by Jamie Metzl
“And synthetic biology?”
“Is about humans manipulating biology at the genetic level for our own ends.”
“Tell me more.”
“There are two schools of synthetic biology. The first is what they call whole genome synthesis, the process of designing and building cells from scratch using the natural building blocks of guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine. They started with a bacterium that infected goats and worked from there. Now they’re making a lot of progress in what they call xenobiology, adding additional chemical units to DNA beyond the regular four, the G, A, T, and C.”
“Go on,” I say impatiently. If anyone in America hadn’t known about synthetic biology before, they do now that Senator King has made it his first piece of evidence that President Lewis and the pagan Alvarez are violating God’s plan and leading the country down a path to purgatory.
“The other group was a couple of Harvard biologists who developed a way of making hundreds of changes to a genome at the same time.”
“Hijacking.”
“Right, boss. They try to take control of the genetic code of a microbe and then reprogram it. They started almost a decade ago with E. coli but said they were going to learn how to reprogram forty thousand DNA markers in an elephant fetus to turn it into a wooly mammoth. Now they’re making even more progress through reprogramming what they call clustered palindromic repeats. It’s essentially gene editing.”
“Obviously they didn’t get there.”
“Right, boss, but they learned a lot by trying. Between the semiconductor sequencing, gene editing and hijacking, 3D microvalve printing of bacteria, and developing an endless supply of induced human embryonic stem cells from scratch to test the new hypothesis, they’re starting to make exponential progress.”
“Exponential?”
“Everything builds on everything else, the pace of innovation isn’t linear.”
“And the data is distributed through global networks.”
“Right, boss.”
“So how it gets used can’t really be controlled, and everyone’s still figuring out what it can be used for. The human genome has three billion base pairs of nucleotides, so there’s still a lot that’s not known about how everything works, but the science seems to be progressing a lot faster than the applications.”
I’m not sure if I should be more impressed by what Franklin Chou taught or what Joseph Abraham seems to have absorbed. My mind struggles to connect this new information with everything else I’m learning. “What did the vet say about dealing with the mistakes from ‘the lab?’”
Joseph looks confused.
“Sorry, Joseph,” I say, “I’m talking to Toni.”
Toni leans her head in front of the dashboard screen. “Hi, Joseph,” she says sweetly.
Joseph smiles awkwardly. “Are . . . ?” he says before becoming tongue-tied.
Toni responds warmly, then gets down to business. “When I met with Barkley yesterday, he said some of the cows from their breeding program didn’t quite work out the way they were supposed to.”
“And there’s still the issue of how she got the extra chromosome in the first place. And that leads us, well,” I add, “back where we were.”
“Bright Horizons?” Joseph asks.
“Figuring out if there’s a connection between what seems to be going on there and at Rapture Grove.”
The side of Jerry’s face pops up as I tap him in. He’s wearing the same shirt as yesterday and, from the looks of it, hasn’t moved from his chair.
“Jerry,” I say, “Bright Horizons?”
“Sorry, Rich,” he says. “We’re probing from all sorts of angles, but we can’t yet find a way in. People are usually sloppier than this.”
“Somewhere there’s got to be an answer,” I say. “Keep pushing.”
“You have no idea,” he responds exasperatedly. “If we can’t figure this out, maybe no one can.”
“What about King’s day of prayer in Springfield?” I ask.
“I’ve had it minimized on one of my screens,” Jerry says.
“And?”
“A lot of Jesus, a lot of hand-waving, a lot of—”
“Becker?” I interject.
“Is right there by King’s side.”
“Like Aaron to King’s Moses.”
“Something like that.”
“Thanks, guys.” I say.
Jerry looks briefly at the camera. Joseph nods. I hit the red button and the video cuts.
“You know I’m proud of you,” Toni says after a pause.
I look over at her.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” she continues, “you never leave well enough alone, and you’re always looking for something you’ll probably never find.”
The arrows hit but don’t sting.
“But,” she continues, “I’m proud of you. That girl, MaryLee, didn’t have anyone looking out for her. Sure her mom loved her, but you’re the one who won’t drop it.”
Maybe I should feel more proud, but the emotion hitting me is anxiety.
I’m worried that if someone killed MaryLee Stock and maybe even Megan Fogerty to cover something up, they’re probably going to track me down too once they realize what I’m up to. And if they find me, they find Toni. And I’m worried that my half-assed efforts to hide my tracks are only likely to fool the most unsophisticated of bad guys. Anyone messing with a forty-seventh chromosome is certainly not that.
“Thanks,” I say unconvincingly.
Toni reaches over and gently squeezes the back of my neck. I feel a warmth emanating from her hand. I think of all the genetic cues that make the feeling possible, of me as a mess of conflicting emotions, a long chain of genetic base pairs. Is Toni entering my heart, I wonder, or cracking my code?
By Wichita I can’t drive another mile. We pull over and check into La Quinta.
We are silent as we step into the room, as if silence is the only path to where we both know we are going.
Toni’s fake pearls were long ago flung to the back seat of the car, but I gently unbutton her blouse, unzip her skirt, unhook her bra.
I feel her body like a blind man.
The tips of my fingers end at her face. I trace the curve of her eyelids, the tips of her nose, the curve of her neck. Our lips hardly touch on our first kiss then press together in countless variations of hard and soft. At the same moment, we stop kissing each other and hug tightly, needily.
“I missed you,” she whispers.
As I pull her ever closer to me, I realize how very much I’ve missed her, too.
And how much I need her in a way I’ve never felt before.
41
I reflexively to grab my wrist, startled and disoriented, to try to shut up my beeping u.D. Where am I? I feel the warmth to my right and remember. So much for geography as a physical sensation. My map of the Wichita darkness is emotional.
I nudge my body into her space. She moans gently and moves into mine. We drift.
“What time is it?” I hear her say as if from a distance.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” I say looking over. “Seven forty-five.”
“Grrr,” she moans adorably.
“What time does your shift start?”
“Nine, if I still have a job, that is.”
“You’re going to be late.”
“I know,” she says.
I probably read way too much into her words as I slide my body back into hers. “Thank you for being here, baby,” I say again.
“I told you, I’m here because I choose to be here.”
I wrap my arms around her. With all of our passion last night, it was almost a more intense connection that we didn’t, in fact, make love.
“And,” she adds mischievously, “because you tricked me into being here.”
I smile. “You have no idea how expensive it is to hire all of these actors.”
I feel a twinge of guilt for joking about something so serious.
Toni reads
the expression on my face. “I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” she says. “I feel like an idiot for saying that, but you really opened my world and now, whether I like it or not, probably even both, I associate those parts of myself with you. All I wanted was for you to give us a real chance, but you couldn’t seem to get over yourself.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, knowing she’s right and feeling stupid for it.
“But if I’m honest, I have to admit I never really gave up on you.” Toni puts her hand on my left shoulder and guides me on to my back. She doesn’t kiss me but instead reaches down between my legs and grabs me. My body stiffens. “Even if I should have.” She squeezes.
I look into her eyes and open my mouth to speak but she stops me with an almost imperceptible shake of her head. Stop talking for once. When she climbs on top of me I’m not really sure if I’m entering her, she’s engulfing me, or both.
Our bodies lock and unlock together, pulling closer and closer, minimizing the distance between us with each embrace. We match each other’s rhythms, drive into each other with what seems like greater intensity and greater softness at the same time.
We climax in unison and she collapses on top of me, glides into me over a thin film of our combined sweat. We hold each other tightly and drift back into a half sleep.
I awake not knowing how far we’ve drifted when I feel her sliding off of me.
She kisses me and looks me in the eyes. Her loving look frightens me a little. She smiles and lifts her body up slightly. Then she delivers a lightning punch that connects with my left bicep. It’s a real punch, and it hurts.
Words return.
“You know what that’s for,” she whispers seriously.
I do.
Then I roll on top of her and the whole process starts again, this time upside down. By eight forty I am wide awake and grinning from ear to ear like an idiot.
And now she’s going to be even later for work.
“Hand me my u.D, baby,” she says. She calls the hospital and tells them her car has broken down and she’ll be a couple of hours late, apologizing profusely.
“Is it strange your supervisor didn’t mention what happened with Papadakis?” I ask when we’re back on the highway.
“I was just thinking that,” she says.
“What do you make of it?”
“Maybe he’s made a complaint and they need to do an investigation. Maybe he made it at a higher level.”
“Could be,” I say, “but what would it mean if he didn’t make a complaint at all?”
“Why wouldn’t he?”
“If he didn’t want others to snoop around, making a complaint would only raise questions.”
“Maybe,” she says, “or maybe I’ll just be walking into the storm when I show up at work.”
The concept of showing up at work startles me. I tap my u.D and Joseph’s face appears on the dashboard screen.
“Boss, you asked me to dig around about Jessica Crandell at Bright Horizons. It’s a little strange. She seems completely legit, she has a home address, a cloud profile, even a Universal Network Identifier code, but all of it starts two years ago.”
“And?” I ask.
“Usually, there are some references to things people did earlier in their lives. Races they ran, clubs they joined, alumni associations, things like that.”
“Maybe she got married and changed her name,” I say.
“I thought of that, but her current profile at least says she’s not married.”
“How long has she worked at Bright Horizons?”
“Looks like two years,” Joseph says.
“So she gets a new name and joins at the same time.”
“Seems so, boss.”
I see a shiny metal object in the background behind Joseph’s face. “Where are you, Joseph?” I ask.
“In the men’s room, boss.”
“At the Star?”
“Yes, boss.”
“Are people saying they can’t live without me?”
“Yes, boss,” Joseph says sadly. He forces a half smile, which only makes me feel more pathetic.
“Thanks, Joseph.”
The line drops.
It’s eleven by the time we reach the hospital. We kiss. Not a hotel kiss, a carpool drop-off kiss. I agree to pick her up at five. A few days of unemployment, and I’ve already become a hausfrau. I pull away from the entrance until my path is obstructed by a black GMC. I tilt my head back against the headrest to wait.
The click of the door startles me. I hardly register what is happening before my passenger door swings open.
“What the—?” I say, nonplussed.
The intensity of the man’s raging brown eyes as he slides into my passenger seat jumps out at me first, but it’s impossible not to notice his height as he scrunches into the space. His long lean face and sunken cheeks give the impression of a tightly stretched canvas. His brown, closely cropped hair forms a thin film over his head. The scowl on his face somehow extends to his whole body.
“Dikran Azadian,” he declares.
“And you are?”
“Gillespie,” he spits out venomously, handing me his card.
“What is this about and what are you doing in my car?”
“I think you know, Mr. Azadian.”
I look at him blankly, refusing to give in. “Is this about those parking tickets?” I say, “You know I’ve been meaning to pay them.”
“This is not a joke, Mr. Azadian.”
“I’m not sure what you mean, Mr. Gillespie.”
“Where are you coming from, Mr. Azadian?”
“What business is that of yours? Get out of my car,” I say testily.
“Let me put it to you this way, Mr. Azadian,” Gillespie’s robotic precision and barely suppressed rage coming together, “you need to drop this right now.”
“Drop what?”
“You know the stakes, Mr. Azadian. It’s up to you,” he says chillingly, pausing to let the words sink in.
They do.
He opens the door and steps out, then enters the passenger side of the GMC, which slowly drives away.
How did he know I’d be here?
I take out the bat phone and call Maurice.
42
It’s too much driving.
I’m in the passenger seat of Maurice’s Energi-F heading to Springfield and feeling like a trucker. In the last fifty hours I’ve been back and forth to Waco and now this.
And I’m still not convinced we have a plan.
Maurice calls it turning up the temperature, but if our goal is to turn up the heat, we’re increasingly ill-equipped to do it. I’m suspended from my job at the Star, he’s sneaking out of the office, pretending his wife is sick and working a case that is officially not his.
Filing through the doors of the Holy Virgin Church of Christ, the same megalomaniacal digital display of Cobalt Becker and the Garden of Eden mesmerizes me far less than when I’d first seen it. It only seems to annoy Maurice.
“May I help you?” the same receptionist announces peacefully.
“We’re here to see Reverend Becker,” Maurice says firmly.
I anticipate the same reluctance I encountered on my first visit, but instead a beatific look crosses her face. “He’s preaching in the chapel right now.”
As we open the thick golden chapel doors, it’s as if we are entering a magic kingdom. The lights are low, and stars are projected across the ceiling. Streams of red and blue light illuminate the stage where Cobalt Becker presides through the low layer of smoke hovering around him.
“One day very soon Christ will arrive here on earth, the final proof of God’s sovereignty over all people, all countries, and all history. His return will bring the final stage of our redemption, the culmination of all God has promised to those who accept his dominion and embrace Jesus Christ as their personal savior.” Becker’s deep bass pulsates through the room and refracts with the red and blue lights on the mesmerized faces of the cong
regants standing in rapt attention.
“In John 14:3, Jesus himself declares that he will come back. The Second Coming of Christ will be with great power and great glory, it will end the abominations that cause desolation. Jesus said he would come back, and fear not, the day is near,” Becker thunders. “He hasn’t forgotten you. The Messiah is coming, do you believe it?”
“Yes!” the believers reply.
“The Messiah is coming, do you believe it?” Becker says more forcefully.
“Yes!” the enthralled cry.
“The Messiah is coming and our job as believers is clear to all who open their eyes. We must pray for his coming, we must watch for his coming.” Becker escalates the intensity of his words with each phrase, leading the faithful to ever higher states of rapture. “We must expect he is coming, must look for his coming.” Becker’s booming voice dominates every air molecule in the sanctuary.
The congregants are crying, reaching their hands into the sky as if picking apples of salvation.
“And above all else, we must make his coming possible.” Becker’s two hands extend to the sky like light sticks on a celestial runway as electric guitar riffs joins the fiery organ in a rock instrumental of “God shall overcome” that wraps itself around every person in the room, including Maurice and me.
The smoke rises across the stage as the red and blue lights, now joined by lasers, whirl across the hall. The music intensifies to a crescendo then slows itself one measure at a time as the pulsating light slows and the room gradually becomes brighter. As the fog clears, Becker is gone. The music stops, the lights are on, and the stunned congregants begin the process of stepping back from their collective hypnosis.
The scene is so overwhelming, I look around the room to see how people are responding.
Then I see her.
Carol Stock looks very different from the woman I’d seen in Kansas City. She is glowing.
I glance at Maurice before approaching her. “Mrs. Stock, may I have a word with you?”
She looks at me as if lost between two worlds. “You wouldn’t understand, you can’t,” she says nervously.
