The Scioneer

by Peter Bouvier

  After graduating, he was offered a research position at the University of Leipzig, where he dedicated his time to perfecting new grafting techniques. Scientists across the world had managed over the years to extract the vital DNA cells from virtually any creature on the planet, but they found they could not graft across the classes of the animal kingdom. Hence, they were able to bestow crocodilian speed and strength on other reptiles; grant fresh-water bream the ability to survive in the sea, like salt-water mackerel, for fixed periods of time, and so on, but beyond a species’ class it was impossible. They were unable to create a canary that could swim, for example, or graft a snake’s venomous bite on to a domestic cat’s DNA. Reptile to reptile, fish to fish, mollusc to mollusc but no further. It seemed to be the limit of nature’s law. Mammalian extracts were the easiest of all to obtain and to work with, given the relative size of the subjects, primarily, but furthermore because their cells seemed to lend themselves to the grafting process, as though they had been built with the capacity to adapt to other species’ cells.

  The human world went crazy over the new drugs. The pharmaceutical giants had pioneered the first ‘scion’ medicines, as they became known, offering men and women leonine bravery from the boardroom to the battlefield, workhorse power throughout the working week, and the chance to feel like a tiger in the bedroom once again.

  But Lek felt his hands were tied. He saw the qualities of the wider animal kingdom – the perseverance of migrating salmon, the work ethic and organisation of colonies of ants and bees, the elegance and beauty of Amazonian birds of paradise - as a personal affront, and a great wasted opportunity for humankind. The young Lek Gorski relished a challenge, and so resolved to crack the code.

  His idea was simple, but the work itself was painstaking. He broke down the DNA extracts into their component parts – specific proteins and amino acids – then, over three years, set about creating his own synthetic replicas, all configured so that they could fit together with one other. His very own set of the building blocks of life. With them, he was able to blend DNA with DNA, species with species, regardless of class, and create bespoke drug combinations for all manner of medical complaints or recreational whims. He alone held the key to the design of his replica blocks, or ‘bases’, as he preferred to call them – simple and cheap to produce - and the knowledge to create a million customised synthetic DNA grafts from them. Overnight he became the father of scion medicine. By the morning, the sharks were circling....

  Pechev smiled widely. ‘Enough chit-chat, as they say. How’s business, Gorski?’

  ‘We’ve had some trouble from one of our base suppliers, sir: late shipments, disputes over price and the like. Nothing our men can’t handle. Vidmar’s man tells me that there’s still a rush on Dolphine – it’s been the drug of choice for the day-clubbers throughout the summer. All the same, I put together a cheaper scion for the dealers to push onto the market – it’s nothing like as good as pure dolphin, of course, but it’s close enough. Raucous head-banging show-off, meets safety in numbers crowd-mentality, with a touch of living on the edge madness. It’s... nice.’

  ‘Nice? You’ve tried it?’ Pechev sounded surprised.

  ‘No. The mice seem to enjoy it though.’

  ‘My father always told me never to trust a skinny chef,’ he said with a wicked smile. ‘What did you use?’

  ‘Cockatoo-lemming-herring.’

  ‘Still mixing in plenty of golden Labrador undertones, I trust. We want to keep our customers coming back, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes, the cutter knows what he’s doing, of course. How is Barry these days? Still having the nightmares?’

  ‘Oh yes. Always the nightmares,’ Pechev shrugged, ‘Good work Gorski. Just remember that if the product is only half as good, we’ll still sell double, and what’s more, we’ll sell it at the same price. Keep the creds rolling in, good Doctor. What else have you got for me?’ Pechev asked.

  ‘Everything else is taking care of itself. As usual, the dealers tell me we’re turning over large supplies of Equinox and Tigranol. Tiburon – the new shark-scion – is selling well. The original extracts were hard to come by, as you can imagine. We lost a diver off the coast of Cornwall. But still, we’ve been putting up big numbers at the New Old Bailey. The prosecutors seem to be favouring it over Cobrax.

  ‘You’re holding something back. Tell me.’ Pechev’s voice was like steel.

  ‘I have some concerns, about the gangs, Mr Pechev.’

  ‘Have they stopped buying our product?’

  ‘No sir, quite the opposite. I can’t make enough. Lupinex and Hyenarc. If anything, the gangs are buying more and more on a weekly basis.’

  ‘The customer is always right, Gorski. You should only be concerned when they stop purchasing the goods.’

  ‘I know, but I’m worried we’re fuelling a... a war, sir.’

  ‘Not our problem’ said Pechev, with an arrogant shrug. ‘What’s wrong Gorski? You seem unhappy.’

  ‘No sir, just, I was reading about it in the paper. The police can’t seem to cope. It seems as if they’ve left the gangs to destroy themselves, but innocent people are getting killed too, and I was just beginning to wonder....

  ‘What are you saying Doctor?’

  ‘I’m saying… nothing Mr Pechev. Nothing,’ sighed Lek, realising her was talking to the wrong man.

  ‘Look at this city Doctor.’ he said, waving vaguely at the world outside The Mash-Up. Lek noticed Wez and Latisha staring in at them both. ‘One of the greatest cities on the planet. We’re giving its people what they want. Isn’t that something to be applauded? We’re providing a service. And we’re doing a damn fine job of it. They know the risks, these people. They’ve heard the warnings. They’re aware of the side-effects. But, I do understand. I... empathise,’ he said, his face showing absolutely no trace of empathy. ‘You’re too sentimental Doctor. You’re all… bedside manner and no stiff upper lip. Isn’t that what they call it? Listen to me, I have a favour to ask you, and when it’s done, why don’t you have a little trip away? Visit... where was it again? Krakow?’

  ‘Yes, Krakow. I might.’

  ‘Do that. So I think we’re done here? Before you go though, this little favour of mine,’ Pechev said, reaching under his seat and producing an old-fashioned doctor’s bag. ‘I picked this out especially for you. Do you like it?’ Pechev drained his cup. ‘We run a tight ship here, Gorski. Unfortunately, we’ve lost a couple of members of the team in recent weeks, so we all need to pull together. This here,’ said Pechev, tapping the bag but never taking his eyes from Lek, ‘is one hundred thousand cred. It needs to be delivered to Delić at the South Bank Lion by midday today. He has to pay off a debt.’

  Lek felt his pulse quickening. ‘Of course.’ he croaked, ‘Is this the reason you wanted to see me, Mr Pechev?’

  ‘No, no. I felt we needed a catch up, you and I. And since we were meeting, I thought you wouldn’t mind extending me this service.’

  ‘Of course. Midday at the South Bank Lion. No problem, sir.’

  ‘I need people I can rely on, Gorski.’ Pechev smiled, cocking his head to one side. ‘And I told you, call me Lyubomir.’ Abruptly, he stood up, peeled a twenty cred note from his cashclip and laid it on the table. He put his four-fingered hand on Lek’s shoulder momentarily, and then left.

  Chapter 4

  Lek counted to sixty after Pechev disappeared from view, before half-running, half-stumbling to the toilets. He checked the room was empty before locking himself inside a cubicle to examine the contents of the bag. Sure enough, it was filled with stacks of crisp 100 cred bills. ‘This has to be a test. This has to be a test!’ Lek whispered manically. For the thousandth time in the last twenty years, he cursed his fortune. ‘I’m a scientist for Lennon’s sake! A scientist! Not a damn drug dealer! How did I let this happen? How did I let this happen?!’

  Scion drugs were legalised in 2020, under the huge weight of public demand. Like all medicines, however, they were subjec
t to clinical testing and human-trails before reaching the market, which only the giant drug companies could afford to perform. When Lek produced evidence of his ground-breaking ‘building-block’ research, he was flooded with offers from these giants: superb contracts from Steiner-Lorenz, QIC, and Pharmacorp - loaded with business perks and founded upon vast amounts of money. In a period of carefree indecision, already basking in his future success, Lek was approached and wooed by an associate of a small family-run Estonian company who were looking to expand aggressively into Western Europa.

  Lek was won over by their hands-on, down-to-earth attitude to business, and driven by the challenge to be part of a new venture rather than a cog in an already huge machine, he signed on the dotted line. The money was good, and his brand new laboratory overlooking the Thames was his own domain. He had everything he needed for his research and, left to his own devices, began producing formulae for new scions and testing their effects on his mice. He felt he was making a difference in this new scientific age.

  The world had finally, thankfully, turned its back on Fleming’s antibiotic curse, after the rise of the superbugs in the early twenty-twenties, when MRSA, Ci-Dificile and the seemingly unstoppable Hydra-virus wiped out the poorest populations of Africa and decimated the peoples of South East Asia. Natural remedies, homeopathy, herbal treatments, reiki, acupuncture and even laughter therapy all saw a huge rise in popularity. The police turned a blind eye as the public turned to Celtic faith-healers and Cuban witch-doctors for ancient cures containing rhino-horn, snake’s blood and bull’s pizzle. Bars began to serve psychotropic mushroom tapas. Meanwhile, marijuana and cocaine, long since legalised, were made readily available to all and sundry as ailing health services across the world felt their long-established foundations shifting beneath their feet.

  Riding on the crest of this new wave came the so-called ‘scioneers’, the new breed of medical professional, toting their wonder-drugs for any ailment or illness. For indeed, who could complain about a headache, period pain or the sniffles when they felt they were an eagle soaring over the Mojave Desert, or a gazelle outstripping big cats on the Masai Mara. Scions were breathing new life into old limbs, fighting back against mental illness, Alzheimer’s, strokes and most notably, cancer and heart disease.

  While such noble work was going on in Berlin, Manila, and Dehli however, from the solitary confinement of his lab, Lek Gorski was unknowingly helping to flood the black market with cheap natural highs. His first assignment was to produce an anti-depressant to rival the old favourites – imipramine, phenelzine and mazindol. Within a month, he had created the perfect mix – blending replica strands of moon jellyfish with albatross extracts. In the laboratory it was called FQ17K.88.4. On paper, it was Albagel. On the street, it was Chillax. Users described its high as the glorious sensation of floating on the currents of an endless oceanic blue sky. It was a worldwide phenomenon and in less than a year had punched a hole in the heroin trade that no agency in the history of drug-enforcement had ever thought possible. From on high, Lyubomir Pechev smiled and gave Lek, his little lab-rat, a pat on the head. Life was good.

  It wasn’t until Lek naively began to question the value of producing such vast quantities of Chillax scions, the formula of which had yet to be approved, in a laboratory which had not yet passed the standards of the Europan Pharmaceutical Agency, for a company which, as far as he could tell didn’t appear on any drug-company registers or government lists, did he realise his mistake. When he raised these questions to one of his few contacts within the company, a man named Sergei Bellhaus, he genuinely thought Lek was joking. Taking pity on an innocent, Bellhaus sat him down in a booth at the back of the Moo Bang Steakhouse on Jerome Street and over several drinks, told him the whole truth from top to bottom: Pechev and the Russian mafia, the Jakarta connection, the Bogota payoff, the corrupt police officials and politicians in their pockets.

  Bolstered by alcohol and high on knowing more than somebody else for the first time in his life, Bellhaus continued to help Lek connect the dots until there were none left to connect. Lek felt his world sliding out from under him. He went home wishing he had never asked. Two days later, Bellhaus’ decapitated body was found at dawn, impaled on the railings outside the restaurant. His head had been placed in Lek’s laboratory refrigerator with a note pinned to the forehead, reading, ‘Now you know who we are. Now you know who you are.’

  Somebody walked into the toilets and every muscle in Lek’s body tensed in fear. He was being irrational, he knew, but never before had he been asked to perform a task so clearly beyond the remit of his work. He had never been expected to handle either the money or the drug-packets. ‘I’m a scientist!’ Lek cried out involuntarily before remembering his whereabouts. 100,000 cred – a year’s salary in a bag. A sudden thought occurred to him, a thought so clear, so striking, that Lek was convinced of its truth before he discovered it for sure. Driven by a strange desire to validate his worst fears, Lek began to fan through the thick stacks of used banknotes, until he found what he already knew was there. Buried within the eighth bundle of tightly bound creds was something that to the untrained eye would have seemed nothing more than an innocuous strip of translucent plastic. Lek held it between his thumb and forefinger as though it were a deadly scorpion – he had read enough GEEK magazines in his time to recognise an iHare transponder – sending out a digi-radio signal or electro-magnetic pulse to whoever Pechev was paying to keep tabs on the money. Lek was filled with disgust: twenty years of loyal service, albeit many of those lived in fear, for this? They must have sensed his desire to break free of the constant threat; his yearning to use his skills for good, rather than for the benefit of the criminal underworld. His mind skipped over all the dark-alleyway deaths he’d seen as a result of his work, the gangland killings he’d been forced to witness to make sure he was toeing the line and the thought of joining their ranks brought the bitter taste of bile to his throat. All these years when he could have been pushing science in new directions, had been wasted getting junkies high on animal cracker drugs.

  This is a test, he thought.

  Suddenly, Lek Gorski saw an escape route from the prison his life had become. He had waited too long. This was his opportunity… but he had to get it right, had to approach the problem logically, scientifically. No margin for error. No false hypotheses. Limited time frame. Shit or bust.

  Without really thinking, Lek opened his briefcase and emptied its contents – the gel-caps, hypos, vials of extracts, bases and scions into Pechev’s doctor’s holdall. He frantically pulled out his papers and notebook and stuffed them into his side-pockets. He found a used envelope, slipped the iHare inside it, and placed it inside the otherwise empty case. Lek stepped out of the cubicle, made sure he was alone and splashed his face with cold water and ran his fingers through his hair. He took a long, hard long at himself and saw steely determination in his eyes for the first time in years. Then he ran back into the stall and vomited violently. When he emerged again, he felt better still, and with a bag in each hand walked out of the bathroom, out of the bar, and into the heat of the city. He was a man on a mission.

  ‘Wez!’ Lek called, his eyes scanning the street, ‘Where’s your sister? Never mind. Do you want to make some money?’

  ‘How much?’ asked Wez, suddenly suspicious of his new breakfast buddy.

  ‘A thousand cred?’ Lek blurted out, then immediately regretted his benevolence.

  ‘Yes.’ Wez replied, without blinking, only the slight tremor in his voice giving his emotions away.

  ‘Good. See this briefcase? I want you to take it to the South Bank Lion by midday. No earlier, so don’t rush. A man named Delić will be waiting there for me. All you need do is tell him I sent you, and give him the case. Can I trust you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Again with a tremor. This has to be a joke, thought Wez, as he watched the Doctor counting out ten one-hundred cred notes. ‘What’s inside? Is it empty?’

  ‘Not quite, but there’s nothing of
value to you. You’re a good boy. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you. Don’t forget: Delić, South Bank Lion, Noon. No earlier.’

  ‘How will I know it’s him?’

  ‘Uh... he’ll be eating goji berries.’

  Lek walked back into The Mash-Up and was about to order another hash-cake when the gravity of his actions struck him like a sledgehammer and his heart near stopped beating from the shock. He rushed back outside but Wez was nowhere to be seen. The briefcase is probably already floating in the Thames, thought Lek. He looked down at the doctor’s bag, his hand gripped tightly around the handle as though his life depended on it. And it did – 999,000 cred was his ticket to safety now. He had just turned his back on the most dangerous drug baron in the country and in less than an hour, the hounds would be hunting him. The thought of facing them alone left him cold, in spite of the heat.

  ***

  In his office in the Square Mile, Pechev sat down in his chair, switched on his iWall and called up a map of the city. He drew an @ symbol in the air with the index finger of his disfigured hand and typed in the tracking code of the transponder in the doctor’s holdall. A small red cursor and notation reading ‘The Mash-Up, Southwark Street’ appeared on the map. He nodded sedately and returned to his game of chess. He had been playing against himself for years, since nobody he knew could provide enough of a challenge to his prowess. This particular match had been going on for nearly a fortnight. The odds were always in his favour, obviously, but Pechev only considered it his victory when black won.

  Chapter 5

  Lek put his head down and started walking across town. His destination was The IKEA Victoria International Station and he hoped to get there without the slightest hitch in his plan. He debated staying in the shadows – creeping along beneath the UV awnings and canopies, but found himself veering towards the safety of broad daylight. His hopes of remaining inconspicuous were however dashed when he bumped into somebody backing out of a cafe with a quatray of large cups in one hand and a thick sheaf of documents in the other.