The Chimera Vector tfc-1

by Nathan M. Farrugia

  She’d been picked out because she’d done very well in her tests at school. Baldie had been watching. They must watch all the schools to pick out the clever children, she thought.

  During his previous visit, over a mug of tea with two sugars (she remembered because she’d helped make it for him), Baldie had told her she’d done very well in all of the different tests. Some had been on paper, to see how well she could think and solve problems; others involved running, jumping, dodging foam balls — she thought she’d been clumsy in those tests, but he didn’t think so. Maybe he hadn’t been looking at her when she was tripping or falling. And there were the tests with doctors that used complicated machines and weird computers to measure things like her heart and her brain, and even a few needles, which she didn’t like much at all. She’d been quite proud for not crying like some of the boys. But Baldie was really impressed with something inside her body, so tiny no one could see it without special machines.

  ‘All the children at your new school are looking forward to meeting you, Sophia,’ Baldie said. ‘Have you packed your suitcase?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Mama said. ‘We have everything ready to go, don’t we, Sophia?’ She turned to Sophia. ‘Sophia? Do you have your suitcase?’

  Sophia nodded. She went to her room to fetch it. When she walked in, she realized it would be a while before she would see her room again. There would be visits. They would fly Mama and her brother and sister to see her, and sometimes she would be able to come home on semester break. But once school was over, she could do anything she wanted, and her schooling would all be paid for. Most importantly, Mama and her sister and brother would have enough money to buy what they needed. It was a dream come true.

  She picked up her suitcase. It was Mama’s, big and clunky, even though she hadn’t filled it with much. She didn’t have teddy bears or dolls like her sister. She didn’t have many things actually, so she’d filled it with her clock radio, hairbrush, toothbrush, cassette player and her tapes of David Bowie — Papa’s favorites — and her favorite clothes and her pillow with the purple pillowcase.

  Sophia’s little sister, Tereza, lunged at her from behind, hugging her and pinning her to the suitcase.

  ‘It’s not fair!’ Tereza yelled. ‘Why can’t you take me with you?’

  Tereza wasn’t old enough for school yet, but their older brother, Petr, was at school today. Sophia tickled Tereza until she screamed and leapt away.

  ‘They won’t let me do that!’ Sophia said. ‘But you have the big bed now.’

  Tereza rolled her eyes. ‘I know, but it’s boring and I want to go with you.’

  ‘When you go to school next year, you can do the test and then you can come.’

  Sophia tickled her again and Tereza squealed.

  ‘Stop it! OK. Can I have your bed forever?’

  ‘No.’ Sophia smiled. ‘Yes, of course! But promise me you’ll share it when I come back!’

  Tereza nodded, then put on her best sulking face. She still let Sophia hug her though.

  As Sophia took her suitcase out to Baldie, the blue butterflies were having a party inside her. It was scary and exciting at the same time.

  ‘Are you ready, Sophia?’ Mama picked her up and squeezed a big hug from her before plopping her back down. ‘We’re all very proud, Sophia. Aren’t we, Tereza?’

  Tereza leaned into the kitchen doorway. ‘Yeah,’ she mumbled.

  Sophia fidgeted with the briefcase handle. ‘I’ll miss you lots,’ she said to Mama.

  ‘There will be many other girls and boys your age at the school,’ Baldie said. ‘Just as special as you. I’m sure you’ll make plenty of new friends.’

  ‘OK,’ Sophia said, nervous again.

  Mama saw her and Baldie out. Baldie’s friend, Major, took her suitcase and together they walked down the stairs because the elevators were playing up again. They took her to their car, a dark gray one. It didn’t look like a car for a fancy school, but Baldie told her it was just a hire car. Both men sat in the front, but Baldie was polite and opened the back door for her first. She sat on the right side, putting her suitcase on the left.

  Major drove while Baldie sat beside him.

  ‘Excuse me, mister,’ Sophia said.

  ‘You can call me Denton,’ Baldie said.

  ‘OK, Mister Denton,’ she said. ‘If I don’t do very well, will my parents have to pay back the money?’

  He laughed. ‘No, of course not. That won’t be necessary.’

  ‘What if I do really, really badly? Will you send me home and I’ll have to do school all over again?’

  ‘I don’t think you’ll do badly at all.’ He turned to look at her. ‘In fact, I have a feeling you’ll be the best student we’ve had.’

  * * *

  Sophia woke in a sweat. She was lying on a bed, still dressed in her civilian T-shirt and jeans. It was cold, her arms had goose bumps. The sour mix of body odor and dried algae hit her immediately. She sat upright. Her surroundings were unfamiliar. The depth and width of the bedroom were somehow wrong, the light below the door was different, even the position of the door was strange. It took a moment for her to remember she was Adamicz’s prisoner. The last few weeks had been a haze of what Adamicz had called ‘deprogramming’.

  She wished for a moment that she was back in her childhood bedroom, tucked in bed with her purple pillow and her David Bowie tapes, while Mama watched her favorite James Dean movies on TV. She could almost hear the tape playing her favorite song, ‘Yassassin’.

  She’d been convinced for quite some time that Adamicz was part of an elaborate operation to test her loyalty and sense of perception. That it was a new form of interrogation training. But the volume of documentation on Project GATE that Adamicz had shown her was extremely thorough. If this was a test, it was an extraordinarily elaborate one. And she wondered why the Fifth Column would go to so much trouble to instill distrust in her. The only possibility left was that Adamicz was some sort of terrorist who hated the Fifth Column. Adamicz had struck it lucky capturing her and now planned to use her against her own people. Either way, this wasn’t going to end well.

  There was a dull pain over her left eyebrow. She touched it and found stitches. She didn’t remember anyone putting them in. She could hear music, but it wasn’t in her head this time. It wasn’t Bowie; it was classical piano. She remembered the record player she’d seen on one of the bookshelves in the library. Adamicz was playing a record. She could hear it.

  And she could see it.

  She sat upright. Electric tadpoles swam through the air around her, turquoise and vivid. She had no clue what they were, or if she was just hallucinating, but they were actually quite soothing.

  She watched in amazement as the turquoise tadpoles stroked the room with lazy, sweeping arcs in accordance with the notes of the piano. Some of the tadpoles matured into a pure blue while others turned green. A cluster of vigorous notes rippled them into an excited frenzy.

  Adamicz must have done something wrong. This was not normal.

  She leaped from the bed. There was a pile of folded clothes on a dusty nightstand. She checked the fabric for tracking devices, mostly out of habit, before changing into a T-shirt with a faded Pepsi logo and gray sweatpants.

  She opened the bedroom door. Blue and green tadpoles propelled themselves down the hall ahead of her. She followed them, and found Adamicz in his makeshift office, sorting through notes. The tadpoles danced around him. He seemed oblivious to their presence.

  ‘What have you done?’ Sophia said.

  His gray eyebrows pressed together. ‘I am deprogramming you.’

  His voice was disarmingly gentle. She didn’t like it.

  She left the room — and its faint smell of gingerbread — and followed the source of the music until she found the gramophone. The tadpoles poured from the its funneled barrel, thick like ocean foam, then floated away. It was warmer in here, she noticed. She heard Adamicz’s portable heater purring softly nearby.

 
; Sophia lifted the needle from the record. The tadpoles dissipated.

  Adamicz was standing nearby. He didn’t seem annoyed. Just intrigued.

  ‘What is the problem?’ he said.

  She could smell something again. It smelled like Adamicz was cooking some sort of dessert.

  ‘I can see the music,’ she said. ‘That’s the problem!’

  Adamicz looked puzzled, as though he hadn’t understood her.

  ‘The music you were playing!’ She glanced at the record. ‘Opus Nine, Number Two. It makes glowing blue and green tadpoles; they were swimming around me.’ She shook her head.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘That’s not normal, is it?’

  He clasped his hands in front of him, as though shaking hands with himself. ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘But is interesting.’

  She caught the scent of his cooking again. ‘No. It is not interesting. I’m not meant to see music, I’m meant to hear it.’

  ‘It appears deprogramming has removed line from between your senses. You have multi-sensory experience at this time.’ Adamicz pronounced the word ‘have’ as ‘here-v’. ‘Do not worry, is just temporary.’

  She inhaled deeply. ‘And… and your accent. It smells like cinnamon.’

  ‘My voice is cinnamon?’

  Each word had a slightly different aroma and texture. When he spoke softly, the aroma was fluffy and light. It reminded her of gingerbread.

  ‘Yes. Your voice.’ A chill ran across her arms. ‘Why are you living in an old library? It’s freezing in here.’

  Adamicz clasped his hands behind his back and straightened his posture ever so slightly. ‘This is Guarnacci Library. It was closed when second global financial collapse hit Italy. A colleague of mine, Doctor McLoughlin, purchased this place for us to hide in. For time being.’

  ‘How did… how did you capture me?’ Sophia said.

  Adamicz nodded his head, smiling. ‘Oh. This was tricky, yes. The former Blue Berets we sent were dressed in very low-temperature, arctic-rated thermal clothing, gloves, balaclavas and socks. They take you to furniture factory and set temperature of thirty degree Celsius. They lay you on floor and shift glass coffee table over you. Then put another plate of glass over and place mannequin on top.’

  Sophia rubbed her nose. ‘Mannequin?’

  ‘Your stunt double,’ he said. ‘Homemade, hollowed-out mannequin fitted with battery, heater coil and tubing to distribute heat. To mimic your heat signature.’

  Sophia thought for a moment. ‘In case infrared satellites were watching.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Adamicz said. ‘Once they have mannequin and body in perfect alignment, they turn on mannequin and wait for heat signature to replicate yours. Then they lift second glass plate and slide another plate between. Special glass, coated in tungsten-doped vanadium dioxide.’

  ‘I’m guessing that blocks infrared,’ Sophia said.

  Adamicz nodded. ‘Your RFID was to be surgically removed — but of course you had already done so. The soldiers cover your clothing with arctic-rated thermal clothing. You felt very hot as heat is contained.’

  Sophia folded her arms. ‘And with my stunt double in place, they just yanked me out and took me away.’

  ‘Yes. And the satellite show you still there, lying down.’

  Sophia said, ‘You sent those soldiers, didn’t you? The ones pretending to be US Marines. You hired them.’

  Adamicz was silent for a moment. Then he nodded. ‘There is no point denying this.’

  She unfolded her arms, her hands balled into fists. ‘They killed a little girl.’

  ‘That was not meant to happen,’ he said. ‘We hired mercenaries because they are ruthless. Jackals. It was necessary to break your programming. I had to set up conditions to do it.’

  ‘No, you didn’t,’ Sophia said. ‘I should go.’

  ‘Where?’ Adamicz said, his voice still gentle and gingerbready. ‘To Fifth Column?’

  Sophia opened her mouth. It was dry. She realized how parched she was.

  ‘After all these things they have done to you, why would you want to go back?’

  She pressed her lips together, then pulled them apart. ‘That doesn’t concern you.’

  Adamicz smiled. ‘Is this library really worse than secret government concentration camp?’

  ‘Fine. Whatever. That’s your opinion. But I’m not staying.’

  His tone was at once darker. ‘This place is safe place for you. If Fifth Column learn you are alive, they will interrogate you and then kill you. There is no doubting this.’

  She swallowed. Her throat was sticky. She could feel her hands trembling.

  ‘You’re making me stay here? I don’t even know what you want me for!’

  ‘Until it is safe to relocate.’

  Adamicz walked over to the gramophone and removed the record. She watched him slip the record into its cardboard sleeve.

  ‘How long is that?’ she said.

  ‘We estimate four to six months before it is safe,’ he said.

  Her fingers curled into fists. ‘How dare you!’ she yelled, surprised by her own rage. She had forgotten her thirst. ‘You should never have abducted me!’

  His eyebrows rose slowly. In curiosity. ‘I rescued you.’

  The strong aroma of cinnamon hit her.

  ‘You should’ve just left me alone!’

  Chapter Nine

  Slumped in his office chair, Denton swallowed the last of his Guaraná Jesus. It had been two days since he’d slept for more than an hour. He’d searched McLoughlin’s office and labs. Not a single hair or skin flake. It was McLoughlin herself who’d ensured the labs were sterilized regularly. Something nibbled at the back of his mind. Cecilia McLoughlin had been up to something before her unfortunate death. He had no evidence to prove it, but he knew her well enough to know her mind worked a lot like his. And that was bad news.

  He’d worked his way through hundreds of Project GATE documents. Now all he could do was stare, uninspired, at the four screens before him. None of them offered hope. His eyelids were growing heavy. Cursing himself, he sat upright and blinked three times to shake away fatigue.

  The inner left of the four screens listed the vaccinations and vectors McLoughlin had given to the operatives in the last three months before her death. The vector she used for operatives was a non-pathogenic adeno-associated virus, serotype 8. A vector was basically just a vehicle through which to deliver a package. Blood could be the vehicle. So could air. But the adeno-associated virus serotype 8—or AAV8 for short — was the vehicle of choice for Project GATE because it was exceptionally good at circulating through the operative’s bloodstream. It was the best way to switch on pseudogenes in every single cell.

  Pseudogenes — or junk DNA, as it was once known — used to be considered useless. It never occurred to anyone at the time that they were real genes, merely disabled. If you switched them on, they coded for interesting abilities. But only if you knew the right combinations to switch on. And you needed something to deliver the switches. Something like the AAV8 vector.

  The list of vaccinations and vectors was exactly as Denton had expected to find it. Everything was in order. He slammed his hand on the table. He had to be missing something. He’d been hoping McLoughlin had kept a backup copy of the decryption key for the Chimera vector code somewhere. But it seemed such hope was ill conceived.

  Even if he was lucky enough to recover a sample of McLoughlin’s DNA, without the precise chromosomal locations of all the pseudogene clusters it would be like trying to find one grain of sand in a sand dune. And without a sample of her DNA, it was one grain of sand in the entire Sahara desert.

  In short, he was fucked.

  For what felt like the thousandth time that night, he scanned through the list line by line. There was one injection for Sophia that caught his attention. It seemed different. But each time he inspected the contents, he found it wasn’t different at all.

  He was getting too paranoid, e
ven for him.

  With a grunt, he pushed himself away from the desk. His chair wheeled him two-thirds of the way to the vending machine. He stood and trudged the last few steps. Swiping his ID, he punched in the numbers for another can of Guaraná Jesus. The machine beeped indignantly. He was about to kick it when he realized why it was beeping. Out of stock. Next to the empty rack, he noticed an imposter. A green can labeled Guaraná Antarctica Ice.

  ‘I do sometimes live dangerously,’ he said to the vending machine.

  He punched in the code for a Guaraná Antarctica. It might not be named after a drug lord, but he was never one to shy from trying something different.

  The can bounced into the tray before him. He didn’t take it.

  Something different.

  He ran back to his office, shoving his chair aside. He checked Sophia’s pseudogene injections and juxtaposed them against Damien’s and Jay’s.

  He couldn’t believe it. Hyperproprioception was listed twice for Sophia, with different base pairs. Why would McLoughlin inject the same vector twice?

  He knew why. Because she hadn’t.

  * * *

  As soon as Benito opened the door to his sleeping quarters, Denton thrust the papers in his face. ‘Translate.’

  Benito rubbed his eyes and gathered the papers in his hands. ‘What is this?’ Blinking furiously, he started reading. ‘Right. A list of vector injections.’

  ‘Tell me why McLoughlin would be injecting the same vector into the same operative twice,’ Denton said.

  ‘She shouldn’t be.’ Benito scratched his cheek stubble with his thumbnail. ‘If the first injection wasn’t successful, there’d be a notation.’

  ‘There isn’t one,’ Denton said. ‘But the base pairs are different. Why is that? Was it changed?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t changed,’ Benito said. ‘But the base pair list is generated automatically. That doesn’t make any sense.’