The Fall: Victim Zero

by Joshua Guess

  “Yes, sir,” Kell said. “I'll be here.”

  Karen was already in the shower and baby Jennifer in her crib, when Kell finally made it home. Kell thought about slipping behind the curtain to join his wife but reconsidered when he remembered her habit of keeping a loaded .38 on the towel rack next to the tub. One break-in was enough to teach her caution.

  Instead he stood over his newborn daughter and watched her sleep for a while. She fidgeted, tiny hands grasping and flexing as she did the baby equivalent of chasing rabbits. Strange how a person only eight weeks old could change everything about a person. Kell became interested in biology from sheer wonder as a child. Some people looked to the sky in awe at all the things that vastness contained, but he was always fascinated by the mysteries found in the smallest parts of living creatures.

  Every cell a puzzle, every strand of DNA a conundrum waiting to be tinkered with and explored.

  Yet here before him lay an enigma even he couldn't wrap his mind around. He and his wife made love, and then followed the meiotic dance that created an entirely new human being. It was so simple, so basic, yet that one primal act of creation moved forward with time to make his daughter. She would be her own person in the end, a collection of small mysteries of her own.

  Feather-gentle, he ran a finger over her fine hair.

  “She's been sleeping for an hour,” Karen said from behind him.

  The tendon in Kell's jaw twitched, his only sign of surprise. Five years together had given his wife a good working knowledge of his reactions. It was a game of hers, to constantly try to get more than an involuntary twinge from him. Karen sometimes called him 'Buddha' for his unshakable calm.

  If only she could have seen him a few hours before.

  She put a hand to the back of his neck, using him as a fulcrum to pull herself high enough to kiss his cheek. He trembled as she did it, the stress of the day finally becoming too much.

  Karen put a hand on his shoulder lightly and turned him to face her. She wasn't short, but even at five foot eight she had to crane her neck to look him in the eyes. Hers were hazel flecked with gold, a striking match to her deep tan skin. Her mother was from South Africa, her father American but ethnically Indian. Both of them were lawyers, and their beautiful daughter, she of the almond-shaped eyes and wavy black hair, had followed in their footsteps.

  “What's wrong?”

  Kell considered the question much longer than absolutely necessary. It wasn't that he didn't trust his wife—she was a lawyer, after all, and knew how to keep confidence—but she also knew about non-disclosure agreements, of which he was under at least half a dozen. Beyond that, the work he did was cutting-edge and frankly dangerous to know about.

  So, he compromised.

  Kell sat on the edge of the bed. “I can't tell you the details, honey. But basically I've been put in a position where I had to choose between letting someone else deal with a complicated problem they might screw up, and taking it on myself.”

  Karen nodded as she sat next to him in her fluffy red bathrobe. “I assume that this has to do with your research?”

  Kell nodded. “Of course. Sinclair has always wanted me for only one reason.”

  She put a hand on his leg. “You've always been able to trust your staff with tough problems. What makes this one different?”

  “This time there could be...larger implications. You know I've always been strongly against creating potential weapons or pathogens. That's not what I'm dealing with, but a screwup could be just as bad. Maybe worse.”

  Her fingers tightened on his leg. “And you think you're the right man to fix it?”

  Kell nodded again.

  Karen gave his leg a slap. “You're damn right you are. No one has been working on this as long as you. Your own professors handed Chimera over to you when they couldn't figure it out. You're not just the right man for the job, baby. You might be the only man for it. If safety and diligence is important here, I can't think of anyone on the planet better suited to the task.”

  Kell smiled at her, but it was weak. Which led her to slap him on the back of the head. It was gentle. Mostly. Then she pointed a finger in his face, and he knew she was getting serious.

  “Look, Kell. Just because I've been on maternity leave and not carrying around a metric ton of stress doesn't mean I'm gonna let you get away with self-pity. You might be in a tough spot, but you didn't make it. You got handed a mess; you know you're the one who should clean it up. Not because you made it, but because anyone else runs the risk of just screwing it up worse.”

  She leaned over and kissed his shoulder. “So stop moping about it. That's not going to do you any good. Sleep on it, deal with it, then move forward. It's not like you have any choice.”

  “I know, Karen, I just worry that...ah, Jesus it's hard to even explain without telling you everything.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I don't need details to know you shouldn't be worrying yourself to death over something you have to do and can't change. Maybe me saying that won't make it better, but I promised your momma I'd set you straight for the rest of your natural life. You knew that when you signed the papers, and look; you managed to live with that decision just fine.”

  Kell couldn't help laughing. He snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her close. Her lips tasted like raspberries—her favorite lip gloss. She must have put it on as soon as she hopped out of the shower. Though he'd fallen for her hard many years before, it was small gestures that kept him falling in love in little ways every single day. It got him through the lonely nights when she was stuck at the office. It kept his hand steady and mind sharp when dealing with potentially dangerous organisms with a penchant for unpredictable mutations.

  “You're right, of course,” Kell said, running a hand over his shaved head. “I'll get on with it. I'll probably bitch about it for days, but you're used to that by now. And let's face it, you aren't going to divorce me over that. You only do what Mom tells you because she makes you dinner twice a week. You won't give that up.”

  She poked a finger into his slight paunch. “Well, one of us could suffer without for a while.”

  Laughing, he slid his own hand under her robe and across the damp skin of her belly.

  “Maybe I could do with a little exercise instead,” he said.

  Chapter Two

  The next day Kell arrived at a scene of chaos barely held together by a small blur that eventually resolved itself into his chief associate researcher, John Leibowitz. The tiny man, barely over five feet, had four years on Kell but not a gray hair to be seen, a fact Kell noticed and grieved over every time he saw the man. It was criminal that his own hair had receded so far that shaving, his last resort, had been the only option. Small Jewish men approaching forty should not beat him in the hair-growing department, much less look like a scaled-down George Clooney.

  “Kell, we've got some serious fucking problems going on,” Leibowitz said as he approached Kell.

  “And a lovely morning to you as well, John. Please, don't beat around the bush. Tell me how you're feeling today.”

  John only flashed a half-smile, totally unembarrassed. That was something Kell had always liked about him, ever since grad school; the man was utterly unapologetic about his reactions. He said what he thought with no filter, and no matter how brutal the honesty people seemed to like him for it. Proof of concept that a loveable asshole is preferable to a sweet liar.

  “Did you know about these guys coming in here to set up an observation and isolation suite? And that there's some guy out in a trailer waiting to be brought in? What the hell is going on?”

  Kell did his best to calm the room, but stopped short of giving them the details. He was normally very forthright with the team, but Mitchell had been clear about keeping the situation as quiet as possible. Kell compromised.

  “Everyone,” he said a few minutes later when the team had gathered in the conference room. “You know we're bringing someone in for observation. For today that's all
I can tell you. John is going to be in charge, because I've been asked by the VP of the biomedical division to do the initial assessment myself. I'll be in and out all day, doing the grunt work I pay all of you so well to do for me.”

  There was a wave of quiet laughter. Smiles. Good, that would make the pill easier to swallow.

  “I know this is weird and completely out of line with our routine, but this got dropped in my lap less than a day ago. Nothing I can do about it, nothing you can do about it, so we have to just get to it.”

  Someone in the back started asking a question, but Kell raised a hand to cut him off. “I can't talk about it more than that, and I honestly wouldn't have time even if I could. I'll fill you in as soon as I'm told I can, but for right now I need to make up for twenty minutes of missed time with the patient. Go on about your business.”

  The team was reluctant to leave, but John stepped up and shooed them away. “You heard the man, people. I'm in charge. All the women put on low-necked shirts. All the men stop being prettier than me so I've got a chance to snag a date.”

  People left the room laughing, and for that alone Kell could have kissed John Leibowitz. Happy employees were less likely to go home and complain about the secrecy at work. That was a headache all of them could do without.

  Kell made his way down to the parking lot and over to the isolation container. A door at the end of the thing opened, and a pair of men came out to greet him. Both wore plain clothes, but while the one who carried a clipboard stuffed with papers was clearly a doctor or scientist of some kind, the other had the unmistakable bearing of a military man. The earpiece and gun bulge only added to the impression.

  The man with the clipboard reached out a hand and shook with Kell. “Doctor McDonald, it's an honor to finally meet you. I'm Greg Cramer. I run the Boston division of the Chimera project.”

  Kell's fingers went limp. “You'll have to excuse me, Doctor Cramer, but until yesterday I didn't even know there was such a thing. My understanding was that Chimera was only being studied here.”

  The second man spoke up. “We deliberately asked to keep the projects separate, Doctor. Your hesitance about moving forward with Chimera was well-known by your superiors when we approached them about this step in the project.”

  Kell took in the other man. About six feet tall and dark-skinned, shoulders squared back but with the relaxed posture of a man ready for stillness to flow into violence at a moment's notice. There was an air of professional calm about him. Kell was used to being the unnaturally calm one in the room.

  “And who are you?” Kell asked.

  “You can call me Jones. I'm the liaison between Sinclair and DARPA.”

  Kell nodded. “You're military?”

  Jones gave him a small, humorless smile. “Let's leave it at my name. Knowing more is beyond your pay grade.”

  Kell snorted and turned back to Cramer. “Tell me about this subject, and why you had to bring him here.”

  Cramer and Jones led Kell inside the container, and Cramer proceeded to tell him everything he wanted to know, in excruciating detail.

  The entire time, Kell's fingers dug into his own crossed arms. First in anger, then as the conversation went on, in fear.

  An hour later, Kell stepped through the inner door and closed it behind him. There was no hiss of pressurization—this wasn't a sealed room. Before him sat a young man wearing khaki pants and a faded olive shirt. Between the two of them a plexiglass wall stood, pocked with fist-sized holes at regular intervals.

  The young man, whose name Kell now knew to be David Markwell, looked healthy. Far healthier than a man suffering from the aftereffects of a ground-zero IED explosion should. David glanced up at Kell as he pulled a chair next to the isolation booth, goggling at the size of his visitor.

  “Hello, David,” Kell said. “I'm Kelvin McDonald. I'm going to be taking care of you for a while. I'd shake your hand, but--” he gestured to the plexiglass, “you can see that might have to wait a while.”

  The younger man gave a nervous smile. “Nice to meet you. Are you going to fix me?”

  Kell considered his words carefully. “That's the question, isn't it? I want to help if I can, but you need to understand that the...treatment you received in Boston isn't even experimental yet. You're the first human being to undergo it.”

  David's face darkened. “This is because of my fucking dad.”

  “What do you mean?” Kell asked.

  The young man frowned. “My father is a senator. He was against me going into the service, and when I got hurt he had me shuffled around to find the best specialists.” David looked up at Kell. “You read my file?”

  Kell nodded. “Quickly, and Doctor Cramer gave me a report.”

  David ran his hands over his face. “You know, then. Nerve damage, paralysis in my left arm. I was going to be crippled for the rest of my life. Then dad tells me he can get me into early trials of this experimental new treatment. Says it might completely restore function. How could I say no to that?”

  “I broke my arm when I was twelve,” Kell said. “I remember not being able to bend my elbow, barely able to grab things with the fingers on that hand because of the cast. It drove me crazy waiting for so long to be able to use it again. I can't even imagine looking at a lifetime of it.”

  Kell leaned forward and ran a hand over his smooth scalp. “I won't lie to you, David. There's a chance I can undo what's happening to you, but it could mean going back to that. It could mean spending your life with that damage.”

  David frowned. “What do you mean? How can you undo someone healing?”

  With a sigh, Kell flopped back in his chair. “I'll explain it to you if you're willing to listen.”

  “I'm all ears,” David replied.

  “I'll keep it as simple as I can, but the first thing you need to understand is what you've gone through hasn't been a treatment with medicine. It's a life form, an organism called Chimera, that I've been working with for a long time now. I'm the world's only real expert with this organism, and seven years of study later I barely understand anything about it.”

  David paled and motioned for Kell to continue.

  “Chimera,” Kell said, “is the strangest thing I've ever seen. We don't understand how it could have evolved. It's a single-celled parasite that contains vital sequences of DNA from hundreds of species of plant and animal. When it doesn't have a host, it's just this inert, lifeless cell. Sort of like a virus. It attaches to a host and grows, like a bacteria, but the structures it builds inside the host are closer to fungal growths.”

  “Jesus Christ,” David said, his voice cracking. “That's inside me right now? Why the hell would my dad do this to me?”

  Kell raised his hands to calm the other man. “It's not quite as bad as it sounds. Chimera acts like a pathogen, but in most of our experiments the results are positive. We're pretty good at splicing and altering Chimera to do very specific things. When we first discovered it, the host it was attached to was algae. The algae in question were healthier than they should have been. They processed carbon dioxide at increased levels, were resistant to drying when we took them out of the water.

  “After studying Chimera we learned how to alter it. In some animals it showed a remarkable inclination to increasing muscle mass, brain function, and in the case of our recent primate trials, nerve conduction.” Kell gave his patient a significant look.

  “There are risks, however. Chimera mutates and spreads to other bodily systems at random, but more often than I've been comfortable with. In the primate trials, a dozen rhesus monkeys with various types of nerve damage or central nervous system disorders were treated with a Chimera variant of my own design. All twelve of them resumed full and normal function within two months. The organism didn't repair the damage, precisely; it copied the function of the remaining normal nerve tissue and took over the job in the places where normal function wasn't possible.”

  Realization dawned on David's face. “You're saying that if y
ou clear this stuff out of my system, you'll be putting me back to where I was. That this Chimera stuff is doing the job of my nervous system for me?”

  Kell nodded. “Yes. It's possible the organism has actually repaired the damage, but I wouldn't bet on it. I assume the people in charge of your treatment didn't explain your symptoms to you at all?”

  David shook his head. “No. I told them what was going on. My breathing felt different all of a sudden, I was breaking things I tried to pick up, I stumbled more and seemed to lose coordination. A day later they'd scanned and poked every inch of me, and I was on my way here.”

  Kell sighed again and scrubbed his hands across his face. “I don't want to scare you, David, but you need to understand why those things are happening. Cramer and his people sent you here because they don't know how to deal with what's happening to you. Chimera gave you normal function again, but it didn't stop there. The version you were treated with wasn't the latest iteration of my design. It was an older copy, one that was known to mutate. The reason you're feeling so different is because Chimera has spread through your entire body. Your muscles are functioning at a higher level, as is your breathing. You keep breaking things and falling because you're trying to do things at your old level of strength and function. Your body is capable of more, now.

  “I know that sounds like a good thing, but you should be aware the last time I saw these results, the test subject eventually turned uncontrollably violent and infectious, and killed every other subject in its community.”

  Kell stood, stretching his back. “I can show you the video if you like. It's fairly gruesome, seeing that mouse and his little mouse friends murder each other. But one way or another, I need to know what you want me to do. Because this could end badly either way. Think about it, David. Think about it very hard.”

  Chapter Three