Altered Genes: Genesis

©
2
016 by
Mark K. Kelly. All rights reserved-V2.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

A
huge debt
of gratitude is due to my wife, Anna, for supporting my indulgence and allowing me the time and opportunity to write.

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T
illy O’Keefe leaned
against the nurses’s station, the rough fabric of her navy blue uniform tight against her chest. “Bloody hell, I’m too old for this,” she muttered as she stretched for the telephone that was barely within the reach of her stubby fingers. The number came from memory and she punched the digits without thinking.

“Hiya, it's me again. I need more bedding—Keeling ward this time.”

The voice at the other end of the phone sighed in exasperation. “Tilly, we're going as fast as we can.”

“Soon, please. It’s a wee bit of a mess up here.”

She hung up, annoyed by the delay, but sympathetic to the plight of her friends in the basement. She knew the laundry well, had worked there nearly 40 years earlier and right out of secondary school.

She smiled as she remembered the words of her first boss, a gentle giant of a man.

She was sixty-two-years-old and head nurse of the dementia ward at BurnsHouse General Hospital in Glasgow. Her elderly patients usually slept through the night, their troubled minds not willing or able to overcome a lifetime of habit. Not this evening, it seemed like half the floor was sick with an illness that soiled their clothing and stained their bedsheets.

The patient monitoring console chimed and she walked to the other side of the nurses’s station, her white shoes squeaking against the newly waxed floor. The console flashed red—room 523.

“Oh Mr. Muir, what ails you this evening?…not another case of the skitters, I hope.”

Muir was a gentle old man, one of her favorites. Stage four cancer had ravaged his body, and Alzheimer's often left him confused, stealing away the jokes he loved to tell when he was lucid.

His room was at the far end of an L-shaped hallway, directly across from a stairwell. As she headed towards it, she grabbed a laundry cart from beside the wall.

A pattern of light and shadow ran from one end of the hallway to the other. She looked up at the lights, every second one was turned-off, a money-saving measure. She’d complained before, but nothing was done.
Let the misers come and work at night,
she thought as she pushed the cart forward.

The emptiness chilled her and she whispered a poem as she plodded down the dimly lit hallway.

She froze as the clang of the stairwell door closing filled the air. It was just around the corner, a few steps down the hallway.

“Hello?” she said tentatively. Then more firmly. “Who’s there?”

She waited and heard nothing but the buzz of the fluorescent lights above her. The silence made her brave. She pushed hard on the cart, rolling it around the corner, ready to meet whatever was there. Nothing. Then the faint sound of footsteps from within the stairwell.

Probably a doctor or another nurse,
she hoped as she crossed the hallway to the door. She swallowed once and took a deep breath before thrusting it open.

“HELLO?”

The sound of her voice echoed off the unpainted concrete walls. Startled, she jumped back and turned to find a face, hollow and yellow with jaundice leering at her.

“Lord O'Mighty! Mr. Muir,” she gasped. “You gave me quite the scare. Let’s get you back to bed.”

The old man’s eyes were empty at first, and then they brightened with the glimmer of recognition.

“I told him to go away,” he said angrily. “I told him I wasn't hungry.”

She took him gently by the arm and steered him back to his room. “Who did you tell, Mr. Muir?”

He pulled away and stared at her. “The Chinaman…I told the Chinaman.”

A
lasdair Muir fidgeted
as he waited in the queue at the priority check-in counter. Delayed by the cursed fog, his flight from Glasgow had arrived late the night before. He had overslept.
Another reason to hate that damned city.

He stepped out of line and counted the number of passengers in front of him—
eight, including the geezer in the wheelchair
.

His personal assistant had booked the flights. She believed he was traveling on business, but he wasn’t, at least not the trip to Glasgow. It wasn’t that he lied, she just never asked. He had gone to see his father at BurnsHouse General. The hospital had called the day before to tell him the old man’s cancer had spread. It was in his liver and he didn’t have much longer. Muir didn’t like his father much but felt he owed him one last visit—a final goodbye—but he wasn’t going to pay for the ticket out of his own pocket.

The queue lurched forward and the breeze from an air conditioning unit blew across his forehead, cooling his clammy skin. He removed a red silk handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his face and the nape of his neck. The handkerchief came away damp. He touched the back of his hand to his forehead. He was hot.
Damned hospital…I was healthy before I went to Glasgow.
He blew his nose noisily into the handkerchief and put it away, not noticing it was the same one he had taken with him the day before.

The queue moved forward and then stopped as the ticket agent motioned a family from the economy line to the front of the priority queue. A young couple and their three children shuffled forward, pushing their bags with their feet.

Incensed, he stepped from his place in line and pointed to the travelers in front of him as he shouted at the ticket agent. “Oi…Oi…we’ve all booked first class.”

Her lips pursed, she gave him a tight smile and turned to greet the young family, accepting the passports they offered.

Bloody hell…British Airways, what a bunch of tossers.
He stepped back into line, angered by the perceived slight, and impatiently waited for his turn.

W
hile Muir seethed in line
, Saanvi Chopra’s eyes flitted about nervously as she took in the crush of humanity that filled Heathrow airport’s terminal five.

She scanned the departure area and looked for a quiet spot to spread out and wait for her flight. An empty seat at one end of the cavernous hall fit her needs—close to the toilets with an unobstructed view of the departure board.

There was no way she was going to miss her flight to India. The ticket was a gift, solemnly presented by her father who had stood on a chair at her fourteenth birthday and lectured on the importance of her Indian heritage. She knew her parents had scrimped and saved for months to buy the ticket. It was a big deal to them, and to her as well.

But that was two months ago and now it was Easter break. School wouldn’t start again for two weeks. The adventure was just beginning. Her first trip on an airplane, her first time away from home—two weeks in India with her aunt and uncle.

I wonder if I should be sadder,
she thought, deciding she could be both sad and excited, they weren't contradictory.

She stepped into the row of seats, dropped her carry-on bag, and sat down. After fishing around in her purse, she found the cell phone and earbuds she carried everywhere.

Time for some music
.

With her eyes closed, she stretched out and let the music mask the clamor of the airport.

A
few dozen feet away
, the Caviar House & Prunier seafood restaurant was busy. Even at the unnatural time of 6:20 a.m. it hosted a steady stream of well-to-do travelers, all looking for nourishment.

Chen Gong shifted uncomfortably on a stool at the counter. He was hungry, tired, and in dire need of a smoke. His flight wasn’t scheduled to leave until 5:40 p.m. It would be an almost unbearable twenty-four hours before his next cigarette. He sighed at the prospect and popped another piece of nicotine gum into his mouth.

Gong was a Business Attaché at the Chinese embassy but also a captain in the People's Liberation Army. It was the latter that brought him to terminal five. He had received an encrypted email the night before directing him to the airport to collect a package for delivery to Beijing, but it didn’t say from whom.

He looked at the menu and placed his order. A plate of smoked salmon, thinly sliced and garnished with lemon and a sprig of dill arrived a short while later. It was accompanied by a cup of Jasmine tea, the dark green leaves and white flowers swirled in the steaming water. The salmon looked pleasant. He took a small bite, surprised by how chewy it was. And salty, very salty—he discreetly spat the chewed fish into his napkin.

Even after all his years in the west, first Paris, then Berlin and now London, he still didn't like western food.

A young man sat down beside him. He wore a charcoal coat over a white button-down shirt with blue jeans. There was an Asiatic look to his appearance.
Maybe Korean
—
but not pure,
Gong thought with a sideways glance.
My contact?

“How's the salmon?” his new counter-mate asked.

“It's alright, but I've lost my appetite...or perhaps it's just too early for fish,” he replied as he pushed the plate away.

The young man reached down and retrieved a small travel-size tube of toothpaste from the outer pocket of his carry-on luggage. “Here,” he said, sliding it across the counter to him. “For your trip to Beijing…keep it safe. Don’t open it, it’s dangerous. ”

Surprised by the gift and the words of warning, he cupped the tube in his hand, swiveled in his chair and watched as the young man blended into the crowd and disappeared from sight.

He turned back and carefully inspected the tube of toothpaste, turning it over in his hands as he studied it.
Unremarkable in every way. The cap was tightly fastened and the brand’s logo clearly displayed. The strange gift must be the package for delivery to Beijing.

He slipped it into his toiletries bag and placed two twenty pound notes under his plate. With a few hurried steps, he too disappeared into the crowd and searched for a spot to wait out the endless hours until his flight.

A row of seats, away from the crowd and full except for some space near a teenage girl, was perfect. He watched her for a few seconds as she sat, eyes closed, her head bobbing gently to the music that played in her ears.

Just Like Chao-xing.
He hoped to see his daughter this trip. Thanks to his profession and a bad divorce, it had been almost a year since his last visit.

He walked up to the girl and touched her on the shoulder. “Excuse me, Miss.”

She opened her eyes, looked up, and removed the ear buds.

“Yes?”

“Is that seat taken?”

She shook her head and reached down to move her luggage out of his way.

He held out his hand and waved her off.

“No need,” he said with a smile as he stepped over her bag and took a seat two down from her. He closed his eyes and waited.

A
lasdair Muir scooped
his passport and ticket off the counter and ran for security.
Screw you,
he thought with a smile as he passed the family of five.

The queue was short and a few minutes later, he stood on the other side of the metal detector, winded and feeling sick from the brief exertion.
I’m knackered, don’t feel well.
He leaned against the security conveyor belt and slipped into his shoes.

The main departure hall was dense with slow moving travelers, all looking to kill time. He elbowed his way forward, creating a path for the luggage that twisted and turned behind him. The first class lounge was on the other side of the departure area.

The hell with it,
he thought as he spotted a shortcut and stepped into a row of seats.
Damn Chinks and Pakis
…
blocking the aisle with their rubbish.
He’d have to squeeze past them.

He lifted his bag and stepped over the girl’s luggage at the exact moment she kicked out her legs to stretch. Her feet tangled with his and he fell heavily to the floor in front of her.

Startled by the loud ‘oomph’ he made when he hit the ground, her eyes shot open.

“Are you alright?” She pulled out her earbuds and offered him her hand.

He scowled and struggled to his feet. “Stupid girl, you were blocking the aisle and tripped me.”

“I’m so sorry,“ she said as she reached for her bag.

“Sod off!”

He grabbed the handle of his luggage, yanked it over hers without another word and marched down the aisle.

G
ong opened
his eyes at the commotion and watched the girl glare at the fat man as he stomped away. She leaned forward and picked something up.
A handkerchief
, he thought. Seconds later she threw it to the ground in disgust after inspecting it.

He turned away to hide his smile. The look on her face was priceless.
Just Like Chao-xing.