The Arx (29 page)

“Yeah,” Frank said. “I figured out that much. I’m still not totally clear on the details.”

“I first met Carla De Leon, the VP of Research, more than thirty years ago,” Carson said, “at Blake Pharmaceuticals – that was the precursor to Kaffir. She was a young researcher just out of university. She was enthusiastic and ambitious, like a lot of the new grads, but right from the start there was something different about her.

“For one thing, she was stunningly beautiful – smooth, tanned skin, long, flowing chestnut hair, and intense, burning, almost feline eyes that drilled into you like laser beams. Let’s face it, biochemistry doesn’t attract a lot of beautiful women, so of course she stood out like a peacock in a roomful of turkeys.

“Most of the time she went to a lot of trouble to play down her looks: dressed in the plainest, least flattering clothes, and tied her hair back in bun like a schoolmarm.

“But if she wanted something – a promotion or assignment to a particular area of research, she’d pull out all the stops and her beauty would blast out like a high-powered searchlight, aimed at whoever she thought she could influence.

“It’s strange, but even men that I thought were immune to such things seemed to give in to her. She hit like a tidal wave, sweeping aside everything in her path – until she got what she wanted.

“Then, as suddenly as it appeared, her charm was sheathed, like a weapon that had served its purpose, hidden under the banal hairstyle and frumpy clothes until it was needed again.”

Carson shifted his position. He placed the rifle on the ground beside him, on the side away from Frank.

“She had an intensity and drive I’d never seen before,” he continued, “in a new grad or anyone else. She expressed an interest in working on the Olmerol research and of course, got her way.

“When I first met her, she was a talented actor – brilliant at adapting her persona to whatever she was after. I think I was the only one who saw through her. As she matured she got vastly better. If I’d met her later in her life I would never have guessed.

“I didn’t think that much of it at the time. I was heavily involved with the Olmerol project, so we spent a lot of time together. Still I never really got to know her. In all the years we spent in the same lab we never talked about anything other than work.”

Carson rested for a few seconds, out of breath. He finally recovered.

“Even on the job she wasn’t always straight with me. I’d worked with the police forensic team when I first left university. I knew something about sociopathic behaviour, and I was convinced that Carla had all the classic signs of a pure psychopath – pathological lying, manipulation, lack of empathy.

“But she was devoted to her work – she lived and breathed Olmerol. In less than two years she was head of research for the project; she became my boss. When Blake merged with the Anderson Group to form Kaffir, she was promoted to VP of Research.”

Carson paused and hunched forward in a coughing fit for almost a minute. Finally he regained control.

“And that’s when people started disappearing,” Frank guessed.

Carson smiled. “I called it ‘the change’. I couldn’t prove that the resignations and disappearances were part of any deliberate plan, but a voice in my head told me otherwise. As one of the senior scientists, I was still pretty critical to the project, so they hadn’t come after me.

“All the replacements were women. I called them ‘Carla Clones’,” he smiled, “though not to their faces, of course. Carla limited their exposure to the rest of the employees. Since I was still deeply involved in the project, I saw more of them than most.

“They all had the intensity and manipulative nature I’d first seen in Carla. Like her, they were adept at presenting a ‘normal’ face to the rest of us. If I hadn’t seen the characteristics years earlier in Carla I wouldn’t have noticed.

“Then an incident got me thinking Carla and her clones were more than just eccentric scientists.”

Carson picked up a pebble and tossed it out to sea. Without looking at Frank, he continued.

“A young doctoral student showed up at Kaffir. He was doing a study on Olmerol. The clones usually made a point of accommodating outsiders, but not this time. Roadblocks were placed in the student’s path. They contrived to keep research data from him, and I know at least one case where they faked the data he was given.

“Most students would have been intimidated and given up, but this one showed remarkable tenacity. He managed to bypass Carla’s crew and got hold of a stack of ‘un-filtered’ study data. My guess is that he hooked up with one of the few remaining ‘non-clone’ members of the team, who might have had some suspicions about the drug.

“By this time I’d developed some suspicions of my own about Carla De Leon and the people that worked for her. I was already thinking about a way out for myself, and I was beginning to suspect there were issues with Olmerol that were being suppressed.

“I had a bad feeling about what would happen to the student, but for a long time I left him alone. ‘Look out for number one’ had become my motto. Finally I couldn’t sit back and watch anymore. I cornered him in a storeroom off one of the basement hallways and warned him about the danger. He didn’t believe me.

“We talked about his findings. What he told me knocked me off the packing crate I was sitting on. He’d cross-referenced the prescription of Olmerol to a set of what were thought to be random deformities in newborn infants. He concluded that in about one in a thousand cases Olmerol produced deformities as severe, in their own way, as those caused by Thalidomide, which was first released at around the same time.

“Somehow Carla and her people got wind of what the student’s conclusions were going to be. For a few days there was a hush over the whole research wing.”

Carson fished a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit one up. He offered one to Frank. Recalling the dreadful coughing fits of his host, Frank declined.

Carson continued. “When I saw the news on TV a few days later the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. Before he was able to release his findings, the student was involved in an ‘accident’. His car plunged over an embankment into the river.

“The news report said there was no hint of foul play. The student’s work and the impending study were never mentioned. It took up no more than ten seconds of air-time – just ahead of the hockey scores.

“A week later the study was released – right on schedule. When I read the results my heart skipped a beat – it found no significant side effects in mothers using Olmerol. In fact it said the drug was remarkably benign. That was when I realized how dangerous the Savants really were, and I figured maybe I better step up my plans to get out of there.”

“Savants?”

“That’s what I call them. “I think the Olmerol deformity produces a condition similar to what’s been found with autistic savants – only without the autistic part.”

Frank’s eyes widened. “You’re saying that Carla De Leon…”

“Has the deformity, yes,” Carson stared at him. “Her and all the other clones.”

Frank sat for a few seconds with his mouth open. Finally he said, “So the victims of the deformity have taken over production of the drug that produces it?”

“There’s no way for an outsider to know for sure,” Carson said, “but that’s my guess.” The old man smiled. “But I don’t think the Savants consider themselves victims.”

Frank stared down at the ocean below, trying to absorb Carson’s revelations. It was too incredible.

Carson picked up his rifle and struggled to his feet. Frank reached out to help him. Carson jumped back, grabbed at the gun, and pointed it at Frank.

“It’s okay,” Frank said, holding up his hands.

“Sorry,” Carson said. “I’m a little jumpy. Let’s go back.”

“So you’ve never told this to anybody else?” Frank said as they walked.

“Nope. You’re the first – and probably the last.”

“Why me? Why now?”

“A few reasons. To start with, you’re the first one that’s ever asked me. If I’d gone to the cops, I wouldn’t have had any proof and they wouldn’t have believed me. Carla would have gotten wind of it and I’d be a dead man. I’m pretty sure you believe what I’m telling you.

“Second, I need to get it off my chest. It
is
of some concern to the human race – or it should be, anyway. Third – I’m dying. Lung cancer. They tell me I’ll be dead in a few months. If Carla and her gang manage to do away with me before that, well…”

Richard Carson

Carson was going a bit stir-crazy out in the boondocks with no company for God knows how long. The old man seemed desperate for somebody to talk to, so when he invited Frank for dinner and to stay the night, he agreed.

“I haven’t got much in the way of lab facilities, as you can see,” Carson laughed and gestured around his cabin as they shared some of his homemade stew and bread. Frank had asked about the medical basis for the Olmerol deformities.

“I’m no neuro-scientist,” Carson continued. “I’ve got theories based on what I’ve learned from general research and observation…”

“And those theories are?”

Carson got up and dug around on a shelf in the living room, and returned with a plastic model of the human brain, which he set down on the kitchen table.

“The human brain is actually made up of three separate brains,” he said, his hand resting on the model, “that developed at different stages of our evolution.”

He dismantled the model and held up the small, club-like, innermost section.

“The oldest and most primitive is what’s called the ‘reptilian’ brain. It’s largely unchanged from what it was millions of years ago, and we share it with all other animals that have a backbone. It controls involuntary bodily functions like breathing, and behaviour relating to survival, like sex drive and defense of territory.”

He picked up a small, cap-like piece of the model and fitted it on top of the original one.

“Next to evolve was the mammalian brain. It added structures to control digestion, fluid balance, body temperature, blood pressure. It also added the capacity for storing memories, like response to danger based on past experience. Understand?”

Frank nodded.

Carson picked up the much larger, helmet-shaped section, with the whorls and ridges Frank associated with the human brain, and placed it over the original two.

“The modern human brain was formed by adding the neocortex, which envelopes the earlier brains and amounts to about eighty-five per cent of the human brain mass.”

He pointed to the deep fissure that split the model down the middle.

“The neocortex consists of two hemispheres interconnected by a web of nerve fibers that enable the two halves to communicate.

“The left hemisphere communicates using words. It has highly developed verbal abilities. It’s logical and systematic, concerned with matters as they are. The right hemisphere communicates using images. It has highly developed spatial abilities. It’s intuitive and imaginative, concerned with emotions and feelings.

“Human emotional responses depend on neuronal pathways that link the right hemisphere to the mammalian brain, which in turn is linked to the even older reptilian brain.”

Carson smiled. “With me so far?”

Frank nodded.

Carson put down the model and took a couple of spoonfuls of stew. He shook his head sadly.

“You know,” he said, “the cancer’s even affected my sense of taste. Hasn’t even left me that much. I eat because it’s necessary; I don’t really enjoy it.”

He turned over the spoon and watched its contents drip back into the bowl. After a gulp of wine he raised his finger, like he remembered his train of thought. He picked up the entire model, and drew his finger along the side.

“My guess is that the Olmerol deformities short-circuit some of the neural pathways, cross-connecting parts of the right and left hemispheres, and link the conscious mind more closely to the older mammalian, and even reptilian, brain.

“I suspect they also somehow affect the amygdala, which is a critical component of the human emotional response. Basically, the Savants are all psychopaths in the extreme.”

“Ricky said they like to live communally in big mansions,” Frank said, dipping his spoon into his stew.

“They’re much more driven by instinct than we are,” Carson said, “so that makes sense. The same way wolves instinctively run in packs, and lions gather in a pride.

“It’s kind of a paradox, but I think the deformities also stimulate the neocortex, particularly the left side, creating what you could class as a new ‘species’ of beings who are super intelligent but with zero empathy and with primitive animal drives. I came up with a cute nickname. I call them ‘VIPs’.”

“VIPs?” Frank said.

“Very Intelligent Predators,” Carson laughed emptily.

They finished the meal in silence.

Not long after dinner Carson showed Frank a spare room with a bed he’d made up for him. Frank had assumed that Carson would go to bed as well, but instead the old man shuffled out the back door. The outhouse was in the opposite direction, so Frank wondered what Carson was doing out there. He waited for a while, out of curiosity, but fell asleep before he returned.