The Genesis Code

by Christopher Forrest

  He took it as a bad omen.

  Despite having worked in the Millennium Tower since it opened, Christian Madison rarely visited any of the shops or restaurants in the atrium. He arrived in the building’s underground parking garage each morning and rocketed up to the thirty-fourth-floor offices of Triad Genomics by express elevator. Madison often worked until late into the evening, declining polite dinner invitations from colleagues in favor of taking dinner at his desk in Styrofoam containers filled with sushi delivered by androgynous Japanese teens from the Pacific Rim Restaurant on the third floor.

  By the time Madison stepped off the elevator onto the thirty-fourth floor, it was almost eight-fifteen.

  Occupying eight floors of the Millennium Tower, the headquarters of Triad Genomics housed a world-class genetics research lab, high-tech offices for its geneticists and support staff, administrative facilities, boardrooms, and plush guest suites for visiting scientists and investors. Security was of the highest caliber, and Madison waited impatiently for the high-tech security system to detect the RFID chip implanted in his security badge.

  With an audible click, the thick Plexiglas door unlocked and swung open.

  “Dr. Madison, how are you this morning?” asked Michael Zoovas, seated behind the reception desk in the foyer. A former NYPD police officer, Zoovas had taken a job as a security officer with Triad Genomics following a short, unsuccessful attempt at retirement.

  After Zoovas left the NYPD, he grew out his beard, put on twenty pounds, and bought a bass boat. He was bored out of his skull within six months. Drove his wife crazy. Zoovas was fond of saying that in order to save his marriage, he had to go back to work.

  “Sandy was just asking about you the other day,” said Zoovas. “Wondered how you were doing.”

  Madison had met Zoovas’s wife, Sandy, last year at Justin’s funeral. She was a Rubenesque blonde with creative tendencies and a short attention span.

  “And how is Mrs. Zoovas these days? Still painting watercolor landscapes?” asked Madison.

  Zoovas chuckled.

  “Nope. That lasted about two weeks. Now she’s taking pottery classes.”

  “As in shaping-clay-on-a-wheel pottery classes?”

  “Exactly right. Need any bowls or cups? I’ve got pottery coming out my wazoo. All different colors too.”

  “No, I think I’m good. But thanks for asking.”

  “How about charcoal renderings? Japanese calligraphy? African tribal art? My house looks like a gallery for the artistically challenged.”

  “No, thanks, chief. I’m all set on artwork.”

  Zoovas chuckled. “Dr. Madison, have you met David Occam?” he said, gesturing at a burly uniformed security officer seated to his left.

  “No, I haven’t,” said Madison, extending his hand in greeting to the young man.

  “Good to meet you.”

  “Good to meet you, sir,” said Occam. “I just started last week.” His speech was flavored with traces of a British accent.

  “Are you assigned to our floor?”

  Occam’s handshake squeezed Madison’s fingers like a vise.

  “No, sir. I’m going through your orientation and training program. They rotate me around through different departments. This week, Mr. Zoovas is putting me through the paces.”

  “Well, then you’re in good hands,” said Madison, extricating himself from the painful handshake. He noted Occam’s rigid posture and crew cut, and the punctuation of his responses to Madison’s questions with a crisp “sir.”

  “Former military?” Madison asked.

  “Yes, sir. Ten years in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces. Eight of those ten in the Twenty-second SAS Regiment. Special air service.”

  “Special air service—is that part of the Royal Air Force?”

  “No, sir. British army, actually. A common misperception.”

  “Did you and Omar serve together?” asked Madison. “I believe he was British army as well.”

  “Omar?”

  “Omar Crowe,” offered Zoovas, referring to the head of security at Triad Genomics. “Some of the higher-ups here call Mr. Crowe by his first name. But unless he asks you to call him Omar, I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  “Ah, yes. I believe I’ll continue to address him as Mr. Crowe. And to answer your question, Dr. Madison, no, I didn’t know Mr. Crowe in the service.”

  He smiled. “But I’m sure that my time in Her Majesty’s Armed Forces didn’t exactly hurt my prospects for employment here.”

  “I’m sure it didn’t,” said Madison. He glanced at the Tag Heuer watch on his wrist.

  “I’m running late. I’ll see you both later. And Mr. Occam, welcome to Triad Genomics.”

  “Thank you, sir,” replied Occam.

  “Take it easy, Dr. Madison,” said Zoovas.

  Madison strolled off down the hallway, forcing himself to toss a friendly wave and good-morning smile to his colleagues as he made his way to his office.

  Once Madison was out of earshot, Zoovas turned to Occam.

  “Nice guy. Very sad story,” he said.

  “How do you mean?”

  Zoovas glanced around and self-consciously lowered his voice.

  “Dr. Madison is a real whiz kid. A little odd, but a true genius. I swear he’s got one of those photographic memories. Doesn’t forget a thing. And he was quite the rising star here at Triad Genomics. He was Dr. Ambergris’ protégé. They worked together on the human genome project. Triad Genomics was the first biotech firm to completely sequence human DNA.”

  Occam leaned back in his chair. “But?”

  Zoovas sighed. “Madison had a kid. A little boy named Justin. It was a terrible thing. About a year and a half ago, his kid was diagnosed with leukemia. Died six months later.”

  Occam let out a low whistle. “That’s awful.”

  “Yeah. Madison’s wife just lost it. Couldn’t cope. She left him not long after the funeral. Since then, he just hasn’t been the same. Madison used to work seventy, eighty hours a week. He’d be in here before six A.M. Sometimes he wouldn’t leave until after midnight. Not anymore. Sometimes I don’t see him for days. Actually, I’m surprised he still has a job here at all.”

  “Maybe Dr. Ambergris protects him?” ventured Occam.

  “Maybe. But I don’t know. After Justin died, things went south between them too. They had some kind of falling-out. I’m not sure they even work together anymore.”

  “A falling-out? About what?”

  “I’m not sure. Madison requested reassignment. Now he works on the Ark Project, decoding and cataloguing DNA from all kinds of different animals. Moved to a new office on the other side of the building.”

  “And Ambergris?”

  “Around the same time, Ambergris lost his father, a big-shot professor at Yale. It did something to him. Dr. Ambergris was always eccentric—you know, in that charming, absentminded professor kind of way? But since last year, he’s been different. People don’t smile anymore when they say he’s eccentric.”

  “But he’s still one of the big shots around here, though.”

  “No question about it. He’s got some big new research project going on. And he took on a new protégé—a young woman by the name of Grace Nguyen. Dr. Madison’s no longer the heir apparent, that’s for sure. She even moved into his old office.”

  “That’s too bad. He seemed like a nice guy.”

  “Yeah. But you know what they say about nice guys,” said Zoovas. “They always finish last.”

  Six

  Street Level, Millennium Tower

  Manhattan, New York

  As she walked the six blocks from her apartment building to her office at Triad Genomics, Grace Nguyen was greeted with the sights and smells of a typical weekday morning in Manhattan. A cacophony of car horns, cell phones, and voices emanated from the herds of commuters migrating in the morning rush hour. The aroma of freshly baked breads and pastries wafted from a corner bakery, displaced only a moment later by the shar
p odor of exhaust from a red double-decker transit bus.

  Nguyen recalled the days when New York seemed vibrant and alive—a living, breathing metropolis, brimming with opportunity and possibility. Over the past year, the teeming city had lost its luster in her eyes, and felt crowded, dark, and dirty.

  Grace navigated through the morning crowds with long, fluid strides, purposeful but unhurried. Dressed in a simple white linen shirt and tan skirt, with long, dark hair and Asian features, Grace had grown accustomed to the unwelcome stares from male passersby on the street.

  As she neared the front entrance to the Millennium Tower, she realized that a group of roughly twenty people were congregated on the sidewalk outside. Several of them held homemade signs emblazoned with protest slogans.

  An overweight middle-aged woman clutched a sign in a meaty hand that read: STEM CELL RESEARCH IS IMMORAL!

  A young man with longish hair and a colorful tattoo of Jesus on his forearm held a placard that declared: EMBRYOS ARE PEOPLE TOO!

  Down the block at the corner, a large black man was filming the scene with a television camera perched atop his shoulder. An attractive young woman, presumably a reporter, hovered nearby, gesturing instructions to the cameraman.

  Grace’s cheeks flushed with annoyance.

  You have got to be kidding me.

  Grace was just beginning to consider skirting back around the block to the side entrance when a young woman in the group spotted the Triad Genomics identification badge hanging from a cord around Grace’s neck. Perhaps emboldened by the presence of a television crew, she placed herself squarely in Grace’s path.

  “Stop stem cell research now!” she yelled, locking eyes with the approaching geneticist.

  Grace’s annoyance swelled into anger.

  “You’re blocking my way,” she said in a stern voice. Other members of the group took notice of the exchange and watched with anticipation.

  The young woman held her ground. And although there was ample room for Grace to walk around the female protester, she refused to alter her course, walking directly toward her verbal assailant.

  “We’re here to protect the unborn, those who can’t protect themselves!” shouted the woman.

  “How nice for you. Now step out of my way,” she said, continuing on a collision course with the protester.

  The confrontation had begun to draw the attention of people passing on the sidewalk, some of whom stopped to watch the encounter. One of the protesters, an older man in a white oxford shirt and blue jeans, handed his sign to a teen standing nearby and attempted to intervene.

  “Jennifer, this is a peaceful demonstration,” he said.

  The young woman was undeterred. Emboldened by the gathering crowd, she held her sign high above her head and stuck her chin out defiantly.

  “People like you have no respect for the value of human life!” she cried.

  Grace stopped dead in her tracks. The two women were separated by only a few feet. Grace’s eyes narrowed and her hands clenched into small fists.

  When she finally spoke, her voice was low and razor-sharp.

  “People like me? Listen to me, you ignorant girl,” she said, anger blazing in her eyes. “I lost a child to a genetic disease. She died before she was born. Have you ever lost a child?”

  The moral indignation drained from Jennifer’s face. She slowly shook her head.

  “I thought not. Stem cell research may find a cure for the disease that took my daughter,” said Grace. “Not that you have any idea what stem cell research really means. And I don’t even do that type of work. Not that you have any comprehension of what geneticists actually do.”

  Jennifer opened her mouth.

  “Don’t you dare say another word to me,” said Grace.

  The woman visibly wilted under Grace’s onslaught. The crowd of protesters and onlookers were silent.

  “Now step out of my way before I knock you to the ground.”

  Jennifer lowered her sign and moved to the side.

  Without uttering another word, Grace walked defiantly through the small crowd of protesters toward the entrance to the Millennium Tower.

  Down the block, Flavia Veloso turned to the cameraman standing beside her.

  “Please tell me you got that…”

  Seven

  34th Floor, Millennium Tower

  Manhattan, New York

  Madison’s office at Triad Genomics was one hundred and ninety-four paces from the security station in the thirty-fourth-floor lobby. He unconsciously counted them off in his head as he walked through the tangle of sterile hallways and plain doors toward his assigned environs.

  As he neared his office, the Triad Genomics security system detected the RFID tag embedded in the ID card clipped to Madison’s shirt pocket, confirmed his identity, and courteously unlocked the office door. The computer system also increased the ambient lighting and temperature in Madison’s office to suit his personal preferences, and began piping in soft classical music through hidden speakers.

  Madison tossed his battered leather shoulder bag onto the credenza. As he sat down at his desk, Triad Genomics’ computer system unlocked his workstation and opened a secure socket to the central server. Then, as if on cue, his phone rang.

  “Christian Madison,” he answered.

  “Hi, Christian, it’s Kate.”

  Madison felt like he had been kicked in the stomach.

  “Kate,” he said, trying to keep the emotion out of his voice. “It’s been a while.”

  “Christian, I just wanted to see if you were okay. I mean, today has been really hard for me, and I know it must be hard on you too.”

  “Did my mother call you?”

  Silence.

  “Umm, yeah. She did. Don’t be upset with her. She’s just worried about you.”

  “So this phone call wasn’t your idea.”

  “Christian, don’t be like that.”

  “Don’t be like that? Give me a break. We haven’t talked in weeks. And now you decide to call me and see how I’m feeling?”

  A diminutive twenty-something in wire-rimmed glasses strolled into Madison’s office, slurping from a can of Diet Coke. He looked like the young CEO of a dot-com start-up from the nineties. He wore pleated khaki pants and a black T-shirt. His dark brown hair was longish and stylishly unkempt.

  “Bad time?” asked Stefan “Quiz” Goertz, Triad Genomics’ systems engineer and resident computer guru.

  “No, I’m finished,” said Madison. He turned his attention back to the phone.

  “So, as I was saying, thanks for calling. Don’t be a stranger.”

  “Christian, wait—”

  Madison hung up the phone.

  “You’re late again,” said Quiz, deliberately ignoring the tension in the room.

  “Your point being?”

  Quiz smiled. “Big conference got you off your game?”

  “Piece of cake,” said Madison. “Dr. Ambergris is giving the big speech for Triad Genomics. I’ve just got the breakout session, a discussion group on the Ark Project.”

  “How many species are you up to?” asked Quiz.

  “Just over eleven thousand. Noah may have assembled two of every animal in the days before the Great Flood, but he had divine assistance.”

  Madison sighed and leaned back in his chair.

  Quiz pointed to a framed Time magazine cover on the wall. The cover story featured Triad Genomics, the first biotech company to sequence the entire human genome. Beneath a photo of Madison and his mentor, Dr. Joshua Ambergris, the title read, “The DNA Codebreakers.”

  “You and Dr. Ambergris. Always playing God.”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Mapping the human genome wasn’t enough,” said Quiz. “Now you want to play Darwin and reinvent the origin of species.”

  “We can’t all be genius computer gods like you,” replied Madison. “Besides, Ambergris hasn’t been involved in the Ark Project for at least six months. He’s keeping his current
research all to himself.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Look,” interrupted Madison. “I have no idea what he’s working on.”

  “You two used to be thick as thieves.”

  “Not anymore. Grace Nguyen is his new pet. She works with him on his new projects.”

  “And the Biogenetics Conference?”

  “He’s giving the keynote speech. The rumor mill has it that he plans to announce some new groundbreaking discovery.”

  “Ambergris is an odd bird,” said Quiz. “Great taste in assistants, though,” he said, reflecting for a moment on the attractive geneticist with whom Dr. Ambergris currently shared his secrets.

  “But enough about the enterprising, young Dr. Grace Nguyen,” said Madison, casting a disapproving look at Quiz as he turned toward his computer.

  Madison’s workstation loaded the documents and data he had been working on the previous day. On his computer monitor, a three-dimensional double helix revolved slowly in cyberspace.

  A synthesized chime alerted Madison to the presence of new e-mail messages. He clicked on the mail icon. The first entry on the list of unread e-mail was dated June 11, 4:40 A.M. The sender of the e-mail was identified as Dr. Joshua Ambergris.

  An e-mail from Dr. Ambergris.

  At 4:40 A.M.?

  Madison clicked open the e-mail. A puzzled look dashed across his face. Curious, Quiz leaned over the desk to view Madison’s computer monitor.

  <<<

  Priority: Urgent

  This message is not flagged]

  * * *

  Date: Tue., 14 June 04:39:57 -0400(EDT)

  To: Dr. Christian Madison (CMadison@TriadGenomics.com)

  From: Dr. Joshua Ambergris (JAmbergris@TriadGenomics.com)

  Subject: [none]

  * * *

  Beneath the grid was a single line of text: This is the beginning of the ancient word.

  “What’s that?” asked Quiz.

  “I have no idea.”

  Eight

  34th Floor, Millennium Tower

  Manhattan, New York