Unnatural Selection td-131

by Warren Murphy

  "No fair," Remo said. "They're strapped to their beds. There's probably a law." An icy stare and he raised his hands in surrender.

  Chiun resumed his storytelling tone. "Though a king, Nebuchadnezzar was not the wisest man in his kingdom. Rather than simply accept the fool words of his lying captive, he sought to reward the wizard who claimed to have insight into the dreams of men. By the time Songjong returned from his journey, Daniel had risen from the position of lowly captive to ruler of the whole district of Babylon."

  "That must have been one hell of a dream."

  "Since it was the king's wish that Daniel hold this station, Songjong attempted to make the arrangement work. However, he soon discovered that all was not as it had been. Nebuchadnezzar soon began to rely more on the slave's counsel than on that of Songjong. Not long after Daniel's ascendancy in his court, Nebuchadnezzar was discovered attempting to milk a dog."

  Remo's brow dropped low. "Attempting to what a what?" he asked, voice fiat.

  "Songjong thought it strange, as well," Chiun agreed, nodding wisely.

  "I should hope so," Remo replied.

  "But the lapse in the king's sanity did not last. Soon Nebuchadnezzar was himself once more. He resumed his great work of cultivating the Chaldean Empire, which he had established with the aid of Songjong. In this time he also built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon for his wife. All was well. Until the day he was found cavorting naked with a leper in the pool of the god Marduk Bel."

  Remo sighed. "I'm beginning to see a pattern here."

  Chiun nodded. "As did Songjong. He suspected that the Hebrew captive Daniel was responsible for the king's bouts of madness. He was a diviner and a wizard, as well as a man who had seen his homeland destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The deterioration of the king's mind coincided with Daniel's arrival. It was a logical assumption."

  "So was he slipping Nebuch a mickey, or what?"

  "Songjong never found out," Chiun said, voice sad. "Nebuchadnezzar was too steeped in madness to learn the truth. When he began to imagine himself an ox and journey into the fields to eat grass, Songjong shook the dust of Babylon from his sandals and left to seek out other clients."

  The Master of Sinanju stopped. Sighing with great sadness, he began to fuss with the knees of his robes. Remo waited for him to continue, but the old man seemed finished.

  "And?" Remo asked.

  "And what?" the Master of Sinanju said.

  "What happened to Songjong?"

  Chiun seemed puzzled by the question. "I told you. He went off to ply his art elsewhere."

  "So what about Daniel?"

  "Daniel the Nuisance thrived in the court of mad King Nebuchadnezzar. Of course he fell out of favor in time and was thrown into a den of lions, as you are annoyingly aware, thanks to that Christian almshouse where you wasted your youth. He claimed after his safe deliverance that the God of Israel sent angels to shut the lions' mouths. It is more likely that the animals did not like the taste of ham."

  "So that's it?" Remo asked. "We hold a three-thousand-year-old grudge against Daniel just 'cause he outfoxed us?"

  "While that is more than enough," Chiun said, "there is another moral..." He arched an eyebrow.

  His age-speckled head tipped ever so slightly in Smith's direction.

  The CURE director had remained hunched over his computer throughout the story. With the sudden silence, however, he raised his gray head.

  "What is it?" Smith asked, brow creasing.

  "Little Father, Smith isn't out grazing on Folcroft's back lawn," Remo said.

  A look of dark anger settled on the old Korean's weathered face. "Of course he is not," Chiun said. "A shallow grave awaits the dastard who would suggest such slander. Emperor Smith is clear of eye, mind and spirit. Hail Smith. Sinanju serves on bended knee the ever wise guardian of the Eagle throne."

  A hint of embarrassment colored Smith's ashen cheeks. "Thank you, Master Chiun," he said. Clearing his throat, he returned to his work.

  When Smith's head was bowed once more, the Master of Sinanju turned angrily to Remo.

  "Are you as mad as this one?" he hissed in Korean. "Never tell the lunatic that you think he is a lunatic."

  "I don't think he is," Remo insisted, also in Korean.

  "Do not make me question your sanity, as well, Remo Williams," the old Asian said.

  "Give it a rest, Chiun. Smith isn't, wasn't and never has been crazy. If you think I'm going to ditch him like Songjong ditched Nebbitynuzzle, you can forget it. Smith's going to have to keel over for me to leave."

  "Bah," Chiun said, waving a bony hand. "That time has passed."

  Remo frowned. "What do you mean?"

  "Listen," the Master of Sinanju instructed, nodding to Smith.

  Confused, Remo pitched his hearing toward the CURE director. He heard the tapping of Smith's fingers on the keyboard. Beyond that he detected the strong heartbeat, a congenital heart defect having been corrected by a pacemaker implant some six years previous. There was nothing more.

  "I don't hear anything," Remo said.

  "Precisely," Chiun replied. "A year ago it was there. Two years ago it was stronger still. The dark cloud of life's end had settled. Once there were the creaks and sputters of a man ready to welcome death. Now that is all gone. Look at him toiling like a man ten years his junior."

  Remo had noticed it before. Smith had seemed infused with new vigor. He had assumed it was wishful thinking.

  "It's the kid, isn't it." It was a statement of fact, not a question.

  Chiun nodded tightly. "At this rate Smith will last many more years. I might not be here when comes the time for you to choose your next emperor. Of course, we could remove the mad middleman by having this modern Nebuchadnezzar committed to his own asylum. Smith could live out his remaining years in dignity, safe under the watchful gaze of Sinanju here in Fortress Folcroft. In the meantime, the Regent could assume his throne with us at his side."

  "A perfect plan." Remo nodded. "Except Smitty won't go silent into that good straightjacket, his wife would have to have him committed and wouldn't, and I won't go along with it and neither will Howard."

  "Yes," Chiun agreed. "The Prince is aggravating in his lack of ambition. I blame the old one. They are like two white peas in a pod." He sighed unhappily. "Thanks to his presence, Smith's natural end is now many years away. I can only hope that if I am not here when the time comes that you do the right thing."

  "Right thing will be to leave, Little Father. No Master shall work for an Emperor's successor. It's in the rule book, loophole or no loophole."

  Chiun's papery lips thinned. "Do not be certain," he said cryptically. "Thank the gods I had foresight to anticipate your obstinacy."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "It means the loophole, as you call it, is already set. It is up to you only to not mess everything up." And with that, the old man picked himself up on two long fingers. Still cross-legged, he turned from Remo, resettling on the threadbare carpet. As he studied the dust dancing in the shadows of Smith's office, there was a look of hard resolve on his weathered face.

  Remo could see there would be no further questioning of his teacher. Wary now of what both the immediate and distant future held in store for him, Remo turned his attention back to Smith. To await news of Judith White.

  Chapter 15

  The leggy anchorwoman was gushing over some new movie. On a stool across the Newsfotainment Now! set, a reporter for the program flashed a set of teeth as white as angel wings while nodding his agreement.

  "Absolutely," the reporter enthused. "This is simply the greatest movie I've ever seen, Mary. Last night's star-studded L.A. premiere was the hottest seat in town for the film that already has Hollywood talking Oscar."

  In the cluttered GenPlus Enterprises office, Mark Howard grunted at the small television.

  "The Academy Awards are a year away," he muttered.

  Mark hadn't brought his laptop with him. Dr. Smith's work ethic was now Mark Howard
's own. These days, without his computer to occupy him, he was completely lost.

  For a while he had picked through some of the books in the office. But they were virtually all dedicated to genetics, a subject Mark barely understood. He had finally given up on the books and snapped on the TV.

  On the screen, the reporter's teeth were polished ivory.

  "Producer Barry Schweid denies it, Mary," he gushed, "but the rumor mill is already talking sequel."

  Eyes barely registering the TV screen, Mark shifted in the chair. He was going stir crazy.

  He had been alone in this room for hours. In addition to the water samples from the Westchester Golf Club, which he had personally collected, Mark had made arrangements for samples of other bottled-water brands to be brought to New York's GenPlus facility. It was necessary to see if Lubec Springs alone was the source of the genetic mutation. The last sample of commercial springwater had arrived at the White Plains genetic-research facility at the same time as Mark. All had been whisked off for immediate testing.

  Now, hours later, Mark drummed his fingers on a desk that was not his own and stared blankly at the television.

  The office belonged to Dr. Andrew Mills, the top research scientist at GenPlus. A plastic toy that looked like a spiral staircase sat at the corner of the desk. The steps of the toy were colored in reds, yellows and greens.

  Leaning forward, Mark picked up the DNA model. It was incredible to think that he lived in an age when the basic building blocks of life could be disassembled and reshuffled.

  Mark had read news stories in recent years detailing cases of strange genetic experiments. There were the various cloning stories. These had been most prominent. But just one year before there had been the one about the spider-goat.

  In a story straight out of science fiction, goats had been genetically crossbred with spiders. The resulting creature was only one-seventy-thousandth spider, but in its milk it produced a thin web. Researchers claimed that the web was proportionate in strength to that of a spider. Clothing spun from the web would be lighter than cotton and three times stronger than Kevlar. The military applications were obvious.

  It was strange. Research of this kind-meant to benefit mankind-was not fundamentally different from that conducted by Judith White. How many other Judith Whites were toiling out there right now in dusty corner labs, waiting to release who knew what horrors on a human race that had put perhaps too much of its faith in science?

  Mark was thinking wary thoughts about the future when the office door finally sprang open.

  A breathless, middle-aged man burst inside, jowly face flushed. A white name tag pinned to his lab coat identified him as Dr. Mills.

  Mark rose quickly to his feet.

  "Good news, Mr. Marx," Dr. Mills announced, using the cover alias Howard had given him. He thought Mark was a special FBI agent. "The other samples checked clean. The contamination is limited to the Lubec Springs batch."

  "You're sure?" Mark demanded.

  "We tested twice. There were the usual impurities in the rest-most springwater isn't much different from ordinary tap water. But the transgenic bodies are present exclusively in the Lubec Springs samples you brought in."

  Mark didn't need to hear more. He grabbed the phone from the desk. Shielding it with his body, he stabbed the 1 button repeatedly. Smith picked up on the first ring.

  "Report," the CURE director announced crisply. "It's only the Lubec Springs water that's affected," Mark said quickly. "All the other samples are clean."

  "They are certain?" Smith pressed.

  Mark turned to Dr. Mills. "Any chance-any at all-you could be mistaken?" he demanded.

  The geneticist shook his head. "No, sir," he replied. "We knew what to look for. The other samples were clear."

  Mark turned back to the phone. "He said-"

  "I heard," Smith interrupted. "This limits our focus. I will dispatch Remo and Chiun to Maine at once. Report back here immediately. Tell the staff there to remain. We will coordinate to get more samples to them just in case."

  "Gotcha. I'll be back soon." He returned the phone to its cradle and grabbed up his suit jacket from a nearby chair. "We need you to stay at work, Doctor," Mark said as he shrugged on his coat. "We only brought you a random sampling for testing. We'll be shipping some more. With any luck, your findings will hold. Thanks for your help."

  Dr. Mills offered a nervous grin. "Thank you for the chance," he said. "Our molecular biologists are fascinated. None of them were around the first time. You know, Boston, 1978. And the BostonBio research data from a few years ago was confiscated by the government I think. I've heard it's surfaced on the Internet, but I wouldn't trust anything I found on Usenet. Basically, what I've heard up until today has been largely speculation and scientific hearsay."

  The geneticist was still smiling with nervous excitement. Mark Howard did not return the smile. "You'll forgive me, Doctor, if I don't share your enthusiasm," he said, surprised at the coldness in his own voice. "We'll get those fresh samples to you as quickly as we can. Excuse me."

  As Howard brushed past him, Dr. Mills's smile faded.

  "I-I didn't mean..." he stammered. "I'm sorry. Anyway, the FBI shouldn't be too worried. Much of the material in the Lubec batch was already inert."

  At the door, Mark stopped. "Inert?"

  "Dead." Mills nodded. "It's still detectable, but the stuff is dying. It's more potent than the original batch from the seventies-at least from what we can tell-but it's weaker than the BostonBio stuff from three years ago."

  Mark's brow dropped low. "It's been altered?"

  "As far as we can tell, yes. We haven't cracked all the codes yet, obviously. That could take months or years. But it's definitely not the same stuff according to everything I've ever read on the subject. The biggest change is from the BostonBio batch. The mutational effect of that stuff was permanent. This is only temporary."

  Mark was trying to wrap his brain around this. There had been cases of gene-altering material stolen from BostonBio three years ago. He and Dr. Smith had assumed this was what they were dealing with. But substantial changes to the formula meant one thing: access to a lab.

  "How temporary are the effects?" Mark asked.

  "Ooo, not sure," Dr. Mills said. "Without an undiluted sample of the actual formula and subjects to test it on, I can't say for certain. But based on past cases, probably two weeks. Maybe three. Of course, they can be reexposed to the formula, extending the duration of change."

  Howard nodded. "Thank you again, Doctor," he said. Turning, he headed out into the hall.

  He was only a few doors along when Dr. Mills called after him.

  "Mr. Marx!"

  Howard almost forgot his cover name. When he turned, Dr. Mills was leaning into the hall.

  "I think you should see this," he called worriedly. Mark hurried back up the hall. Inside the office, Dr. Mills was pointing to the small television. On the screen, the entertainment program had fed into the news.

  A female reporter stood on a rural road. Behind her, a group of protesters marched back and forth carrying large signs. The slogans H-2-No!, Water We Fighting For! and S.O.L: Save Our Leech were printed in bold letters.

  Mark didn't know why the geneticist had called him back. He was about to ask when the reporter began speaking.

  "This was the scene earlier today outside the Lubec Springs bottling plant here in Lubec, Maine," the woman droned. "Environmental activists have gathered to protest the destruction of the natural habitat of a local species threatened with extinction. Supporters have poured in from around the country in the hope of raising awareness and to stem the tide of what has, for many, become the latest victim in the rising flood of man's cruelty toward the species with whom he shares the Earth."

  The scene cut to protest footage shot earlier in the day. Mark Howard immediately recognized the celebrities featured in the segment. Bobby Bugget took center stage, flanked by the kleptomaniac actress and the stock-fixing happy homemaker.<
br />
  "Alls I know," Bugget drawled, "is that mankind'd better watch out who on the food chain he decides to stomp on. You never know when the worm you squish today might turn around and bite you on the ass."

  There seemed a look of exhausted desperation on the singer's tan face. The camera cut back to the reporter.

  "Sober words from Bobby Bugget, a man who cares. Live in Lubec, Maine, I'm-"

  The TV snapped off. Mark Howard withdrew his hand.

  "Is this a problem?" Dr. Mills asked worriedly. When he turned, Mark Howard was already heading out the door. The assistant director of CURE was fumbling his cell phone from his jacket pocket.

  The look on the young man's face was that of someone who had just been told the exact date and time of Armageddon.

  Chapter 16

  Dr. Emil Kowalski plodded slowly up the east wing hall of San Diego's Genetic Futures, Incorporated building.

  Though a small man, he moved with the swaying, lazy pace of the obese. At some point in the recent past, someone had dubbed him "The Cow." His walk, as well as his sad brown eyes and deep, slow manner of speech, cemented the nickname among the other scientists at Genetic Futures.

  A wall of windows on Kowalski's left looked out on a small enclosed courtyard. Sunlight poured in, illuminating name plates and door numbers. All the men and women on this floor were scientists, and all were beneath Dr. Kowalski, Genetic Futures's premier geneticist. A voice here and there called hello as Kowalski passed open doors.

  Each time, without turning, Dr. Kowalski gave a long hello. Drawn out on the last syllable, it sounded like a human parody of an animal lowing.

  Dr. Kowalski didn't look in any of the open doors. His droopy eyes were staring out the window.

  The courtyard was so green, so lush. Always well tended. During the worst California droughts, it was always as fresh as a country meadow.

  By the time he reached his own office, Emil's stomach was growling.

  He let himself in and shut the door behind him. Plodding across the room, he sank in his chair. He pulled out a small plastic sandwich bag from a brown paper lunch bag tucked away in his bottom desk drawer.

  The contents weren't as green as the succulent courtyard grass. They weren't even as rich as they had been when he'd clipped them in his backyard that morning. But they were good enough to settle his longing stomach.