The Pursuit of Truth

by Aaron Hodges

  Ashley grinned. “Don’t get me started. The schedules here don’t make any sense. Now come on, we don’t want to be late.” She started off without waiting for an answer.

  “Were you ever late in your life?” Liz called after her.

  Ashley glared back at her. “Of course I was.” She paused, her eyes growing distant for a second. “I just can’t remember when.”

  Chris chuckled and Liz only shook her head. From the first moment they’d met, Ashley had appeared a model of perfection. While Halt’s cruelty had shattered that image, Liz had still not been surprised to learn the girl had started university early. There was certainly more to her than looks.

  A shiver ran down Liz’s spine as the wind howled around them. Without prompting, Ashley picked up the pace. Liz could feel the water dripping from her feathers and down her back, but there was little she could do about it. The students around them were just as soaked. They joined the crowds, moving quickly through the open squares, heads down and shoulders hunched against the rain. That at least served their purpose—no one was paying attention to the four strangers in their midst.

  When they finally moved back indoors, the four of them kept their hoods up, aware that even here they might be recognized. Many of the other students did the same, apparently in too much of a rush to adjust their clothing.

  Studying their faces, Liz swallowed as memories from her boarding school days surfaced. That time was long behind her now, but it hurt all the same. Far from home, in an unfamiliar city, and the only student from the countryside, Liz had been desperately lonely.

  It might have been different if she’d found friends. But with her rustic accent and olive skin, there was no hiding her background. The other children had looked down on her, thinking she was beneath them, and played cruel pranks on her when the teachers weren’t watching. Some had even tried to ambush her while she was alone, though they’d soon learned she had been raised far rougher than them.

  The students moving along the corridor with them looked much the same as the ones who had tormented her all those years ago. Their expensive clothes stank of privilege, and Liz’s stomach roiled as she struggled with her old prejudice. She knew now the wealthy kids weren’t all the same. Ashley had been one of these teenagers, and Chris had dreamed of joining them.

  We’re not all evil, Liz. Some of us want to fix things, want the government to be held accountable.

  She smiled. Chris had said that, a long time ago, as they sat alone in their cell. She hoped he was right. They would need these young minds on their side if the government fell. Someone would need to put the pieces of their nation back together. The older generation had already failed miserably at that task.

  Idly, Liz wondered if she might join these students one day. If things changed, maybe there would be a place for her here. What would it be like, to walk amongst these students as an equal? To attend lectures in science or engineering and expand her mind. For a moment she allowed her thoughts to drift, to imagine…

  She shook her head, the cold hands of reality wrapping themselves around her heart. Even if they somehow won, and brought down the government, she could never study here. Not now. Not with the deadly nematocysts in her skin, and the wings and the Chead rages. Chris and the others might try to reassure her, to convince themselves this professor held the answers, but she didn’t dare hope.

  And if the students in her boarding school could not accept her before, they would never accept the freak of nature she had become.

  Pushing aside the depressing thoughts, she realized Ashley and the others were drawing to a stop. A crowd of students barred their path, gathering around a set of massive double doors. Ashley flashed Liz a nervous look, her hands deep in her pockets.

  “This is it,” Ashley shouted over the roar of a hundred voices.

  The volume increased as the double doors cracked open, and a second group of students poured out of the lecture hall. Those outside pressed forward as well, creating a bottleneck where the two groups came together. Liz shook her head and wondered just what the university was teaching them.

  When the students outside finally parted to let the departing students through, the crowd thinned, and it was soon their turn to enter. Sucking in a breath, Liz smiled at the others, and decided it was her turn to take the lead. She grabbed Ashley’s hand again and together they followed the crowd through the double doors.

  Liz blinked as the bright lights inside stung her eyes. When her vision finally cleared, she was surprised to find herself in a lecture hall far larger than she’d expected. Steps led down from the double doors to the carpeted stage, where a lonely lectern stood empty. Foldable seats and desks stretched out in rows to either side of them, filling every step, until they were on the same level as the stage. There had to be at least four hundred seats, though the students had already filled half of them.

  Spying four empty seats halfway down the stairs, Liz started towards them, dragging Ashley with her. Moving along the row, she sat down and leaned back in her chair, trying to relax. With everyone facing the lectern, no one could see her face unless they turned around, so she reached up and pulled off her hood.

  At that moment, the rumbling of voices started to trail off, and for a second Liz thought she’d made a terrible mistake. She shrank in her seat as the room fell silent, her wings twitching beneath her jacket. Then her eyes alighted on the lectern, where a grey-haired man was now standing. She blinked, wondering where he had come from, before noticing the door on the side of the stage with a glowing “EXIT” sign above it.

  There was a small computer at the lectern, and the man tapped a few buttons, prompting the white wall behind him to light up. Liz’s eyes widened—even in her boarding school, only a few classrooms had had computers. Looking above her, she found a long steel beam stretching overhead, and a pair of projectors pointed at the front wall.

  Returning her gaze to the professor, she studied his face, searching for some hint of what had befallen the Texan. Even from halfway up the hall, she could make him out with crystal clarity. He had a strong face, though he had seen better days. Age had worn away the hard edges of his cheekbones, and his skin hung in bags from his face. His eyes were red, as though he hadn’t been sleeping well, and while he wore an expensive suit, it was creased, as though he’d slept in it. There was a stain on his collar.

  Licking his lips, the professor glanced up at his students, then back to his computer screen. He tapped a few more buttons, and the light on the wall flickered. The image of a chromosome appeared alongside a young man. It was a moment before Liz realized his eyes were the cold grey of the Chead.

  She shivered and glanced at the others, the hairs on her neck standing on end. They stared back, their faces pale. She could see the question in their eyes—the same one running through her mind.

  Is it a coincidence?

  But they had nowhere to go now. They were stuck in the middle of the row, hemmed in by the students on either side of them. If they got up now, every eye on the room would be on them. Liz gave a quick shake of her head, and Chris nodded back.

  Stay put, his eyes said. Don’t panic.

  Around the lecture hall, the other students had seen the image as well. The low buzz of their voices returned, quickly growing louder. The image had obviously disturbed some of them. Just as it seemed the whole room would erupt, the overhead speakers crackled, and an old voice spoke over the din.

  “Welcome back to Genetics 201.”

  55

  Liz gripped her desk as the professor’s voice echoed around the room. At his words, the students had fallen silent, and every face present now watched the man in expectation.

  Professor McKenzie placed his hands on the lectern, as though just standing was an effort for him. An audible sigh whispered through the speakers. Liz did her best not to slide down in her chair, uncomfortably aware of how exposed they were. The only protection they had was numbers—with the theatre near capacity, the professor was looking
at almost four hundred faces. Even so, Liz couldn’t help but feel like he was staring straight at her.

  “The Chead.” She flinched as his voice crackled over the speakers again. “They need no introduction. They have been a plague on this country for decades, though the infection has only recently reached our sheltered cities.”

  He released the lectern and moved out into the center of the stage. Liz saw he wore a wireless microphone and shook her head. Either the equipment was decades old, or the university had an even larger budget than her boarding school had.

  McKenzie held his hands behind his back and continued: “I have discussed them many times in this class, though always in a theoretical manner. The Chead virus, its genetic code, its makeup, everything about it, is highly classified. As it should be—such information is dangerous. Should it become public knowledge, who knows what terrorist organizations and foreign powers might do with it?”

  He paused, turning to face the rows of watching students. “Or that is the story they tell the public.”

  The breath caught in Liz’s throat. She bit her lip, wondering if the others read his words the same as she had. Did this mean the Texan had succeeded? If the professor had sequenced their DNA, who knew what he might have learned about them, about the Chead?

  “As you will all recall, I have been critical of the government’s response to this epidemic. Even recently, with their bizarre experiments, I have questioned their strategy. As far as we, the public, are aware, even the mechanism by which the virus is contracted remains a mystery.”

  Liz heart was pounding in her ears. She wanted to scream for the man to get to the point, to tell them what he had discovered. Despite herself, hope swelled in her chest. Had this geneticist discovered something that the government, with all its experts, had not? Had he found a cure?

  “Despite my criticism, I have remained a patriot. I have supported our government through the good and the bad.” He sighed and returned to his lectern. Perspiration dripped from his brow, and a vein was bulging in his neck. “Over the years I have decried the rebels and terrorists who sought to tear down our young nation. So when a…dissident…came to me a few days ago, I did what any patriot would do. I ensured he was brought to justice, before he could cause any more harm.”

  A vice closed around Liz’s throat. She shivered, and this time it had nothing to do with the wet feathers dripping down her back. The professor was talking about Mike. Despite her dislike for the man…she shuddered to think might have been done to him.

  “But there was something different about this dissident,” the professor went on. “Something I couldn’t help but wonder over. He gave me something, something my scientific curiosity couldn’t resist pursuing further. It wasn’t much: a couple of feathers. But he claimed they came from the government’s experiments. From wings…grown on humans.”

  A collective gasp came from around the hall. Several students half-rose from their seats, but the professor raised a hand, and a reluctant silence resumed.

  “It couldn’t be true,” McKenzie continued. “That’s what I told myself. But a little doubt niggled at me—that his claim was so preposterous, so easily proven wrong by a geneticist…I decided I had to be sure. For my own peace of mind, I sequenced the DNA from each feather.”

  He pressed a button on the screen, and the image changed to six multicolored double helixes of DNA. Five were virtually identical: mostly grey, but in places banded by slivers of red. On the sixth, the red bands were still present, but green bands also shone amidst the grey.

  “I thought the man was mad, but his samples proved me wrong. The feathers were undoubtedly human in origin. But while mapping their DNA, I found distinct anomalies in their chromosomes. Genes from species of avian, feline, canine, cnidaria and a dozen other animal families. I also found genetic markers associated with Porcine Endogenous Retrovirus, or PERV, for those of you who remember this from Genetics 101. I had no choice but to conclude the man had somehow managed to acquire his feathers from the government’s experiments.”

  “He must have gotten them from Fisherman’s Wharf!” a student at the back of the room shouted.

  “That was my first thought,” the professor answered, holding up his hands to fend off further questions, “until I examined the feather from the sixth subject.”

  Liz frowned, looking again at the feather on the end. She guessed it was Mira’s, and that the green bands were the genes from the Chead virus she had been infected with. But what could that have told the professor?

  “This sixth subject,” McKenzie continued. At the tap of a button, the other helixes vanished and the sixth grew to fill the projection. “Has duplicated markers for most of the alien genes, and a few extra for good measure. This subject has been infected with a modified strain of the PERV virus, then re-infected with another, almost identical strain.”

  The whispers started again, but the professor made no effort to silence them. Several students were standing, while others only stared, but still Liz could not understand what it all meant.

  “I didn’t have time to map out every modification made between the two strains, but the source of the DNA—a human feather—is enough to establish that these samples came from our President’s new creatures. I believe the virus that is present in all six was used to create them. The other strain…” He trailed off, closing his eyes for a second, before continuing: “It would appear, from the genes incorporated into its makeup, that the other strain is the Chead virus.”

  The whole class came to their feet in a roar. Voices echoed through the theatre, threatening to drown out the professor. Still he went on, though with each word he seemed to shrink, as though the very act of speaking was draining the life from him.

  “As you can see, the two strains of the virus are almost identical. They are clearly related. One was created from the other. This would be inconceivable without a pure sample of the Chead virus, but as we can see from this sample, the Chead virus fully integrates with its host’s genome. Its genetic mechanism to revert to an active form has been removed, making it non-infectious. There is no way to retrieve a sample of the complete virus from an infected host.”

  The professor took a breath. “Which means…whoever created our President’s creatures, must have also had access to the Chead virus.” His voice was barely audible now. “I fear it means our beloved government has been behind this plague, and has been using it to manipulate us all along.”

  56

  “What’s on TV, Mira?” Sam asked as he lowered himself onto the sofa beside the young girl.

  The tiny CRT television sat on the coffee table in the corner of the room. A man on the screen was gesturing at a map of the west coast, pointing to the whirling weather system hovering over the city. Outside, rain lashed at the windows, and the wind had been growing stronger all morning. Sam hoped Ashley would be okay flying in the wild weather. She was less experienced than the others.

  Mira said nothing, just snuggled closer to him on the couch. Grinning, Sam shook his head. Her wound was healing nicely—to the point Eve had finally let up with her nagging. In fact, the woman had taken to avoiding them altogether. When he’d asked Maria about her sudden absence, Chris’s grandmother had only shrugged and said she’d gone out for the day.

  But Sam had noticed the look in the old woman’s eyes. It matched the frown Eve had given the night before, when she’d changed their dressings. They might not admit as much, but the adults were disturbed by their young charge’s abilities.

  Sam could hardly blame them. He’d noticed the stares of the men and women who had passed through the safe house over the last week. When they'd stretched their wings, it was enough to make grown men stop what they were doing and stare. The discovery that the six of them could heal from bullet wounds in a matter of weeks just added another level to their strangeness. Apparently enough to disturb even the kindly old doctor—and Chris’s grandmother, for that matter.

  A loud beep came from the television
, drawing Sam’s attention to the screen. It flickered red, the weather forecast vanishing, to be replaced by a picture of the President standing on a stage.

  Sam sat bolt upright and snatched the remote from Mira. She growled, but ignoring her, he pointed the remote and turned up the volume.

  “My fellow citizens of the Western Allied States.” The President stood at a wooden stand, his hands resting on the smooth mahogany. His short, grey hair had been combed flat, and his hazel eyes stared into the camera as he addressed the nation: “I come to you today with grave news. As many of you will have heard, a week ago there was an incident in Independence Square. I apologize for our silence until today. We did not wish to incite panic with unfounded speculation.”

  “Maria!” Sam called, standing. As Chris’s grandmother appeared from the dining room, he nodded at the television. “Something’s happening.”

  “However, today I can finally come forward with the truth. The Director of Domestic Affairs and her department have been working tirelessly all week to uncover the truth about events in the square. Today I can confirm that last Monday, the Texan government launched a direct attack on persons of the Western Allied States.”

  “No,” Maria hissed.

  She staggered slightly, her face losing all color, before righting herself. Standing, Sam offered her his seat, and she sank onto the sofa with a grateful nod. She seemed to have aged ten years in the space of seconds. His heart beating hard in his chest, Sam returned his attention to the television.

  “Not only can we verify the involvement of Texas, the nature of this attack confirms what we have always suspected: the Lone Star State is behind the infection and spread of the Chead virus.”

  “Liar!” Mira was suddenly on her feet, teeth bared, multicolored eyes flashing. Her wings snapped open, her every feather standing on end. A dangerous rumble came from her throat as she stepped towards the television.