Mutant (4 page)

Those men and women who hadn’t had copies handed to them moved forward and picked some off the table for themselves. They frowned as they leafed through the pages and listened to her ongoing explanation of the information before them.

“You see, these vectors are soluble and capable, theoretically, of penetrating the skin. They can also be ingested and taken up through the gut. For brief periods of time it’s even remotely possible they could exist long enough in the air we breathe to be inhaled.”

“That does it!” said Morgan. “Such unfounded fearmongering from someone as reputable as yourself, Dr. Sullivan, is an abomination. I’m sure the members of the press will not engage in such speculative, unsubstantiated sensationalism. Why, it’s the equivalent of crying ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater—”

“Read this evidence, Mr. Morgan, before you accuse
me
of crying ‘Fire!,’ ” she retorted, and flung a fistful of her handouts at him, her green eyes flashing. He stood speechless as she quickly returned her attention to the press. “The fourth matter I want to stress,” she continued, “is that although I’m stating
theoretical
risks—dangers which research suggests
might
be present in current practices involving genetically modified organisms—the authors of all the articles which I’ve given you stipulate that these theoretical risks demand far more controls and much more use of caution than are currently in use.” As she spoke, she gathered up her belongings and appeared to be making ready to leave, all the while eyeing Morgan as if trying to gauge how many seconds she had before he threw her out.

I bet she’d actually like that, thought the CEO as he glumly eyed her back. Helplessly he imagined the news images that would flash across the nation if he were so stupid as to order security to evict her and provide the “guests” with a photo-op of his guards manhandling the woman. Better to wait her out, he decided, seeing that she appeared about to leave anyway, but he seethed with frustration at not being able to shut her up.

Pulling on her coat, Sullivan turned her back to him and stated, “These scientists are issuing an appeal for further research into the questions which their work raises, to promote a logical and rational discussion of the problem, and I wholeheartedly support their call.” She slung her purse over her shoulder, then added, “To anyone with half a brain I think it’s self-evident that such a process is the very antithesis of yelling ‘Fire!’ ”

“The hell it is!” Morgan said, his rage once again getting the better of his resolve not to do battle with her in front of the media. “I know the kind of so-called scientist who writes these diatribes. They’d cripple progress by fears that are only speculation, not proved. People like you and them would have us in the Stone Age—”

“Can it, Morgan!” cut in one of the ladies with a microphone.

He gasped, horrified that the carefully planned briefing had slipped so badly out of his control.

“Dr. Sullivan,” the woman continued. “I’m from
Environment Watch
on public radio. Though what you say is alarming, a lot of these papers seem to focus on gene transfers among microbes in everything from yeast buds to plants and the occasional lab rat. Just as Mr. Morgan said, you haven’t offered us a single shred of direct evidence that any of this stuff is harmful to humans. So my question to you is, based on existing data, why the flap?”

“The lack of data is the flap. Until we get it, I don’t like the idea of unknowingly eating a plateful of vectors that might slither up alongside my DNA and modify me.”

“Yuck!” said the man opposite her with a shudder, screwing up his face as if he had a bad taste in his mouth.

A few others reacted with forced chuckles as they squirmed in their seats and looked uneasy.

“But if naked DNA vectors are such a danger to people,” persisted the woman from
Environment Watch
, “why isn’t there research going on using human subjects to answer some of the questions you raise?”

“Good question,” replied Sullivan, heading for the door. “I certainly can’t understand why not.”

“Do you think it’s because your claims are groundless?” persisted the reporter.

“Hey! I don’t have claims so much as questions,” retorted Sullivan as she headed for the door. “That’s what makes this whole business scary—
so many
unanswered questions, yet people like Mr. Morgan here insist it’s safe to barge ahead without safeguards or checking for those answers.”

She paused with her hand on the door handle and turned back to the cameras and microphones. “I’d love to talk further, but far be it from me to stay where I’m not wanted. Instead, I leave you with a thought. As sooner or later you’re bound to ingest something containing a strand of naked DNA from a viral, bacterial, or parasitic vector, which would serve you better? Research, controls, and precautions, or Mr. Morgan’s reassurances?”

A murmur of approval went through the room.

“You said there were five important issues. I think you only gave us four,” called out another woman holding up a tape recorder.

“If any of you want further information you can reach me at my university office in downtown Manhattan. I’m in the book.” On issuing the invitation, she left.

Morgan immediately launched into a desperate attempt at damage control. “If Dr. Sullivan hadn’t been so determined to give us such a grandstand performance with her preformed point of view, she might have learned just what safeguards a state-of-the-art facility such as this can and does offer to redress groundless fears. . . .”

But all the time he thought, I’ll kill her. I’ll fucking kill her!

Outside in the corridor, Kathleen Sullivan exhaled long and hard as she scurried toward the front door. She winced with embarrassment at how she’d played to the press and staged her exit. What a prima donna performance, she thought, rolling her eyes to the ceiling, but it had been necessary. Throwing Morgan on the defensive and keeping him off guard long enough so that she could leave on her own had been crucial to her plan.

Striding up to the guards at the main door, she hoped they weren’t expecting anyone to finish the visit so early. Briskly signing off her name from the visitors list and walking out, she clearly took them by surprise—they never even thought to escort her to the front gate. This she’d also counted on.

The grounds outside were spacious, covered with landscaped lawns, massive evergreen shrubs, and occasional tall pines. A flagstone walk wound its way through these various living ornaments and gave the place the overall effect of a well-tended park, inviting one of the reporters to comment as they’d been going in, “Biotechnology corporations always spend a fortune on looking
green
.” Her own eyes had been peeled for a spot where she could step into the bushes undetected under the cover of darkness.

She found the place and made her move. In seconds she lay facedown in the dirt deep within the branches of an eight-foot-high, twenty-foot-wide sprawl of ornamental spruce.

She stayed motionless, wanting to make sure there were no approaching footsteps from the guards at the front gate who might have seen her duck out of sight. As she waited, her excitement mounted at finally being in a position to obtain solid evidence to back up her assertions that naked DNA vectors were dangerous.

Because as sensational as she’d made it all sound, she’d given the press nothing about current practices in genetically modifying organisms they couldn’t already find on the Internet, if they knew where to look and could decipher scientific papers. And while her evidence
suggested
possible ways the vectors could do environmental harm or be hazardous to human health, Morgan had been right about one thing—his insistence that no one had yet implicated them with direct proof. She knew all too well that for people like the
Mr.
Bob Morgans of the world—“Gurus in finance, willing zeros in science,” she muttered through chattering teeth—nothing short of a smoking gun would stop them. And that’s what she’d come to get.

Neither the layer of thermal underwear she wore under her pantsuit nor her black ensemble of a full-length coat, ski hat, and gloves—chosen for warmth as well as camouflage—were keeping out the cold. But the prospect of what lay ahead—taking cuttings from plants immediately around the Agrenomics lab, the DNA of which she could subsequently check for evidence of man-made genetic vectors—had her mind on fire. If she succeeded and the vectors were there, she’d have demonstrated that once they escaped from the lab they were as “infectious” as she and other scientists feared. Such a finding would blow the lid off the whole issue, force a recognition of accidental contamination for the hazard it is, and make mandatory the kind of safety regulations that she’d always argued for. Though many in her profession had discussed doing this kind of analysis, official requests for such testing had always been turned down. And as far as she knew, no one had succeeded in doing it surreptitiously. She’d be the first.

When boots failed to sound on the stone path, she figured it was safe, and immediately went to work. Rolling on her back and pulling a pair of manicure scissors out of her purse, she snipped sprigs of blue needles from the branches over her head. She then took tiny cuttings from the stems and roots near the ground. The latter might provide evidence that vectors were taken up from contaminated soil. On the other hand, if she found traces of foreign DNA only in the needles, the implication would suggest a mechanism of airborne infection through the vector’s direct contact with foliage. She put the two types of specimens in separate stoppered tubes already labeled MID-RANGE. She’d smuggled a dozen of the small sterile containers past the guard who had inspected her purse on the way into the building by hiding them in a box of tampons and then making sure she got into the line where a man did the checking.

Her overall objective included getting similar foliage and root samples from shrubs and grasses at different distances from the building. Since conventional wisdom in the industry held that naked DNA vectors were harmless, most places took none of the special isolation precautions with them that they routinely used with viruses, bacteria, and parasites. Instead technicians handled and prepared the vectors without the benefit of venting hoods and allowed their release into the regular heat and air-conditioning ducts. The most likely reservoirs of contamination on the grounds would therefore be nearest the outlets that expelled this. Knowing all this, she determined especially to get foliage and root samples from around the base of the building.

Though the shadows kept her invisible where she hid, she’d spotted security cameras at the gate and above the front door. Enough ambient light from the sodium lamps in the parking lot spilled out onto the lawns in her immediate vicinity that anyone would easily see her on the open grass. She decided to wait until there were fewer people around before moving on to the rest of the grounds.

“That damn Sullivan woman—she’s going to be a problem, I can tell,” exclaimed Morgan, pacing behind his desk as he talked into his phone. “We held this session in order to disarm the media and hopefully avoid too close a scrutiny from yahoo environmentalists, but what we get is her putting us under a fucking microscope. Next she’ll have picketers dressed as giant corncobs at the front gate.”

“Relax,” said the voice at the other end. “From what you told me, she merely recycled the usual old charges. She’s got no idea what we’re really up to. When are you expecting the new vectors to arrive so you can start production?”

“Not until after New Year’s.”

“And the work with the first batch?”

“It’s going well. We resumed right after the dog and pony show with the reporters finished. Seed from our first crop should be ready for shipment next week, and testing with the liquid format is on schedule.”

“When will you start delivering the liquid?”

“If the results are good, mid-January. By end of February, a tank car of the stuff will be parked near every target in the half dozen southern states where we intend to start. By early April, we’ll have done the same for the more temperate regions.”

“Apart from the group conducting the animal trials, none of your regular technicians suspect what they’re doing?”

“Nope. They think they’re making the usual modifications under stricter controls is all. ‘As part of our bowing to the tree huggers,’ I tell them. By the way, I got ordered to inform you that our client is getting impatient.”

“He called you at the plant?”

“No. His messenger told me when she brought the samples we’re working with now. Man, she’s a looker. Ever seen her?”

“No! And I don’t intend to see her or any of them— they could blow my cover.”

“What’s your reply to our client, then? I’m due to travel back to that accursed sanctuary of his again. Christ, I hate going there.”

From the very beginning both men had agreed they would always assume their conversations were monitored. They’d gotten into the habit of never mentioning names, places, and many other specifics, particularly when referring to the man who employed them, for the sake of their own safety as well as his.

“Tell him nothing. Better yet, tell him everything is going fine, but that for security’s sake, the less he knows of the details, the better.”

Morgan frowned. “
You
can tell him that if you like. Every time we meet, it’s the details that he demands. Plus he’s perpetually reminding me about all the money he’s paying us and who works for whom. Believe me, he doesn’t have to add that it’s exceedingly unhealthy to deny him what he wants. I swear, he probably pays off those bandits he surrounds himself with in human flesh.”

A heavy sigh came from the receiver, followed by, “He’s an asshole. Perhaps you should remind him of his many previous failed attempts to ‘strike at the heart of America,’ as he puts it. Point out that his fucking bombing campaign against U.S. embassies led to his own labs and personnel being blown up, leaving us nowhere to work and barely enough vector to finish the first clinical trials. And that rigmarole we’re going through in France to get the second vector is insane!” His voice kept rising as his tone grew angrier.