COSMOS magazine

Book II: Life

Monday, June 23

Wayne hurt real bad. He tried to move, and couldn't. It was the worst physical pain he had ever experienced. The weight of something burned in his cramped right hand. He forced open his eyes, looked down. Sinews stood out on his bare arm; he was clutching a gun.

Fuck, he thought, I finally found the guts to do it. Shot myself. Must be dying.

It was strange. He'd always imagined death would come more quickly, if you did it that way. Stick the gun in your mouth, pull the trigger, then nothing. This wasn't nothing. Hell, no. This was way worse than nothing.

Why aren't I tasting blood? He ran his tongue over his aching, bullet-shattered teeth, and they weren't shattered—all his teeth were there, and hurting like a son of a bitch, like they do when you're five days gone with the worst case of flu. Impossible that you could fire a bullet into your skull and leave your teeth intact. Maybe they give you back your body in Hell, so you feel the torture worse.

He groaned out loud. When he forced his eyes open again, he blurrily saw a limestone wall to his left, a thick cover of leaves to his right. Maybe he hadn't shot himself after all. Maybe he'd jumped out of a high window. If you jumped out of some building, he asked himself, why the hell are you holding the gun?

As his head began to clear a little, another possibility occurred to him. While he was in the bad place, the dark hole where he did things he never remembered, maybe he'd used the gun to murder someone. The law might be pursuing him—or pursuing someone he'd rather die than meet up with, someone hungry for payback. Flat on his back, he took inventory. Both his hands worked, and the fingers flexed. Arms were bruised, but he could still use them; he levered himself up to sitting position. Whole head seemed intact, aching as though he'd banged it hard again and again against a brick wall. Okay, he could move his right leg; oh, shit. Through the pain, more pain, sharp and localized. The left ankle was either broken or badly sprained. When he tried to move it, agony jolted up his leg. Looked like he was just going to have to lie slumped here, a sitting duck for whatever pursuit might be after him.

Using his arms and the good leg, he pushed himself toward the wall. Like he'd be any safer there. He cried out as his left leg scraped against a concrete collar. Its rusty manhole cover was slightly ajar. Like a wounded animal, Wayne began pushing away from this obstacle, then stopped.

Use your brains, man. Maybe, if he drew on every bit of his will power, he could shove the cover off and climb down the manhole. Sprains or not.

Some sort of ruckus not far away. Rapidly moving feet clattered. Police radios crackled, hissing. Someone shouted an order to close off this part of campus. Not for a moment did Wayne doubt that they were after him. His worst fears had come to pass. Well, almost the worst: at least he hadn't blown his own fucking head apart. Breathing deeply, he got up on all fours, pushed on the cover, saw it move an inch, pushed again. The grating noise of it appalled him.

Hopefully the cops were making too much noise themselves to notice the harsh sound. The heavy brute of a thing didn't want to move. When he had created an opening barely wide enough to squeeze through, Wayne took a steadying breath and lowered his legs into it, lips clamped tightly so no sound would escape. Inside he was screaming fit to bring the whole crew down on him.

No way could he put his weight on the fucked-up left leg, so he had to prop himself on the steel rung, all his weight bearing on his right foot, brace himself as best he could with that leg and his right arm as he pulled the cover back in place with his left. Adrenalin coursed in his blood stream; with its aid, and cursing prayers to some god of the doomed, he climbed down the steel ladder, lowering himself with painful jolts one rung at a time.

Tuesday, June 24

The previous evening, a hospital orderly had set up a cot for Jill in Alex's room, offering a pill to help her sleep, but at 11:45 in the morning she still sat beside her son's bed, holding his hand. Even in his sleep he moaned and clutched at her hand whenever she tried to pull it away. She felt confused and sick and still didn't quite understand what was happening. All she knew for sure was that she'd followed the paramedics when they put Alex on a high-tech stretcher and carried him away. And she knew—she saw again and again in awful memory—that Paul had fallen after the gunshot from the window. Hospital staff offered only vague assurances that he was alive. Imagining the worst, she alternated between tears and determined calm, for the benefit of Alex.

Her cell phone vibrated; she gasped, startled. "Hello?" I sound like a frightened child, she thought.

"Jill, it's Paul. How are you?"

"I'm so glad you called." She covered the mouthpiece with her hand so he would not know she was crying.

"I tried to get in to visit you and Alex, but they said no visitors other than family until he's feeling better... Are you okay, Jill?"

"Yeah, just a moment." She reached behind her for the box of tissues on the table beside the bed, wiped her eyes and nose, took a deep breath. "Okay. Better now."

"How's Alex? They said he'd be okay but wouldn't give me any details."

"The doctors think the shock must have brought on a seizure. He could've died, Paul. So could you."

"I'm all right. I wasn't shot, Jill." He gave an embarrassed laugh. "I passed out."

"Good thing too, perfect timing. They say Alex'll be okay, he's coming out of it. Planning to keep him one more night for observation and release him tomorrow morning. What about the auxosomes, Paul? Are we going to be all right?

"I'm pretty sure that's what caused me to faint. I feel a little under the weather. Low grade fever, headache."

"My stomach hurts a little, but not bad."

"I thought of filling the syringes with saline solution," Paul said in a wretched voice, "but the prick was watching me too closely, and he seemed crazy enough to kill someone if he thought I was trying to put something over on him. I was expecting the onset to be slower, since I injected us subcutaneously rather than into a vein. So far, I haven't noticed any changes in mental capacity."

"Me either, unless it makes you anxious and terrified. Um, that was a feeble attempt at humour."

Paul laughed dutifully. "But look, Jill, I think there's actually a chance the stuff'll help Alex recover. Don't expect anything drastic for a while, though. The artificial chromosomes have to make huge numbers of copies of themselves and then infect sufficient cells before they start to edit and correct our DNA errors. We'll just have to wait and see." He hesitated. "Have you told anyone about the auxosomes?"

"No, not yet. I was pretty shaken up when they first brought us to the hospital, so the police said they'd talk to me later. A nurse gave me a pill. Said it would relax me. Haven't really talked to anyone about what happened at the lab."

"Let's not tell the quacks or the cops about the auxosomes. Not just yet. It'd muddy the waters. I mean, what could they do? This is uncharted medical territory."

Jill thought about that for a while, hugging the phone against her ear. Paul gave her time to mull it over. "You're right. If Alex is okay tomorrow, I don't see any reason to go into details. Have the police caught that guy?"

"No. Son of a bitch got away."

"Oh my God. He's still out there somewhere."

"You and Alex should be safe. It's the regulator shots he'd be after if he came around again, not you two. I'll just have to be very careful for a while. I told the cops he was a junkie looking for a fix so he got angry when I didn't have any narcotics in the lab."

"Paul, they'll notice the used hypodermics. You must have dropped them when the gun went off."

"Bugger, you're right. I'll say he interrupted me working on the animals. Unfortunately, if they assume he's not coming back they won't bother posting extra guards there. Maybe I shouldn't have told the bastard about the regulator doses, but I wanted to make sure he didn't kill us all immediately."

"I think that's exactly what he planned, just kill us all on the spot. My God, Paul, he nearly shot you anyway. Where did the bullet end up?"

"Went through the wall out into the hallway. Good thing no one was standing there, they were all trying to break the door open. But look, I don't really expect to see him again. He'd hardly try to shoot me if he was all that concerned about follow-up doses."

"That was then," Jill said, in a terrifying burst of insight. Abruptly she felt cold and sick. "He's going to be a different man once the enhancement effects kick in, isn't that right? He'll be smarter, Paul. He has to come back. And I think he knows my address, he was staring at my driver's license. Paul, I can't go home."

"You're right, of course. You can stay at my—"

"Oh no, Paul, I couldn't possible impose—"

"You take my apartment," he said firmly. "I'll camp for a few weeks in my office. Believe me, I've done it before."

"No, if Alex and I move into your apartment you should stay with us. Safety in numbers."

What would her old friends at Allen Hoffman and Nature Forever think? Moving in with the enemy. No, she was the enemy now—a genetically modified human. She recalled the President's speech. Something about how genetic engineering was against God's will. But hadn't people said that about airplanes too? She'd been taught all her life that God was a God of love. Surely God's will wasn't for people to suffer and die unnecessarily. After all, He had given people brains to think with. Wouldn't it be against God's will not to make the best possible use of His gifts? If they worked right, Paul's auxosomes would repair broken or worn-out DNA; how could something like that be against God's will? It didn't make sense. She couldn't believe it was any more against God's will than using antibiotics or taking vitamin supplements.

Tuesday, June 24

Afternoon light fell in golden bars across the executive office. In one fluid motion, Art Sutton brushed a speck of lint from the sleeve of his dark blue, custom tailored Tom James suit, gestured Jill to one of the chairs grouped around an antique tea table across from his desk. His shirt's crisp whiteness, the neatness of his silvery mane, the faint hint of cologne made Jill acutely aware of her own dishevelled appearance.

Although a nurse had loaned her a hospital gown and wrapped her in a blanket while she sat beside Alex's bed, there'd been no time to go home and change into something fresh. It had seemed more sensible to come straight to the office from the hospital, where she had left Alex playing backgammon with one of the volunteers. Yesterday's silk blouse was wrinkled, and her white skirt was smudged with dirt. Becca had intercepted her as she grabbed a couple of files to work on at home, informed her that Sutton wanted to talk to her right away.

Art seated himself across from Jill. "How's your boy?"

"He's better today. His doctor wants to keep him in the hospital another day for observation, but we should be able to go home by Thursday, Friday at the latest. I planned to take my files home and work on them there."

Art cleared his throat. "Jill, you recall the chat we had a couple of weeks ago."

"Yes, and it's been working out very well. I haven't had to miss any work since then." Seeing Art's lips tighten, she added, "Until yesterday."

"Right. Until yesterday. And today. And it sounds as though you'll be missing tomorrow and Thursday as well. Maybe Friday."

"Art, for heaven's sake, Alex and I were threatened by a crazy man with a gun. The thing went off only a foot from my head. Do you have any idea what that's like? I spent hours yesterday at the police station going over the whole thing, answering hundreds of questions..."

"I'm sure it was a difficult experience for both you and your son, and you have my heartfelt sympathy. But the fact remains that you are not currently capable of doing the job we hired you to do."

That caught Jill completely unprepared; she gaped at him. It had never occurred to her that Art would not understand; she had expected him, in fact, to be grateful that she was conscientious enough to take work home under such atrocious circumstances.

"The other partners and I discussed it yesterday evening, and we agreed. We're going to have to let you go, Jill. I'm very sorry." He held a properly serious pose for a moment, then brightened. "We will, of course, allow you two weeks severance pay, and once Alex is better, we'll be happy to help you find a new, less demanding job."

It was impossibly unfair, impossible to take in. "You're just... firing me? Just like that?"

"Not at all, Ms. Shannon—helping you to relocate. Aside from the personal problems you've had in connection with your son, you've been an excellent employee and," he smiled magnanimously, "we're prepared to give you glowing references."

"Uh... don't you want me to finish drafting the Leigh Partnership Agreement? I'm right in the middle—"

"Thank you, Jill, that won't be necessary. We've already reassigned all the files you were working on. Javier has some boxes and will help you pack your stuff and carry it out to your car. Oh, and we'll need the key to the front door and to your office." He held out his manicured hand.

With trembling fingers she slipped them from her key ring, placed them on the glass top of the tea table, ignoring his open hand. Offended, he reached down and took the keys. They clinked against the glass. She had wanted to throw them in Art's face, yell every bitter insult she could think of at this uncaring machine of a man, but that would not change his mind, would only excuse his contempt. It must be contempt he felt; how else could he act like this?

"Goodbye, Art." With as much dignity as she could muster, she turned and walked away.

"So long, Jill. Good luck."

Luck? It'll take a damn miracle, Jill told herself in despair, for Alex and me to get through this with no money coming in. In the hallway she pulled her cell phone out of her purse and entered Paul's number. "Alex gets out of the hospital tomorrow," she told his voice mail. "Still want a couple of roommates?"