2156

by C M Dancha

  He thought about the message from Grandma LeeLee and wondered what underlying message she was trying to communicate. The likely choice for the blonde girl was Gretchen. The snake represented some type of danger to him and his girlfriend. But what did the multi-colored hair on the snake represent? It was an odd way to depict evil and danger. But he knew that eventually this clue would reveal itself just like every other clue from his grandmother.

  Thirty minutes later Rollie walked into Phoenvartis. He was surprised to find Raul standing at the front security desk.

  "Good morning, Raul. What got you out of bed so early?"

  "Based on what I heard last night at dinner, I think it would be wise if I'm here for the experiments." One of Raul's agents was close enough to overhear their conversation, so Raul purposely substituted the word “experiments” for cloning. The fewer people who knew about the primate cloning the better.

  Rollie motioned for Raul to follow him. "Raul, I want to review the CR47 lab recordings from last night to make sure we didn't have any uninvited guests. Can you send them up to my office?"

  "No problem. Do you suspect foul play overnight?"

  "Raul, considering the weird things that have happened around here lately, I think reviewing the recordings is a prudent thing to do."

  "You're probably right, Rollie. Do you need any help?"

  "No, I can handle it. I'm going up to the CR47 lab now for a visual inspection and then I'll go to my office to look at the recording. If I ask the computer to look for unexpected noises and movements in the lab, I should be able to complete my review within ten minutes."

  "Sounds good. Let me know if you need anything. Otherwise, I'll see you in the CR47 lab around 9 a.m."

  Rollie could tell by the way Raul was acting and looking at him that something else was on his mind. "Raul, I can see the smoke coming out of your ears. What's up?"

  "I shouldn't tell you this now, but I found Sophia."

  "You're kidding, how did you do that? Is she okay? Did you speak to her? When did …"

  "Slow down, Rollie. The only thing I know is where she lives. I haven't seen or talked to her. And before you ask, it was dumb luck that I stumbled onto her residence. I played a hunch and it paid off."

  "Well, what are we going to do, Raul?"

  "Nothing other than what we've planned. Tonight, we'll put the roses and note in her office and wait for her to come to you. But I've decided that you should take her out in public once she contacts you. Rollie, you better get going and prepare for the clonings. We can talk later."

  "Okay, I'll see you at 9 bells."

  An hour and a half later, the six key members of the ReLife project assembled in the CR47 lab. The only non-employee of Phoenvartis was Callie. Otherwise, the team included Raul, Rollie, Claude, Helmer, and Klaus Ekstrom. Even though the welts and black and blue marks on Klaus's face had started to shrink he still looked terrible.

  "Callie, this is Klaus Ekstrom, our boss, and CEO of Phoenvartis." Callie extended her hand to Klaus but wasn't sure she wanted this freaky looking guy touching it. "Mr. Ekstrom had a slight accident this week."

  "Sorry to hear that, Mr. Ekstrom. I'm sure in another week or two you'll be back to normal." Callie didn't believe that, but it sounded genuinely sympathetic.

  "Okay, let's get started. Callie, you have the two host samples with you? Callie nodded in agreement.

  "Which one do you want to start with, Callie; the monkey or the ape?"

  "Let's do the monkey, Rollie." Callie removed a sealed box from the refrigerator and began to open it. "Actually, this particular primate is a male chimpanzee. He was forty-two years old when he died of natural causes. He was the alpha male of his troop and fathered twelve children by six different female chimps."

  "How long ago did the chimp die, Callie?"

  "It's been about two years, Claude. I usually cremate the animals if they die on my property, but this chimp was buried in a crude wooden box. I was surprised to find the body in decent shape when I exhumed it. By the way, the chimp's name was Mike."

  Callie removed a five by five-inch frig-pack from the box and opened it. Inside were skin and hair samples which Callie had surgically removed from the chimp. The frig-pack, another innovative zone product, kept the chimp sample moist and cold during its trip from the Congo to Switzerland.

  As Claude turned on the CR47, Helmer prepared the host sample drawer where Mike's skin and fur would be placed.

  "Callie, bring the sample over and put it right here." Helmer pointed to exactly where he wanted the sample placed. He then adjusted it slightly before closing the host sample drawer.

  "Rollie, put your eye to the iris reader to verify authorization." Rollie leaned forward so his face was within two inches of the iris reader. The reader scanned his eyeballs to make sure he was authorized to use the incubator. A small green light came on to verify Rollie's authorization. Claude then entered a series of initialization codes into the CR47 control panel which began phase 1 of the cloning process.

  "Well, that's it for now. The CR47 is reading the host sample's DNA and chromosomal structures to make sure a replicant can be produced. We have about forty-five minutes before this phase will be done and we'll know for certain whether the host sample is acceptable or not. Why don't we go and get something to drink? By the way, I need a volunteer to stay here and make sure phase 1 happens without a hitch."

  "Rollie, I'll stay. I haven't seen this thing work before so I'd like to get some first-hand experience with it."

  "Helmer, you're elected. We'll see you in a while"

  "Rollie, I'm going to go back to my office. Keep me updated on how things go today." For being such an egomaniac, Rollie could tell Klaus was embarrassed by his appearance. Rollie didn't try to talk Klaus out of going to his office. The less time he had to be around this sicko, the better.

  Thirty minutes later, Rollie received an urgent communication from Helmer. "Rollie, you better come up here. The CR47 is throwing up on itself. There's a blinking red light and a code is scrawling across the control panel."

  Five minutes later Rollie, Callie, Raul, and Claude arrived at the cloning lab to find the CR47 acting exactly as Helmer described. Rollie had no idea what the "SR12-N16" message on the control panel meant. He was ready to access the operating manual for an explanation when Claude announced, "Shit, the CR47 rejected the host sample."

  Rollie wanted to ask Claude if he was sure about the code but knew it was a waste of time. Claude was a perfectionist with a foolproof memory when it came to technical data. If Claude said the SR12-N16 message meant host sample rejection, then that's exactly what the manual would say.

  "Claude, do you know why the sample has been rejected?"

  "There are a couple possibilities, but the most likely explanation is pollution. The sample has been contaminated by something. This prevents the diagnostic phase from reconstructing the chromosome and DNA structures accurately."

  "Is there anything we can do about it?"

  "Not a damn thing, Rollie. This sample is bad and will be unacceptable to the CR47 until the end of time."

  "That's just great. Well, Callie, you better get out the second sample and let's hope it's good."

  Callie went through the same preparation with the second sample as she did for the first. "Gentlemen, this sample is from a great ape named Maxine. I was very close to Maxine. Her mother died when she was a baby, so I was allowed by the troop to raise and nurture her. If I hadn't been around, the troop would have cast her aside and let her die. Anyhow, by the time she was an adult, we treated each other like sisters. She was killed by poachers when she was twenty years old. The only thing I recovered from her body was this hand. We don't know what the poachers did with the rest of her body."

  Callie raised the large, black hand which was fifty percent larger than the size of an average human hand. She walked it over to the CR47 and placed the hand in the host sample drawer. Rollie, Claude, and Helmer once again went through the authorizat
ion and initialization procedures.

  "Well, who wants to babysit this time?"

  "I'd like to be here." Rollie was reluctant to allow a non-Phoenvartis employee stay alone with the cloning equipment but he knew that Callie was more trustworthy than anyone else on the team. There was something about this woman which gave Rollie total confidence in her loyalty and devotion.

  "That's fine, Callie. Do you know how to contact me?"

  "No problem. I talk into this little gizmo and tell it who I want to contact. Right?"

  "That's right. But, to be on the safe side, five minutes after I leave, give me a practice call. Okay?"

  "Will do, Commander." Rollie could tell her comment wasn't vicious in any way. She was developing a fondness for Rollie and showed it by poking fun at him.

  Twenty minutes later Raul and Rollie were moving through the food line in the cafeteria. "Raul, we had a visitor last night in the cloning lab."

  "What do you mean, Rollie?"

  "When I did an auto review of last night's recording the computer stopped at 3:10 in the morning. On the screen was a faint shadow on the lab floor. The shadow was made by someone looking through the glass walls from outside the lab. At first, I didn't think too much about it and figured it was a cleaner from the janitorial staff. But then the shadow moved back and forth across the lab floor for a couple minutes. Whoever made the shadow was very interested in the cloning equipment in the lab."

  "Did you see who it was?"

  "No. Somehow this person avoided the recorders, which isn't easy to do. That's another reason why I think our intruder was up to no good. But there was one clue which might tell us who this was."

  "What's that, Rollie?"

  "I noticed a blurred reflection on the stainless-steel side of the CR47. As the shadow on the floor moved back and forth, this reflection moved right along with it. I zoomed in on the reflection, but it was still too blurred to recognize the intruder." Rollie reached for a piece of cherry pie before continuing. "Raul, can your recorder system enhance the reflection, so we can see it better?

  "Possibly. We have an extensive software library designed to do that, but the results are usually hit-and-miss. I'll get Zeggler right on it. He's a whiz when it comes to the recorder system. By the way, let's keep this to ourselves." Rollie nodded in agreement.

  Exactly forty-five minutes after leaving the cloning lab, Callie contacted Rollie. "Rollie, I think the CR47 is done. A green light came on and the screen says Phase One Complete; Begin Phase Two as Outlined In blah, blah, blah."

  "We're on our way, Callie." As the four team members headed back to the lab Rollie laughed to himself. He found it humorous that she used the word "blah" instead of the technical jargon. She wasn't one for getting hung up doing everything by the book. When it came to technical correctness, she was the exact opposite of Claude.

  When everyone reconvened at the lab, Helmer and Claude double and tripled checked everything to make sure the CR47 was ready to clone Maxine.

  "Looks like we're ready to begin the next phase, Rollie."

  "Okay, guys. Put in the codes and let's get this show on the road." Rollie's frivolous comment wasn't close to how he really felt about the primate cloning. In the back of his mind, he knew this might be the beginning of a major advancement in human development. It might lead to extended human life and the aversion of horrible deaths due to disease and injuries.

  Claude pushed the Start button and the CR47 came to life. For the next three to four hours a replicant named Maxine would be reconstructed in the incubator. For the ReLife team members, this would be the longest couple of hours of their lives.

  "Why don't each of us take a shift keeping an eye on the CR47? Callie, you take the first hour; Claude the second; Helmer the third and I'll take the last hour." Rollie looked at the CR47's counter and estimated the time when the clone would be finished. "Why don't we all plan to be back here at 3:20 p.m. Claude, would you pick up the special gurney we had made to move the replicant. It's in the monkey research lab. Any questions?"

  Hearing nothing from the team, Rollie commended everyone for a job well done thus far and then headed to his office. He wanted to get a quick nap but knew the extra dose of caffeine would most likely keep him awake. Laying down, however, might help to take the edge of uncertainty and stress off his mind.

  Two hours later he awoke from a fitful sleep. At first, he was disoriented until he recognized the room as his office. He got up from the couch and went to the bathroom to throw a couple handfuls of cold water in his face. For the next forty minutes, he reviewed all his visual and verbal contacts. The only ones he considered important were from Klaus and Gretchen. Klaus wanted an update on the cloning and Gretchen wanted to meet him for dinner. He was disappointed there was nothing from Sophia. He didn't expect anything from her yet but couldn't help thinking about her well-being. There was a part of himself which was still attached to her and that part wanted to nurse her back to health.

  When Rollie returned to the cloning lab at 3 p.m., he was startled by the size of the thing in the incubator. The interior of the CR47 was designed to accommodate two large-size men. This thing barely fit within the width of the incubator.

  Helmer saw Rollie come into the lab and notice the blank expression on his face. "Rollie, come over here and look at Maxine."

  Both men stood next to the incubator, looking through its shatterproof glass. The thing inside bore a striking resemblance to themselves. Neither had ever been so close to a wild animal of such grandeur. Everything about this animal was magnificent. Of all the marvelous features of this animal, Rollie noticed the fingernails first. He couldn't get over how similar they were to his own.

  The face drew his attention next. The forehead, cheeks and eye sockets were humanoid in likeness. Other than the entire face being flattened, the only difference was a wider nose with immense nostril passages. Rollie guessed the nostrils were specifically designed to take in enough air to keep the ape's body running at peak efficiency.

  "Can you believe the muscles on this beast? Maxine won't need to spend any time at the fitness complex."

  "Helmer, I'd be scared to death meeting one of these things in the wild. Callie must have nerves of steel."

  "There's my baby!"

  Helmer and Rollie turned to see Callie enter the lab and rush over to the incubator. "My god, she looks exactly like my Maxine. Do you guys see that small bump over her right eye? She's had that ever since she was born." Callie thought for a moment. "Born the first time, that is."

  Within a few minutes, Claude and Klaus joined the rest of the team in the lab. The count-down timer still showed twelve minutes before the clone was done. This time would be used to put the finishing touches on Maxine like hair and skin.

  Other than the initial comment made by each team member when they first saw Maxine, not much else was said. Everyone was so taken in with the nobility of this animal, making comments seemed unnecessary.

  When the countdown timer hit zero an automatic sedative mist was released within the incubator.

  "Okay, guys. Let's get the gurney over here and load Maxine."

  "How much time do we have before the sedative wears off, Rollie?"

  "Should be about twenty minutes, Callie. Do you agree with me, Claude?"

  "I did some quick calculations based on her weight and I estimate about seventeen minutes."

  "Rollie, let's make sure we get her to the lab before she wakes up. Even though there are restriction guards on the gurney I'm not sure how she'll react if she wakes up being rolled through brightly lit hallways. Being resurrected outside the jungle will be very traumatic for her."

  "Raul, will you call one of your guys and have him put one of the lifts off limits for the next thirty minutes? If we don't have to wait for a lift between floors that will save a couple of minutes."

  "I'm a step ahead of you. Already did that. Also, we secured the hallways and put them off limits."

  "Way to go, Raul."

&
nbsp; As Rollie finished talking, the lid to the incubator popped open. The suddenness surprised everyone and froze them in position.

  Callie was the first to recover and realize they were now racing against the clock. "Okay you guys, let's get her on the gurney. Rollie and Helmer, you grab her under the arms and lift. Try to keep her head propped up. Claude, you support her under the midsection, and I'll lift her feet. Klaus, we need you to make sure the gurney doesn't move. If we can't lift her, we'll have to roll her onto the gurney. Okay, on the count of three, everyone lifts. Ready? One, two, three."

  With a sudden burst of energy by everyone, Maxine was lifted onto the gurney. Rollie hadn't heard that much grunting and groaning since football training camp. The only minor blunder was that Claude got his arms wedged under the ape. With some help from Helmer and Callie, he pulled them out without getting hurt.

  "Holy crap she weighs a lot."

  Callie walked around the gurney touching, petting and examining her friend. "Helmer, Maxine is a big girl. She weighs about 225 pounds which is unusual for a female ape. Rollie, she looks good to me. Help me put a sheet over her before we put the restriction bars in place."

  Within thirty seconds the team members pushed Maxine's gurney out of the CR47 lab on the way to the primate research lab. Only Klaus hung back so he could go back to his office.

  "Klaus, will you secure the lab?"

  "Yeah, no problem, Rollie. As an afterthought, he added, "Just make sure that thing doesn't get loose."

  Callie and Rollie looked at each other thinking the same thing. “What a jerk.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Maybe This and Maybe That

  "Rollie speaking."