Mutant (26 page)

Tuesday, July 4, 2000, 5:05 P.M.

In total darkness they stood at the edge of the long corridor, listening.

The air felt cool and clammy on Steele’s face compared to the hot mugginess they’d left outside, and the absolute lack of sound in the place pressed in on him like a weight. He reached out in the blackness to reassure himself that the walls were keeping their distance.

“Which way?” whispered Kathleen from slightly behind him.

He took a step forward and snapped on the headlamp that she’d insisted he use, directing the beam toward the lab. The distant doorway seemed like a miniature suspended in the pale blue circle of light. “Why do I feel like a white rabbit?” he heard her mutter.

In minutes they were punching in the four-digit code supplied to Patton by the watchman. A soft buzz sounded from the interior of the room. He grabbed the central wheel, rotated it counterclockwise until the lock released, and pulled. The hatch opened with a sucking sound.

Steele remembered from his Atlanta tour that they kept the lab at a negative pressure relative to the outside, to prevent the escape of contaminated air. They stepped through the opening, pulled the door shut behind them, and heard a loud click as the locking mechanism automatically reset itself, sealing them in. Glancing out the window into the blackness of the corridor they’d just left, he imagined unseen figures creeping up on them as they worked. We’re sitting ducks in here, he thought with a shudder. Trying to smother his fear, he turned and, using his light, probed the darkness around him. The room seemed unchanged, until he pointed the beam over to where he’d seen the bookcases bearing stacks of documents.

They were empty.

“Shit!” he said, not any louder than a normal speaking voice, but in that absolute quiet, he might as well have screamed.

Sullivan jumped at the sound and issued a startled shriek.

“All their papers are gone,” he added, paying her no attention. Sweeping the light a few feet to the right, he revealed an empty table. “And the videotapes as well. Even the VCR.”

“Don’t scare me like that.”

“Sorry, but without those records, what the hell can we learn here?”

“First of all, let’s make it easier to see.” Snapping on her own headlamp, she located a row of switches on the wall, flipped them up, and flooded the area with a harsh white glare. Eyeing the air lock and the row of moon suits, she issued an appreciative whistle. “Quite the place.”

“We better put these on,” said Steele, indicating the surgical gloves and OR outfits on the cart parked by the door.

“Over our clothes?”

“ ’Fraid not. The saying in Atlanta was ‘scrubs only, and everything else that God didn’t give you stays out here, except for socks.’ ”

Stripping beside her, his nerves on edge about being in the building, Steele also felt flustered by her nakedness. It reminded him of how stupid he’d been and the chance he’d blown with her. Not just for sex—though that figured prominently in his list of missed opportunities. But his seeing her in the flesh made her seem especially vulnerable to whatever lay ahead, yet here she was, gamely gearing up to face it with him. The sight forced him to admit what he otherwise might have denied forever. This magnificent, spirited woman could be his match—friend and soul mate as well as lover. And that’s why he’d backed off. He found the thought of anyone ever again mattering that much to him terrifying.

She seemed completely unaware of his emotional tumult, making the change of clothing so quickly and clinically he might as well not even have been in the room. Probably she’s already written me off, he thought, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. Closed the chapter and moved on, saying good riddance to an emotional coward.

They finished tucking in their sleeves and cuffs in silence, then walked over to the far windows, where they stood peering into the still-darkened lab on the other side. Under a big control panel of what seemed to be pressure gauges, Steele found a second set of light switches. Snapping them on, he watched as dozens of ceiling panels flickered to life and illuminated an area the size of an airplane hangar.

Kathleen let out another whistle.

“Holy shit!” he said. “I had no idea it was so big!”

In the foreground were the workbenches and isolation hoods he’d managed to see the other evening. Behind them were rows and rows of large cages, most empty, but some contained large animals curled up in them. One raised a sleepy head.

“They’re monkeys,” said Kathleen.

Occupying the back half of the room were over a dozen huge vats with pipes and wires attached to them. Steele estimated each to be about twelve feet across. “What the hell are those?” he asked. “They look like something from a brewery.”

“You’re not far wrong, except instead of beer, they’re mass-producing genes, or a product from them,” she said.

“How’s that?”

“Do you know the way they manufacture human insulin?”

Steele felt embarrassed. “Actually, I never thought of it. I just draw it up out of a vial and inject it into patients.”

The corners of her eyes wrinkled as she smiled. “I never yet met a doctor who did, so don’t feel bad. It’s in vats like that.”

“How?”

“They first isolate the gene responsible for the production of insulin from human islets of Langerhans cells in the pancreas—” She stopped herself with a laugh.

God, I could get to like that sound, he thought as feelings he’d kept locked up for over two years tentatively crawled out of hiding.

“Sorry,” she said, “I obviously don’t have to tell you that part. Anyway, they use PCR technology to replicate massive amounts of that gene. In the past they added it all to a soup of
E. coli
bacteria, not the pathogenic strains that make people ill, but pampered lab bugs that couldn’t survive sixty seconds in the outside world on their own. These days they use yeast cells to do the work. In either case, the insulin genes are made to infect these organisms, the microbe’s own genetic machinery then reads the genes, and their mitochondria start producing human insulin—everything happening, as I said, in exactly those sorts of containers.”

“So they could be making massive amounts of DNA, RNA, entire genes, or whatever the genes themselves are meant to produce. In other words, virtually anything. Except I don’t think it’s insulin.”

“You’ve got it.”

“Damn! Without those records, we’ll never figure out what they’re up to—”

She cut him off with a nudge in the ribs, and pointed to a counter far off to one side in the sealed lab. There he saw stacks of binders, a VCR, and rows of videotapes.

Yes! he thought, suddenly elated. They were going to get somewhere after all.

“But why would they put all that stuff in there?” she said. “That’s a contaminated room. They’ll never be able to take them out again.”

“They must have moved them in for safer keeping. What better way to keep it under wraps? Nobody’s likely to casually stroll inside and have a look at it. In any case, I’m going in for a peek.” He walked over and lifted down one of the silvery outfits, surprised at how light and flimsy the material felt.

“Whoa! You told me you took a tour at the CDC, not a course in how to work one of those suits, or an air lock.”

“But I watched
them
do it. See one, do one, teach one, as we say to the residents. Besides, the watchman gave Patton the codes for all the doors in here. He obviously meant for us to have access if we needed it. How hard can it be?” He sat down on one of the benches and began to pull on the outfit like a one-piece ski suit.

She wandered over to the three made of red material. “What are these ones for?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen the likes of them. They don’t seem to be made for any attachments.” He finished pulling on the leg part of the outfit and hiking the waist into place. “But I know the principle of these. Not only do they provide a separate breathing system for the wearer through those hoses hanging from the ceiling, but the incoming air keeps the interior of the suit at a positive pressure relative to the lab itself. This assures that any molecular exchange, bugs included, flows out from me into the lab.” Slipping his arms in the sleeves and his head in the helmet, he immediately felt claustrophobic, an acrid odor of rubber, plastic, and stale sweat filling his nostrils. Fighting the impulse to gag, with her help he joined a zipper from the right shoulder to his left hip. Then they closed an overlying zip lock to complete the process. Sealed in, his breathing sounding in his ears and fogging the face plate, he felt far too warm. It’s like being in a goddamn sandwich bag, he thought.

Turning to the counters behind him, he started pulling out drawers. “Do you see what looks like duct tape anywhere?” he yelled, to make himself heard through the Plexiglas. “Back in Atlanta they reinforced the joins between the gloves and boots with it.”

“Duct tape?”

“Well, that’s what it looked like. I presume it was some special stuff.”

“Richard, this is nuts. God knows what they’ve been playing with in there, and you’re using duct tape?”

“Here it is,” he said, pulling out several wide rolls of the gray adhesive. He tore off a strip and wrapped it around one of his ankles. “Want to help me with the wrists?”

“Damn it, Richard, listen to me!”

“Kathleen, I’m not stopping when we’re this close.”

“But—”

A loud tearing noise cut her short as he peeled off another two-foot strip. Handing it to her, he winked and said, “Hey! And if you did persuade me not to go, don’t pretend you wouldn’t be heading inside yourself and having a peek at whatever’s in those vats as soon as my back’s turned.”

She glared at him a few seconds, then began to wrap his wrists without comment. But the little crinkles reappeared at the corners of her eyes again, indicating that not only was she on the verge of giving him another of her wonderful smiles, but that he’d nailed her intentions cold.

He reached up and grabbed one of the dangling air hoses by its nozzle. “Do you see an insert for this on the belt somewhere?” His raised voice sounded deafening to his own ears.

“Let me check. Yeah, I think it’s here. No, that’s for this big tube from the helmet.”

He could barely hear her. The suit must have a two-way radio hookup somewhere, he thought. As he felt her probing around his waistband and attempting to connect the various attachments, he glanced around inside his helmet and saw a small black disc on a thin wire at the lower margin of the visor. A microphone?

Behind him he heard a snap; then a hiss as cool air flooded around his head. The relief made him recall something else from his tour in Atlanta. A person couldn’t go five minutes in these suits without that air supply before he or she would start feeling pretty uncomfortable from a lack of oxygen and too much carbon dioxide.

Together they managed to get the radio working, finding not only the switch on his headgear to activate it, but locating a sound system console on one of the desks and adjusting it to a frequency that piped his voice over speakers into the room.

“So I guess I’m ready,” he said, standing at the air lock. His transmitted voice crackled in stereophonic competition against his own, the effect making him edgy.

“I hope so,” she said, her brow creasing and concern filling her deep green eyes. All evidence of her previous smiles vanished.

He punched in the code and stood back as the door unlocked. Turning its wheel and pulling, he once more heard the
whoosh
of air as it rushed by him, this time into the chamber, the sound coming through his audio equipment like someone doing a Bronx cheer in his ears. He unhooked his tethering hose, shutting off the cool flow he’d been enjoying inside his suit, and stepped into the air lock. Tugging the heavy hatch closed and securing it, he stood in total silence except for the sound of his own breathing. He found the isolation more final and oppressive in here as he looked about and wondered what he had to do next. Immediately he saw a red locking wheel in the center of the door leading into the lab, but didn’t know if he should turn it right away or wait a few minutes in case he was at the mercy of some automated process controlling exits and entrances. His visor started to fog again, and the steel walls of the compact cube blurred, until he began to imagine they were closing in on him. Then he spotted yet another air hose suspended over his head, pulled it down, and reconnected to an air supply. The cool rush around his head and through his suit felt like a plunge into a mountain lake. “Talk to me, Kathleen,” he said with a nervous laugh.

“Why, what’s the matter? Are you okay?”

“Just need some company. It’s spookily quiet in here.”

Feeling increasingly trapped and wanting a way out, he grabbed the red wheel with both hands and tried to twist it counterclockwise. The sound of his breathing, already amplified through the speakers, became a prolonged grunt as he strained, but he couldn’t budge it.

“Just take it easy, Richard,” Kathleen said, her voice soothing even after the transmitter got through mangling it. “The pressure gauges out here seem to be doing their thing. Shouldn’t be long now.”

As if to prove her right, the wheel suddenly gave and the door unsealed. He pushed it open, disconnected his air hose, and stepped into the lab. No sooner had he swung the hatch shut again than the chamber’s overhead shower nozzles sprang to life, giving the interior a good wash. He’d get the same thorough cleaning on his way out—Lysol, according to Atlanta, being the disinfectant of choice.

Looking around the large drab room didn’t help his mood any, the walls, floor, and ceiling all a different shade of gray. The dreariness of the place chilled his bones.

He found the nearest air hose and connected it to his belt. Instantly the cool flow of air resumed, but the rushing sound made him feel even more cut off. He turned back toward the window where Sullivan stood watching anxiously. Her lips were moving, yet he couldn’t hear her. He pointed toward his ear and shook his head, indicating they’d lost communication. “Am I coming through?” he said.