Isolation Ward

by Joshua Spanogle

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  “I guess the pigs wouldn’t.”

  Bill Dyson didn’t seem to like that one too much; he sat down and glanced over the monitors. “This your first time here?”

  “Yes.”

  “You want a tour?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Dyson clicked through the cameras angled on the pigs. This was going to be a video tour. “I don’t know how much they told you yet.”

  “Not much. I’ve just been getting samples and testing them. Only for the past week, though. That’s when I switched to microbiology.”

  “You said your name was Yonnick?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fun name. What is it?”

  “Scandinavian.” Scandinavian?

  “Great girls up there.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’m from Wisconsin.”

  “Yeah. I dated this Norwegian girl. Six feet tall and lived for sex—”

  “Great. The pigs all have the same name. They’re clones?”

  Dyson paused for a moment, put off, perhaps, that I’d switched the subject from his sexual conquest. He said, “Yeah. Well, Bertha is one line. Abby was another. We have two more buildings. Six lines in all.”

  “Where are the Abby pigs?”

  “They, uh . . . they didn’t tell you about Abby?”

  “No.”

  “Well, suffice it to say, Abby was sick. So were all of her clones. We destroyed them.”

  “When?”

  “About a year ago.” He looked at me. “Man, they’re really being tight about the info here. Don’t tell anyone I told you about Abby. You’re on the team and all, but . . .” His voice faded out.

  “You only said they were sick.”

  “Yeah. Even that.”

  I changed the subject. “What’s the building behind this one?”

  “Oh. That’s where the mamas are kept, before we impregnate them. They get to see the outside. These pigs, the ones we’ll use for the organs, are kept in here. They don’t get to see the sun. Too many contaminants out there.”

  “What’s the procedure?”

  “For what?”

  “For making these guys.” I pointed at the screen.

  “Simple. You know about Falk’s work, right?”

  “More or less. Like I said, I just work on the diseases. They don’t tell us much about what goes on on the other side of the wall.”

  “It’s all coming out in a paper in Nature in the next year or so. That’s what we hope, anyway. Shooting for Nature.”

  I decided to appeal to Dyson’s vanity. “Why wait for Nature, when I can get it from one of the geniuses who helped do the work?”

  He laughed. We were clearly bonding. “So, Falk discovered a way to strip the surface antigens off the porcine organs. Well, Falk discovered it with my help. These antigens are basically sugars on the pig’s tissues that signal they are pig and not human. Falk finds the genes responsible for them and deletes those genes. Luckily, humans don’t have a corresponding gene for these sugars, so he didn’t need to insert a human gene where the pig gene was deleted.”

  “Lucky.”

  “Tell me about it. We get a fertilized egg, make sure the genes responsible for these surface antigens have been knocked out, and go about making a bunch of copies of the new oocyte. Normally, we let division progress to the sixteen-cell stage, before any differentiation has occurred. So we’re left with sixteen stem cells.”

  “All of which can become a pig. And all of these pigs have organs with the surface antigens missing.”

  “Righto. But we need tons of cells. So we take these stem cells and put them into eggs from which we’ve removed the genetic material. Then we give the eggs a little jolt of electricity and they begin to divide again.”

  “Like they did with Dolly.” The cloned sheep.

  “Yes. But we’re not letting the eggs progress to embryo yet. We need to get as many copies as we can. When we get the eggs to the sixteen-cell stage, we separate the cells. Then we take those sixteen cells, place them in evacuated eggs, let them start to divide, and so on. Sixteen times sixteen times sixteen.”

  “How many times did you do this? Let the cells divide, stop division, put each of the cells in a new egg?”

  “A bunch. We have about two thousand frozen blastocysts right now.” The blastocyst is the early embryo. “That’s for each line, each pig. The cloning process is real inefficient, so we need as many eggs as we can get.” He played with the buttons on the video monitors. I could tell he was getting a little bored. “Then we did what any moron with the right tools can do.”

  “The cloning process.”

  “Yeah. We took the genetic material from these blastocysts, stuck it into an egg with its genetic material evacuated from it. This time, though, we didn’t just keep the new fertilized eggs in a petri dish. We shocked them, then put them into surrogate mother hogs.”

  “Those are the surrogates out there? In the other building?”

  “No. We kill the surrogates when the piglets come to term. We don’t want to take any chances with a vaginal birth. You know, hogs are always rolling over on their babies. We deliver via cesarean section.”

  “Where are the genetic originals? The original pigs?”

  “In another building. We keep them around just in case we need to go back and check the blueprints.”

  “Are all the pigs female?”

  “Yeah. Easier to handle. And it doesn’t make a difference for the organs.”

  “Mother Nature’s not an equal opportunity employer.”

  “No, she’s not. If we’re not careful, we’ll be lucky if there are any men left in a hundred years.”

  “What’ll happen to Monday Night Football?”

  I saw his eyes wrinkle in a smile. He tapped a few more times on the buttons near the video monitors. Images flipped on the screens. “Pleasure talking to you,” he said. “I have to go check on the other pigs. You want to come along?”

  “Sure.” I wondered at my newfound buddy, who seemed oddly forthcoming with his information. On second thought, it made sense. I was in the middle of nowhere; all the entrances were protected with key cards. Furthermore, chances were good that Falk and Carrington hadn’t told the worker bees about any problems.

  Dyson slid his card across the black panel. It clicked and we walked through Abby’s wing, past the empty pens, which were free from any dirt or wood shavings. The entire place glistened.

  I said, “Why are all these pens empty? You didn’t start another line after Abby was . . . taken care of?”

  “I guess someone’s superstitious. Besides, we don’t know where the infection came from, so they don’t want any more animals in here.”

  “But we’re walking through it.”

  “It’s been completely disinfected about four times. It’s clean. Dunno. I think it’s fine. But like I said, they’re superstitious.”

  We got to the end of the walkway. “Allow me,” I said, and swiped my card against the black panel. I wanted Dyson to see that I had all the necessary cards for access. Gave me some cred. But the superior security of the place begged some questions. As we passed into another vestibule hung with sink, gowns, and masks, I asked him, “How do you get out if there’s a fire?”

  He began stripping off his gown. My gut clenched as I began to disrobe; I’d been taking a lot of comfort in my anonymity and didn’t look forward to giving it up. But I didn’t have much choice.

  As Dyson pulled off his mask, I saw that the lower left side of his jaw, from the lip down, was deeply scarred. It didn’t look like a burn, more like the flesh had been shredded and repaired. All of us, I guessed, had something to hide.

  “If you’re a hog, you don’t get out. If you’re human, the security system is supposed to disengage. I wouldn’t trust it, though.” He turned and looked at me. “The guys here are paranoid as hell. Glad I’m down here, away from HQ, but”—he canted his head toward the outside door—“it loo
ks as if some of HQ is moving in.” He put his hands in the sink and stepped on a foot pedal to start the water. “No big deal. I figure I wait two years, go through the IPO, then retire to Humboldt or something. Maybe open a tiny vet practice.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Don’t it, though?”

  Dyson watched me as I washed my hands. He said, “Dog attack.”

  “What?”

  “My face. Saw you looking at it. Pit bull attacked me when I was a kid. Nearly tore my chin off.” Not knowing what to say, I focused on my hands. “And I decided to become a vet. Go figure.”

  Dyson put his card on the panel and opened the door to the outside. So many locks. I fingered the Chimeragen ID around my neck and began to worry. If anyone checked access records, they would see that the dead Harriet Tobel had been walking around, opening doors.

  We walked across a small paved area. To the left, another long building jutted out into a grassy field. “That’s the other holding pen?” I asked Dyson.

  “Yes. And that one.” He pointed to another building about thirty yards away, also thrusting into a pasture. To our right sat a larger, two-story square building, the three long hog pens radiating from it like petals from a flower. The square building, I recognized, was where the moving truck had been parked, though I couldn’t see it from that angle.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing at the square building. Immediately, I realized my mistake.

  “The labs and operating room. Offices, too. I thought you were in there already, helping with the move.”

  “Just the labs. They told me to take a tour, and I came to the pens first. Besides, this place is confusing. I’m getting all turned around.”

  “It happens,” he said. He sounded unconvinced.

  Suddenly, I heard a ringing. At first, I couldn’t place the sound—a sort of techno trill—but I saw Dyson thrust a paw into his pants pocket.

  “You get service here?”

  “Only place in the Valley that does. I think that’s why they picked it.” He put the phone to his ear. “Yeah?” There was a pause, then, “I’ll pick up some Chinese.”

  My cue. I tapped Dyson on the shoulder and waved. Distracted now by the phone call, he half-waved at me and turned his back. But as I walked away, toward the building that housed the offices and labs, I glanced over my shoulder: Dyson was watching me, scars glistening in the fading light.

  CHAPTER 83

  My back was against the cool metal of the building, and I looked out across the grounds of Chimeragen’s farm. It was past seven, and the moving truck was gone, along with almost everyone else. And there, in the middle of hostile territory, I took a minute to figure out what the hell I was doing. Something—something useful to me—was close, but I had no idea what. That confusion—the confusion about what I was looking for—blossomed into real trepidation. I realized I had trusted Alaine Chen, but I now began to see the folly in that. What reason did she have to help me out? If things went well for me, and badly for the good people of Chimeragen, wouldn’t that mean she’d go down with them? What reason did she have to help out an old boyfriend who, by all indications, meant nothing to her?

  Video cameras dotted the corners of the buildings; I figured I looked a lot more suspicious slumped against the outer wall of a building than I would if I were walking around. So I walked. Set in the side of the building, twenty or so yards from the main loading dock, was a smaller dock, sort of like a garage door. Next to that was a regular door with the ubiquitous black panel beside it. Quickly, I swiped the card and stepped inside.

  I was in a wide hallway with a concrete floor, spotless. Ahead of me was another goddamned door with another goddamned black pad on it, through which I thought I’d find the operating room. What I found instead was another vestibule with a scrub sink, more masks, more gowns. There were three doors in the room. One, I assumed, went to a changing room, another to the OR. There were no locks on these doors, and I assumed, finally, that I’d be finished with security for a little while. I pushed through the door directly in front of me.

  The OR was on the other side of a large glass wall; the room I stood in had a few chairs in it, as well as a large video camera, which wasn’t of the security type. Evidently, this was an observation room. I observed. The OR was clean and not fancy, just what you’d expect for the hogs. Basically, it looked like any old operating room in your local hospital. There was ventilation equipment, suture trays, and surgical paraphernalia. Pigs are almost as big as people, so the operating table was standard size.

  I left the room through the opposite door and continued down a long hallway. A door to my right opened, and a young woman in a white lab coat stepped out. She muttered “hi,” apparently not giving it a second thought that I was wandering around in the heart of Chimeragen. She moved away from me down the hall. “Excuse me,” I said.

  “Yes?” She was short, pretty face, too heavy. She carried a tray of test tubes.

  “I’m from Dr. Tobel’s lab and was helping with the move. I got a little lost. Can you direct me . . . ?”

  “It’s a maze, isn’t it?”

  I agreed it was.

  “Just go down this hall, through the doors at the end. I think they’ve loaded everything into the pathology labs. It’s the first door on your left after you go through the double doors.”

  I thanked her and followed the directions. The doors at the end of the hallway gave out to another, shorter hall, and one that ran transversely in front of me. There were a couple of doors here that could have been “the first door on my left,” but I decided to go straight. On my left, I found a gray metal door marked with a big biohazard sign. A good omen. I pressed my ear to it and heard nothing. Opening it slowly, I saw that the lights were out but for a single bank of overheads. It gave the place a cold, ghostly cast.

  There were five or six white boxes stacked along the wall, the only indication that a move had taken place. The rest of the lab was fully stocked, presumably set up long before the day’s move. I walked around the microscopes and a relatively new videoscope, PCR machines, gas chromatographs. At the far end of the room, something caught my eye. It was another door, emblazoned with biohazard signs. I walked to the door and clicked the light switch next to it.

  Through a small window in the door, I could see eight freezers pushed against the walls of a small room. A large sign said that all personnel must use universal precautions when entering. Another sign read: Restricted. Authorized Personnel Only. There was a unit for a key card next to the door. It was the first real security I’d seen since entering the heart of the building. Well, Dr. Tobel’s card made me authorized personnel. I held it to the black box; it opened. Ignoring the entreaty for universal precautions, I went inside. Air rushed in with me, and the door shut with a wheeze and a clunk. I turned on the light.

  Despite the ventilation, the air inside the room had a medicinal and yeasty smell, like so many other labs I’d been in. The difference here was its size—this room was ten feet by ten feet, just enough space to accommodate all the freezers around its perimeter. I walked to the first freezer, which blinked the temperature: –80 degrees Celsius. I opened the brushed steel door and saw a bunch of plastic trays with sealed plastic bags in them. The writing on the bags read “Corrine 3, Pancreas,” “Corrine 3, liver,” and so on and so forth. The bags were filled with organs, not just tissue samples. Evidently, Corrine 3 had been sacrificed for testing. Trays above and below were filled with small specimen jars for Corrines 1, 4, 5, and 6. Biopsy specimens—bits of flesh taken from the living—of the lucky Corrines that would walk God’s green earth for a while longer. At least until called to duty.

  The second freezer contained pieces of Bertha. Genius that I am, I picked up on the pattern here, and saw that each of the freezers was labeled with the name of one of the hogs; somebody had written the names on tiny pieces of tape at the very tops of the units.

  To save myself time, I scanned across the remaining freezers. I stopped
at the second-to-last one. The name on it was Abby, and the freezer was locked. Obviously, Abby was not being actively monitored. Either that, or someone was keeping Abby’s tissue under lock and key.

  I noticed something pushed to the side of Abby’s freezer: two file boxes. Now, this was intriguing; one doesn’t normally stack files in the freezer room of a laboratory, especially one in which universal precautions are recommended. It makes for contaminated paper, and no one flipping through a bunch of papers wants to pull on gloves to do so. I could only guess they’d stashed this stuff here to keep it safe.

  I opened the first box and began leafing through the files. A good number of the tags on the manila folders were marked “Abby.” A run of files called “Abby–Infectious-Monitoring” caught my eye. I paged through.

  The first file contained blood and biopsy records, a listing of the organs from which the tissues were taken, and the date. The next few files listed the pathogens for which the tissues were tested: various viruses, parasites, bacteria, and rickettsial organisms. Negative, negative, negative. Except for one: the PERVs. Abby, it seemed, played host to four different PERV variants. Besides that, everything else was clean. Odd, I thought. Dyson had said she was sick, but most likely the PERVs wouldn’t have made her so. Still, maybe someone was worried enough to kill off the line.

  At the back of the box, there was a file called “Abby–Termination.” I expected to find a load of papers detailing the reasons for the pig’s euthanasia. You know, “Abby line terminated secondary to porcine endogenous retrovirus infection” or something like that. But the file was too thin; it contained only one record—dates and such—of the termination and body disposal. No reason given, no bugs highlighted.

  I closed the box, moved it to the side, opened the one underneath.

  The folders here were marked “JM,” and stuffed with the same biopsy records, Southern blots, ELISAs, and PCR results I’d found in the box for Abby. No human pathogens detected. PERVs seemed to be a concern here as well, since there was a large sheaf of papers dedicated to locating the viruses. But no PERV was unearthed in JM. Perhaps that shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, since JM was not a member of the family Suidae, but a bipedal sister in Homo sapiens. JM, a.k.a. Janet Margulies, was human.