Beyond Regeneration

by Jenny Schwartz

  “Is Morwood willing to gag Solomon?” she asked. She was aware of Jack spinning out his excuse for pulling them all into the lab.

  His claws flashed in a giveaway sign of agitation. “Suspect QNA in this lab are genetically different…need further study…comparison…mutated through generations…successful cultivation.”

  Ambrose cut in clearly. “To Morwood, everyone is disposable.”

  “Charming,” Charley thought to Ambrose. “However, it means he won’t back Solomon if we can prove the advantage to him lies elsewhere. Although how he and Michael will settle leadership of a sensory bio-enhancement center at Jabberwocky is beyond me.”

  “Michael’s got Jack’s backing.” Ambrose had little interest in human ego issues. “Is that all the information you need?”

  “Unless there’s anything else you think I should know?”

  “No. When they are gone, we will deal with Solomon.”

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to inquire further, but Ambrose answered her apprehension.

  “I’ve found what Solomon wants to hide.” There was satisfaction in its communication. “We can use it later.”

  That sounded ominous. On the other hand, Ambrose had evidently decided its alliances. Charley decided to go with that as a positive. The QNA were in agreement with them. She crossed to Jack and touched his arm.

  He stopped rambling about QNA cultivation.

  Immediately, and smoothly, Michael took over the conversation and shifted its ground to negotiating the establishment of the center at Jabberwocky.

  Morwood came to attention, but Solomon looked angrily dissatisfied.

  “Okay.” Michael raised his voice. “Let’s keep it simple. John has something you want, the QNA. He also has proven success in a brand new field. It would be ridiculously short-sighted to prevent him continuing his work. In return for the freedom to continue his work, he’s prepared to open the sensory bio-enhancement center to other interested parties, by invitation.”

  Michael met Morwood’s gaze steadily. A message passed between them.

  “Morwood’s receptive,” Ambrose observed.

  Charley nodded. That was evident from the fact he stayed to discuss the possibility, leaning his hip against a work counter.

  “Why did the trial subjects call Solomon here if you’re the one negotiating?” Morwood nodded in the direction of Nicola and Aaron. Ted had wandered over to the window and was peering out of the blinds.

  “We decided to get a few things out into the open,” Nicola said.

  Charley stiffened, protective of the QNA’s emergent sentience.

  “She doesn’t mean me.” Ambrose was amused. “She wants to protect Aaron and Ted, and their new view of reality. It’s really very interesting, their minds. They’re growing into their intelligence.”

  Charley’s eyes widened at the musing comment. Growing into their intelligence?

  Solomon, who had been watching her, shouted. “You’re talking to them!”

  “What?” Charley asked.

  Ted swung around from the window, poised on the balls of his feet.

  Jack stepped instinctively between Solomon and Charley.

  Aaron and Nicola moved protectively in front of the QNA culture dishes.

  Only Michael and Morwood didn’t twitch.

  Solomon was raving. “Witch. That’s how you knew I killed Lillian. It was here in the lab. These damn QNA told you!”

  Morwood raised an eyebrow at the admission that his sometime colleague had killed a woman.

  Charley pressed her hand to her temple. Ambrose was overstimulated, its coherence shattering, as it tried to make sense of the swirling emotions and ejaculatory human thought. “Please, stop,” she said, aloud. Ambrose had a right to hear this conversation, but she couldn’t deal with its excited commentary.

  For an instant there was silence, then Solomon lunged for the QNA cultivation table. Nicola put him efficiently on his back, on the floor.

  Across his prone body, Morwood looked at Charley. “So, it’s true?”

  She straightened. “Yes. I can communicate with the QNA, and it reads minds.”

  Morwood absorbed that information for a moment in silence, while Solomon levered himself to a sitting position.

  Nicola shifted warningly, and Solomon stayed prudently on the floor.

  “I expect you can perform some parlor tricks in proof of your assertion?” Morwood waited for Charley’s nod. “Then we’ll take them as read.” As she goggled at this exhibition of CIA sangfroid, he turned to Jack. “You believe the QNA are alive, intelligent?”

  “Sentient,” Jack said, succinctly.

  Morwood rubbed his chin. He looked at Michael. “The QNA would come with the sensory bio-enhancement center?”

  Jack answered. “They would stay here since we’re not sure of the conditions required for their, its, emergent intelligence, but New Hope would be attached to the Jabberwocky center.”

  Again Morwood’s sharp gaze went to Michael. “I knew you’d deal yourself in somehow.” He shrugged. “Shame the Australians couldn’t hold you longer.”

  Unexpectedly, Michael grinned.

  Ambrose explained reality to Charley, who’d gotten left behind. “Kane Morwood has accepted the idea of the center at Jabberwocky. He, Michael and Jack will iron out the details.”

  Solomon looked at Nicola. “May I stand?”

  She took a step back, remaining between him and the QNA. “Go ahead.”

  Solomon heaved himself to his feet. “I’ll wait for you in the car, Karl.”

  “My people will make sure that’s the only place he goes.” Michael’s voice arrested Nicola’s instinctive movement after Lillian’s killer.

  “About the center,” Morwood began. As Solomon must have realized, he was history, forgotten. Morwood had no time for a person who dealt with his fears by trying to destroy the object of fear rather than the fear itself.

  Nicola cut in. “You don’t need us to discuss the center.” She shifted restlessly, unhappy despite Michael’s assurance that to let Solomon loose in New Hope was not to lose him.

  “Why not?” Michael’s eyes narrowed, his face sharpening with suspicion.

  Aaron beat Nicola to the answer, his voice steady. “We came back because we heard of your arrest, and we were concerned at the danger to John as the only sensory bio-enhancement specialist. There’s danger in being unique.”

  “Like us,” Ambrose said, smugly. Clearly, Solomon’s impulsive attempt at destroying it hadn’t dented Ambrose’s confidence.

  Charley felt less sanguine, and Jack put an arm around her.

  Aaron’s gaze went from Jack to Charley, and back. “The situation’s changed, though, now that Jack’s released his paperwork. And if Michael can make the sensory bio-e center real, it will provide protection for you and the QNA. We’re not needed any more.”

  Michael disregarded Aaron’s conclusion. “When you raced here to play heroes.” Michael wasn’t happy, and it showed in his crude sarcasm. “What did you think you could do?”

  “We’re a bargaining chip.” Ted leaned back against the window. The light haloed his figure. “We’re the only people who know sensory bio-enhancement from the inside. We would have worked out something.”

  Michael snorted. The trio had shown more courage and loyalty than commonsense, or had sensory bio-enhancement really given them a sufficient edge to take on the CIA?

  Not likely.

  “Thank you,” Jack said.

  “It wasn’t completely friendship.” Nicola was determined not to receive credit she hadn’t earned. “We don’t want to be the only people with enhanced senses, and you’re the doctor with the proven track record. Your safety means our safety.”

  “Dr. Bradshaw’s importance is a point even the CIA can appreciate,” Morwood snapped.

  The trio and Michael all looked doubtfully at him. Nicola put it into words. “You backed Solomon.”

  “We were getting up to speed. He was the nearest
expert.” And that was the nearest Morwood would come to excuse and apology. “I assume you will want to be involved in picking the next trial subjects?”

  “No,” Aaron said.

  His dissent earned Michael and Morwood’s undivided attention.

  Charley and Jack watched Nicola’s defiant, lurkingly triumphant expression.

  Aaron elaborated his refusal. “As I explained. We’re not needed here. We want time to explore the new world of our senses, by ourselves.”

  “They’re going to India,” Ambrose informed Charley.

  India! Charley shifted her gaze to Jack, hoping she hadn’t alerted the trio that she knew something of their plans.

  “You can have quiet here,” he said.

  “No.” Nicola smiled at him. “We’d know we were always being watched.”

  Michael cursed. “Don’t play games. You were never bothered by the surveillance at Jabberwocky.”

  Nicola waved in Morwood’s direction. “But now other players have entered the game.”

  Charley thought she could almost hear Michael gritting his teeth from across the room. He’d been right to worry about the trio throwing out his plans. They needed to be part of the international sensory bio-enhancement center. They were proof it worked.

  Jack kept his cool. “Where are you going?”

  Nicola shook her head, the message clear: it’s a secret. Then she looked at Charley with sudden suspicion.

  Charley met the challenge. “India.”

  “No!” The unguarded exclamation came from Morwood.

  It clarified the situation for Charley as nothing else had.

  “India is a good choice,” Nicola said, indignantly. “They’re not hidebound in Western rationalism.”

  Charley ignored Nicola, and said, “Ssh,” to Ambrose. She had to think. She’d been caught up in the implications of the new technology, but wasn’t it Michael who had alluded to the fact that the new world the QNA and sensory bio-enhancement opened up could easily become just another stage for old, old games. There were power games being played here, with the trio as pawns. With Jack and her, too.

  India was the key the trio had decided on. Why?

  “Ssh,” she repeated to Ambrose, who was questioning her tangled, tentative reasoning. “I’m thinking.”

  “Humans think funny.”

  “Well, thank you.” But the mental comment lacked snap. Charley was concentrating, almost sure that she held the thread to unravel the tangle of competing interests and ambitions.

  There was a reason Morwood accepted the idea of the sensory bio-e center at Jabberwocky so easily. He and Michael might be rivals, but Michael was a rival within the system. India, on the other hand, was striking out on its own. It was looking to Brazil and that country’s history of ignoring international laws of intellectual property rights where such rights adversely impacted its people’s welfare. Corporate interests mightn’t be able to control bio-e knowledge. India was outside the Western sphere of control, and slowly and with many hiccups muscling its way to being a world power. If the trio went to India, the Indians would have an inside track to understanding the emerging cadre of superhumans.

  “I’d like to continue this conversation outside the lab,” Aaron said, looking at Charley.

  Aware of Morwood’s presence, she refrained from commenting on Ambrose’s right to be present to the discussion.

  Ambrose protested the curtailment of its eavesdropping.

  “You can read everything from my mind, later,” she promised. She waited till they were all seated in Jack’s office, then she looked directly at Nicola. “You’re being used.” Her gaze encompassed Aaron and Ted. “Who did you go and see last night?”

  The question was too apt to ignore. Everyone focused on the trio.

  “Ted’s boss,” Aaron said.

  “ASIO,” Charley clarified. Australia’s intelligence agency. “One of the senior, but not in-charge managers Nicola said had a grudge against America.”

  “I didn’t say grudge.”

  “No,” Charley agreed. “You said they doubted the wisdom of blindly following America. But do you know what came across—in the way they kept Jabberwocky secret and left Jack exposed to danger—they didn’t care who they risked, you included, if they ended one-up on the CIA. I wonder how long resentment has festered at Australia’s junior partner status?”

  “That’s not fair,” Nicola protested. “You don’t know—”

  Charley ignored her, looking at Michael instead. “You said the Australians didn’t want to arrest you. You characterized them as bloody minded, determined to stand out for their independence from the CIA.”

  Michael nodded slowly.

  “I’m in favor of independence,” Charley continued. “And I don’t approve of most of the CIA’s activities, but sending Nicola, Aaron and Ted out to hide in India destroys the cohesion of Jack’s project for no better reason than spite. It’s not bloody-mindedness, it’s petty-mindedness.”

  Everyone in the room waited to be sure she’d finished speaking. Then Nicola said slowly. “Ted’s boss said he’d pass on our formal resignations so that we could slip quietly into India. He was using us?”

  “Playing on national loyalty, suspicion and your natural confusion after all the changes of sensory bio-enhancement. Creative dialogue, openness, builds a better future—not isolationism,” Charley said.

  “Well, hell.” Nicola was unwillingly convinced, and disgusted.

  “Where were you going in India?” Jack asked.

  Aaron answered. “To Jodhpur, a Professor Bose.”

  Jack stared, then gave a shout of laughter.

  “What is it?”

  Jack caught his breath. “Does he know you’re coming?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Nicola said, warily. “We thought it safer to surprise him.”

  Jack’s mouth twitched. “Professor Bose is coming here.”

  “What?”

  “Dr. Peverill, who received my email containing the information on sensory bio-enhancement, sent it on to Professor Bose as the recognized expert on human cognitive evolution. She said that he’ll be visiting Australia next month and will drop in.”

  Nicola stared at Jack, then erupted in explosive giggles. She leant against Aaron, her defensiveness lost in relief.

  Aaron responded for the trio. “We’ll be glad to stay in Australia.”

  Michael stretched with the satisfaction of a man who had won everything he wanted.

  Morwood’s mouth still held a hint of grimness, and Charley was sure the ASIO manager involved would soon be facing involuntary retirement. For herself, she felt tired.

  She’d promised Ambrose the end of the story—and promises to the QNA had to be kept. But once she had kept that promise, she needed some peace, some private time. A week ago she would never have challenged the trio. She wouldn’t have mustered the will to care and fight through the confusion where politics, science and ambition intersected.

  She’d changed, too.

  “Ms. Rowdon will be part of the center.” Morwood’s clipped voice interrupted her reflections. “Non-negotiable. She can talk to this QNA and obviously has a good rapport with them, it, whatever.” His hard eyes scanned her face. “If I don’t have your co-operation, the QNA are expendable.”

  Charley was close enough to hear the soft growl Jack couldn’t control.

  His claws flexed. “I will not have Charley blackmailed.”

  “The QNA are functionally non-sentient if Ms. Rowdon isn’t present to act as a communication link.”

  Except for Alan. But Charley kept that to herself.

  “So the ability to communicate with humans defines sentience?” Ted asked.

  Morwood’s hard stare shifted to him. “What do you think?”

  “I think you’re full of crap,” Michael answered.

  Nicola nodded emphatic agreement.

  Morwood’s stare shifted to Michael, sharp enough to cut glass. “You know the center needs Cha
rlotte Rowdon.”

  “Yeah, and I know the QNA are not expendable. Forced compliance doesn’t get you anywhere, Morwood. It didn’t work in Raleigh. It won’t work here.”

  So Michael and Morwood did have a history, an entrenched hostility that went further than their different generations and expectations.

  Charley noted it, but her main attention remained on Morwood’s threat to the QNA.

  Despite Michael’s challenge, Morwood had meant it. Morwood would destroy what he couldn’t use because that was safer than having things beyond his control. Which raised the question, did Morwood think he could control her? Or had he worked out her importance to Jack, and was looking to control him via her?

  “Charley,” Jack said, quietly. “You can’t buy anyone’s freedom, their life, at the expense of your own—not even for the QNA.”

  But Alan had disappeared, and there were no guarantees that anyone else could communicate with the QNA. How sane would a sentient creature remain if it couldn’t communicate? Would isolation pervert Ambrose’s evolution?

  Added to which, unravelling why she could communicate with the QNA was as important as any other aspect of the Jabberwocky project.

  And bottom-line, if she refused Morwood’s demand, he’d act on his threat to the QNA. Without the QNA Jack’s work would be compromised, perhaps discredited.

  “Charley, I won’t accept a sacrifice.” This time there was no mistaking the growl in Jack’s voice.

  That was true. Jack would never ask for a sacrifice, but he made them himself. He would protect her freedom at the price of his own dreams, but what did her freedom amount to? An empty flat and a fear of emotional contact. An empty life. She couldn’t go back to it.

  She put her hand over his left one. “I…I,” she stumbled over her words. Did she have the courage? “I want to be here.”

  Light flared in his eyes.

  “All right, then,” Morwood said. “You’ve got a deal, Janz. Now, let’s work out the detail. I’ll want…”

  Charley slipped out to let Ambrose know the end of the story—or was it the beginning?

  Ambrose was fascinated by Charley’s emotions and the idea of her loyalty to it and to Jack. But their incipient discussion of what loyalty meant was interrupted by the abrupt opening of the lab door.