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The Genesis Key

Page 33

by James Barney


  “Before the explosion, Carlos drafted a patent application. And he had the foresight to download the entire sequence—all eighty thousand base pairs—into the patent application. So, even after the fire, we had the entire sequence right there on a thumb drive.”

  “Ah,” said Jeremy. “So there was no need for the actual sample.”

  “Nope. All we needed was the gene sequence. And Carlos saved it!”

  Carlos shrugged bashfully. “I thought I’d saved the sample, too. Turns out, though, I grabbed the wrong container from the fridge.”

  “Yeah,” said Kathleen with a smirk. “He grabbed a container full of fruit fly embryos. I realized it when I noticed the label started with an E instead of a J. E for embryos.”

  “Hey, they all looked the same to me!” Carlos protested.

  “No worries,” said Kathleen. “It all turned out in the end. Hey, look who it is!” Kathleen pointed at the hatchway, where another head was just emerging from below. “Good morning, Grandpa!”

  “Good morning!” said John Sainsbury cheerfully. He ascended the cabin ladder steadily, coffee mug in hand, and maneuvered deftly into the cockpit. “Whew! How’d everybody sleep?”

  At that, Kathleen, Carlos, and Jeremy erupted with laughter as John Sainsbury looked around, confused. “What?”

  “You were snoring like a bear down there, Grandpa!” said Kathleen, still laughing heartily.

  “I was? Oh, sorry.”

  “Don’t worry, Mr. Sainsbury,” said Carlos with a wink. “It wasn’t really that bad.”

  When the laughter died down, Kathleen asked her grandfather, “So, how’s our number-one patient doing?”

  “Great!” exclaimed John Sainsbury, toasting the air with his coffee mug. “In fact, I feel even better today than I did yesterday. Nothing aches; I’ve got a good appetite. And, most important, I’m remembering everything.” He thrust a finger at Carlos’s chest. “Carlos Filipe Guiterez, born April 14, 1968, in San Antonio, Texas. Graduated from St. Anthony’s Catholic High School in 1986. U.S. Marine Corps, 1986 to 2001. Your wife’s name is Ana, and you have two daughters, Isabel and, uh . . .” He snapped his fingers several times until it came to him. “Maria!”

  Everyone on the boat clapped loudly and cheered.

  Kathleen beamed with pride. “Wow, you’re getting better every day.”

  “Kathleen, I feel great . . . like I’m thirty years old again! I don’t know what’s in those injections you’ve been giving me, but I tell you what—it’s working like a charm.”

  “I told you, Grandpa. It’s called a gene-replacement vector. It goes into your bloodstream and seeks out a specific chunk of your DNA on chromosome fourteen. When it finds it, it gloms on and expresses certain proteins. We call that chunk of DNA the ‘INDY’ gene, and the injections basically turn that gene on. Like a light switch.”

  “Well, whatever you call it, I can’t thank you enough for giving it to me. Kathleen, I mean it when I say this, you saved me from a living hell.”

  Kathleen frowned. “Was it really like that? A living hell?”

  The elder Sainsbury nodded and cast his eyes down. “It was like living in a constant nightmare. I knew something was terribly wrong, but I just couldn’t wake up from it. That’s the only way I can describe it.”

  There was a prolonged silence. Then, suddenly, Jeremy exclaimed, “Hey! Check that out!”

  Everyone turned to look at the sky off to the starboard side, where Jeremy was pointing. Above Puerto Banúz, the clouds had temporarily parted, allowing a bright shaft of light to illuminate the gleaming whitewashed houses of the idyllic hillside village. High above the town, a colorful rainbow arched across the sky from east to west, ending somewhere behind the hills of Puerto Banúz.

  “It’s beautiful!” Kathleen whispered.

  “God’s bow in the cloud,” said Carlos quietly.

  Then, as quickly as the splendid sight had appeared, a dark, gray cloud drifted in front of the sun, casting a dark shadow over the village once again. The colorful rainbow vanished instantly.

  “We’d better pull in now,” said John Sainsbury. “We don’t want to be out here when it starts to rain.”

  Acknowledgments

  I hope you enjoyed The Genesis Key.

  Many people helped make this book possible. Thanks especially to: my lovely wife, Kelley, for her patience and support for the past nineteen years; my friend and colleague, Dr. M. Andrew Holtman, for his encouragement and advice on all things biological; Clifford S. Barney for his early comments and support; Jonathan and Colleen Barney for their kind words of encouragement; my parents, Cliff and Edna Barney, for everything; my terrific agent, Mickey Choate, for taking a chance on me; and, last but not least, Jennifer Brehl and the superb team at HarperCollins for doing everything necessary to make this book a success.

  And, of course, to those who purchased and read this book: Thank you.

  About the Author

  JAMES BARNEY is an attorney and former submarine officer in the U.S. Navy. He lives outside of Washington, D.C., with his wife and two children. The Genesis Key is his first novel.

  www.jamesbarney.com

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  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  THE GENESIS KEY. Copyright © 2011 by James Barney All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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  EPub Edition JULY 2011 ISBN: 9780062094834

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