KILLER T

by Robert Muchamore

  DIY and yakking with the neighbours made Harry feel way older than twenty-one as he made the climb to the solar array, set on a natural slope thirty yards from the house.

  He often wondered about an alternative history, where Killer-T didn’t happen and he’d gone to college in New York. But Harry was as happy as he’d ever been.

  His parents had offered no stability when he was little. Kirsten had done her best, but was always busy with work and Harry rarely felt like the most important thing in her life. So, while it wasn’t easy living in the desert, he felt as if he properly belonged somewhere for the first time in his life.

  He pulled his cell and switched on Bluetooth to connect to the panel’s diagnostic app. Four six-yard-long solar strips provided enough electricity for the house, two cars and a large backup battery. Their water was pumped from an underground well and directly heated by the sun for most of the year.

  The energy app told Harry that all four panels were doing their job, and the water in the tubes was near boiling, though the sun had barely risen. The problem had to be the pump that sent pressurised hot water into the house.

  It took a hex key to loosen the water pump’s sun-warmed metal cover. The pump worked by spinning a little turbine connected to an electric motor and Harry saw that the drive gears were clogged with sand and grit. After switching the pump off, he blasted the dust with a compressed air cylinder, dripped in some lubrication oil and rolled the gears back and forth to spread it.

  When he flipped the power back on, Harry was pleased to see the pump spin for around twenty seconds, cutting off when a gauge showed that the water flowing to the house had reached the correct pressure.

  As he reattached the pump cover, a gust caught Harry by surprise and the grit he inhaled made him start coughing. He clutched his ribs and hacked violently, grabbing the toolbox and jogging back to the house.

  Ed sat shirtless at the kitchen table as Harry rushed in.

  ‘Is it fixed?’ Ed asked, but Harry ignored him and leaned under the kitchen faucet to gulp water.

  ‘This damned cough!’ Harry rasped. He swallowed water, then hacked a big bloody glob into the sink.

  ‘You OK?’ Charlie asked as she stepped into the doorway wearing a robe. ‘That cough’s getting worse.’

  ‘All good,’ Harry denied, swallowing the taste of blood as he looked round and tried not to wince at the powerful ache in his chest.

  ‘Is the water back on?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Should be,’ Harry said. ‘I’m gonna ask Vern to look at that pump, though. I think we might need a bigger one.’

  ‘I’ll go for my shower now,’ Ed said.

  Charlie cracked a cheeky grin from the doorway. ‘I’m nearest,’ she announced. ‘I’m gonna use all the hot water today.’

  ‘Aww!’ Ed shouted, knocking his chair back and charging after his sister.

  But Charlie was already halfway up the stairs. ‘I’m gonna take a looooong shower today,’ she teased, reaching the landing and opening the bathroom door. ‘You boys are gonna freeze your balls off!’

  Ed slipped at the top of the stairs, then pounded the door as Charlie cracked a maniacal laugh from inside. He wore a huge smile as he came back into the kitchen.

  ‘Charlie’s a meanie,’ Ed said.

  ‘Peach-flavoured space food, coming up,’ Harry told Ed as he opened a cabinet and took out a brown bag. It had simple black printing, USDA Emergency Adult Nutrition 12lbs. Not for Resale.

  Harry scooped the powder into two breakfast bowls and added half a mug of water, which made it swell into a doughy, cream-coloured porridge. Space food could be baked to make a sweet, slightly nutty bread, or mixed with a range of synthetic flavours designed to make it palatable for kids.

  ‘Breakfast for monsieur,’ Harry said, hamming it with a French accent as he placed the bowl and flavour sachet in front of Ed. Then in his normal voice, ‘Charlie managed to buy a bag of apples if you want one.’

  Ed preferred the synthetic peach flavour and turned up his nose. ‘What are we doing today?’

  Harry crunched an apple. ‘You need to go online and do some independent learning modules this morning.’

  ‘Can’t I go into town with Charlie?’ Ed moaned.

  ‘She’s seeing a patient today,’ Harry said. ‘If there are no virus alerts, we might all go bowling together on Saturday.’

  ‘Nice,’ Ed said, beaming. ‘I smashed you last time.’

  ‘I’ve got jobs to do in the polytunnels and around the house. If my chest calms down, we can go for a run together after lunch.’

  Ed liked this idea. ‘And lift weights afterwards?’

  Harry laughed. ‘You’re turning into a proper gym rat.’

  Ed lifted his arms to show a chunky bicep. ‘All natural,’ he said. ‘Unlike some people in this house …’

  57 ONE-POINT-SIX BILLION

  Fresh from her shower, and dressed in a business-like grey skirt and black blouse combo, Charlie rolled back a rug, exposing a circular metal floor hatch.

  The house had been built in the 1980s, when nuclear fall-out shelters were all the rage. The underground space now served as Charlie’s lab, and she clanked down a metal ladder, walked an eight-foot section of tunnel, then ducked through the frame of a metal door, the airtight rubber seals of which had long since perished.

  The backbone of Charlie’s lab was the sequencing, printing and replicating units she’d taken from Mango’s RV three years earlier. To the best of Charlie’s knowledge, Mango and her family were all still alive. Luckily for Charlie, the same couldn’t be said for magician Helen Back, or the agents who’d been investigating Mango’s operation.

  Charlie’s lawyer had advised that the FBI case against her would be on file somewhere, but the aftermath of Killer-T had left law enforcement with a depleted staff and a huge caseload. It was unlikely anyone would revive a case where lead investigators and the originating witness were dead.

  After grabbing a foil-lined cool bag out of a benchtop freezer, Charlie took fifteen sealed glass vials from a refrigerator. She laid them carefully in the bag and topped it with protective foam to stop the contents rattling.

  She lowered this gently into a drawstring bag she’d readied the day before. It contained sterile syringes and a memory card, on to which she’d burnt full details of a patient’s original DNA, along with details of the modifications being made.

  Techniques for reversing DNA alterations had advanced significantly since Charlie first started working for Mango, and the card contained a set of files that could be loaded into the DNA printer at any major hospital to create a safe reversal treatment.

  ‘I’m heading out,’ Charlie yelled as she exited the shelter and hid the door with the rug.

  She got no answer. Ed was in the kitchen at his laptop, wearing headphones. He didn’t even notice when Charlie peeked in to check that he was doing schoolwork rather than playing a game or chatting to his home-schooled pals.

  Harry had gone out to the polytunnels behind the house, tending the fruit and veggies before it got too hot. Since Harry wouldn’t be leaving home, Charlie took his Porsche for the first part of the journey into Vegas.

  The penalties for running an illegal gene lab, or minor involvement in modding activity, now began with ten years’ imprisonment. Though stiff sentencing and the creation of a lavishly funded Genetic Modification Enforcement Agency had done no more to stop people altering their bodies than previous generations of cops had done to halt the supply of illegal drugs.

  After stopping at a drugstore to pick up five of the latest vaccine needles, Charlie crossed a sunny parking lot towards a coffee shop.

  Killer-T had wiped close to forty per cent of Nevada’s population and small businesses had been devastated by a combination of supply problems, the death of skilled staff and a lack of customers. Charlie had bought the coffee shop’s lease cheaply from the owner’s surviving grandkids.

  ‘Hey, boss,’ a barista named Gwen said as Charlie
went through the quarantine box. Gwen was one of the lucky five per cent who’d caught Killer-T and survived. But her arms and forehead bore deep blister scars, and her scalp had several bald patches.

  All shops now had drive-thru or walk-up windows, where staff fetched online orders or grabbed what you needed. Entering any store, office or indoor mall meant a couple of minutes in a quarantine box. Besides powerful UV lamps, the box sprayed disinfectant on your shoes, scanned your body for a raised temperature and read the tag from your most recent vaccine update.

  There were eight customers spread over sixty seats, but the drive-thru window had a healthy queue, and Charlie was pleased to see cakes and sandwiches shelved inside the glass counter, each individually packaged with their own sterile cutlery.

  There was less variety than there would have been before Killer-T, and hyperinflation meant a choc-chip muffin cost sixty dollars, but things were improving. A year ago the only edibles would have been instant noodle packs and space-food biscuits.

  ‘I’ve got something for you girls,’ Charlie said as the quarantine box’s acrylic doors slid open to let her in.

  She reached into a bag and placed four small pints of strawberries on the countertop. ‘We grew them in the polytunnels,’ Charlie explained. ‘Well, Harry did.’

  ‘First strawberry I’ve seen since Killer-T,’ Gwen said as another barista backed up from the drive-thru window to admire them.

  ‘Anything else going on?’ Charlie asked. ‘Supplies?’

  ‘No major problems, for once,’ Gwen said. ‘I can’t get carbon dioxide cylinders, so drinks with whipped cream are off the menu for now. I called around the catering suppliers. Everyone’s saying four to eight weeks until they get a delivery, and when they do it’s not gonna be cheap.’

  ‘I appreciate the work you put in to keep this place running,’ Charlie said brightly. ‘How about those zombies hanging around?’

  ‘The two that kept banging the windows and harassing us when we locked up at night got picked up,’ Gwen said. ‘Put up a heck of a fight.’

  ‘They didn’t used to mind getting arrested,’ Charlie said. ‘But they know they’ll get shipped to a reversal centre now.’

  ‘Three times my neighbour’s boy has been reversed,’ Gwen said, tutting. ‘Every time they reverse his z-mods, he cries and says he wants to kill himself. His poor ma is at her wits end.’

  ‘Awful seeing kids like that,’ Charlie agreed. She glanced at her watch. ‘Can I grab a flat white, and a couple of the cinnamon chocolate sticks to take up to the office while I do the accounts?’

  ‘Synthetic coffee?’ Gwen asked.

  ‘I’ll go mad,’ Charlie laughed. ‘What’s the point owning a coffee shop if you can’t have a real one every now and then?’

  58 PEER PRESSURE

  Charlie had copied Mango’s business model, doing genetic editing on clients who came by word-of-mouth recommendation and were happy to pay for quality work. While Mango had used Radical Cakes to launder the profits from her lab, Charlie used her income to buy up cheap leases and reopen bankrupt coffee shops.

  After taking her real coffee upstairs to an office, and spending two hours doing bookkeeping and payroll for her employees, Charlie took a taxi to The Strip and used cash to rent one of the Algarve Casino’s meeting rooms.

  Her clients were fifteen minutes late. An apologetic woman, with greying hair and a formidable bust, accompanied by her thirteen-year-old grandson, Judah. He was a serious boy with a slender build and the type of curled black hair that always looks a mess.

  Charlie tried to seem older than her twenty years when she met patients. Besides her sober outfit, she adopted a deeper voice as she went through the ritual of hellos, seat taking and offers of bottled water from the little bar at the back of the room.

  ‘So, Judah, how’s life?’ Charlie said, reading anxiety in the boy’s face and remembering how awkward being thirteen felt.

  ‘Good,’ he spat.

  ‘Your general health?’

  ‘Fine.’

  The grandmother spoke. ‘He had a temperature a couple of weeks back, after our first meeting. There were some weird modified ants around in the lockers at his school. Nobody quite knows what they were, but a few kids got sick.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Charlie said. ‘When did you last record an elevated temperature?’

  ‘Seven days ago,’ Judah said. ‘The quarantine box at school rejected me and I had to go home.’

  ‘I wouldn’t start treatment if you’re under the weather, but seven days is fine,’ Charlie said as she pulled the cooler bag out and placed it on the oval meeting table. ‘So I’ve done all your lab work. The bad news is we discussed thirteen modifications, but I could only do twelve.

  ‘When I checked your DNA, I found that you have a fairly common genetic mutation that can cause complications with the memory enhancement you requested. The side effect is uncommon, but I always urge a conservative approach.’

  Judah didn’t seem too worried, but the grandmother looked flustered. ‘Can we consider something else for his memory? So many other boys in his school have memory mods. It’s hard to compete academically.’

  ‘I did some research,’ Charlie said. ‘There are other modifications that improve memory, but none that I’d be happy to use until we have a better idea of the long-term effects. Judah is still having mods that will improve cognition and IQ.’

  Judah sat forward. ‘But all the physical stuff is OK, right?’

  Charlie smiled. ‘Absolutely. The mods will darken your skin, as if you have a good tan. Straighten that tangled hair. Improve muscle mass and bone density, and probably increase your eventual adult height by three to four inches. The mods will also give your immune system a boost, protect against depression and reduce your chances of many cancers and long-term obesity.’

  ‘You modded two boys in my class,’ Judah said excitedly. ‘They’re so ripped now. They can crush me!’

  ‘That’s David and Ben, isn’t it?’ Charlie asked, and Judah nodded. ‘I’m glad they’re doing well.’

  ‘I have to say this makes me queasy,’ the grandmother interrupted. ‘But what can I do? He’s surrounded by boys who are modded. They’re faster and stronger. They do better than him academically and he comes home upset. Once a couple of boys get enhanced, they all want it.’

  Charlie had no medical qualifications, but over time she’d realised that people liked her to act like a doctor and give words of comfort, even if she was only parroting information that could be found online.

  ‘I think we all stress over modding teenagers,’ Charlie reassured her. ‘But the technology is far better than it was even a couple of years ago. Instead of injecting stem cells until modded cells outnumber the regular ones and start to take over, we can now actively destroy the original cells too.

  ‘The transformation from your original genes to enhanced ones is faster and, whereas everyone used to take auto-immune drugs and three-quarters of people had some kind of unpleasant reaction to gene therapy, the immune drugs are now built into the treatment and less than five per cent get anything more than a slightly raised temperature. It’s a lot more work for me – which is why other labs still use less sophisticated methods – but it’s worth the effort.’

  The grandmother managed a nod and a slight smile.

  ‘If you’re both happy, I’m ready to show Judah how to handle his injections. But I will need to take payment before beginning the treatment.’

  ‘Can you run through fines and registration again?’ the grandmother asked.

  Charlie nodded. ‘The government websites make it look scary, but, while gene modding is illegal, close to half the population now has at least one mod and they can’t throw us all in jail. The best thing to do is wait a month or so for Judah’s mods to bed in, then go online and fill in the Modification Declaration form. The fines are currently twenty thousand dollars, though with inflation they’ll probably be closer to twenty-five by next month.

&nbs
p; ‘You’ll also have to register Judah’s modified genome with his family doctor, and it’s best to give them copies of my records. Your medical insurance won’t cover complications related to Judah’s mods and, lastly, you’ll have to notify his school. Once Judah is modified, he’ll no longer be eligible to play for school sports teams, or get an athletic scholarship to college.’

  ‘I’m awful at sport anyway,’ Judah said. ‘But I’m gonna buy some weights, cos David and Ben look awesome. The girls are practically drooling!’

  The grandma went a little thin lipped. ‘There’s more to getting a girlfriend than having abs and a big chest, Judah,’ she said crossly. ‘And you’re only thirteen. You should be focused on your studies.’

  There was a moment’s awkward silence before the grandmother opened her handbag and pulled out two large bundles of $5,000 bills.

  ‘One point two million,’ she said, resting the bricks of money on the desktop. ‘Which is ten times what I paid for my house. But with this crazy inflation …’

  Judah mocked his grandma. ‘I remember when you could buy a condo tower, three Bentleys and a slave plantation and still have change out of a dollar!’

  ‘Don’t be tiresome, Judah,’ the grandmother snapped as Charlie concealed a smirk.

  ‘I drank a three-hundred-dollar cup of real coffee this morning,’ Charlie said. ‘Hyperinflation is a crazy thing! Now, Judah, on a scale of one to ten, where ten is the worst, how scared would you say you are of needles?’

  Judah shrugged casually, but she could tell he was worried. ‘If my friend Ben can do it … Maybe a five, or six out of ten.’

  ‘OK,’ Charlie said. ‘You’re going to need three injections per day, for thirty days. Then you’ll come back to me, and we’ll do bone marrow and muscle tests. Hopefully all the mods should be locked in, and you’ll be seeing new tissue types growing.

  ‘Now, I’ll do your first injection and you can do the second yourself while I watch. And remember it’s really important to stick to the schedule and inject the doses in the correct spots. The good news is it’s better than it used to be. When my boyfriend had mods done a few years back, he had to do eighteen injections per day.’