by Shanon Hunt
He shook his head.
She grabbed the paper back from his hand and flapped it at him. “But look at the date. This was dated fourteen months ago. Wouldn’t you have been the one to do the deal?”
He clasped his hands together in a gesture that seemed condescending and spoke slowly and calmly. “Allison, I know every collaborator I’ve ever dealt with by heart, as well as their email addresses, phone numbers, and favorite brands of scotch. I can dictate the contracts I’ve executed by memory. I’m telling you, I didn’t write this deal. I don’t know what it’s for, but it’s not for anything during my tenure. Maybe the date’s wrong.”
“It’s signed and dated by three people.”
“I see that. Apparently, you were one of them. I wasn’t.”
He had a point.
She sighed and stomped back to her office, where she dialed Austin’s phone for the twentieth time. As expected, she received no answer except a female robot reminding her that his voicemail box was full. Her frustration with Austin and this audit crept into apprehension. Something felt wrong.
She got up and closed her door before dialing the number on the invoice.
“Spiragene, how can I direct your call?”
“Hi there. I’m looking for Chung-Hee Hwong?” She hoped she was pronouncing the name correctly.
“One moment.” The receptionist put her on hold briefly, then returned. “Dr. Hwong is out for lunch. Would you like his voicemail?”
Allison looked through her office window at the team of auditors still fervently reviewing documents and cross-checking them against her financial tracking files. Rooney glanced up and noticed her eying them. He smiled, but the attention made her feel unsettled. Did he know something?
“Hello, ma’am? Are you still there?”
“Uh, sorry. Yes.”
She looked down at the invoice again. Bradley Elliott, signing on behalf of Quandary Therapeutics, $180,000, cosigned by Allison Stevens just over a year ago. She traced her finger over the signature. It was perfect. She would have to answer for this, and quickly.
“Ma’am?”
She snapped to attention. “Yes, I’m sorry. My name is Allison Stevens with Quandary Therapeutics. Dr. Hwong has been doing some important research work for us, and I’d like to meet with him to get a report on the status. This is quite urgent, as we have a meeting with the board of directors first thing Monday morning, so do you think it would it be okay if I came by this afternoon to speak with him?”
She had no idea where this lie had come from. She cringed, waiting for the receptionist to call her bluff.
“Oh, Ms. Stevens! Please accept my apologies. I didn’t recognize your voice. Please hold on for just one minute, and I’ll connect you with Barbara.”
The adrenaline rush made her queasy, much like her stage fright. She paced in front of her desk to calm her nerves. She was a terrible liar.
“Ms. Stevens, this is Barbara Gilbert. It’s so nice to hear from you! I understand you’d like to come over for a project update?”
Jesus, this woman knew her. Allison was aghast. She held her composure, now fully committed to her story. “I’m so sorry for this last-minute request. The week just got away from me. Do you think Dr. Hwong would be available?”
“Of course. What time will you arrive? Is three o’clock okay?”
Allison glanced at her watch. “Yes, that would be perfect. Thank you so much. I really appreciate your flexibility.”
“Of course. And will Brad be joining you? We haven’t seen him in months.”
Brad? Shit. Now what? “Uh, n-no. I mean, I wish he were joining me. I know Brad’s far more familiar with the project than I am, but unfortunately he’s … he’s out of the country. A family emergency.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Please give him our very best. And we’ll all look forward to finally meeting you this afternoon.”
“Thanks again.” She hung up.
She had to urinate in the worst way; she was hopping back and forth like a little girl. What the hell was she doing?
***
“Here goes nothing,” Allison murmured as she stepped through the revolving door into the building’s lobby. The company was located in one of the nicest skyscrapers in the coveted Journal Square district of Jersey City. Very posh. It was one of those places where jeans would have looked out of place, and she was glad she’d dressed up today. The lobby must have been three stories tall inside, with floor-to-ceiling white marble walls and an enormous crystal chandelier. Her heels clanked on the shiny marble floors as she made her way to the elevators. This didn’t make sense. Every research lab she’d ever visited looked like it could’ve doubled as a college dormitory.
She stepped into the elevator and pressed button twenty-two, next to the Spiragene Inc. logo and the slogan Global Leader in DNA Origami. Nervous knots coiled in her belly. What on earth was DNA origami? It wasn’t like her to be unprepared for a meeting, but the auditors had kept her captive until she had to excuse herself at two o’clock. She knew nothing about Spiragene, and she had no idea who Bradley Elliott was or how he represented Quandary in this collaboration.
“Hello, Dr. Hwong,” she rehearsed under her breath. “Thank you so much for your time, and I do apologize for the urgency. I can’t seem to locate the documentation—” No. That would make her look sloppy. “We have an urgent meeting with the board—and ugh, bad timing, Brad had to leave the country for a family emergency. I thought perhaps I should check in with you about the project.”
Her phone rang, and she glanced down at the caller ID. Kiran. No doubt he was calling to scold her for leaving early. That weasel auditor had probably thrown her under the bus. She pressed the decline button and continued with her rehearsal.
“I’m kind of embarrassed. I should probably know more about this project, but we tend to divide and conquer over at Quandary. This has really been Brad’s baby.”
That would have to do. The elevator opened into an elegant reception area. Fresh flowers were arranged in vases on the end tables next to a plush sofa. A stand with complimentary herbal tea stood in the corner.
“Ms. Stevens!” The receptionist greeted her enthusiastically and grabbed Allison’s hand to lead her across the room. “It’s very nice to meet you. The team is already gathered and waiting.”
Allison’s mouth turned to cotton at the sight of the cherrywood conference doors across the lobby. “Thank you. But before we begin, I was wondering if you could direct me to a water fountain?”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve ordered refreshments for the meeting. Everything’s inside. Right this way.”
The receptionist ushered her through the double doors. “Ms. Stevens has arrived.” She left quickly, closing the door behind her.
Around a stunning cherrywood boardroom table sat fifteen people in formal business attire, all staring back at her. A slide displaying the Spiragene logo was projected on a large screen behind the woman at the head of the table. A lone empty chair waited before a pad and pen at the opposite end of the long table. Allison assumed that was for her. Along the wall, a long, slender table was staged with a tower display of small finger cakes, a large antique silver coffee urn, and lines of perfectly arranged bottles of Evian and Pellegrino. Her eyes lingered on the Evian and she licked her dry lips, but she didn’t move.
This was a really bad idea.
The woman at the head of the table stood up and walked over to her, smiling. “Ms. Stevens. I’m Barbara Gilbert, CEO of Spiragene. We’re so glad you’re able to visit.” She held out a stiff arm.
“Please call me Allison.” Her mouth was so dry it came out as a croaky whisper. She tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace.
She groped for Gilbert’s hand, wondering if she’d just committed career suicide.
Chapter 12
Malloy glided past the dozen or so agents seated at the three briefing room tables, buried in their phones. He nodded at Garcia, who stood leaning against the wall with a cup of coffee in one han
d and a glazed doughnut in the other. All systems normal. The Skype logo was splashed across the top of the video screen at the front of the room above a view of what appeared to be an empty dorm room. The bed was piled high with laundry, and several posters of Kiss circa 1980 hung from the unpainted cinderblock walls.
Malloy addressed the room. “Thank you all for joining us. Most of you aren’t working on the LXR case, but I thought we’d all benefit from a bit of education on a new type of drug problem we might be dealing with in the near future.”
On the video screen, a lanky teenager sat down in front of a camera. He wore an unbuttoned blue shirt over a T-shirt of what appeared to be an image of Bugs Bunny sitting on a toilet. He pulled a leather cross-body messenger bag over his head, causing his bushy hair to flop down over his eyes, and dropped it next to him.
“Perfect.” Malloy struggled to keep a straight face. “I’d like to introduce Dr. Jordan Jennings.”
The hostility in the room was palpable. His seasoned old-timers sat back in their chairs and crossed their arms over their chests, a clear message.
If they only knew what was coming.
“Dr. Jennings is a consultant working with us from the East Coast,” he continued. “He’s here to help us understand what we’re dealing with. As all of you know, Forensics discovered three vials, two empty and one half-full, in Mark Vespe’s possession. Analytics was unable to identify the substance, and they recruited Dr. Jennings and his genetics lab to help.”
He took a seat in the corner.
“Hey. Thanks for inviting me. Please call me Jordan.” Jordan waved a hand so close to his camera that it took up the entire screen. Illegible notes had been scribbled across his palm in blue ink. “Just real quick on my background. I’ll start with your obvious question. I’m twenty-one years old.” He glanced down at his watch. “Actually, I’m twenty-one and a quarter.”
That elicited a chuckle.
“I was one of those nerdy kids who graduated from high school early—at fifteen, actually—and then went straight to college. I graduated with a bachelor’s in biology and computer science from MIT in three years and went on for a PhD from Harvard. I finished my thesis this year in epigenetics, and I’ve been doing postdoc research for the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts.” He paused to catch his breath. “And as I’m sure you’ve all figured out, I’ve never been laid.”
Another chuckle from the group. Malloy grinned. His agents now sat forward, interested. Poor kid must have to go through this song and dance every time he met someone new.
“Now, on to the good stuff,” Jordan said. “Your lab sent me a sample from the vial labeled LXR102016, and I had my own team analyze the substance. We didn’t believe what we were seeing, so we reanalyzed it. What we found was pretty shocking. Then Agent Malloy was kind enough to procure a tissue sample from two victims, which we also analyzed, and they confirmed my theory.”
Jordan took a long pull from a bottle of Tazo iced green tea.
“What we’re looking at is nothing we’ve ever seen before in humans. We did an extensive search through the literature, looking for a successful implementation of this drug—or rather, this new technology—in any lab, and we can’t find anything. Not in the US or anywhere else in the world. This drug you’re trying to find isn’t a chemical drug like meth or coke. This is a gene-altering drug. And the genes that it’s targeting are newly discovered, so this is brand-new territory.”
Jordan leaned off camera and reappeared holding a colorful, corkscrew-shaped object about eighteen inches long. The agents nodded, clearly recognizing the double helix model of a DNA strand. It emitted a soft, glowing light.
“I could bore you to tears with a mindless PowerPoint presentation, but I thought I’d play with toys instead. I understand that’s what a kid my age is supposed to be doing.”
Malloy smirked. The kid probably got a lot of mileage out of that one.
“You all probably remember from Bio 101 that all the cells in our body contain DNA, which is the genetic code of all living things. DNA is made up of four types of nucleotide bases, the building blocks of DNA, and every characteristic in every individual is defined by some sequence of these four bases, which attach as pairs, creating the rungs of the ladder here.” He pointed at the crossbars between the helix strands. “With me so far?”
Nods came from everyone in the room.
“Okay, so this DNA strand, which lives in all cells in your body, is wicked long, all coiled up in the nucleus of every cell. Three billion base pairs. Fun fact: If you were to scale up a single strand to the width of a human hair and stretch it out, it would be sixty-two miles long.”
He took another swig of tea, then pulled a hairband off his wrist and tied his around his hair to create a man bun on top of his head. Malloy recognized the pauses and fidgeting as nervous behavior and felt a pang of sympathy. Despite his accomplishments, Jordan was just a kid. Younger than Robbie, even.
“Yeah. So all along this strand of DNA are small sections—sequences, we call them—of bases that instruct proteins in our bodies to do different jobs. These small sequences are genes. And genes, you all remember, are what determine every characteristic about humans, and about you as an individual, including some diseases. Only just recently, with a greater understanding of the human genetic code and advances in biotechnology, are we now able to manipulate genes, giving us more ways to cure genetic diseases. Lots of biotech and pharma companies out there are working on gene therapeutics for diseases. That’s all good, wholesome work.”
“You’re talking about CRISPR,” Miles Deleon called out. Malloy wasn’t surprised. Deleon was well read and wanted everyone to know it.
“Yeah, exactly!” Jordan nodded. “Right. So remember that your genes are also responsible for normal functions of your bodies: eye color, allergies, athletic performance, food cravings. Every aspect of your being is controlled by specific genes. Including your ability to feel pain.”
The room perked up at the word pain.
“Your victims here are just like the Joker in Batman. This drug has made them immune to pain.”
Chapter 13
The room erupted in whispered conversations. Malloy put a stop to it when he heard someone mention a “goddamn superhero drug.”
“Let him continue.”
Jordan reangled his camera and stood up, as if too nervous to sit any longer. “Only in the last couple of years have scientists discovered these pain genes and their functions, primarily by sequencing the genomes of families who curiously have a very low sensitivity to pain—street performers who walk on fiery coals, kids who break bones but never notice. You’ve seen stories in the news. Anyway, in studying these families, they’ve learned of a handful of these genes so far that when they’re missing or turned off in these special people don’t send pain signals to the brain. What’s in your vial is a gene editing drug for one of these pain genes. It’s called SCN9A.”
“So … what?” Garcia asked. “You’re saying what’s in this vial is destroying these pain genes?”
“Not destroying it, per se. What’s in the vial has altered the gene in a way that’s made it no longer able to do its job.” He moved off screen and returned with a smaller DNA toy, which he snapped into a middle section of the larger DNA strand. The snapped section went dark. “Silenced it. Turned it off like a light switch.”
“Get the fuck outta here!” Garcia edged closer to the video screen, like a moth drawn to the light. “You can do that?”
“Yeah, but here’s the thing. Silencing a gene is pretty simple, and we’ve been doing that for years. You don’t need complicated gene therapy just to silence a gene.” Jordan leaned over his desk and peered into the camera. His voice took on a conspiratorial tone. “So this is the part that gets spooky—and I’m talking mad scientist creepy. Let’s say Dr. Frankenstein wanted to create a drug that silenced a pain gene so that someone wouldn’t feel pain. All he’d need to do is send out a very small RNA—think o
f it as a little Smart car—that instructs the gene to stop doing its job. Simple. The gene would turn off like a switch, just like we talked about.”
Garcia’s expression of childlike wonder made Malloy uneasy. There was nothing wondrous about a mad scientist creating a superhero drug.
“But what Dr. Frankenstein has done here is he’s taken a super-huge megagene related to pain perception, and he’s removed and replaced sections—a little snip here, a little addition there—to create a modified gene. He’s added in some mutations and taken out sequences. He created a little nano-size Frankenstein’s monster that’s very different from the original gene. It’s no longer anything we’d recognize in a normal human.”
“Jesus,” Garcia breathed.
“And here’s the important part: It’s huge, like a freight train. This new Frankengene—let’s call it gene Z, since it no longer looks anything like the original SCN9A gene—this gene Z exists in perfect formation in both victims whose tissue I analyzed.”
“So that’s it? The victims can’t feel any pain at all?” Rachel Simcoe asked. Rachel was newest to his team, and Malloy liked her go-getter attitude.
“Impossible to know for sure since they can’t tell us, but that’s my theory, just reading the profiles of the victims. One of your John Does practically carved up his entire body with messages from aliens, right?”
Malloy had wanted to forget that particular image. The homeless man had spent hours with a dull knife carving his legs and torso, even his face. It was only a matter of days before infection spread through his body and killed him.
“Why would someone want to create a drug like this?” Malloy asked.
Something else was bothering him. Mark Vespe’s expression had haunted him since he’d first seen the kid’s video, a delirious PCP look that lingered even as junkies jumped from a skyscraper or took a dozen bullets. Vespe’s face wasn’t the face of someone high on a painkiller.
“I have an idea, but it’s just a guess.” Jordan said, holding up a finger. “Stay with me. Something’s been nagging at me. Why would someone go through all the trouble of creating a complicated Frankengene? In science, we always look for the simplest approach to solving a problem. In this case of trying to eliminate pain, you don’t need to replace a whole gene with a mutated gene or use complex gene editing technologies like CRISPR for that. Why create the freight train–sized gene Z when all they needed was to silence it with a little Smart car–sized strand of RNA?”
