The Zen Gene

The

ZEN GENE

By

L. Valder Mains

Prologue

Vector

Victoria BC

July 2020

There existed the possibility of sudden death. It was there in the data; the probability was quite low but it was not zero and this was a concern. Age had been difficult to evaluate as a risk factor; the only adverse outcome data he found for the solvent was from adult subjects not children. This data suggested a six percent greater risk of it triggering an atypical immune response which could cause anaphylaxis and that might shut down her respiration.

Tyler tried to assess the danger of this happening while she was swimming but couldn’t, there were too many variables. As he surveyed the pool awash with kids he reasoned that the risk of drowning was low which meant, assuming they hada
n
epi-pen, death from anaphylaxis was unlikely.

He had to stop thinking about it, this was an acceptable risk and there were no reasonable alternatives and there was a urgent problem coming on; in the last few minutes his body had begun to fade. He’d been loitering for some time in the channel leading to the waterslide and managing sensory issues quite well, at least he was until they announced the opening of the waterslide.

His ability to handle stress vanished as kids began streaming by with a few of them brushing against him as they raced to get in line. The distress this caused was overwhelming; he disliked being wet but much worse that the feel of water he detested being touched, the slimy feel of skin was revolting. The combination of the two sensations were threatening to send him screaming from the pool.

The reason he did not run away was he could no longer feel his feet on the concrete bottom. He knew he was touching bottom because he was upright. He tried wiggling his toes but it was no use, he felt nothing. He looked to see if they were moving and that gave him the odd sense he was looking at someone else’s toes. He’d experienced this problem before and knew the danger it posed; if the disconnection became severe it could spread further and throw off spatial awareness. In this situation, losing track of his hands would be a disaster and thinking about that caused anxiety.

His anxiety was high but it bumped up considerably when he imagined applying the dose directly to her skin. He tried to relax and forced himself to stop perseverating about what could go wrong; this part of the plan could not wait any longer it had to be done now or this one and only field trial might never happen. All he had to do was was figure out how to pour a few drops on her and not get caught. It was simple, in theory.

Her test dose had been ready for more than a month but until an hour ago, when he spotted her heading into the rec centre pool, he had no idea how he would deliver it. One reason for this was he did not know her and only recognized her from her photo. He knew almost nothing else about her aside from her age, twelve years three months, her name is Katy Peters and she is an excellent vector.

He scanned the pool searching for her and spotted her and a red haired girl talking and getting out of the hot tub together. Katy was tall, almost as tall as he was, and she was wearing a bright green one-piece bathing suit which made her stand out from the other kids. When they jumped into the main pool and started heading in his direction he decided it was time to get ready.

He dipped down a few inches lower into the water and slipped two fingers into the mesh pocket inside the waistband of his bathing suit and retrieved the vial. He held it out of sight in the palm of his hand and, covering the action, twisted off the white plastic cap. His fingers were slick and a bit numb and the cap slipped from his grasp and was instantly lost in the water. No turning back now, he thought, as he placed his thumb over the open end to stop the solvent from evaporating. He watched the green bathing suit coming closer in his peripheral vision as Katie and her friend made their way towards the waterslide.

The swimming pool was crammed with screaming kids but his attention was only on Katy. As she approached he looked for a suitable place to put the dose but finding a dry spot on her seemed impossible. He barked a nervous laugh struck by the insanity of searching for such a thing in a swimming pool. His plan felt crazier by the moment as he desperately scanned her body.

He needed to place it where it would not be immediately washed off and he was also keenly aware there were places you were not allowed to touch girls which further limited the possibilities. He calculated the solvent needed to be on her skin for a full minute to be effective but achieving that length of exposure seemed unlikely given her red-headed friend kept splashing her.

As he watched them his pounding heart urged him to sidle closer but, amazingly, Katy came directly to him walking backwards through the throng of kids. He was confused by this she seemed to be trying to bump into him but why would she do that? He positioned the vial between the fingers of his right hand and watched as she came towards him. He was having trouble feeling his fingertips and had to keep looking to see if the vial was still there but just as they were about to bump he thrust his hand out to fend off the collision.

When his palm made contact with her shoulder he tipped the vial and trickled the contents onto her skin. He made sure to avoid the shoulder strap of her bathing suit and managed to pour it all out before she spun around.

“Sorry Tyler,” she said.

When she spoke to him the years of parental prompting took over and he forced himself to look at her face. His gaze fell first upon the tip of her nose, then it moved to one side of her lower lip where the skin folded, then onto the freckle on her earlobe, and then to her left cheek and that is where he noticed the colour change. The red he saw meant she was upset and he was in trouble;
this was bad and his mind raced wondering what to do. He looked away from her but could still feel her gaze upon him, she was looking for much longer than most people would, and he thought for sure it meant he was in deep trouble.

He was worried he might have to talk to her and was relieved when she spun around and darted away into the crowd. Happy that he had not been caught he smiled as he watched her move away silently counting the seconds of exposure. He was hoping to reach sixty before she was splashed or dunked under the water. As he watched her a new thought struck him.

How does she know my name?

He was counting the seconds wondering about this when the red haired girl came from behind him and banged into his arm sending the empty vial flying from his hand.

“What did you do to Katie you freak?”

Her voice was high pitched and cut sharply through the clamoring din.

“I saw you put something on her. What did you put on her?”

She was loud but he ignored her as he made a reflexive grab for the vial and missed. Over the noise of the pool and the rising pitch of the girl’s complaint he clearly heard the “plink” of contact as the vial hit the water. He searched for it but the glass made it invisible against the blue bottom. He looked for Katie again, locating her by her bathing suit; she was too far away to see if, during the few seconds he was distracted, she’d been splashed. He saw her looking back in his direction but not at him she was staring open-mouthed at her red haired friend.

He watched her for a few more seconds then looked down at the water. He was worried a kid might step on the vial and get some of the formula directly into his bloodstream. He continued to ignore the red haired girl as he searched though she was now full on screaming at him and a lifeguard was approaching. He stopped looking when it dawned on him he had done it. The field trial had begun.

Throwing his head back he laughed and joyfully slapped the water with his open hands startling the hectoring girl to silence. His barking laugh had a dangerous feral quality to it and his eyes burned with an intensity which caught the girl by surprise. Instinctively she backed away from him not daring to turn her back until she exited the pool.

He was smiling when he noticed the lifeguard pointing at him motioning for him to approach her. He began to wade to where
she was waiting but before he arrived a boy slipped and fell on the wet pool deck and started howling and the lifeguard went to help him.

Tyler Lee Worthy turned back in time to watch the slender girl in the green bathing suit climb the steps from the deep end of the pool. His eyes followed her slim figure as she progressed up the ladder but, unlike most teenage boys, he was interested in her immune response.

September 17, 2020

Panjwai district of Kandahar Province Afghanistan

Sergeant Mike Peters dragged a rough sleeve across his mouth leaving a scattering of dark droplets of blood on the material. His lips were dry and painful and his mouth had a nasty burnt taste that, no matter what he tried, he could not get rid of. His mouth was so completely dry when he tried to spit all he produced was the sound.

He took another sip from his water bottle, sloshed it around, and spit it out. The night was too dark for him to see the wetness disappear into the parched desert. The water did not help; the taste was still there now with a sharp metallic undertone. As bad as the taste in his mouth was it was the headache that was killing him. The Ibuprofen he swallowed a half hour earlier was not touching it.

He turned his attention back to the compound below; the hostiles appeared to be settled in for the night. He checked his watch, twenty-three fifty Kandahar time, moonrise was an hour ago. It was supposed to be full but with the overcast in this dark corner of the desert it was almost invisible. From where he sat it was a faint blur and did little to lighten the darkness cloaking the desert. He was grateful for the dark, if he got a shot at the target, the darkness would supply useful cover for them to slip away.

There were three on his team, all of them marksmen placed in strategic positions, ready to provide backup. All he needed was a positive ID and one clear shot and they would break this rebel group’s hold in the area.

The target was their leader, Ahmed El Ahmed. He was a small man, judging by the photograph passed around at this morning’s briefing and, on this occasion, he was being described as a holy man. This description of Ahmed was a new one but it didn’t surprise him. Over the previous three weeks Ahmed had been variously described as, a Turkish mercenary, an Italian missionary, and a UCLA Grad student. All these descriptions supplied by US Military Intelligence.

The fact he was given contradictory information prior to this morning’s briefing made no difference to Peters. His job was essentially apolitical; he and his team were the plumbers sent in to unblock the shit pipe of Democracy. He was more than happy to leave the political spin to the spooks.

“The dirty little Turk bastard is trying to make a name for himself in the opium trade,” was how Major Wallace from US Military Intelligence described Ahmed on a previous occasion.

Peters, a career soldier, had seen action in five Middle Eastern and African nations over the last thirteen years. After working alongside his American counterparts for many of those years he began to detect a pattern.

USMI officers invariably boiled this type of sanction down to the latest moral outrage politicians were selling the voters stateside. They tried to make killing brown people, like Ahmed, seem like they were saving widows and orphans or furthering Afghan women’s rights. Anyone with an IQ over the speed limit knew it was about money, oil, and selling weapons. The unending conflict in the Middle East guaranteed a constant need to replenish expensive weaponry, weaponry that is made in the US. This was acceptable because it made a lot of people wealthy back home and they spent money to rent politicians for four year terms.

He wondered what the upside was for Ahmed and his band of rebels. Everyone knows there is no money at this end of the drug trade. Being holed up in a goat barn afraid to stick your head outside to take a piss doesn’t seem like much of a life. As he scanned the barnyard scene below his night-vision binoculars turned a bad headache into a brutal headache. He and his team had been in position for over three hours waiting for an opportunity to sanction Ahmed.

The main problem for snipers this late in the Afghan conflict was the spooky and uncooperative nature of the targets. The insurgents learned to be shy about showing themselves out in the open after dark. They know going outside for a breath of fresh air could be unhealthy; it might easily be their last breath courtesy of some grunt on a hillside a couple kilometers away.

It was an ugly prospect to be sniped. When the 50 caliber slug tumbles into your skull it renders the meat inside into a gray and pink spray. When warm brain muck splashes your buddy’s face he tends to remember it.

They were close in and, after he puts Ahmed down, the surrounding dunes will explode with pissed-off insurgents; every one of them itching to earn the bragging rights of taking out a sniper detail. When the target hits dirt it’s bug-time; running flat out through blackness back to the extraction point and, if they make it, waiting long agonizing minutes for the chopper to swoop in and save their butts.

“Doesn’t this guy ever needa take a leak?”

The voice that whispered from the darkness was his wingman Alex Torgesen. Tor was fifteen feet behind him to his left kneeling behind a rock with his night-vision binoculars pinned to his eyes. Peters was about to respond with something clever when they noticed a change in light intensity at the rear of the shack. It was a small change but it clearly showed up as a brightening of the greenish fog of the night-vision which meant a door had opened.

They watched in silence as a single ghostly figure with a hood covering its head emerged and walked along the near side of the building. By process of elimination this had to be their guy since all the other men had been out except for Ahmed. No doubt he sent them out to clear the way. Peters knew Ahmed would eventually need to relieve himself against the same section of wall at the rear of the compound. He didn’t know where the women peed he was just happy it wasn’t against that section of wall; it cut his chances of shooting the wrong heat signature in half. The figure walking below believed he was in complete darkness but to the tech-enhanced eyes watching he stood out as if it were daytime. Peters followed his progress waiting for the Known Combatant Identity Program’s clunky algorithm to finish its lethal calculation. It seemed to take a long time but it finally gave a positive ID for Ahmed.

The figure was stopped at the back wall of the compound getting ready to do his business when Peters’ ear-bud came to life.

“Ranger one, we got movement southeast your position.”

“Copy two, how many, how far?”

He spoke quietly into his helmet mike not certain how close they were.

“Half click, AK and RPG,” he said.

“Roger that Slick, we got green for go, eyes on RPG. When you hear my shot light em up,” Peters said.

In the last few minutes, since getting the green light, the headache had intensified. It wasn’t from the rocket propelled grenade lurking nearby, Slick and Kowalski had that covered. There was something about the nature of this pain, he never felt anything quite like it, at least not inside his head. It was perplexing; it was physical, sharp, almost like a knee to the groin or a gut punch.

“Roger that,” Slick said.

Team Two was situated two klics west of his position with a different view of the compound. They were well placed to cover him and Torgesen plus the far end of the compound that he could not see from his position. It was ideal kill-zone coverage from every direction.

He shifted his position and lay prone on the ground behind his weapon. Once in this position he was vulnerable and dependent on Torgesen and the others for protection. From this point on his focus would be on the target alone.

The military issue .50 Caliber Barrett sniper rifle had a hi-tech scope tweaked specifically for conditions of desert warfare. The scope was a technical marvel; so advanced it came with standing orders to destroy it rather than have it fall into enemy hands. It came equipped with an explosive charge set within the instrument’s electronics and optics for that purpose. It also had a satellite up-link so the Sergeant in the sky could detonate the charge should the operator become incapacitated.

He used the weapon many times in practice and in theatre and that explosive charge, a few centimeters from his right eye, was always present in his thoughts when he looked through the hole. If the charge went off, at the very least, it would blind him or, more likely, it would blow his head off. Another perk of being an Army Specialist, he thought. As unpleasant as the idea of it blowing up in his face he would rather die that way than fall into Taliban hands and be tortured to death, or worse, tortured and made to live.

The headache gained strength and colour in the last few minutes and he was having trouble staying focused on the task. He hoped Tor was keeping an eye out for the RPG because he did not need the additional complication of having the Taliban stumble upon their position. Technically he no longer needed a spotter there wasn’t an operational requirement of calling out wind speed or range information. The scope, with its satellite up-link, calculated all of this for him and updated the information in fractions of a second but, with all that, he was glad to have Tor covering his ass, especially tonight. He tucked the stock tight to his cheek enjoying the familiarity of the act but when he closed his left eye and tried to sight through the scope the vision in his right eye blurred. There was no wind but it felt like a puff of cold air hit his eyeball and made his eye tear up. He felt frustrated waiting precious seconds for his vision to clear. He resisted the urge to rub his eye knowing from experience that could make it worse.

He couldn’t wait much longer the target was going to finish and disappear back inside the shack. The sooner he got his shot the sooner he would be back at base where he could grab more pain killers and conk out for a few hours. The intense ache behind his eyes had become more than a distraction; at this point it was becoming an operational concern.

At this range the man was an easy shot for him and when his vision finally cleared the target view was perfect; he could even see the heat signature from his urine stream. His vision was clear but when he tried to focus his mind and concentrate he discovered he had another problem; he could not push past the increasing pain inside his skull. He tried to relax and let muscle memory take over hoping it would carry him to the point where he would regain enough control to pull the trigger. He carefully slipped his index finger onto the trigger; the pull tension was set light and it only took a tiny amount of pressure to fire the weapon. It was ultra-sensitive and he was always careful when he made first contact.

The pain eased a little and things were beginning to come together, he was perfectly sighted on the target with the reticle centered on the back of his hooded head. As he started to put pressure on the trigger he blinked once very slowly and then his eyelid closed and would not open.

He was confused and trying to make sense of what was happening to him when a ripping pulse of searing agony gripped his skull and turned everything inside his head white hot. The pain was staggering. It felt like battery acid had been splashed on the backsides of his eyeballs inside his head; the effect so real he gagged at the smell of burning bubbling flesh. His face muscles went hard, snapping in to a rigid spasm, locking his jaw. He tried to scream but his mouth would not open to allow sound to escape.

“Come on Sarge, make with the noise already I need a take a dump.”

Torgesen whispered from the darkness but Peters could no longer respond, he could not hear him nor could he move any part of his body. The muscles of his torso had contracted and locked together drawing him into a hard knotted ball of flesh. What consciousness remained was sealed away locked inside a damaged mind which no longer permitted thought. As higher functions dimmed there remained only one clear input to his senses and that was the nerve-searing pain alive inside his skull. Within his ebbing awareness he knew he was dying and he welcomed it.

Torgesen realized something was wrong with Peters and went over and knelt down beside him. “Ranger two, Sarge has…. a problem. You should do the deed, copy?”

He examined his stricken partner trying to determine what had happened. It looked like he was having a seizure or a stroke and then it occurred to him he might have been bitten by a snake. He briefly turned on his shielded light and rolled him over to check the ground beneath him but there was nothing there. There was no more time to check for bite marks he got his weapon ready and prepared for the shit storm when Slick took down the target.

He readied himself to shoot whoever came their way after the report from Slick’s rifle. He selected full auto and clicked off the safety waiting for the shot but it never came. He knew there were at least two unfriendlies nearby but he risked another call. He wanted to know what the fuck was happening.

“Ranger two, this is Tor, the Sarge is T.U. Repeat. Sarge is down,” he whispered, “you are ‘go’ to take out the target. Do you copy?”

He waited but there was only dead air, scary dead air, and then he heard.

“Ah, we got a problem, Tor.”

It was Steve Kowalski, Slick’s new wingman and he sounded worried.

“WTF Steve?” he hissed.

“I think Slick had a heart attack or something. He’s flaked out on the ground kinda curled up,” he said.

What the fuck is this Torgesen thought turning back to peer at the dim outline of his Sergeant on the ground. He had no idea what was going on but with Slick and the Sarge both down that meant he was in command and as far as he was concerned the operation was over.

“Ranger two what’s your status?” he whispered.

“Confused, what’s yours?” he said.

“Same. Can you see the unfriendlies?”