by Jon McGoran
Before I could even ponder what that meant, the timer sounded on the allergen test.
We gathered around the plates as Regi added the detection reagent. Nothing happened. “It could take a few minutes for color to develop,” he said.
We hovered over them, and after a few minutes, the third well on each of the three trays began to turn a pale blue.
“The Stoma-Grow corn,” Regi said softly. “Just like before. The only reaction is to the corn.”
After the full five minutes, nothing else had changed.
“So maybe we were wrong,” Miriam said. “Maybe Ron was wrong.”
“It seems so,” he said.
“So what does that mean?” I asked. “If the reaction had nothing to do with the soy, does that mean that the stolen soy could have been a coincidence?”
Regi turned and looked at the Ebola test samples, sitting on the next table. “And if it was a coincidence,” I said, “does that mean the Ebola outbreak was real?”
We followed his gaze, but Miriam immediately shook her head. “It couldn’t be Ebola.”
“The people in Gaden were shot,” I said. “We saw them.”
Regi shrugged. “Maybe the infection was in the early stages. Maybe only some of them were symptomatic. Maybe Ducroix’s men overreacted and killed them all before they even knew who was and wasn’t infected.”
Miriam’s eyes widened a bit, doubt and horror creeping into her mind as the idea that she might have just exposed herself to a deadly disease, might have enabled an outbreak, went from impossible to highly improbable but possible nonetheless.
“No,” I said. “I can’t believe in a coincidence like that, that the two tiny villages hit by this strange allergic syndrome would coincidentally be hit by Ebola.”
Regi shrugged. “They are not far apart.”
“Or maybe it wasn’t coincidence at all,” I heard my voice say quietly. They both looked at me. “Maybe the Ebola was intentionally spread.”
It was such a horrible thought, I’d been holding it off, fighting against thinking it. My mind raced to come up with a different answer, any other explanation. Regi and Miriam looked at me in disgust, resisting the notion just as I had, maybe even judging me for having said it out loud.
And then it hit me.
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I sprang out of my chair, and they both jumped, startled.
“What is it?” Regi asked, alarmed.
I grabbed Portia’s bag and opened it. “Which soy did you test?”
“Some regular soyflour and some of the Soyagene. What do you mean?”
“Where did you get the Soyagene?”
Miriam was looking back and forth between us.
“I got it from Energene, when I tested it before.”
“Can I see the bag?”
“Of course.” As he opened a cabinet and took out a plastic tote, I pulled out the Soyagene from Gaden and looked at the bottom of the bag. It was stamped GES-5322x.
Regi opened the tote and handed me a similar bag, almost full. The bottom was stamped GES-5322a.
Son of a bitch. “They’re different,” I said.
“What do you mean?” Regi said.
Miriam came over to look. I showed them the two inventory sheets, how the secret one included two different types of Soyagene and the other one just lumped them together.
“So what does that mean?” Miriam asked.
“Maybe nothing. But if we’ve been testing the 5322a and the 5322x is what’s been making people sick, they might be very different.” In the back of my mind, I was already coming up with a theory about what was going on, but I needed more information to even consider it.
I held up the bag from Gaden, the 5322x. “Can we run the allergen test again, with this?”
Regi nodded, his face confused but gravely serious. Miriam wore a similar expression. I wondered if they were beginning to suspect the same thing I was.
They suited up and began setting up another three trays. He went through the same process as before, but with the Soyagene-X. Then he set the timer for thirty minutes.
It was a long thirty minutes.
We mostly spent it reading the files, trying to glean anything else from it. I don’t know about the others, but I got nothing from it; my mental energy consumed with wondering what the test would reveal. Eventually, I gave up and went to the window. The protestors were getting louder out front. The police across the street seemed more agitated than before.
When the timer finally sounded, Regi added the blood samples from Gaden, following the same process as before, until finally announcing that he was adding the detection reagent. I’d been hanging back, staying out of the way, but I stepped closer to watch. I expected it to take several minutes like it had the first time, but immediately, the Soyagene-X wells turned a deep, vivid blue, much darker than the Stoma-Grow corn had generated even after the full five minutes.
Regi whispered, “That’s a very strong reaction.”
Staring at those blue dots, Miriam said, “Motherfucker.”
She took the word right out of my mouth.
64
For a moment, we stood there, silently processing what we had witnessed. The only sounds were the ticking of the timer for the Ebola test and the chants from outside.
“So what does that even mean?” I asked.
Regi shook his head. “I’ve never seen a reaction that intense, that immediate. No wonder the villagers were so sick.”
Miriam started leafing through Ron’s files. “Could it be intentional? There was a report in here … This—” She held up one of the abstracts. “It describes target allergenicity and minimum quantities for symptomology.”
“Yes,” I said, looking over her shoulder. “I didn’t understand it when I read it the first time, and I still don’t, but I remember thinking ‘target allergenicity’ sounded more like a minimum than a maximum.”
“Exactly,” she said.
“But why?” Regi asked. “Why make a product that deliberately makes your customers sick?”
“It doesn’t make sense,” Miriam said, shaking her head. “The people at Saint Benezet, some of those people would have died if we hadn’t been there…” Her voice trailed off. All those people she’d helped save were dead now, anyway.
A lot of the pieces had been jamming together in my mind for some time. With this last piece, they all came together, assembling themselves into some kind of crazy whole. The two types of Soyagene, the top-secret memos, even the ramp up in Early Rise corn production.
“It does make sense,” I said.
They both looked at me.
“Energene and Stoma are working together to expand the markets for their biotech products, but they’re still competitors. Stoma-Grow corn is the most lucrative agricultural product in the world. Energene is trying to replace it.”
Miriam gave her head a vigorous shake. “What do you mean? How?”
“The Stoma-Grow also got a positive reaction. It’s the most common agricultural product in the world, but the only people to get sick from it were in these two tiny villages—Saint Benezet and Gaden—and only after they were exposed to this secret Soyagene-X.” I turned to Regi. “Is it possible that the Soyagene-X doesn’t just provoke a reaction on its own but that it makes people who eat it get sick if they eat Stoma-Grow corn, as well?”
Regi was slack-jawed. “Theoretically, yes. They could have engineered the Soyagene to include some version of proteins found only in the Stoma-Grow corn.”
Miriam shook her head. “But then why was the Soyagene-X reaction so much stronger?”
“Because that’s its purpose. Causing that reaction. That memo about ‘target allergenicity’ and ‘minimum symptomology’ or whatever. They weren’t documenting an unwanted side effect. They were charting their progress toward a positive goal.”
“Jesus,” Miriam said. “So you’re saying Energene is going to release this stuff so that anyone who eats Stoma-Grow corn will get sick like the peopl
e at Saint Benezet?”
“Exactly. That’s why Ron included that production memo about ramping up production of the Early Rise corn. Energene is going to be ready to cash in when that happens.”
Regi slid down into a chair as the rest of his body caught up with the slackness of his jaw. “It’s brilliant. It’s insidious but brilliant.”
“That’s insane,” Miriam insisted, her voice skittering as if she were on the verge of losing it. “Doyle, you didn’t see the reactions to this. It was terrible. Those people were extremely sick. Many of them would have died if we hadn’t helped them.”
And there it was again. The horror of it. They were all dead now.
Maybe it was because we had gone quiet, but the crowd outside seemed to be getting louder.
“They weren’t meant to be exposed to it like that,” I said. “It was stolen, remember? Energene is planning to roll it out according to the timeline in that phase-two rollout memo. They’ll probably dilute it, mix it with other products, however many parts per million, just enough to cause the reaction to Stoma-Grow corn.”
“But then how will people know it’s an allergy to Stoma-Grow?” Miriam said. “We were dealing with a very acute reaction, and it still wasn’t obvious.”
“They’ll figure it out,” Regi said. “It will just take a while.”
“Exactly,” I said. “That timeline starts right after the trade vote, so it won’t be jeopardized even if someone puts it together right away. But it’s supposed to take long enough that by the time anyone figures out people are getting sick from Stoma-Grow, the Soyagene-X will be gone. Everyone will assume it was something to do with the Stoma-Grow itself.”
“That rollout schedule covers much of the world,” Regi said, looking up. “Apart from the millions of people getting sick, millions more could starve. When people start getting sick from Stoma-Grow, there will be huge disruptions to the food supply. Even if Early Rise is ready to fill the void, people will starve as global production and distribution systems struggle to make the shift.”
I nodded. “And it starts on Tuesday. Everywhere they roll it out, people will start getting sick from Stoma-Grow corn.”
Miriam shook her head, still trying to grasp it. “Even if the doses are smaller, allergic reactions like that can be wildly unpredictable. If they roll it out around the world like that, people are going to get sick. People are going to die. Children, old people, the infirm.”
I put my hands on her shoulders. I didn’t want to upset her any more than she already was, but I needed her to understand the reality of the situation. “The people in Saint Benezet and Gaden were a smoking gun. And they were murdered because of it, every last one of them. Obliterated from the face of the earth. Whoever is behind this has already shown they’re okay with that.”
The room was quiet for a moment. We were all trying to absorb it, even me, trying to decide if I was crazy or if the whole world was. Tears began rolling down Miriam’s face. Regi put an arm around her, but he didn’t look much better.
I gave them some space, crossing to the window, looking out at the students protesting in the plaza. My brain was grinding its gears, trying to grasp what I had just proposed and at the same time trying to come up with a way to stop it.
Then the timer went off. The Ebola test was done.
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Regi stared at the plates for several moments. I wondered if he was interpreting the results, double-checking them, or just collecting himself. Then he looked up and said, “There is no Ebola.”
We all knew it already, but having it confirmed changed things. It was good news, of course. Nobody wanted an outbreak of something as horrible as Ebola.
But it meant there was an outbreak of greed and evil that in some ways was even worse.
Our most horrible suspicions were confirmed. Bradley Bourden and his friends at Energene were behind all of it, not just killing Ron Hartwell and David Sable and Toussaint Casson, and trying to kill Miriam, but murdering dozens of people in Saint Benezet and Gaden as well. And endangering the lives of thousands of people, and the health of millions more.
It took a few minutes for all that to sink in.
“So what are we going to do?” Miriam asked.
From the moment I opened my front door to find Ron Hartwell dying on my front steps, I’d been trying to get to the bottom of what was going on, so I could figure out what to do about it. Now that the pieces were falling into place, a plan began to take shape.
“This is what Ron died trying to stop,” Miriam said. “We need to tell the world. We need to get this story out to the press, to the Internet. People need to know about this so they can stop it.” She turned to me, her eyes pleading.
“We’ll tell the world, but that’s not going to stop it,” I said. “Not in time to prevent the coup or the trade vote or the release of the Soyagene-X.”
“But you know people, right? In the federal government, from before. You need to call them and tell them.”
I thought back to the list I’d made, the people I knew. I shook my head. “The few connections I have are domestic—FBI, ATF, Homeland. This is international. The people I know won’t be able to do anything about this. Definitely not in time to stop it.”
But I had an idea of someone who maybe could.
Before I could go on, Miriam turned to Regi. “Surely you can use the health ministry to get the word out? This is a health crisis.”
“Dissette, my boss, he’s in on it. Or at least afraid of it. I need to go around him.”
“Yes,” I said. “We need to tell Cardon about all this. About Gaden and Saint Benezet. About Ducroix and what he’s up to. And if we’re not too late, he can stop the coup and tell the world about all this. But we also need to block the release of Soyagene-X. There’s only one thing I can think of that can stop a massive multinational corporation like Energene—and that’s an even bigger one.” They both looked up at me. “We need to tell Archie Pearce he’s about to get fucked.”
As I said it, something out the window made me pause. The police were slowly advancing on the protestors, and the student with the megaphone was pointing at them. I couldn’t have heard what he was saying even if it were in English, but I could hear his voice rising in pitch and volume. And urgency.
There was a noise like a thick branch snapping, and for an instant, everything was quiet and still.
“Oh shit,” I said.
“What is it?” Miriam asked.
Regi stepped up beside me.
The megaphone fell to the ground. So did the student who’d been holding it, twisting as he hit the pavement. I saw a brief flash of red on his white T-shirt. Then chaos erupted as the police charged, and the students began running in all directions.
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“We need to go,” I said, scooping up the papers. “Grab everything. Anything we need, anything important.”
Out the window, the police were chasing the students, many of whom were running toward the lab building, toward us. The far side of the plaza was almost empty except for the lone student lying on the ground, surrounded by a growing pool of red.
Regi stood there a second longer, his eyes smoldering. He turned to me as if he needed someone to witness his rage.
I clapped him on the shoulder. “We need to go.”
He nodded, an icy calm descending over him as he crossed to one of the cabinets. He pulled out a large plastic tote filled with boxes of test tubes, beakers, and other supplies. He took off the lid and flipped it over, gently spilling the contents out onto the floor. Then he went around the room, methodically collecting sample bottles, trays, and the bags of soy and corn.
As he did this, Miriam stared out the window in horror, mesmerized by the sight of the battle down below, the body on the ground. Canisters of tear gas arced through the air, leaving trails behind them, bouncing in the midst of the scrambling protestors.
By the time she turned away from the window, Regi was snapping the lid back onto the tote.
/> “Let’s go,” he said, his voice flat.
As we hurried out into the hallway, there was a distant bang and a crash as the front doors of the building slammed open. Miriam jumped at the sound and froze in her tracks. I took the tote from Regi and nodded toward her. He put his arm around her and coaxed her toward the steps.
Sounds of commotion and panic echoed up the stairs as we descended. When we were almost at the bottom, a pair of students burst through the door, their eyes wide with fear.
They stopped and stared at us, probably wondering if we were friend or foe. I figured we could fit two more in the car, and I was about to tell them to come with us, but they dashed around us and ran up the stairs.
None of us said a word. We just hurried down the last few steps to the rear exit.
I pushed the door open. The car was ten feet away. It was a pleasant sunny day.
We stepped outside, and for a moment, everything was calm and peaceful, as if the mayhem we’d seen from the window out in front hadn’t actually happened. Then two students rounded the side of the building, running full speed and coughing violently. Their eyes were bright red and their faces streaming wet.
They hopped the little fence at the back of the parking lot and kept running without slowing down, into the sparse brush behind the university.
I turned to Regi. “Give me the keys.”
He paused, but I nodded and beckoned with my fingers. He fished them out of his pocket and tossed them to me.
I put the tote in the trunk, and we got in. I took a deep breath and drove off slowly, toward the side entrance where we had come in. To our left, through the fog of tear gas, we could see police in masks chasing down protestors and beating them with truncheons.
Miriam put her hand over her mouth. Regi’s eyes narrowed.
I wanted to get us away as quickly as possible, but I kept my foot light on the gas, twenty miles an hour. A couple of the police looked over at us, but then they went back to what they were doing. When we reached the exit, I turned and drove past the police vehicles, keeping it slow but ready to stomp on the gas at any moment. Only a few police remained back with the vehicles. One of them stepped out onto the side of the road, not quite in front of us. He leaned forward squinting, fingering his rifle. I just kept driving, and I guess we looked different enough from the students, because he waved us by impatiently, like he wanted us out of the way.
