The Zen Gene

by Mains, Laurie

  “Ty I want you to come with me. Your mom is awake and she is asking to see you.”

  He could not hear his mumbled reply but from the position of his head it was clearly negative. It was at that point he knew Zen would fully recover from her injuries, she immediately sat up in the hospital bed.

  “I’m going to see Andi and so are you,” she said

  Twenty-five minutes later, with Tyler pushing Zen in a wheelchair, they entered Andi’s room. The room was quiet and dimly lit. He was certain with them coming into the room she would wake but her eyes remained closed and it appeared she was sleeping. He and Zen talked quietly to her while Tyler sat down to wait. He did not speak to Andi but at Zen’s urging he pulled his chair beside her bed and held his mother’s hand.

  When Ellie was finished the paper work for Zen’s discharge she came in and the three of them took turns speaking soft encouraging words to Andi.

  He was careful not to mention their adventure in Parksville and Ellie did not mention the pregnancy though he could see the knowledge of it lying below the surface by the way she looked at her daughter. It took only a few minutes Tyler to get antsy to leave. Too much quiet talk and no television in the room was a lot for him to endure. He let go of Andi’s hand and got up from his chair. Mann thought he knew where he was headed but he was surprised when Tyler turned to him.

  “I need to talk to the fat lady with the helicopter,” he said.

  He stood and took out his cell phone whispering to Zen and Ellie as he did they would be right back as they headed out of the room.

  “Her name is Barbara. Why do you want to talk to her?” he asked. He was searching for her number as the door closed behind them.

  “I have something,” he said.

  He found the number she gave him in Parksville and hit the send button.

  “Barbara its Lee Mann. Tyler would like to have a word with you,” he said.

  He handed him the phone.

  “Are you here? Meet me in the room with TV” he said and handed the phone back.

  He put it to his ear but she was gone. Without saying anything more Tyler turned and headed for the stairs but stopped when he saw Mann intended to follow him. His face showed confusion and it looked like he was trying to think of something to say. He turned to him and looked him in the eye and said.

  “Andrea is dead.”

  ***

  Jonas watched the exchange from halfway down the corridor standing with his back to them pretending to read an empty patient chart. No one noticed him and when Mann ran back into Andi’s room he casually strolled down the hallway following the kid into the stairwell. He needed to find a quiet place where he could grab him and at five a.m. a hospital stairway looked like a good possibility. He entered the stairway and discovered he was too late. The kid must have run down the stairs, he was gone. He ran down the stairs and looked into each corridor. He saw the kid on the second floor and waited in the stairwell watching through the small door window. Tyler was met by an older woman and he took her hand and led her into the women’s washroom. What was that about, he wondered?

  ***

  Mrs. Knight was walking to the waiting room when she spotted Tyler and he led her into the nearest washroom.

  “I have something,” he said, “wait.”

  He left her standing there bewildered as he headed into a stall.

  “What is it Tyler? What do you have?” she said.

  “Wait,” he said.

  There was a long pause during which he said nothing. Then she heard the toilet flush and a moment later he emerged. He carried something to the sink and began to vigorously wash it. She could not resist and looking over his shoulder she saw him rinsing a smooth metal tube about three inches long and a quarter inch in diameter with a flush fitting screw top. He cleaned it thoroughly with the antibacterial hand soap he pumped from a wall dispenser. When he was satisfied it was clean he turned and handed it to her.

  “POrna,” he said.

  The last twenty-four hours had been grueling and she was aware that fatigue had dulled her mind. She stared at the tube in her hand and felt the heat radiating from and it slowly dawned on her where exactly it had been moments earlier. When she looked at him there was a question on her face.

  “Maintain at body temperature,” he said. He waited and watched her face to see if she understood what he was suggesting. When he saw that she got it his face reddened and he looked away.

  “Don’t let POrna be cold it will die.”

  She examined the metal vial and regarded him with a tight smile.

  “Well if I must,” she said, “Is this lid on tight?”

  He nodded.

  Although this was a hospital and not a nightclub she turned and looked hopefully at the walls for a condom dispenser but no luck. She sighed and entered the same stall he used and closed the door.

  “By the way Tyler what is POrna?”

  “Poliomyelitis-Okinawa ribonucleic acid. POrna is for short,” he said. He waited to see if she would laugh like Zen did but she did not laugh or make a comment. He could hear the rustling of clothing beyond the stall door.

  “A lab can grow it,” he said, “I will post instructions online when you get my computers,” he said.

  “We don’t have them but I think I know who does and I should be able to get them returned to you. Is there virus information on them?” she said.

  “No,” he said, “I need them to do stuff.”

  He was talking when the washroom door opened and he turned to see a male Doctor enter. He wondered why he was coming into the women’s washroom and then he saw the gun. The Doctor lifted it and pointed it at him and began to say something. Tyler did not hear what because he started to turn away as the gun fired. The bullet hit him high on the left shoulder shattering his collar bone. The impact spun him forcefully around in the direction he’d been turning the kinetic force of the bullet knocking him to the floor.

  He rolled over and looked up and followed the black hole of the muzzle as it pointed at his face. The Doctor looked confused, like maybe he had not meant to shoot him. In fact Tyler thought the Doctor’s face expressed surprise that he had. Then he saw the look harden as he aimed the gun again. When he saw his finger began to pull the trigger he used the blood on the floor to deke to the right by sliding his butt sideways. He ended up halfway under the sink he used to wash the vial and the second shot missed him digging a deep crater in the plaster wall by his head showering him in white dust. He tried to change direction and crawl to the nearest toilet stall but his arm was useless and escape was impossible. He could see there was nowhere to hide so he stopped trying. He leaned his head back against the wall and watched the Doctor.

  When McLean saw him move he reacted to it and pulled the trigger and missed but now the kid had stopped moving. His third shot tore a chunk of meat from his thigh puncturing his femoral artery. They both watched as a geyser of dark blood spurted from the wound painting a red arc across the stall doors.

  Jonas McLean watched the kid’s face go white as blood pumped out of him and he wondered again why he shot him he had not intended to do it. He was supposed to grab the kid and take him to the boat and wait for Fran. Then he remembered that Fran was dead in the car outside even though he could still hear him inside his head.

  He was confused.

  He couldn’t stop himself. He did not want to shoot him. The kid was not moving now he was sprawled on the linoleum with only his head tilted up against the wall.

  He was panting like a dog and watching Jonas. They both knew there was nowhere to hide. Jonas moved closer to him and stopped not wanting to get blood on his shoes. He pointed the gun at his face and the kid looked at him but he did not show fear only curiosity. Jonas had the odd feeling that, knowing he was about to die, the kid found it interesting.

  Jonas squeezed the trigger.

  Tyler did not react when the fourth shot rang out he simply observed the results. He watched as the projectile ripped into the
right side of the Doctor’s head. It entered just above his ear. He thought it was authentic how the force of the bullet had snapped the Doctor’s head to the left like in the movies.

  The hollow point slug shattered on impact and expanded with the shards acting like little blenders. The lead chunks rendered a sizable portion of McLean’s forebrain into a lumpy pink puree before spraying most of it on the mirror. Jonas McLean did not see Mrs. Knight open the stall door beside him nor did he hear the click of the trigger.

  As he slumped she tracked his progress from crazy to corpse with her weapon but he was already dead when the surprise on his face splashed the blood on the floor. All four shots were fired in less than twenty seconds. From the moment McLean entered the washroom until the second he died was forty-two seconds. He had, in fact, completely forgotten about the old woman by the time he entered the washroom and that was his fatal error.

  When Mrs. Knight turned to look at Tyler he was white from blood loss. He was holding his hand over the gushing wound on his leg but his pallor and the amount of blood on the floor told her he was close to bleeding out. She slipped in the blood when she went to him and fell hard beside him. She slapped his weakened hand away from the wound and grabbed and squeezed his leg with both hands in a brutal raw-force effort to shut off the flow.

  A woman opened the washroom door and Mrs. Knight turned and screamed at her to get help. When she turned back to look at Tyler’s face she was astonished to see him laughing. Her pants were around her ankles when she fell and he thought that was funny. He was still laughing when his heart stopped.

  Chapter 29

  Making up The Truth

  33 months later

  Andi put her book down and glanced at Lee. He was at the kitchen table writing. She was curled up on the sofa with a blanket reading when she noticed him holding his face in his hands.

  “How’s it coming?” she said.

  He looked up and gave her a wan smile.

  “Okay I guess.”

  She could see by his face he was having trouble. It could not be easy putting the events of the past few years into words. “Read me what you have so far,” she said.

  He smiled at her and cleared his throat and began.

  “My name is Lee Mann and I am a scientist and teacher most recently at the University of British Columbia. You were to be addressed this evening by Lyle Greef, but he has asked me to speak in his place. He believes the message I bring is of vital importance for humanity and one which must be heard.

  It is an honour to address the members of the World Health Organization.

  As you are aware the nations of the world have all experienced a dramatic reduction in armed conflict and indeed deadly violence of all kinds. This, along with the wholesale dismantling of military forces worldwide, has been a surprising but welcome change. I’m happy to report that the trend towards non-violence continues to spread across the planet.

  We have seen progressive measures taken in countries such as the United States where the President has shown vision and courage by converting military forces into domestic agents of change. US soldiers are no longer engaged in killing or destroying they are rebuilding and repairing the aging infrastructure of their great nation. These and other changes in nations herald the beginning of a new era for humankind.

  I am here this evening to explain how and why this fundamental shift in human behaviour has come about.

  There has been much speculation and many explanations posited by the various interest groups, be they religious, political, military, or academic, but I am here to tell you all of their theories are incorrect.

  The planet-wide reduction in violence we are witnessing is the result of a virus-born agent which was created in a lab for the express purpose of inflicting peace upon humanity. This man-made agent, which some are calling ‘the Zen Gene,’ is the source of this change.

  The Zen Gene was first detected in Canadian soldiers stationed in Afghanistan approximately three years ago. I was tasked by the Canadian Military to lead a group of scientists to study it and determine its origin and how to stop it. We were unable to discover who created it but we have learned much about how it works. When we charted its progress we determined that, at its present rate of growth, it would take sixteen years to infect 180,000 people.

  This number is significant because it is the number of positive exposures required to ensure the vector virus will self-sustain. After several months of study we realized this would not happen. The Zen Gene was clearly designed to be self-limiting.

  I informed the Canadian Government and military leaders that the virus appeared to have been purposely designed in such a way it would naturally stop and no longer be a threat within six to eight months of first occurrence and therefore creating an anti-virus or cure was unnecessary.

  It was only later revealed to me the reason the Canadian Military wanted an inoculation against the Zen Gene. Along with their Western and NATO Allies, the military was planning to infect non-western armies with the virus while inoculating our troops against its effects. This, I was assured, would create a super army with which peace and stability could be maintained indefinitely the world over. It was at this point our group of scientists realized what would happen to humanity if this plan were to succeed.

  We agreed to begin work on altering its genetic structure so the Zen Gene would no longer be self-limiting and I am happy to announce we were successful in creating an unlimited version of the gene while also eliminating a dangerous side-effect which caused hyper-violence in some people. Unfortunately the new unlimited version of the gene accidently escaped from our lab eighteen months ago and you have seen its effects. Our version was a high-bred of the Zen Gene and unfortunately, at least for those who wanted to control it, we were unable to develop an anti-virus or inoculant before it escaped from our lab.

  I feel certain that those people who once made their living selling or employing the tools of death and violence will judge us harshly for our failure to contain the Zen Gene and create an antidote. This is, of course, a most bitter irony given what they had planned for it.

  The majority of humanity will see the new gene for what it is; the unconditional release of humankind from the tyranny of armed conflict. Those who profited by war have no case to be made. We have, after all, achieved the outcome they have always claimed they were after.

  Peace for all people on earth. We simply took the additional precaution of ensuring a peaceful future by not allowing the power of the new gene to be consolidated and delivered into the hands of the few rich and powerful people who claim, as they have always claimed, entitlement over others. It is my pleasure to report to you today the rate of exposure has surpassed the one million mark and growth projections indicate the human species will be completely free of violent conflict by the year 2032.”

  He looked at Andi to see what she thought and she had tears in her eyes.

  “It’s very good. I don’t think you realize how powerful your message is,” she said.

  “Okay. You like what I have so far but do you think they will believe the part about a new Zen Gene? And you’ll notice I didn’t mention anything about the Androgen Effect,” he said.

  Andi looked thoughtful before she smiled and said, “The new Zen Jean is very cute like her grandpa, and the projections indicate the Androgen Effect will take at least one generation before it becomes a significant population balance issue. That’s at least twenty years, and like you said, the number of live male births has been on the decline for decades.”

  “That decline was only seen in environmentally compromised industrialized countries like ours. The lack of male births will become obvious a lot sooner in less developed parts of the world,” he said.

  To his amazement Andi laughed and fought to control her laughter long enough to say,

  “Honey you worry too much. Someday it may have an effect on the population but it will be nothing compared to what’s going to happen when the world learns the Zen Gene
does not affect females.

  The End

  After words

  Orly Airport

  The woman was tall and handsomely dressed in an elegant blue sari. In the grey pall cast by the windows her dress was a singular point of beauty and the electric-coloured material attracted the toddler. She could run amazingly well but when walking had the uncertain teetering gait of most two year olds. With a wide grin of exploration and high colour on her cheeks she haltingly steered her way towards the electric blue dress.

  When the tug at her skirt came it did not startle the woman because it was such a familiar feeling. She was a mother. She turned to see who it was and smiled at the adorable girl with wonderful bright eyes looking up at her.

  The woman knew it was not generally done these days, picking up someone else’s child, but convention could not override instinct. Like moms everywhere seeing a tiny baby plopping her butt down onto a dirty public floor caused this automatic response and she bent over and scooped her up.

  “And who are you little one?” she asked. Her voice was warm and redolent with the lilt and music of the East.

  The baby giggled and gurgled in delightful response enchanting the woman all the more. When she looked around the waiting area to see if she could spot the child’s parents she saw one solitary man sitting near a pink travel stroller absorbed by the laptop on his knees. He was the only person in view who might be her parent though he looked too young to be a father. She headed towards him carrying the child. Before she reached him a young woman came hurrying up to her smiling.

  “Oh thank you, “she said.

  She came from the direction of the washrooms and the woman smiled knowingly. She remembered her own husband doing a poor job of minding their children when they were toddlers.

  “She is such a little wanderer,” Zen said.

  She glanced at the young man when she spoke and older woman smiled knowingly as she handed her the child.