Sharkman

by Steve Alten

  “It’s Kwan . . . ah, never mind.” I rolled a quarter of the way around the canal and positioned my wheelchair so I could see the surface without the afternoon sun’s blinding reflection on the water.

  Twenty paces behind me, Joe lowered the fish head into the canal, bobbing it a few times between passing dorsal fins. The scent set off dinner bells, the olive waters frothing.

  I never saw the bull shark’s dorsal fin, only the pale underside of its blunt snout as it rose from below to snatch the bloody offering—nearly dragging Joe over the rail, the Aussie having wrapped the nylon rope around his forearm.

  “Damn it, Kwan, I told you to warn me!”

  “I didn’t see him. And technically you told Juan.”

  John Roig smiled. “Sí, Señor. I thought you were talking to me.”

  “Shut up and open the bloody gate. Crippled kid, grab a hunk of bait from the ice chest and toss it in the paddock. And don’t miss!”

  Two quick rolls and I was back at the golf cart. Opening the bait container, I shoved my right hand into the icy, bloody goop and grabbed a slippery, slimy hunk of tuna ass and tail. Holding it away from me, I wheeled with my opposite hand, then tossed the bait into the paddock waters.

  The severed fish landed five feet from the open gate, prompting Taurus to release Joe’s bait and swim after it. John Roig quickly shut the gate—mission accomplished.

  Joe pulled in the remains of the chewed up fish head. Using his hunting knife, he cut the nylon rope free and tossed the mangled remains back into the canal. “Nice throw, Kwan. Sorry about the cripple thing. Taurus damn near snapped my bloody arm off.”

  “Forget it. Is there a bathroom where I can wash this chum off my hand?”

  “Come on, you can soak it in the piranha tank.” The Aussie slapped me across the back of my shoulder and led me inside.

  9

  Okay, so I was wrong.

  The interior of the genetics lab was like one of those old urban manufacturing plants that gets gutted and turned into luxury condominiums. Only in this case, the condo was an ultramodern, high-tech facility featuring walk-in freezers and power generators, and a massive chamber the size of Seacrest High’s gym.

  The paddock fed inside this section of the facility where it emptied into a thirty-foot-in-diameter cylindrical aquarium. The depths of this immense pool actually resided one floor below on the basement level; from my vantage all I could see was the open top of the aquarium poking four feet above the first floor decking.

  Taurus had been trapped in a medical pool—a sort of shark pit stop that separated the paddock from the main tank. The big bull shark was pissed off, rolling and slapping inside this four-foot-deep tub, which was rapidly filling with a milky substance—apparently a sedative.

  Within thirty seconds, the predator had been subdued.

  By now, Joe Botchin and John Roig were dressed in thick waterproof rubber overalls and matching boots. Wasting no time, they climbed into the medical pool with the sedated shark, securing a canvas harness around its girth, Taurus’s pectoral fins protruding through the sleeves. Activating a winch, they rolled the shark onto its back, exposing its slick white belly. Joe positioned a hose inside the sleeping shark’s jaws, which passed seawater through the creature’s mouth and out its gills—intubating the fish, allowing it to breathe . . . pretty sick.

  Enter Dr. Becker, assisted by Anya and Li-ling. All three women were dressed in white lab coats and were wearing rubber gloves. Anya was pushing a medical cart on wheels.

  Dr. Becker spent several minutes taking the shark’s vitals. When she was done, Li-ling wheeled over a portable ultrasound machine. Gripping the handle of the transducer probe, Dr. Becker rolled the device over the shark’s belly, the internal organs appearing on a twenty-inch monitor.

  “What I’m doing, Mr. Wilson, is marking the precise location of the shark’s liver. The liver is our target—we’re going to inject the organ with a drug that, over the next week, will cause Taurus’s liver to increase its white cell production tenfold. At the end of the week, we’ll siphon out these excess white cells, which contain the shark’s stem cells. The stem cells will be injected into our test subjects.”

  “Rats,” Joe whispered.

  Using a black marker, Dr. Becker circled a small area on the shark’s belly, directing Li-ling to swab the spot with an antibiotic. Dr. Becker nodded to Anya, who handed her a ten-inch-long hypodermic needle connected to an IV syringe. Carefully, she pressed it down into Taurus’s exposed belly, then slowly injected the clear elixir into the sleeping bull shark’s liver.

  Her work done, Dr. Becker turned the job over to the shark wranglers, who flipped Taurus right-side up. After they climbed out of the medical pool, Joe switched the hose from sedative to pure seawater. Within minutes Taurus was conscious again, slashing his head back and forth, whipping his tail.

  Using a remote control, John opened the hatch separating the paddock from the main tank, releasing the agitated bull shark into its temporary home.

  Joe, John, and Li-ling walked down a spiral stairwell to the lower level while Dr. Becker, Anya, and I took the freight elevator.

  “Anya, I want you to show Kwan around, then take him to the Alpha lab and ask Dr. Kamrowski to teach him how to catalog the TS subjects.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The elevator doors opened, revealing the lower level.

  “Very cool.”

  The chamber was dark, save for the turquoise glow coming from the immense aquarium. Within these shimmering crystal clear waters swam Taurus, the cylindrical shape of the tank magnifying the size and majesty of the predator, which glided effortlessly through the water like a gray demon, its head on a swivel, its mouth slack-jawed and open, its beady eyes taking in everything.

  If a bull shark was a human athlete, it would be a wrestler—either that or a fullback. The shark was stocky; its body short and thickly muscled from its blunt rounded snout to its bloated midsection which was topped by a triangular dorsal fin. The pectoral fins were big and active along either side of its body and the caudal fin reminded me more of a triangular boomerang than a sickle, with the upper lobe longer than the lower. For the most part the tail remained pretty rigid, but every once in a while it would flick the water with a powerful thrust, accelerating Taurus on its counterclockwise revolutions around the tank.

  As I sat in my wheelchair watching the six hundred pound fish circle, I experienced a sense of envy. The shark was epic—a master of its physical domain, the product of millions of years of evolution. It seemed to move through the water at will; a shiver of muscle sent it gliding through liquid crystal, the slightest rotation of its pectoral fins and it turned. It never worried about swag or impressing girls or whether a building or sidewalk was handicap accessible; all it did was eat and impregnate females and it never stuck around to raise the kids.

  Sort of like the Admiral.

  I could have sat in my wheelchair and stared at that bad boy all day—only Anya had her orders to train me.

  “Are you ready, Kwan? The tour starts here in the observation hall. The observation tank is equipped with sensors, so we can monitor the subject’s vitals. The drug we gave Taurus will cause some agitation and cartilage pain, so he’ll receive meds tonight with his dinner. Everything we feed our sharks has been fortified with vitamins, nutrients, and fats that are designed to maintain optimal health. Sharks must be here a minimum of thirty days before they can be used as a subject.”

  “Do you get their written consent? Sorry.”

  Her eyes glowed turquoise in the reflected light. “I wouldn’t joke around if I were you. If Dr. Becker thinks you’re a goof you’ll be kicked out of her program just like your friend, Jesse.”

  “My bad.”

  “And the teen slang—never use it around Becker or Dr. Kamrowski. They hate it.”

  She led me out o
f the observation chamber and through a basement corridor, the hallway white and antiseptic looking. We passed several small offices before coming to a steel and reinforced glass door labeled BSL3-A.

  “Kwan, this is the real serious stuff, so no joking around, okay? All of our animal labs are Bio-Safety Level Three environments. Four is tops, used for stuff like Ebola, so three is pretty safe. Don’t worry, we’re not working with viruses or toxic substances, but we do work with rats that have the potential to escape the facility. There are four labs which rotate between night and day settings. The walls inside are three-feet-thick cinder block—even if a rat were to escape there’s no place for it to go. You have to enter the lab through an airlock with self-closing doors. Once the outer door is secured we’ll be able to enter the lab. The lab uses negative airflow to contain airborne agents.”

  “Why all these precautions if you’re not using toxic substances?”

  “Rats have fleas. Fleas can escape. We don’t want a flea that has bitten a treated rat to leave the lab—negative airflow prevents that from happening. So do our plastic cages. And our waste policies. All waste must be decontaminated before it’s incinerated—especially dead animals.”

  “Do I have to wear one of those spaceman suits?”

  “No. That kind of stuff is only worn by lab techs who are in contact with the rats. Ready to go inside?”

  “I guess so.”

  She pulled open the outer door, which hissed from the air pressure differential. I followed her inside a small room which separated the corridor from the lab. When the door behind us clicked shut, Anya pushed open the interior door. She held it for me and I rolled my wheelchair inside the lab.

  The room was rectangular, about forty-feet long and half as wide. Along the wall to my right were three workstations with aluminum tables, microscopes, and a sink powered by a foot pedal. Above the basin were shelves stocked with test tubes and beakers and petri dishes. The closest work area was occupied by a woman in her thirties. She wore a blue lab coat and was peering into the lens of a microscope, her back to us.

  Anya led me to the opposite wall where metal shelves held three foot-long clear plastic containers. Inside each container was a white rat.

  “See these hoods on top of the cages? They’re used to ventilate the rat’s habitat. Each unit has piles of wood chips that the rat uses as a nest and a water bottle designed with a sipper feeder tube. The green stuff is rodent chow. None of these rats have been treated yet. They’re being acclimated and prepped for the stem cell injections we’ll be extracting from Taurus.”

  “I hate rats,” I said, a bit too loud.

  The woman in the blue lab coat looked up from her microscope. “Anya, bring your friend over here please.”

  Anya shot me a harsh look then led me over to the first work station.

  Dr. Nadja Margareta Kamrowski was half German, half Polish. She had dark brown hair cut very short and gray-hazel eyes—only the left eye was off, in a perpetual squint. Anya told me later it was caused by a birth defect.

  “Dr. Kamrowski, this is Kwan Wilson, our new intern.”

  “Do you know why we use rats in medical experiments, Mr. Wilson? We use them because their genetic, biological, and behavior characteristics closely resemble those of humans. We use them because diseases and conditions that affect humans can be replicated in mice and rats. We use white rats because they are genetically consistent—meaning an experiment conducted on a white rat in Miami can be easily replicated in Munich using the same species. We inject these creatures with experimental drugs that alter their DNA. We expose our rats to high doses of radiation to give them cancer so we can try to cure them. We’re severing their spinal cords to cause paralysis in an attempt to repair the damage. This is only a Phase I protocol, meaning we’re still learning. Do you know how many rats suffer and die during a Phase I protocol, Mr. Wilson? The answer, so far, is all of them. These rats are our soldiers in the medical field, so if I were you I’d reevaluate your position on these noble creatures. Thanks to their sacrifice we’re on the verge of a major breakthrough.”

  “Sorry. But how can you claim to be close to a major breakthrough if the patients keep dying?”

  “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

  She led us out the two exit doors and back into the main corridor to the next lab, labeled BSL3-B. We entered the anteroom, which was lit only by a purple interior light. The lab on the other side of the door appeared to be dark.

  “Rats are nocturnal,” Dr. Kamrowski explained. “The labs are kept on rotating light shifts to simulate day and night. We handle the subjects in the light when they’re more docile. But it’s in the dark where we see the full effects of the drug. Stage 1 is the initial phase of the injection where the subject’s biology begins assimilating the shark stem cells. Stage 2 is the miracle—the bursting of cancer cells . . . the healing of the spinal cord. Wherever the damage exists, the stem cells seek it out and aggressively affect repairs. Stage 3 is the side effects. Anya, you’ve never seen a Stage 3 response, have you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Stage 3 occurs when the stem cells attempt to correct what they construe as deviations in the human genome. Weak spots are targeted and genetically altered. Before we go in, let me remind each of you that you’ve signed releases which prohibit the disclosure of anything you’re about to see. If you feel you cannot abide by that agreement, then wait outside in the corridor.”

  Anya nodded. “I want to see.”

  “Me, too.”

  Dr. Kamrowski reached into a cardboard box on a shelf and removed three pairs of night vision glasses. “Put these on and follow me.”

  The night glasses illuminated the darkness into an olive-green world. I watched in fascination as Kamrowski pushed open the lab door—unleashing a burst of air and the tortured squeals of rodents. The sound was unnerving—had Anya not been by my side squeezing my hand I would have surely spun around and retreated. I prayed she could not hear the trickling gurgle of my catheter bottle filling—my bladder’s response ruining our first moment of physical contact.

  Dr. Kamrowski led us to the first row of rat habitats, their tags labeled in green glow pen as Stage 1, dated two days ago. The white rats’ eyes glowed luminescent-gray as they lay on their sides in obvious distress, panting heavily. A few habitats were labeled Hodgkin’s lymphoma; other rows included various tumor-based cancers. The last row was for those rats suffering from induced paralysis—their spinal cords severed at a point that impaired their hind quarters.

  Now I understood what Nadja Kamrowski meant when she called these miserable creatures noble. They had been bred to be sacrificed, and the thought of that brought a lump to my throat.

  After a few minutes we made our way to the Stage 2 habitats—each cage containing an invigorated, healthy white rat. Coming to a cage labeled Paralysis, I found myself mesmerized, my heart pounding with adrenaline at the sight of a rodent who had regained the use of its hind legs—jubilant at its own renewed sense of freedom.

  The terrifying sounds coming from the next set of habitats were almost too unnerving to investigate.

  “Oh . . . God.” Anya’s nails dug into my palm as our eyes darted over the first series of cages. Every rat had shed its fur, giving it a gruesome baseline appearance. From there, the shark stem cells had unleashed liberties upon its hosts’ DNA that seemed to have been spawned from the sociopathic mind of Josef Mengele, the monster of Auschwitz who performed live experiments on Jewish children.

  Bulging eyes. Gill slits along either side of the neck. Thickened scale-like skin and mutilated tails that had been metastasizing into freakish caudal fins. The tortured rodents were bashing their rapidly evolving carcasses against the interior of the habitats in powerful spasms. There was blood in several cages, and a few of the rodents had actually succeeded in cracking the plastic. One rat—possessing hideous fangs, had bitten thr
ough the hose of its water bottle, flooding the cage. Now it lay in two inches of water, gasping painful breaths.

  We told Dr. Kamrowski we had seen enough.

  She led us to the final series of habitats—Stage 4 . . . death.

  Cage after cage held the evidence of a miracle gone awry—dead rodents, tortured by their evolving deformities until death had mercifully granted them a reprieve.

  I heard Anya ask, “How did they die?”

  “They suffocated,” replied Dr. Kamrowski. “After a day or so, cartilage forms in the esophagus, obstructing breathing. We’ll perform autopsies before we dispose of their remains. I realize this is shocking to see, but this is how we find cures for diseases. If we can overcome the cross-species rejection, then . . . well, there’s hope.”

  Hope . . .

  I stared at the deformed creatures, recalling a poem my mother had often recited to me as a child: “Hope is the thing with feathers . . . that perches in the soul. And sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all.”

  Emily Dickinson had called hope a “thing with feathers.”

  My hope had gills.

  10

  While I was wasting Dickinson on dozens of dead rats, rodents of a different ilk were circling their “cheese” nine hundred nautical miles to the southeast.

  To the casual observer, the presence of the 165-foot fishing trawler, Malchut, in the deep waters off Puerto Rico probably seemed natural—the vessel dragging its nets, encircling a school of fish.

  A closer inspection of the Canadian-registered ship would have revealed a different story.