by Nash, Lisa
“Of course you are,” Dr. Grant said. “And I notice we have Mrs. Tann here as well.”
Lisa Tann almost smiled at the fact the Chairman of the Board remembered her name.
“Why exactly do we have two directors present for a Ranger protocol meeting? It’s to be security and senior executive level personnel only and by my count we’re missing at least four others.”
Craig cleared his throat. “I thought it best to limit the number of eyes and ears on this. Ms. Pope is the one who brought the situation to my attention, and as Head of R&D Archives, I felt Lisa’s contribution was necessary.”
Satisfied with his answer, Dr. Grant said, “Very well.” Turning back to Ms. Pope. “And just how was this… situation brought to your attention, Melissa?”
Ms. Pope clasped her hands tighter. “Well… Dr. Grant… my extraction team received a report of possible SSD. We followed standard procedure and did an on scene sample check.”
“And?”
“Well… levels for both the unit and the match checked out. In fact, the unit’s levels were just above baseline…”
Dr. Grant held up her hand to stop her. “Just above baseline? Was the unit defective?”
Ms. Pope shook her head. “The unit was given the lowest calibration at my directive.”
The chairman furrowed her brow. “Why would you do that? The best the match would get out of such low levels is a little wild kissing. Perhaps some adventurous touching.”
Ms. Pope hesitated. She saw Craig lower his head. She was about to get blasted and he knew it. “It was a special circumstance.”
“Special how exactly?”
“The match was a job applicant for a decommission agent position…”
“A job applicant?”
“Yes, you see I initiated a new process for hiring decommission agents… we were having such a high turnover rate at the position it was necessary to get… creative in our qualifying methods…”
“Are you telling me that someone who didn’t have a prescription left our facility with a unit?”
“No,” Ms. Pope said. “Not exactly.”
Dr. Grant stared bullets at the visibly shaken Ms. Pope. “I do not react well to people parsing words with me, Ms. Pope. Did your job applicant have a prescription or not?”
“He did,” Ms. Pope said quickly only to hesitate before saying, “But the prescription came from a therapist on my staff, Dr. Getman.”
The cold silence filled the room again. Finally with her eyes still on Ms. Pope, Dr. Grant asked, “Is that a violation of our agreement with the FDA, Franklin?”
The portly man considered the question and said, “Technically, it’s within the letter of the law, as long as the therapist examined the applicant’s psychiatric records.”
Dr. Grant said, “Well, Ms. Pope?”
“All our job applicants take an extensive exam that measures intelligence and mental stability. It’s the same one we recommend therapist give to their patients before prescribing one of our units.”
“You gave an applicant a bio-syn based on the results of his qualifying exam?” The tone suggested total disbelief.
“Yes, it’s been my practice for the last five years. It’s never been a problem before. I got approval from legal. I went through all the proper channels before initiating the program. It’s allowed us to go from 35% retention to 100% retention in the decommission agent position. I got a goddamn commendation and raise because of it for fuck sake.” The last part slipped out of her mouth before she knew what happened.
Dr. Grant took a few seconds to cool down before continuing. “Franklin, did our legal department give Ms. Pope bad advice?”
“Again, technically no. It is within the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. The wording in the FDA guidelines is ‘full psychiatric records.’ Full is open to fluid interpretation. If the qualifying exam is the only thing that measures the applicant’s mental stability, then it is not in violation of the rules. Preferably, the FDA would like all patients to have a history of therapy and also provide complete medical records, but those exact stipulations do not exist in our guidelines.”
“And is that the case, Ms. Pope? Is the qualifying exam the only thing that measures your applicant’s mental stability?” Dr. Grant tried to soften her expression to ease the tension in the room.
Ms. Pope didn’t know the answer to her question, but she chose to nod slowly in response instead of admit she had screwed up once again.
Dr. Grant sensed the woman was lying, but she let it pass. “Then let’s move onto this natural unit business. How does this tie into a false report of drift? I assume it was false since the levels didn’t merit any indication of drift.”
“We believe it was false,” Ms. Pope said. She looked at Craig to see if he wanted to pick up the story from here, but he declined by folding his arms and grinning like a shithead.
“And the natural unit? Where does it fit in?”
“We ran a full diagnostic on the job applicant and found a… chrome tat.”
Everyone on the other side of the table leaned forward except Craig.
“Wait,” Dr. Grant said. “Are you saying your job applicant is the natural unit?”
She looked down. “We are considering that possibility?”
Denise Harvey chimed in. “I don’t understand why you ran a full diagnostic on your applicant if the levels checked out.”
“A member of my team said Mr. Miller, the applicant, looked familiar. It seemed odd to me. That coupled with the report of double drift brought me to the conclusion that a full diagnostic on his sample was in order…”
“Double drift?” Dr. Grant barked.
“Yes,” Ms Pope said avoiding eye contact with the chairman.
“And that’s why I asked Lisa to attend this meeting.” Craig said turning to his subordinate. “Did you research what I asked?”
“Yes, sir, and there was a unit-to-unit test done 35 years ago.”
“Thirty-five years?” Franklin said.
“During the early stages of development before the company even officially existed, but I must say their records were as thorough as ours today,” Lisa said.
Craig cleared his throat signaling for her to get on with her findings.
“Oh, yes… The results revealed that such a match was not markedly different than a natural-to-unit match, but I did an additional search on cases of double drift, and I got a number of hits.”
“A number of hits?” Dr. Grant said as if she were challenging Lisa’s assertion. “My father founded the company. I’ve practically spent my entire adult life with the company, and I’ve never heard of a single case of double drift.”
“Again, this is from the earliest days of the company,” Lisa said as if she were apologizing for making the claim. “There were at least eight incidences of double drift with a few prototype models.”
“Eight?” Dr. Grant had never heard anything so absurd.
“Yes, ma’am. According to the records the common denominator in each case was what was referred to as the L-244 factor.”
“Which is?”
“Love,” Lisa said.
“Love?” Dr. Grant was even more outraged.
“It seems units were programmed to express and were even given the free will to identify love, what the notes describe as true love, in fact. It was nothing more than a highly potent chemical construct of course, but nonetheless it created what they called a temporary super drift. It seems that the first few hours of the match in the test were fine, just like a unit-to-human match, but then what was described as a …. highly adaptable pheromone bleed took place that built in intensity over the next 12 hours.”
“Highly adaptable?” Craig asked.
“Yes, whoever came in contact with this super drift was affected. They did not have to have a reciprocal pheromone structure. The drift adapted to each individual.”
“Super drift,” Denise said under her breath.
“A
nd after 12 hours?” Dr. Grant asked. “What happened then?”
“The drift dissipated.”
The chairman nodded. “Thank you, Lisa…”
“There’s one more thing,” the head of R&D archives said. “The records describe something they refer to as an ‘awareness residue’ in addition to the super drift.”
Dr. Grant looked around the room to see if anyone had heard the term before.
When no one spoke up, Lisa continued. “An ‘awareness residue’ is a secondary side effect of a unit-to-unit match. It affects only other bio-synthetics outside of the match.” She readied herself before saying, “Simply put, it makes them aware that they are bio-synthetics.”
A wide-eyed look passed around the room before Dr. Grant groaned in frustration, “This is just one big jumbled up fucking mess.”
“If I may,” Ms. Pope said, “We’re not even positive that Mr. Miller is a bio-syn…”
“That we even have a suspicion is a pretty fucking scary proposition,” Franklin said. “The FDA is very specific about this point. One natural unit could shut down this whole goddamn company. It’s not supposed to happen…”
“Duly noted, Franklin,” Dr. Grant said.
“One point three trillion, Judith,” Franklin said. “That was this company’s profits last year. If word gets out that a bio-syn may have given birth, we’ll be lucky if we get to keep our company pens after they shut this place down.” His voice got louder and louder as he spoke. “Can someone please tell me why we can’t figure out a way to sterilize the fucking units? Are our scientists that incompetent?”
Craig slapped his hand on the table. “You don’t know shit, Franklin. All our male units are coded sterile. And, my team has been and will continue to work on developing a successful sterile female unit, but as of now sterilization disrupts the hormonal integrity beyond our stated viability goals. If you want a bio-synthetic female that wants to talk about her feelings and cuddle, I can deliver a sterile one tomorrow. But if you want a bio-synthetic female that wants to fuck your brains out every chance it gets, hormones and fertility just come with that package.”
“Gentlemen!” Dr. Grant yelled.
A hush came over the room.
“What are we doing to identify this Mr. Miller’s origins?” The chairman asked.
Ms. Pope reluctantly answered. “I have the man who thought Mr. Miller’s face was familiar in the exhibition hall to see if it will jog his memory.”
There was a brief moment of quiet while Dr. Grant waited for her to continue, but when she didn’t, the chairman said, “That’s it?” She placed her head in her hand. “And while you’re doing that, Mr. Miller is roaming the streets of this city unattended?”
“Well, he’s with one of our units, and she’s under surveillance as usual,” Ms. Pope said tugging on her left earlobe.
Dr. Grant shook her head, “Good fucking damn, Ms. Pope even I know that our GPS tracker can be removed if you have patience and a pair of tweezers.”
“There’s no reason to think that Mr. Miller either knows where the tracker is located or if so, that he would do anything to remove it…”
“Until today, Ms. Pope, there was no reason to suspect that a natural unit existed.” The chairman turned her attention to the head of security. “Denise, pick up Mr. Miller and his unit.”
“Yes, doctor.”
“And be discreet. We don’t want any more attention than needed considering what we might be dealing with.”
“Of course.”
“And, Franklin, I know that the guidelines say you must turn in minutes to all company meetings to the FDA, but as you can see, none were taken or recorded. As a result, I assume that you are not obligated to pass any of this information on to your liaison.”
“You assume correctly. In fact, might I suggest that you shut down any possible leaks about Mr. Miller’s existence immediately?”
Dr. Grant nodded. “Agreed. Ms. Pope when this is resolved, you are to make yourself and your extraction team available to Ms. Harvey’s department for a debriefing on how to handle this information, understood?”
“Yes, Dr. Grant.”
Dr. Grant stood and exited the room.
-34-
Thomas exited the bakery gripping the white paper bag stuffed with croissants like he was holding a sack of jewels for his queen. There was no denying it. He was deeply, madly in love with Cora, and beyond the carnal, he wanted to express it in corny and sappy ways. Ways that would make the average person nauseated from the intense, radiant sweetness.
As he passed the window looking out on to the street, he noticed a small gift shop up the block with a smiley face balloon tied to a sign in front of the door that read, “Party Balloons For Every Occasion!” Never in his life had he felt an occasion deserved party balloons more. He was about to deliver perfect croissants to the perfect woman. Allowing that to happen without a dozen or so smiley face balloons would be criminal.
In a flash, he was out of the lobby of the hotel and moving down the sidewalk to the gift shop. He was picturing the delighted expression on Cora’s face when she first set her eyes on the balloons when he felt a thud to his midsection. Looking down, he saw a hand holding a flyer. The hand belonged to young woman dressed in a black hoodie. Her pale face featured a blistering red hue on her cheeks and nose due to the chill in the air.
“Don’t be part of the problem,” she said looking at Thomas with watery eyes.
Taking the flyer from her, he nearly tossed in a nearby trash can, but stopped when he saw, “The 72-Hour Lie.”
The words burrowed a path into Thomas’ memory. He saw Ms. Pope in his mind’s eye sitting at the conference table. She was informing him about the limitations of science. Bio-synthetics have no immune system after approximately 72 hours. The implications of what that meant just hit him. How could he not have considered it before? Panic, fear, and anger bombarded every nerve ending. He wanted to tear apart the world. Cora was going to be dead in a couple of hours. The woman he loved, that he lusted for, that he was so eager to hold and smell and kiss, more eager than he would be to fight for his last breath, she was going to be gone.
He read the headline of the flyer again and was desperate to know what it meant.
The girl was moving on to find her next pedestrian.
“Wait,” Thomas yelled.
The girl kept walking because she didn’t know he was talking to her. No one ever talked to her. The only time they acknowledged her was to throw some insult her way for ruining their perfect lives with her anti-establishment propaganda bullshit.
“Hey, excuse me,” Thomas said tapping her on her shoulder.
Startled she turned. “Yeah?”
He held up the flyer. “What does this mean?”
“It means Grant Bio-Syn is killing people.”
“How?”
“How? What difference does it make how?”
“I just meant…
“Oh, let me guess what you’re going to say. Bio-syns aren’t people, right? It can’t be murder if they aren’t people. Fuck you!” She ripped the flyer out of his hand. “Give me that. You don’t deserve to know the truth.” She attempted to walk away, but he stopped her by stepping in her path.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “The 72 hours… they told me… I mean I heard that they just… their immune systems…”
The girl was so taken aback by his naivety, she almost felt bad for him for being one of the idiotic sheep. “Shuts down? It’s bullshit.”
He searched for the right emotion. He was confused, but he wasn’t sure if it was because he was frightened or elated. “It’s a lie,” he said over and over again.
She snickered. “Partake in some adult beverages tonight, pal?”
He looked at her with a hopeful glimmer in his eyes. “How do you know?”
“Because you’re acting crazier than shit…”
He grabbed her arm. “No, that it’s a lie. How do you know?”
She pulled her arm free. “Because I worked for them, asshole. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”
A man attempted to pass without being noticed, but the girl thrust the flyer in his face. “Don’t be part of the problem.” He took the flyer and mumbled as he continued down the sidewalk.
“What did you do for them?” Thomas asked.
“Nothing I’m proud of.” A woman passed, but pushed the flyer back.
“Tell me. I have to know.”
She avoided eye contact with Thomas. “I don’t really like to talk about it.”
“You didn’t work there,” Thomas said.
“Fuck off, mister. I worked there for three years before I saw the light.”
“What made you see the light?”
A group of rowdy drunks were headed their way.
“Met a guy at a company Christmas party.”
The drunks told the girl to fuck off when she tried to hand them a flyer.
“Pricks!” she yelled.
“How did this guy help you see the light?”
“Why do you want to know so bad?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I have a… friend interested in working there.”
“Your friend got a soul?”
“Yeah.”
“If he wants to keep it, he should look for other employment.”
“I’ll pass it along. You never answered my question. How did the guy help you see the light?”
She looked around and when she was satisfied no one could hear she said, “He was a decommission agent.”
Thomas found himself regretting he had pushed her for more information.
“Dude was messed up. Way worse than me.”
“And he’s the one that told you that the problem with the immune system is a lie? The synthetics don’t die?”
She rolled her eyes. “Call them synthetics if it makes you feel better, but they’re people. I worked in R&D. I’ve seen how they’re made. They’re conceived artificially in a machine. They grow from a fetus to adult in a silicone bag filled with synthetic highly nutritional embryonic fluid in about four hours. They have zero awareness until they’re conditioned to take on a certain personality. There’s nothing natural about how they get here, but that doesn’t make them any less human. And, yes he, was the one who told me what the company really does with the bio-synthetics. It’s really kind of ingenious the way they do it. Sick as it is.” She shook her head in disgust as she thought about it. “They tell the world they make disposable humans that can’t think for themselves, and it’s just one big fucking lie.”