The Leaves in Winter (40 page)

“That might explain the increased activity around GARC. The same surveillance we had on your couriers picked up a surge of other activity.”

“Makes sense. After
Kansas
, they know they’ll need to reverse-engineer immunity quickly, before Mass regroups.”

“If that’s true, then the government must know the memo is real.”

“Of course they know but they’re not going to admit it. The point is – imagine if we could get our hands on the new
GenLET
– the one with 3P immunity.”

Hasuru mused, “No wonder Mass never came after the people who stole
GenLET
.”

“Why should he care? Basic
GenLET
gives no protection from 3rd Protocol. In fact, I wouldn’t put it past him to have devised a strain of basic
GenLET
to be susceptible to the plague. What better way to get rid of those who would challenge his future New World Harmony.”

“Like us.” Hasuru stood, captive of a thousand-yard stare. “Extended life doesn’t matter if a plague takes you out.”

“Sure. He must know that The Group has
GenLET
. But so what? He knows it’s the basic kind, the one without protection.”

Hasuru prompted. “So what about the couriers…”

“Ah, yes, the couriers. My couriers did manage to get something. It’s not the final answer, not yet, but it’s the next best way to get there.”

“You didn’t get the new
GenLET
?”

“No, but I managed to get a dozen eggs extracted from Alyssa.”

“Eggs?” Hasuru gaped.

“I have a lab working on them now. The unique genetics and stem cellular properties give us our best hope of reproducing the immunity. We may not get the new version of
GenLET
, but we should at least be able to figure out the 3P vaccine.”

“But will it work if it’s not integrated into
GenLET
?”

“One of many questions they’re working on.”

Hasuru turned off the water. “There’s amazing potential there.”

“But we have to watch ourselves. The egg extraction didn’t go unnoticed. In fact, there were complications.”

“Did something happen to the girl?”

Curtis shut off his water. “By necessity, it was an aggressive procedure. My access to her was extremely limited. She had a reaction. She’s still unconscious.”

“Damn it!” Hasuru turned to the tiles. “You should have let them finish working with her. Stealing it from them would have been easier than trying to reproduce it by guesswork.”

“It may be just as well. If we get the vaccine and the government doesn’t, what’s the downside? The fewer
GenLET
people we have to deal with when this is over the better.”

Hasuru was shocked. “What are you talking about? You’d keep the vaccine to yourself and let the population collapse?”

Curtis ran his hand back through his dripping hair. “The meek will not inherit the Earth. Even The Group knows this. I can’t imagine them handing out
GenLET
at every free clinic.”

“What’s gotten into you? You’re more concerned about positioning yourself for the future than making sure we have one!”

Curtis stuck an index finger at Hasuru’s face.

“You think the government is going to hand out immunity to everyone? Ask The Group; would they do it? Think again. Just announcing that everyone has to get a shot would start a panic. No way. A few industrialized countries will get it but other than that, everyone will be quite content to let nature take its course everywhere else.”

“You can’t mean that.”

“It’s the way they think. What’s the downside to less competition for resources? The stakes are high. Why not trade a level playing field for a better strategic position? You seriously think they’re going to give up their advantage? Like they say, it’s better to seek forgiveness than permission.”

“This isn’t what we talked about. The humanity, the Earth we fought for all these years. How can you piss that all away? It’s become nothing but a power grab.”

“No, it’s
exactly
what we talked about. Look at the equation for global CO2. P x S x E x C equals total CO2. To get global CO2 down, we have to reduce those four factors. P is population. S – the services they use. E
–
the energy those services take. And C – the CO2 put out to make that energy. It all comes back to people. We even have an equation that
proves
we need fewer people! You know as well as I do; you can’t make that equation work unless you lower the population – dramatically.”

Hasuru shouted back. “But not like this!”

“Face it. The ship is sinking. There aren’t enough life boats. I don’t want to live my extended life headed for the bottom.”

Hasuru took a step towards the exit then halted. “Chances are, Mass will beat you to the punch. He’ll regroup 3P long before you ever figure out immunity.”

Curtis laughed. “He should live that long.”

Hasuru stood, astonished. “You’re really going all the way with this?”

“You can come join me, anytime you want.” Curtis turned to face a floor drain.

Taking penis in hand, he urinated into the drain.

Disgusted, Hasuru stormed out of the shower room.

Curtis stared at the arc of urine headed for the floor. There was something so raw, so freeing and powerful about standing naked in a public place.

Pissing it all away.

Chapter 38

Sub-Basement of Building 3

GARC,
Puerto Rico

Dinner, half-eaten and cold, waited in a takeout clamshell to be reheated. Ventilation fans cycled on overhead and pushed the smell of food across the cluttered desk. It was enough to break one’s concentration.

Janis rose up from work and caught sight of the date/time display – 2:30 a.m.

The windowless lab hid the passage of time. Surrounded on three sides by consoles displaying data, Janis hunched forward and reread an entry from her log.

Something didn’t fit. Had she entered a variable incorrectly or was she right to assume something in the data was off? How long would it take to track it down? She had found many references to the variance but what she really needed was the source. The anomaly could be from lab work she had done or in the GAMA material given to her by Knockout Mouse. Determining which was the first order of business.

Millions of bits of genetic data meshed precisely and yet one out of place could change the results for everything. Was she looking for a needle in a haystack or a single grain of sand on an endless beach? Perhaps it was the smallest star in the visible universe or just possibly, the final number to be included in an infinite set.

After a full day, the search for answers remained enormous and elusive.

Janis was well aware that difficulty in genetic research was measured by orders of magnitude which were daunting at any level chosen. It all came down to rigor and perseverance over invisible minutiae. While she was used to being meticulous and relentless at any scale, she had yet to adjust to the level of consequence if they failed.

Faye sat across the way, cloistered in another collection of consoles and lab equipment. The two of them were close enough to talk but far enough away to do individual work. While Faye labored to unlock the mystery of how to reverse sterility, Janis attempted to reconstruct why the sabotage of 1st Protocol had gone horribly wrong. For days, progress on both fronts had been slow but both of them were determined to keep it steady.

Janis swiveled in her chair and called out to Faye. “How are you doing over there?”

Dropping reading glasses to a mouse pad, Faye rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Ask me again in an hour; I’m too tired to answer right now.”

Janis could only manage a grin in response. Digging into a pocket, she pulled out a small object and dangled it in front of her. “Why don’t we go see the stars?”

Faye looked over. “What is that?”

“The key to the roof.”

“I thought you gave that back.”

“I did, but later I found it in his office.”

“You went to see him?” Faye didn’t try to hide her surprise.

“I went to sign papers – immunity from prosecution if I complete Project work. I wanted it in writing.”

“I don’t suppose they defined the limits of Project work. They could have you on the hook forever.”

Janis clutched the key in a closed fist. “Yeah, but like you said, if we don’t figure this out forever’s not that far away.”

Faye rocked back and motioned to the fist. “Does security know you have that?”

“They’re on a need-to-know basis. Come on, let’s get some fresh air.”

Janis stood and stretched as Faye grabbed her jacket from the back of the chair. Their elevator ride to the top floor passed without comment. The deserted complex was lit by security night lights. From silent hallway into a quiet stairwell they strolled, dragging the weight of their fatigue.

Once on the roof, Janis lifted her eyes to the sky and took in a deep breath. “It’s different being someplace where you can see the stars.”

Faye looked down on the lights of
Aguadilla
in the distance but was distracted by the blackness of ocean beyond.

“If they ever move us to Granite Peak Installation, you’ll really see some stars. That place is in the middle of nowhere. The closest light is twenty miles away.”

“After what happened to Alyssa, I thought we’d be there already.”

“It’s hard to say what’s holding up the transfer. Then again, I’m not sure Dugway Proving Ground would be the best place for Alyssa right now either. They may be having security clearance issues rounding up medical support for her.”

“That should be easy; just bring Rebecca and her team with us.”

“You would think so but nothing’s that simple with The Project.”

Janis dropped her gaze back to Earth. “If we stay here, I worry if something else might happen to Alyssa.”

“I think it’s OK. They’ve got things pretty well locked down. No more use of GeLixCo personnel for anything. We can’t get more insulated.”

“You’re right, it seems I wound up a prisoner anyway. It’d be nice if we were allowed some time in town or on the beaches. We can’t go anywhere.”

Faye stepped along the roofline. “What are you talking about? We have the whole roof to explore.”

Janis followed her. “It’s hard to think out of the box if I’m kept in one.”

“Speaking of out of the box, I’ve been thinking about the offer you got from Knockout Mouse.”

“What about it?”

Faye stopped and turned back to Janis. “The more I consider it, the more it sounds like a good idea.”

“Don’t we have our hands full enough already? What would we do with the 2nd Protocol virus?”

“You know it’s going to take something new to get us out of this mess. Anything we can learn from 2nd Protocol can only help us. Who knows what improvements The Group made over their 1st Protocol base?”

Janis sauntered away. “Capping lifespan has nothing to do with our problem.”

“But how they did it might tell us something. You never know.”

Janis folded her arms against a sudden chill. “And what would The Project do with it? I’m not giving them a new agent they can use for something else.”

“Something else might be something good, something we need. It’s too late to hold back on anything. We don’t have the time.”

“I don’t know…” Janis continued to stroll with Faye at her side.

Faye persisted, tantalized by an emerging idea. “Think about it. The Group made 1st Protocol to delay fertility. Now 2nd Protocol is supposed to cap lifespan at what age?”

“Seventy.”

“OK, seventy. And what’s the basic functionality, what happens? 1st Protocol doesn’t allow a process to start and 2nd Protocol doesn’t allow a process to finish. The Group engineered the two protocols to be genetic flipsides of each other.”

“So?” Relaxing into her tiredness, Janis fought to concentrate.

“So what if we could exploit the differences? What if somehow we were able to use elements within 2nd Protocol to flip the completion of sterility in utero?”

“Even so, what about the children already here?”

“Sure, it wouldn’t cure sterility for those already affected, but children not yet born might have a chance. We know that epigenetic changes that take place in the fetus between the fourth and sixth weeks of pregnancy result in sterility. If we can isolate what that process does and use 2nd Protocol techniques to make sure it never gets a chance to finish, we might be able to turn off fertility’s shutdown.”

“That’s pure conjecture. We don’t know how 2nd Protocol works. And even if we did, it’s specialized to cap lifespan. It’s not a generic process we can use interchangeably.”

“We know its purpose. There can only be so many reasonable ways to the end state. The point is, we also have no idea how 2nd Protocol might help us.”

Janis stood at the edge of the roof. She was ready to take a leap of faith.

“All right. I’ll contact Knockout Mouse and ask him for it – but under one condition. For the time being, we keep this to ourselves. If we get 2nd Protocol and we find it can help us, only then do we tell The Project about it.”

“I’m fine with that.”

A long silence passed between them.

Faye drew closer, encouraged by the added trust shown by Janis’ decision.

“All that GAMA stuff you got from KM – how’s it working out?”

Janis shrugged. “Nine million base pairs. Eight thousand protein-encoding genes. The suicide gene is just one of them.”

“You’re not talking about the GAMA, are you?” Faye was confused.

Janis shook her head to chase away the weariness. “Oh, no, of course not. I was talking about the original bacterium. The one with the suicide gene the Army experimented with.”

“I thought the plastic-eating microbe was developed by the Navy.”

“That’s right, but they used a suicide gene from Army research.”

Faye was still confused. “But aren’t you studying the Navy’s GAMA?”

“That’s right, but the key problem leads back to the suicide gene. Both the original 1st Protocol payload and the benign payload created by The Project as sabotage agent share one thing – the suicide gene. I thought it might be good to go back to the source of that gene, back to Army research on the source bacterium, Streptomyces Avidinii. As a control group, I wanted to see how the suicide gene operates in its natural state, how it’s triggered, how the cascade of effects is expressed genetically.”

Faye reached out to touch Janis’ arm. “What bacterium did you say?”

“Streptomyces Avidinii.”

“You sure about that?”

Janis chuckled, “I’ve been staring at it all day.”

“You sure it wasn’t Streptomyces Avermitilis?”

“Positive. I read the Army’s patent on the suicide gene just the other day. They used a suicide gene from Streptomyces Avidinii. Why? Is something wrong?”

Faye circled around to Janis’ other side; the movement helped her think it through. “I’ve got to double-check but I could swear an abstract on the sabotage agent mentioned Streptomyces Avermitilis. Come on – I’ve got it in the lab.”

Faye bolted in the direction of the stairwell door with Janis in quick pursuit. They scurried down the stairs and suffered the wait in the elevator.

Back in the sub-basement lab, Faye raced to her desk and grabbed her reading glasses. Before she was in her chair she was typing.

Janis hung by and watched the display screen over Faye’s shoulder. “Could it be a clerical error? Would it even make a difference? They’re both Streptomyces, both Actinobacteria, both gram-positive; their genomes would both have high guanine and cytosine content.”

“That doesn’t mean they share identical suicide genes.” Faye’s forefinger shot to the screen and swept across a passage of text. “Here it is!”

Janis pulled up a chair alongside. “This is from where?”

Faye toggled another window forward to double-check. “As far as we’re concerned, this doesn’t exist. It’s from the operation that sabotaged 1st Protocol. All of this is TS-4 Sensitive Compartmented Information. The operation was part of The Project, which is an
Unacknowledged Special Access Program.
Remember, most of the government doesn’t know about this. If you’re asked about it, deny it.”

Janis steadied herself. “Sounds about right – take an oath, promising you’ll lie.”

Faye scanned then read the text. “It is believed that the original source of Ghyvir-C was discovered growing in seawater amoeba and was exploited as a 1st Protocol agent because its double-stranded linear chromosome carries great coding capacity. As one of the largest known viruses, Ghyvir-C gave genetic engineers the opportunity of dual leverage, in that the virus was found to contain a sputnik.”

Janis couldn’t help reading ahead, then reading aloud.

“The Ghyvir-C sputnik is a small icosahedral virus, 50 nanometers in size. The sputnik cannot multiply in Ghyvir-C but grows rapidly after an eclipse phase. The sputnik’s aggressive growth is deleterious to Ghyvir-C, resulting in abortive forms and abnormal capsid assembly of the host virus.”

Faye zeroed in on the pertinent section. “The Ghyvir-C sputnik is functionally analogous with bacteriophages and can be classified as a virophage. As such, it could be a vehicle mediating lateral gene transfer between giant viruses. This gene transfer could include a suicide gene. Testing conducted with the GAMA-supplied suicide gene (sourced from Streptomyces Avermitilis) has completed successfully.”