Conception: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (Perfectible Animals Book 1)

by Thomas Norwood

  Annie and I decided to adopt Harvey and Shy and go with them to the same island that Dylan and Sophie were living on. Annie stayed in Melbourne to start preparations for selling our house and packing all of our belongings, and I headed to the desert to help the mothers and children prepare for the move.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  THREE MONTHS AFTER first being taken by ASIO, I am transported to a regular prison. Although my cell here is not much larger than my last one, at least I am allowed into the yard during the day and into the dining quarters at meal times, and have exposure to the other prisoners. Not that this is always a good thing — I’ve already been roughed around by guys who do nothing else with their lives but work out. I have made a couple of friends, though, and those friends have friends who do nothing but work out. So it’s not too bad.

  Finally, after nearly three months without any contact, I am allowed to see Annie. I pace around my cell all morning, wondering what to say to her and how she is going to react. How could I have been so stupid as to get myself arrested? Why wasn’t I more careful? I should never have gone back to the city.

  I wonder how they even found out. I presume that someone at the clinic, one of the nurses, told them about the virus that Annie had caught from the children. Maybe even Savage had me under surveillance — ever since I was caught leaving the de-reg zone. I’ll probably never know.

  I wait eagerly with the other prisoners for access to the visitors’ booths. I want to hug Annie, kiss her, spend weeks alone with her, but fifteen minutes is all we’ve got. How ironic, that after spending years trying to cure her, I may never be able to live with her again.

  Finally, my name is called and I can see Annie through the glass, walking towards booth twelve. I run down, not wanting to miss even a second. She is there, as beautiful as ever, even more so as she looks younger than when I last saw her. I press my hands and then my face up to the glass and she does the same. I stare at her, trying to fill myself with her image, every detail of her face, to take back to my cell. It’s lonely here, and I have been starting to forget the smaller details of her face.

  I take hold of the phone and she does the same.

  “My love!”

  “My darling!” Her voice goes straight to my heart and I can’t stop myself from crying.

  “How are you?” I say, sitting down and clutching the phone as if it were her.

  “I’m okay. I’m better now. For months I had no idea where you were. Thank God you’re okay. Are you?” Despite her youthful appearance I see new lines in her face.

  “Yes, I’m okay. I suppose. I’ve certainly been better.” I smile. “How is your health? Are you better?”

  “Yes. One hundred percent. Baxter can’t believe it. We’ve started cloning antibodies and culturing natural killer cells to help others.”

  “What about the children?”

  “They’re okay. They’re fine. Harvey and Shy are here, in Melbourne.”

  “With you?”

  “No, of course not. They’re safe. It’s okay.”

  “Why didn’t you let them go with the others?”

  “They’re smart kids, Michael. They need an education. A proper education. That’s something they’re only ever going to get here.”

  I look at her and shake my head. I want to ask her more about the other children, where they are, what has happened to them, but I can’t risk it.

  “What’s happening now?” Annie says.

  “I need you to get me a lawyer. The best you can find. They’re trying to charge me for terrorism.”

  “But that’s ridiculous. They’re the fucking terrorists.”

  “Shh, Annie, calm down, it’s okay. We’re going to get through this. Just get me the best lawyer you can find. Please.”

  “Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Before I know it, our time is up and a guard comes to take me away. I press myself to the glass one last time and Annie puts her fingers up to meet mine.

  Three days later, James Harrison, a tall, handsome lawyer, comes to visit me. We sit in an interview room together. James goes over my case and explains to me the charges. Dylan, apparently, is going to be one of the prosecutor’s main witnesses, having made a plea bargain in return for a reduced sentence and the safety of the New Church havens. Although James doesn’t yet know exactly what Dylan is going to say, we both presume it is not going to be good.

  James asks me to tell him everything from the beginning, and I go over every detail of the last few years.

  When I finish, he sits there staring, nodding his head.

  “Well, what do you think?” I say.

  “I think it’s all going to come down to intent. The government believes you did this on purpose. Did you?”

  “No, it was an accident.” He is referring to the virus that was created by the children, and the potential for them to create even more virulent strains.

  “Then why didn’t you hand the children over to the government?”

  “They would have killed them or else used them for their own purposes — to create more bio-weapons.”

  “Either way — that wasn’t your choice to make.”

  “No, but I think it was the best one given the circumstances.”

  “What are our chances of getting the other members of Gendigm arrested? That’s what the government really wants — to get to the larger organization behind this. I think that if you give them the information they want and it leads to their arrest then they will let you off or at the very least reduce your sentence.”

  “No. I’m not prepared to do that.”

  “Why not? You’re their scapegoat, Michael.”

  “If there’s any chance of saving my project then that’s what I want to do.”

  I can only hope that by now Gendigm has completed my work. At that last meeting, we debated using a benign but contagious disease to spread the modifications, but decided on a pill that could be distributed through the black market instead.

  “Okay, if you’re not going to try for a plea bargain, I suggest we try to tell them that it was a mistake made under a lot of pressure. That you did what you had to do, which was to quarantine the children on the New Church islands, and that to the best of your knowledge nobody has died. In fact, you managed to come up with a cure for HIV-4 and potentially a lot of other diseases. They’ve got nothing else to go on, really.”

  “What will happen to Dylan? He can’t claim it was a mistake caused by clouded judgement.” During the course of my interviews with Don over the last few months, he told me that they had arrested Dylan as well.

  “That’s not your concern.”

  “I imagine they probably threatened him in the same way they threatened me. If he hasn’t given away the location of the children, then I don’t want him going down for this.”

  “If you don’t want to spend the rest of your life locked up in a small cell, Michael, I’m afraid that’s a risk you’re going to have to take.”

  The next day, a guard comes into my cell and tells me that I have another visitor. I am taken to the booths again and directed to booth number seven. On the other side of the glass sits Sophie.

  She looks up when she sees me but she doesn’t smile. I look a mess and I know it. Prison jumpsuit, unshaven, my hair long and unkempt. My eyes starting to retreat into their sockets as the world closes in around me.

  I slump down into the chair and pick up the phone. I don’t even know what to say to her.

  “How are you?” She shakes her head.

  I try hard to contain my tears. “I’m so sorry, Sophie.”

  She shakes her head again. “How could you let this happen?”

  I put my head in my hands. “What have they told you?”

  “That you’re a terrorist. That you were planning to run a terrorist camp using the New Church islands. Is that true, Michael?”

  “Of course it’s not true. What has Dylan said? Have you spoken to him?”

  “Yes. I spoke to him a
few days ago. For the first time in months. I had no idea what was happening.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It was horrible.” She wipes away a tear.

  “And what has Dylan said? Has he given away the location of the children?”

  “No. Not yet. They’re trying to get him to give up the children in return for his release. They say that if he does then he will get off. They’re acting like we’re some kind of terrorist organization — a threat to the country. Other government and corporate run states, their allies, are supporting them.”

  “And is he going to give up the children?”

  “No. He doesn’t want to. They’ve been asking him about a group called Gendigm, though. They say you’re working for them. That you’re trying to destroy humanity. Is that true, Michael?”

  “Of course it’s not true.”

  “Well, apparently if you tell them what they want to know about Gendigm, they will let you both go.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  I am starting to wonder how much the government has said to Sophie, and how much of what she is telling me is what they’ve told her to tell me. Are they listening in on everything we are saying? It hardly matters any more. I have to protect Gendigm. They have the code for the modifications. They are the only ones who can spread it around the world and make it freely available. Even if governments spread propaganda about how dangerous these children are, nobody will risk not modifying their children this way if they have a choice. Thousands of children like the ones we’ve already created are hopefully already being conceived. Within a single generation the whole of humanity will be different.

  “Michael, please,” Sophie says. “Dylan doesn’t want to testify against you, and he doesn’t want to give up the children, but if you won’t tell them about Gendigm then he’ll have to.”

  “He won’t have to,” I say.

  “Yes, but if he doesn’t they’ll start a full scale war on the New Church.”

  “They’re bluffing,” I say. “I don’t even think they have the resources.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  I don’t know what to say to her, and while I’m trying to work it out our time is up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I SIT AT a well worn wooden desk before a judge and jury. Due to the nature of the proceedings, the public has not been permitted to enter, but a row of eager, seagull-like reporters sits in the media stand. To my right sits James, my lawyer, Karen, James’s legal assistant, and Barnaby, my trial lawyer.

  “If it pleases your honor…” Danny Brown, the short, thick-necked, prosecutor is saying.

  “Go ahead,” says Justice Granger, a thin, bearded man. He waves his hand at Mr Brown.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” Danny starts, “the evidence that I am going to be presenting before this court over the next few weeks will show beyond the shadow of a doubt that this man who sits before you today, Mr Michael Khan, is guilty of seven charges of terrorist activity.

  “For eight years, Mr Khan has been involved in creating genetic modifications for the human immune system that will endow those born with them with far more resistance to diseases than normal. Now, you may think at first that such a modification would be wonderful, and no doubt Mr Khan’s defense will try to convince you that Mr Khan had only the public’s best interests at heart when he created this procedure. Until, however, you realize how such modified humans could quite easily be responsible for breeding strains of viruses that might be deadly to the rest of us.

  “Not only has Mr Khan modified these individuals to be highly resistant to viruses, but he has also modified them to be extremely cooperative. So — a highly cooperative group of individuals who have a much higher than normal tolerance to disease… Mr Khan’s defense will tell you that these modifications were being created for the benefit of humanity, but our evidence will clearly show how he was planning all along to use individuals modified in this way as weapons of destruction.

  “Let’s go back to the beginning, though. Over thirty years ago, Michael Khan met another student, Dylan Hume, at Melbourne University. Michael and Dylan were roommates and, as they were both studying genetics, they became friends. You may know of Dylan Hume — he is now one of the leaders of the organization known as the New Church. The New Church believes that a total collapse of society is upon us and, as such, owns many self-sufficient islands and sea-steads around the world. Now, when Mr Khan and those he was working with needed a safe place to raise and train their genetically enhanced children, what better place to use than self-sufficient sea-steads whose destination almost nobody knows about?”

  As Danny Brown is speaking, I keep an eye on the faces of the jury. Judging by their expressions, my chances of getting off are in free fall. I want to get up and explain to the jury and even the press, right then and there, why exactly I did what I did, how it was all their fault as much as mine, how I was only trying to do what was best for the planet as a whole. Not for the current generation of Homo sapiens maybe, but for the countless other species with whom we share this planet and even for the future of humanity itself.

  Once Danny is finished the judge calls a short recess, and my team and I retire to a small, wood-paneled room off to the side of the courtroom.

  I sit shaking my head. Karen puts a hand on my back.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “They always make it sound ten times worse than it is. That’s their job.”

  “Well, are you still ready to go ahead with our plan?” Barnaby says.

  “I think it’s the best hope we’ve got,” I say.

  Fifteen minutes later, Barnaby stands up in front of the judge and jury. He is young, only thirty-seven, but he has a reputation as one of the best trial lawyers in the country. I watch him walk up to the jury, tall and good-looking. Not good-looking in a swarthy, seductive sense, but in an innocent, kind-of-guy-you’d-like-to-marry-your-daughter sense, which makes almost everything he says seem like the truth.

  “This shouldn’t be a trial about my client, Michael Khan,” Barnaby says to the judge and jury, holding out his hands, “and how he supposedly wanted to destroy the world through genetically modifying a highly-cooperative, highly disease-resistant army. That is just a paranoid hallucination on the part of our government. The true crime, ladies and gentlemen, committed by the government itself, as well as every single one of us, is what we are doing to this planet and to each other. And that is what this trial should really be about.

  “Given that it isn’t, though, and that instead we are here wasting our time trying to convict an innocent man — over the next several weeks we will show how, far from being a criminal who deserves to be locked away for the rest of his life, Michael Khan is a dedicated scientist who was using his intricate knowledge of science to create a better world for humanity. In case some of you, like the prosecution, haven’t noticed, the world, ladies and gentlemen, is in a very sorry state.

  “Now, my client here, understanding what is going on probably better than almost anybody else in the world, decided, along with a number of other scientists, to do something about this. They decided to genetically modify humans not to be smarter, or stronger, or better at sports as many other companies are doing, but to modify humanity to be more cooperative and empathetic and resistant to diseases. Does this sound like the work of an evil genius to you, ladies and gentlemen? Would any of you, upon meeting a person like this on the street, say “Oh my God, who in God’s name created this terrible abomination?” If you were to meet a person who no longer got sick from AIDS, or cancer, or the flu, or malaria, or HIV-4, or almost any other disease, would you want them destroyed?”

  “Over the next few weeks, we will introduce a wide range of scientific experts who will back up almost every aspect of Michael’s world view, and we will prove how Michael’s plan, to create a more cooperative, more disease-resistant species, far from being part of a plan for world domination by a race of super-soldiers, is actually part of a very well
thought-out scientific plan to save humanity from themselves and their very self-destructive habits, and to save what’s left of the rest of this planet at the same time. Now, if that sounds like a good idea to you — then watch out. The government will probably try to lock you up too.”

  Some chuckles emanate from the jury and all of a sudden, far from living in fear as I have for last six months, my heart glimpses the tiniest possibility of hope.

  “Now, the prosecution will try to convince you that everything Michael has been working on over the last ten years was guided by his over-riding desire to destroy humanity. Why, ladies and gentleman, would a man who wanted to destroy humanity, an extremely intelligent and capable man like Michael Khan, go about trying to destroy humanity by creating a cure for many known diseases? And why would he then try to bring up children from birth to use in fifteen or twenty years as biological agents? Wouldn’t a man with the skills and knowledge that Michael obviously possesses, find it far quicker and more economical to simply develop one or two highly contagious diseases and create a vaccine for those diseases that could easily be applied to a select group of “soldiers”, who Michael wished to keep alive, including, presumably, himself and his family members?”

  We were warned before giving our case that any mention of the work I did for the military would land us all in prison without a trial. Barnaby wants to stretch that ruling as far as absolutely possible, but hopefully not to overstep it.

  Barnaby continues: “It is my duty here to prove to you over the next few weeks that there are far easier ways to achieve what the government is accusing Michael of, and, that if someone like Michael wanted to do this, he could easily have done so in a much more efficient manner. Now, either Michael is stupid, which evidence will show he is clearly not, or he is not guilty of the crimes that he is being charged for.”

  Barnaby goes on for another fifteen minutes, and by the time he’s finished Mr Brown’s brow is furrowed and he is whispering urgently to one of his assistants.