The Darwin Variant

by Kenneth Johnson

  She dived in for another deep kiss. But my eyes were open. I kept pouring all my physical energy into the sex, but I was multitasking: looking off at the wild strawberry plant.

  My mind was buzzin’ with new possibilities.

  Dr. R.W. Hutcherson, 35, epidemiologist. . .

  I’d stopped by Susan’s office around noon that Monday. She was off doing some local field research so Lilly was temporarily alone. Prashant, Joseph, and others kept an eye on her when Susan had to be out briefly. I needed some background research references for the AIDS testing. I was scribbling notes faster than a Montana jackrabbit because Lilly was rattling off resources to me a mile a minute, without stuttering, while she worked at a complicated connect-the-dots picture. “. . . And there’s Journal of Applied Physiology, September, 2009, Drs. Zhang Sun Lee and Noro Saxena, ‘Side Effects from HIV Treatment Combinations’ . . . Also Scientific American, January, 2015, Smith, Christopher. ‘Bacteriophage and AIDS.’ Also—”

  “Hang on, Lilly, wait,” I pleaded, laughing. “God, if I had a memory like yours I could run this place. You’re amazing!”

  “‘Ex-exceptional,’” she said flatly, politely correcting me. “Susie says ‘exceptional.’ Of course you shouldn’t m-move my pencils.”

  I realized that I had nudged one pencil a couple of millimeters out of line with the other three that Lilly had meticulously lined up on her desk. “Oh. You’re right. I’m so sorry.”

  “I like to keep them nice and n-neat,” she said, adjusting them with studious specificity.

  “I’ll remember, I promise.” I smiled at her, but her pretty blue eyes were downcast, so she didn’t notice. Her mention of Christopher Smith prompted me to ask about the photo pinned on Susan’s note board. It was her and a guy in rock-climbing gear, smiling at the camera. “Lilly, is that the same Christopher Smith who used to be Susan’s . . . friend?”

  Lilly didn’t look up from her connect the dots. “Yeah.”

  “Were they . . . a couple, Lilly?” She nodded without looking up. “What happened to him?”

  “Chris went a-away. Two years ago. It was a Tuesday. Very w-windy.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Don’t know.” She rotated the paper to more easily connect a dot.

  “Why did he go away?”

  “Susie s-said he ‘disagreed.’”

  “With her?”

  “With everybody.” Lilly checked her slightly oversize wristwatch and set her dot work aside to turn on her iPad. She focused on it, and I realized that she had unconsciously tuned me out. Not rudely. Simply because Lilly lived in her own autistic savant cocoon. A shame, I thought.

  Then a familiar, low-pitched woman’s voice said, “Hey cowboy, want to hit the chuck wagon again?”

  Dr. Lauren Fletcher was smiling from the doorway. She looked striking, as usual. And I got the sense she usually knew it. And also who was boss. I smiled back. “Always happy to chow down with you, ma’am.”

  And it always seemed like the politic response.

  Dr. Susan Perry. . .

  Fifty-year-old rancher Claude Hickock was one of my least favorite types. He was the condescending sort who spent more time evaluating my breasts than looking into my eyes.

  He walked lazily beside his corral with me. His Whitesville cattle ranch was in southwestern Georgia. He drew a baronial breath, spoke with a honeyed Southern drawl. “Well, I don’t know ’bout them wackos over in Tennessee, little lady, but I think the reports from here in Jaw-juh got kinda exaggerated.”

  I was astonished, said pointedly, “But one of your men was killed.”

  He paused, put his right boot up on the corral fence and adjusted his expensive Stetson. I felt as though he was measuring his words carefully as he chewed his tobacco. “Yeah.” He paused to turn slightly aside and spit a plug. So attractive. “Yeah, and that’uz real unfortunate. But workin’ with steers, accidents can happen. Even to experienced wranglers.”

  “But from the report we got, the cattle sounded uncharacteristically aggressive.”

  “Uh-huh.” He nodded, looked away, and still seemed to be parsing his words. “Never did figure out what the hell spooked ’em.” Then he drew a positive breath and looked back at me as innocently as he could muster, gesturing toward the herd. “But you seen how the rest of ’em are fine.”

  He smiled and checked my breasts again, which made me all the more resolute and determined. “That may be, but I need to examine the cattle that attacked the men.”

  “Them animals been destroyed.” He spat again. Picked a flake of the vile stuff from his lip.

  Now I was angry, but maintained my focus. “Mr. Hickock, I specifically sent word that you needed to keep—”

  “You wuz too late I’m afraid, darlin’. Sure sorry I cain’t help you more.”

  You patronizing, sexist, dickhead asshole! I screamed. Internally. In my professional capacity representing the CDC, I had to keep those words bottled up tightly until I could pound on my steering wheel later. Instead I could only glare at him. He merely smiled back.

  And there was something in his expression that disturbed me: an almost frightening air of superiority, beyond the usual misogynistic BS. I also felt like I’d seen that peculiar glint in his eyes somewhere before. Yes. It was like the strange look from that farmworker’s child who had been attacked by the crows.

  That image haunted me as, frowning, I pulled onto old Route 35 that bordered the Hickock property. I was angry at being stonewalled by the jerk. Then I saw something ahead and slowed my car for a more careful look.

  It was a chain-link fence. It wouldn’t have been an unusual sight somewhere else. But in the country along a pasture? Newly erected. And set just inside the wooden split-rail fence, which was the regular fencing for this area. The chain link was six feet tall and paralleled the split rail to the far end of the property, then ran off into the woods beyond.

  What had particularly caught my eye was how the shiny new chain link veered off at a very peculiar diagonal across the open field.

  I noticed that the pasture on the far side of the fence was much greener than on my side. And it looked even more green as it sloped down toward a peach orchard, which was amazingly thick, lush, and beautiful. I got out of my car for a better look. Even from a distance I could see that the peach trees were heavily laden with golden fruit. But the growing season was nearly over. It was all very odd.

  I left the car, stepped through the split rail, and then skirted along the diagonal chain link toward the orchard, trying to get a closer look at the greener field and the peaches. Suddenly I heard a whoop-whoop siren. Looking around, I saw a military-style police jeep roaring up the hillside toward me from the woods near the orchard. The African American driver was uniformed in camouflage fatigues, and wore a matching cap over his regulation buzz cut. His face was shaved so closely that it looked as polished as his boots. He wore reflective sunglasses. He had a half-eaten peach in his hand, as he stepped smartly out of the jeep, saying, “Sorry, ma’am, that area’s been cordoned off.”

  “Why?” I frowned, staring at the annoying reflection of myself in his mirrored glasses. I could barely see his eyes.

  “Radiation.”

  I looked sharply at him and then over at the field. “One of those fragments from the comet? Fell out there?”

  “Mebbe. Have to ask you to go back to your car now.”

  “Are you army or—”

  “Private security contractor. Y’have to move along, ma’am. For your own safety.” Even through the reflective glasses, I saw that he had fixed a smiling, but decidedly chilly, eye on me. I glanced again at the strangely lush pasture and orchard. Preoccupied, I nodded absently to him and began walking back up toward my car.

  Then I paused, looking back at the unusual field, the trees with their unnatural abundance of golden fruit, and the steely security officer. The whole scene combined to create an unsettling, mysterious feeling. He took another bite of his juicy, near-perfect p
each and held my gaze. Even from this distance I could sense his elevated arrogance, his demeanor that was eerily similar to rancher Hickock’s, as though they shared a much-deeper-than-ordinary secret.

  Something was very wrong at Hickock’s ranch and on this farmland. I determined to find out what it was.

  7

  TEAMWORK

  Darren Green. . .

  All the guys on the Warriors squad were having a loud brawl in the locker room. They didn’t know I was back in the equipment room. I’d come early that Friday to get the football gear ready for our second game. I edged up to the door to see what was happening. I was kinda freaked ’cause it sounded really nasty. They were pissed off, shouting, cussing. Then fists started flying, but I couldn’t figure who was on what side. It wasn’t like juniors against seniors or racial or anything. It was like they were all just fighting with each other. And it was ugly.

  Coach Caruso suddenly plowed in, jerking some fighters apart, shoving others aside. “Hey. HEY! Break it up! You hear me?” In addition to playing football, Caruso’d been a boxer and still worked out on the machines every night after school. He was not somebody to mess with. And he was fuming. “What the hell is wrong with you guys?!” He glared at them. “Save it for the other team!”

  There was sudden, angry silence. “Somebody want to tell me how this started?” He stared at one guy then another. Their faces were dark, mean. The room felt like a big pot of hot water just below the boiling point. “Well, if it starts up again, a lot of you’ll be doin’ laps or warmin’ the damn bench or off this team altogether. Got it?” He gave them all a last deadly look. Then steamed off toward his office.

  I peeked back in at the players, real careful. Something was different about ’em. About all of ’em. There was almost like a kinda fire in their eyes. Like I once saw on National Geographic: like a leopard’s eyes when it’s crouched low, muscles flexed, getting ready to attack. They all had this dark, creepy, new attitude. Like they were tougher. Sharper. Hungry for battle.

  I watched as Charley pulled ’em all into a tight group around him. He was different than I’d ever seen him. Like commanding their attention. Tim, who’d always led the team before, was hanging back, his head tilted down, menacing-like. He was staring at Charley, who waved the whole bunch even closer.

  “Didn’t I tell you? Huh?!” Charley hissed at ’em. His voice was low and real intense, but barely louder than a whisper. “Didn’t I tell you it’d be like this after you had those strawberries! Now you all wanta be top dog, right?” I saw several of them nod angrily. “But remember who gave ’em to you. Right?” The others nodded. “Damn right. And don’t you fuckin’ forget it. Now we gotta work together, okay?” Charley went on, “Like a wolf pack.”

  I was getting really nervous. I could feel a sorta mad-dog drive inside ’em, and Charley kept pumping ’em. “There’s plenty of wimp mongrels out there for us to chew up without going after each other. We can accomplish a lot more. As a pack. Okay?”

  They all growled in agreement. Charley grinned, but his face was almost ugly, and his eyes were flashing, scary. “Right. So let’s go, Warriors. Let’s rip out their fuckin’ guts.”

  Eric Tenzer, 35, Ashton High School English teacher. . .

  That evening the Ashton High football team was startling. With Charley Flinn as quarterback our team bulldozed over the Carrollton High opposition right from the kickoff. It was like watching Green Bay play a junior high team.

  Charley called well-conceived plays that his team executed with dazzling—if very rough—efficiency. I noticed Tony Caruso, who usually bellowed constant orders or chastisement from the sideline, stood stone still, watching in confused astonishment.

  The home crowd on the bleachers, however, was going positively wild with delight about their team. The students, teachers, our hefty Carroll County sheriff, Randolph, and even the mild Methodist minister enthusiastically cheered their varsity squad.

  Clarence Frederick. . .

  My wife, Simone, left her office in the State Capitol building early so she could come down from Atlanta with me and our boy, LeBron, to see the game. I’d grown up in Ashton, gone to this high school. I loved coming back for a game or two each year. I never played football, of course. My extracurricular activity was the Key Club, and after graduation I got heavily involved with the club’s patron, the Ashton Kiwanis. Proud to say I was the first black president of both. Great organizations that can help a fellow get connected in business. Case in point: sitting in the bleachers near us was Rupert Green. He’d been in Key Club with me and was now on the board of BioTeck Industries, my plant’s parent company.

  Rupert was whistling loudly at a gain that the quarterback had just made on the field. “Way to go, Charley! Keep it up, Warriors!” Then Rupert looked back at me, shouting over the noise of the crowd, “Hell of a game, huh, Clarence?”

  I shouted back, “Yes sir! But I thought your boy Tim was quarterback.”

  “He is. Hurt his throwing hand. Caruso made him fullback till it heals.”

  “Well, they’re doin’ great!” I leaned to Simone, whispered, “See: I got in a little corporate networking. Aren’t y’glad we came?” Simone nodded to me as she watched the action on the field. Simone wasn’t a football fan but supported me coming here. I noticed her brow was knitted more than usual, though. “What’s the matter, honey?”

  Simone just shook her head as she stared at the action on the field, frowning.

  Simone Frederick, 47, press liaison, Public Information Office, Georgia State government. . .

  I really couldn’t put my finger on it. I tolerated the boys’ interest in football, but the unusual intensity of this particular game was troubling me.

  Then I was distracted when LeBron let out a cheer, and I glanced at him sitting next to Clarence. I saw his green eyes drift lazily off across the crowd, mostly, I knew, to see what girls might be eyeing him. That always worried me. Of course I was proud that LeBron was so damned handsome, but unfortunately he knew he was, despite my warnings of shallowness germinating. He was rewarded in that moment by catching a pair of girls ogling him. They giggled, embarrassed, brought their hands up over their mouths and looked quickly away. I sighed and wished they hadn’t reacted so.

  Then the whole crowd was suddenly on their feet cheering.

  Darren Green. . .

  In another really rough free-for-all scramble—almost a fight—that the referees had to break up, our team forced a third fumble, and the crowd roared for ’em.

  Coach Caruso was amazed. He patted me on the back a couple times, feeling excited and pleased as he watched his team totally crushing Carrollton. Ol’ round-face Randolph, our sheriff, shouted down to him, “Hey, Tony! You finally got yourself some real Warriors!”

  Caruso nodded and waved back appreciatively. Then he looked toward the field. Kinda swelled up with pride and accomplishment. Like maybe he was a better coach than he’d thought, and somehow it was all coming together tonight. But watching from the sideline, I felt this sorta knot growing in my stomach. I’d never seen our guys play this hard. Or this mean.

  Tim’s hand was bandaged up from that bench falling on it, so I was keeping an extra eye on him. Tim was playing just as hard as the others. Even nasty. But there was something else. He kept throwing these like laser glances at Charley. It reminded me of a rodeo movie I saw where a Brahman bull was penned in as the rider climbed onto his back. The bull’s eyes were glaring straight ahead, his nostrils all flaring out wide with each huff and puff. Like he couldn’t wait for the gate to open so he could kill the cowboy who was riding him.

  Lisa McLane. . .

  I was in the stands with Jenna and Steph on either side. Steph was stomping her old-fashioned brown-and-white saddle oxfords on the wooden floorboards of the bleachers, cheering along with Jenna, me, and the whole crowd each time the team made yet another amazing play. Charley was doing even better than last week’s game. It had been exciting to watch. At first.

&n
bsp; But as the game went on, I slowly realized that the whole team was somehow working together like they never had before. Ever. Working harder. Smarter. And way more driven.

  I found myself sitting more and more silently as I watched them. A dark suspicion was growing in me. By the third quarter it had festered. Turned to anger.

  Katie McLane. . .

  I’d glanced up at Lisa a couple times. She always cheered loudly at every game, but near the end of this one, she was just sitting like a stone-cold statue. Glaring at the team. At Charley.

  He was flying high, totally stoked by leading his superior team.

  Eric Tenzer. . .

  The Warriors continued grinding forward, with increasing ferocity. I saw fingers from Ashton’s team, gouging into rival players’ eyes. More than once. Definitely on purpose, with not a shred of mercy. Or fair play. The referees threw a few flags, but once I focused on watching specifically for such grisly details, I realized they were so pervasive that the referees couldn’t possibly have caught all the unsportsmanlike conduct.

  The crowd seemed to miss, or not care about, such troubling particulars. The enthused spectators saw only the broad, unrelenting action, the triumphs, raising cheer after cheer for their . . . their what? Then I realized where my mind had gone: for their gladiators. The raves of the masses confirmed, exonerated, urged, and inspired Charley and his teammates to play even more gruesomely rough.

  FBI Office of Digital Forensics, Quantico, VA—Doc # A0686118