61
lonely night outside. Dorman listened to the soft gurgle of the slow-moving river against the tumbled rocks around the bridge pilings. The water smelled warm and rich and alive, but the cool mist had a frosty metallic tang to it. Dorman shivered.
Pigeons nested in the bridge superstructure above, cooing and rustling. Farther down the walk came the rattling sound of another vagrant rummag-ing through trash cans to find recyclable bottles or cans. A few brown bags containing empty malt liquor and cheap wine bottles lay piled against the green-painted wastebaskets.
Dorman huddled in the shadows, in bodily pain, in mental misery. Fighting a spasm of his rebellious body, he rolled into a mud puddle, smearing dirt all over his back . . . but he didn’t even notice.
A heavy truck rumbled overhead across the bridge with a sound like a muffled explosion.
Like the DyMar explosion.
That night, the
last
night, came back to him too vividly—the darkness filled with fire and shouts and explosions. Murderous and destructive people: face-less, nameless, all brought together by someone pulling strings invisibly in the shadows. And they were malicious, destructive.
He must have fallen asleep . . . or somehow been transported back in time. His memory had been enhanced in a sort of cruel and unusual punishment, perhaps by the wildcard action of his affliction.
“A chain-link fence and a couple of rent-a-cops does not make me feel safe,” Dorman had said to David Kennessy. This wasn’t exactly a high-security installation they were working in—after all, David had smuggled his damned pet dog in there, and a handgun. “I’m starting to think your brother had the right idea to walk away from all this six months ago.”
DyMar had called for backup security from the 62
T H E X - F I L E S
state police, and had been turned down. The ostensi-ble reason was some buried statute that allowed the police to defer “internal company disputes” to private security forces. David paced around the basement laboratory rooms, fuming, demanding to know how the police could consider a mob of demonstrators to be an internal company dispute. It still hadn’t occurred to him that somebody might want the lab unprotected.
For all his biochemical brilliance, David Kennessy was clueless. His brother Darin hadn’t been quite so politically naive, and Darin had gotten the hell out of Dodge—in time. David had stayed—for his son’s sake.
Neither of them understood the stakes involved in their own research.
When the actual destruction started, Jeremy recalled seeing David scrambling to grab his records, his samples, like in all those old movies where the mad scientist strives to rescue a single notebook from the flames. David seemed more pissed off than frightened. He kicked a few stray pencils away from his feet, and spoke in his “let’s be reasonable” voice.
“Some boneheaded fanatic is always trying to stop progress—but it never works. Nobody can undiscover this new technology.” He made a rude noise through his lips.
Indeed, biological manufacturing and submicroscopic engineering had been progressing at remarkable speed for years now. Genetic engineers used the DNA machinery of certain bacteria to produce artificial insulin. A corporation in Syracuse, New York, had patented techniques for storing and reading data in cubes made of bacteriorhodopsin, a gen-etically altered protein. Too many people were working on too many different aspects of the problem. David was right—nobody could undiscover the technology.
antibodies
63
But Dorman himself knew that some people in the government were certainly intent on trying to do just that. And even with all the prior planning and the hushed agreements, they hadn’t given Dorman himself time to escape, despite their promises.
While David was distracted, rushing to the phone to warn his wife about the attack and her own danger, Dorman had not been able to find any of the pure original nanomachines, just the prototypes, the leftover and questionable samples that had been used—with mixed results—on the other lab animals, before their success with the dog. But still, the prototypes had worked . . . to a certain extent. They had saved him, technically at least.
Then Dorman heard windows smashing upstairs, the murderous shouts pouring closer—and he knew it was time.
Those prototypes had been his last resort, the only thing he could find. They had been viable enough in the lab rat tests, hadn’t they? And the dog was just fine, perfectly healthy. What choice did he have but to take a chance? Still, the possibility froze Dorman with terror, uncertainty, for a moment—if he did this, it would be an irrevocable act. He couldn’t just go to the drugstore and get the antidote.
But the thought of how those men had betrayed him, how they meant to kill him and tidy up all their problems, gave him the determination he needed.
After Dorman added the activation hormone and the self-perpetuating carrier fluid, the prototypes were supposed to adapt, reset their programming.
With a small
whumpp
, a Molotov cocktail exploded in the lobby, and then came running feet. He heard hushed voices in quiet discussion that sounded cool and professional—a contrast to the chanting and yelling that continued outside, the protests Dorman knew were staged.
64
T H E X - F I L E S
Quickly, silently, Dorman injected himself, just before David Kennessy returned to his side. Now the lead researcher finally looked afraid, and with good reason.
Four of the gunshots struck Kennessy in the chest, driving him backward into the lab tables. Then the DyMar building erupted into flames—much faster than Jeremy Dorman could have imagined.
He tried to escape, but even as he fled, the flames swept along, closing in on him as the walls ignited.
The shock wave of another large explosion pummeled him against one of the concrete basement walls. The stairwell became a chute of fire, searing his skin. He had watched his flesh bubble and blacken. Dorman shouted with outrage at the betrayal. . . .
Now he awoke screaming under the bridge. The echoes of his outcry vibrated against the river water, ricocheting across the river and up under the bridge.
Dorman hauled himself to his feet. His eyes adjusted to the dim illumination of streetlights and the moon filtering through clouds above. His body twisted and contorted. He could feel the growths squirming in him, seething, taking on a life of their own.
Dorman clenched his teeth, brought his elbows tight against his ribs, struggling to regain control. He breathed heavily through his nostrils. The air was cold and metallic, soured with the memory of burning blood.
As he swayed to his feet, Dorman looked down at the rock embankment where he had slept so fitfully.
There he saw the bodies of five pigeons, wings splayed, feathers ruffled, their eyes glassy gray. Their beaks hung open with a trickle of blood curling down from their tongues.
Dorman stared at the dead birds, and his stomach clenched, turning a somersault with nausea. He didn’t antibodies
65
know what his body had done, how he had lost control during his nightmares. Only the pigeons knew.
A last gray feather drifted to the ground in silence.
Dorman staggered away, climbing up toward the road. He had to get out of Portland. He had to find his quarry, find the dog, before it was too late for any of them.
Main Post Office
Milwaukie, Oregon
Wednesday, 10:59 A.M.
Mulder didn’t feel at all nondescript or X unnoticeable as he and Scully stood in the lobby of the main post office. They moved back and forth, pretending to wait in line, then going back to the counter and filling out unnecessary Express Mail forms. The postal officials at the counter watched them warily.
All the while, Scully and Mulder kept their eyes on the wall of covered cubbyholes, numbered post office boxes, especially number 3733. Each box looked like a tiny prison cubicle.
Every time a new customer walked in and marched toward the appropriate section of boxes, he and Scully exchanged a glance. They tensed, then relaxed, as person after person failed to fit the descrip-tion, went to the wrong cubbyhole, or simply conducted routine post office business, oblivious to the FBI surveillance.
Finally, after about an hour and twenty minutes of stakeout, a gaunt man pushed open the heavy glass door and moved directly to the wall of P.O. boxes. His antibodies
67
face was lean, his head completely shaven and glistening as if he used furniture polish every morning. His chin, though, held an explosion of black bristly beard.
His eyes were sunken, his cheekbones high and protruding.
“Scully, that’s him,” he said. Mulder had seen various photos of Alphonse Gurik in his criminal file—
but previously he had had long hair and no beard.
Still, the effect was the same.
Scully gave a brief nod, then flicked her eyes away so as not to draw the man’s suspicions. Mulder nonchalantly picked up a colorful brochure describing the Postal Service’s selection of stamps featuring famous sports figures, raising his eyebrows in feigned interest.
The National Crime Information Center had rapidly and easily completed their analysis of the letter claiming responsibility for the destruction of the DyMar Lab. Liberation Now had mailed their note on a piece of easily traceable stationery, written by hand in block letters and sporting two smudged fingerprints.
Sloppy
. The whole thing had been sloppy and amateurish.
NCIC and the FBI crime lab had studied the note, using handwriting analysis and fingerprint identification. This man, Alphonse Gurik—who had no permanent address—had been involved in many causes for many outspoken protest groups. His rap sheet had listed name after name of organizations that sounded so outrageous they couldn’t possibly exist. Gurik had written the letter claiming responsibility for the destruction and arson at DyMar.
But already Mulder had expressed his doubts.
After visiting the burned DyMar site, it was clear to both of them that this had been a professional job, eerily precise and coldly destructive. Alphonse Gurik seemed to be a rank amateur, perhaps deluded, certainly 68
T H E X - F I L E S
sincere. Mulder didn’t think him capable of what had happened at DyMar.
As the man reached for P.O. Box 3733, spun his combination, and opened the little window to with-draw his mail, Scully nodded at Mulder. They both moved forward, reaching into their overcoats to with-draw their ID wallets.
“Mr. Alphonse Gurik,” she said in a firm, uncom-promising voice, “we’re federal agents, and we are placing you under arrest.”
The bald man whirled, dropped his mail in a scat-tershot on the floor, and then slammed his back against the wall of boxes.
“I didn’t do anything!” he said, his face stricken with terror. He raised his hands in total surrender.
“You’ve got no right to arrest me.”
The other customers in the post office backed away, fascinated and afraid. Two workers at the counter leaned forward and craned their necks so they could see better.
Scully withdrew the folded piece of paper from her inner pocket. “This is an arrest warrant with your name on it. We have identified you as the author of a letter claiming responsibility for the fire and explosion at DyMar Laboratory, which resulted in the deaths of two researchers.”
“But, but—” Gurik’s face paled. A thread of spittle connected his lips as he tried to find the appropriate words.
Mulder came forward and grabbed the bald man’s arm after removing a set of handcuffs from his belt.
Scully hung back, keeping herself in a bladed position, ready and prepared for any unexpected action from the prisoner. An FBI agent always had to be prepared no matter now submissive a detainee might appear.
“We’re always happy to hear your side of this, Mr.
Gurik,” Mulder said. He took advantage of Gurik’s antibodies
69
shock to bring the man’s arms down and cuff his wrists behind him. Scully read the memorized set of Miranda rights, which Alphonse Gurik seemed to know very well already.
According to his file, this man had been arrested seven times already on minor vandalism and protest charges—throwing rocks through windows or spray-painting misspelled threats on the headquarters buildings of companies he didn’t like. Mulder gauged him to be a principled man, well-read in his field. Gurik had the courage to stand up for what he believed in, but he gave over his beliefs a little too easily.
As Mulder turned the prisoner around, escorting him toward the glass door, Scully bent down to retrieve Gurik’s scattered mail. They ushered him outside.
It took thirty seconds, almost like clockwork, until Gurik began to babble, trying to make excuses. “Okay, I sent the letter! I admit it, I sent the letter—but I didn’t burn anything. I didn’t kill anybody. I didn’t blow up that building.”
Mulder thought he was probably telling the truth.
Gurik’s previous minor pranks had made him a nui-sance, but could not be construed as a dry run for the destruction of an entire research facility.
“It’s a little convenient to change your story now, isn’t it?” Scully said. “Two people are dead, and you’ll be up for murder charges. This isn’t a few out-of-hand protest activities like the ones you’ve been arrested for in the past.”
“I was just a protester. We picketed DyMar a few times in the past . . . but suddenly the whole place just exploded! Everybody was running and screaming, but I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“So why did you write the letter?” Mulder asked.
“Somebody had to take responsibility,” Gurik said. “I kept waiting, but nobody sent any letters, 70
T H E X - F I L E S
nobody took credit. It was a terrible tragedy, yeah! But the whole scene would have been pointless if nobody announced what we were protesting against. I thought we were trying to free all those lab animals, that’s why I sent the letter . . .
“Some of us got together on this, a few different independent groups. There was this one guy who really railed against the stuff at DyMar—he even drafted the letter to the paper and made sure we all had a copy before the protest. He showed us videotapes, smuggled reports. You wouldn’t believe what they were doing to the lab animals. You should have seen what they did to that poor dog.”