Reclaim: Project Xol

by Amabel Daniels

  My mother. I resisted rolling my eyes as I fumed again about her slander. Tami wasn’t my mother. Rosa was, and it was insulting to hear someone suggest otherwise, regardless of how distant our relationship has always been. A longing to truly know Rosa was okay somewhere hit me hard. I hadn’t missed Elena brightening at the name of my adoptive parent, like she counted on something bad having happened to her.

  I gulped. Not hearing from her pulled at my nerves. She’ll be fine. Wherever she is. She had to be.

  Elena directed Luke where to drive, mainly in a path that wove us through the busier city streets and into a more natural area. The boldly vibrant paint colors on walls and signs faded to a generic blur of green. Was her lab off the beaten track?

  “What is in this vial that’s so important?” I asked. Maybe if I knew what was in the genetic material, I could have better odds of guessing the what-ifs of what Tami had planned.

  My mother.

  No.

  It just couldn’t click. I couldn’t call her such a title when she was nothing more than a stranger who’d left me. A sick individual who’d been the mastermind behind creating nearly immortal and freakishly strong Xol freaks.

  Focus, Cass! My Maury episode of family drama could come another day

  “It’s a combination of two different axolotls’ DNA,” Elena replied.

  “That they can’t get from the abundance of axolotls in labs and aquariums around the world?” Tramer asked.

  “Not one of them.” She slung her arm over the backrest of the seat and rubbed at the joint at the top.

  I wondered briefly if she’d been injured but I didn’t have time to truly speculate before she spoke again.

  “Axolotls—I call them axols—are everywhere, a strong population exists across many research facilities. When Rosa, Hendrick, and Scott first began their research, they’d needed to limit the different axolotls they worked with. As the axols reproduce in isolated populations, they mutate and interbreed—forming distinct subspecies over time. For consistency, they’d rejected their preliminary work on a specific subspecies of axols because they were particularly tricky to keep clean and healthy from chytrids.”

  “What’s that?” Tramer asked.

  “A fungus.” She paused to direct Luke to turn onto an even bumpier road. “It’s a common affliction for reptilian species. So when their research began to get advanced, they rejected some of the ‘weaker’ types of axols. What we called the betas are one of them.”

  “What made up the other half of the sample?” I asked. “You said it was a combo of two.”

  Elena nodded. “Sí. Part of the sample has the alpha material, taken from the axols in captivity—ones that weren’t as sensitive to chytrids, and the other half came from the native, sensitive subspecies, the betas.”

  Axols. I liked her nickname for them. “Betas. Those are the sensitive axols that…live here?” I asked cautiously.

  Another nod, a slower and more fatigued one at that. “Yes.”

  “Where is here?” Luke asked.

  I held on to the armrest as we jostled over a series of ruts. Glancing out the window, I scrunched up my nose. No wonder he seemed confused. We were in…a park? There were no buildings anywhere, just trees, birds flying away from the vehicle as he plowed branches out of our path. If Elena had one vial remaining wherever she worked, I assumed it would be at a lab or scientific facility.

  “We’re on the southern edge of the Xochimilco lake system.”

  “We’re going to the water?” I asked.

  “Sí.” Elena gave Tramer a stern side-eye as he glanced at her suspiciously.

  “What’s your role with the Project?” he asked.

  “Was. I no longer work with any of them,” she insisted.

  Except Hendrick? And you still stay in touch with Rosa?

  “My padre did. He was an ecologist.” She looked between me and Tramer as she explained. “He met Rosa through the university. At that time, he’d been working to set up a native refuge for the lake’s wildlife. Over the years, they’ve ruined the environment. Pollution. Invasive predators. Draining parts of the canals and lake systems. It may seem we’re in the boondocks, but the people encroach closer and closer.”

  I glimpsed out the window, and even though we were in a park-like area, I could see slivers of buildings not too far in the distance. Sprawl. It was everywhere.

  “My padre funded the refuge to preserve what he could of the area. He focused on the axols and that was how he and Rosa began to work together. He gave her access to salamanders that weren’t born in captivity.”

  “Why wouldn’t they have just used the captive ones? Since there are so many available?” Luke asked.

  “Diversity?” I guessed.

  Rosa’s research, from the little I’d ever understood of it, of any kind of scientific trials, involved repetitive processes and tests. And the more you tested of a variety, the better the answer might be.

  “Sí.” Elena nodded at me. “Rosa wanted to avoid the potential setbacks of relying on an inbred population of axols. In captivity, they share too similar of a gene pool.” She smirked, at herself. “I’m no scientist. I don’t work in genetics or such. This is what I’ve learned from my padre.”

  “Does he still help at this refuge?” Luke asked.

  “No. He passed away years ago. A boating accident. He trained me how to run the place since I was thirteen, the year I met Rosa and the others on the original research team. After he passed, I took over the refuge. I get grants and some school funding by providing field trips and sites for field studies.” She shrugged then winced as she rubbed her shoulder again. “I do what I can to keep it going.”

  “Could there be something genetically important in the native axolotls that Tami is after? If she wants this vial of the combined sample?” Tramer asked.

  “There must be,” Elena said. “Otherwise, Hendrick never would have insisted on checking on the vials.”

  I shared a glance with Luke, my frown a replica of his. Something she’d go to extreme lengths for.

  “What, though?” I huffed an impatient laugh. “She’s already…she’s already found a fountain of youth. What more could she want?”

  Elena shook her head. “I’m not a geneticist. I do not know, but if she is so crazed to get her hands on this, making Rosa and Hendrick so paranoid, then it must be something she doesn’t have.”

  “Well, what can these beta axols do?”

  “Other than be slightly more susceptible to a fungus,” I added to Luke’s question.

  “I do not know.” Elena sighed. “In the wild, they are challenged more than in captivity. They’ve had to fight off more, mutate more to succeed in their environment. Perhaps there was a variable that they dismissed before and want now. Survival of the fittest. The natives out here might have mutated into something desirable that they’d dismissed from years ago.”

  Something to perfect their current treatment? I couldn’t see what was lacking. Project Xol’s so-called cure made people stronger, harder to kill. It pumped up muscles and removed chronic illnesses. It was a regenerative freak show that resulted in nearly undefeatable monsters. So what more could “better” those patients?

  “Over there.” Elena pointed at the first sights of a simple structure. It wasn’t so junky of a space that it could blow over in strong winds, but it was clear the woman meant what she’d said. Money from grants were likely hard to come by, evident with the aged and weathered single-story building. Made of weathered wood, it stood alone with rain barrels lining the front entrance, and empty crates stacked in two parallel rows like primitive auditorium seating—maybe where students might sit for a field trip lecture.

  We exited the van and I think I was the only one not scoping out the tree line we’d parked at. She’d said the workspace was broken into, but was she really afraid someone would be lurking this long after the fact? Or was it the general fear of Xol freaks to be anywhere near their goal?

  �
�So this vial.” I spoke as she led the way into the dim building. “If we destroy it, then that’s it. It’s the last of it.” Rounding back to our purpose seemed crucial.

  Elena didn’t slow her fast pace through the lobby area of the building. I surveyed the room in a blur. Posters about life cycles of plants and animals. Metamorphosis dioramas. A shelf of 3D models about the steps of eggs to larvae. One table held taxidermy samples of wildlife likely to be found outside, a monkey frozen with his mouth wide open in an imagined howl.

  “No,” she replied.

  “Why not?” She said it was the last damn sample.

  “Because if they know which axols the beta material was taken from, they can get it from the source.”

  From the salamanders themselves.

  “Then…”

  I frowned at Luke as he seemed to make sense of it.

  “Then we have to eliminate them?” he asked.

  “Sí.”

  My lips pulled down even more. Kill the animals? No. I couldn’t…just no. That was inhumane! She—we—had no right to kill those creatures just because people wanted to abuse them, to use them for an evil goal.

  “Aren’t…” I scoffed, still stunned by her bold plan. “Aren’t they endangered?”

  “Sí. Some are.” She spun to face me. “But we must.”

  “I…” Dammit, I hated the firm way she glowered at me, like she was an adult explaining to a child that a pet must be put down for their own good. This wasn’t a mercy killing, saving the axolotls from a worse fate. But it might be saving us from something unthinkable… I couldn’t make the connection. I struggled to think of these innocent beings as a threat.

  Elena crossed her arms. “What? Don’t think you’re brave enough to put an end to this, after all?”

  Wasn’t she supposed to be an advocate for saving the animals? And she was so damn quick to write them a death sentence.

  I ground my teeth at her jeering tone. This wasn’t on me. I didn’t create this problem. As much as I wanted to punch her for insinuating I wasn’t up to a difficult choice, I looked at Luke instead. He glared at Elena like he wanted to have the first shot at shutting down her bitchy attitude. But then he met my gaze. And in his stare, I knew I could face any kind of a challenge. The admiration and trust in his eyes told me all I needed. He didn’t like these plans either, but I could tell he knew what needed to be done.

  “What do you think?” he asked me. Deferring to me, trusting me. Not this angry woman who’d safeguarded the vial and axolotls for years. If that didn’t show how much faith he had in me, I didn’t know what could.

  “I don’t want to kill…” I shook my head. “Anything.”

  He nodded. “We don’t have to.”

  “And let Tami do something even worse?” Elena all but screeched.

  Damned if I do, damned if I don’t?

  I refused to let my soft heart prevent me from doing what was somehow necessary, but I wasn’t going to stand by and let her kill innocent beings. Not without thinking it through from all angles. There had to be another way out of this, but she wasn’t going to listen to reason. I could play along until we knew which ones in the lake were the beta subspecies.

  “Fine.” I exhaled the breath I’d been holding. “How do you know which ones to get rid of?”

  I tried not to think about it and pretended to be agreeable—for now. Sentencing innocent animals to a premature extinction. If it would prevent Tami from brewing more monsters from these rare subspecies of salamanders, then it’d be with the heaviest of hearts to stop her this way.

  “Where is Scott’s code?” she asked.

  Like I’d answer that. Zero had the files from Scott’s data and I’d never compromise his role in this. “In a safe place.”

  Elena snarled at me. “Sí. But I need to know the tags in it to know which ones were used back then.” On a disgusted sigh, she tramped toward the rear of the building. “Follow me.”

  What the hell was with her attitude with me? Was it because I was Tami and Scott’s kid, and she didn’t trust me since she didn’t trust her? Or…what? Sue me for having a goddamn heart. I fisted my hands and followed her.

  “The axols are separated by size and habitat preference. My padre set up the arrangement and I’ve kept it the same. Some subspecies are in different parts of the lake according to their sensitivity to the temperature, salinity, and other conditions, like the chytrid threat.”

  After passing a sketchy lab room, humming with numerous tanks and heated aquariums, we exited the refuge building. Elena turned toward a wall and grabbed a slim box. Like a clipboard but thicker. We faced a dock that led out into the water and it was only then that I’d realized the tree line kept the body of water mostly concealed from the dirt path we’d driven in on.

  Along the dock were painted indications of shapes. Acronyms of numbers and letters indicated directions.

  Elena gestured toward posts standing in the water. Waves were minimal and it was easy to see the wooden tips of beams. Corresponding colors painted on the tops showed a geometric shape. Three or four posts marked what I assumed to be an underwater trap of some kind.

  “Many of the native ones still alive are free to move throughout the water system. We put up a dam to prevent them from getting too close to the sewage treatment nearby. But the most sensitive ones are sectioned off in segments. Mostly to keep them from predators.”

  She faced me. At the slight breeze that came from the water, her frizzy hair wisped in front of her mouth. She pulled it aside and said, “If I have the files, I can combine Scott’s data with the corresponding data in Rosa’s and Hendrick’s. Together, it will indicate which section the axols are in. Which ones they’d used to create those vials back then.”

  We clashed in questions.

  Tramer: “Where is that last vial?”

  Luke: “You expect us to just hand over his code?”

  Me: “What’s to say the axolotls haven’t mutated even more since thirty years ago?”

  She only answered me, ignoring Luke and Tramer with a smirk. “They very likely could have.”

  I threw my arms out to the side, beyond frustrated. “Then how do we even know Tami could get the same beta strain properties from the axolotls we have now? She might not even be able to get whatever genetic material she needs!” But as the words left my mouth, I realized it would be too easy. Too good to be true. That if we destroyed the last vial, wherever she was hiding it, that Tami wouldn’t simply be out of luck without any more viable beta strain material.

  It seemed this remaining vial was simply a convenience. Without it, Tami and her team would just have to scour the lake system to get the beta subspecies they needed. It’d take time, for sure, but it wasn’t like we could feasibly kill all the axolotls and completely remove the threat. We were simply standing in the way of the easiest way to the genetic material she wanted. And if Zero destroyed Scott’s files, they’d have to play a guessing game until they found the animal they needed. Which meant they might be able to be saved.

  “We don’t know, but we can’t chance it.” She stomped toward me. “Hendrick died trying to protect us from Tami creating another monster. If she gets the already identified DNA, who knows what she’ll make next. Don’t you see!”

  I didn’t need her attitude in my face. I shoved her back. “I know that! And I promised him I’d end this. But if the animals they used years ago have changed, then there might not even be anything of value for them here. Except for that one vial.”

  “You’d take that chance? Just so we can spare their lives?” She scoffed, twisting her aged face into more of a prunish scowl. “Of course, he had to have trusted a…a wimp to deal with this. Some animal rights, soft-hearted weakling—”

  I punched her. Dammit. I was done with her attitude. I would leave here doing the right thing. It was who I was. Who I really was. I had my flaws but I wasn’t weak—even if I wasn’t so hardened to declare other deaths without flinching. She didn’t know
me. And more than I could count on my flaws to define me, I knew I could trust my gut. And it was foolhardy to obliterate an entire subspecies of animals without thinking it through.

  I was on board with removing that last vial. It would be too easy for Tami to get a hold of it and do much damage. Without that vial, we’d buy time. Later, someone could resume work with the axolotls here, someone with the right intentions.

  Beneath my fury and hesitation to follow this woman’s plan, I couldn’t silence a niggling voice.

  What if, by destroying these beta axolotls, we’d lose something we can’t get back?

  What if there was something in these seemingly weaker salamanders that might reclaim the hope Rosa had long ago? For a real cure, like they’d aimed for in the beginning. Something that could help people with lung cancer, like Sue at that vet’s office in Texas, or people with chronic illnesses, like Zero with his cystic fibrosis. What if the secret in these lakes held a step for something better? I couldn’t erase that chance.

  “You b—” She lunged for me, one hand on her jaw.

  I shook out the pain in my knuckles and stepped back at her approach. Luke rushed forward next to me.

  Tramer beat him to us with his gun pointed at Elena. She ceased coming at me when the safety clicked. “First things first,” he said. “Where is that last vial? We need that out of the way before we decide anything about those things in the water.” He nodded at me. “I agree with her. There’s no reason to kill those things without knowing more first.”

  More support. My gut instinct was right, as was Tramer’s. And Luke’s. Obviously, we needed to destroy the vial, and after that, there wouldn’t be an immediate threat. Tami would have to work harder for the DNA she needed. Then once we destroyed Scott’s data that would identify the beta subspecies, Tami would have to start from scratch.

  Elena stood up straight. She tugged one hand at the hem of her shirt and smoothed the other over her jaw. Redness rose beneath her tan skin. I didn’t flinch at even a fraction of guilt. It was time she got off her high horse.