Catalyst (Breakthrough Book 3)

by Michael C. Grumley

  Neely Lawton’s eyes widened. “Thousands?”

  Alison smiled. “Tens of thousands. From the boat, dolphins were all we could see. Everywhere. In every direction.”

  “My God. What-”

  “I don’t know exactly what it is. But there’s definitely something there and it’s very important to them. And now…I think it may be related not just to Sofia’s sudden change, but to the plants you were studying as well.”

  Neely blinked. “I’m afraid I’m not seeing the connection.”

  “John told me about the plant he retrieved from one of those Chinese trucks. He said the sample he gave you was larger than almost anything he’d seen before.”

  “It was,” Neely confirmed reluctantly.

  “That’s the connection,” Alison said.

  “What is? Their size?”

  “Yes. When we were there in the ocean with all those dolphins, we dove under the water.” She lowered her voice. “Neely, I’ve been diving hundreds of times and I know what underwater vegetation looks like. What we saw down there were plants several times larger than they should have been and growing out as far as I could see.”

  “What?”

  “Some of them were giant, Neely. Giant. I think there’s something in that water near Trinidad. And I think Dirk and Sally somehow brought some of it back with them.”

  Neely stared at her with a look of astonishment.

  “And that’s not all. You remember how bad Chris and Lee were injured, don’t you?”

  “Of course, they were in the infirmary. How are they?”

  Alison began to answer but stopped to consider her words. This was all sounding so unbelievable. “They’re healed, Neely.”

  “What?”

  “Healed. As in…completely.”

  “They’re healed?!”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes opened even wider. “In three weeks?”

  Alison nodded. “There’s not a mark on them. Even my wrist is better. But Lee had broken ribs, which should take months. He says his pain is gone.”

  Neely leaned back against her door, stunned. “And they were in the water with the little girl?”

  “No!” Alison exclaimed. “But they were in the water at Trinidad. Before we were attacked.”

  Neely stared at her, blinking absently. “Maybe they weren’t hurt as bad as originally thought.”

  “I thought of that. It’s definitely possible…with me and Chris. But Lee had X-rays. He had two very real cracks.”

  Neely was struggling. Her world relied on proof and empirical evidence. What she was getting from Alison certainly wasn’t proof, but it was very compelling. And Alison certainly didn’t strike her as someone who jumped to conclusions. She was extremely intelligent and no doubt, from her own work, understood the importance of objectivity.

  She raised her head and focused again on Alison. “So when do I get to meet your dolphins?”

  26

  Hello Alison.

  “Hello, Sally. How are you?” Alison approached the glass tank. Outside, the night sky had given up the last of its light, creating a clear reflection of Alison under the bright lights of the observation room.

  Me good. Who you friend?

  “Her name is-” Alison stopped with a small grin. If IMIS hadn’t originally been able to translate her name, it sure wasn’t going to be able to translate Neely’s.

  She turned to Neely, who could be seen in the reflection standing behind her. “We’re going to have to have Lee code a name in for you.”

  She turned back to the tank. “Let’s call her “friend” for now.”

  Okay. Hello friend.

  Neely stared at Sally with a look of astonishment on her face. “H-hello, Sally,” she whispered.

  Alison glanced around the tank. “Where’s Dirk?”

  He gone. Come back.

  “I see.”

  Where DeeAnn?

  “DeeAnn isn’t here. She’s gone on a trip.” Alison quickly corrected herself for the sake of IMIS. “I mean she’s gone on a journey.”

  Sally moved her tail but said nothing.

  Alison folded her arms and glanced back at Neely. “You just missed her. They left earlier this afternoon with Steve Caesare.”

  Neely’s gaze was on the tank but darted quickly back to Alison. “Steve Caesare was here?”

  “Yes. Just a few hours ago.”

  Alison watched with bemusement at the obvious look of interest in Neely’s eyes. She’d picked up on it before when observing the two aboard the Bowditch. Neely had a crush on Steve Caesare, even though she fought to hide it. Alison couldn’t blame her. In spite of Caesare’s brashness, he did have an undeniable charm to him. And a girl would be hard-pressed to find a manlier individual. Except perhaps John Clay, of course.

  She continued watching Neely, who was now attempting to suppress a hint of self-consciousness before turning back around to Sally.

  “Sally, I have a favor to ask you.”

  Me favor you.

  Alison smiled. Clearly IMIS’s translation still wasn’t perfect.

  “We’d like to take a fresh sample. Would that be okay?”

  From the other side of the glass, Sally studied Alison with her perpetually fixed dolphin grin.

  You happy fast.

  Alison turned to Neely. “She means excited.” She looked back to Sally and spoke into the microphone. “Yes, Sally. We are.”

  After a long silence, Sally responded. Yes Alison. Sample now.

  Given the problems with obtaining blood samples from dolphins, the most common method for Dirk and Sally’s checkups were through the collection of small skin samples. It allowed Alison’s team to check for a number of contaminants and other dangerous biomarkers.

  Of course, this time she and Neely were looking for something very different.

  Sally continued watching them from within the tank, but said nothing. Both of the women were clearly excited, but what neither realized was that Sally had a surprise of her own.

  27

  Chris Ramirez looked away just as Neely leaned over him, bringing the needle in gently. Leaning forward in his chair, he kept his attention to the side until the sharp pain subsided and the needle was well into his arm.

  “Man, that smarts.”

  “Sorry,” Neely muttered. “I was never the best phlebotomist.” She gently slid her hand down to support the small tube filling up with blood.

  Behind them, Lee was standing several feet away with one finger holding a tiny cotton swab in place. “So what exactly are we looking for?”

  “Erythrocyte behavior.”

  Lee glanced at Chris. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  Neely laughed. “It sounds spookier than it is. I just want to observe the growth rate of your red blood cells, also known as erythrocytes. They’re the most common cells in our bodies and have a tightly regulated lifespan before they are recycled by our macrophages. If there have been nucleic changes affecting cellular regeneration, we’re likely to see it at the erythrocyte level.”

  “Well, I’m not sure what you just said, but I’m hoping for some kind of super power.”

  She grinned without looking up. “Any specific super powers you want me to look for?”

  Lee thought it over. “Flying is always good. Or bulletproof skin maybe.”

  “Maybe we should start smaller,” Chris added. “Like the ability for him to eat better.”

  “Very funny.”

  Neely slid the needle out and pressed a swab against Chris’s arm. She then untied the rubber strap from around his bicep. “Should I check Mr. Kenwood’s cholesterol while we’re at it?”

  Next to the table, Alison peered at Chris. “Someone doesn’t have a whole lot of room to talk. They both need to be checked.”

  Chris stood up and patted his stomach with his free hand. “All muscle, baby.”

  She laughed and stepped forward as Neely checked the seal on the small vial. “You guys are just lucky we had huma
n-sized syringes here. That could have been much more unpleasant.” She gathered the rest of the items and returned them to the box, then handed it to Alison. “Okay. Now I just need a lab.”

  Following the closure of the Army’s Puerto Rican general hospital in 1949, along with Fort Brooke, the Rodriguez Army Health Clinic remained the primary medical facility for all active military personnel on the island.

  It was from a large secured door in Building 21 that Medical Service Corps Officer J. Prodol stepped out into the lobby where he found both women.

  “Commander Lawton?”

  “Here,” Neely said, stepping forward.

  Even though she was both indoors and out of uniform, Prodol still gave a respectful nod. At six foot three and two hundred and forty pounds, Prodol almost towered over both women.

  “I’ve been instructed to escort you to our lab as soon as possible.” He glanced at the small cooler in Neely’s right hand. “Is there anything you need that I can secure for you?”

  “No, thank you.” She shook her head and immediately passed through the door as he held it open. Alison promptly followed as did Prodol, who then escorted them down a short white hallway. At the end, they turned and continued through a much wider hall.

  Just before reaching the end, Prodol retrieved a key card attached to his belt loop and pressed it against a flat scanner. A red light turned green and the door to his left made a loud click. With that, he pulled it open and stepped through.

  “It’s not much, but we should have most of what you need.” He crossed the room, passing two researchers perched in front of their oversized computer monitors and stopped before a larger set of double doors. He repeated the step with his access card and pulled the right-hand door open.

  Inside, the Clinic’s lab was larger than either was expecting, filled with three rows of familiar beige tables and shelves. The chairs were upholstered in a sharp royal blue matching the white/blue motif of the room, a common look for most modern laboratories.

  Prodol motioned to the nearby equipment. “We have five microscopes –– two inverted and three confocal. The centrifuge and hemocytometer are both behind you and most supplies can be found in the cabinets above them. Per my instructions, the room has been cleared for your use only, and for as long as you need.”

  Alison was impressed. She turned to Neely, who scanned the room.

  Prodol handed her a business card with the Clinic’s logo on the front. “Please take your time. If there is anything you need, feel free to ring me on my mobile. Restrooms are outside.”

  “Thank you. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  Prodol smiled politely and excused himself from the room, closing the door behind him.

  As soon as it clicked shut, Neely moved to the silver tabletop refrigerator and transferred her samples from the cooler.

  She then grinned at Alison. “Let’s find the coffee.”

  Several hours later, Neely Lawton leaned away from the confocal microscope and rolled her chair back. “I think we have something.”

  Alison stepped forward from behind her and peered into both eyepieces. It was filled with a sample of red blood cells, grouped together in dense pink clumps, each cell with the recognizable indentations in the middle.

  “Are these from Sally?”

  “Yes.” She brought up an image on the screen. “These are Sally’s,” she said, pointing to the first. “And these are Lee’s red blood cells.”

  “They look almost the same.”

  Neely nodded. “Most mammalian RBCs look pretty similar.”

  Alison peered harder at Lee’s samples. “Are they supposed to be doing something?”

  “Not necessarily. The normal life span of red blood cells is between a hundred to a hundred and twenty days. If Lee or Chris’s systems were exhibiting anything similar to the plants, we should see many more cells in these clusters by now, showing a sharp acceleration in cell production. But we’re not, which means their underlying DNA hasn’t changed.”

  “You mean not like the plants.”

  “Exactly. And it’s just as I was expecting. On the ship, it was immediately obvious that something was different about the plants, which is why we investigated deeper. Their cells were replicating at an astonishing rate. But DNA changes don’t work that fast. It’s evolutionary, which means it takes a number of generations, and mutations, for a change to take effect.”

  “So a lot of time then,” Alison murmured.

  “Well, yes and no. I actually have a friend who likes to argue with me, insisting that the sheer number of genes in a living organism is too vast. And that even if a significant change occurred with every single generation, a billion years still isn’t enough time to accommodate an evolutionary path that gets us to where we are today. But my point to him is that he’s thinking too linearly. His argument is true until you consider that every second of every day, there are trillions, even quadrillions, of cells in every life form on the planet that are constantly splitting and replicating. And even if a mutation does not result in a significant biological change, there are trillions elsewhere that have. And given enough time, those changes will eventually coalesce throughout the species, and in some cases, between species.”

  “And how does that apply to us?”

  “Sorry. I was just making a point that DNA changes can happen faster than most people think, but yeah, it still takes time. DNA doesn’t change overnight. A lot longer than a few weeks, and the exposure would have to be very intrusive, something at a cellular level.”

  “So nothing with Sally either.”

  At that, the corner of Neely’s lip curled. “I didn’t say that. I was speaking only about the men’s samples.”

  Alison looked at her with an anxious trace of excitement. “Well, what does that mean?”

  “Well, I’m not intimately familiar with the biology of dolphins, but most mammals’ red blood cells have replication speeds that fall within a certain range. And Sally’s are well outside of that. In other words, hers are replicating significantly faster.”

  “Really?!”

  “Really. It’s not nearly as fast as I saw in the plants, but it’s faster than I’m guessing it should be. And much faster than either Lee or Chris’s.”

  “So I was right about Dirk and Sally?”

  “Maybe,” Neely said. “There could be several reasons for the growth rate in their cells. We won’t know until I put this through a DNA sequencer. It’s also a long shot that we’d find the exact same base order as the plants had.”

  “But you found it before.”

  She looked up at Alison. “Only because the behavior was so similar to cancer cells. I knew where to look.”

  “So now what?”

  “Now I need to find a sequencer. The Army doesn’t have one here.”

  “How hard is that?”

  “Not very, they’re pretty common these days. Lots of small private labs have them. All we probably need is a phone book.”

  Alison gave her a sarcastic grin. “What’s a phone book?”

  28

  Alison awoke to the sound of a crying child and felt a brush of air as someone walked past her. Gradually, she opened her eyes and lifted her head off a firm vinyl seat. It took a moment to recognize the large room and to recount how she had gotten there.

  It was almost two a.m. before she and Neely located a sequencer in a location that was still open. Most businesses in Puerto Rico closed much earlier than in the States, so she considered it nothing short of a miracle when they found an available machine in San Juan at the Axilio Mutuo, the largest civilian hospital in Puerto Rico. After a few phone calls, a tired and disheveled technician appeared in the parking lot to escort them to the Genetics Lab.

  The process of sequencing was not fast, which was why Neely had sent her out to get some sleep. Now, in the hospital’s main waiting room, Alison sat up and rubbed her eyes while a small ten-year-old girl watched curiously from another chair, next to her father.

 
; Alison checked her watch and smiled at the girl, who smiled back. It was just past six. She was just about to stand up when someone spoke from behind her.

  “Good morning.”

  She turned to see Neely approaching from behind a row of chairs.

  “Were you up all night?”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Neely replied. “Besides, it feels good to get back into work.”

  “I can understand that. Did you find anything?”

  “I did,” a tired Neely nodded. “And I have good news and bad news.”

  Alison frowned. “Bad first.”

  “I don’t see the base order we found in the plants in Sally’s DNA. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not there. It’s possible they mutated somewhere else in the dolphin’s genetic code. But finding them will take time.”

  “Or…it’s not there at all.”

  “Well, that was my first thought.”

  Alison sighed and slumped back down in her chair. “I guess I got ahead of myself on this one.”

  “Under the circumstances, I’d probably feel the same way.” Neely eased herself into a chair across from Alison. “But…I don’t think you have.”

  Alison did a double-take back at Neely, who was now grinning. “What?”

  “We haven’t talked about the good news yet.”

  “What’s the good news?”

  “I may not have found the DNA order we discovered on the Bowditch…but I did find some other cells acting very differently. And it wasn’t in the blood. Very small amounts of collagen cells appear to be replicating much faster than even the RBCs.”

  “Collagen cells are one of the primary components in blubber!”

  “Exactly.”

  “I thought you said the DNA wasn’t there.”

  “Well, I was speaking of the blood cells. That was the majority of the sample. But the same is true for the collagen cells. No base markers.”