could probably swim through it, but I haven’t got that kind of courage. The rooms that have a bunch of pipes running through them are either experiment rooms or medical rooms.”

  “Look how many there are. That’s ten or more large rooms. Water pipes, electrical wiring. I’m guessing they must also be conducting experiments here. Experiments on people.”

  “There’s no doubt something’s going on there.”

  “This must be the computer room. The electrical wiring says it all. The Roadrunner supercomputer is installed here. And that’s where we’ll find the information we’re looking for.”

  “Our only objective is to get Aska back. We can leave the rest to Feldman.”

  Katya looked at him and shook her head.

  They snuck out the back door and had Nancy drive them to San Francisco International. Max told Nancy to act as usual at the house. She was confused, but agreed. From the way Max had been acting, to the van parked in front of the house, she knew that something was happening. As they had done before, Max and Katya flew to San Diego and rented a car to reach La Cruz. Using false names, they checked in at a motel that was closer to Aztec Labs than where they had stayed before. This time they were in the same room.

  “Just sent Feldman an email. I told him we’re going to try infiltrating Aztec Labs,” he told Katya.

  “Knowing him, he was against the idea,” Katya said.

  “I immediately got a call on my cell. He started screaming, but he quieted down when I said this phone is probably tapped.”

  “And that’s not impossible.”

  “That’s what he said.” Max shrugged. “I think it’s okay for now. He just urged us to reconsider. He was worked up to the end of the call.”

  “But he can’t stop us anymore anyway.” The laboratory blueprints were arranged on the table. They’d done a rehearsal of the infiltration twice before sundown. “We’re overlooking something important. How do we get to the research building from the outer walls? The walls are ten feet tall, and they’re electrified. And both have surveillance cameras.”

  “We already have that little problem solved.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll understand when we get there,” Max said, eyes on the blueprints.

  “Aska is somewhere in one of these rooms.” Katya pointed to the three rooms marked in red. One was next to the medical office, another was in front of a large laboratory-like room, and the third was a small room inside the operating room. Logically, she would be near a place where medical checks could be done. “You should sleep. You probably haven’t slept since last night.”

  “I slept on the plane.”

  “That was barely even a nap.”

  She was right, his body felt weighed down and sluggish, and his brain power was fading. Max lay down on the sofa. He ruminated on what they were about to do and soon dozed off.

  It was ten o’clock when he was awakened by Katya. He’d only slept for about four hours, but he felt lighter. Coffee and pizza were on the table. After eleven, they left the motel. They parked in the parking lot of a small supermarket on the outskirts of town and walked the rest of the way. After about thirty minutes, Aztec Labs came into view. They crawled closer to the wire fence side, avoiding the surveillance cameras. This was where the guards had stopped them before. The laboratory building could be seen about a hundred yards beyond the barbed wire. In the intervening space, there was a lawn with a few trees.

  “Which cameras were in the blueprints?” Max silently pointed to the outdoor lights standing at intervals. Some had surveillance cameras attached. There were no blind spots in the grass. He removed a large cutter from his backpack, for severing the barbed wire.

  “The time limit is one minute and thirty seconds. I need to run behind that tree.”

  “It’s not an unreasonable distance. You used to be a football player.”

  Max looked at his watch and held the cutter.

  “But what about the electricity and the cameras? Do you have some magi—.”

  Before Katya could finish, the area was covered in darkness.

  “What is this?” Katya said in the dark.

  “Magic.” He cut through the wire fence. Max pushed Katya into the lab and ran. Just as they’d discussed, they stood behind a tree in the center of the lawn with their backs against each other. The area turned bright once again as the outdoor lights turned back on. The pri
vate power generator had activated.

  “A power outage? Or is God on our side?”

  “I may not be a sorcerer myself, but I am friends with one.”

  “Is this any time to make jokes?”

  “I once had a computer genius for a patient. He had terminal lymphoma. He came to me after all the hospitals in the East gave up on him. He was young, and his cancer was progressing quickly. I did everything in my power for him. After all, I couldn’t let a boy with a 190 IQ die.”

  “A boy you treated in collaboration with your brother’s doctor, Dr. Hamilton.”

  Max nodded. “The only treatment left was gene therapy. It was the first time a gene with anticancer functionality was injected directly into the bone marrow as a treatment method. I hadn’t even tried it through animal testing yet. He offered a deal before the surgery. He promised me he’d do anything if I saved his life. And now he’s the genie to my Aladdin.” Max was looking at the clock with his arms outstretched.

  “And you obtained a magic lamp.”

  “He asked me how many zeroes I wanted at the end of the figure in my bank account, and whether I’d enjoy reading the president’s emails.”

  “I’d have taken him up on that first offer.”

  “I replied that they were both too heavy for me, so I got a rain check for the magic.”

  “So, you rubbed the lamp and got a power outage?”

  “I remembered him saying he was familiar with the systems of electric power companies and telephone companies. He’d also offered to make my telephone and electricity free for the rest of my life. Power outages in California are practically a summer event at this point.”

  “From here we’ll run into problems, though. Right now, we’re stuck. We can’t move.”

  “The power company’s electricity is already on. That means their private generator should be off again.”

  “Then your next wish will be granted soon?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, the area turned dark once more. The two ran as fast as they could. It took one minute and thirty seconds to switch to private power generation again, and they had to reach the third research building by then. The instant they crouched down in front of the door of the building, the lights came on. This was the only blind spot from the cameras. The door had a card slit and a PIN panel next to the handle. Everything was as shown in the blueprints.

  “Can your genius genie also operate the door key?”

  “I’m listening to how to do it.” Max took his computer from his backpack and inserted the card connected to the cord into the slit. A string of numbers appeared on screen, and it kept shifting at dizzying speeds.

  “Yet another gift from him, I take it.”

  “He gave me this on my birthday. I used to gripe about losing door cards, and he gave me this.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve been walking around with that thing this entire time?”

  “For half a year he was in the hospital. Every time I met him, he asked how useful it was.”

  Eventually, the numbers began to fill in from the first digit. Looking at the clock, it was 1:08. Not even ten minutes had passed since the first power outage. Anxiety filled Max’s heart. It was going too smoothly.

  “How old is the computer whiz?” Katya interrupted Max’s train of thought.

  “He’ll be 18 next month.”

  “Introduce me to him sometime.”

  “If you’re willing to go to the New York Medical Youth Center.”

  The numbers on the screen were searching for the last two digits.

  “He dug up the grave of his father, who died in a car accident, and set fire to his body.”

  “That’s a crime that doesn’t suit a genius.”

  “He was molested by his father when he was a kid. Sometimes he has seizures and hurts himself. When we first met, he had no nails on half of his fingers.”

  The numbers stopped in time with Katya’s sigh. The door unlocked, and they entered. The entire building was lit, and the corridors were quiet. Their footsteps echoed off the linoleum floor. As they walked down the hallway, they heard a voice from a room.

  “That’s the laundry room over there in the corner. The door’s unlocked.” Once inside, they saw an overflowing laundry basket. “Find something that fits,” Max said, rifling through the lab coats.

  “I’m not too into wearing dirty clothes.” Katya took a clean lab coat from the shelf and handed it to Max. They returned to the corridor and walked toward the laboratory.

  Suddenly, Max stopped. “I feel like someone’s watching me.” He looked around. An uneasy feeling came over him, but there were no people in either direction—only sterile white surfaces.

  “Must be in my head,” Max said quietly, and he started walking again.

  Around the corner, there was a corridor with one side made of glass. Labs were lined up behind the glass, and inside men in lab coats operated micromanipulators while looking at the attached screens, which displayed an egg. There was an inverted microscope next to each.

  “A convenience store open 24 hours a day,” Katya said, looking sideways at the laboratory.

  “The room at the end was top secret.” Max grabbed Katya’s arm as she began to walk. “Dr. Otto Gerhard,” he whispered as he saw through the glass a man in a lab coat.

  “Who’s that?”

  “A doctor—and one of Dr. Mengele’s right-hand men.”

  “Dr. Mengele? You mean the Angel of Death? The doctor you spoke of at the graveyard in Domba—who experimented on humans and killed them for sport?”

  “He’s the man in the middle,” Max said, pointing with his eyes.

  Gerhard stood in the center of the men in lab coats and was giving instructions. High nose bridge, thin lips. Max didn’t know the color of the eyes behind those glasses, but there was no doubt about the skull with the protruding bones. His hairline had receded, but his skin tone was that of a man in his forties. Max’s line of sight was fixed on the screen.

  “They’re pulling out the egg cells’ nuclei. And those egg cells probably aren’t a cow’s or a sheep’s.”

  “What are they trying to do?”

  The tip of the pipette approached the egg on the display and a new nucleus was inserted. The door behind opened, and they heard voices. They saw the reflection of three men walking toward them. Max and Katya walked away.

  “Around that corner, there should be a room leading to the computer room.” Katya looked down and hid her face, pretending to be discussing and whispering. The two quickened their pace. There was a door around the corner. Max pulled the doorknob, but it was locked.

  “There was no lock on this door in the blueprints,” said Max.

  “They added it later. The laboratory is past this door.”

  “How do we get in?”

  “Any advice from your boy genius?”

  “Insufficient explanation of the situation.”

  “Step aside.” Katya pushed Max away and crouched in front of the door. Then she removed a tiny clip from her hair and inserted it into the keyhole.

  “It’s an ordinary cylinder lock,” she said to herself. “I can do this.” She concentrated on the keyhole, and the door opened with a clink.

  “Another of my special skills. I told you I was good with my hands.” She pushed Max into the room. “My second apartment had an auto-lock thing. It was faster to pick the lock than call the super.” After a few seconds, they heard voices and footsteps passing in front of the door and moving away. A faint light and warm air surrounded them. “What’s that?” she asked under her breath, facing ahead and into the room.

  Max’s eyes were also fixed forward. On the central platform stood a cylindrical glass container about three feet tall and a foot and a half in diameter. It was filled with a brownish liquid, and a small animal resembling a mouse floated in the vat.

  “It’s a fetus!”

  “It’s three, no, two months old.”

  “Is that a specimen? No way . . .” She app
roached the cylinder, unable to believe her eyes. It was a four-inch fetus with pink skin. It hadn’t opened its eyes yet. It bore a vestigial protrusion of a tail. It twitched, and Katya moved back.

  “It’s alive!”

  “It’s an artificial womb. The glass tube is the uterus, and the liquid inside is amniotic fluid.”

  The fetus slightly opened its mouth and swallowed the liquid. A tube extended from the fetus’s abdomen to the top of the cylinder. The tube pumped nutrients and blood into the fetus in place of an umbilical cord.

  “There’s no time.” Max grabbed Katya’s arm and headed for the next room. The two stood there in a daze. The glass cylinders were lined up under the white lights. Spanning from one and a half to two and a half feet in diameter, they were reminiscent of a backlit objet d’art. They entered the room as if drawn by magnets. “They’re about three to seven months old. Some are even developed enough to be placed in incubators.”

  “There has to be at least thirty.”

  “More than fifty, no doubt.”

  The two weaved between the glass containers. Some of the fetuses were about a foot tall, already had distinct fingers, and were sucking their thumbs.

  “They’re all female.”

  “Daughter 7, Daughter 8 . . . 14 . . . 15 . . . Mother 7, Mother 8 . . .” Max read the labels on the cylinders. “They’re clones. They’re human clones,” he groaned.

  “They’re cloning Dona and Aska here.”

  “They ‘grow’ them and then extract their genes.”

  “Every one of these fetuses has the gene for life. They’re going to take bone marrow fluid from the fetuses and use it for gene transplantation. They’re trying to extend their lives using these children. And fetal telomerase is the most effective.”

  “If you take bone marrow fluid from fetuses, they’ll surely die.”

  “That’s why the villager said that the pregnant women were taken. When cloning technology wasn’t established yet, the fetuses had to be removed from pregnant women.”

  “Unforgivable!” Katya gently traced the glass with her fingertips. Max pushed Katya to move on to the next room with him. Glass tubes and utensils were on a large table. It was the preparation room for cloning experiments. “The computer room should be at the end of the hall.”