Xeno Sapiens (16 page)

“
The RNA has a built in checker. The
same property DNA molecules have for repairing damage. It’s not a
whole lot different than if you cut your finger, your original
fingerprint comes back, no different. Once the virus pirates the
RNA, the chain will terminate, for lack of a better term, at the
same place Alex’s arm is severed.”

“
It sounds awfully simple,” Merrifield
said dubiously.

“
It isn’t. Where the mistakes have
been made in the past is that we didn’t know that thousands of
chains had to form, break, and replicate. That’s why Alan injected
200 CC’s of SV 40 virus, enough to ensure the reproduction of
several hundred copies of each RNA strand. Warm blooded animal’s
higher energy requirements have caused them to lose the catalyst
for limb regeneration. We’re providing the catalyst in the form of
the SV 40 virus.”

“
What about Alex’s energy
requirements?”

“
They’ll be kept to a minimum.” Ingrid
looked at Clifton. “He’ll have to be kept in a coma.” Her eyes had
gone far away, as if she were thinking of procedures before
implementing them. “We’ll put him on a heart-lung machine and
dialysis. A megavitamin drip in glucose solution will be implanted
in a central line. We’ll provide his energy so his body can
regenerate. It will go fast when the ribosomes start churning out
DNA.”

Ingrid was undoubtedly right,
Merrifield thought. All they could do was lend a hand and wait as
Alex’s body repaired itself. He went back to watching the insane
symphony that Caudill conducted.

Charles Freeman exposited on his own
views of Clifton’s misfortune to Ricky Henley.

“
Hey you think what happened to Cliffy
was rough? Shit, man, you ought to go in for a sounding sometime.
Now that’s one mother that hurts like hell.”

Like most custodial workers, they were
as anonymous as a visiting salesman. Freeman had heard about the
accident through the project grapevine. Which is to say he had
presented an attentive ear to any official looking door that
happened to be ajar. Freeman had seen Sunners when he walked
through Merrifield’s office. He thought Sunners looked like a man
who had seen a diamond ring glittering in the dust and picked it up
only to find a decomposed hand attached to it. He wasn’t far off
the mark, as Freeman soon found out.

“
The way I heard it,” he went on,
“Cliffy passed out just as quick as it happened. Likely never felt
a thing. He was probably wired out of his skull anyway and wouldn’t
have felt a kick in the balls.”

“
You really think he was horsed up,”
Ricky asked.

“
Had to be,” Freeman said sagely. “All
these eggheads are fucked up out of their minds on something. They
all stay here eighteen, twenty hours a day. Ain’t no normal human
being can do that day in and day out without help.”

“
Yeah, but gettin’ your arm cut off-
completely cut off- that’s bound to leave a mark.”

“
Maybe it did, but hey! Life’s a
bitch. Hazards of the job.”

“
I don’t know if that’s one of the
risks pointed out in the job description,” Ricky said.

Freeman considered it.

“
Maybe you’re right. But Massa
Merrifield didn’t waste no time on sympathy for Cliffy, no sir! It
wasn’t two hours later he had some hotshot civilian in here workin’
on that machine. Merrifield gave that guy all kinds of shit.
‘You’ll do this and you’ll do that and you’ll do it my way or I’ll
tear your head off.’ Stuff like that.”

Merrifield had indeed placed a hasty
call to Skinner Scientific Instruments, Inc., main office in
Lexington. Merrifield made it clear to the secretary who answered
his phone call that he didn’t give a damn about the warranty, he
wanted somebody to fix the thing.

“
That’s quite a complex piece of
machinery, sir,” the receptionist had said sympathetically. “We may
not have anyone on staff at the moment who can repair it. After
all, it is Christmas Day. And your name was?”

“
Jon Merrifield,” he said impatiently.
“You tell Reg Skinner he’d better bloody well get off his dead ass
and send somebody. You just mention my name, huh?”

“
I’ll pass your message along,” the
receptionist said with chilling condescension. “Please
hold.”

Merrifield rolled his eyes and drummed
his fingers on his desk as tuneless Muzak sniffed its way through
the morass of telephone cable. A few moments later Reg Skinner
himself came on the line.

“
Jon? What’s up?”

“
The Helix Depolarization Chamber,”
Merrifield replied, deadpan. “In smoke, that is. The infernal
contraption blew apart and cut off one of my men’s
arms.”

Skinner’s voice dwindled of all spirit.
“I’m terribly sorry, Jon. If there’s anything I can
do...”

“
Save getting out of the lawsuit for
later, Reg,” Merrifield said brusquely. “We’ve got him in the
infirmary. He’s going to be alright. What I want from you is a man
to fix the thing.”

“
That’s a terribly complicated
machine, Jon...”

“
I’ve already heard that tune from
your receptionist, Reg,” Merrifield warned. “I don’t want you to
sing it again.”

“
No, of course not,” Skinner said.
Merrifield imagined him running his hands through his wiry, salt
and pepper hair. Tortured hair, Merrifield had always called
it.

Skinner asked Jon exactly what had
happened and Jon told him.

“
Now, are you going to get it fixed,
or do I have to remind you of how much money you’ll lose with the
termination of our contract?”

“
You don’t have to remind me,” Skinner
said softly. “I’ll send a man right up.”

“
Splendid,” Merrifield said. “You’re a
good man to do business with, Reg. I’m sorry this couldn’t have
been a social call. How is your wife, by the way?”

“
She’s fine, Jon,” Skinner said in a
window glass voice. “It’s very kind of you to ask.”

“
Not at all. You will have a Merry
Christmas, won’t you?”

“
Certainly, Jon,” Skinner
said.

The man from Skinner Scientific showed
up a couple of hours later. Floyd Williams was every bit of
twenty-two years old. A few stray whiskers he had missed during his
weekly shave poked out of his pimples.

Merrifield escorted him to the
sequencing lab. Clifton’s mangled arm had been whisked away by two
white faced lab workers and the large bloodstain had been hosed off
minutes after the accident. All personnel had been instructed to
keep quiet during the repairman’s visit.

Williams was treated to the unnerving
spectacle of persons giving him curious, superstitious looks as he
walked down the corridor with Merrifield. They clammed up when he
was within earshot and resumed speaking after he passed.

Williams took one look at the machine
and restrained himself from throwing up his arms.

“
It’s going to take me at least three
days to repair this thing, Mr. Merrifield.”

“
Surely it won’t take that long,
Mr...uh, Williams.” Merrifield said pleasantly.

Williams gestured helplessly at the
wringer. It looked as if someone had wrenched the top of with
clumsy hands.

“
Look at it,” Williams said
patronisingly. “The magneto will have to be replaced. It will take
me a day at the earliest to get that, even air freighting it in
from Houston. And the rotor’s bent, sure as shit. I’m not a
magician.”

“
Surely you can expedite the repairs,”
Merrifield asked genially.

“
Two days at the earliest.” Williams’
tone was that of a man who had made his best offer.

“
One day,” Merrifield said. Any
pretense of pleasantness was gone. His face had colored an alarming
red and he seemed on the verge of shaking himself to
pieces.

“
If that machine is not repaired in
twenty-four hours,” he said, “there are going to be many unhappy
people. I’ll be one of them. You don’t want to make me unhappy,
sonny.”

“
Excuse me?”

Williams gaped at Merrifield. Just who
did this jumped up prick think he was?

“
I’m not accustomed to being spoken to
in such a manner.” Williams spoke with pitiable juvenile
crust.

“
Well get accustomed, brother,”
Merrifield said in an ugly tone. He thrust his snarling teeth so
close to Williams’ face that their noses were touching. Williams
backed up a step, his eyes suddenly shiny with the glaze of fear.
He just couldn’t help it.

“
I’ll speak to you as I like, when I
like, and as much as I like. I’ll tell you but once more: this
machine
will
be working by this time tomorrow even if you have to pull
one out of your ass. If you don’t believe me you can call Reg
Skinner and confirm what I’ve said.” Merrifield shifted to an
agreeable tone. “There’s no need for unpleasantness, or for anyone
to cry into their beer. Do your job and do it well. Our paths will
never cross again. Fair enough?”

Williams was on the verge of telling this pious egomaniac
to get bent when he saw the brimming, limitless rage in
Merrifield’s eyes.
Go ahead,
those eyes seemed to say.
Start something
. Even on short acquaintance Williams
could see that once Merrifield’s holier-than-thou attitude began to
pucker and turn brown around the edges, it was time to shut
up.

“
I’ll get on it right away,” Williams
said meekly.

Freeman had caught the whole exchange,
standing just outside the door.

“
That repairman shut up quick. When he
went to his van, he kind of skittered away like he thought Massa
Merrifield was gonna kick his ass up between his ears.” Freeman
leaned against his broom. “I ain’t gonna say he might not have done
it, too.”

Ricky looked around nervously, as if
afraid Merrifield might magically pop up out of the floor and
berate them for wasting precious time. He turned back to Freeman
just in time to miss Ingrid coming around the corner.

“
He is a bastard, ain’t he,” Ricky
said.

“
A-number one,” Freeman snorted,
baring yellow, goat teeth. “Only one I’ve seen able to keep him in
line is Miss Priss herself. Cliffy’s been tryin’ to tag that, but
he’s wastin’ his time. She thinks it’s gold plated, or something.
I’ll bet Cliffy’s spent many a night floggin’ the log. Of course,”
Freeman said pitilessly, “he ain’t gonna be wrenchin’ the old skin
bolt with that hand anymore.”

“
Don’t bet on that,” said an angry
voice behind them.

Ricky and Freeman wheeled around,
hearts in their throats.

Ingrid confronted them, glaring at them
with a stare as hot as burning magnesium. Her voice grated like
fault lines grinding together.

“
Don’t try to explain
shit
to me,” she spat. “I
think I’ll turn you two bastards over to Jon. He hasn’t been in the
pink today. Of course you two knew that, didn’t you? I heard you
speaking so eloquently about it. Why don’t we take a
walk?”

Jimmy and Ingrid sat in her office,
drinking coffee and talking quietly. He had cleaned himself up,
trading his blood-caked jumpsuit for jeans and a faded T-shirt
depicting a cartoon rat at a computer monitor, and the motto; “Lab
Techs: Thwarting Natural Selection Every Day.” He felt a thousand
percent better both in body and mind. Despite her sometimes
maddening urges and actions, he had a deep liking for
Ingrid.

Ingrid’s hair was clean and tied with a
blue ribbon into a pony tail. It was a style, Sunners reflected
regretfully, she didn’t use enough. It made her seem somehow more
innocent and eased the worry and grave responsibility fixed into
her otherwise attractive face.

“
I’m sorry for the way I acted this
morning,” Sunners said. “I knew deep down you would never do
anything to hurt Alex.”

Ingrid looked into her coffee. Too weary to keep her head
up, or simply unsure of what to say, Jimmy didn’t know.

“
I’m not faulting you for anything. If
you hadn’t been there, Alex might have bled to death.”

She sipped her coffee, letting her eyes
close. She opened them and looked at Jimmy. “I don’t think it’s any
secret that I think a lot of Alex. I’m indebted to you for not
going to pieces.”

Jimmy shrugged the compliment aside.
“It had to be done. But, I have to admit, I couldn’t have cut the
arm. I wouldn’t have had that confidence in my
abilities.”