by M. G. Harris
Yet, researching ancient molecular biology? Where was the potential commercial gain?
“Chaldexx did all this work?”
“Indirectly, yes.” DiCanio’s admitted eventually, her face somber. “Although there are other parties interested. This has been a project of mine for years. You see, Jackson, I’ve been a member of a society which is dedicated to the future health of the planet. Not just its citizens, although obviously that’s my main reason for being with Chaldexx. But also, the planet and the survival of every creature living here.”
Jackson was so astonished by this latest revelation, that he couldn’t prevent a gasp of disbelief. He turned it quickly into a cough. “That’s ah, very laudable.”
“Don’t be patronizing,” DiCanio said. Her voice was tinged with a quality which made Jackson feel, quite suddenly, somewhat uncomfortable.
“The society was formed years ago, when I first found the jlf gene. Because not long afterwards, I discovered that I am a carrier, by no means the only one. Chaldexx purchased rights to dozens of DNA banks. It’s mainly men, obviously, given the source of most available genetic material; sperm banks, college student clinical trials volunteers. Over the years, we’ve contacted many of the other carriers we’ve identified from our genetic screening program.”
“I guess it’s all making sense now. You can use hypnoticin?”
DiCanio stood, began to pace the room, two steps along the desk and then towards the flat grey sky and dense cloud-cover that dominated the view from the window. “The society consists of other carriers of the gene. Do you understand what that means? What the potential of an organized group of such individuals could achieve? Each member of the society has recognized their duty and their potential role.” She turned to face him, with a dramatic flourish. “Joining us, they come to understand the true purpose of their life: to protect the planet.”
Jackson phrased his next sentence carefully. “When you say ‘the health of the planet’, what are we talking about, specifically?”
“What would you say are the top three threats to the future existence of human civilization?”
He considered briefly. “Asteroid impact, climate change, pandemic of some appropriately lethal virus.”
“Agreed. Which of those can we do anything about?”
“I’m guessing you’re not a believer in the Missile Defense System’s ability to blow the asteroid out of the sky?”
DiCanio allowed herself a smile. “You got that right. I do think that we have a duty to do what we can, as citizens of the planet, to prevent anthropomorphic climate change and pandemic.”
“It’s hard to argue with that.”
“Some would. Some think we should just leave problems like that to the governments of the world, and use our ability to enrich ourselves personally. Or to infiltrate the established power structures. Hans Runig, for example, has an entirely different agenda. Hans Runig has the gene, but we’ve never asked him to join. We don’t see his type as an asset. He has ambitions, Jackson, in the political sphere. As I’ve already said, that would be ill-advised.”
Jackson was silent for a several seconds. He still couldn’t figure out why DiCanio had brought him over to Switzerland. The appearance of Hans Runig at the periphery of her world troubled him. He was beginning to lose track of who knew what.
DiCanio seemed to sense his disquiet. Her gaze was suddenly as tender as a mother with her son. “You must be asking yourself why I brought you here, to Chaldexx?”
Their eyes met.
“Yes.” From the moment she’d mentioned college students enrolled in clinical trials, he’d wondered if this was where she was heading. To supplement his income during his snowboarding years, Jackson had once taken part in a two-week trial of a new ‘flu treatment. Somewhere in Boston, his blood and DNA were in a freezer.
“You’re one of us, Jackson,” she told him with a gentle smile, tinged with sadness. “You’re a carrier. You have the jlf gene. You will respond to, and can use, ‘hypnoticin’.”
Schwendi Bei Grindelwald
DiCanio’s driver dropped Jackson at the rail station. A train was standing at the platform. The station master stood beside the train, one arm raised, staring up at the digital clock that hung over the platform. As the time changed to seventeen minutes past three, his arm dropped. The train began to move. One second later, Jackson leapt. Exactly as instructed by DiCanio, he was the last man aboard.
“I’ll text you instructions about where to get off,” she’d told him. “Runig’s men are probably watching the Chaldexx offices. They’ll probably see you get on the train and try to follow to see where you get out. It’s not easy to outrun this train. One farm truck is enough to hold up the whole road.”
“Are there a lot of farm trucks?”
She’d smiled blandly. “The Swiss like to burn wood. You can’t go twenty miles without getting stuck behind a logging truck.”
Too tense to sit, Jackson stood in the connecting section of two carriages with his suitcase, which Chaldexx officials had retrieved from the Hotel Victoria-Jungfrau. He gazed out of the window, watching the surroundings change from the elegant, urban city of Interlaken to a rural idyll of wooden chalets, snow-encrusted slopes and stark, tall pines. The train headed straight at the wall of rock which began the Alps. Rising behind the foothills above a faint ribbon of cloud, he could clearly see the craggy, bleached white peaks of the Jungfrau valley.
Jackson leaned into the side of the carriage, his eyes closed, his muscles already weary. The stapled tear on his leg was pounding, waves of extreme discomfort beginning to break through the pain-killers he’d taken that morning.
The past three days had been pure disorientation. Pursued by killers, then experiencing the most unexpectedly stirring sexual encounter of his life. Now he seemed to have stumbled into a riveting mystery.
Jackson’s only regret was that he’d missed out on the actual scientific discovery. It made PJ’s death even more tragic; a tragedy and a waste. What PJ’s life must have been like this past year. First, the excitement of PJ’s own discovery of the amino acid sequence which bound to phoenix. Then the realization that it might have similar properties to the hypnosis-inducing factor they’d discovered and synthesized at Chaldexx.
Yet it couldn’t all have been plain sailing. At some stage, PJ had become spooked, aware that his life was in danger. Jackson wouldn’t easily forget the helpless, resigned expression in PJ’s eyes during those last moments at the airport. Did he know he was going to die? He doubted that anyone could quickly accept such knowledge.
Jackson wondered if PJ had ever really understood the extent of the danger; the lengths to which Hans Runig was prepared to go to protect what he thought only he and Chaldexx knew.
His cell phone buzzed into activity: a text from DiCanio.
Schwendi.
The train slowed. The announcer spoke first in German, then French and finally English.
“Next station is Schwendi bei Grindelwald.”
Jackson gripped the handle of his suitcase, ready to be first off the train.
Two minutes later he was walking along an isolated station platform. A lone wooden chalet was the ticket office. Jackson hurried through it, wondering where to go next. Outside, a taxi was parked, the driver standing outside. He carried a sign that read “Eiger Tours”.
He was walking past when his cell phone buzzed once again.
Eiger Tours.
He stopped, walked back to the taxi.
“Eiger Tours?”
“Mr. Bennett?”
Jackson nodded. DiCanio’s organization was like a well-oiled machine. He took a seat in the rear of the taxi and placed one hand on his suitcase. He longed to call Marie-Carmen but he didn’t want to risk missing another instruction from DiCanio.
The taxi dropped him at an inn called ‘Die Bären’ a rustic bed-and-breakfast. A clutch of round tables made from sliced logs were dotted around the garden. The sun was still bright. Three men i
n their sixties sat around one of the tables, smoking. They peered up at Jackson, briefly, as he shuffled towards the entrance. A second later they were back to dragging on their cigarettes.
The chalet’s walls and ceilings were constructed from dark-stained pine. At the reception counter a gruff, grizzled man with a white, handlebar moustache greeted Jackson in English. “Mr. Bennett, yes? We have your room ready for you, sir. All paid for by Mr. Andrew Browning. You stay one night, yes? Breakfast is from seven until nine.”
Moments later Jackson dropped his keys, wallet and jacket on the bed. He unzipped his suitcase, removed his laptop computer and logged into the hotel’s wifi. He checked his email. There was a message from Marie-Carmen. Jackson’s spirits dipped slightly when he read it. The message consisted solely of a link to the secure-surfing software.
His mouth formed the words. “IP masking software.”
Marie-Carmen had thought of everything.
Jackson’s heart was thudding as he logged into his Facebook account. He checked his watch. It would be late morning in Acapulco. When he saw Marie-Carmen’s name on his list of chat contacts, he felt a surge of delight.
***
Jackson: It’s so great to talk to you again. Even like this.
Marie-Carmen: I wish you were here with me. In the morning the ocean is beautiful. Surf’s up at 8am. I take a walk, watch the surfers before breakfast.
Jackson: Surfing’s not my thing so much. I’m pretty much a winter-sports guy.
Marie-Carmen: That’s a shame – Mexico’s great for water sports.
Jackson: I already have a very good reason to be in Mexico.
They both paused for several seconds. Jackson desperately wanted to sense a connection with Marie-Carmen that went beyond a few strings of letters on a flickering plasma screen.
Jackson: There’s a lot going on over here. But I can’t stop thinking about you.
Marie-Carmen: Well, I got a lot less going on, so imagine my situation.
Jackson: To be honest…I can’t stop thinking about the . . . you know . . .
Marie-Carmen: The sex?
Jackson: : )
Marie-Carmen: The memory has been keeping me going here, all alone, without you.
Jackson: You can’t imagine how frustrating it is to hear that. If I was there I know what I’d do.
Marie-Carmen: Change the subject.
Jackson: I‘d rather not.
Marie-Carmen: Seriously. I want you to say these things to my face.
Jackson: Me too, hopefully soon. But for now?
Marie-Carmen: Well, how about this? When we see each other again, I promise to tell you, directly and in detail, the impression you made on me that night.
Jackson: OK! Can’t wait.
Marie-Carmen: And you have to do the same. Deal?
Marie-Carmen’s reticence was a little disappointing. Still, her promise filled him with hope. It was evidence that he was still on her mind. Clearly, she wouldn’t be drawn further on this topic, so he changed it.
Jackson began to relate part of the afternoon’s experience at Chaldexx. He finished by telling her about his suspicion that Chaldexx had been searching for a naturally-occurring version of their mysterious peptide, hypnoticin.
Marie-Carmen: Did you tell the Chaldexx woman that PJ found a naturally-occurring version?
Jackson: No. Figure PJ had his reasons for not telling his own collaborators something that important. No clue what those reasons are. Until I understand more about what’s going on, that’s between you, me and PJ.
Marie-Carmen: Ah. Now you’re keeping secrets, too.
Jackson: DiCanio has been screening DNA banks, finding people with the gene. She’s actually created a society consisting of members who have it.
Marie-Carmen: A society of hypnotists?
Jackson: That’s not how she sees it. She says it’s about creating a society of people who’ll use their ability to influence the world to change its attitude over issues like climate change, poverty, war, that kind of thing.
Marie-Carmen: What’s DiCanio’s role in this society? Does it have a name?
Jackson: Didn’t really talk about that. It’s been more about the science. I watched videos of the human subject experiments. Completely incredible. Also – major news – turns out that I have the jlf gene! This hypnoticin drug should work on me; turn me into this master hypnotist. Tomorrow, she’s going to let me try it out.
Marie-Carmen: You’ve got to be kidding me.
Jackson: No, totally serious. DiCanio – she’s cool.
Marie-Carmen: OK – here it comes. She’s like twenty-years older than you! Hey. What did I tell you?!
Jackson: It’s not like that. Like I told you, I have this gene. She wants me to join her society.
Marie-Carmen: Still worried.
Jackson: I can’t tell if you’re joking.
Marie-Carmen: Listen, I’ve been doing some research on that DNA sequence.
It was Marie-Carmen’s turn to relate the outcome of her own investigation. The final outcome had been pretty lean on decent results. However you looked at her conclusion, it was bizarre. Even so, she was proud of the thoroughness with which she had conducted her research.
Jackson: So according to this article, the clay tablet had the exact same DNA sequence AND amino acid sequence as PJ’s DNA molecule?
Marie-Carmen: Yes. Is that important?
Jackson: It’s quite a coincidence. Those same five amino acids could be made by many different combinations of DNA. Genetic code has some inbuilt redundancy. All but two of the 20 amino acids can be coded for by more than one set of three DNA letters. Some can be coded for by six different combinations of three letters. For both the DNA and amino acid sequences to match exactly is quite a coincidence.
Marie-Carmen: OK, want to hear something else crazy?
Jackson: Go ahead.
Marie-Carmen: Those ‘five amino acids’ . . . when he translates the symbols into Sumerian words he gets this: ‘before Master people of Heaven and Earth’.
Jackson: Does ‘Master people of Heaven and Earth’ mean anything to you?
Marie-Carmen: It’s not my field, so not much.
Jackson: Wait – there’s a call on my cell phone.
Marie-Carmen: Do you have to go? It’s so beautiful here; it seems a shame to be wasting my money being here alone. I know how much guys hate to ‘talk about the relationship’, but don’t you think we need to get a handle on what’s happening here?
He stared at the screen. He wasn’t imagining it. Whatever was developing between them, she felt it too. He desperately wanted to touch her: it was almost a perceptible ache. It was a struggle to pay attention to DiCanio’s personal assistant on his cell phone.
“Professor DiCanio would like to invite you to dinner. A car will arrive to pick you up at seven.”
Jackson: I have to go. I’m really sorry. I need to go shower and find something respectable to wear. DiCanio wants me to go out for dinner.
Marie-Carmen: Aha, you see? Now it begins!
Jackson: I won’t forget my promise. I’ll look for you later?
Marie-Carmen: Get out of here!
Jackson grinned. He felt a wave of warmth towards Marie-Carmen that he wished he had time – or the skill – to communicate to her in writing. The only things he could think of to say sounded either hopelessly clichéd or slightly vulgar. Maybe she’d be into it but on the other hand, maybe not. It was a risk. He might come across as a dunderhead and an idiot. He very badly wanted to avoid that.
In The Shadow Of The Eiger
By the time the car arrived, Jackson was beginning to realize just how inadequate his clothes shopping had been, given his abrupt change of plans. His outfits suited the light cool of Mexico City in December; jeans, polo shirts and his suede jacket. Not even close to enough for the alpine winter. He peeked through the small window. A fresh tract of snow glittered in the beam of the taxi’s headlamps. He buttoned up his jacket, pulled open th
e door and steeled himself for the blast of icy cold.
A light snowfall persisted as the taxi drove Jackson to the mountain town of Grindelwald. Apparently the town lay nestled in the shadow of the Eiger Mountain – the great ‘ogre’. Its notoriously sheer north face dominated a landscape that, the driver assured him in excellent English, was one of Switzerland’s finest.
When the taxi left him in front of yet another snow-drenched chalet that looked almost exactly like the gingerbread cottages sold at Christmas, Jackson eyed the pure white snow of the slopes. He longed to be heading up towards the ski resort of Kleine Scheidegg with a snowboard under one arm. The chill outside was tolerable for less than two minutes. Soon enough he was tucked back into the woody gloom of another chalet. The air inside was thick and warm. It smelt of burning wood, cigarette smoke and cheese. A waitress led him downstairs to the private dining room. At one end of the long room, logs sizzled in orange flames. Half of a huge round of Swiss cheese was impaled on a hook and hung in front of the fire, dripping onto a wide plate below. The waitress snatched the plate of fire-melted cheese and with a practiced motion, replaced it with an empty one. She carried the plate to the other end of the room, about three yards away, where Melissa DiCanio and her fellow diners stood gathered around a table.
“Raclette,” said the waitress. She placed the plate of melted cheese on the table. Eager hands reached with forks into a basket of boiled new potatoes, then dipped the potatoes into the pale yellow cheese. Contented sighs followed as they ate.
“I’m sorry we began without you, Jackson, but they already had a big hunk of raclette on the go. You gotta try some,” DiCanio told him with a smile. He accepted the glass of white wine that she held out to him. He sipped. Jackson’s right hand went to his jacket pocket and, for a few seconds, searched in vain.