by Mark Wilson
Rob looked a little apprehensive, despite the efficiency with which he’d formulated a travel plan and coordinated several of his long-standing contacts in the intelligence community – none of whom had managed to find a trace of Alex, much to Robert’s disdain.
“Thanks so much, Rob. What’s the timescale?” Sarah asked.
Rob’s eyes flicked to the right, double-checking messages from men in his network of contacts and travel plans. Sarah could tell from his eyes that it wasn’t good news.
“Best I can do is leaving in twenty-four hours from London. You’ll be in Taiwan in three hours via suborbital. From the east coast of Taiwan, the only transport to the island that might have a chance of getting you there covertly is by freighter ship. I can arrange an escort for you. It’ll take two days, Sarah.”
Sarah mentally flicked through her options for a single second. “That’s fine, Rob. Thank you.” She was trying her best to be pragmatic, and doing a very good job despite the jackhammer pounding in her chest and the roar of fear in her gut.
She felt Tom take her hand.
“We’ll leave now, Robert. The sooner we get to London, the better.” Sarah turned to her husband’s grandfather. “Tom, I can’t let you do that. I need you here, with Tommy. Just in case.”
Tom shook his head once. “No argument. I’m coming.”
Tom turned back to the projection of his best friend.
“See you in London, Robert.”
Robert grinned. “Too fuckin’ right, pal.”
He flicked off the connection.
Sarah rounded on Tom. “How the hell am I supposed to do this worrying about two eighty-five year olds and finding my husband in God knows what situation?”
Tom waved off her objections. “You’re not going alone, hen. That’s that.”
“Tom, listen.”
He jabbed a finger into the air in her direction.
“Naw. You listen, I’m not exactly a fuckin’ infant, so don’t treat me like one. I’ve travelled to more countries than your generation ever had a hope of. I might be an old man in the mirror but I’m the same in here.” He turned his pointed finger to his own chest. “I’m the same in here as I ever was. He’s my grandson. I’m going.”
Sarah sighed. Tom was right; he had every right, at least as much as she did, to go.
“What about Robert? Can you convince him to stay in Ann Arbor and leave us to go alone? I don’t want him getting hurt.”
A young man’s grin grew across Tom’s wizened face.
“Robert Hamilton is the one person on the planet that you do want on this trip, believe me. His special skills have faded with age, but that man’s been through hell in his career. He’s our best chance at getting there and back, and bringing Alex with us. Trust me.”
Sarah lifted her eyebrows in resignation. “Right, let’s go tell Tommy some lies about where we’re going and get on the move.”
An hour later they were tearing under the English Channel in The Tubes, worrying and silently steeling themselves for what was to come.
19
Alex rubbed the itch from corners of his eyes with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Another all-nighter had left him seeing double and feeling shoogly with caffeine overload. Slipping his hand around to the back of his neck, he massaged at the thin muscles and felt a few vertebrae complain as they slid and cracked back into their natural position. He sighed with relief and stood up, arching his spine to pop a few more back into place. Stealing a glance at the Holo of his family, he blinked the tiredness away, downed another cup of coffee stewed all night in the pot, and pressed his eyes back up to the microscope.
Gayle had been away for two and a half days now, and whilst, initially at least, Alex had enjoyed the solitude, the weight of silence in the laboratory was now pressing down on him. He’d chosen to forgo sleep and the even more crushing emptiness of his cabin to stay in the lab instead. His shift – seventy sleepless hours and counting – had paid off. Results and conclusions had streamed in and filled his mind, pushing his thought processes to places that he hadn’t anticipated.
Alex had run millions of samples from all types of donors across the world. Synthetically-produced people, naturally-produced folk, fertile, infertile – he’d covered all bases and was now in possession of a comprehensive and conclusive set of results to report back to Gayle.
The antibody that he’d found in the Synthi-kids’ samples, which had led them to the discovery of the pathogen, had proved to be just one tiny indicator of a much larger factor. Upon closer examination, Alex had found that whilst samples from naturally-produced people did not contain Antibody K-A, they revealed the presence of a second antibody, which he’d labelled Antibody K-B.
Very similar to the antibody in the Synthi-kid population, Antibody K-B had an active site whose shape differed very subtly from that of Antibody K-A. Aside from this small, but crucial, variance, the antibody versions were almost identical. Alex had checked for the presence of both strains of the antibody in the synthetic population and the natural population, and also in infertile and fertile people. Less than a hundred samples existed for the latter group compared to the millions for the other population types.
Without exception, the A-version was present in every Synthi-kid and the B-version in all naturally-conceived adults. The only exceptions rose in those men who still possessed that very rare, and now hugely undesirable, trait: fertility. The fertile group of men possessed both versions of the antibody. More incredibly, they were producing a third version, which Alex had labelled Antibody K-C.
His findings indicated that the pathogen present in the synthetic population had more than one strain and was present in the entire human population. Those males who’d retained their fertility possessed genes allowing them to develop antibodies, and therefore immunity, to all strains of the virus, and most likely the original, parent strain.
It seemed that all of the theories about what had caused the mass infertility of male humans were wrong. Alex’s research had revealed that the true reason was one very simple, very adaptable virus. A virus that had somehow mutated into at least two specific strains now present in the human population. A virus that around one hundred or so individuals on the planet potentially had natural resistance to, and from whom a vaccine or antivirals could be developed. For the first time in his short life, he said a silent prayer in thanks for his unfashionable DNA.
Crashing into the laboratory, Gayle shouted across to him, “Alex, we need to analyse this sample immediately.”
Alex smiled. He was glad to see her. His spirits had sagged without her presence, despite the invigoration that came with his own breakthrough. Alex stood and made his way across to Gayle, meeting her in the centre of the lab. She handed him a small syringe, containing a frozen sample with an old-fashioned barcode marker on its case.
“We need to map this organism’s genome. Now!” Gayle gasped.
Alex grinned. He’d never seen Gayle this way before. His news could wait the hour or so that it’d take to map the genome of whatever organism the sample contained. He squeezed her in a quick tight hug and followed her to the core of the lab.
20
Bangkok
24 hours ago
Gayle cocked her head to one side and rotated her body around, bringing the cool water over her hairline and down her neck. It’d been a long, hot day. It was Boxing Day, December 26th. In Thailand that meant intense, humid heat. The faintly cool pressure of the water from the shower wasn’t quite the Scottish chill she was used to at this time of year, but it came close enough to remove the heat and the sweat from her skin for the moment, cooling her brain and allowing her thoughts to come a little easier. She hadn’t realised how accustomed to the continuously air-conditioned environment of the buildings on the island she’d become.
She’d expected to be busy during her trip to Thailand, but the last few days had been utterly gruelling. In a forty-eight hour period she’d made three speeches to pac
ked auditoriums, led six conferences with Synthi-Co board members and discussed her most recent work with several teams of scientists behind closed office doors in Ennis’s main Bangkok headquarters. She was exhausted and felt drained, not just of energy, but of her knowledge and progress on the project to date. It wasn’t a good sign. A change was clearly coming.
Mr Ennis had been his usual charming self, attending several of the meetings she’d chaired. He’d asked no questions and hadn’t really said much of anything, outwith a few polite pleasantries. Perhaps he was saving himself for their private conference this evening.
An hour after stepping revived from her shower, Gayle found herself stepping from the elevator into her boss’s penthouse apartment, Ennis with a double Glenmorangie in hand, greeting her.
“Good evening, Gayle. Can I get you a drink?” Ennis beamed his customary smile at her.
She gave him a small nod of thanks. “Please. I’ll have a soda and lime.” Gayle watched a butler scurry off to prepare her drink. She approached Gavin and kissed him on both cheeks.
“Good to see you, Mr Ennis. You’re well, I trust?”
“Of course, never better, Professor. You’re looking well. Island life clearly agrees with you.”
Gayle cocked an eyebrow. “Yes, it does for most who work on the island,” she said flatly.
Gavin whirled around, holding an arm out to indicate a seat. “Let’s talk, shall we? Time is rather pressing. I have another appointment in an hour.”
He wasn’t being rude, or trying to impress, just stating a fact.
Gayle joined him on the sofa and listened whilst he talked about his plans for the Synthi-Co brand generally and for the Synthi-sperm line particularly. He seemed convinced that the need for his products would only increase in the years to come. He wanted her to wrap up her research on the island and hand over to another team. Gayle did her best to act surprised.
“If that’s what you require, Mr Ennis,” she said.
“You’re wasted on this project, now that the initial breakthrough has come, Professor,” he said. “I’d like you to consider taking a different role.”
Gayle ignored the ice creeping up her spine and asked the question she knew he didn’t want to hear.
“What about Alexander Kinsella?”
For a fraction of a second Ennis’s mask of congeniality slipped and he glared at her before catching himself and reassembling his face into that of a benevolent benefactor. “Ah, young Dr Kinsella.” Ennis affected pity. “Yes, well you and Dr Kinsella have become quite close during his… employment. I’m sure that it must be quite difficult for you moving on, and for him, but it’s for the best. Dr Kinsella will be given another role, elsewhere.”
Gayle had had enough of pretending that the man opposite her wasn’t a monster.
“As a fucking lab rat for your immoral goons to harvest more DNA from?” she screamed at him.
Ennis allowed a malevolent smile to contort his face into what Gayle assumed was a true representation of himself for once.
“Dr Kinsella is not your concern, Professor. Go back to your lab in the morning, pack your things and say your goodbyes to Dr Kinsella, if you must. Someone will collect you tomorrow evening for your trip to your new lab and deliver details of your new assignment.”
Ennis made a gesture to his butler, who placed himself between Gayle and his employer.
Indicating the elevator doors, he said. “Professor?”
Gayle left without another word, calmly and slowly strolling to the elevator. She waited until she’d walked two blocks before hailing a cab. Reaching the lobby of her hotel, she went straight to the reception bathroom. For the next ten minutes, Gayle cried and raged and yelled, pinned to the tile floor by her guilt and her anger.
Eventually she picked herself up. Staring into the mirror at her mascara-streaked face, she spat at her reflection. “Fucking coward.”
All of her grand plans for helping Alex meant nothing.
She sighed, retrieved her shoes from where they’d scattered and rode an elevator to her floor. Her head was down as she disembarked and she did not notice the elderly man at the door to her suite. In his nineties, he’d clearly been waiting for her for some time, having dragged a chair over to rest on. He rose as she approached him and coughed to get her attention as she shuffled along towards him, dabbing at her eyes.
Instantly alert, Gayle shook off the defeat she’d cloaked herself in and projected a strength she didn’t feel in her voice. “Can I help you, sir?”
Gayle quickly scanned him up and down. He was tall but slightly hunched with age. The man looked fragile for his years and clearly had some wealth, judging by the clothes he wore, but he was an old man and posed no threat to her.
Gayle noticed his hands. Strong, precise and exact as they moved to hold his cane and offered a greeting. Very like her late father’s hands. Surgeon’s hands.
“My name is James Sinclair,” he said quietly. “I’m so terribly sorry to spring myself on you in this manner, Professor Robertson, but I simply needed to speak to you. Your…” he searched for the correct phrase, “your living arrangements don’t leave too many opportunities for one to bump into you.”
James smiled at her warmly.
Gayle took his hand and noted the strength she’d spotted earlier, and the softness of it.
“What can I do for you, Dr Sinclair?” Gayle watched James’s hairy-caterpillar-eyebrows rise up in delight.
“My hands are still a giveaway to those in the profession? Delightful.”
Gayle smiled despite the circumstances. “Yes, well, my father was a surgeon.” Weariness washed over her again from nowhere. “It’s really not a good time, Dr Sinclair,” she told him. “Perhaps we could schedule an appointment for another day?”
Gayle turned to thumb the entrance pad on the door and felt James place one of his large hands onto her shoulder. There was no threat in the gesture; it was strangely comforting, if anything.
“I’m so sorry to be pushy my dear, but time is not a luxury that I have at present.”
Gayle looked a little more closely at his face. His skin was slightly yellow, as were the whites of his eyes. His hands were steady, but most of the rest of his body trembled slightly.
He watched her assess him for a moment then nodded his confirmation.
“Liver cancer,” he said, without emotion. “I’m afraid I turned to alcohol in my later years, my dear.” James slipped a steady hand into a trembling overcoat pocket and fished out a small, capped syringe in a mobile refrigeration-unit.
It bore the legend ‘G-ENN-001’.
“Partly because of this. Mostly because of the boy I took it from.”
Gayle thumbed the entry pad causing the door to her apartment to slide open.
“Come on in, Dr Sinclair. Let’s get you a seat.”
For a man of his years, and in his condition, Dr Sinclair had an awful lot of energy and plenty to say for himself. He spoke in lucid, quick sentences in an endearingly concise manner. He spoke in the style of a man who’d held the words for decades and had no further time to waste. Gayle merely sat and listened.
“The virus was like nothing else we’d encountered before, or since for that matter. It attacked the patient’s nervous system extremely aggressively, disabling the autonomic and enteric nervous systems within twenty-four hours of contraction. We determined this by studying the effects of the virus on rats in the hospital lab. In the case of the young man whom this sample came from, the disease simply progressed far too quickly to study its effects first-hand.
“The patient was ten years old and required life support from almost the instant symptoms appeared. We kept him alive for six months in that state with no idea if he could perceive anything from the outside world. He certainly couldn’t communicate with us.”
Dr Sinclair paused for a sip of his tea. He was clearly steeling himself to continue.
“Eventually the boy’s father, a young businessman, decided that
enough was enough and requested that his son’s life-support be switched off.”
“How terrible for the poor man. What an awful decision to have to make, but perfectly understandable in the circumstances,” Gayle offered with genuine sympathy.
A darkness crossed Sinclair’s face. “Yes, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? Not in this case, sadly,” he replied.
Gayle gave a puzzled look.
Sinclair continued. “The boy’s father was in the medical profession and had followed the cause and the progression of his son’s disease with an obsessive zeal.”
Gayle nodded along. She’d spent weeks, months researching the factors involved in her own child’s death. Torturing herself with could-haves and what-ifs, she’d dragged herself through more grief and pain than most people could endure, wishing that she’d trained as a lawyer or an accountant, anything except a doctor. Anything that would reduce her understanding of what had killed her son. Anything that would erase the fact that he could have, should have lived.
“Understandable,” she said quietly.
Sinclair nodded. “Yes, of course, but this man wasn’t desperately trying to assist in some way. He wasn’t searching for a cure, or for closure. He merely wanted to know everything about how the virus acted. He determined its mode of transmission – an unfortunate mutation from a zoonosis his son had picked up at the zoo; the animal concerned was destroyed – its life-cycle and many of the symptoms. In some ways, the virus gave him a purpose. At the time I thought that his actions were those of a man pushed too far. You see, he’d lost his wife a few years before. But it was worse than that. His obsession was motivated by opportunity rather than grief or regret.”
Gayle looked horrified. “People do strange things when faced with the death of a child.”
“That they do,” Sinclair agreed. “I told myself that many times over the months the young man lay immobile, machines performing his basic bodily functions. I used every depth of human sorrow and grief I could imagine to excuse his father’s callousness and justify my turning a blind eye to it. I was wrong.