There was a silence in the room. Singer nodded.
“Good. I think Mr. Teece would like to say a few words.”
The frail-looking man walked up to the microphone, still carrying his briefcase.
“Hello,” he said, his thin lips forming a fleeting smile. “I’m Gilbert Teece—please call me Gil. I expect to be here for the next week or so, poking and prying about.” He laughed; a brief, dry chuckle. “This is standard procedure in a case such as this. I will be speaking to most of you individually, and of course I’ll need your help understanding exactly what happened. I know this is very painful for all concerned.”
There was a silence, and it seemed that Teece had already run out of things to say. “Any questions?” he finally asked.
There were none. Teece shuffled back.
Singer stepped back up to the lectern. “Now that Mr. Teece has arrived and decontamination is complete, we’ve agreed to reopen Level-5 without delay. As difficult as it will be, I expect to see everyone back at work tomorrow morning. We’ve lost a lot of time, and we need to make it up.” He drew a hand across his forehead. “That’s all. Thank you.”
Teece suddenly stood up, his finger in the air. “Dr. Singer? May I have another word—?”
Singer nodded, and Teece stepped up to the podium again. “The reopening of Level-5 was not my idea,” he said, “but perhaps it will aid the investigation, after all. I must say I’m a little surprised that we were not joined today by Mr. Scopes. It was my understanding he likes to be present—in an electronic sense, at least—at meetings of this sort.” He paused expectantly, but neither Singer or Nye said a word.
“That being the case,” Teece continued, “there’s one question I’ll offer up generally. Perhaps you’ll offer me your thoughts on it when we do meet individually.”
He paused.
“I’m curious to know why Brandon-Smith’s autopsy was conducted in secrecy and her remains cremated with such unseemly haste.”
There was another silence. Teece, still gripping his briefcase, gave another quick, thin-lipped smile and followed Singer out the door.
Although Carson took his time arriving at the ready room the following morning, he was not surprised to find most of the bluesuits still on their racks. Nobody was anxious to go back into the Fever Tank.
As he dressed, he felt a knot tighten slowly in his stomach. It had been almost a week since the accident. As much as he’d been haunted by it—those gashes in Brandon-Smith’s suit, the red blood welling up through the rents in her scrubs—he’d blocked the Fever Tank itself from his mind.
Now it came back to him in a rush: the cramped spaces, the stale air of the suit, the constant sense of danger. He closed his eyes a moment, forcing fear and panic from his mind.
As he was about to duck his head into his helmet, the outer door hissed open and de Vaca entered through the air lock. She looked at Carson.
“You’re not looking particularly chipper,” she said.
Carson shrugged.
“Me neither, I suppose,” she said.
There was an awkward silence. They had not spoken much since Brandon-Smith’s death. Carson suspected that de Vaca, sensing his guilt and frustration, had given him a wide berth.
“At least the guard survived,” said de Vaca.
Carson nodded. The last thing he wanted to do now was discuss the accident. The stainless-steel door with its oversized biohazard label loomed at the far end of the room. It reminded Carson of what he imagined a gas chamber to look like.
De Vaca began suiting up. Carson hung back, waiting for her, eager to get past the initial ordeal but somehow unable to go through the door.
“I went riding the other day,” he said. “Once you get out of sight of Mount Dragon, it’s actually very nice out there.”
De Vaca nodded. “I’ve always loved the desert,” she said. “People say it’s ugly, but I think it can be the most beautiful place in the world. Which horse did you take?”
“The liver-colored gelding. He turned out to be a pretty good horse. One of my spurs was broken, but it turned out I didn’t even need to use them. Good luck getting a spur rowel fixed around here.”
De Vaca laughed, slinging her hair. “You know that old Russian-guy, Pavel Vladimiro-something? He’s the mechanical engineer, runs the sterilizing furnace and laminar-flow system. He can fix anything. I had a broken CD player that he opened up and fixed, just like that. He claimed he’d never seen one before.”
“Hell,” said Carson, “if he can fix a CD player, he could fix a rowel. Maybe I should go see him.”
“Any idea when that investigator’s going to get around to us?” de Vaca asked.
“Nope,” said Carson. “Probably won’t take him long, considering ...” He stopped. Considering I was instrumental to the cause of death.
“Yamashito, the video technician, said the investigator was planning to spend the day watching security tapes,” she said, twisting into the arms of her suit.
They donned their helmets, checked each other’s suits, and went through the air lock. Inside decontam, Carson took a big swallow of air and fought down the nausea that inevitably rose as the poisonous yellow liquid cascaded down his faceplate.
Carson had hoped the elaborate decontamination procedures after the accident would have rearranged the interior spaces of the Fever Tank, made them look somehow different. But the lab seemed just as Carson had left it the minute Brandon-Smith walked in to announce the chimp’s death. His seat was pulled away from the desk at the same angle, and his PowerBook was still open, plugged into the WAN socket and ready for use. He moved toward it mechanically and logged on to the GeneDyne network. The log-in messages scrolled past; then the word processor came up, displaying the procedure write-up he’d been finishing. The cursor came into focus at the end of an unfinished line, blinking, waiting with cruel detachment for him to continue. Carson slumped in his chair.
Suddenly, the screen went blank. Carson waited a moment, then hit a few keys. Getting no response, he swore under his breath. Maybe the battery had gone dead. He glanced over to the wall plug and noticed that the laptop was plugged in. Strange.
Something began to materialize on the screen. Must be Scopes, Carson thought. The GeneDyne CEO was known to play with other people’s computers. Probably a prepared pep talk, some way to ease the transition back into the Fever Tank.
A small picture came into focus: the image of a mime, balancing the Earth on his finger. The Earth was slowly revolving. Mystified, Carson punched the Escape key without success.
The small figure suddenly dissolved into typed words.
Guy Carson?
Here, Carson typed back.
Am I speaking with Guy Carson?
This is Guy Carson, who else?
Well, looky here, Guy! It’s about time you logged in. I’ve been waiting for you, partner. But first, I need you to identify yourself. Please enter your mother’s birthday.
June 2, 1936. Who is this?
Thank you. This is Mime speaking. I have an important message from an old homeboy of yours.
Mime? Is that you, Harper?
No, it is not Harper. I would suggest that you clear your immediate area so that no one inadvertently sees the message I am about to transmit. Let me know when you’re ready.
Carson glanced over at de Vaca, who was busy on the other side of the lab.
Who the hell is this? he typed angrily.
My, my! You had best not dis the Mime, or I might dis you back. And you wouldn’t like that. Not one bit.
Listen, I don’t like—
Do you want the message or not?
No.
I didn’t think so. Before I send it, I want you to know that this is an absolutely secure channel, and that I, Mime, and none other, have hacked into the GeneDyne net. No one at GeneDyne knows about this or could possibly intercept our conversation. I have done this to protect you, cowboy. If anyone should happen by while you are reading the following
message, press the command key and a fake screen of genetic code will pop up, hiding the message. Actually, it won’t be genetic code, it will be the lyrics to Professor Longhair’s “Ball the Wall,” but the patterns will be correct. Press the command key again to return to the message. Whoopie-ki-yi-yo, and all that sort of thing. Now sit tight.
Carson again glanced in de Vaca’s direction. Perhaps this was one of Scopes’s jokes. The man had an odd sense of humor. On the other hand, Scopes hadn’t sent a single message to the laptop in Carson’s quarters since the accident. Perhaps Scopes was pissed off at him, and was testing his loyalty with some kind of game. Carson looked uneasily back at the laptop.
The screen went black for a moment, then a message appeared:
Dear Guy,
This is Charles Levine, your old professor. Biochem 162, remember? I’ll get right to the point, because I know you must feel compromised at the moment.
Jesus, thought Carson. Understatement of the year. Dr. Levine, penetrating the GeneDyne network? It didn’t seem possible. But if it was Levine, and if Scopes found out ... Carson’s finger moved quickly to the Escape key again, punching it several times without result.
Guy, I’ve heard rumors from a source in the regulatory agency. Rumors of an accident at Mount Dragon. The lid’s been shut down tight, though, and all I’ve been able to learn is that someone was accidentally infected with a virus. Apparently it’s quite a deadly virus, one that people are scared to death of.
Guy, listen to me. I need your help. I need to know what’s going on out there at Mount Dragon. What is this virus? What are you trying to do with it? Is it really as dangerous as the rumors imply? The people of this country have a right to know. If it’s true—if you really are out in the middle of nowhere, messing with something far more dangerous than an atomic bomb—then none of us are safe.
I remember you well from your days here, Guy. You were a truly independent thinker. A skeptic. You never accepted what I told you as given; you had to prove it for yourself. That is a rare quality, and I pray you haven’t lost it. I would beg you now to turn that natural skepticism on your work at Mount Dragon. Don’t accept everything they tell you. Deep inside, you know that nothing is infallible, that no safety procedure can ensure one hundred percent protection. If the rumors are true, you’ve learned this firsthand. Please ask yourself: Is it worth it?
I will be in contact with you again through Mime, who is an expert in matters of network security. Next time, perhaps we can talk on line: Mime wasn’t willing to risk a live conversation initially.
Think about what I’ve said, Guy. Please.
Best regards,
Charles Levine
The screen went blank. Carson felt his heart pounding as he fumbled with the power switch. He should have turned the thing off immediately. Could it really have been Levine? His instincts told him that it was. The man must be insane to contact him like this, endangering his career. As Carson thought about it, anger began to take the place of shock. How the hell could Levine be so sure the channel was secure?
Carson remembered Levine well: stomping across the lectern, speaking impassionedly, suit lapels flapping, chalk screeching on the blackboard. Once he had been so engrossed in writing a long chemical formula that he shuffled off the edge of the lectern and fell to the floor. In many ways, he had been an outstanding professor: iconoclastic, visionary; but, Carson remembered, also excitable, angry, and full of hyperbole. And this was going too far. The man had obviously become a zealot.
He switched the PowerBook back on and logged in a second time. If he heard from Levine again, he’d tell him exactly what he thought of his methods. Then he’d turn the machine off before Levine had a chance to reply.
He turned back to the screen and his heart stopped.
Brent Scopes is paging.
Press the command key to chat.
Fighting back dread, Carson began typing. Had Scopes picked up the message?
Ciao, Guy.
Hello, Brent.
I just wanted to welcome you back. You know what T.H. Huxley said: ‘The great tragedy of science is the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.’ That is what has happened here. It was a beautiful idea, Guy. Too bad it didn’t work out. Now, you’ve got to move on. Every day we go without results costs GeneDyne almost a million dollars. Everyone is waiting for the neutralization of the virus. We cannot continue until that step has been accomplished. Everyone’s depending on you.
I know, Carson wrote. I promise I’ll do my best.
That’s a start, Guy. Doing you best is a start. But we need results. We’ve had one failure, but failure is an integral part of silence, and I know you can come through. I’m counting on you to come through. You’ve had almost a week to think about it. I hope you have some new ideas.
We’re going to repeat the test, see if by chance we overlooked something. We’re also going to remap the gene, just in case.
Very well, but do it quickly. I also want you to try something else. You see, we learned something crucial from this failure. I’ve got the autopsy results on Brandon-Smith in front of me. Dr. Grady did an excellent job. For some reason the strain you designed was even more virulent than the usual X-FLU strain. And more contagious, if our pathology tests are correct. It killed her so fast that antibodies to the virus had only been in her bloodstream a few hours when she died. I want to know why. We had the strain cultured from Brandon-Smith’s brain matter prior to cremation, and I’m having it sent down to you. We’re calling this new strain X-FLU II. I want you to dissect that virus. I want to know how it ticks. In trying to neutralize the virus, you fortuitously stumbled on a way to enhance its deadliness instead.
Fortuitously? I’m not sure I understand—
Jesus Christ, Guy, if you figure out what made it more deadly, maybe you can figure out how to make it LESS deadly. I’m a little surprised you didn’t think of this yourself. Now get to work.
The communications window on the screen winked shut. Carson sat back, exhaling slowly. Clinically, it made sense, but the thought of working with a virus cultured from Brandon-Smith’s brain chilled his blood.
As if on cue, a lab assistant stepped through the entranceway, carrying a stainless-steel tray loaded with clear plastic bioboxes. Each biobox was marked with a biohazard symbol and a simple label: X-FLU II.
“Present for Guy Carson,” he said with a macabre chuckle.
The late-afternoon sun, streaming in the west-facing windows, covered Singer’s office in a mantle of golden light. Nye sat on the sofa, staring silently into the kiva fireplace, while the director stood behind his workstation, back turned, looking out at the vast desert.
A slight figure with an oversized briefcase appeared in the doorway and coughed politely.
“Come in,” Singer said. Gilbert Teece stepped forward, nodding to them both. His thinning wheat-colored hair imperfectly covered a scalp that gleamed a painful red, and his burnt nose was already peeling. He smiled bashfully, as if aware of his own inadequacy to the hostile environment.
“Sit down anywhere.” Singer waved his hand vaguely over the office furniture.
Despite the empty wing chairs, Teece moved immediately toward Nye’s sofa and sat down with a sigh of contentment. The security director stiffened and shifted, moving himself away.
“Shall we get started?” said Singer, sitting down. “I hate to be late for my evening cocktail.” Teece, busy with his briefcase latch, looked up and flashed a quick smile. Then he slipped his hand inside the case and removed a microcassette player, which he laid carefully on the table in front of him.
“I’ll keep this as short as possible,” he said.
At the same time, Nye brandished his own recorder, laying it next to Teece’s.
“Very good,” said Teece. “Always a good idea to get things down on tape, don’t you think, Mr. Nye?”
“Yes,” came the clipped reply.
“Ah!” said Teece, as surprised as if he had not heard N
ye speak before. “English?”
Nye slowly turned to look at him. “Originally.”
“Myself as well,” said Teece. “My father was Sir Wilberforce Teece, Baronet, of Teecewood Hall in the Pennines. My older brother got the title and the money and I got a ticket to America. Do you know it? Teecewood Hall, I mean.”
“No,” Nye said.
“Indeed?” Teece arched his eyebrows. “Beautiful part of the country. The Hall’s in Hamsterley Forest, but Cumbria’s so near by, you know. Lovely, especially this time of year. Grasmere, Troutbeck ... Windermere Lake.”
The atmosphere in the office grew suddenly electric. Nye turned toward Teece and focused his eyes on the man’s smiling face. “I suggest, Mr. Teece, that we cut out the civilities and proceed with the interview.”
“But, Mr. Nye,” Teece cried, “the interview has started! As I understand it, you were once chief of safety operations at the Windermere Nuclear Complex. Late seventies, I believe. Then there was that dreadful accident.” He shook his head at the memory. “I keep forgetting whether there were sixteen or sixty casualties. Anyway, before joining GeneDyne UK, you couldn’t find work in your chosen field for nearly ten years. Am I right? Instead, you were employed by an oil company in a remote portion of the Middle East. The details of your job description there are, unfortunately, rather vague.” He scratched the tip of his peeling nose.
“This has nothing whatsoever to do with your assignment,” said Nye slowly.
“But it has a lot to do with the strength of your loyalty to Brent Scopes,” Teece said. “And that loyalty, in turn, may have a bearing on this investigation.”
“This is a farce,” Nye snapped. “I intend to report your conduct to your superiors.”
“What conduct?” Teece said with a faint smile. And then without waiting for an answer, he added, “And what superiors?”
Nye leaned toward him and spoke very softly. “Stop playing coy. You know perfectly well what happened at Windermere. You don’t need to ask these questions, and you’ll learn bugger-all from me about it.”
Mount Dragon Page 16