Adopted Son

by Dominic Peloso

  Hal spoke very hastily, a characteristic that most people found annoying. “Hal Sportman, I’m an epidemiologist. I was doing some simulations to show how the number of cases of HS will increase over time, but the model is based on the number of current cases, you see, the number of current cases, that’s where the simulation failed, because there has never been a case of HS on Niue, so a multiple of zero is still zero, there has never been a case on Niue do you see?” he said in one breath.

  “Huh?”

  “Ok, ok,” he said trying to catch his breath and contain his excitement. He slowed down and tried to speak more clearly. “I’ve got a statistical model that references our database of all known cases of HS. I’ve just noticed that there has never been a case on Niue Island. That implies that the native population has some sort of resistance or something because it doesn’t make sense otherwise.”

  “Niue, I don’t even know where that is. There can’t be many people there, maybe they’re just lucky.”

  “No, no, they can’t be that lucky. Global HS infection rates are near ten percent. With their population they should have at least two hundred cases, but they have zero. And it’s not just missing data, they’ve been reporting zeros. I’ve done some research, and they are a pretty isolated population, maybe they’ve got some sort of genetic resistance or something.”

  Nancy looked at his map and started at the small green dot. It would make sense that some population was immune. One of the great frustrations with the HS research was that no immune population had yet been found, the virus was too universal. If an immune population could be found and studied, a vaccine could be developed based on the immunity factor. “We’ve got to get this information to Dr. Mensen right away,” she said. “You call the CDC and confirm these numbers, I’ll take this up the chain ASAP.” She turned to the vendors, “I’m sorry gentleman, I’ve got to go.” The vendors frown in disappointment.

  Two weeks after Hal Sportman’s discovery. On a deserted street in Muscat, Oman

  Wind is blowing. It is a hot wind that comes south from the Rub al Kaliq. It is a dry wind. Autumn has arrived in this desolate place, and what few leaves there are have scattered themselves through the streets. A figure is walking down a deserted road. The figure is wearing the black burqa veil required of all women in this Muslim nation. The street is empty as the figure moves silently past whorls of leaves and paper. It floats rather than moves, its legs are covered in thick wrapping, leaving the impression of sliding rather than walking. The figure stops only once in its travels. It pauses to look at a wall covered in graffiti. It is Arabic, of course, but when translated the words ominously cry out, “They Are Coming!” The figure continues down the deserted avenue. There are very few people left in Oman these days. Birth rates have dwindled to almost zero and the majority of infants bearing the so-called “Face of the Devil” are left to die in the trash. There is no one left to perform basic services, and so a good percentage of the remaining population has left to find greener pastures in other parts of the Middle-East.

  There are a few who stayed of course. Those too infirm or scared to leave, the religious police, opportunists and speculators. Parts of the city aren’t as deserted as this. A few places still have some modicum of a normal life. Women still peruse the shops of the souk, men still gather in the coffee houses to chew qat and boast of their accomplishments. Few travel here though. This is the Rub al Jardon, where the demi-men live in hiding and scrabble an existence from what they can steal.

  With a quick glance to ensure privacy, the figure moves into an alley of bleached stone. A rotted wooden door stands at the entrance to a small basement. Further down the alley a pile of garbage stirs. Through the veil the figure can see the masked man who waits and guards. After a nod, the figure enters the door stealthily and proceeds down a dusty, unlit corridor to a large room. The figure removes his veil and allows his bright head to shine in the dim lighting. This is one of the few places where he can be himself. The crowd sits on ornate yet ratty rugs strewn across the dirt floor. They take up every available inch of space. Their bare feet rubbing up against the qat leaves that have been scattered about for their pleasure. No one is chewing though. They are all listening. Listening to one man; the stranger, the leader, the one who walks taller than most. The one known as Trinity. He wears a dark blue robe emblazoned with three white stars. He is speaking.

  “Brothers do not be taken in by the lies that these monkeys have told you all your lives. They call you rats, they call you devils. Yet you listen to them. You hide in the shadows, hide under veils, you let them beat and murder you. You must not do this. You must reclaim your heritage. You must reclaim your birthright. You must reclaim your destiny. Brothers, I was once like you. I was afraid, I was told that I was inferior, that I was a freak, that I was a mistake, that I was a pathetic wretch who had no choice but to beg God, the monkey god, for mercy. I hid my head in shame. But no longer my brothers! I have seen the light, and it burns ever so brightly. I saw the light in a glow of fire. I have walked through fire. I have seen my compatriots, by brothers, killed by the hundreds just because they had the audacity to be alive. I ran from the monkeys, I hid from the monkeys. I spent a long time just like you, here in the lightless places, cold and alone in the dirt.” He reached down and picked up a handful of dirt, letting it slowly slip through his fingers.

  “But I had a revelation my brothers. For so long I tried to be like them, to be a pale imitation of them, accepting of my lot as a second-class citizen. But I say I had a revelation! Yes, I saw my god. And my god isn’t the monkey god, he doesn’t call himself Allah or Yahweh. No, my god is real, and he comes from the stars, the Pleiades to be certain. Yes, and he speaks. We all heard his words four years ago. He said, “We Are Coming!” Yes my brothers, our father is returning to reclaim us. No longer will we live like this. We are part of a great galactic civilization that exists on a thousand worlds. Worlds of peace and beauty and unity. Worlds where we can live unashamed of who we are and what we represent. This is why the monkeys hate us. We threaten them, we are more powerful than they are. I know this sounds absurd to people like you who’ve lived in filth all your lives, but I tell you it’s true. We will overcome and we will prevail!” A muted shout comes over the audience. The crowd has never heard anyone like this before. He represents strength, and self-pride, and purpose. He represents what they all lack– a sense of value.

  “My revelation in the swamp guided me and I have since traveled the world to spread the message. I left the United States where we are nothing more than research subjects in prison hospitals. I traveled through Europe where the first of us was so brutally murdered. I traveled through Asia where we, who should be kings, beg in the streets like dogs. I traveled through the concentration camps of Africa, where thousands die of disease and starvation. Now I have come here, to a place where very few of my kind are even allowed to live. You are all lucky in a way to have survived this long. It is unfortunate that people so young as you have seen so much death.”

  “But that changes and that changes today. We are the Spearhead. We are here to provide the beach. Our fathers are coming to reclaim us, and we shall give them the Earth as a present. We shall beat these monkeys. We shall overcome our adversity. We shall wipe our oppressors off the face of this globe and erase all knowledge of their petty and simple civilization.”

  “You must stop worshiping these monkey gods and stop pretending to be monkeys. This only demeans you. You must stand up for your rights. From now on we take back what is ours. My associates will provide you with weapons and training, the means to defend yourselves. When the monkeys kill one of you, you kill two of them. When they murder a child, you execute the parents. We shall overcome. Their numbers are dwindling while we increase in strength every day. We shall prevail. Now is the time to fight. The jihad against the monkeys and their oppression begins today. We will win because right is on our side, our fathers are on our side, and because God himself is on our side!”r />
  The crowd was unsure how to react. They liked what Trinity had to say, but they didn’t trust their abilities. This wasn’t a surprise to the Spearhead of course. As much as every person in the room hated the monkeys that had abandoned and hated them, and even though everyone knew someone who had been killed because of his species, they still maintained the mentality of the slave. Franklin had to prove to them they were not slaves but masters, that they had the power to change their destiny. Only then would they follow his banner with the fervor he needed of them.

  “Now brothers, let me show you how powerful we really are.” He pointed to a back room. Two of his bodyguards, rifles slung over their shoulders, disappeared into the darkness, appearing seconds later with a scared and disheveled looking human. He had been badly beaten. One eye was swelled shut and his shirt was stained rusty-brown with blood. The two bodyguards pushed the man to his knees before Franklin. He was hard to recognize since his head and beard had been shaved. His hands were tied behind his back. The crowd watched with eyes wide open. “This is Tarek ibn-Sanaa.” He is the local leader of the religious police. “He is the one who has given orders to cut you down on sight. He is the leader of the monkeys in this area. He is our hated enemy. Let him be the first sacrifice to our new era!” He pulled a long, curved dagger from his vestments. A bodyguard grabbed the man’s jaw and pulled his head back. “The Spearhead now makes the first gift of blood to our fathers.” He slashed the man’s throat from ear to ear. The lifeless corpse collapsed to the dusty floor. “Now who will fight in my jihad?”

  Slowly, one by one, and hesitantly at first, the converts stepped forward and crowded around the body. The first few began to poke at it, still scared that somehow it might be dangerous. It did not stir. Franklin looked at his two guards with apprehension. The reaction of the crowd would determine whether he had won them over to his cause.

  A young man of about twelve was the first. He leaned over the corpse and spit. Soon the rest were doing the same. A cheer of joy came over the group as they began to kick the body and beat it with their shoes.

  Niue, South Pacific. Eight months after Hal Sportman’s discovery.

  A stiff breeze is blowing. A stiff breeze always blows here. It’s the trade winds. A constant, non-ending flow of air that covers the island from North-West to South-East. It makes it hard to work on the beach, papers fly everywhere. There is even a dearth of rocks to keep things weighted down. Nancy sits on the front porch of what could only sympathetically be called a shack. It is a wooden hut really, but it serves her purposes, at least for now. She sits behind a table sipping from her water bottle. Below her on the sand is a makeshift clinic. About a dozen native fishermen stand in line waiting for their turn to give blood. Two local nurses, impeccably yet most incongruently dressed, are taking samples in little vials and marking them. Nancy is supervising. It isn’t as hot as she expected it to be here, and the wind could be pleasant if it stopped once in a while. There is a hand at her shoulder. She turns her head to see her research associate standing behind her. “Hey Frank.”

  The man plops himself down in the seat next to her and passes her a bag covered with the appropriate corporate logos. “Burger and onion rings, just like you asked.”

  “I can’t believe that you have to drive almost an hour to get food around here.” The two open their packages and begin squirting the contents of small ketchup packages. “I didn’t even think that this island was that big.”

  “It’s not,” Frank says with half-mocked cynicism. “But you’re lucky if you can get up to 30 miles an hour on these roads, and that’s with the 4-wheeler.”

  “I can’t believe that I’ve been here for four months. I want to get back to civilization.”

  “That’s only because you spend all of your time out here on the east side. You should hang out more at Alofi. It’s getting really exciting. They’ve almost finished the main complex.” Just then a large cargo plane flies overhead. They used to be so unusual out here. This place only had one flight a week, and that’s if it even bothered to show up. Now cargo is being shipped in ten times a day. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had to expand the runway twice already.

  “I still can’t believe that we’re out here. Couldn’t we have found an immune population in LA or Paris? How come every time Mensen needs something from a god-forsaken place, I’m the one who’s got to go?

  “Oh stop complaining. He’ll be here soon enough. The facility is supposed to be operational in two months. Then they’re all coming. And we’ll be here for a while too.”

  “You don’t think that we’re going to find anything?”

  Frank coughed and took a sip of his warm soda. Food was so far away from their location that they had long gotten used to eating cold meals with warm drinks. “Come on, you know how science works. You can’t just throw money at the problem. Things take time. Even if we isolated the gene factor tomorrow we’re still looking at five years of work to develop a vaccine.”

  Nancy crumpled up her wrappers and looked for a trashcan. She always felt bad throwing away things out here. There wasn’t really any trash collection. “Yeah, but maybe...,” she said getting up and returning to the hut, “...once we’ve got something concrete, we’ll do the rest of the work back in the U.S.”

  “Ha ha, after the UN spent a billion dollars building the ‘world’s most impressive biotechnology research facility’ all the way out here? It ain’t going to happen honey. We’re here for the long haul. All of us.” He moved his fingers in a ‘quote’ motion when he talked about the facility. It was a giant project that dwarfed the NIH. The idea was that all HS research would be moved to the island. It was voted in the UN to make the HS-vaccine project a World Priority, and all nations were required to do their part. Of course, some industrialized countries offered to build the facility on their soil, but smaller nations were worried that the research would be politicized or withheld by their richer neighbors. After much debate in the Security Council, it was decided to build the facility here, out in the Pacific. It was remote, but it wouldn’t be too hard to ship the technology in. With the large population of resistant individuals to use as test subjects, the island provided researchers with opportunities not available elsewhere. Of course being a small, independent country didn’t hurt either. For their part, the islanders were grateful for the attention. It meant money and opportunities that hadn’t existed before. Within months they would have reliable power, they would have paved roads, they would have malls and stores that would cater to the seven thousand scientists that were recruited to move to this desolate place. All of the top biologists in the world were coming. This program was fast becoming more high profile than the U.S. space program had been in the 1960s. Older, established scientists were drawn by grant money that flowed like water, and the opportunity to rapidly make a name for oneself pulled in the younger researchers eager for their Nobel Prize.

  As Nancy stepped back out of the hut she saw two native men walking up to the porch. In their hands they carried necklaces with ornate wooden pendants attached. They presented the necklaces to the two researchers, going so far as to actually place the strands over their head. “These are for you, they are good luck charms. You are going to save the world,” one said. They smiled ear to ear revealing mouths of half-rotten teeth.

  “ummm. Thanks,” Nancy said with a quizzical half-smile on her face. She turned to Frank. He just shrugged and tried to suppress a giggle.

  Three days after the UN HS-Vaccine Research Center formally began operations. Area 51, NV

  There are layers to all organization. There are levels within levels. There are meanings within meanings and purposes within purposes. Very few people are allowed access to the most inner circles. There are dozens of programs that only a handful of people have access to, and access to one doesn’t mean you are allowed to even find out that others exist. This place is the headquarters of one of those programs.

  A helicopter is landing. A man dressed in army fatigue
s guides it down to the pad. It is black, no markings at all, not the U.S. Army white star, not the organization’s name, not even the required FAA call number. This helicopter doesn’t exist. Its purpose is to bring people who will deny having been, to a place that doesn’t exist. Not even America’s rivals know about this facility. It was built in the side of a mesa decades ago when those who plotted here had different enemies. Before the helicopter blades even come to a complete stop, General Hudson, looking strangely out of fashion in non-descript civilian clothes and mirrored sunglasses steps out. A jeep is waiting, motor already running. It is almost an hour drive to the facility. The landing pad is placed far enough away from the mesa to not arouse the suspicions of anyone who might see helicopters landing in this remote corner of Nevada. He gets into the jeep followed by two other non-descript men. The vehicle drives off in the direction of what everyone assumes to be an old test-shot hole dug by the military before underground nuclear testing became politically taboo. The helicopter pilot sits in his seat and swigs some water before taking off again. He watches the dust trail as the jeep moves over the unpaved surface of the salt flat. He wonders where these people go. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have the clearance to know. Not even Johnston had the clearance to know. He never suspected what was out here in the desert. Even when he was Vice President he was kept in the dark. Of course, this place was never a part of Bluefly, Majestik-12 or Beachcomber. It was designed with the Soviets in mind. The research of Project ‘Zephyr-Alpha’ is a very well-kept secret.

  White House Rose Garden, Seven years to the day after Jim’s speech on the Capitol steps.