Mount Dragon

by Douglas Preston

  “I think the time has come for me to hear about this mysterious project,” Carson said, closing the locker.

  “Absolutely. Shall we head back to my office for a cold drink?”

  Carson nodded. “You know, there was a chimpanzee back there with its—”

  Singer held up a hand. “I know what you saw.”

  “So what the hell was it?”

  Singer paused. “Influenza.”

  “What?” Carson said. “The flu?”

  Singer nodded.

  “I don’t know of any flu that pops your eyeballs out of your skull.”

  “Well,” Singer said, “this is a very special kind of flu.” Gripping Carson’s elbow, he led him through the outer corridors of the maximum-security lab and back up into the welcoming desert sunlight.

  At precisely two minutes to three in the afternoon, Charles Levine opened his door and ushered a young woman, clad in jeans and sweatshirt, back into his outer office.

  “Thank you, Ms. Fields,” he said, smiling. “We’ll let you know if anything opens up for next term.”

  As the student turned to leave, Levine checked his watch. “That’s it, right, Ray?” he said, turning to his secretary.

  With an effort, Ray shifted his eyes from Ms. Fields’s departing ass to the open appointment book on his desk. He smoothed his hand over his immaculate Buddy Holly haircut, his fingers dropping to scratch the heavily muscled chest beneath the sleeveless red T-shirt. “That’s it, Dr. Levine,” he said.

  “Any messages? Sheriff’s deputies bearing summonses? Offers of marriage?”

  Ray grinned and waited until the outer door closed before answering. “Borucki called twice. Apparently that pharmaceutical company in Little Rock was unimpressed with last month’s article. They’re suing for libel.”

  “How much?”

  Ray shrugged. “A million.”

  “Tell our legal friends to take the usual steps.” Levine turned away. “No interruptions, Ray.”

  “Right.”

  Levine closed the door.

  With his notoriety as Foundation for Genetic Policy spokesman growing, Levine found it increasingly difficult to maintain a routine existence as professor of theoretical genetics. The nature of the foundation made it a lightning rod for a certain kind of student: lonely, idealistic, in need of a burning cause. It also made him and his office the target of a great deal of anger from business concerns.

  When his former secretary quit after receiving a number of threatening phone calls, Levine took two precautionary steps. He had a new lock installed on his office door, and he hired Ray. Ray’s office skills left a lot to be desired. But as an ex-Navy SEAL discharged because of a heart murmur, he was very good at keeping things peaceful. Ray seemed to spend most of his non working hours chasing women, but at the office he was serenely indifferent to all forms of intimidation, and for that alone Levine found him indispensable.

  The heavy bolt of the lock slid home with reassuring finality. Levine tugged at the doorknob, then, satisfied, moved quickly between piles of term papers, scientific journals, and back issues of Genetic Policy to his desk. The affable, easygoing air he had maintained during his consultation hours quickly dissipated. Clearing the center of the desk with a sweep of his hand, he tugged his computer keyboard into typing range. Then he dug into a pocket of his briefcase and pulled out a black object the size of a cigarette box. A slender length of gray cable dangled from one end. Leaning forward in his chair, Levine disconnected his telephone, plugged the phone line into one end of the Black box, and inserted the slender gray cable into the back panel of his laptop computer.

  Even before his single-minded crusade to regulate genetic engineering made his name a foul word in a dozen top labs around the world, Levine had learned hard lessons about security. The black box was a dedicated cryptographic device for scrambling computer transmissions over telephone lines. Using proprietary public-key algorithms far more sophisticated than the DES standard, it was supposedly uncrackable even by government supercomputers. Mere possession of such devices was of questionable legality. But Levine had been an active member of the student antiwar underground before graduating from U.C. Irvine in 1971. He was no stranger to using unorthodox or even illegal methods to achieve his ends.

  Levine switched on his PC, drumming his fingers on the desktop while the machine booted itself into consciousness. Typing rapidly, he brought up the communications program that would dial out over the phone lines to another computer, and another user. A very special user.

  He waited while the call was rerouted, then rerouted again across the telephone long lines, threading a complex, untraceable path. At last, the call was answered by the hiss of another modem. There was a shrill squealing noise as the two computers negotiated; then Levine’s screen dissolved into a now-familiar image: a figure, dressed in mime’s costume, balancing the earth on one fingertip. Almost immediately the log-in device disappeared, and words appeared on Levine’s screen: disembodied, as if typed by a ghost.

  Professor! What up?

  I need a line into GeneDyne’s net, Levine typed.

  The response was immediate. Simple enough. What are we looking for today? Employee phone numbers? P&L sheets? The latest scores of the mailroom deathmatchers?

  I need a private channel into the Mount Dragon facility, Levine typed.

  The next response was a little slower in coming. Whoa! _Whoa!_ Whose pair of balls have you strapped on today, monsieur le professor?

  Can’t do it? Levine prodded.

  Did I say I couldn’t do it? Remember to whom you’re speaking, varlet! You won’t find the word ‘can’t’ in my spell-checker. I’m not worried about me: I’m worried about _you_, my man. I hear that this guy Scopes is bad juju. He’d love to catch you copping a feel beneath his skirts. Are you sure you’re ready to jack into prime time, professor?

  You’re worried about me? Levine typed. That’s hard to believe.

  Why, professor. Your callousness wounds me.

  Do you want money this time? Is that it?

  Money? Now I’m insulted. I demand satisfaction. Meet me at high noon in front of the Cyberspace Saloon.

  Mime, this is serious.

  I’m always serious. Of course I can handle your little problem. Besides, I’ve heard rumors of some truly girthy program Scopes has been working on. Something very hip, very interesting. But he’s a jealous guy, supposedly, keeps a chastity belt around it. Perhaps while I’m taking care of business, I can pay a little visit to his private server. That’s just the kind of deflowering I enjoy most.

  What you do on your off time is your own affair, Levine typed irritably. Just make sure the channel is absolutely secure. Let me know when it’s in place, please.

  CID.

  Mime, I don’t understand. CID?

  Bless me, I keep forgetting what a newbie you are. Out here in the electronic ether, we use acronyms to help keep our epistolary exchanges short and sweet. CID: ‘Consider it done.’ You long-winded academic types could take a page from our virtual book. Here’s another: TTFN. Viz, ‘ta-ta for now.’ So TTFN, Herr Professor.

  The screen went blank.

  John Singer’s office, which occupied the southwest corner of the administration building, was more living room than director’s suite. A kiva fireplace was built into one corner, surrounded by a sofa and two leather wing chairs. Against one wall was an antique Mexican trastero, on which sat a battered Martin guitar and an untidy stack of sheet music. A Two Gray Hills Navajo rug lay on the floor, and the walls were lined with nineteenth-century prints of the American frontier, including six Bodmer images of Mandan and Hidatsa Indians on the Upper Missouri. There was no desk—only a computer workstation and telephone.

  The windows looked over the Jornada desert, where the dirt road wandered off toward infinity. Sun streamed in the tinted window and across the room, filling it with light.

  Carson seated himself in one of the leather chairs while Singer moved to a small ba
r on the far side of the room.

  “Anything to drink?” he asked. “Beer, wine, martini, juice?”

  Carson glanced at his watch. It was 11:45 A.M. His stomach still felt a little queasy. “I’ll have some juice.”

  Singer returned with a glass of Cranapple in one hand and a martini in the other. He settled back on the sofa and propped his feet up on the table. “I know,” he said, “drinking before noon. Very bad. But this is a special occasion.” He raised his glass. “To X-FLU.”

  “X-FLU,” Carson muttered. “That’s what Brandon-Smith said killed the chimp.”

  “Correct,” Singer took a sip, exhaling contentedly.

  “Forgive my bluntness,” said Carson, “but I’d really like to know what this project is all about. I still can’t understand why Mr. Scopes chose me out of—what—five thousand scientists? And why did I have to drop everything, get my ass out here on five minutes’ notice?”

  Singer settled back. “Let me start at the beginning. Are you familiar with an animal called a bonobo?”

  “No.”

  “We used to call them pygmy chimpanzees until we realized they were a completely different species. Bonobos are even closer to human beings than the more common lowland chimps. They are more intelligent, form monogamous relationships, and share ninety-nine-point-two percent of our DNA. Most importantly, they get all our diseases. Except one.”

  He paused, sipped his drink.

  “They don’t get the flu. All other chimps, as well as gorillas and orangs, get the flu. But not the bonobo. This fact came to Brent’s attention about ten months ago. He sent us several bonobos, and we did some genetic sequencing. Let me show you what we discovered.”

  Singer opened a notebook lying on the coffee table, moving aside a malachite egg to make room. Inside, the sheets of paper were covered with strings of letters in complex ladder-like arrangements.

  “The bonobo has a gene that makes it immune to influenza. Not just one or two strains, but all sixty known varieties. We’ve named it the X-FLU gene.”

  Carson examined the printout. It was a short gene, going only to several hundred base pairs.

  “How does the gene work?” Carson asked.

  Singer smiled. “We don’t really know. It would take years to figure it out. But Brent hypothesized that if we could insert this gene into human DNA, it would render humans immune to flu, as well. The initial in vitro tests we performed bore this out.”

  “Interesting,” Carson replied.

  “I’ll say. Take the gene out of the bonobo, and insert it into yourself. Presto, you never get the flu again.” Singer leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Guy, how much do you know about the flu?”

  Carson hesitated. He actually knew quite a bit. But Singer didn’t seem the type who’d appreciate a braggart. “Not as much as I should. People are too complacent about it, for one thing.”

  Singer nodded. “That’s right. People tend to think of it as a nuisance. But it’s not a nuisance. It’s one of the worst viral diseases in the world. Even today, a million people die annually from the flu. It remains one of the top ten causes of death in the United States. During flu season, one quarter of the population falls ill. And that’s in a good year. People forget that the swine flu epidemic of 1918 killed one person out of fifty worldwide. That was the worst pandemic in recorded history, worse than the Black Death. And it happened in this century. If it happened again today, we’d be almost as helpless now as we were then.”

  “Truly virulent flu mutations can kill in hours,” Carson said. “But—”

  “Just one moment, Guy. That word, mutation, is key. The serious pandemics occur when the flu virus undergoes significant mutation. It’s already happened three times this century, most recently with the Hong Kong flu in 1968. We’re overdue—we’re ripe—for another pandemic right now.”

  “And because the coating of the viral particle keeps mutating,” Carson said, “there’s no permanent vaccine. A flu shot is just a cocktail of three or four strains, a guess on the part of epidemiologists as to what strain might be coming along in the next six months. Correct? They could guess wrong and you’d be just as sick.”

  Singer smiled. “Very good, Guy. We’re well aware of the work you did with flu viruses at MIT. That’s part of the reason we chose you.”

  He finished his drink with a short hard gulp. “One thing you may not have been aware of was that the world economy loses almost one trillion dollars a year in unrealized productivity to the flu.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Here’s something else you may not know: the flu causes an estimated two hundred thousand birth defects annually. When a pregnant woman gets a fever above a hundred and four degrees, all kinds of developmental hell can break loose in the womb.”

  He inhaled slowly. “Guy, we’re working on the last great medical advancement of the twentieth century. And now you’re a part of it. You see, with the X-FLU gene inserted into his body, a human being will be immune to all strains of the flu. Forever. What’s more, his children will inherit the immunity.”

  Carson slowly put down his drink and looked at Singer.

  “Jesus,” he said. “You mean, a gene therapy aimed at reproductive cells?”

  “That’s right. We’re going to alter the germ cell line of the human race permanently. And you, Guy, are central to this effort.”

  “But my work with influenza was just preliminary,” Carson said. “My main focus was elsewhere.”

  “I know,” Singer replied. “Bear with me a moment longer. Our major obstacle has been getting the X-FLU gene into human DNA. It has to be done, of course, using a virus.”

  Carson nodded. He knew that viruses worked by inserting their own DNA into a host’s DNA. That made viruses the ideal vector to exchange genes between distantly related species. As a result, most genetic engineering used viruses in this way.

  “Here’s how it will work,” Singer continued. “We insert the X-FLU gene into a flu virus itself. Use the virus as a Trojan horse, if you will. Then we infect a person with that virus. As with any flu vaccine, the person will develop a mild case of influenza. Meanwhile, the virus has inserted the bonobo DNA into the person’s DNA. When he recovers, he’s got the X-FLU gene. And he’ll never get the flu again.”

  “Gene therapy,” Carson said.

  “Absolutely,” Singer replied. “It’s one of the hottest things around today. Gene therapies are promising to cure all kinds of genetic diseases. Like Tay-Sachs disease, PKU syndrome, hemophilia, you name it. Someday, anyone born with a genetic defect will be able to get the right gene and live a normal life. Only in this case, the ‘defect’ is susceptibility to the flu. And the change is inheritable.”

  Singer mopped his brow. “I get pretty excited, talking about this stuff,” he said, grinning. “I never dreamed I could change the world when I was teaching at CalTech. X-FLU made me believe in God again, it really did.” He cleared his throat.

  “We’re very close, Guy. But there’s one small problem. When we insert the X-FLU gene into the ordinary flu virus, it turns the ordinary virus virulent. Infinitely more virulent. And brutally contagious. Instead of being an innocuous messenger, the protein coat of the virus seems to mimic a hormone that stimulates the overproduction of cerebrospinal fluid. What you saw in the Fever Tank was the virus’s effect on a chimpanzee. We don’t quite know what it will do to a human being, but we know it won’t be pleasant.” He stood up and moved to a nearby window.

  “Your job is to redesign the viral coat of the X-FLU ‘messenger’ virus. To render it harmless. To allow it to infect its human host without killing it, so that it can transport the X-FLU gene into human DNA.”

  Carson opened his mouth to speak, then shut it abruptly. He suddenly understood why Scopes had plucked him out of the mass of GeneDyne talent. Until Fred Peck had set him to doing make-work, his specialty had been altering the protein shells that surround a virus. He knew that the protein coat of a virus could be chang
ed or attenuated using heat, various enzymes, radiation, even through the growing of different strains. He’d done it all himself. There were many ways to neutralize a virus.

  “It sounds like a straightforward problem,” he said.

  “It should be. But it isn’t. For some reason, no matter what you do, the virus always mutates back to its deadly form. When Burt was working on it, he must have inoculated an entire colony of chimps with supposedly safe strains of the X-FLU virus. Each time, the virus reverted, and, well, you’ve seen the grim result. Sudden cerebral edema. Burt was a brilliant scientist. If it wasn’t for him, we’d have never been able to get PurBlood, our artificial blood product, stabilized and out the door. But the X-FLU problem drove him—” Singer paused. “He couldn’t take the pressure.”

  “I can see why people avoid the Fever Tank,” Carson said.

  “It’s horrible. And I have grave misgivings about using the chimps. But when you consider the benefits to humanity ...” Singer fell silent, looking out over the landscape.

  “Why the secrecy?” Carson finally asked.

  “Two reasons. We believe that at least one other drug company is working along similar lines of research, and we don’t want to tip our hand prematurely. But more importantly, there are a lot of people out there afraid of technology. I don’t really blame them. With nuclear weapons, radiation, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl—they’re suspicious. And they don’t like the idea of genetic engineering.” He turned toward Carson. “Let’s face it, what we’re talking about is a permanent alteration in the human genome. That could be very controversial. And if people object to genetically altered veggies, what are they going to make of this? We face the same problem with PurBlood. So we want to have X-FLU ready to go when it’s announced to the world. That way, opposition won’t have time to develop. People will see that the benefits far outweigh any irrational outcry of fear from a small segment of the public.”