The Zen Gene (14 page)

Western wanted to be certain the police did not find whatever it was they were cooking in that lab. I didn’t want to mention this in front of the boy’s mother. She was upset enough without hearing that news but I thought you should know,” she said.

“What body? Are you saying Tyler killed someone?”

“I don’t know the answer to that question. All I know is we plugged a video feed cable into his computer and it showed a corpse on the floor of lab four and the door was sealed with duct tape. The corpse, from what I could see, has been in there for a long time, it looked deformed. When I told Colonel Western about it he ordered us to clear the factory.

He wanted to ensure that nothing would lead the police to Tyler when the body was discovered. Until I heard you questioning him a few minutes ago I had no idea why Western would take such a crazy risk. Messing up a civilian crime scene is a serious matter but now I think I understand.

What I do not understand is why Tyler came back for us. He had no reason to help us. We were stealing his stuff. Nothing he does makes any sense to me, what is his deal anyway?” she said.

He thought about that as he turned onto the highway heading south. He was about to say something when they came up beside a police car and they both stiffened. It would not be easy to explain why Nichol was lying unconscious in the backseat. When the black and white turned a corner and sped away they both let out a deep breath of relief and relaxed.

“All I can tell you is he came home shortly after we heard the explosion and told us someone was hurt and needed my help, not his mom or Zen, me. It was as if he knew I was connected to you but there is no way he could have known. It is impossible to explain what drives him, you may have noticed he doesn’t talk a lot or explain things in detail, so it was odd how insistent he was that I help you.

They drove along in silence for a while.

“He isn’t connected with a terrorist cell is he?” she said.

“Clearly not, the bio-genetic thing he’s been working on is his idea alone and there is no mysterious terrorist father pulling the strings and using him as a delivery boy. The bullshit story Western told you is the same one he told me. As for the girl she is not involved in anything he is doing she is simply his friend and guardian angel,” he said.

By the time they arrived at the Emergency entrance Hunter had her cover story ready. Keep it simple, she thought, Nichol fell off his motorcycle and banged his head. She hoped some sharp nurse would not be suspicious about all the shrapnel holes on his back. She would explain her busted ribs by telling them she was on the back of the bike.

He stopped outside and ran inside to get help to move Nichol. He helped Hunter out of the car while two hospital attendants gently lifted Nichol off the back seat and onto a gurney. Mann walked her into the waiting area and found her a seat and knelt down in front of her for a moment to make certain she was not going to faint then he wished her good luck and left.

He did not stick around to find out if the medical staff bought her story. He needed to talk to Andi. What Hunter told him just made Tyler’s problems a lot worse. He knew that sooner or later Hunter would call Western and report to him what happened and he needed time to come up with a plan. He was on his way back to the motel when Andi called him.

“There is a new problem. On the way home Zen was asking Ty questions about Katie Peters. She asked him if he infected anyone else with POrna and he told her that he had infected her with it last winter,” she said.

“Oh no how did she take the news?” he said.

“Not well, she is hurt and angry. He tried to explain why he did it but it just made things worse,” she said, “I’m afraid she might call the police. Thank God her mom is on the road or it would be game over for Tyler.”

“Damn,” he said.

“I’m on my way over to talk to Zen now to see if I can calm her down. When you get here could you talk to Ty and find out what he did to her and if there is some way to fix it?” she said.

Andi sounded exhausted and completely overwhelmed.

“I’ll talk to him and I’ll speak to Zen too and see if I can help her with this,” he said.

“Thank you, Lee. I need help with this, I don’t understand what he has done or why,” she said.

He drove back to his motel to check out before going to Andi’s house. A plan was beginning to take shape. He needed to straighten out this mess and keep Tyler out of prison. He felt bad for Zen but at the moment he had no idea how to help her and he could only manage one crisis at a time.

He went into the room and packed his suitcase and grabbed the discarded bio-suits and facemasks. He paid and checked out of his room and then he returned the car to the rental company and paid the yard kid extra for cleaning out the puke. He told him he could keep the motel towels and he laughed when the kid sarcastically said, “Gee, thanks, Mister.”

He rented their smallest moving van and threw the bio-suits into the back then headed for Andi’s house. He got lost on his way there and turned down the wrong street and had to stop and turn around and that is when he caught a glimpse of a dark sedan he was certain he had seen earlier near the motel and for a moment he thought the car was following him but he laughed at his paranoia.

It was a coincidence Victoria is a small city.

When he knocked at Andi’s front door no one answered so he walked around to the back door and let himself in. Andi was still next door at Zen’s and the house was dark. He found Tyler in his bedroom in the basement and he tapped on the door.

“Can I come in?” he said through the door.

Tyler unlocked the door and without saying a word went back to his computer. He entered the room and looked around it was almost completely dark except for the light coming from the computer screen. He sat on the edge of his bed and watched him working at his computer. Tyler did not seem surprised to see him and he did not ask him why he was there or how he got in the house, his lack of curiosity about such things was not typical.

“What are you working on, Ty?” he asked.

“Glial cells.”

His wide-range of interests did not surprise him but he found it odd how he could be interested in such a diversity of subjects yet talk so little about it.

“Your mom asked me to talk to you. Zen is upset with you. Do you know why?”

“Zen is upset.”

“Do you know why she is upset?” he said.

“POrna.”

“Yes. She is angry that you infected her with it,” he said.

“Yes.”

“She is upset because you made her sick,” he said.

He watched the boy work through the details of their conversation in his mind.

“Are you sorry you did it?” he asked.

“No.”

“Tyler, it is not okay to infect someone. Do you know why?” he said.

He could see the boy thinking it over. He obviously did not understand why Zen would be upset about being infected so he tried to relate it to a past experience.

“Like asking her why she is fat.”

He could not help laughing at the boy’s weird understanding of things.

“Well, not exactly, Tyler. I suppose it is a bit like that only more serious,” he said, “Zen is a girl and things like that upset her.”

He said that and realized it was not exactly what he meant to say.

“Zen is a girl,” Tyler agreed.

He smiled and shook his head when he realized he reached the limit of Tyler’s social awareness. He could not waste any more time he needed to find out what he knew about the corpse in the old factory. Considering his tortured conversational style he decided it was best to jump straight in and get to the point.

“What do you know about the dead person at the factory?” he said. “Do you know who it is and what happened?”

“Hobo.”

“Do you mean the corpse was a street person?”

Tyler nodded.

“Do you know how he died?” he asked.

“Bacillus Anthracis.”

Tyler answered without hesitation as if he was reading it from the computer screen and he peeked to see if he was but Bacillus Anthracis was not on the screen. He sat down again with a growing sense of unease.

“Anthrax?” he said. “Are you certain Tyler? How do you know it was anthrax? Where did it come from?”

“The farm.”

He pointed his finger over his shoulder in the direction of the farm across the road.

“Why anthrax? What were you going to do with it?” he said.

“A vector.”

“What?” he said.

“I separated its virulence Plasmids, pXO1 and pXO2, but it was unstable. It resisted insertion of the mRNA sequence,” Tyler said.

He was stunned by this information. How could he know this stuff let alone work with it in these primitive conditions? The answer, he realized, was simple he didn’t do it someone was obviously working behind the scenes helping him.

“Tyler, did someone help you get the anthrax?” he said.

“David Klein.”

“Who is David Klein?” he asked as he tried to recall all the scientists named Klein.

“Farmer.”

He pointed over his shoulder again in the direction of the farm next door. While they were talking his eyes had adjusted to the low light in the room and details started to emerge. It was a big room which would likely be a rec room had it not been stuffed with all kinds of science and technology related items.

There were two long work benches built from scavenged lumber. He could see mismatched paint on their surfaces from prior use. The benches looked sturdy and were situated on opposite sides of the room. Both were completely covered with electronics and parts. Tyler was sitting at his computer, which occupied one end of the bench placed along the outside wall. He noticed a sedimentation chart taped to the wall above his head.

There was something that looked like it was once a blender on the floor. He got up and walked over to the workbench and examined the blender and saw it was modified to work as a centrifuge.

“Did you make this Ty?” he said.

“Yes.”

“How fast does it spin?” he said.

“15000 rpm. It broke.”

He saw a homemade gel box built with an electrical transformer from a Lionel train set and there was a bottle of polyacrylamide gel beside it.

“Ty, where did you get this gel?” he said.

“Free sample.”

He read the shipping label attached to the container. It was addressed to T. L. Worthy, President, Zen Gene Labs Ltd. at this address. It came from a scientific equipment distributor in Toronto he recognized. He continued to examine the various science-related devices and he laughed when he saw a huge clear glass pickle jar filled with white marbles. The end of a large black plastic dildo protruded from the marbles. It took him a moment to get control of himself and stop laughing before he asked him what the jar was used for.

“Cellular breakdown.”

He smiled at the boy’s absolutely dead pan expression when he answered. He continued to look around categorizing items and marveling at what he saw. He was amazed at the shear creative ingenuity of the kid. The devices he built, though not elegant, would certainly do the job they were meant to do.

He wondered how he had managed to work safely in the house with Andi around. How did he keep her from getting into things? Conceivably, if she decided to come in and start cleaning his room she could be exposed to something toxic.

“Did you work on anthrax here?” he said.

“I don’t work here.”

“What about all this equipment?” he said.

“Old stuff.”

“Does Andi ever come into your room to clean it?” he said.

“Not since the rat.”

Tyler pointed to a stain above the doorway to his room. He walked over and examined it. The wall above the door was stained with something brown and he saw tufts of fur stuck to the brown stuff.

“Rat stuff got on her hair.”

He smiled at the mischievous look on the boy’s face. He was getting a clearer picture of Tyler and he was relieved to see at least a few signs of typical teenage behaviour.

“Did you set that up to happen?” he said.

The boy’s face turned red.

“She touches stuff.”

He looked directly at Mann for the first time since he entered the room and he had a
do you know what I mean
look on his face.

“Yes Tyler I know what you mean,” he said.

“Tell me more about the POrna virus. What are its limiting factors? How virulent is it? Is it as communicable as polio or do you know?” he said.

“It has programed entropy. It mutates to harmless after three iterations,” he said.

“Did you design the entropy or does it naturally occur?”

“Design.”

“Have you created an anti-virus to control POrna in case the virus spontaneously mutates into a more virulent form, for instance what if it jumps and infects a non-human species like the avian influenza model?”

“No. There is no need. It relies 100% on human DNA to replicate the reptilian cells.”