The SONG of SHIVA (20 page)

“Serious trouble. If you don’t want to go any further, that’s okay. But let me tell you, our suspicions yesterday? They weren’t ill-founded”

“And if I say yes?”

“Then I’m afraid you’re in for the duration.
Very
afraid. Once you know, you know. Can’t take it back. I know, but I’m not even sure
what
I know – other than it’s killed people. If you do decide to get involved, you won’t be safe either.”

Nora didn’t know what to say, or think. Her emotions were already in tatters because of this guy. Now he wanted to drag her into something derelict at best, probably criminal. He was asking for her help. Was she willing to risk what providing that help might require? He’d admitted it was dangerous. Why? Her innate curiosity could easily place her in serious danger, but even as she recognized this she found herself jumping on the bus.

“Does anybody else know?”

“Know what?”

“That you’ve cracked into Innovac’s database.”

“I don’t think so. I certainly didn’t
tell
anyone.”

Good
, Nora thought.
Then he’s probably not working an organized corporate espionage scam. If it’s not that, then what?

“Let’s go to my room and pick up my keycard.”

“I take it that’s a
yes
?”

“A yes?” she asked.

“That you’re onboard. You believe me?”

Nora opened the door. “C’mon, let’s get going.”

Lyköan picked up his yíb and followed her out.

* * *

“See, there’s nobody around at all,” Nora said as they entered the darkened lab. She switched on a light and closed the door behind them. Two walled offices with doors and about a dozen workstation cubicles with large wall-mounted screens greeted them. A corner of the lab was completely enclosed in plexi with numerous scientific instruments arrayed in the square footage, their exact purpose a mystery to Lyköan.

“Let’s use this office,” she said, indicating a doorway some distance into the larger space. “This is where I’ve been working since I arrived. It’s got an excellent hexi-processor workstation – all top of the line technology. As I told you upstairs, our access is confined to the WHO project. But let’s see what you got, Philbrick.”

“You sure we won’t be interrupted? I thought you said there was still a skeleton crew on duty. Where are they?”

“Don’t worry. We’re completely alone. The other Innovac labs, even the ones on this floor, are only accessible from a separate elevator. There are an additional two floors of BSL-4 research labs below us, all ultra-cleanroom environments. I saw them briefly when we first arrived, but they’re restricted too. Atma set up this center just for our use. We communicated with the Innovac research staff via video conferencing and shared workgroups over the LAN.”

“So you have no idea what other projects Innovac might be working on in this facility?”

“We were too busy. Why? Do you?”

“Let’s take a look,” Lyköan suggested, plugging the yíb into the workstation’s MIMO port. Using the same access sequence as the night before, but omitting all the miscues and wrong turns, he brought up the TAIV CHRONO file.

“Ever seen this before?” he asked.

Nora took control of the directory at the workstation’s keyboard. “How did you get here? This is a part of the database I’ve never seen.”

“It’s a long story. Let’s just say I got it from a friend.”

Working through the yíb’s interface, Nora riffled through one subject file after another. It was time consuming, but Lyköan wanted her to draw her own conclusions. By the time she had drilled back to about the first of the year her eyes had grown wide.

“Un-fricking-believable! This data, if it’s true, proves Innovac’s scientists were developing some sort of designer virus.”

“The TAI outbreak?”

“Haven’t gotten there yet. But they wanted a bug they could control, that’s certain. The data shows they had quite a few mishaps early on.”

“Mishaps?”

“Unexpected exposures. Fatalities.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“What do you mean?”

Lyköan ignored her question. “I wonder why it never made the news? Did you ever hear anything at the CDC?”

“No,” Nora admitted, shaking her head.

“When people die it usually draws attention. Take my word for it, if you dig deeper into that chrono directory you’ll find public transit and building dissemination plans, you name it. But here, I’ve got another mystery for you.” Lyköan leaned over her shoulder and with a few clicks brought up the ATYPICAL GENOMES directory. “Tell me what you make of this.”

After what seemed like ages of flashing screens and data lists scrolling thousands of lines Nora finally answered. “Some kind of recombinant DNA research study ― with live subjects. Human subjects.”

“Against their will?”

“Give me a minute.”

After running through additional screen sequences, consuming many minutes, she answered. “I don’t think it was against their will exactly. More like without their knowledge. Looks like Innovac was working surreptitiously, using some type of protein altering agent. Ingested or infused nano-constructs? Hell, I’m not sure
what
they were doing? What do you think?”

“You’re the microbiologist, sweetheart, you tell me. Do you recognize any of the names?”

“No.”

“Take a look at their most
recent
subject, the L-9 Genome. The last one in the subdirectory.”

After a few mouse clicks, Nora gasped, “My God, it’s you!”

“So what were they doing? If you’ll notice, my name’s the only one on the whole fucking list who’s still alive. Have they infected me with something? Am I dying?”

There, he’d finally said it. He needed to pose the question, but did he really want to learn the answer?

“I don’t know. I can’t tell you.” She looked up at him and seeing the concern, knew it must be mirrored in her own eyes. But could she help him, even if she knew the full scope of why his name and DNA were on file in this obviously criminal project?

“It’d take days, maybe weeks, to translate all this data into something we could understand and use.”

“I doubt we have the time. Can’t we just concentrate on
my
data for now?

“If you want, but even that single subdirectory contains terabytes of information. It looks like they have your entire genome broken down to the molecular level, mapped and annotated. I don’t know what we should be looking for. We’d be forced to individually inspect maybe twenty or thirty thousand genes which could take months.”

“How about the links to the subdirectory?” he suggested. “Dozens of these
atypical genomes
, mine included, were being studied ― altered ― for a reason. What reason? Here, let’s go up a level.” He placed his hand over hers and moved up one then two levels in the file configuration hierarchy.

“Wait,” Nora lifted both their hands from the mouse.

OPTIMAL HUMAN GENOME CONFIGURATION

“Are they trying to identify it?” Lyköan asked.

“I don’t know, but the underlying files might explain...”

She quickly drilled down into a separate sequence of files. Opening one file after another, more precious minutes passing, she finally identified a target five levels down. When she answered it was low, almost prayer-like.

“They’re not trying to
identify
it. I think they may have already done that. They’re attempting to
construct
it. They were taking pristine segments from a variety of
almost
perfect DNA and altering others ― using something they
did
create, just for that purpose, called
activated nano-construct reassemblers
―
nano-scriptors
.”

Nora’s voice was clinical, as though she were reading a scientific journal. “Then splicing ― no ― recreating the perfect DNA segments. By using these nano-scriptors they were able to alter the imperfect DNA in other subjects. But apparently the sequencing alterations or the infused reassemblers themselves would sometimes cause anomalies ― blood serum, telomerase, stem and T-cell disorders, rare cancers, all resulting in death.”

“And me?”

“I just don’t know, Egan. We’d need weeks of tests and a battery of investigators to give you even a reasonable guess.”

“How were they infusing these
reassemblers
?” he asked.

“I don’t know that either. I’m sorry. There’s just too much data here.”

“What was the motive?”

“I think, like the project title suggests, to refine the human genome ― make it more robust, more impervious to disease, lengthen lifespan. Create their version of the perfect human. But their methods... It’s ghastly.”

“And who were the beneficiaries going to be? Well-heeled CEO’s, rich despots, Arabian oil sheiks?” He was beginning to lose control. Anger and terror were welling up inside him in equal measure, but he had to move on.

“It looks like they’d already begun the process.”

“On who?”

Lyköan was peering over her shoulder as she brought up the subset of recipient subjects.

“I have a bad feeling, I don’t think this is going to be a big surprise,” Lyköan muttered.

The file headings read PAT, GRB, NES, PJA... There were more. Nora opened the first file.

“Pandavas, Atma T. Subject is a 52 year old male. 190 centimetres―”

“You don’t need to go any further,” Lyköan said, shaking his head. “Look. We could spend all day at this. We have no idea when Pandavas might return. We sure don’t want to get caught down here.”

“If we downloaded some of this material and took it to the authorities―” Nora suggested.

“Not so fast,” Lyköan interrupted.

“Why not?”

“Well, there’s something else.”

“What?”

“This is going to sound even crazier but ― well, black helicopters and clandestine aircraft hangers at the very least ― which suggests large-scale trafficking of some kind.”

“Where?”

“Out at the dolmen we saw yesterday.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I swear, it was like something out of an old Ian Fleming novel, but I saw it with my own eyes. Maybe the Innovac database has more information.”

“What would we be looking for?”

“Designs, architectural plans, something like that. A project this big would have left a trail. You wouldn’t believe the size of the hanger door alone – the enormous engines required just to open and close it. Bigger than missile silo doors, but totally hidden in the landscape.”

“You’re saying you saw it open?”

“And a helicopter fly in. I know, it sounds unbelievable.”

Nora wondered why she believed, having no credible evidence. Maybe it was the deluge of revelations that had just flashed before her on the monitor. Maybe it was the man now sitting next to her. Maybe she
had
no rational reason. But she believed.

“Let’s start with Cairncrest,” Lyköan suggested. “There must be construction records of the laboratory we’re in and the rest of the labs here on site. Pandavas hasn’t owned the property long. Whatever he’s built is probably on file. He seems to be about as meticulous with his record keeping as the Nazis were with theirs.”

Much like Lyköan’s original foray into the Innovac cyber-mountain last night, the task proved time consuming. Financial statements, construction records, and correspondence from the original general contractor for the Cairncrest project turned up little. After another hour’s diligent probing, no architectural plans had come to light.

“We must be approaching this wrong. We haven’t even found the plans for the renovation of the Cairncrest structure
above
ground,” Lyköan said, giving voice to his fears.

“What if the project had some codename attached to it?” Nora wondered.

“You mean like Operation Annihilation?”

“Well, maybe something more corporate. It would probably have a verbal connection with the facility’s clandestine purpose. Any ideas?”

“Biological Extortion? Murder, Inc. 2? I got a million of them.”

“Let’s try thinking like captains of industry instead of spy novelists, okay?”

“Doesn’t this look even a little like classic megalomania to you, sweetheart? Cause it sure does to me.”   

Lyköan looked at his watch. Four hours had passed in the blink of an eye. “It’s almost three o’clock already. We better skedaddle. Pandavas is already suspicious.”

“How do you know?”

“Intuition. But trust me. He’s hyper-sensitive. We better get out of here. The lab link’s much faster and the monitor fabulously better than my little yíb screen, but we can penetrate their firewall from almost anywhere in the building. And we might be safer. Maybe.”