Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five 5 years earlier…
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Epilogue
Note from the author
Acknowledgements
About me
PERFECTIBLE ANIMALS
Thomas Norwood
Copyright © 2013 Thomas Norwood
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0992355214
ISBN-13: 978-0-9923552-1-0
To my parents, who made me who I am,
And Iliana, who has to put up with that.
CHAPTER ONE
MY ELECTRIC VEHICLE slows as it joins the line of traffic waiting to get through the gates to the regulated zone. I watch a group of poor people sitting around on the dusty ground in what used to be a park, waiting for someone from inside the fence to come out and offer them a job. It happens sometimes – someone might need a laborer or a cook, even the occasional accountant or teacher. Nobody is safe from unemployment these days.
There is a fire burning in a forty gallon drum and a man is spit-roasting the remains of what looks like a wombat. People are lining up for it. A woman collects the money while the man cuts slices directly onto plastic plates. A couple of guys with sawn-off shot guns stand nearby in case of trouble, no doubt taking their cut of the profits. A wombat must be a rare find these days – and the man and woman will probably live like royalty for a few days before returning to their pre-wombat squalor.
Behind the park, a new shipping container housing estate is going up, surrounded by blackmerries which are rolling across the land like a floodwater. The bastard child of wild blackberries and genetically-modified blackberries, blackmerries are drought and herbicide resistant and seem to be in a race with Homo sapiens to take over what is left of the world.
A fight breaks out in the line of people between a man with a matted beard and a woman clutching her emaciated child. I consider getting out of the car and giving the woman a couple of hundred dollars so she can get a decent meal for a few days and feed her son, but the line of vehicles moves on and I’m up at the checkpoint having my retina scanned.
“Returning home, sir?” a guard holding a machine gun asks.
“Yes.”
“Can you tell me where you’ve been?”
My com profile, which he has access to, contains all the information he needs to know, so I’m not sure why he’s asking me questions. I wipe sweaty palms off against my trousers.
“I’m a scientist. My company has a facility in the medical exclusion zone. I’ve been working there,” I say.
I think back to the clinic in the desert, from where we’ve just evacuated over one hundred genetically modified children.
“Company name?”
“Geneus.”
“Have you been through quarantine?”
“Yes.” Again this information is all on my profile. Why is he stalling?
“Just a moment.” He walks back inside his cubicle and I see him talking to another guard. I watch my clock. Two and a half minutes go by. I try to read their expressions or gather information from their body language using an app on my visual overlay but it tells me nothing.
Finally, the guard comes out again. “Go on through, sir.”
As my car takes off I breathe out with relief.
My house is located in a gated community in what was once inner Melbourne, but is now a beachside suburb. Ten years ago, one particularly hot summer, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed and caused a global sea level rise of two-point-eight meters. Melbourne, along with all the other major coastal cities in Australia, was partly destroyed. Those who had enough money took over the dry houses, and those left without jobs were forced to move to shanty towns outside the city, where crime and disease run rife.
Before long, unofficial lines were drawn between the protected enclaves and the unprotected poor, and it wasn’t long after that that official lines, marked with heavily guarded fences, were erected, inside which government control still operates and outside of which they no longer bother.
It isn’t only the flooding that is causing this turmoil; weather extremes in the world’s key food bowls means it is now impossible to feed everyone. Democratic governments around the world, unable to adequately protect their citizens, are losing their grip and being taken over by military dictatorships, rebel groups or corporations, and even in Australia, where we were shielded from the worst of it for years thanks to the wealth generated by our large supply of coal, uranium, steel and oil, things are difficult.
Ironically, some of the poorer countries are surviving the flooding and weather extremes better than the wealthy ones. Many of their citizens have always been subsistence farmers, and they know how to grow their own crops and tend to animals, so the loss of industrial farming capabilities in centralized areas hasn’t hit them so badly.
My car pulls up to the gate leading into our community and my window opens so I can identify myself to the retina scanner. I give Henry a wave and drive on through as he opens the gate.
Inside our house, I find Annie in our bedroom packing our cases. Her dark eyes look up at me. I brush her hair away from her pale face and we kiss. I hold onto her for a minute, inhaling her sweet smell.
“How are you feeling?” I say.
“A little better,” she says, brushing my chin and going back to her packing. “Have you heard anything about the children?”
“No, not yet. Last I heard they’d left the compound but hadn’t boarded the planes. Dylan said they were having trouble getting clearance to land, and they might have to fly in to another airstrip.”
“Is our plane ready?”
“I hope so. Apparently it’s waiting for us at Essendon airport.”
“Which shoes do you want to take?” Annie says, squatting down in front of our closet where my shoes are neatly lined up. “I don’t think we can fit all of them in.”
“Here, I’ll do it.” I bend down to select my shoes. “Are you all ready?”
“Almost. Do you really think leaving is the right thing, Michael?”
“I’m not sure. If anyone finds out about those children and what they’re capable of, though, we’ll be arrested.”
“Maybe you should turn them over to the government,” she says.
“So they can turn them into soldiers? Create more bio-weapons?”
“Yes. You’re right. Can we take these photos?” She holds up one of the framed photos we have on our dresser – the one of us on our honeymoon in Paris, smiling in front of the Eiffel tower.
“Of course.”
Annie puts the photo into her suitcase and zips it up. I take my three favorite pairs of shoes �
�� two pairs of sneakers and a pair of brown leather boots – and squeeze them into the side of one of my own cases.
Half an hour later, everything is packed into the car and Annie and I take one final walk through our house together. There are still books on the shelves, paintings on the walls, rugs on the floors. Annie’s favorite cup is out on the kitchen bench. Memories of the last ten years of our life here are stored in every corner, in every room, and I take Annie’s hand and squeeze it gently as we stare around for one last time.
We lock the front door on our way out. Annie has already contracted a real estate agent and the house will be put on the market next week, the money wired to us via bitcoin when it’s sold.
“Well, this is it,” she says.
“Yes, it is.”
We climb into our car and I ask it to take us to the airport.
As we are leaving our one way street a black van pulls up in front of us. We wait for it to move but four men in dark suits climb out and surround our vehicle. A police badge flashes through my window and knuckles rap on the glass. A hand goes to the side of a jacket where I see the bulge of what I assume to be a pistol.
I consider switching the car into manual and flooring it in reverse, but that would involve running over the man in my rear-vision mirror and possibly getting shot at. Besides, there is no escape. It’s a one way street.
I lower the window.
“Michael Khan?” the man says; a square-jawed, close-shaved, cropped-haired brute of a man. His gray eyes look in at me through flawless skin and I wonder if he’s one of the new androids the police force is using.
“Yes?” I try to sound casual.
“You’re going to have to come with us.”
“Where to?”
“Just step out of the vehicle, please.”
I look around me at the four solid men with guns and realize I have no choice.
“Michael, no!” Annie says. She puts her hand on my arm.
“It’s okay,” I say. “It’s going to be okay.”
I tell the engine to switch off and climb slowly out of the car. Adrenaline floods me like cold water. Everything is happening in slow motion. I can hear the men’s feet on the concrete, their breathing, a siren wailing in the distance.
The first man takes out a pair of plastic handcuffs.
“Can I ask what this all about?” I keep my back to the car as if there is still a chance I might be able to return to it.
“You’ll find out soon enough. This way please.” He grabs me by one arm and twists it around behind my back while another of the men, slightly older with thinning hair on top, comes around and grabs my other arm. Before I know it they’ve got the handcuffs on me, digging into my skin.
Annie tries to open her door but one of the men leans against it and stops her.
“Please remain in the vehicle, ma’am.”
“Let me out! What the hell is going on?”
The three men holding me push me in the direction of the van. What will happen if I run? Will I be shot down in the street? The one who spoke to me first has a bulky, animated, athletes body, and the other two, although shorter, look like they could easily outrun me too.
One of the men, a cold, blue-eyed, ambitious looking unit, forces me into the van and sits across from me. His jacket is forced open by his weightlifter’s chest. I look back to see Annie getting out of our vehicle but the man who was holding her back jumps into the back of the van with us and we take off on autopilot.
Are they really police officers? Or am I being kidnapped?
“What is this about?” I say.
“Everything will be explained to you when we arrive,” the man across from me says, no emotion in his voice.
I try to access the net on my com, a nano-tech computer built into my brain, but they’ve somehow put a block on it. I have heavy-grade firewalls so, whoever they are, they’re very well equipped. As far as I know only the government has the technology and the authority to do that.
Without the constant stream of data about the outside world on my visual overlay I feel blinded. I try to guess where we are going by sight alone, but all the windows are blacked out except the windscreen and after a few blocks I lose track of our direction. I catch the occasional glimpse of an industrial shed or a truck with shipping containers. There is little traffic on the road. We must be down near the old port somewhere – this is not an area I’ve ever spent any time in, and in the last few years, since the sea level rise, it has changed dramatically.
After a long drive we pull up at a gate in a high-security, razor-wire-lined fence. Guards carrying machine guns look into the van and we are waved on through. Once inside, the man across from me opens the van door and asks me to step down. The other two follow. I find myself in the car park of a two-story, cream-brick building that looks like a mental institution. Blue bars cover small windows. I am led over to a glass entrance, past more security guards. My captors check in with another guard behind thick glass then pat me down and check the contents of my pockets. A loud buzz precedes the opening of a steel gate. I am taken to a small interrogation room, asked to sit down, then left alone.
I look around me. There is a two-way mirror. Security cameras are mounted on the ceiling. The walls are the same pale blue as the rest of the building. Time condenses and my mind goes into overdrive as I think about what to do. In the space of less than a minute, I’ve thought about the last ten years of my life and all the possible mistakes I could have made which led me here. I think about the genetically modified children, how the viruses they were designed to resist mutated and got out of control. I try once again to access the net, but I am still being blocked. At least my com itself is still working, and I monitor my vital signs. My heart rate is up. I breathe slowly. I must stay calm.
The door to the room opens and a tall man in a pair of suit pants and a white, pressed shirt but no jacket comes in. His hair is not short like the others, but is styled back in a thick wave. His face is angular but good-looking. He unlocks my handcuffs and offers me his hand which I shake with relief.
“I’m Don James,” the man says. “Michael Khan, isn’t it?”
“That’s right.”
“Welcome to ASIO.”
The Australian Security Intelligence Organization. So they still exist.
“ASIO?”
“That’s right. They didn’t tell you?”
“They didn’t tell me anything.”
Don chuckles briefly, as if at some private joke. “Well, never mind.”
“What am I doing here?”
“To be perfectly honest, Michael…” Don sits down in one of the chairs across from me, crossing one leg over the other and resting his elbow on it, cupping his chin in his hand and looking at me. “You’ve been involved in some fairly interesting business.”
“What business is that?” Playing dumb is my only strategy until I find out what they want.
Don stares at me, then uncrosses his legs and stands up again. He presses the tips of his fingers onto the tabletop. His knuckles start whitening. The flesh under his nails goes red.
“I think you have a pretty good idea what I’m talking about.” He stares at me with an unwavering determination, as if trying to see right through my skull and directly into my thoughts. I wonder if they’ve come up with an app which allows him to do that. At the very least I presume he’s measuring my biometrics and monitoring my gestures and facial expressions, just as I am doing to him. Although he gives away nothing.
I can feel the way my ventricles throb, opening up to draw in blood and squeezing down hard to spread it through my body. I hear a sound that I initially think are footsteps but then realize are my heartbeats. I wonder if I am going to have a heart attack. According to my com, my heart rate is over one hundred and twenty. I have to calm down. Although if they know about everything I’ve been involved in, a heart attack might be merciful. I imagine months if not years of solitary confinement. Torture, as they try to extract every la
st piece of information from me, even after I’ve told them everything.
Doubts open up inside my mind, threatening to tumble me into a dark, knowledge-less abyss. Who is really in charge of Gendigm, the organization I have been secretly working for? I have always considered them democratic, but there must be someone at the head, behind the scenes so they can never be implicated. There have been hints now and then that their supporters are everywhere, at every level of society. Presumably not in ASIO, or I wouldn’t be here. Unless I am their scapegoat.
“I think I need to see a lawyer.”
“All in good time.” Don smooths his hair back with one hand. “But before you do, you might like to listen to what I have to offer.”
“What’s that?” I grip the sides of my chair.
“A plea bargain.”
“What type of plea bargain?”
“You tell us everything you know, and we’ll make sure that you get off lightly. A lot more lightly than you will if you don’t tell us anything. Or if you get your lawyer involved in this.” His eyes narrow and I can see the thick lines of determination scarring his face.
“I have a right to a lawyer.”
“I’m afraid you don’t. So far, you haven’t been charged with anything.”
“Well, shouldn’t you charge me with something, then, before holding me?”
“In cases like yours, we can hold you for as long as we like.” Don seems pretty smug.
“What do you mean, cases like mine?” I feel the sweat emerge on the top of my brow, resist the urge to wipe it away. One of the fluorescent lights flickers and buzzes. My heart rate picks up again and I can see 124BPM in the top right of my visual overlay. Don’s is at a steady 60.
“Terrorism.” Don sits back down in his chair, clutching his armrests.
“I’m not sure I understand you. I’m a scientist. A geneticist. I’m involved in clinical trials, specifically to do with the immune system. I’ve done quite a bit of work for the government even, surely you know that. As far as I know, everything we do now in the regulated zone is perfectly safe, and anything even potentially risky is carried out in the de-reg zone. I thought the government wasn’t interested in what goes on there.”
Perfectible Animals: A Post Apocalyptic Technothriller (EidoGenesis Book 1) Page 1