The Genesis Glitch

by Stewart Ferris

  ‘You have seen this story?’ he asked.

  ‘North Korea?’ replied Monica. ‘Yes. We’ve all seen that. I need that laptop back now.’

  ‘I have been able to observe the North Korean vessel from my cabin,’ the Patient told his sister, ignoring her request to return her boss’s laptop. ‘Their claim is false. If they had retrieved Halford’s casket from the sea, I would have seen it. They say he is already reanimated and helping them to develop their nuclear weaponry technology. I find this highly dubious.’

  ‘Our team thinks so, too,’ said Monica. ‘We’re not giving up the search. But if the winds continue to pick up, we might have to shelter in a harbour. Don’t want to be out here in a cyclone. The lifeboats are designed to handle even the heaviest seas, but I wouldn’t want to test them! Right now the submersible is on its way back to the surface. We’re already at the safe limit for wind load when craning it from the sea. That means my boss will be back soon. I need to delete your browsing history and return the computer.’

  He folded it shut and passed it to her.

  ‘Have some of the other ships already suspended the search?’ he asked.

  ‘I saw one of them turning around and starting to move off. One of the private ships. The forecast isn’t good. If we all have to retreat for a couple of days I just hope Halford stays at the bottom of the sea until the weather clears.’

  ‘Monica, I found the name of the woman who purchased Ratty. There is much information about her online – enough for me to be certain that her interest in Halford is not the same as that of the other parties involved in the search. She is a Texan lottery winner who has been, briefly, a television star. She has invested heavily in locating this next prize, and though it is hard for me to comprehend her reasons, I can be certain that her motivation is neither science nor financial reward.’

  ‘The ship that just started heading away from us has a Texan flag. And it’s called The Lone Star. Is that hers?’

  ‘I have checked the registry and found a connection between that vessel and her name. Monica, I appreciate that your organisation has paid greatly to acquire me, but I think there is a significant chance that Ratty is being held on The Lone Star.’

  ‘No, don’t even think about it. We need you here.’

  ‘I have to find him. Friendship is so much more important than work. It was Ratty who set me free from my father. I must now repay that gesture.’

  ‘Please, don’t! You’ll get me in so much trouble. I’ve already stuck my neck out to get you this computer.’

  ‘I must find Ratty.’

  ‘I’m going to pretend you never said that and we’ll forget all about it.’

  ‘I’m telling you because I trust you, Monica. And because I need your help.’

  ‘No way! Do you have any idea how long I worked nightshifts to pay for my education to get this job? How much abuse I took waitressing late-night drinkers when all I wanted to be doing was studying astro-physics? How I sacrificed a social life and any chance of relationships for ten years to get where I am? I’m not throwing it all away to send you on a crazy mission. I’m sorry, but I can’t allow this.’

  She reversed out of the sick bay and locked the Patient inside. He looked out of the porthole. The Lone Star was retreating from view, making way across the increasingly turbulent seas.

  ***

  Otto stared intently at the vaulted roof through jaundiced eyes that bulged with fear and incomprehension. He had been hoisted from the tank to the operating table, scrubbed clean of the repulsive-smelling compounds that had preserved him, and connected to a saline drip and a heart monitor. His breathing was shallow. His skin was like tanned leather. The doctors backed away while Orlando held his cold, deathly hand, barely sensing the delicate pulse.

  ‘There is so much I could say, and so much I will try very hard not to say,’ Orlando whispered.

  At first there was no reaction, then he felt a squeeze in his hand. A breath, louder than before, came from Otto’s mouth, but it could form no distinguishable sounds.

  ‘You were dead for a few weeks. Since that night in Tikal when …’ said Orlando. ‘My brother preserved you using the recipe of the ancients. Today we carried out the genesis procedure.’

  Otto responded with a long breath, within which was wrapped a single word.

  ‘Genesis.’

  ‘As you can see, my brother appears to have carried out the embalming correctly, because you have returned to us.’

  Otto pushed out a longer phrase.

  ‘But … the … glitch?’

  ‘It’s too early to tell.’

  ‘Then you brought me back too soon!’ Otto said, his voice gaining strength with every syllable.

  Something triggered in Orlando, and all the negative things he wanted to suppress now came out.

  ‘We could have waited a few more years, maybe a few more generations, until the genesis glitch was better understood. Maybe it won’t affect you, but guess what? You will soon be dead again, regardless, because we chose not to source a replacement liver for you. They are in short supply, and every single person on the waiting list is more deserving than you. And the scientists here don’t care one way or another. They only want to prove the genesis procedure works, even if only for a short time. Otto, the world is a better place without you. I don’t need your manipulating, your heartless farming of humanity, those echoes of your adoptive father’s Nazism which you never could flush from your personality. You’ve caused too much suffering. It’s time for you to reap what you sowed.’

  Despite the cruelty of his words, Orlando sensed a flood of endorphins wash through him. This was what redemption felt like. Otto was now a pitiful creature, no longer the scheming genius, no longer the sinister doctor with the empathy of a shark. Otto had brought Orlando up to believe he was virtually immortal, that almost any injury or ailment could be repaired. Orlando had used the confidence and fearlessness instilled by this belief to lead a guerrilla force through a lengthy civil war and ultimately to victory – all funded by vast illicit wealth hoarded by his grandfather during World War II. Orlando’s prize, the presidency of Guatemala, was merely the first part of Otto’s game plan. Orlando had ceased caring about Otto’s ultimate goal when he discovered the truth about his ‘immortality’: that for forty-five years, Otto had kept Orlando’s identical twin incarcerated below ground, maintained in good physical health purely to provide a bank of spare parts.

  ‘Halford?’ came the next breath.

  ‘Gone. The North Koreans got him. It was all for nothing.’

  Philipe had been waiting at a respectful distance, but considered it appropriate to join the conversation.

  ‘We have an update on that situation,’ he said. ‘The North Korean claim is widely discredited. Halford is still under the sea, waiting to be found. But there’s a cyclone heading to the Bay of Bengal. Our ship is heading for shelter. So are all the rivals. There’s going to be a hiatus until the storm passes.’

  ***

  The swells grew in height and depth. Ratty found it increasingly difficult to prevent being thrown from one end of the tiny cabin to the other. As each successive wave crashed over the acrylic hatch above his head, the weight of the water threatened to burst the window. Cupboard doors swung open, spilling their contents onto the bed. Ratty guessed the experience was not dissimilar to that of being in a washing machine. As his bruises accumulated, so did his acceptance that the situation was critical. As the boat lurched to the peak of a wave and began its sickening freefall, the boards on which was sat the thin mattress fell out of their slots. Ratty fell against the side of the cabin, fending off the flying plywood panels that had previously covered a locker beneath the bed. In the brief lull before the next wave had its fun, Ratty spotted lifejackets. Whilst he had no desire to imply any criticism of Madison’s seafaring capabilities, he realised the time had come to prepare for the worst. He put on a lifejacket and opened the cabin door to offer the other to Madison.

&n
bsp; ‘I’ve been calling for that for ages!’ she shouted. ‘Take the wheel while I put it on!’

  She was drenched, her legs and arms rigid from constantly bracing against an unsympathetic sea. The plastic and canvas sprayhood had disintegrated, and the windscreen offered almost no protection from the bitter cascades. Ratty took the wheel and felt immediately a blast of salt water on his face, half-blinding him. Madison quickly donned her lifejacket, but didn’t return to piloting the boat.

  ‘I say,’ said Ratty, not sure what would, under the circumstances, be an appropriate comment to make.

  ‘I can’t reach the ship by radio or phone!’ she yelled, opening lockers beneath the seats on the deck. She found what she was looking for: a bottle of mineral water. She splashed some on her face, then took a swig. ‘GPS says we’re about thirty miles from Preparis Island. Give me the wheel. I’ll try to get us to a bay on the leeward side.’

  ‘Is there any manner in which I could assist?’

  ‘Sure,’ she replied, taking control of the craft.

  ‘Please elucidate, at your leisure.’

  ‘It would help if you spoke English. And find us some safety lines. It’s getting hard to hold on. We should be tethered.’

  Ratty found some clip-on safety lines in the same locker as the lifejackets. He tied Madison’s lifejacket to the hand rail, then clipped himself to her, deciding to remain on deck for moral support. The rollercoaster plummet from the peak of the next wave left his stomach in his throat. As the boat reached the bottom of the freefall, its bow sunk deep beneath the surface, then bobbed back up like a cork.

  ‘I’m trying to ride the waves at forty-five degrees,’ Madison explained. ‘That way I can minimise the risk of being flipped over. But the waves are getting irregular. The angles more complex to judge, especially with this salt in my eyes. Hold tight!’

  The boat started powering up the side of another giant swell. Madison held course as the wave peaked and the descent began. Gravity accelerated the boat, and once again at the lowest point the bow became a submarine. This time a crashing sound reached Ratty’s ears, its sickening noise penetrating the all-encompassing roar of the wild sea. He peeked inside the cabin: the hatch had shattered, and the cabin was filling with water. Now the bow did not pitch up as before.

  ‘We would appear to have exceeded our Plimsoll line!’ shouted Ratty.

  As Madison attempted to power the boat up the next wave, water gushed from the edges of the cabin door. The motor screamed in an effort to propel a craft that had doubled its weight in seconds.

  ‘I don’t think I can control it!’ yelled Madison. ‘I can’t hold it at forty-five degrees. We’ll go under completely on the other side of this wave.’ She unclipped herself from the railing and wrestled with a large white box fitted to the transom. ‘Abandon ship!’

  ***

  Monica braced herself against the pitch and yaw of the ship by grabbing Heinz’s sleeve as she tried without success to open the door to the sick bay in which she had locked the Patient. She knocked hard.

  ‘Wake up in there! I need to show you something.’ There was no response. ‘Come on, let me in! It’s over now. We can find Ratty and go home. The Russians have released footage of them opening Halford’s casket and their effort to reanimate him. It failed. Halford’s dead. Everyone has lost. Hello? Can you hear me?’

  The door was bolted from within.

  ‘Have you tried the other door?’ asked Heinz, pointing down the passage. ‘It goes into the other side of the intensive care unit.’

  ‘Shit, no one told me about that one,’ said Monica, running in a zig-zag to the other door. It opened into the sterile medical room. She walked through, bracing herself against the oxygen bottles, the sloshing seawater tank and the operating table, and entered the Patient’s makeshift cabin. He had gone. She permitted herself a brief smile, then prepared a concerned face as Heinz joined her.

  ‘He can’t have gone far,’ said Heinz. ‘I’m sure he’ll turn up by the time we get back to port.’

  An alarm started to ring throughout the ship. Monica looked at Heinz in faux shock.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Urgent voices filled the corridor. Monica unbolted the door and looked out.

  ‘Someone’s launched a lifeboat!’ an excited chef informed her. ‘I don’t know if we’re supposed to abandon ship, but someone already has!’

  ***

  The sea grew tired of throwing around its inflatable toy. Inside the raft, Ratty and Madison lay on a slippery bed of plastic and vomit. Despite the red filter of the morning light as it entered the craft through the tent-like roof, the skin colour of its occupants remained an unsettling hue of green.

  Madison sat up and unzipped the doorway. She peered outside for the first time since they had sealed themselves in the previous day. The sun shone down on her with a warmth that felt like an apology for absence. She began sorting through the items in the survival kit. Food, water, first aid, flares, knife, and even a soggy booklet of puzzles to provide entertainment during a prolonged wait for rescue. She picked up a flare, held it clear of the raft and fired it. The orange fireball arced gracefully before returning to the sea.

  ‘We have two more,’ she said. ‘I’ll fire one every hour.’ Then she jumped out of the raft, into the warm, still water. ‘Bathroom break,’ she said, with a grin.

  After Ratty had taken his turn in the sea, they attempted to rinse the interior of the raft and make their world a little more bearable. With the raft cleansed, they lay back and waited for rescue.

  ‘So,’ said Madison. ‘This sucks.’

  ‘Quite,’ said Ratty.

  ‘Since we gotta spend time together, you going to tell me what made you want to grow up in a john instead of playing outside and just being kinda normal?’

  ‘I really think I’ve said enough. It gets rather more personal from here on in.’

  ‘Honey, you and me are stranded in a raft, drifting with no engine and very little water. We might be drawing lots in a few days to see who eats who.’

  ‘Whom.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Who eats whom.’

  ‘Whatever. And that’s not a meal I’m looking forward to.’

  ‘Understandably. I suspect that even the finest purveyor of meat products could not be blamed for mistaking my sirloin for brisket. And in the absence of garlic and rosemary – for it seems that this life raft has not been equipped with such a repast in mind -the resultant flavour would leave much to be desired.’

  ‘Ugh. Flavour. I don’t want to think about that word in this context.’

  ‘But if you do, be kind enough to think about it with a “u”.’

  ‘Look at me,’ she said, refusing to rise to the bait of his provocative stance on Anglicised spelling. ‘I am one of the richest people on this planet. But all I got is this inflatable piece of crap and the most annoying, incomprehensible, pedantic man to ever have lived.’

  ‘Ever to have lived,’ he corrected.

  ‘And soon I might be dead. It’s a funny thing, dying with so much money left unspent. Money gave me power, but it’s made me realise how dependent I am on people who don’t have much money. Unless there’s someone around who’s willing to trade my cash for their time to grow me food or fix my body or build me a house, my money isn’t worth shit. Right now it’s as useless as, I guess, someone like you. And why are you so generally useless? What gave you the charisma of a powder room, honey?’

  ‘Mater.’

  ‘Huh? And in English?’

  ‘Mother. Vanished off the face of the wotsit when I was knee high to a thingummy. Just woke up and she had gone. There was a sort of search doodah, of course, but …’

  ‘Heck, that sure as hell sucks. That why you come across as cold and unsympathetic?’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘Did you ever talk about it?’

  ‘No. Never.’

  ‘What about a therapi
st? That would have helped.’

  ‘Not an option.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘British.’

  ‘You could talk to me about it. If I’m gonna die on this raft, you might as well bore me to death. You’ve been trying to do that ever since we met, anyhow.’

  ‘The subsequent details of my life story are personal and have always remained secret. If the retention of a sense of privacy and decorum irks you, then I apologise. But that is how it has always been. I have never spoken of this to anyone.’

  ‘Hell, there ain’t much point in keeping secrets now, huh?’

  Ratty breathed a long, deep sigh. For one so ill-educated, Madison was right about so many things. Opening up to her would not make his situation any worse, and could even give him a sense of absolution and inner peace during what might turn out to be his final hours.

  ‘The nether regions fell out of my world,’ he began.

  ‘You still talking about your time in the john?’

  ‘The aftermath of mother’s vanishing. I found life most troublesome. So I locked myself into that lavatory of which we have already spoken, and I would sit and read for hours every day. Each volume of fiction would send me to another world. I would partake of the adventures, the locations, the romances and the perils of the characters. I would live vicariously through a thousand different lives but my own. It was then that I dipped my nose for the first time in the Wodehouse canon.’

  ‘You had a cannon?’

  ‘Pelham Grenville Wodehouse. Author. He had died that year, and my father purchased his complete works for me. Perhaps you are familiar with Bertie Wooster or Lord Emsworth or Mr Mulliner?’

  ‘Can’t say I ever met the guys.’