COSMOS magazine

Thursday, June 26

The Margaret Treadwell Johnson Laboratories were housed in an attractive building of steel, concrete, and glass, located near the top of a hill on the western edge of San Antonio. Paul stood for a long moment, admiring the dramatic view of the hills, intense blue of the sky, myriad shades of white in the clouds forming as the earth absorbed heat from the climbing sun. From here the world was a glowing Van Gogh painting.

A security guard checked him through, wanding him. The starkness of the reception area's grey slate floor and white walls was relieved by electron microscope images mounted in chrome and glass. Two Mies van der Rohe chairs, a glass topped table, and the receptionist's desk were the only furniture. Paul barely had time to glance at a couple of the framed images before Roberta Treadwell came out to greet him. She was a tall, angular woman with a square jaw and an almost masculine face, formidable until she smiled. But her smile was so openly friendly that Paul lost any trace of nervousness about making a good impression on the MTJ people he'd be meeting.

Touring the labs, seeing the plastic-sheeted damage, meeting the fifteen scientists who struggled to sustain their work with part of their equipment in ruins and not yet replaced, Paul lost track of time. After what seemed no more than a couple of hours, Roberta looked at her watch. "You're not a vegetarian, are you, Paul? I'd like to take you to the Texas Steakhouse for lunch."

Given Roberta's wealth, Paul expected a chauffeur-driven limousine but she slipped behind the wheel of a tiny brown English Morris Minor, laughing at his unguarded expression. "I would've driven something more dignified, but I forgot you were coming today until I was halfway to the office. I'm so sorry."

"Not at all!" Paul folded himself into the passenger seat. "I feel quite at home riding in a car that has the steering wheel on the proper side."

"Ah, that's right, Aussies drive on the left hand side of the road." A touch of the starter brought the engine to life. "I collect antique cars. And a few not so ancient."

"Someone surely did a beautiful restoration job on this one."

"Thank you."

Paul sensed personal pride. "You do the work yourself?"

"I hire out the body and paint work, but I do the engines myself. My dad was a mechanic, and I spent a lot of time watching and learning about cars when I was a kid. Helping out down at the shop beat the heck out of doing housework with my mom. My dad was always trying to talk me into taking up a more sedate hobby, like needlepoint, but I find working on cars relaxing."

Paul laughed. He could easily imagine Roberta in greasy overalls sliding out from under a car. "I wish I could say the same. My car's in desperate need of T.L.C., but aside from changing the oil and checking the tires, I'm afraid cars are a mystery to me."

"Maybe I should offer you a new car as an incentive to join us at MTJ. What do you think, Paul? Would you be interested in, say a three year contract? You'd have the freedom to choose your own research... No need to make a decision right now. I'm not trying to rush you."

"I'm very interested in the position," Paul told her, and left it at that. It would not be good form to accept on the spot, before compensation had been discussed.

"We can go over the details when we get back to the office." She turned into a parking lot, pulled into a space near the front door of the restaurant. The smell of charcoal grilled steak and freshly baked bread told Paul how hungry he was.

Seated, orders placed, Roberta leaned toward him, speaking in such a low voice he could barely hear her. "There's something else I need to tell you," she said with a worried frown. "Drew Chang has disappeared. Has he said anything to you? I know he was particularly upset by the bombing."

That was strange. He hadn't heard from Drew for the best part of a week. "Have you checked with Maureen?"

"John Gilbert was the last person who saw him Friday evening. We spoke to Ms. Baumgarten, of course; she was expecting him for dinner that evening, in fact she gave him a call to hurry him up. He never showed. Next morning his car was found abandoned in the driveway leading to the parking lot."

"The police—?"

"Don't have a clue. Well, they're assuming he didn't just wander off into the sunset. They're investigating various possibilities. We were told to keep the news to ourselves for the moment. Paul, I don't mean to alarm you, but you need to know that they are looking into terrorist groups and environmental extremists opposed to scientific research. The FBI were called in yesterday."

Paul didn't trust himself to speak.

"It would set our research back years to lose Drew," said Roberta.

"He's the best friend I've made in this country," Paul said, slightly chilled by her detachment. "They should have called me. Someone should have told me."

Roberta reached across the table and squeezed his wrist. "I know how you feel. My father died recently." She paused, her gaze distant, released a long sigh, let his arm free. "Well, the police are working through a list of everyone he knows, but they'd start with his colleagues here and his family. I'm sorry nobody thought to contact you, Paul. They think there's a good chance he's still alive. If some terrorist or radical group kidnapped him, they'd want to use him for publicity, maybe for some sort of ransom."

"I don't understand these people!" Paul said passionately. He found himself voicing the same question he'd posed to Drew. "How can they obstruct something that'll make the lives of their kids longer and healthier?"

"With most of them, I think, it's a lack of knowledge and understanding. Their idea of science comes from what they see in bad movies. But there are some who should know better, and that scares me badly, Paul. Frankly, I think that deep down they hate people, themselves included. Have you been keeping up with the legislation on genetic engineering?"

"Not as well as I should." Paul tried to focus on this new topic. God, Drew, a hostage to some crackpot militant group?

"I started to get really worried when the Prohibition Against GE bill passed in the House. They're having committee hearings in the Senate now, and if the committee recommends it, I'm afraid the Senate will pass it too. Unless it's drastically amended, MTJ will face major obstacles. I can't imagine they'd pass it with the provisions that prohibit basic research, but— Until we know what's going to happen, it'll be difficult to write an employment contract. We could put in some sort of contingency clause."

"Roberta, I'd assumed this new law would only restrict federal funding, or products from going on sale. You're saying these idiots want to shut down basic research as well?" He really should get up to date on this kind of thing, damn it, the university was probably abuzz with rumours. Then again, being shot at made a complete hash of work-related small talk. Not to mention the distractions of slowly having your nervous system rewired from the inside out.

"I'm afraid so. As it's written, it'll ban any research related to modifying human DNA. You should read it at once, Paul."

"I'm ashamed of myself." Certainly he couldn't mention the auxosome procedure at this point, let alone the fact that he was an unexpected guinea pig for it. Leave it for now, let's not muddy the waters. "I've been so engrossed in research that I haven't read a newspaper for the past month, other than to skim the headlines. Roberta, the fact is, I find it difficult to imagine that intelligent, civilized people would prohibit basic research."

"I know," she said bleakly, looking up from the menu. "It's a... a denial of truth." She grimaced. "I do appreciate people's anxiety about rapid change, but most people seem way too concerned with short term comfort. They crave false security. Well, we're just going to have to work around it." After a moment, she said, "Please, if Drew gets in touch with you—"

"Of course. Immediately. And vice versa, please?"

Thursday, June 26

Fern felt like she was committing a sacrilege, snooping with Linda around the old farmhouse where Wayne had spent his childhood. Before they got married, he'd said to her, "Honey, I'm fixing to share all my worldly goods with you till death do us part. But there's one thing I need to keep private, and that's the old home place. The mobile home is ours, but that house is my private property, off limits, even to you."

Most of the time Wayne acted like he didn't even know the place existed, but every now and then he'd get into one of his moods. He was like a different person at those times, withdrawn, rude even. He'd go off to that old house by himself, sometimes spend a couple of days there doing Lord knows what. The first time he did that, Fern got worried about him and went down there to check on him, make sure he hadn't been snake bit or fallen and hit his head and passed out or something. He'd just about taken her head off, told her she'd better not dare even go down to that part of the land again, ever.

"Gate's locked, and he always keeps the key with him." Fern halfway hoped Linda would decide it wasn't worth walking all the way down the driveway. But no such luck.

"Well, then, we'll just climb through the fence and get ourselves some exercise." Linda put a foot on the middle strand of barbed wire and pushed up on the top one with her hand. "You go on through first, Fern."

"What if he's there?"

"You said he's been gone three days, right? He couldn't have been down at that old house all that time. Besides, he took your car."

The gravel driveway, overgrown with grass and wildflowers, ended at a hedge that had taken over most of the front yard of the farm house. It was kind of restful.

"How the hell do you get inside?" Linda's insistent nasal voice spoiled the mood.

"Don't ask me. He never let me within a mile of the place."

"Looks like a gap in the hedge over here... yeah, he's made a path."

Squeezing through the hedge, they stood and stared at the crazily leaning house. Linda was doubtful. "Think it's safe to go in?"

"We could just look through the windows. Oh my god, what's that?" A creepy rustling sound, something in the workshop. Fern halted, terrified. Maybe Wayne was here, had been out here the whole time. Linda's face had turned pale, and her eyes were big as saucers.

"Let's get outta here!" Fern turned to run, but Linda's shaky laughter stopped her.

"It's nothing but some old pigeons, Fern. C'mon back. We shouldn't let this place spook us out. I swear, you'd think we were stuck in The Blair Witch Project. Come on now, looks like the garage is in better shape than the house."

"The garage is where they had the workshop. Where Wayne got his fingers cut off."

Linda giggled nervously. "What if we find the fingers in there, all dried out and brittle?"

"Oh stop it, Linda." Fern took a deep breath, prepared for the worst, and pushed open the small door to the right of the large doors meant to swing up and let a car pass through. To her surprise, it opened easily. They stepped slowly into the room, footsteps almost silent on the earth floor. In the dim light it was a mess, hand tools scattered haphazardly on the shelves and floor, thick dust coating everything but the workbench under the window; the stench was foul.

"What the hell's he been doing in here? Keeping pigs?" Linda's voice seemed too loud. They should be whispering. At any moment Wayne might appear. What would he do if he found them here? She saw the bloody baseball bat, then, and backed away from it, unable to utter a sound past the tightness in her throat.

"Oh shit." Linda reached toward the awful thing, stopped. "We probably shouldn't touch stuff, Fern. The police'll want to have everything left just like we found it."

"No, Linda." Fern said hoarsely. "We don't need to call the police. He probably went hunting. Killed a rabbit or something. I always wondered what he ate when he stayed down here."

"You don't hunt rabbits with baseball bats, Fern." Linda 's voice shook. "It wasn't a rabbit, and you know it. Look at this." She was pointing to a dark mass on the floor next to the bench. "What is it?"

Fern shook her head. "A pile of old clothes."

Boldly, Linda approached it, poked it with a foot. Her scream rattled the windows, went on and on. Fern just wanted to run out of the room and keep on running until she was away from this place, away from what her life had become. Start fresh someplace else. She didn't think she could move. Her mind had got detached from her body. But she was moving, she was shining her flashlight on the thing by Linda's foot. A pale human hand protruded from a shirt sleeve that looked as though it had once been white and was now reddish brown. She raised her trembling arm slightly and found a face with the beam of light. Lips parted in a grotesque snarl, eyes rolled back in their sockets. She gasped as she saw that the hair was filthy with dirt and what looked like clotted blood or... she felt vomit rise in her throat... could it be bits of brain oozing out of a cracked skull? The room began to reel. She caught herself on the workbench, retching painfully.

Linda's screaming stopped, and in the silence it felt like the world had ended. Then Linda took a noisy breath and said, "Fern, your hubby's got himself into some real trouble this time. We gotta get outta here and call the police right now. This is no pile of old clothes. It's a body."

"Wait, let me think for a minute."

Fern had always felt she owed her first loyalty to Wayne, come what may; abruptly, she had a sinking feeling that everything she'd ever believed was wrong. She was overwhelmed by the need to talk to someone about it. But not Linda. Someone who... what? Someone more sensible and reliable. Panic filled her, and her thoughts fell away in a jumbled mess.

"Let's just get out of here, Linda. I can't think straight, can't breathe." She was able to move her feet. She bolted from the room, but just outside the door her legs collapsed, and she sat down heavily on the ground, fighting nausea. Linda sat down beside her. Linda's hands were shaking, and her face looked white as a sheet.

"Promise not to talk about this to a soul," Fern said when she was finally able to speak again. "Not until I make up my mind what to do."

Linda shook her head, looking down at her lap. "I don't know—won't we be, like, aiding and abetting a murder or something? Fern, your own life might be in danger. Shit, mine too. What if he comes back and figures out we've been in here and saw what he did?"

Fern nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Somebody groaned.