Hellbound Hearts (26 page)

“I think we found it,” Phil said.

Absalom took a deep breath. Human Shadow DNA.
Yeah, maybe
.

“Run a diagnostic,” Absalom said.

Just then the lights flickered. He looked around. Suddenly, every interface in the thirty-person lab looked like Phil's. Sequences fast as runaway trains. Dizzying. Overwhelming. In his mind, Mireille. Then, just as quickly, all the screens went dead.

Corinna brought him his coffee, then called maintenance. The twenty-person squad ran their diagnostics. Four hours later, the computers were still dark. A virus, the techs agreed. They found an e-mail opened by Absalom's most recent hire. Its sender was on the “do not trust” list: ExxonMobil. Absalom fired him on the spot. To his credit, unlike Dan, he didn't cry.

At five o'clock, Absalom sent everybody home. At eight, the techs left to see if they could trace the root of the virus to the server in the basement, while Absalom worked off his personal computer, which wasn't connected to the network. Around nine that night, the screens blinked back on. All ran the same code, then blinked off again. He snatched what he could from their memories, then plotted the data on his personal computer.

The series was more than halfway to completion: 392 million. The plot made a picture that spun and grew: a double helix with small fishing-line filaments that dangled from its phosphate sugars. He zeroed in on the filaments and saw that the letters were all wrong. Full of U's—RNA, not DNA. And another letter, unknown nucleotide Z.

His heart caught in his chest, like love at first sight. What
was
this?

Then his screen blinked, and he remembered the Peeping Tom that had scared the crap out of him growing up. The guy was arrested for exposing himself in a movie theater, but before that he used to troll the neighborhood, peeking through windows. He waved at Absalom now, like he'd waved at him through his childhood window thirty years ago as Absalom had prepared for bed, naked and climbing into plaid pajama pants. He smiled, only his skin was scored with fishhooks. The lights flickered. His face appeared on every screen. The laptop crashed. Everything went dark.

Absalom took a jagged breath. What the hell? And then he understood, sneaky Exxon bastards, the virus was airborne.

Back at the house, a message was waiting on the wall screen television. She looked great. Her blonde hair was thicker and wavier than ever, and her cheeks bright as new apples. In the image, she held her engorged stomach, and he imagined that it was dead in her womb.

“It's me. I thought I should let you know I'm okay,” she said. “I just think this is best. I'll call again soon, when I figure out what to do next.” The overhead lightbulb popped and went out. He remembered the double helix, its flagella swimming.

He turned on the lamp, and for an instant, he really did see her on fire, the child inside her boiling. She didn't act like he'd expected. She screamed, while beside her, the Peeping Tom rubbed himself raw.

Then the image righted itself. “I know you're taking this badly, but please remember that I love you. It's just, how can you argue with someone who's never wrong?” she asked as she signed off.

“Considerate,” he said to the screen, then smashed the damn thing into rubber and silicone bits. He didn't sleep that night. Instead he researched. For inspiration, he took the fetus down from the fridge and taped it to his chest.

On his drive to work the next morning, the dipshit on NPR was still talking about the black hole. The whole of Southern California had been evacuated, except for the Hispanics, because there weren't
enough buses. Dipshit's special guest, a mathematician from MIT, babbled about how playing God opens doors that ought to stay closed. “Honestly, the numbers don't add up,” he said. “I know this is going to sound strange, but I don't think this has to do with traditional dark matter. I'm starting to think it's some kind of symbiotic life-form attached to human DNA that Servitus discovered. And not a peaceful life-form, either.”

Absalom rolled his eyes. Sure, yeah. Academia screwed up so badly they were going to have to drop an H-bomb, but somehow it was all corporate America's fault. Funny thing MIT hadn't announced these suspicions a month ago, when the Fed had been doling out grants.

“Dark matter, Shadow genes—they're all connected,” the expert said. “And I guess I'm a Johnny-come-lately, but I think we should have left them alone. I'd advocate that the federal government shut it down. Servitus, the universities, everything. At least until we know more.”

Absalom autodialed the radio station at the red light between State and Servitus streets. A yellow school bus in front of him opened its doors and picked up a pile of well-adjusted brats. On the other line, an intern with a high-pitched voice asked, “What's the nature of your call?”

He was about explain that he worked at Servitus, and nobody here had decimated the state of California. Instead he said, “My wife left me. I think she was a corporate spy. Got my codes and sent a virus through the system. Or maybe she was a Jesus freak. The kid's not even mine. I've been betrayed too many times in my life. I deserve respect. This time I'll get her back. This time I'm going to kill her.”

The intern cleared his throat. The school bus moved on. Absalom turned right and entered the complex, where protesters burned the effigy of a fetus. “Save the future!” they chanted.

“Have you ever had sex?” Absalom asked. He winced as he said it.

“Uhhh,” the intern said.

“Yeah. I thought so, you snot-nose fuck. Why am I talking to you?” He hung up.

At the office, the virus had spread. Not even the coffee machine worked. He spooned grounds into warm water, then swirled them in his mouth. They got the computers back online, but not much had changed. Numbers ran. More tails off helixes, more unexplained codes. “I think God called me last night,” Phil said. “It was very suspicious.”

Corinna showed up with weeping sores across her skin. “I did it to myself,” she said with puzzlement. “Why do you think I went and wasted perfectly good cigarettes?”

Behind them, Absalom saw the Peeping Tom light his wife on fire. Did his staff see, too? The multitailed helix swam across the room. It had lost its beauty, and now seemed like a rough beast.

Maintenance couldn't get the system operational. Absalom sent everybody home. Plotted the new data to his personal computer. There were 412 million base pairs and counting. This time, the tails surrounding the helix coalesced into an oval like the outline of a face.

He jabbed his index finger against the screen. “Well, fuck you, too,” he said, then picked up the phone to call Mireille just as the lights flickered, and the line went dead. All the power went out.

Back at the house, he continued his research. Fetus taped to his chest, he boiled the ingredients over a stove.

There was another message from Mireille. She was holding her stomach like it hurt. Behind her was a Sears photo print of flowers, and brown wallpaper. Some cheap hotel, he guessed. “My mom lived in LA,” she said. She was frowning, like it was his fault they'd finally set off the nuke. He was reminded of Miss Teschmacher from that
Superman
movie, who'd also been a dingbat.

On the drive to the lab the next day, downtown Winchester was in flames. Down low they were blue, then orange, then red. Like the core of the earth was leaking. The NPR dipshit was interviewing a
psychic. “Yes, that's right, the traditional definition of Hell is chaos. A place where logic doesn't reign. Ask yourself, why is the nature of man so impossible to determine? Why is the universe an unlockable mystery? Dark matter. Shadow DNA. The invisible hands that guide us. We tried to harness that potential, and in doing so, offended God.”

“So you're saying we've somehow opened a door to Hell?” Dipshit asked.

“Look around you. Wouldn't you agree?”

“I don't believe in Hell.”

“Finally. The man says something smart,” Absalom piped in.

“That's fine,” the psychic answered. “Hell persists without your belief. We humans have a darker side, and we've unleashed it with Shadow DNA. We are our own rough beasts of Bethlehem, born at last.”

Next to him in the passenger seat, Absalom's Peeping Tom waved. The fetus wailed. His college mentor, who'd stolen his research and published it under his own name, hitchhiked by the side of the road, a cleaver wedged deeply into his skull. He'd perfected the art; a perfect thumbs-up.

This time, no intern answered the line at the station. Just Dipshit. “What is it, caller?”

“I'm the head scientist at Servitus. We haven't cracked the code yet for human DNA. Sorry to break it to you.” He thought about the tails. Spindly filaments like those from jellyfish. Perhaps they stung.

“Well, do you have a response to that?” Dipshit asked the psychic.

“I don't think you have any idea what you're doing, or what you've done,” the psychic said.

Absalom shook his head, disgusted. So did his mentor. At least on this, they'd found common ground. “It is the purview of all great men to build or destroy at their discretion. Evolution happens in leaps, not increments, and the commoners like you have nothing to do with it.”

“You're a monster,” the psychic answered.

“Trenchant,” Absalom answered. “You should carry a sandwich board and protest at my office like the rest of the crazies.” Then he hung up.

Security was missing at the complex. George and Juan had abandoned their posts. Along the halls, chimps and dogs roamed. Most were bloodied from battle, dragging themselves by their paws. Dan had probably set them loose, like an imbecile.

In the lab, green-lit screens blazed, all running the same permutations. There were 446 million base pairs out of 511, and counting. What would happen when the sequence finished and the puzzle was solved? He diagrammed the data to a picture again. The helix was buried underneath an oval face and taloned arms shaped like hooks. It reached out through the computer and sliced him.

He thought he was dreaming when Mireille showed up and bandaged the wound, then wept into the crook of his neck. “It's ending, I think. And it's your fault. So why are you the only person I want to be with?” she asked.

Yes, he'd been certain he was dreaming. That's why he bound and gagged her. Dragged her to the trunk and shoved her inside, even though, with that belly, he'd had to press down hard to get her to fit. Drove home in the dark. Pulled her out, pinched her nose, made her drink the vitamin C and caffeine brew he'd stewed.

Peeping Tom watched. He was missing an eye now, and his mouth was sewn shut. The room seemed to blink. Slants of light played chiaroscuro across the walls. The smell was fetid. Mireille surprised him: she screamed.

He helped her to the couch. Spread her legs while she moaned. The sonogram was taped to his chest underneath his suit, and his sweat broke it in two. Her labor took seven hours. The child was large and she bled. She didn't curse him like he'd expected. Instead she cried and clung to the dead thing as she, too, took her last breath and expired.

He didn't wash the blood from his hands the next morning before leaving for work. Dipshit wasn't on NPR, either. Just dead air. The laser eye-reader didn't work, and none of the guards were around, so he crashed the gate.

In the lab, the numbers were gaining: 508 million. In another hour or so, the sequence would be done. Dark matter, of course. So, yes, this was Shadow DNA. The end of the world, too. He took some consolation in the fact that at least he'd been the author of this thing, and not its victim.

He plotted the data to a picture. It was a human body. Grotesque and sneering. The tails were tight skin that ended in hooks. Something dripped onto his desk. He realized his nose was bleeding.

Back home. Drove there fast. Found her corpse. The baby's too. Not much later, a hole opened in the sky, and he knew the sequence had finished.

His Peeping Tom grinned like a bogeyman, and he remembered now that his father had blamed him for that visit thirty years ago.
You and your books. Of course he came to this house, looking
.

The baby crawled at his knees, dragging its placenta.

“He was yours,” Mireille told him.

If she weren't dead, he wouldn't have believed.

Out the window, the Peeping Tom watched, only he wore Absalom's face. The child squawked.

“Be honest, you never loved me,” he told her.

She was pulling her hair out, strand by strand. The pressure was too great for her thin skin, so much of her scalp came with it. “I used to,” she said.

It was only by her admission that she no longer cared for him that he believed she'd ever loved him, and he understood the depth of his loss. Long filaments grew from his smooth face and body. They ended in hooks. A tear rolled down his cheek as the Peeping Tom relieved himself of his futile burden and the black hole enveloped the western sky.