The GODD Chip (The Unity of Four Book 1)
Page 1
CONTENTS
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES TO READERS
PROLOGUE: NIGHT OF THE JAKALIS
CHAPTER 1: BITTER CHOICES
CHAPTER 2: TIP-OFF
CHAPTER 3: HARSH LESSONS
CHAPTER 4: SIZING THE ENEMY
CHAPTER 5: ZERO HOUR
CHAPTER 6: HOOK, LINE & SINKER
CHAPTER 7: HEAVY TOLL
CHAPTER 8: CONSEQUENCES
CHAPTER 9: MOTIVES
CHAPTER 10: PRESSURE COOKER
CHAPTER 11: IN THE CROSSHAIRS
CHAPTER 12: COMFORT THE NEEDY
CHAPTER 13: DECEPTION
CHAPTER 14: REVELATIONS
CHAPTER 15: FOE OR FRIEND
CHAPTER 16: DEFIANCE
CHAPTER 17: GUT WRENCH
CHAPTER 18: THE SQUEEZE
CHAPTER 19: RING OF FIRE
CHAPTER 20: THE WINDING ROAD
CHAPTER 21: SPLASH LANDING
CHAPTER 22: READ BETWEEN THE BINDS
CHAPTER 23: BITE OF THE VIPERS
CHAPTER 24: FREE-FOR-ALL
CHAPTER 25: SNATCH OP
CHAPTER 26: CLEARING SKIES
CHAPTER 27: RECOVERY
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX A: THE GENETIC REVOLUTION
APPENDIX B: THE REALIGNMENT OF NORTH AMERICA
APPENDIX C: CASTES OF THE 22nd CENTURY
APPENDIX D: THE GODD CHIP
APPENDIX E: ANDROIDS IN THE 22ND CENTURY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BOOKS BY K. PATRICK DONOGHUE
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
To my darling wife Bryson,
for your continued love, support and encouragement
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I received a great deal of support in crafting The GODD Chip and I would like to acknowledge the special people who helped me.
To developmental editor Dustin Portia, thank you for your challenges and suggestions. Your feedback improved the quality of the story.
To my copyeditors, Annie Jenkinson and Roxana Coumans, thank you for your thorough and timely scrubbing of the draft manuscript. Your attention to detail was much appreciated.
To the cadre of readers who reviewed the prerelease draft of The GODD Chip, including Lisa Weinberg, Paulette Jones, Terry Grindstaff and Giles Ziolkowski, thank you for your comments, suggestions and edits. They helped me apply a final layer of polish to the story.
To my cover artist Asha Hossain, thank you for turning my original design concept into an eye-catching cover.
And to cap off the acknowledgments, I would like to thank my web designers, James Lee and Kevin Maines, for continually improving my author website as I add more titles.
NOTES TO READERS
Greetings, friends, fans and new readers! Thank you in advance for choosing to read The GODD Chip, book 1 in my new medical thriller series, the Unity of Four.
As you prepare begin reading, I would like to draw your attention to the five appendices at the back of The GODD Chip. They provide valuable background context for the story setting and define important terms used in the book.
While much of this background information is sprinkled throughout the story, I believe it would be to your advantage to immerse yourself in the background “lore” before diving too deeply into the book.
For example, this story takes place in the year 2137, almost seventy years after an era known as the Genetic Revolution. One of the appendices provides an overview of the Genetic Revolution and its aftermath. That same appendix defines an important term used throughout the book — gutation (a mutation of a “designed” gene).
As another example, most of the action in The GODD Chip takes place in three of six countries formed after the United States dissolved its fifty-state union in the early 22nd century: New Atlantia, Carapach and the Hawaiian Islands. One of the appendices briefly describes each of the six new countries and discusses what led to the breakup of the USA, Canada and many of the world’s larger nations.
There is an appendix that outlines the worldwide caste system that arose after the Genetic Revolution, another that provides background about the GODD chip — the gene therapy at the center of the story, and finally an appendix devoted to describing the humanoid androids prevalent throughout the book.
Whether or not you decide to read the appendices before beginning the story, just know they are there in the event you find yourself puzzled by a term or a certain aspect of the story. Also, please note that each appendix is footnoted in the early chapters of the book when important terms or “lore” aspects are first mentioned.
With that counsel provided, I hope you enjoy the futuristic tale told in The GODD Chip, and I thank you for your interest in my story!
PROLOGUE: NIGHT OF THE JAKALIS
Gutant refugee village
Limahuli, Kauai, the Hawaiian Islands
June 2137
As the rain shower began to pelt the village, Natti sharpened her gaze on the swaying fronds outside the bedroom window. “Recheck all the locks…doors and shutters.”
From behind, she heard the sounds of Kaleo, Avana and RJ testing the bolts and latches protecting the small cottage. Grasping a spear in one hand, the fifteen-year-old Natti felt for the knife strapped to her hip with the other.
Somewhere out there was a horde of jakalis readying to attack. Masked by darkness and the falling rain, the human mutants would soon creep from the jungle surrounding the village. Natti was sure of it. She could feel their presence. She could smell them. Keep your wits about you, girl. Stay focused.
A thump from above signaled the beginning of the assault. Natti tightened her grip on her weapons. “Kaleo, one’s on the roof.”
“I heard. I’m ready.”
While jakalis were not stupid, they were slow learners and prone to repeating mistakes. Case in point: the roof attack on Natti’s cottage never worked, but it was a regular tactic of theirs anyway. One of them would climb the side of the house and drop smoking chunks of wood down the vents to force Natti and her housemates out of the home. Other jakalis would lie in wait in the jungle brush and attack everyone who came out. But the vents in Natti’s home had been sealed long before she was assigned to the cottage, as were the vents in all the other cottages ringing the village commons.
Natti frowned when she heard two more thumps on the ceiling. She peered through the slit of the steel shutter barring the window. “How are they getting on the roof? I don’t see any of them out my window.”
“I don’t know,” said ten-year-old RJ from the bedroom across the hall. “I don’t see any, either.”
“I see them. Look up. They’re dropping down from the trees,” Avana said.
Natti craned her neck to look up at the palm trees at the edge of the clearing. Several jakalis were shimmying up the trunks. Now, that’s a new one, thought Natti. I’ll bet they’ll try to light the roof on fire again. Good luck with that. Even if they managed to start a fire in the pouring rain, the roof panels were made of sheet metal.
The sound of their grunts and snarls sickened Natti, reminding her of the months of brutality she had endured as their prisoner until Chief Akela and his Makoas rescued her and offered her sanctuary in the village.
A blow on the front door shook Natti back to the present.
“They’re trying a ramrod again,” said Kaleo.
“How many of them?” Natti asked.
“Only two, but they’ve got a huge log. Looks like one of the pilings from the pier.”
Natti adjusted her position to gaze up at the roofs of the cottages closest to hers. Similar onslaughts were underway at all of
the ones she could see. Where are the Makoas? What are they waiting for?
As she turned away from the window, Natti heard a woman scream for help. As more panicked pleas echoed through the rain, Natti returned to the shutter slit and searched for the woman, but the shrill voice was soon swallowed under a crescendo of snarls from the jakalis.
All of a sudden, the thumping on the roof ceased, as did the pounding at the front door. A flash of movement crossed in front of Natti’s field of vision. Jakalis began to pour through gaps in the underbrush, all racing to participate in the kill.
More screams cut through the hiss of the pounding rain, these ones from children. Natti recognized the ploy immediately. The jakalis were inflicting pain on their unfortunate victims, trying to rouse those locked in their homes to mount a rescue. Natti wanted so badly to cover her ears but doing so risked falling prey to a second wave. There must be a hundred or more jakalis out there.
“I see laser beams! Here come the Makoas!” Avana said.
Resting her head on the cold steel of the shutter, Natti whispered, “Praise the four gods.”
The sounds outside began to change. The screams of the children faded beneath howls from the jakalis. Natti closed her eyes and prayed for another Makoa victory.
CHAPTER 1: BITTER CHOICES
National Gene Center
Minneapolis, Lakelands Province, New Atlantia
Dr. Takoda Wells watched Billy Hearns run around the room with the model airplane clutched in his hand. The ten-year-old mimicked the sound of jet engines and swooped the plane in arcing paths through the air. He looked healthy and happy, as a boy his age should.
But Billy’s outward appearance was deceptive. The child’s DNA was breaking down. He was yet another victim of the Genetic Revolution1, the failed era of genetic manipulation that had already claimed more than a billion lives.
Like millions of other parents in the 2070s and 2080s, predecessors in Billy’s ancestry had “designed” many of the physical and mental traits of their children by replacing undesired genes in their embryos with genes that produced preferable traits. It was a practice that had allowed parents to craft their visions of “perfect” children. If they’d only known what was to come.
The glow of the practice and the promising new age quickly turned into a nightmare, creating a genetic catastrophe whose ripple effects multiplied and worsened with each subsequent generation of children.
The cause of the nightmare? A slew of self-replicating, synthetic proteins developed to create designer genes turned out to be flawed, creating gutations, or gene-replacement mutations. Many of these gutations were passed from one generation to the next and further mutated into new forms over time.
As single entities, most gutations were benign, but when several combined, as in Billy’s case, the effects could be lethal…not just to the child cursed with the gene-replacement mutations, but to others as well.
That was why the laws of New Atlantia2 mandated Billy Hearns had to be euthanized now, before he progressed any further into puberty. He could not be allowed to mature sexually, for if he fathered a child, his gutations could pass to his offspring.
Worse, if he was allowed to live, even if he was forcibly sterilized, his gutations would turn him into an insane, rage-filled monster — a jakali — by the time he turned fifteen or sixteen. Thereafter, he would maim, defile and kill with abandon until he eventually succumbed to the breakdown of his DNA or his reign of terror was cut short by a bullet or laser beam.
In the view of the ruling castes3 of New Atlantia, it was better to nip the problem in the bud before it arose, no matter how cruel it seemed to euthanize an innocent child.
Takoda did not share that view. Neither did his colleague and friend, Dr. Yon Fujita. Particularly when it applied to Billy. For Takoda and Yon knew things about Billy’s DNA the New Atlantians did not, something that might save Billy from his ancestral fate, something that might also save the lives of millions of other children.
If only Billy’s mother would cooperate before it was too late.
Takoda was still watching Billy play when Yon entered the observation booth. As soon as he saw his Japanese colleague’s expression, he knew the meeting with Sarah Hearns had not gone well. Still, he felt compelled to ask, “How did it go?”
Yon shoved her hands in her lab coat pockets. “As awful as you’d expect. No parent reacts well when they hear their child has to be put to death.”
Truer words had never been spoken. Takoda thought of his daughter and how crushed he had been when he received the news of her Jakali Syndrome diagnosis two years prior. As his anger began to stir, he pushed aside the memory and focused on Yon. “Do you think she’ll finally cooperate?”
“I don’t know, Tak. I really thought she would open up this time, but she was too angry to listen to me. Hopefully, she’ll cool off before they leave.”
Gazing back at Billy through the two-way mirror, Takoda said, “We can’t put that kid to sleep, Yon. He could help us change everything.”
“Not without Sarah’s help, he can’t. Alone, Billy’s DNA isn’t enough. You know that.”
“Yeah, I know.” Takoda held up crossed fingers. “Here’s hoping you can find a way to get through to her, fast.”
“Amen to that.”
Cracking open the consultation room door, Yon peeked in. Sarah Hearns was slumped over the table picking at her fingernails. Beside her, there was a pile of used tissues. Yon inhaled deeply and walked into the room. The red-faced, teary-eyed Sarah looked up briefly and then returned to fidgeting with her nails.
“Where’s Billy? I want to go home now,” Sarah said.
Yon took a seat next to Sarah. “I know. But we need to talk about options for Billy before you go.”
“Options? You just told me he has to be put to sleep. He has no options. Not anymore.”
“Beacon can help, Sarah, if you’ll let us. We can give Billy a chance to live.”
“I’m not giving you my son.”
“But, Sarah, if you don’t, he’ll die.”
With a defiant glare, Sarah said, “Better to die now than become a Beacon lab rat, or rot away in some godforsaken gutant colony.”
“We don’t treat anyone we rescue like that, Sarah. Not gutant children, not refugee families, not didgee conscripts. Billy will have a fulfilling life for as long as we can manage his condition.”
Sarah’s glare sharpened. “You don’t care about Billy. All you care about is the damn chip.”
Yon resisted the urge to debate with the grieving mother. “The chip is important to us, Sarah. I won’t deny it. But Billy is just as important. Give us the chance to prove it.”
“Why do you care about the chip so much? It didn’t work.”
On that point, Sarah was wrong. The GODD chip4 implanted in Billy had worked…at least, for a while. The smart-proteins injected along with the banned device had healed some of his early gutations. But, for some reason unknown to Yon, the chip had been removed before his latest gutations emerged, leading Sarah to believe the treatment had failed. Yon had tried to pry the reason for the removal from Sarah on several occasions but the mother would not tell her.
Sarah had also refused to tell Yon who had treated Billy with the chip and proteins. Given the treatment was illegal, Yon understood why Sarah had been tight-lipped about it initially, but Yon had hoped Sarah would have softened her stance by now.
After all, Yon or Takoda could have alerted New Atlantia’s genetic crimes division when Takoda first spotted the GODD chip proteins in Billy’s repaired DNA over a year ago. That would have meant instant euthanization for Billy and the execution of Sarah and her husband Rodrick.
By keeping their knowledge of Billy’s altered DNA a secret, Yon and Takoda had gambled that Sarah would take them into her confidence, but she had resisted their every attempt to discuss the chip. Even now, with her son’s life in the balance, Sarah still resisted. Takoda’s earlier comment flowed through Yon’s mind. He
re’s hoping you find a way to get through to her, fast. Yon took a deep breath and made another plea.
“We think it did work, Sarah. The proteins injected with the chip are still active, and the repairs they made are still intact. That’s why you must tell us who treated Billy, so we can talk to them about why they took the chip out and see if it’s possible to reimplant it. Putting the chip back in might add years to Billy’s life and resolve more of his gutations. And if that happened, what we’d learn could help millions of other kids. But to do all of that, we also need Billy. We need to watch him mature, see how the chip and proteins interact with his gutations.”
During Yon’s entreaty, Sarah’s defiance seemed to wane. The scowl on her face faded and she relaxed her stiff posture. As tears began to trickle down her cheek, Sarah reached for a new tissue. “You really think you can help Billy?”
“With your help, I’m sure of it.”
Between sniffles, Sarah asked, “If I agreed to help you, how would you do it? How would you get Billy, me and the girls out of New Atlantia?”
That’s an excellent question, thought Yon. If Sarah had agreed to the rescue a year ago, it would have been a much easier task. There would have been plenty of time for Beacon to wait for the right conditions to smuggle the family out of the country. But now that Billy had been designated for euthanization, it would be especially tricky.
“It depends on how much lead time you can give us, Sarah. By law, you have up to ninety days to schedule Billy’s procedure. If you’re willing to push it back that far, it will give Beacon more time to put a plan in place.”
“Impossible. Rodrick won’t have it. We’ve talked about the possibility of euthanization many times over the last two years, ever since Billy’s first gutation, and Rodrick’s been adamant — he isn’t in favor of dragging things out. He’ll want the minimum waiting period.”
Yon’s stomach cramped. The minimum waiting period was one week. “Sarah, we need more time than that. Can’t you talk to him? I know it’s tough to have a euthanization hanging over the family’s head for ninety days, but every extra day we get to plan, the better the chances of success.”