Biohack

by J D Lasica

  Doesn’t Sullivan see the genius of this? He had found a way for science to tap into our myths, our cultural touchstones, our penchant to equate fame and celebrity with the divine and the immortal. Fame is today’s immortality, and we all want a slice!

  Sullivan squared her shoulders. “I’ll grant we’re a celebrity-obsessed culture. The question is, will people want to impose that obsession on their children?”

  “Your job is to make them want to.”

  Waterhouse directed Number Six to switch the room over to the Creative Genius gallery. Einstein, Edison, and the Renaissance greats reappeared.

  “Your job, Sullivan, is to put flesh and bone on these distant legends and to turn them into timeless celebrities. Michelangelo, the greatest artist in history! Leonardo and Edison, the two most inspired inventors in history! These figures need to jump out of the history books and come alive .” He was on a high, the possibilities surging through him. “We have the myths working for us. Now we need to break through the cold lens of history and bring these legends to life!”

  He went to the interactive viewing pod and called up Michelangelo on the menu. The screen filled with dozens of color photos of the master’s most famous works.

  “Your job will be to work with our virtual reality artists to create backstories for every one of these historical personalities. Full-motion 3-D animation, digitized sound, narration, musical scores, graphics—with an emphasis on interactive storylines. I don’t want some deadly dull PBS documentary, I want users to connect and form an emotional bond. I want people to put on their Eyewear and sit on the same goddam couch and have a real conversation with these legends—and to want to make them part of their lives. Can you do it?”

  Sullivan hesitated. “I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this.”

  Waterhouse glared at her. He asked for loyalty and was detecting dissension. Was she on board or not?

  “I don’t know.” Her voice began to crack. “I don’t know if I can be part of this.”

  She turned and sprinted out the door, her heels echoing off the hardwood floor.

  Waterhouse’s palms gripped the top of a chair and squeezed until his knuckles were white. He had recruited her, groomed her, and placed his trust in her. In return, she had betrayed his trust.

  Sharon Sullivan would have to be dealt with.

  51

  Dallas, August 30

  S haron Sullivan bolted out of the Multimedia Center building and wandered for a long while. She slipped the Eyewear she’d brought to the meeting into her jacket pocket. She was trying to clear her head and found herself passing one faceless building after another.

  She knew one thing. I didn’t quit my high-powered job as the Bitch Goddess of Madison Avenue to join a criminal enterprise!

  After a time, she stopped studying the walkway patterns and looked up. She had crossed over from the Data Zone to the Research Lab Zone. She paused in front of the Genomics Lab. Weeks ago she had tried every entrance in the building without success, but she remembered Waterhouse had upgraded her security clearance. She approached the door and it opened automatically, thanks to the new access privileges of the smart medallion she was wearing under her blouse combined with facial recognition on the security camera.

  What was so top-secret in this Lab that I’ve been forbidden from seeing it for so long? Were they about to make a major medical breakthrough? Or was it more of what I just saw in that grave team debriefing?

  If she was about to ditch her job, she worried they might sue her for breach of contract. With luck she might find something in the Lab to use as leverage.

  She moved down the empty corridor and entered DNA Sequencing Lab 2. A pang of anxiety coiled inside her after all she’d seen in the past few days and after her awful but revealing dinner with Dmitri Petrov. That dinner helped bring a biting clarity to things—she told Petrov to shove it. The grave teams were the last straw. Tomorrow I’ll submit my resignation.

  She entered the enormous room with its banks of droning computers, sterile lab tables, and gleaming array of gauges, valves, and steel pipes overhead. She moved down a neatly arrayed aisle of tables filled with microscopes, computer screens, Petri dishes, and blue plastic racks of test tubes and flasks. Nothing much here.

  She was about to head to a different wing when she noticed a white door at the far end of the room. A small sign on the door said, “Authorized Personnel Only.” She reached for the handle and it clicked open. She stepped in and the door closed behind her. The room looked like some kind of storage facility, with two long rows of modern gunmetal-gray tables resting below see-through cabinets containing beakers of red, blue, and yellow liquids.

  Sullivan pressed on, heels clicking on the white vinyl floor toward the back of the room. The lighting was dimmer here. A cluster of black vertical storage lockers, taller than Sullivan, filled an alcove at the rear of the room. She moved toward the narrow space and brushed her fingers along the cool finish of the first cabinet, which had a little dent on the side. Something odd about these storage lockers. She inspected her fingers and saw a fine residue of dust. The lockers looked out of place in these antiseptic surroundings .

  She noticed index cards affixed high up on the front of each locker, but she couldn’t read the descriptions. She searched the room for something to stand on, pulled over a chair, and climbed up. She inspected the card on the first locker. A hurried signature by Henry Lee was scrawled at the bottom. In a different handwriting, someone else had printed neatly in all caps:

  EARLY CLINICAL TRIALS

  ACCESS STRICTLY PROHIBITED

  She drew a breath. The room seemed colder to her. She tried opening the first locker’s latch. Wouldn’t budge. She turned to the cabinets directly across and saw the same printed text and the same Henry Lee signature. A spidery sensation teased the back of her neck. But her curiosity was piqued. She had to know what was in here.

  She circled the room again and found a tough metal ring stand that looked like it could slash through anything. She kicked the chair away and began wielding the ring stand like a weapon, first prying at a latch on a cabinet at the left and, when that wouldn’t open, then hacking at the latch on the cabinet right across from it. The cabinet’s latch snapped off and the black door swung open. She peeked inside.

  Stacks of documents were heaped on the bottom shelves. Two large plastic containers were perched on the top shelf. Inside the containers was something ... floating. What was it? She stood on her toes but still couldn’t make it out. Too dark to see in there.

  She retrieved her chair, stood on it, and grabbed ahold of the long shelf that held the containers. She saw that it was a pull-out tray, so she gave it a good yank and pulled it all the way out.

  The shock of it buckled her knees and propelled her backward and over the chair. Her body crumpled to the ground as the chair smashed into the cabinet across from her. Looking above her, she got a clearer look at what was inside both containers .

  Suspended in formaldehyde was a wrinkled fetus, sickeningly deformed. The first fetus had a thin membrane covering what should have been its ears. Next to that was a fetus with a face but no mouth and—

  She reeled back in horror and careened into the cabinet that the chair just smacked into. The locker toppled forward. She grabbed at it, panicked, wanting only to get out of there. She tried to lift it back up ... too … heavy. It seemed to be pulling down, fighting her. She propped it halfway up, but her left arm fell away and it crashed down again. The door fell open, and a big sealed plastic container fell out and rolled across the narrow aisle until it struck the cabinet on the opposite side.

  She turned her head away. Don’t look, she told herself. She summoned all her strength, gave it one last heave, and willed the cabinet back upright against the wall with a determined lurch. She collapsed onto the floor, gasping for air. She hesitated, then closed her eyes tight, resting sideways on her butt and side on the cold vinyl tiles.

  She reached out, eyes stil
l shut, probing the aisle floor. Her hands found the cool, smooth container—don’t you look! —and she rolled it toward herself. She grabbed its top and base with authority and spun it back onto the bottom shelf of the cabinet without seeing what was inside. She closed the door and straightened the card that read, ACCESS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

  She sagged against the cabinets on her knees. She saw a piece of paper on the tile floor. A yellow tag must have fallen off the container. She reached over and picked up the tag, resisting the impulse to read it.

  A voice whispered: Well, now, Sharon Sullivan, aren’t you the brave one? Why did you bother to come in here if you’re afraid of a horrid little experiment?

  The urge to look was overwhelming, and she gave in. She held the card up and stared at the faded penciled writing:

  “Waterhouse, no first name. Clinical trial 4. ”

  The card flew out of her hand. She twisted her body toward the cabinet and jerked the door wide. She saw it in the shadows. Dancing in the clear liquid was a small white baby, twirling in a slow pirouette, a tiny toe balancing on the bottom of the container. Its eyes were open, but instead of normal-looking pupils these eyes looked … amphibian. And the baby was smiling.

  A smile that came from the row of teeth in its forehead.

  Sullivan doubled over and clutched her stomach. She threw up.

  52

  Above Portales, New Mexico, August 30

  R andolph Blackburn looked out the window of his private Gulfstream IV. His eyes strayed over the sapphire sweep of national forest, off limits to loggers and going to waste. His executive assistant came down the aisle, straightened one of the paintings in the gallery, and brought him a pillow and blanket.

  “Anything else, Mr. Blackburn?” she asked. He couldn’t remember her name.

  He smiled and shook his head no. Such a lovely girl. Reminds me of my daughter in some ways.

  The Gulfstream hit a pocket of turbulence. His mind went white. He felt a numbing fog press down on him. He no longer recognized his surroundings. A panic chilled his chest.

  Where are we? What day is today?

  He looked out the window and saw only clouds. In that moment, the world had become a strange and unfathomable place. He peered down the center aisle and saw the bar and entertainment lounge but no other passengers. Where was he heading? Who—

  He slumped back and sighed. He wanted to sleep, but he was frightened. He took in short, quick breaths. He patted at his suit pocket, felt something there. He pulled out a small black appointments calendar. Two initials were embossed on the crinkled leather cover: RB.

  He thumbed through the calendar, and the haze began to lift a little. All of the calendar’s dates were crossed out with a diagonal slash, right up to August 30. That must be today. A notation in the box: “Final flight—B.U.”

  Familiar somehow. But the exact meaning escaped him, dancing just beyond his grasp. He decided not to worry about it and surrendered to a deep sleep.

  53

  Dallas, August 30

  S haron Sullivan had seen enough. Those hideous mutations in the lab! She shuddered again and reached for the wall to steady herself. All of Waterhouse’s talk about the need to control and shape your kids—that now took on a whole different shade.

  What a sick, horrible lie this place turned out to be.

  She shot out of the storage room through the main Sequencing Lab, trembling as she went. She turned right down the corridor and thought she heard something. No time to stop! she told herself. She sprang out of the exit and headed straight to Birthrights Tower to get her things. She wanted out of here now—and to be done with this place forever.

  She dialed Lance Harrison on her smartphone and got his voicemail. Harrison was the one colleague she cared enough about to warn. “Lance, it’s Sharon. I’m shaking right now because I found out some … disturbing things about this place. You need to know. Call me back and I’ll fill you in.” Harrison didn’t know about all this. Did he ?

  In the elevator on the way up to her office, a small twitch of unease began to needle the back of her mind. It was the same sense of vulnerability she felt when alone on a dark street late at night. By the time she reached her office, the wisp of worry curled around her tighter and wouldn’t let go. It was something Sterling Waterhouse had once told her. He said the Birthrights Lab would be able to capture a person’s entire genetic profile from just a few cells. And now the fear took shape and came to her.

  If she left a single piece of herself behind, God knows what they’d be able to do with it. She entered her office and scanned the room. She’d always kept an immaculate desk, and that served her well right now. She grabbed a big cardboard box full of teddy bears and dumped them to the floor. She’d placed her framed photos and personal items into the box along with some documents she might need later. She could send for the rest of her things later.

  She grabbed her sweater and headed out the door with her box under her arm. Now I can get out of this nightmare.

  She stopped and swiveled on her heels. She reopened her office door and eyed the room again. She had to be absolutely sure.

  There! The trash can. A half-dozen tissues were in there—tissues full of cells from her runny nose. She poured the trash can’s contents into her cardboard box. She grabbed the door handle again, hesitated, then let go. She turned and surveyed the room one last time.

  She went behind her desk and began jerking open the drawers. Then she remembered the wad of gum she’d stuck to the bottom of her computer keyboard to make it sit evenly. She turned the keyboard over and pried at it with her thumbnail. She scraped at it. She spit on it to loosen it up.

  No, don’t spit!

  Her mind reeled. She wished she’d never heard of Birthrights Unlimited, or Sterling J. Waterhouse, or reproductive technology. Here she was, Sharon Grace Sullivan, first in her class at Radcliffe, creative director of Benzinger-Mikeljohn—the Bitch Goddess of Madison Avenue!—reduced to this. Wrestling with a wad of gum.

  She grabbed a pair of scissors from her desk and jabbed at the gum. After some exertion, it snapped off, and she tossed it into the box. She moved her executive chair out from under the desk and sank to her knees, head swimming. She studied her desk and the carpet below it, inch by inch, searching for the smallest piece of herself she might be leaving behind.

  She glanced down, then brushed her palm across the stubbly carpet. She inspected her fingers.

  Three hairs.

  Her heart was racing. Okay, Sharon, don’t panic. Think like a crime scene investigator. What kind of evidence would a CSI bring back to the lab?

  Her fingers made three passes beneath her desk and gathered a dozen hairs, which she carefully deposited into the bottom of her box. She gave the top of her desk another hard look. The out basket! She snatched the sealed business letters from the plastic tray—saliva on the envelopes, saliva on the stamps. She tossed them into her box.

  What else am I leaving behind? Her mind returned to the Lab and what she’d just seen. She had thrown up on the floor! Vomit contains DNA, doesn’t it?

  Sullivan fought back the urge to cry—no tears! —and tottered out of her office, box in hand. She padded across Birthrights Plaza and headed back to the Lab with a wad of tissues in her pockets to clean up the vomit. She reached the Lab and was relieved the door still opened for her. Her Level One security clearance hadn’t been revoked.

  She started down the corridor when she froze. That sound again. Muffled voices. Where is that coming from ?

  She turned and headed back to her left. She saw a sign taped to the last door in the Sequencing Lab wing. It said:

  DO NOT ENTER

  By Order of Security Chief Gregor Conrad

  Coming from behind the door she heard the sound of voices again. She entered the room. She wasn’t sure what to make of this place. No lab tables or research equipment. Just a row of liquid nitrogen tanks along the near wall and a huge, austere freezer-like unit dominating the center of
the room with a thick steel door next to a sign that said, COLD ROOM.

  She went up to the Cold Room door, still wearing her medallion passkey, and turned the handle to open it. She stepped inside.

  One figure, a muscular African American man, was slumped against a stack of containers against the wall. The other figure, an athletic-looking young woman with disheveled hair styled in a short, almost boyish cut, came up to her, teeth chattering in her bare-shoulders outfit.

  Birthrights Unlimited had revealed its gruesome underbelly tonight. But this! She couldn’t believe that anyone could sink this low.

  “Oh my God, you heard me!” the young woman said. She wrapped her arms around Sullivan and held on, probably less in gratitude than in the urgent need to warm herself.

  “Please. Help me with Nico. We need to get out of here.”

  54

  Dallas, August 30-31

  K aden and Sullivan helped Nico out of the Cold Room and into the corridor. They found the nearest washroom and ran warm water over their faces and arms. After a few minutes they were ready to head out just as darkness was descending, though Nico still looked shaky after all those hours in that ice-cold box. They were lucky they weren’t suffering from hypothermia.

  She explained to Sullivan who they were, what they were looking into, and how Conrad had locked them up at the behest of Waterhouse. She was willing to trust Sullivan a little but wasn’t yet ready to share details of what they’d uncovered.