by Bill Clem
1441 attagatacc ccactatgct tagccataaa cttaggtagt cgaataacga gactactcgc
1501 cagagaacta cgagccactg cttaaaactc aaaggacttg gcggtgccct aaacccttct
1561 agaggagcct gttctataat cgataaaccc cgatacacct caccccttct agctctatca
1621 gtctatatac cgccatcgtc agctcacccc aacaggggac aaaagtgagc aagattatga
1681 aaccataaaa acgttaggtc aaggtgtagc gtatggaggg ggaag cgatg ggctacattt
1741 tctaaattag aacataacga attatctatt gaaacaaaga tatgaag gag gatttagtag
1801 taaattaaga atagagagct taattgaaaa aggcaatggg gtgcgta cac accgcccgtc
It was obviously the sequencing data for the Thylacine project, but Peter was shocked that huge chunks of data were missing from the files. There were supposed to be data from two specimens, yet there was barely enough data here for one specimen. More frightening yet, the end of the first file called for aborting the project.
The last entry made a chill climb the ladder of Peter’s spine.
Sequence tainted?
The entry was dated September 3, 2003. Two days before Whiting killed himself.
A mechanical click at the door jolted Peter from his thoughts.
Ellen Choy entered, wearing her white lab coat over a white polo blouse and khaki slacks. Her security card dangled from the chain around her neck. She carried a huge, white coffee mug with the GenSys logo on the side.
“Dr. Carlson, I wanted to apologize for Frank Tibek’s behavior at the meeting yesterday. He can be a real jerk sometimes.”
“I gathered that. But, it’s okay. In this occupation, you meet a lot like him. It’s their egos.’
“What about you?”
“I’m not in this for glory. It’s more personal for me.”
Choy set her mug on the table. “You mean your grandfather.”
“Yes. Have you heard of him?”
“I’ve read some of his papers. He was very advanced for his time.”
Carlson turned, hiding a smile. “I’m very proud of the work he did.”
“You should be. He was the pioneer who brought us here.”
“So how did you end up here? I mean, what’s your official duty?”
Choy furrowed her brow. “You mean, duties, plural. I double as a doctor and researcher. Much of the research deals with cause and effect on humans. You know, because of the Prince’s son’s condition. I oversee that. But since I don’t have a full-grown specimen to work with yet, a lot of my research is theoretical. I can only hope our ancestors were right about the medicinal powers of the Thylacine. I really don’t understand the DNA sequencing part that well. It’s not my field of expertise.”
Peter smiled. “Don’t feel bad. A tonsillectomy is beyond my expertise. Speaking of sequencing, you wouldn’t know what happened to the rest of Dr. Whiting’s files, would you? It seems there are large amounts of data missing.”
“No. I came in on the tail end of this thing, just as you did. Frank keeps a really tight lid on everything around here.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Carlson turned back to the monitor in front of him and tapped the screen with his finger. “It looks like to me after the first batch of extractions, Whiting was questioning the growth pattern of the embryos.”
Ellen Choy bent down and studied the computer screen. “That’s the growth hormone issue you brought up in the meeting?”
“Yes.”
“What do those numbers mean?’
“Those codes identify the various characteristics of the growth pattern. Thylacines mature rapidly, but these codes indicate extremely fast growth patterns, at a fraction of the normal gestation.”
“But why is that?” Choy asked.
“It appears that corners were cut. I can only assume why. I know Dr. Whiting was under financial pressure from the museum to bring in some results before they ran out of money. And... well, you know the rest of the sad story.”
“Whiting killed himself.”
Peter nodded. “Such a waste. He was a brilliant researcher.”
Ellen Choy heaved a sigh. “There seems to be a lot of unanswered questions about this project.”
“Yes, and I doubt even our good Prince can answer them.”
Twenty-One
* * *
JACK BAKER LOOKED AT HIS newly stitched wound and grinned. It was still bleeding. Not heavily, just a steady ooze. “I’m impressed. Looks better than some I’ve had done by doctors.”
“I use to sew a lot when I was a teenager. We didn’t have a lot of money, so I made most of my clothes.”
“Looks like it paid off. Anyway, thanks. It feels better already.”
“At least till the Lidocaine wears off.”
The rain began to slacken. It was still falling steadily, but the downpour was over. In another five or ten minutes, Jack knew, it would stop altogether. He stepped across the clearing to check on the others. The lean-to hadn’t done much to shelter them; they were just as wet as he was.
Hammond sat up. “Did you hear that scream before?”
“I did.”
“What do you make of it?”
There was a bright, momentary flash of lightening, followed closely by a loud clap of thunder. Then the creature’s cry pealed through the night again.
“Jesus, what is that?” Hammond asked, sliding deeper inside the shelter.”
“Probably some nocturnal monkey common to this island,” Baker said.
“No monkey did that to those people back there. Or have you forgotten already?”
“On the contrary, Captain, there are monkeys who can do that. They are eight times stronger than man.”
Bob Turner spoke up. “He’s right, Captain. I saw a show on Discovery Channel. Some were real mean muthas, too.”
“Well, at any rate, we’re not safe out here. We need to set up a guard schedule.”
“I’ll take first watch,” Bob Turner said.
Hammond nodded. “Fine by me.”
* * *
An hour later, Bob Turner sat at his makeshift guard post. He’d found some teak planks and stacked them next to the fire. He stood four of them upright and made cross braces from smaller limbs. Finally, he covered the whole thing with banana leaves. Turner was sure they would have all drowned in the rain had it not been for the huge leaves.
It was dark beyond the fire, darker than Turner would have thought possible. For a while, all he heard was the relentless hum of mosquitoes and the thump of his own heartbeat in his ears. But then that high-pitched howling sound came again, louder this time, closer and more urgent. It seemed to be coming from every direction.
Turner was out beyond the safety of the fire and he realized that was a mistake. He wheeled around to run back, but suddenly his forward motion stopped as though he’d hit an invisible force field.
It was no force field.
Turner looked down and saw the source of his sudden impediment. A fur-covered arm, the size of a tree trunk, had wrapped around his chest and was now dragging him into the jungle. He felt his heels cutting a furrow in the sand as if he weighed mere ounces. He tried to scream, but he could only feel the rib-crushing arm, squeezing the breath from him. He heard the snap, the cracking of his ribs, just before the thing yanked him into the black abyss of the jungle.
Twenty-Two
* * *
WHEN PETER CARLSON ENTERED THE Medical Suite, he found Ellen Choy entering a notation on a chart.
Choy looked up, gave him a smile, then glanced back at the chart and made another entry.
“You asked to see me?” Carlson said.
“Peter. Thanks for coming.” She set aside her paperwork. “What I’m going to tell you doesn’t leave this room.”
Carlson nodded tentatively. “Okay.”
Choy turned on her stool. “I had one of the guards in here this morning. One of the Tasmanian Devils in the lab bit him. I guess he was taunting one of them and it snatched his finger through the cage. Nearly tore it off.”
“Well, that doesn’t surprise me. Doesn’t he know the
ir reputation?”
“If he didn’t, he does now. That’s not the problem.”
Carlson furrowed his brow. “Well what’s the—“
“Listen. He immediately wrapped his handkerchief around the finger, squeezing it to stem the flow of blood.”
Carlson nodded, not sure where she was going with this story.
Choy continued. “When he got here fifteen or twenty minutes later, I unwrapped the finger. Peter, the wound was almost completely healed.”
“What?”
“I’m convinced it was something in the animal’s saliva. I did some checking and that particular animal had just undergone testing with the growth hormone mixture.”
“You believe there’s a connection?”
“There’s no other explanation. A traumatic near-amputation of a finger doesn’t heal itself in twenty minutes; or twenty days for that matter.”
“That’s... that’s fantastic.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too, until I looked at his lab work. You had better see for yourself.”
Carlson leaned across the table and eyed the lab printout. There was a brief silence. For a moment, he thought the room would start spinning.
“Oh, Jesus.”
Twenty Three
* * *
ELLEN CHOY WAITED LONG ENOUGH to establish she was alone before approaching the first of two doors marked OFF LIMITS. There was a six-inch metal box mounted on the door’s frame next to the handle. It was identical to the other security stations she’d used at GenSys for the last six months, except it didn’t have a signal light on it. Preparing to flee if she set off an alarm, she withdrew her passkey from her pocket. Taking a deep breath, she swiped the card through the thin channel on the box. With no green light, there was no way to know if she’d gained entry or not. Then she heard the distinct metallic click of a lock. She reached tentatively for the handle and turned it, pulling slowly. Bingo!
Bright light blinded Ellen, causing her to step backwards. Squinting, she stepped through the doorway, easing the door to a close behind her. She found herself in a corridor, long, bright and empty. When the door latched, she felt a momentary panic. I’m trapped! Her chest tightened as though there were no air in the hallway.
Stay calm. Keep your head.
Ellen picked her way down another shorter, less brightly lit hallway. Soon, it intersected with yet a third corridor. Despite all her time at GenSys, she was unaware that this section existed. She followed a turn in the corridor and found a door on her right. Through its uncovered window, she could see a single lamp burning on a counter, no different from those in the rest of the facility. She could make out a sink and shelves above the counter, filled with what appeared to be periodicals and textbooks. A lone computer sat at the end of the long counter, by a lamp and telephone. Several stools sat alongside. The overall look was sparse, but it still made her feel uneasy.
Ellen tried the doorknob.
Damn!
She made her way down the hall to the next door, marked: STERILE—KEEP OUT. Another security panel was mounted next to the door. She listened for a moment, then again used her passkey. She listened for the telltale click.
There it was.
As she stepped inside, the sharp smell of disinfectant was the first thing to hit her. The next was the sense that she was not alone.
She leaned against the wall as her eyes adjusted from the bright hallway to the dim light of this room. As she did so, seven pairs of close-set eyes centered squarely on Ellen.
Oh, Christ!
The sight of the row of female Tasmanian Devils staring out at her from their cages horrified her at first, but the reaction quickly turned to repulsion, then pity, at the recognition of the poor animals’ state. It was their eyes that got to her. They were so sad. GenSys had decided on Tasmanian Devils for test animals, rather than monkeys or dogs since they were the closest living relative to the Thylacine. She wanted to set them free. Ellen willed herself to concentrate on the task at hand. She turned to the rest of the vast room. In the center was a long stainless-steel examination table like that used by veterinarians. Medical instruments were everywhere. On a stand at the end of the table rested an ultrasound machine.
Along one wall was another long counter; above that, metal cupboards with makeshift labels, crude penmanship scrawled on masking tape, denoting their contents.
She opened one marked histological samples. Inside, one shelf was labeled—again crudely on masking tape—brain; another, spinal chord. Ellen knew the samples must have been from the fetal Thylacine pups.
As she turned back to the cupboards, a large barrel in the corner of the room caught her eye. It was stamped “LAB WASTE”. She went to the barrel and struggled with the lid for a few minutes trying to figure out how to remove it. There was a clasp attached to a metal strip that circled the top of the barrel, fixing the lid in place. It required considerable strength to disengage and, as Ellen strained to force it open, she inadvertently leaned into the barrel. Suddenly, the catch gave way and the lid, now free, clamored to the ground. As she shifted her weight away, a liquid sloshed out of the wobbling barrel, splashing her hands and face.
Horrified that it might be some kind of acid, Ellen wiped frantically with the sleeves of her lab coat. She pulled them long to cover her hands, and was wiping her face with them when something on the barrel’s surface drew her attention.
She stopped, sleeve-covered hands still pressed to either side of her face, and leaned closer.
“Oh my God,” she cried out.
Twenty-Four
* * *
FRANK TIBEK WAS A BUNDLE of nervous energy. He did not like meetings. Especially this early in the morning. His long fingers tapped incessantly on a lab stool as he fielded their questions. His other hand fumbled idly with a pen in the pocket of his lab coat as Jimi reviewed the file that lay open on his table.
“It seems Dr. Carlson has made a big difference.”
There it was again. Doctor Carlson, what a difference! All the work that had gone into this project for the last five years, his work, was being overshadowed by the prodigal child’s arrival. Or should that be the prodigal grandchild?
“I believe the difference is the change in the way the cells were derived this time. Clearly the response of the host to this embryo is dramatically different than any previous attempts,”
Tibek responded.
Jimi stood transfixed, clearly in over his head.
The scientist continued, “While the embryo twinning looked good in culture—I achieved an eighty percent success rate—once implanted, hyper-acute rejection has been the rule rather than the exception. I was unable to achieve proper synchronization of the adult nucleus donor and egg cell until obtaining the exact formula.”
“I take it Dr. Carlson provided that formula?”
“Yes,” Tibek answered reluctantly. “In that respect, Dr. Carlson’s help has, um, expedited matters somewhat. However, in two months—three month tops, we would have had it anyway.”
“You’re the expert, not me. I’m just here to gather information for the Prince. I must tell you, though; he is growing increasingly anxious. The boy has taken a turn for the worst.”
Tibek stood. “I’m sorry to hear that. We are proceeding as fast as humanly possible. Everything we can do is being done. You need to convey that to him. We are in day fifty of the seventy-day gestation period. It won’t be long, three weeks at most.”
Tibek strained his long gooseneck to read along as Jimi flipped through the pages of several charts.
“All but three have aborted?” he asked Tibek after studying the charts for several minutes.
Tibek nodded. “What about those three?” Tibek removed his glasses and pierced his eyes on Jimi. “Well, that’s a good question.”
Twenty-Five
* * *
PETER CARLSON FELT THE WEIGHT of the night pressing down on him. He placed the tissue culture flasks back into the incubator and closed the door.
He’d been working since the previous morning. His current quest, to find a reactor cell to turn on the growth factor of the Y chromosome, required the long hours. His usual schedule of arriving at the lab at seven a.m. and working till evening did not suit this task. After three more failures that afternoon, he believed he’d finally found the gene he was looking for. Test results showed that the Thylacine Col2a1 gene has a similar function in cartilage and bone development as the Col2a1 gene does in the mouse genus. Still, the nagging feeling that GenSys was making a Promethean mistake ate at him like an offending sore.
Although Habib’s building of the magnificent facility had assuaged him initially, the effect didn’t last. Carlson’s scientist side always wrangled with his ethics and humanity. What are, or should be, the limits of science? What role do the tenets of society play in what we learn, what we should learn, and how it is applied, if it should be applied at all? Where is the line, and who gets to draw it? The politician? The church? The wealthy, the powerful? On the other hand, is it the responsibility of the scientist, the researcher? When the unthinkable becomes possible, does that make it right to make the unthinkable reality?
And the breakneck speed, and need, of this project gave Carlson further anxiety. Proceeding too quickly eliminated a key element of the research process, the chance to weigh the value and knowledge gained from each step and its possible ramifications. It eliminated time to reason. Results without understanding scared the hell out of him. What should take years to complete, the Prince wanted in mere months. Dream lab or not, what was developing before him sent a chill to his core.
Impulsively, Carlson removed his lab coat and draped it over a nearby stool. A light tapping pulled him from his thoughts. Opening the door, he was surprised to see Ellen Choy smiling back at him.
“I thought I was the only insomniac around here. Come in.”
“Are you sure? You look like you’re about to leave.”
