CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dr. Andalon stared up at his wife, ears hearing her explanation but mind disbelieving. He clung to every word as she laid out the timeline of her betrayal. This has to be a dream, he thought. But the nodding heads by her brother and Michael intensified the sickening lump in his throat. Once or twice he fought down bile as his stomached threatened to betray his last meal.
With trembling hands, he finally asked, “Why?”
Brooke moved to take his in hers, but he snatched them away, repulsed by her admission of guilt. “I thought they could help, David. They had the funding and resources that could have moved us past monkeys and toward your end goal.”
“So everything we did, everything we spoke about or dreamed; you gave to Jake?”
The general answered, “I’m afraid so. I know it’s a difficult pill to swallow, but you were moving too slowly. You were entirely too cautious for such a large-scale experiment.”
David responded, no longer holding back his anger. “You bastards weaponized my dream.” He pointed at Brooke. “You stole my life’s work and delivered it to the military.” He turned his angry gaze toward Michael. “And I bet you found ways to finance and keep it classified.”
The politician nodded.
“I can’t believe you. Any of you! You were my best friends! My brothers! How dare you steal my life’s work!” He pushed back from the table and stood, pacing the room as he rambled. “I didn’t even think you believed in my theory. You always acted like I was Crazy Dave. When did you first make up your minds to do this? To betray me if I got close!”
“Senior year.” Jake stood and walked toward him. “We both recognized the military application if it ever succeeded.”
“Which part of the total failure was the success, exactly?”
“Well,” Braston answered, “Felicima for one.”
David stopped pacing. “No,” he argued, “That wasn’t telepathy. It wasn’t even telekinesis. It was pyrokinesis—an undesirable side effect of failure.”
“A useful one,” offered Michael.
Brooke had been mostly silent but spoke, “I didn’t believe you about Felicima, David. When you told me she burned the lab, I couldn’t bring myself to accept that possibility. I’m sorry. I doubted your word and I’m sorry I betrayed your work to Jake. But, in the end, my betrayal saved our lives.”
“That’s why you flew us out, isn’t it?” Andalon stared down the general, daring him to lie. “You hit a wall in your own research and needed my help?”
“Actually, no.” Jake cleared his throat and continued, “We’ve had similar results with our subjects.” He glanced at Brooke, “But not with fire.”
David caught the brief exchange between siblings. “You all thought you could do better with my experiments?”
Michael interrupted. “We’re not saying that at all. He means that one of your batches was successful, but it was unlikely pyromancy.”
“Pyrokinesis,” David corrected.
“What’s the difference?”
“Pyromancy is magic. This is science, not a retelling of a Dungeons and Dragons quest.” David let himself relax. “Explain your theory.”
“The blast of wind you experienced came from Batch Alpha, David.”
Andalon shook his head. “If true, then it’s also a failed experiment. We’re looking for telepathy, not aerokinesis.”
“What if I told you,” Jake asked slowly, “the two go hand in hand?”
Dr. Andalon stared back, too shocked and confused to respond.
“We have to show him,” Stephanie Yurik interjected. “He won’t believe you until he sees for himself.”
*****
Brooke had never seen the lab. Everything she knew about the operation had come second hand from Captain Yurik. Even then, she knew very little. She never meant to lie to David, nor to cover up the fact she had shared key information with her brother’s lead scientist. But there was a saying in her hometown that carried over into college and now the Air Force. She knew it as truth because she had grown up with the man. No one can say no to Jake Braston.
MIT had actually cut their funding ten years earlier, before they had seen any progress at all. Genetic manipulation and enhancement were considered taboo areas of science then, and the University sought to distance themselves from Mendel Project. But Brooke’s call to Jake changed everything. In no time at all, Michael, a young congressman at the time, had fashioned a budget rider with certain defense appropriations. A portion was granted to the MIT Biology department, but most funded Jake’s own lab.
They had respected David’s desire to keep the Mendel Project civilian oriented. He dreamed of a world without electronic communication, one that tapped into and maximized the true potential of the human brain.
But Brooke had remembered an animated conversation during their junior year. David had been very drunk and extremely talkative. He said, “Imagine if we could travel to a common place in our minds and link with others like us. We could forge a world of our own and bend it to become whatever we want.”
Jake couldn’t help heckling. “Can I have beautiful naked women there to treat my every whim?”
“Unfortunately, in this dream world the answer would be yes. But why waste it there? Imagine what we could do with coma patients or paraplegics. They’d be able to run and dance as if they’d never lost their physical ability.”
“I don’t know, David.” Michael was nicer in his jeering than Jake, but added his two cents. “It really does sound more like a dream world. Besides, in the wrong hands what would prevent the invasion of privacy? If two people can communicate on a different plane, then they could also use the same ability to spy on others. Governments would kill for the ability to remote view.”
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“I’ll never sell out to the military,” David had insisted, even then. “I’ll remain in complete control of my experiments. I’d rather burn down my research than give it over to war mongers.”
That was when it began.
Once Jake and Michael secretly funded his research, Brooke became their consort, passing research notes and DNA strands whenever they reached a roadblock in their own experiments. She had always known that one day they themselves would cut off his funding, leaving him to blame the college but also forcing him to pick up alongside them. That day had come.
Captain Yurik pushed open the door to the lab.
Brooke reached for David’s hand, but he pulled away, stepping past as if she were in his way. She watched as he followed the scientist inside. She counted to five, took a deep breath, and followed.
The room beyond the door contrasted sharply with the concrete walls elsewhere in the bunker. Sleek white glaze reflected the powerful lights above. Every now and then they flickered.
Stephanie could tell both David and Brooke had noticed and explained, “We’re on generator power now, so it’s less stable, but we have crews working to normalize the phase as we speak.”
David nodded, running his hands along the smooth texture surrounding him. He took everything in with wide critical eyes. Brooke could tell he was thinking this was a dream lab, with the best equipment and everything he had hoped to obtain but failed to receive with his limited funding at MIT.
Dr. Yurik threw a switch and a powerful hologram lit up above a kiosk. David stepped in, staring dumbfounded at the seemingly infinite amount of information hovering around him. Stephanie handed over a pair of wired gloves which he put on. He reached out timidly at first, but quickly grasped the concept of the computer. He grabbed and moved information aside, organizing and sorting until he found what he sought. A giant double helix stood before him, six feet tall and color coded by proteins. He gasped.
“This genetic code is similar, but isn’t primate,” he exclaimed. All of a sudden it dawned on him. “You’ve advanced to humans?”
With the press of a button, Stephanie moved a panel on the wall. Hundreds of embryos floated in artificial amniotic fluid. Each appeared frozen in stasis. David walked forward and touched the glass with his gloved hand. “They’re alive?”
“Yes,” Jake replied, “but frozen in time until we perfect their code.”
“You found a way,” David whispered, “to make corrections after fertilization.”
“We did,” Yurik agreed, “and it was your theory. You figured it out.”
“Where are the test subjects? I want to meet them.”
Michael, who had been largely quiet up until this moment, answered, “Right this way.” He opened a door on the far wall.
Brooke asked, “How big is the actual lab?”
Captain Yurik smiled broadly as if about to reveal a secret. “Come and see,” she said, “and welcome to the Andalon Project!”
David seemed confused. “I don’t understand. Why name it after me if you stole it?”
Jake gave him a brotherly slap on the back and pointed at Brooke. “That was her stipulation and we all agreed. Besides, Gregor Mendel was a hack compared to you.”
A long runway led across a lower level and Brooke and David followed the rest across. Beneath their feet were four rooms, each vast and separated by steep walls. As Brooke crossed, she realized each room resembled a life-sized terrarium with trees and edible fruits growing beneath heat lamps—all hidden within an artificial sky. A concourse unified them in the center where a staircase led down.
David trembled as he stood before the door. Jake and Michael smiled widely, sharing a secret that they’ve no doubt been eager to divulge. Brooke almost believed her husband would forgive their deceit very soon. But then he shook free the veil.
“No,” he said. “This isn’t right.”
Michael asked, “What isn’t right?”
But Brooke knew. She was closer to her husband than any of his friends. She had feared the coming reaction.
“Cloning. This is morally corrupt and wrong. You’ve been playing God with actual lives.”
Jake suddenly turned serious. “And manipulating genes isn’t playing God? That’s the basis of your entire experiment.”
“I wanted to enhance humankind over time, slowly and deliberately. You’ve rushed in and created a new lifeform altogether.” He stepped away and moved to the stairs. As he was about to ascend, he paused and glanced at his assembled friends. “What life is there for those people beyond this door?”
Michael, always the most levelheaded of the trio, urged, “Open it and see. Afterward, if you agree they have a future, then help us. If you disagree, help us right our wrongs.”
Everyone waited, giving their friend time to clear his thoughts and make up his mind. When David finally turned around, Brooke could see he was ready.
*****
Jake held open the door and David stepped into the lab. Once inside he felt as if he had truly stepped into a different world. The sky above looked real and betrayed no sign of observers watching through the glass above. Tall trees surrounded him, each bearing fruit. Everywhere, there were edible plants carpeting the forest floor and providing nourishment for the subjects.
Captain Yurik whispered, “Welcome to the Garden of Eden, Dr. Andalon.”
“Well named,” he replied. “If Adam and Eve were to suddenly appear, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Let me call them,” she replied, ignoring his shocked expression.
“Adam,” she called, “Eve!” In a matter of moments two children around ten years in age emerged from behind a row of fig trees. Instead of biblical leaves, the pair were dressed in white jumpsuits.
“Hello, Stephanie,” the girl called out with a big smile on her face. “Oh, General Braston and Senator Esterling. It is wonderful you have come to visit again.”
The boy named Adam spoke directly to David, catching him by surprise. “Dr. Andalon, I have been expecting you and am very happy to see you finally in person.”
The professor asked, “How do you know me?”
“You are exactly how I remember.”
“But we’ve never met until now.”
“No, doctor. But I have dreamt of your coming.” He turned to Stephanie with eyes suddenly filled with sadness. “Does this mean your world is destroyed,” he asked?
She nodded, suddenly finding it difficult to speak.
“So sad,” Adam said, “that so much life should be ended in an instant.”
“And worse,” added Eve, “that so many more will perish slowly.”
David whirled around, facing Jake and Michael. “That’s why you were so adamant we join you. That’s why you’re taking this entire end of world scenario in stride. You knew? They foretold the destruction?”
“Down to every fine detail.”
“That’s why you risked taking the plane up, despite the threat of an EMP?” He shook his head in wonder, amazed by everything taking place around him. “You knew you’d succeed.”
Michael nodded. “That sums it up in a nutshell. Jake called me two days ago and I hurried out.”
David asked Adam, “When did you dream all of this?”
The boy answered calmly, as if he were talking about the weather. “Five years ago, Dr. Andalon. But only this week did I know the exact date and time.”
David felt his head spin. Nearby, Sam, Mi-Jung, and Brooke stood silent, processing the information and listening to the exchange. “What other abilities do you possess,” he asked.
The leaves around him rustled upon a sudden breeze that cooled his skin. He felt a finger touch his ear and he turned, finding no one but seeing a tendril of air waving back. He reached out his hand to touch it and passed right through. Suddenly it took a more corporeal form and morphed into a hand held out for greeting. He grasped it, finding it firm.
“General Braston taught me that a firm handshake is how gentlemen exchange greeting,” Adam explained.
“Yes,” David agreed, “that’s very true.” He turned to Jake and Michael, avoiding his wife entirely. “This doesn’t forgive any of you, but I’m in.”