Zodiac Station

by Tom Harper

  Another door, and the picture changed again. A dimly lit room, filled with large specimen jars that skewed the light like distorting mirrors. Behind the reflections, I glimpsed monstrous things floating in blood-red fluid: fleshy shapes; ghastly deformities like limbs and heads; nightmares lurking behind the glass. I closed my eyes.

  The last room was a stairwell with a flight of iron stairs. He carried me up – he never seemed to get tired – and through a final door.

  This was the living space. It looked like some sort of trendy industrial conversion: concrete walls, a television mounted on one and a trio of David Hockney swimming pools opposite. A glass table covered in papers; plastic chairs, and an angular lamp that cast a soft yellow glow. A cup of tea sitting on the table was the only human touch.

  A man and a woman stood by the table, like hosts whose guests are late for the party. He wore a neat steel-grey beard over a lined, weather-beaten face; she had blondish hair tied back in a ponytail. Both wore plaid shirts and thick corduroy trousers. They looked like a sturdy, retired couple – except that she wasn’t any older than me. Five months younger, to be precise.

  The man came forward as if to shake my hand. The woman stayed back, not quite meeting my eye, as if to say it wasn’t her idea to invite me. The room spun as I was put down – quite gently – on to one of the chairs. I was upright, but it all seemed upside down again.

  ‘You’re supposed to be dead,’ I said.

  Forty-nine

  Anderson’s Journal

  There were a million questions I needed to ask. I began with the obvious.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  Louise stood next to the lamp. It hurt to look at her.

  ‘I thought you died,’ I added.

  ‘You’ve been wrong about a great many things.’ Pharaoh spoke for her. His voice sounded so familiar. An authoritative baritone, precise and pedantic, belying the speed of the thoughts beneath. ‘There’s no law that requires a person to prove he is alive.’

  He turned to the man who’d brought me. ‘Did he come alone?’

  ‘There was a woman. I shut her in the mine tunnel.’

  It was the first time I’d heard him speak. A soft voice, curiously flat, like someone who wasn’t used to public speaking.

  Pharaoh’s face twitched. I’d seen it so often before, when you didn’t give him the results he demanded. The anger, barely contained; the tone so sharp it made your confidence bleed.

  ‘Then you’d better go find her.’

  He might frighten grad students; maybe even fellow scientists, in thrall to his reputation. But the man behind me wasn’t intimidated. I heard his weight shift menacingly. Louise took a half-step forward, as if to stop a fight. She looked frightened – as well she might. God knows, the man was strong enough.

  But Pharaoh stared him down, bulletproof confidence, as you would when breaking in a puppy. ‘Now.’

  ‘Let her go,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t know anything.’

  They ignored me. The moment the door closed, Louise relaxed, though it didn’t do anything for me. I thought about Greta, and prayed to the God who doesn’t exist that she’d get out before they caught her. Back to Zodiac, back for help. Though locked in that mountain, it was hard to believe in a rescue. Hard to believe anything, with Pharaoh and Louise standing there like ghosts.

  They gave me dry clothes and a hot cup of tea. Then, like a grotesque replay of those nights in Cambridge when Pharaoh had us over for dinner (and what did they do when I was out of the room?), we sat at the table and talked.

  ‘You asked what we’re doing here,’ said Pharaoh. ‘You’ve had a look around. Surely you can hazard a guess.’

  I tried not to think of the specimen jars. ‘Making bugs that eat oil pipes?’

  He chuckled. ‘That was a somewhat amusing diversion. A synthetic micro-organism that can metabolise the polymers in the pipes. An act of sabotage. It would have impeded my plans if the exploration company brought too much attention to this island.’

  ‘Why Utgard?’

  ‘It’s one of the few places in the world free from the tyranny of demotic morality.’

  It was the way he loved to speak. ‘No government,’ I translated.

  ‘No restraint on the pursuit of knowledge.’

  ‘No ethics forms.’

  I glanced at Louise, but she didn’t react. It meant nothing to her any more – if it ever had.

  Pharaoh leaned forward. ‘Let’s start from the beginning, Thomas.’ He was the only person, except my mother, who called me Thomas. He picked a paperweight off the table and hefted it in his hand. A piece of polished jet: I actually recognised it. I bought it for Louise on a weekend in Whitby.

  ‘Carbon. It’s everything that matters. You, me, the birds and the bees and the flowers – every molecule in our body starts with a carbon atom. When God said, “Let there be life,” what He actually said is, “Let there be carbon.”’

  It must be a lecture he’d given somewhere before, though I hadn’t heard it. The phrases rolled out in that irresistible voice. When he said, ‘Let there be life,’ you could almost imagine the molecules jumping into line.

  ‘But carbon’s a promiscuous little element. Attaches itself to anything. With nitrogen, or hydrogen, it makes the stuff of life. But join it to a pair of oxygen atoms, CO2, and you’re in danger. You know what the more optimistic of the energy people call fossil fuels? Buried sunshine. It’s the light that fell on the planet a hundred million years ago. Plants stored the energy as carbon. They lived, they died, were buried, and under pressure the matter was compressed until the carbon inside them turned to coal, or oil. When you burn it, the carbon is released and joins with the oxygen in the air, and all that ancient life is now a dangerous gas.

  ‘Earth’s going to change more in the next hundred years than it has in the last ten thousand. We’ve added six billion people in a century, and we’re not slowing down. And the business model for our planet says they all have to buy automobiles, airplane travel, air conditioning and iPads, or the whole economy collapses. You want to talk about carbon? The last time there was this much carbon in the atmosphere, Greenland looked like Connecticut and Philly was seaside real estate. Even if you want to stop it there, we’d have to switch off every engine and power plant in the world tomorrow and not start them back up for fifty years. Instead, China’s bringing a new coal-fired power station on stream every three days. I said coal is buried sunshine. If you count it that way, every year we dig up and release five hundred years’ worth of sun into the atmosphere.’

  ‘I never had you as a tree hugger.’ As far as I remembered, the only science Pharaoh ever cared about was genetics. ‘So what are you trying to invent here? Some kind of biofuel?’

  ‘You’re thinking too small, Thomas. That was always your limitation.’ He glanced at Louise, who nodded her agreement. ‘We’ve gone too far, the planet’s not coming back. We’ve tipped the balance, and all we can do is adapt. That’s my interest. The greatest endeavour of them all.’

  He always had a good patter. I’ve seen him hypnotise audiences plenty of times, whether it was a prospective student, or a lecture hall, or the people who write the eight-figure cheques. But this was different. More assertive, more about showing off his own certainty than convincing you. Evangelical was the word that came to mind.

  ‘You’ve heard the term “geo-engineering”? The hypothesis that the solution to the world’s crisis is re-engineering the planet. Giant mirrors in space to reflect back sunlight, or saturating the oceans with iron to absorb more CO2. Even if it were possible, the costs – and the risks …’ He rippled his fingers into a fist, a classic Pharaoh gesture. ‘I’ve chosen to approach the problem from the opposite direction.

  ‘You’re aware of the theory of Intelligent Design, I presume. Nonsense, of course, dreamed up by theists who are too timid to call their God by name. Their premise is flawed. If they were scientists, they’d recognise there’s neither intelligence nor des
ign at work. Beauty, yes. Awe, most definitely. But from the perspective of design, it’s a mess. A billion years of baggage. Wrong turns, dead ends and obsolescence. All the dirty dishes our genome never got around to cleaning up and putting away.’

  He threw open his fist.

  ‘You know why Paris is more beautiful than Los Angeles? Paris was designed – redesigned, I should say – by a single mind. Elegant, proportional; the old mess swept away. LA just sprawled, millions of people all making their own self-interested decisions.’

  ‘I think they call it the wisdom of crowds.’

  ‘The wisdom of crowds is what’s brought us to the brink. You know what happens when a creature’s environment changes faster than it can evolve?’

  ‘Extinction,’ said Louise. All the time he’d been giving his lecture, she’d sat still beside him, twisting the wedding band on her finger. She never wore one when we were married – said it got in the way too much at the lab.

  ‘I’m not arrogant. I don’t even claim any special insight. I just look at the data without prejudice. And I have the ability to do this. To re-engineer mankind.’

  I laughed out loud, and took some satisfaction from the irritation that flashed across his face. The spell was broken. Sitting at that table with Louise, prim and upright like the couple in American Gothic, he suddenly looked absurd.

  ‘Is that why you came here? To write science fiction?’

  I was hoping I could get under his skin again. But he’d got control of himself, and all I earned was a condescending smile.

  ‘Synthetic biology isn’t fiction, Thomas. You ought to know that.’

  ‘You mean the Maryland group?’ Pharaoh may be brilliant, but even back when I worked for him he wasn’t the only one pursuing synthetic biology. There’s a group in Maryland who used the technique to create an artificial bacterium. It made the news a couple of years ago.

  ‘The Maryland group’s bacterium was a parlour trick. A two-piece jigsaw. I have the whole picture.’

  ‘That’s not possible.’

  ‘Let me persuade you otherwise. You think I came here for the climate? Or the social scene? I mean, Maryland may be dull, my God, but …’

  ‘The science you’re talking about is fifty years off,’ I said. ‘If ever.’

  ‘Look at World War Two. In six years, they invented radar, rockets, jet engines, the atomic bomb and nylon pantyhose to boot. Why? Because in wartime, nobody looks over his shoulder. That Maryland group? The science was simple – they could have done it ten years ago. The only thing that held them back was the paperwork. You know how long it takes to get ethical approval for creating new life? Think of stem cell research. So much potential, and it’s been tied up with politicians and priests for thirty years.

  ‘The irony is the hypocrisy. Any dumb kid with a hard-on can create life. And the government will subsidise that with welfare, tax credits, medical programs, no questions asked, even though that life will probably be – and I quote Thomas Hobbes – nasty, brutish and short. But try and do something in a lab that will benefit humanity, expand our potential …’

  ‘Not possible,’ I said, louder this time.

  ‘Impossible is merely something no one has yet managed to do. And I have, Thomas. We’ve gone through every codon on the genome. We culled the junk, stripped out the weaknesses and the redundancies. Boosted positive attributes. Then we assembled the entire thing from scratch, all three billion base pairs. Smarter, tougher, more capable. Humanity 2.0, if you will.’

  Heavy footsteps rang on the stairs. The door behind me opened. Pharaoh smiled.

  ‘Well speak of the Devil.’

  Fifty

  Anderson’s Journal

  He was alone; he hadn’t got Greta. That was the first thing I saw, though the relief lasted just as long as it took me to think what else he might have done with her.

  It was the first time I’d seen him properly. He wore black combat trousers and a tight black T-shirt that clung to his biceps – though any clothes would have been tight-fitting on that huge frame. Clean shaven, the sort of short-back-and-sides haircut that practical mothers give their sons. Snow crystals gleamed in his hair.

  ‘Where is she?’ asked Pharaoh.

  He brushed a few stray bits of snow off his shoulder. ‘Ice fall. I couldn’t get through.’

  I thought of the cracks I’d squeezed myself through, the creaking ice crushing the breath out of my lungs. I thought of Greta down there in the dark as a million tons of ice began to come down. I wanted to scream.

  Pharaoh frowned. ‘Did you find her body?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘She might have got through before it collapsed. Go take a snowmobile round to the Helbreen and check if she came out.’

  The man didn’t move. Just stared at me.

  ‘Of course,’ said Pharaoh. ‘You haven’t been introduced.’ He held out his arms. ‘Thomas, meet Thomas.’

  I wasn’t really listening, too lost in thoughts of Greta, and wondering if I knocked him down the stairs whether I’d manage to break his neck. It took me a second to realise what Pharaoh meant.

  ‘He’s called …?’

  ‘We named him after you.’

  ‘It seemed appropriate,’ said Louise.

  ‘A second chance.’

  ‘We’re both still very fond of you.’

  Now they had my attention. I stared at the man, this other Thomas, my mind filled with suspicion and wonder and doubt. I waited for him to come in, but he just stood in the doorway, like a child who’s forbidden from the living room.

  ‘What is he?’ The words came out so quietly I had to say them again. ‘What is he?’

  ‘You know what he is,’ said Pharaoh.

  Our eyes locked. I’ve been on the receiving end of that stare many times, never beaten it, but this felt different. He wanted me to believe him – needed it, perhaps. He’d laboured underground all these years, building his masterpiece, and now he deserved some recognition.

  ‘You’re welcome to genotype him,’ Pharaoh offered. ‘I have the equipment right here. You’ll see things no one’s ever seen before.’

  Virtual-reality theorists have a phrase that describes the revulsion humans feel when we see an almost perfect simulation of a person: the uncanny valley, the point at which the illusion becomes too close for comfort, but not quite real enough. This was similar. The creature – I refused to think of him as Thomas – was perfectly real, almost familiar. Yet some deep animal sense in me recognised he wasn’t real enough.

  But it didn’t add up. ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Eight hundred and sixty-eight days. Two years, four months.’

  Pharaoh laughed at the look on my face. ‘Quite the bouncing baby, isn’t he?’

  ‘Then how is he so …?’

  ‘Mature? An error.’ A tightening at the corner of his mouth; I remembered how much he hated mistakes. ‘One of the segments we snipped turned out to influence cell replication and development. He’s aging at approximately twelve times the normal rate. We’ll fix it next time.’

  Something like fear crossed the creature’s face. It really was a child’s face: plump cheeks, skin unscuffed or worn. I couldn’t help thinking of Luke, when he was a toddler.

  ‘And the speech …’

  ‘We’ve spent the last two years educating him. Genes for general intelligence, “G”, are relatively easy to identify – that was the first area we improved. Married to his rapid development, it means he’s quite the conversationalist. He also plays a mean game of chess.’

  Looking at him, I started to see why I’d believed, intuitively, Pharaoh’s impossible claims. Nothing obviously wrong: no bolt through the neck, or clumsy stitches up his cheeks. Not the sheer size, though if you’d met him on the street you’d certainly have stared. The arms, the legs, the nose and mouth were all correct. Even the eyes, the windows to the so-called soul. It was something greater, the way the whole package fitted together. Nature trains us in certain pro
portions: his were subtly different. I suppose Pharaoh would have said ‘better’.

  He was still waiting, staring at me as if he wanted something. More than wanted. Coveted.

  ‘Go on,’ Pharaoh said to him. ‘Before she has a chance to get back to Zodiac.’

  The creature – I couldn’t think of him any other way – turned to go. There was no way I could stop him, but I tried anyway. For Greta’s sake. All I got for my efforts was another bruise, and a scornful look from Pharaoh.

  I sat down at the table, rubbing my arm. I tortured myself imagining Greta. Surviving the ice fall, dragging herself through the tunnels. Hauling herself up the rope towards that tiny circle of light. Coming out into the cold, thinking she’d made it. And then the monster’s hands around her throat.

  But even that was optimistic. More likely, she was buried in the ice.

  I had to talk or I’d go mad. ‘How did you do it?’ I asked.

  Pharaoh was happy to answer. To show off. ‘The same way the Maryland group did it. Or, for that matter, what Roslin did with Dolly the sheep. We injected the synthesised genome into a human egg with its own genetic material removed, and then we implanted the egg in a host and brought it to term in vivo.’

  In vivo. In life – in a human being. I looked at Louise.

  ‘You gave birth to this … creature?’

  ‘We prefer the term synthetic human,’ Pharaoh said.

  I thought of the specimen jars, the fleshy masses floating in the fluid. I remembered a phrase from the literature: viable embryos. Pharaoh had made it sound so routine, just shake and bake. But science is messier than we pretend; we never get it right first time. It took almost three hundred tries to make Dolly the sheep.

  I had no sympathy.

  ‘It’s a shame you didn’t give a damn about the son you already had. He still wakes up screaming in the night, by the way, because he thinks he doesn’t have a mother.’