Mutation

by Robin Cook

  The second part of the report was the clinical scales, and Marsha noted that none were in the abnormal range. She was particularly happy to see that scale four and scale eight were well within normal limits. Those two scales referred to psychopathic deviation and schizophrenic behavior respectively. Marsha breathed a sigh of relief because these scales had a high degree of correlation with clinical reality, and she’d been afraid they would be elevated, given VJ’s history.

  But then Marsha noted that scale three was “high normal.” That would mean VJ tended toward hysteria, constantly seeking affection and attention. That certainly did not correlate with Marsha’s experience.

  “Was it your impression that VJ was cooperating when he took this test?” Marsha asked Jean.

  “Absolutely,” Jean said.

  “I suppose I should be happy with these results,” Marsha said, as she gathered the papers together, then stood them on end, tapping them against the desk until they were lined up.

  “I think so,” Jean said encouragingly.

  Marsha stapled the papers together, then tossed them into her briefcase. “Yet both the Wechsler and the MMPI are a little abnormal. Well, maybe unexpected is a better word. I’d have preferred they be unqualifyingly normal. By the way, how did VJ respond to the TAT with the man standing over the child with his arm raised?”

  “VJ said he was giving a lecture.”

  “The man or the child?” Marsha asked with a laugh.

  “Definitely the man.”

  “Any hostility involved?” Marsha asked.

  “None.”

  “Why was the man’s arm raised?”

  “Because the man was talking about tennis, and he was showing the boy how to serve,” Jean said.

  “Tennis? VJ has never played tennis.”

  As Victor drove onto the grounds of Chimera, he noted that none of the previous night’s snow remained. It was still cloudy but the temperature had risen into the high forties.

  He parked his car in the usual spot, but instead of heading directly into the administration building, he took the brown paper bag from the front seat of the car and went directly to his lab.

  “Got some extra rush work for you,” he said to his head technician, Robert Grimes.

  Robert was a painfully thin, intense man, who wore shirts with necks much too large for him, emphasizing his thinness. His eyes had a bulging look of continual surprise.

  Victor pulled out the iced vials of VJ’s blood and sample bottles containing pieces of the dead children’s brains. “I want chromosome studies done on these.”

  Robert picked up the blood vials, shook them, then examined the brain samples. “You want me to let other things go and do this?”

  “That’s right,” Victor said. “I want it done as soon as possible. Plus I want some standard neural stains on the brain slices.”

  “I’ll have to let the uterine implant work slide,” Robert said.

  “You have my permission.”

  Leaving the lab, Victor went to the next building, which housed the central computer. It was situated in the geometric center of the courtyard, an ideal location since the building had easy access to all other facilities. The main office was on the first floor, and Victor had no trouble locating Louis Kaspwicz. There was some problem with a piece of hardware, and Louis was supervising several technicians who had the massive machine open as if it were undergoing surgery.

  “Have any information for me?” Victor asked.

  Louis nodded, told the technicians to keep searching, and led Victor back to his office where he produced a loose-leaf notebook containing the computer logs. “I’ve figured out why you couldn’t call up those files on your terminal,” Louis said. He began to flip the pages of the computer log.

  “Why?” Victor asked, as Louis kept searching through the book.

  Not finding what he was looking for, he straightened up and glanced around his office. “Ah,” he said, spying a loose sheet of paper and snatching it from the desk top.

  “You couldn’t call up the files on Baby Hobbs or Baby Murray because they’d been deleted on November 18,” he said, waving the paper under Victor’s nose.

  “Deleted?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Louis said. “This is the computer log for November 18, and it clearly shows that the files were deleted.”

  “That’s strange,” Victor said. “I don’t suppose you can determine who deleted them, can you?”

  “Sure,” Louis said. “By matching the password of the user.”

  “Did you do that?”

  “Yes,” Louis said.

  “Well, who was it?” Victor asked irritably. It seemed like Louis was deliberately making this difficult.

  Louis glanced at Victor, then looked away. “You, Dr. Frank.”

  “Me?” Victor said with surprise. That was the last thing he expected to hear. Yet he did remember thinking about deleting the files, maybe even planning on doing it at some time, but he could not remember actually having done it.

  “Sorry,” Louis said, shifting his weight. He was plainly uncomfortable.

  “It’s quite all right,” Victor said, embarrassed himself. “Thank you for looking into it for me.”

  “Any time,” Louis said.

  Victor left the computer center, perplexed at this new information. It was true that he’d become somewhat forgetful of late, but could he have actually deleted the files and forgotten about it? Could it have been an accident? He wondered what he’d been doing November 18. Victor went back to the administration building and slowly climbed the back stairs. As he walked down the second-floor corridor toward the rear entrance of his office, he decided to check back over his calendar. He took off his coat, hung it up, and then went to talk to Colleen.

  “Dr. Frank, you frightened me!” she exclaimed when Victor tapped her on the shoulder. She’d been concentrating on typing with dictation headphones on. “I had no idea you were here.”

  Victor apologized, saying that he’d come in the back way.

  “How was the visit to the hospital?” Colleen asked. Victor had called her early that morning to explain why he wouldn’t be in until afternoon. “I hope to God VJ is okay.”

  “He’s fine,” Victor said with a smile. “The tests were normal. Of course, we are waiting on a group of blood tests. But I feel confident they’ll be fine as well.”

  “Thank God!” Colleen said. “You scared me when you called this morning: a full neuro work-up sounded pretty serious.”

  “I was a little worried myself,” Victor admitted.

  “I suppose you want your phone messages,” Colleen said as she peeked under some papers on her otherwise neat desk. “I’ve got a ton of them for you somewhere here.”

  “Hold the messages a minute,” Victor said. “Would you haul out the calendar for 1988? I’m particularly interested in November 18.”

  “Certainly,” Colleen said. She detached herself from her dictation machine and headed for the files.

  Victor went back into his office. While he waited, he thought about the harassing phone call that VJ had unfortunately received, and he debated what to do about it. Reluctantly, he realized there was little he could do. If he asked any of the people he was having a problem with, they’d obviously deny it.

  Colleen came into his office carrying the calendar already opened to November 18, and stuck it under Victor’s nose. It had been a fairly busy day. But there was nothing that had anything even slightly to do with the missing files. The last entry noted that Victor had taken Marsha into Boston to eat at Another Season and go to the Boston Symphony.

  • • •

  Removing her robe, Marsha slid into the deliciously warm bed. She turned down the controls of the electric blanket from high to three. Victor had edged as far away from the heat as possible. His side of the electric blanket was never used. He’d been in bed for over a half hour and was busy reading from a stack of professional journals.

  Marsha rolled on her side, studyin
g Victor’s profile. The sharp line of his nose, the slightly hollow cheeks, the thin lips were as familiar to Marsha as her own. Yet he seemed like a stranger. She still hadn’t fully accepted what he’d done to VJ, vacillating between disbelief, anger, and fear, with fear being paramount.

  “Do you think those tests mean VJ’s really all right?” she asked.

  “I’m reassured,” Victor said without looking up from his magazine. “And you acted pretty happy in Dr. Ruddock’s office.”

  Marsha rolled over on her back. “That was immediate relief that nothing obvious showed up, like a brain tumor.” She looked back at Victor. “But there still is no explanation for his dramatic drop in intelligence.”

  “But that was six and a half years ago.”

  “I’m still worried that the process will start again.”

  “Suit yourself,” Victor said.

  “Victor!” Marsha said. “Can’t you put whatever it is you’re reading aside for a moment to talk with me?”

  Letting the open journal drop, he said, “I am talking to you.”

  “Thank you,” Marsha said. “Of course I’m glad VJ’s physical exam was normal. But his psychological exams weren’t. They were unexpected, and a little contradictory.” Marsha then went on to explain her findings, finishing with VJ’s relatively high score on the hysteria scale.

  “VJ’s not emotional,” Victor said.

  “That’s the point,” Marsha said.

  “Seems to me the result says more about psychological tests than anything else. They probably aren’t accurate.”

  “On the contrary,” Marsha said. “These tests are considered very reliable. But I don’t know what to make of them. Unfortunately they just add to my uneasiness. I can’t help feeling that something terrible is going to happen.”

  “Listen,” Victor said. “I took some of VJ’s blood back to the lab. I’m going to have chromosome six isolated. If it hasn’t changed, I’ll be perfectly satisfied. And you should be as well.” He reached out as if to pat her thigh but she moved her leg away. Victor let his hand fall back to the bed. “If VJ has some mild psychological problems, well that’s something else and we can get him some therapy, okay?” He wanted to reassure her further, but he didn’t know what else to say. He certainly wasn’t about to mention the missing files.

  Marsha took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll try to relax. You’ll tell me about the DNA study as soon as you look at it?”

  “Absolutely,” Victor said. He smiled at her. She managed to smile back weakly.

  Victor raised his journal and tried to read. But he kept thinking about the missing files. Victor wondered again if he could have deleted them. It was a possibility. Since they weren’t cross-referenced, it was unlikely someone else could have deleted all three.

  “Did you find out what caused the death of those poor babies?” Marsha asked.

  Victor let the journal drop once more. “Not yet. The autopsies aren’t complete. The microscopic hasn’t been done.”

  “Could it have been cancer?” Marsha asked nervously, remembering the day David got sick. That was another date that Marsha would never forget: June 17, 1984. David was ten, VJ five. School had been out for several weeks and Janice was planning to take the children to Castle Beach.

  Marsha was in her study, getting her things ready to take to the office when David appeared in the doorway, his thin arms hanging limply at his sides.

  “Mommy, something is wrong with me,” he said.

  Marsha didn’t look up immediately. She was trying to find a folder she’d brought from the office the day before.

  “What seems to be the trouble?” she asked, closing one drawer and opening another. David had gone to bed the night before complaining of some abdominal discomfort, but Pepto-Bismol had taken care of that.

  “I look funny,” David said.

  “I think you are a handsome boy,” Marsha said, turning to scan the built-in shelves behind her desk.

  “I’m getting yellow,” David said.

  Marsha stopped what she was doing and turned to face her son, who ran to her and buried his face in her bosom. He was an affectionate child.

  “What makes you think you’re turning yellow?” she asked, feeling the first stirrings of fear. “Let me see your face,” she said, gently trying to pull the boy away from her. She was hoping that he was wrong and there would be some silly explanation for his impression.

  David would not let go. “It’s my eyes,” he said, his voice muffled against her. “And my tongue.”

  “Your tongue can get yellow from a lemon candy,” Marsha said. “Come, now. Let me see.”

  The light in her study was poor, so she walked him into the hall where she looked at David’s eyes in the light streaming through the window. Marsha caught her breath. There was no doubt. The boy was severely jaundiced.

  Later that day a CAT scan showed a diffuse tumor of the liver. It was an enormously aggressive cancer that destroyed the child’s liver within days of making the diagnosis.

  “Neither baby seemed to have cancer,” Victor was saying, rousing Marsha from her reverie. “The gross studies showed no signs of malignancy.”

  Marsha tried to shake away the haunting image of David’s yellow eyes looking at her from his gaunt face. Even his skin had rapidly turned yellow. She cleared her throat. “What do you think the chances are that the babies’ deaths were caused by the foreign genes you inserted?”

  Victor didn’t answer immediately. “I’d like to think the problem was unrelated. After all, none of the hundreds of animal experiments resulted in any health problems.”

  “But you can’t be sure?” Marsha asked.

  “I can’t be sure,” Victor agreed.

  “What about the other five zygotes?” Marsha asked.

  “What do you mean?” Victor asked. “They are stored in the freezer.”

  “Are they normal or did you mutate them too?” Marsha asked.

  “All of them have the NGF gene,” Victor said.

  “I want you to destroy them,” Marsha said.

  “Why?” Victor asked.

  “You said you were sorry for what you’d done,” Marsha said angrily. “And now you are asking why you should destroy them?”

  “I’m not going to implant them,” Victor said. “I can promise you that. But I might need them to help figure out what went wrong with the Hobbs and Murray babies. Remember, their zygotes had both been frozen. That was the only difference between them and VJ.”

  Marsha studied Victor’s face. It was a horrible feeling to realize that she didn’t know if she believed him or not. She did not like the idea of those zygotes being potentially viable.

  Before she could argue further, a crash shattered the night. Even before the sound of the broken glass faded, a high-pitched scream reverberated from VJ’s room. Marsha and Victor leaped from the bed and ran headlong down the hall.

  7

  Later Tuesday Night

  VJ was curled up in a ball at the head of his bed, cradling his head in both hands. In the center of the room, resting on the rug, was a brick. A length of red ribbon was tied around it, securing a piece of paper, making the package appear like a gift. VJ’s window had been smashed and shards of glass littered the room. Obviously the brick had been thrown from the driveway.

  Victor put out his hand to restrain Marsha from coming into the room and rushing to VJ’s side.

  “Watch the glass!” Victor yelled.

  “VJ, are you all right?” Marsha shouted.

  VJ nodded.

  Reaching around Marsha, Victor grabbed the Oriental runner that extended down the hall. Pulling it into VJ’s room, he let it roll out toward the window. Then he ran across it to look down at the driveway. He saw no one.

  “I’m going out,” Victor said, running past Marsha.

  “Don’t be a hero,” Marsha yelled, but Victor was already halfway down the stairs. “And don’t you move,” she said to VJ. “There’s so much glass,
you’re sure to be cut. I’ll be right back.”

  Marsha ran back to the master bedroom and hastily pulled on her slippers and her robe. Returning to VJ’s room, she finally got to the bed. VJ allowed her to hug him. “Hold on,” she said, as she strained to lift him up. He was heavier than she’d anticipated. Staggering to the hallway, she was glad to set him down.

  “A few months from now I won’t be able to do that,” she said with a groan. “You’re getting too big for me.”

  “I’m going to find out who did that,” VJ snarled, finding his voice.

  “Did it frighten you, dear?” Marsha asked, stroking his head.

  VJ parried Marsha’s hand. “I’m going to find out who threw that brick and I’m going to kill him.”

  “You’re safe now,” Marsha said soothingly. “You can calm down. I know you’re upset, but everything is all right. No one got hurt.”

  “I’ll kill him,” VJ persisted. “You’ll see. I’ll kill him.”

  “Okay,” Marsha said. She tried to draw him to her but he resisted. For a moment she looked at him. His blazing eyes held a piercing, unchildlike intensity. “Let’s go down to the study,” she said. “I want to call the police.”

  Victor ran the length of the driveway and stood in the street, looking both ways. Two driveways down, he heard a car being started. Just as he was debating sprinting in that direction, he saw the headlights come on and the car accelerate away. He couldn’t tell the make.

  In frustration, he threw a rock after it, but there was no way he could have hit it. Turning around, he hurried back to the house. He found Marsha and VJ in the study. It was apparent they’d been talking, but as Victor arrived they stopped.

  “Where’s the brick?” Victor asked, out of breath.

  “Still in VJ’s room,” Marsha said. “We’ve been too busy talking about how VJ is planning on killing whoever threw it.”

  “I will!” VJ promised.

  Victor groaned, knowing how Marsha’s mind would take this as further evidence that VJ was disturbed. He went back to his son’s room. The brick was still where it had fallen after crashing through VJ’s window. Bending down, he extracted the paper from beneath the ribbon. “Remember our deal” said the typed message. Victor made an expression of disgust. Who the hell had done this?