Xeno Sapiens (6 page)

“
Humans with gills. Humans with the
night vision of a cat. The ability to change hair color, or eye
color, or physical features with nothing more than a dose of gene
therapy. That’s what you’re really after, isn’t it? A werewolf on
demand.”

Merrifield and Clifton exchanged an
uncomfortable glance. Merrifield hadn’t expected Ingrid’s acuity to
be so laser accurate. He cleared his throat and spoke
abruptly.

“
It’s a matter of pressure,” he
said.

Ingrid stared at him.
This
was unexpected.

“
A manned mission to Mars is planned
in the next twenty years. Terraforming of the planet slated to
begin five years after that. What our problem is -and now yours- is
that even if the air is breathable, the mass of Mars is not
sufficient to sustain an atmosphere with enough pressure to allow
proper gas exchange. Not human beings as they are now. Humans on
Mars will be extremely different, perhaps even unrecognizable to
us. They will likely be smaller, with large eyes for better vision.
They will likely lose color vision or it will be reduced. And they
will have to be able to breathe in an atmosphere which, at best,
might maintain a pressure of five PSI. Cosmic radiation is a big
problem. Vitamin D conversion to steroid hormone, and skin thick
enough to keep from frying on Mars, don’t go together. A million
other details, some we know, some we haven’t even conceived of.”
Merrifield gave a sick little smile. “We are not genetically
designed for that, and we don’t have unlimited time for our bodies
to evolve naturally.”

“
And what else,” Ingrid pressed.
“Humans with flippers? Claws? Fangs? Venom glands? It’s Island of
Dr. Moreau stuff. It’s hideous. And it’s also out of the realm of a
reasonable time frame. You’re looking fifty -maybe a hundred- years
into the future.”

“
I don’t think so,” Merrifield said
bluntly. Ingrid had shown distaste, but hadn’t recoiled in outright
horror. “But that is beyond what we want from you. We want only the
beginning. The processes, the catalogs and blueprints of the
genetic architecture. Others will do the rest.”

Ingrid let this sink in for a few
seconds while Merrifield went on.

“
Just the fact you have the Project
Change documents in your possession makes you liable for any leaks
which can be traced back to you. We must operate under the
assumption that you have read and understood their contents, with
all their ramifications. If it comes to it, that alone would be
enough to have you censured for the rest of your days. Not by us,
but by our mutual friends in the media. You probably know we didn’t
come on your name just through serendipity. I want there to be no
misunderstanding on this point.”

“
I’m not particularly charitable
toward threats and strong arm tactics,” Ingrid said testily. “Nor
the people who deliver them.”

Merrifield smiled thinly.

“
What threatening? I apologize if my
tone was offensive. Philosophers can afford to be thin skinned
because their high toned preachments don’t cost them
anything.
Your
hide has to be bulletproof. We can’t expect old heads on
young shoulders and you’re not yet twenty-four, an age when most
young people can’t even manage to change their underwear more than
once a week, much less take on a responsibility this overbearing.
Job one on this project is security. There can be no leaks. You, of
all people, know why. If you accept this assignment, do it with a
clear conscience and your eyes open.”

Ingrid had barely heard this last. Her mind had drifted to
the project. Did he really think little old Ingrid could do it? But
she knew she
could
do it. With enough time, materials and money, she could
make it happen. The knowledge elated and frightened her.

“
Who will I be...” Ingrid corrected
herself. “Who will be working for me?”

Merrifield smiled at Ingrid’s quick
grasp.

“
Their names are listed.” He paused
momentarily, looking into Ingrid’s eyes. “I was the one who
originally proposed you to the planning board. Did I make a
mistake?”

Ingrid was wary. She remembered too well a line she had
heard some boys in high school use when they hadn’t known she was
listening. A particularly popular boy, Chip Winters, was expounding
on his success with the high school girls. “Just tell ’em what they
want to hear.” Ingrid, though attractive, had always been so
studious she had no time for frivolities like boys. In college,
during her freshman year, she had confessed to her roommate that
she was so devoted to her studies she’d never had
time
to lose her
virginity.

“
I don’t know, Mr. Merrifield. Maybe I
would be better off staying low key.”

“
If you stay here,” Merrifield said
flatly, “you’ll drown under the weight of public condemnation. Once
they’ve got you down, they’ll never take their knee off of your
neck and you know it.”

Ingrid sighed at the truth of
it.

“
Have you,” she asked, “considered the
probability of failure?”

Merrifield spread his hands.
“Que sera, sera.”

“
And if I decline?”

“
We’ll be on our merry way. We’re not
arm breakers. We’ll find another director. The project will limp
along much less brilliantly, but workably. We may even get the
results we want with a second stringer. You’ll go back to being a
first rate researcher at a third rate university. Your work will
suffer from lack of funding. Your abilities will be straitjacketed,
your work unrecognized.”

“
Is that what you think,” Ingrid
asked, shaken, “or what you would cause to happen?”

Merrifield seemed moderately appalled
by the insinuation.

“
We
would never hamper you. But media and
political figures don’t need our help to ruin you. We offer a sure
thing, free from the inhibitions and scrutiny of openly funded
research.”

“
My father always told me there was no
such thing as a sure thing.”

“
Your father is a wise man. Still, we
offer the closest thing to it. And we’re properly grateful. If you
complete the project with good results, you might want to stay on
with us. Even if you don’t, the powers that be know how to treat
those who have done it a good turn.” Ingrid noticed Merrifield
neglected to state the converse which was almost certainly as true:
those same powers know how to screw over those who have left them
with egg on their face.

Clifton spoke up, a placating voice in
the mix.

“
We live in a dangerous world,” he
said. “While the pentagon is busy planning the last war, others are
plotting new ones. Terror tactics, chemical and biological warfare.
Wars by proxy at a scale never before imagined. We need new tools
to defend ourselves. The project members aren’t evil scientists
with their hair skewed out in wild curls. I mean, if I had wanted
to work with a bunch of clowns, I would have joined the circus.
Those high up have decided there’s a war on. Undeclared, but very
real. Local law enforcement is stymied, the courts are jammed. The
DEA is outgunned and outmanned. Home grown nuts are bombing federal
buildings, religious fanatics are blowing up US ships and
buildings. Central Banks are financing every side of a conflict
with money made up out of thin air, all in the hopes of thinning
out the ‘useless eaters’ and making a profit in the bargain. How do
you fight that? One of the many ways law enforcement has of
upholding the law is by breaking it. We’ve been driven against the
wall and it’s come to this.”

Ingrid wrestled with emotions that
conflicted like cross winds restlessly tugging a ship from its
anchor. On the one hand was the need, the yearning to do it. On the
other, the terrible, final purpose.

“
You sound like you want to create an
expendable hit squad.”

“
Not expendable,” Merrifield
corrected. “Superior. We need interdiction at the highest level. We
need people that can -and will- go beyond what would seem to be
impossible odds. It sounds cold and it sounds cruel, and its
illegal as hell, but the battle is being lost on every front. It’s
your choice, Ingrid. The government can always train another
assassin, another sniper; outfit a few more men with black bag shit
and James Bond weapons. And for what? So the Jamaicans and
Colombians can waste the black kids in the slums and the poor white
trash from the trailer parks? So Bin Laden can train a few more
fanatics and promise them paradise with the seventy-two
virgins?”

“
Who’s bin Laden,” Ingrid
asked.

“
A terrorist. He was behind Mogadishu,
the bombing of the USS Cole, the bombings of the American embassies
in Africa, lots of other not nice things.”

“
Never heard of him.”

“
You will.”

“
It sounds so dictatorial. Who’ll be
the crime boss? ‘Hey, Joe, kill some Arabs. When You’re done with
that, murder some other scum. Who cares? If you get killed, we’ll
clone some more.’”

“
Don’t let the thought of murder or
genocide cloud your mind,” Merrifield said in a gently warning
tone. “I can assure you, others have it in mind for us. All they
really want is to kill as many Americans as possible. And once they
finally kill enough, the keys will turn, the missiles will go up,
and somebody’s gonna get nuked. You don’t know, Ingrid, but I do.
We have to stop them before that happens, because if we don’t, the
innocent are going to burn with the guilty.”

“
This,” Ingrid said, “is very ugly
business.”

“
The world is a pretty ugly
place.”

Ingrid hesitated. “This is too much.
You’re talking about things I don’t even want to know about. I was
a lot happier being shit ignorant.”

“
I know your history, Ingrid,”
Merrifield’s eyes had narrowed in their puffy sockets. They looked
as if steel shavings had been sprinkled in them. They made Ingrid
uncomfortable.

“
I think you’ll do it. I think you’ll
do it just to see if you
can
. I think you’ll do it and want more. Here it is with all
the bark on it:
if you don’t do it, someone else will.
Years from now, when you labor
in obscurity, you can do so with a clear conscience. It’s a good
thing, Ingrid. Look beyond what’s in the folder.”

“
To what,” she said with slight
bitterness. “Slavery? Drones? And what would that mean to us in
Darwinian terms? Extinction?”

Merrifield said nothing. He had pushed
as far as he dared right now. He could only hope Ingrid’s past
history could push her through this crossroads to the other
side.

“
One thing I need to know,” she said.
“I need your assurance that I won’t be impeded. I need your solemn
vow that I can control the project. And I need your oath to God
that I won’t be subjected to the torture I went through before. I
won’t deal with that again.”

“
Ingrid,” Merrifield said, “if you can
pull this off, there’s not a soul in the world that will breathe a
harsh word about you.”

Ingrid saw the man, the
real
man, behind Merrifield’s mercurial, sometimes
jovial screen. Outwardly all business, inwardly a dynamo. A man who
could get things done with a sharp glance, a dissatisfied grunt, or
a flick of the wrist.

“
How long do I have to
decide?”

“
We’re all anxious to get started.
Look over the specs.” Merrifield looked thoughtful, as if examining
a mental calendar. “Would it be possible for you to decide in a
week?”

“
I think so. One way or the
other.”

“
One way or the other,” Merrifield
repeated. “Good day, Ingrid.”

Sour grapes,
Ingrid thought as they left. It probably couldn’t
be done anyway.

Whether that was a valid judgment or
not, what would ultimately push her to her final decision had two
parts: one that had been filed away long ago, another that would
happen in the very near future.

********************

On the top shelf of her closet Ingrid
kept a scrapbook. In it were mementos of her growing up days. There
were pictures and newspaper clippings, mostly: a pressed violet
Scotty Gardner had given her in the days before she had decided to
give boys a miss in order to fulfill her ambitions.

She went there now. The forks and
spoons and knives in her kitchen were arranged by type and size.
Cups, plates and saucers were stacked in identical piles. The
corners in her home were free of cobwebs and every picture on her
wall would read true if a level were set on them.