Mutant 59

by Kit Pedler

  As he waited, his hard brown eyes wandered over the garish window display with some distaste. Then, there was the sound of bolts being drawn. The door opened. The lieutenant’s look of disapproval deepened.

  The man was about thirty-five with a mop of carefully coiffed grey hair. He was wearing a pale pink cashmere sweater and white velvet bell-bottomed trousers with boots. His face was good looking in a smooth rounded-off way and he spoke with a rhythmic emphasis on first syllables: ‘Oh my God, thank goodness you’ve come. It’s an absolute shambles – you’ve no idea – all my stock, it’s absolutely ruined. I don’t know …’

  The lieutenant cut in brusquely: ‘Where’s the outbreak?’

  ‘In the back here,’ the man simpered at him. ‘I’m sure you’ll cope.’ The lieutenant brushed past, the others following into the shop. They all stopped in complete disbelief.

  Rows of shoes were slowly undulating on the surface of a mass of foam as if they were dancing without music. The multi-coloured plastic decor had ballooned obscenely off the walls and lay on the floor bubbling with the bright fluorescent colours of the original designs. A row of PVC coats dripped off hangers on a chromium rail. One still remained, it was writhing in the foam almost as if animated by an occupant. The whole shop was crawling in a slow nightmarish dance. The air was thick with the stench of Ainslie’s bacillus.

  The owner was wringing his hands and complaining: ‘It’s really quite dreadful, all my lovely designs, I’ll never be able to repeat them.’

  The lieutenant whipped round: ‘Do me a favour old fruit – shut up.’ The man sulked as the lieutenant gestured nervously to the soldier with the spray unit: ‘OK, let it go.’

  The man stepped hesitantly into the shop and started pumping the lever on the spray pack, spreading a brown mist of poisoned plastic ahead of him. The lieutenant watched the anguished expression of the owner with a barely concealed pleasure as the spray settled down on the surface of the foam. The air was filled with the petrol smell of toluene as it evaporated leaving behind a thin sticky brown layer covering the bubbling active masses.

  They settled down to wait, Gerrard pulling back the cuff of his glove to mark the time.

  For some minutes, nothing happened and the contents of the shop continued to suck and hiss as the variant fed.

  Then, very gradually, the rate of movement started to slow, bubbles started to collapse and the sibilant noise of the foam diminished. Finally, after about seven minutes, activity had almost ceased. Occasional pockets of activity not reached by the spray still remained but it was clear that the plastic containing the cyanide molecule had done its work. The fifty-ninth variant of Ainslie had eaten itself to death.

  The lieutenant looked hard at Gerrard for a moment and then grinned: ‘Not bad for starters.’

  The shop owner was dancing round the men trying to express his thanks: ‘Oh how simply marvellous, how terribly clever, what did you use? – you must all come upstairs and have a drink.’

  The soldiers began to pack their gear together. As the lieutenant turned to move out, he glanced back at the shop owner and said: ‘Not tonight, Josephine.’

  During the weeks that followed, the production line at Neoplas got fully under way producing the aminostyrene with the added cyanide molecule. As the new material was completed it was rushed in an almost continuous succession of lorries to the periphery of the stricken area.

  Troops moved in with spray units and each time an outbreak of infected plastic was reported, they covered the area with the brown sticky deposit of poisoned aminostyrene. Gradually, the number of outbreaks diminished, gradually, Ainslie’s bacillus gave up its struggle for supremacy and the corroded heart of London started up into action.

  During the whole of the period, Gerrard worked almost continuously. He found, to his astonishment, that the urgent, relentless work was to his taste. Field work against a known problem, rather than the long term and often frustrating search for originality in the laboratory, gave a tremendous boost to his sagging sense of purpose.

  On a number of occasions he had tried to reach Anne, but each time he seemed just to have missed her, or she had left a rather unconvincing message saying she would be at a certain place at a certain time. And then when he rang, she was never there.

  In the end he had made contact, but it had been cold and confined only to a discussion of the situation.

  As the situation gradually improved in Central London he decided finally to get away from the stench and the desolation.

  His part was in any case finished.

  He drove down to Eastbourne, walking over the Downs and along the shore, gradually unwinding. Three days were enough. He was sitting in the torpor of the hotel lounge on the third day wondering whether or not to go back to London. The Kramer Consultancy hadn’t been in touch. He was obviously in high disfavour.

  A waiter told him he was wanted on the phone. Immediately and with pleasure he recognized Buchan’s rich Lowland accent. There was going to be a meeting of the Consultancy. There were threats of bankruptcy, several claims had been made and an extended legal battle seemed inevitable. Anne Kramer, now the majority shareholder, was back and wanted them to continue.

  ‘Without me,’ Gerrard replied. ‘I’m cast as the arch traitor. They won’t want me at any price. Anyway,’ he said, ‘I’m not sure I want to, frankly.’

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line. ‘I didn’t think you went in for self pity,’ said Buchan. ‘But if that’s the way you feel I’ll do no more about it.’

  The remarks stung Gerrard and he began angrily defending himself and criticizing Kramer’s previous attitude. He delivered a long attack on the change over from responsibility to sheer profit-seeking. It was a long and rather overmoralistic homily and Buchan on the other end of the phone quietly let it run on until Gerrard eventually paused for breath. Then he remarked:

  ‘Have you quite finished?’

  ‘You’re damn right I have. You can stuff it!’

  ‘Because, if you’d allow me just to get a few words in edgeways, I was about to say that quite a lot of what you say seems quite good sense – I mebbe wouldn’t have put it quite so emotionally.’

  Now it was the turn for a silence to fall on Gerrard’s side of the line. ‘I don’t understand. You agree?’

  ‘In some ways,’ said Buchan. ‘That’s why I’d rather like you to come to the meeting.’

  ‘What meeting?’ said Gerrard. ‘You didn’t say anything about a meeting.’

  ‘Did I not?’ said Buchan. ‘Och, well, there’s to be one tomorrow and, in fact, that’s why I’m phoning. They asked me to.’

  ‘They actually want me to go to it?’ said Gerrard.

  ‘I wouldn’t say there was a great deal of enthusiasm, no red carpet or anything,’ said Buchan, ‘but you are a contracted member of the Consultancy.’

  ‘Only just.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Buchan. ‘Anyway, come. It’s at the Connaught Room, Royal Yorkshire Hotel, at 3 PM tomorrow. Look forward to seeing you.’ Before Gerrard could answer, he hung up.

  Gerrard went into the hotel restaurant and almost in compensation for his doubts and anxieties, worked methodically through the most expensive dishes on the menu. Finally, he sat staring moodily into a balloon of the best cognac smoking an over-large cigar.

  He mused over the structure of the group. Wright and Scanlon would almost certainly join forces to get him out. They wouldn’t easily forget that he had been responsible for indicting the material of the biodegradable bottle as a principal cause of the London disaster. He began to imagine the future course of the group. He himself had originally joined because under Kramer, before he had changed, they had seemed to be developing a policy of increasing social responsibility in science. Many of their projects had been clearly designed with the environment very much to the fore. There had been, for example, a contract with a north of England textile dyeing firm to design pollution-free effluent traps.

 
But as Kramer had redirected his energies towards profit and expansion, many of the more socially valuable projects had been dropped as being too costly. The Group had been driven, purely by Kramer’s drive, into accepting relatively easy projects with a high and quick financial yield.

  In bed, in spite of the wine and brandy, his mind raced. What were the alternatives? A ministry job – it was his if he wanted it – giving second-class advice to tenth-class politicians – doing dull research to provide political ammunition for men whose idea of intellectual honesty was to construct successful lies. Science in the cause of double think.

  Back to Canada, God no. He remembered the faculty club, with its highly structured bonhomie and emptiness. The intelligent smiles on desiccated faces. And the five months of winter seemed an intolerable prospect.

  As his anxiety and doubt increased, he finally realized that everything he thought of made his pulse race. Finally with some sort of humour he found himself worrying about whether he had a clean shirt for the morning.

  As he fell asleep Anne’s face kept recurring. Half of him wanted her lying beside him, the other half rejected her intelligence and apparent coolness.

  The next morning he drove up to town early. Back in his flat he shaved, bathed, changed and, unable to face the thought of food, got back into his car and drove towards the hotel where the meeting was to be held.

  As he drove, he tried to imagine the outcome of the meeting. Why a hotel, why not at the labs? His confidence ebbed. Buchan was a strange, complex man. Perhaps he was playing a game. Needling Wright by encouraging Gerrard to speak out.

  If he kept quiet, what then? He wanted to go on working in the Consultancy. For one thing it would keep him in contact with Anne. Was there any chance of coming to terms with Wright? Anger boiled up again. He would speak out and damn the consequences.

  When he arrived at the hotel, his mood changed again. He had expected an armchair meeting in a small private lounge. Instead he found a small conference room had been booked. There were more members of the Kramer board than he had realized.

  To his annoyance he found he was early, the meeting was scheduled for 3 PM. So he had to hover round the table while the rest entered. Betty had arranged the table formally with glasses of water, pads and pencils.

  Eventually everyone but Anne took their place. She had phoned in to say that she had been delayed and would they start without her.

  Wright took the chair in Anne’s absence. On his right was the financial backer of the group, Sir Harvey Phillips. On his left was his own vacant chair then Scanlon and the firm’s accountant, Simon Marks, a dark youthful face with, Gerrard noticed, old hard eyes.

  Buchan sat next to Phillips with Gerrard beside him. At the far end of the table was the Group’s lawyer who also, it seemed, had invested in the Group, Alistair Macdonald. He was a thin, foxy Highland Scot with a studiously polite manner. He also represented a merchant bank which had originally capitalized the Group.

  The meeting opened with an empty and formal speech of regret from Wright at Kramer’s untimely death. Just as he finished the door behind him opened and Anne came in. Everyone rose.

  Gerrard watched her expressionless appraisal of the men round the table but her only reaction was a grave nod of thanks as she took Wright’s seat, leaving him at the head of the table.

  She still disturbed him. He had arrived angry enough to speak and now, in her presence, he felt he could hardly utter a word without stammering.

  The meeting proceeded, condolences were extended to Anne Kramer and the events of the past few months reviewed and examined. Gerrard’s chance came to speak. He felt a slight nudge from Buchan but he ignored it. The moment passed and he could feel the disgust of the older man as he drew back disappointed. The meeting went on to other matters. Macdonald, the lawyer, began to outline some suggested plans for extricating themselves from the dilemma created by the involvement of their product in the disaster.

  After he had finished, Marks gave a flat but expert account of the financial position. They could certainly survive it appeared.

  Then it was Wright’s turn. Gerrard listened incredulously. There was not one word of regret or self recrimination at having indirectly been involved in the deaths of thousands. Nor was there the slightest awareness of how close the situation had come to total disaster.

  As Wright unfolded his version of events, he made it appear as though the whole dreadful sequence was a minor setback for the Group and the product. Gerrard became aware that Wright was getting at him in a roundabout way. There was a reference to their having been exposed to the results of activities which jeopardized their future.

  Gerrard suddenly found himself on his feet. He looked around. Anne, apparently oblivious of his movement, was looking down doodling. Buchan was conducting a bored examination of his pipe; Scanlon smiling at his discomfort. His anger rose and set cold and hard. He found his voice:

  ‘I’d like to speak.’

  Wright looked at him coldly: ‘I’m afraid I haven’t quite finished.’

  ‘You’ve said quite enough.’

  Wright flushed angrily: ‘This meeting will be …’

  ‘What meeting for God’s sake? We’re only eight people, we’re supposed to be talking about the death of our founder – the half destruction of a city – now I’m going to speak.’

  Wright started to reply but Anne put a hand on his arm: ‘Please, let him speak.’ Wright hesitated then subsided:

  ‘Go ahead Dr Gerrard.’

  Gerrard cleared his throat and looked around:

  ‘Well I’m new here and it doesn’t look as though I’ll be around much longer so I’ll start by saying that I’ve never seen such a bunch of complacent, self-seeking hypocrites in my entire life. I’m not going to dwell on the absolutely sickening string of half truths from Dr Wright or his attitude towards this whole affair which, in my view, fails entirely to consider our responsibility.’

  Wright rose to his feet, white faced: ‘I protest …’

  ‘Please hear me out,’ Gerrard snapped. ‘I’ve waited for one word of regret or compunction from you. One word that tells me that you have learnt something from all this. That you accept some degree of social responsibility for your activities.

  ‘When Kramer started this thing up, it was great, inspiring. He had ideas, he could make them work and he was concerned. He cared about the appalling results of technology.

  ‘OK, call me a romantic, but when I first met Kramer he gave me a sense of idealism about science. He taught me that it’s possible to use the special skills of science to help people. To get us out of the polluted mess we’re all in.

  ‘But his attitude changed and we all know it did – mine hasn’t.

  ‘In our Group we can muster a tremendous variety of special knowledge and expertise, we can use it, we can think creatively and we could go to work now to design and fabricate on behalf of people. Not just to make a profit – obviously we’ve got to break even – but to direct everything we have towards society.

  ‘No one will ever know just how much responsibility we will bear for this disaster. We made Degron, we designed the bottle. Nobody could have foreseen the bacteria which grew on it, but our product – the result of our thinking – our ingenuity – played an essential part. None of us set out to do anything more than be technically ingenious. We succeeded and London nearly died. Surely that’s more than enough to make us redirect our activities. The next time it may be the whole world. If this Group is going on – and I hope it will – it must decide right at the beginning exactly what it is doing and why. Obviously – we’re a limited company and people want a yield on their investment. But, given that, we can surely find ways of being creative on behalf of society.’ He faltered for a moment. ‘That – that’s all I guess. He sat down.

  When Gerrard had finished there was a long silence. He looked around the table. The only one who met his eye was Buchan, looking at him with a quizzical expression in which it was impossible to
read either approval for the content of his speech, or reproach for his impassioned tone.

  Anne was looking down. Wright, like Gerrard, was carefully scanning the reactions of the rest of the Group and obviously finding a certain relief and satisfaction in the process – from any outward signs Gerrard’s speech had effectively done Wright’s job for him – antagonized the entire board.

  Wright stood up: ‘Thank you, Dr Gerrard. I’m sure we’re all most intrigued with your ideas and suggestions. Has anyone any further comments on Dr Gerrard’s … homily?’

  Gerrard looked over at him. If he had ever hated a man in his life this man was Wright and all he stood for.

  ‘I was hoping you had. It was directed at you.’

  ‘I rather gathered as much.’ Wright smiled thinly. ‘Perhaps we can have a debate about it some day – at Tower Hill or Speakers’ Corner say – but you will forgive me if I now proceed to the main business of this meeting.’

  Nobody spoke. Scanlon was smiling, Buchan filling his pipe. The lawyer, Macdonald, was gazing up at the ceiling, Anne looked down at her pad and made a note.

  ‘Thank you,’ Wright continued. ‘Now to the rather pressing business of electing a new Chairman for the Consultancy. I should like to take any nominations.’

  There was a pause, Scanlon spoke: ‘There is only one person in my view – the senior member of this Consultancy and the man who has made the biggest contribution to our work – yourself.’

  Sir Harvey nodded slowly: ‘I should like to second that.’

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen. Any further nominations?’ Wright was pleased but determined not to show it.

  Buchan put his pipe down on the table: ‘Aye, I’d like to nominate Dr Gerrard.’

  ‘Dr Gerrard?’ Wright looked startled. ‘Are we to take this seriously?’ Buchan nodded: ‘Never more serious in my life. What he said made very good sense. That is the way I personally should like this Consultancy to be run. I nominate Dr Gerrard.’

  Wright flushed with anger: ‘I’m sorry, I can’t accept this nomination and I’m afraid I regard it as entirely frivolous. Dr Gerrard has only been with us for two months. He knows nothing about our background, our work or our set-up and frankly I feel that the emotional outburst we have just endured makes him totally unsuitable to remain as a member of this Consultancy, let alone as director.’