2036 The Proof: A Thrilling Science Fiction Novel

by Speiser, Zvi

  “I got paid very well. I billed them by the hour, and there were no questions or arguments. I believe I’m not the only one carrying out this job for them. On several occasions, I met Jack at cafés, so he could ask me for clarifications about my analysis. He would reference material on his computer that apparently analyzed the same studies in a different way than I did. Jack was an excellent source of income for me. The hours were convenient, and payment was immediate and generous.”

  “Why are you using past tense?” Rick couldn’t refrain from asking.

  “Because after the murder of the security guard at the University of Chicago, I got very scared. You see, on Wednesday morning, I’d given him my most recent analysis of Dr. Lester’s research. Up till then, I hadn’t had any suspicions about the organization, but when I found out about the murder, I cross-referenced the analysis of research institutions I’d carried out for them with criminal incidents in the same institutions, and discovered a correlation that scared me. To tell you the truth, I decided to stop working for him. Other than the payment transferred to my account yesterday, I haven’t had any contact with him since he asked me to look into what was going on in Dr. Lester’s lab.

  “You can understand how upset I was when Jack showed up at the restaurant where I was sitting with Will. At that moment, I didn’t know that Jack knew Will. I assumed he would think we were just two friends chatting. I don’t know how he found out we were meeting. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he was having me followed. That man knows way too much. The photo and the newspaper article prove it, and once I saw them, I started fearing him even more.

  “That’s why I called Will. I wanted to warn him about Jack. I guess he didn’t hear the assistant ring. I only hope that the fact that I didn’t keep trying won’t end up causing him any irreversible damage. I could never forgive myself if that happened. I really hope he comes back to us soon.” She seemed to be having a hard time dealing with the thought that she might have been able to save Will had she tried harder, and started crying once more.

  Rick was pleased, as much as one could be pleased under such circumstances, when a close friend was hospitalized with a head injury. He now had an initial lead for his investigation, rather than a collection of seemingly unrelated details. At last, he had found his villain, and Melissa even had a way of getting in touch with him. The precinct could easily locate Jack, or whatever his real name was. There was also no need to bother Melissa with the list of studies carried out by labs that had been “lucky” enough to receive a visit from Jack. It made sense to assume that his own list was very similar to those compiled by Will and Melissa.

  The random details were starting to coalesce into a coherent picture. Jack’s ancient sect, with its abundant resources, would do anything to discover what, specifically, the research labs in the fields of biology and genetic engineering were up to. The murder of the security guard might have been an unplanned act of manslaughter, but pushing Will into the busy road had been a deliberate act. Perhaps it wasn’t intended to kill him, but it was definitely aimed at hurting him and his work, which they could guess involved an investigation into their activities. Perhaps this staged “accident” was also intended to signal to Melissa that she shouldn’t mess with them.

  At that moment, he realized that Melissa herself might now be in considerable danger. They definitely knew that she had gone to the hospital and, in fact, that she was talking to him, a representative of the law. Melissa must be protected from this moment on. It was fortunate that they hadn’t hurt her thus far.

  A chilling thought flitted through his mind. No, that’s impossible. Rick suppressed the idea immediately. He was too accustomed to working with criminals, and consequently, had come up with an extreme notion. Perhaps Melissa hadn’t been harmed because she was part of Jack’s apparatus! Could Melissa be in collusion with Jack and with the organization that had carried out the break-ins and murdered the security guard? It was hard to believe, but criminal investigations often revealed that the most seemingly trustworthy person involved in the case was, in fact, the perpetrator. He wouldn’t ignore this extreme possibility completely, in order to entrap her if she actually was cooperating with the sect beyond the involvement she had described thus far. He would also maintain contact with her in order not to make her surmise that she herself was a potential suspect in his eyes.

  He briefly debated whether to let her know of his decision to assign security personnel to protect her, but immediately dismissed this option. She would behave less freely if she was aware of this fact. It was better not to tell her. If she discovered what was going on and complained to him, he could always come up with some security-related justification. Claiming he had to visit the restroom, Rick drifted away from Melissa.

  Lily answered immediately. “I want to assign a security detail to Dr. Melissa Colette. The goal is to protect her from physical assault, as well as to track her movements. Tell whoever’s assigned to the job that there might be someone else tailing her, so he or she should be extra-careful. If a tail is detected, assign another detective to follow that person immediately. Is there anyone with experience who’s immediately available to get on it?”

  “Yoni would be a great fit. He’s also free, and has been bugging me every day for a week now to find him an interesting assignment.”

  “Great,” Rick said. “Send him to Rush Medical Center immediately. Give him all the information we have on Melissa, including photos so he can identify her. I’ll try to keep her here at the hospital until he arrives. Instruct him not to call me or address me when he finds us.”

  “I’ll get right to it,” she replied, in her pragmatic tone. Lily was capable of handling dozens of matters simultaneously, with amazing efficiency and without exhibiting any stress whatsoever. She never implied that she was busy with something else, and always competently performed whatever he assigned her to do with a smile. She was the complete opposite of his ex-wife.

  “And speaking of security details,” Rick added, “I saw the agent watching over Will here at the hospital. He was very discreet.”

  Melissa wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye to him. This was a good opportunity to stall until Yoni arrived. Rick approached her again.

  “We’ll need your help locating Jack’s address,” he mentioned casually while observing her reaction.

  “Of course,” she replied immediately and with no hesitation. “Could you send a computer expert to my house this evening? I don’t have anything urgent to do tomorrow morning, but I prefer to keep those hours free, so I can spend as much time as possible in the hospital with Will. Has anyone notified his family or the paper where he works that he’s been injured?”

  “The hospital’s taking care of it,” Rick replied. “His parents live in New York. I’m sure they’ll be here tomorrow morning. As for your home computer, there’s no need to send an expert to your home, unless you insist on dealing with an actual human,” he said, smiling in amusement.

  “No, I really don’t, but how will we find out Jack’s address?”

  “Don’t worry. Send any email you received from Jack to the address I’ll give you, and our experts will do the rest. Do you want anything from the cafeteria? I’m going to get a cup of coffee for me, anyway.”

  “Thanks, I’d like some coffee,” she replied.

  It was very important to make sure she didn’t leave the hospital until Yoni could follow her. Rick took a deliberately long time fetching the coffee, making sure that it was very hot. Melissa would have to wait until it cooled down a bit, thus giving Yoni more time to arrive. Indeed, several minutes after he sat down next to Melissa, Yoni passed them by. He was now free to go home. Melissa was safely protected.

  ***

  The assistant rang as he was on his way home.

  “Good evening,” he heard Lily’s leisurely voice. “You’re not going to believe it. Kyra’s DNA print wasn’t found in an
y of the databases we have access to. That means Kyra doesn’t have any credit cards or a driver’s license, has never been employed by any government office or major corporation, doesn’t have a passport, and has never been admitted to any hospital. In short, Kyra is unidentifiable here in the United States or in any of the countries whose databases we have access to. Another option is that Kyra belongs to a top-secret branch of some covert organization—the CIA or the FBI.”

  “That’s okay,” Rick replied. “We already have a lead that should bring us to the killer, as well as to the man who pushed Will into the road. We can continue looking into the Kyra angle at a later stage.”

  Chapter 24

  Eddie and the Structures

  Chicago, Tuesday, July 22, 2036

  The first thing that caught Tom’s eye as he entered the lab was Lise’s form as she sat staring at the computer displaying her favorite screensaver—a photo of her family. She didn’t even hear the door opening. However, the sound of its slamming startled her, and when she turned toward him, he saw that her eyes were red and weepy. It was troubling to think she had spent the last two hours crying. Apparently, her fears had gotten the better of her. He should have stayed with her and soothed her once he realized how much her discovery had frightened her.

  “I’m sorry I had to leave. I tried to keep it as short as I could. Let’s go sit down,” he said. On his way back, he had spent quite a while deliberating whether to tell Lise about the structures he had seen at BL. On the one hand, it might calm her down. Conversely, the chance of a groundbreaking scientific discovery, and the acclaim it would entail, had decreased significantly. Judging by her behavior, the important thing at the moment was to calm her down. Yes, he thought, he would tell her that he had seen the same structures in a different lab. She didn’t have to know he had visited BL, and definitely not whom he had met there.

  When he saw her walking into the conference room, holding the prints, he curved his lips in a warm smile, which, as usual, achieved the desired effect. Lise did quirk her eyebrow in surprise, but also responded with a faint smile of her own. Much better than nothing, he thought.

  “Sit down. I understand your emotional reaction and your fears,” he began. “I was also somewhat upset when you showed me the structures. But, as they say, truth is stranger than fiction. In the meeting I was just invited to, they showed me the same structures! It’s unbelievable that I’ve seen such a surprising, extraordinary, and unique phenomenon twice on the same day.”

  “Where did you see it?” Lise burst out.

  “In another lab, whose name I prefer to keep to myself for now,” he replied.

  “What did the structures you saw look like? How similar are they to the structures I’ve discovered? How did they produce them at the other lab? Did they try to recreate the experiment? What were the results?”

  “Hold on a minute, hold on.” Tom tried to stop the barrage of questions. “I saw very little, and I know even less about the structures and the processes they went through. The structures are very similar to the ones you’ve discovered, perhaps even identical. I only looked at them for a few seconds. To the best of my recollection, they’re identical. The people there didn’t provide any more explanations about how they discovered the phenomenon or of any continuation of the research. But considering that the phenomenon has also been observed elsewhere, we can’t attribute it to a laboratory error, and there’s also no need to put a lot of effort into recreating it. It does exist! The question is what to do now.”

  “Do you have a possible explanation for the phenomenon?” she asked.

  “Unfortunately, I don’t.”

  “Did your host at the other lab express his opinion about a possible explanation for the phenomenon?”

  “He really didn’t. He showed me the structures through a microscope.”

  Tom briefly considered telling Lise that Professor Goldon was aware of her findings, but immediately relinquished the idea. The last thing Lise needed to know was that Goldon was tracking their progress at the lab in real time. Such knowledge would shatter the little confidence she had regained.

  “He immediately dragged me to a quick lunch at a busy location where we could barely hear each other,” he resumed, “and then moved on to other matters that the two of us might be dealing with.”

  “Why don’t we initiate a meeting with him and discuss the findings together? He might know more than we do,” she proposed.

  “That’s an excellent idea, but probably impractical.”

  “But why?” Lise asked urgently.

  “I also proposed sharing the phenomenon with other researchers,” Tom said, “since one of them might be able to come up with an explanation. But it was made clear to me that this matter should be kept as confidential as possible. This message was very clear and unequivocal. No, for now we have to prevent any leakage of the discovery. We’ll be attentive and alert to any possible discovery by anyone else, and track what’s going on. Anyway, the very fact that we’re not the only ones to discover the phenomenon should calm us down.” “Us” was indeed the most soothing word for Lise; he would lump the two of them together, thus making things easier for her.

  “I feel a lot better about this,” he continued. “It’s also possible that the same techniques that allowed us to discover the phenomenon have only recently become widely accessible. Therefore, it makes sense that additional research teams will discover it soon. It’s also possible that additional teams have discovered the phenomenon, started panicking, and like us, are sitting and waiting for the first lab to break the news. And if they haven’t yet, they definitely will soon.

  “Let’s try to focus on the phenomenon. What do you think might have caused it?”

  “I don’t have the faintest idea,” she replied. “Let’s think about it together. Does it make sense for a control protein array for any gene to look so symmetrical? The spatial structures of proteins we’re familiar with are more like miniature chemical plants—a random collection of containers and pipelines. But since we’ve discovered this sequence only in humans and not in other primates, it seems reasonable to assume that the structures serve one of the features that are unique to us, perhaps the brain. What do you think?”

  “Your analysis sounds very reasonable. The problem is that we can’t look into the effect of removing the sequence from the genome of a human subject.”

  “Hold on, I have an idea,” Lise murmured slowly. “It makes sense that all the active proteins in the human body have been observed multiple times by countless researchers. If one or several of them had discovered such a unique phenomenon, it would have been published a long time ago. This implies that the phenomenon was only discovered recently. It happened here as a result of using the beta-amylase enzyme, which isn’t even present in humans. Despite that, it’s possible that some enzyme out of the thousands that are active in humans might also create a similar effect. I propose a project where we expose the unfolding protein to every known enzyme in the human body. I wonder what we’ll come up with.”

  Tom was enthusiastic. “Lise, that’s a really brilliant analysis, and an operative conclusion. I’d definitely try that route. Anyway, assuming no enzyme leads to the effect we observed, we have to think what conclusion we can draw from that.”

  Both of them became preoccupied with their own thoughts, and the room was utterly silent for quite a while.

  Tom spread the prints out in front of them, and he and Lise stared at them wordlessly. As he usually did when facing a difficult problem or an unclear phenomenon, he tried to organize all the known details in his mind, while taking into account that they constituted only a random sample of the phenomenon’s description, then tried to approach it from a completely different direction, considering what might have caused it. He was certain of one thing. The structures served no biological function.

  Biological systems that have developed on an ev
olutionary basis for millions of years or more without a guiding force do not resemble a factory designed by an engineer who is governed by the efficiency of the process. Biological systems have a very disorganized spatial structure. They merely carry out their assigned role, using as few resources as possible.

  Yes, the structures don’t serve the cell or the organism. At best, they don’t interfere with it. How, then, did they come to exist? It’s also hard to believe that they had served some purpose in the distant past. No, the biological-evolutionary direction doesn’t fit here.

  The longer he stared at the structures, the more stymied he felt about their origin or role. Frustrated, he leaned back in his chair and raised two random prints to examine. Some of the structures were too orderly, resembling short rows of several structures arranged in a straight line. For some reason, this reminded him of a shopping list of the kind affixed to the refrigerator in his home, to which the entire family added items that needed to be purchased on the next shopping trip. There, too, family members used abbreviations that often resulted in odd, unnecessary purchases when the person shopping couldn’t understand the abbreviation or the handwriting.

  As he let his thoughts drift, recalling everything that had happened since the murder, an image of Oleg, the murdered security guard, surfaced in his mind’s eye. He had never had a proper conversation with him. Oleg would make the rounds through every room in the building when he arrived at six in the evening every day. Rather than merely receive an update from the day-shift guard, he made a point of greeting all the workers in each of the rooms and ensuring they were all doing okay. He had never been late, and as far as Tom could recall, had never missed a day of work.