Douglas Preston - Mount Dragon

Day after day Burt worked on various angles of the problem: computer-modeling the protein coat; employing various enzymes, heat treatments, and chemicals; moving from one angle of attack to another with rapidity. Scattered liberally throughout the notes were comments from Scopes, who seemed to peruse Burt’s work several times a week. The computer had also captured many on-line typed “conversations” between Scopes and Burt. As he read these exchanges, Carson found himself admiring Scopes’s understanding of the technical aspects of his business, and envying Burt’s easy familiarity with the GeneDyne CEO.

Despite Burt’s ceaseless energy and brilliant attack, however, nothing seemed to work. Altering the protein capsule around the flu virus itself was an almost trivial matter. Each time, the coat remained stable in vitro, and Burt would then move toward an in vivo test—injecting the altered virus into chimpanzees. Each time, the animals lived for a while without obvious symptoms, then suddenly died hideous deaths.

Carson scrolled through page after page in which an increasingly exasperated Burt recorded continual, inexplicable failures. Over time, the entries seemed to lose their clipped, dispassionate tone, and become more rambling and personal. Barbed comments about the scientists Burt worked with— especially Rosalind Brandon-Smith, whom he detested—began to appear.

About three weeks before Burt left Mount Dragon, the poems began. Usually ten lines or less, they focused on the hidden, obscure beauty of science: the quaternary structure of a globulin protein, the blue glow of Cerenkov radiation. They were lyrical and evocative, yet Carson found them chilling, appearing suddenly between columns of test results, unbidden, like alien guests.

Carbon , one of the poems began,

Most beautiful of elements.

Such infinite variety,

Chains, rings, branches, buckyballs, side groups, aromatics.

Your index of refraction kills shahs and speculators.

Carbon.

You who were with us in the streets of Saigon,

You were everywhere, floating in the air

Invisible in the fear and sweat,

The napalm.

Without you we are nothing.

Carbon we were and carbon we shall become.

The entries quickly grew more sporadic and disjointed as the end drew near. Carson had increasing difficulty following Burt’s logic from one thought to another. Throughout, Scopes had been a constant background presence; now his comments and suggestions became more critical and sarcastic. Their exchanges developed a distinct confrontational edge: Scopes aggressive, Burt evasive, almost penitent.

Burt, where were you yesterday?

I took the day off and walked outside the perimeter.

For every day this problem isn’t solved, it’s costing GeneDyne one million dollars. So Dr. Burt decides to take the day off for a one-million-dollar hike. Charming. Everybody’s waiting on you, Frank, remember? The entire project’s waiting on you.

Brent, I just can’t go on day after day. I’ve got to have some time to think and be alone.

So what did you think about?

I thought about my first wife.

Jesus Christ, he thought about his first wife. One million bucks, Frank, to think about your fucking first wife. I could kill you, I really could.

I just couldn’t work yesterday. I’ve tried everything, including recombinant viral vectors. The problem isn’t solvable.

Frank, I really hate you for even thinking that. No problem is insoluble. That’s what you said about the blood, remember? And then you solved it. You did it, Frank, think about it! And I love you for it, Frank, I do. And I know you can do it again. There’s a Nobel Prize in this for you, I swear.

Tempting me with glory won’t help, Brent. Money won’t, either. Nothing is going to make an impossible problem possible.

Don’t say that, Frank. Please. It hurts me to hear you say that word, because it’s always a lie. “Impossible” is a lie. The universe is strange and vast, and anything is possible. You remind me of Alice in Wonderland. You remember that exchange between Alice and the Queen about this very subject?

No, I don’t. And I don’t think Alice in Wonderland is going to help me believe in the impossible.

You son of a bitch, if I hear that word again I’ll come out there and kill you with my bare hands. Look, I’ve given you everything you need. Please, Frank, just get back in there and do it. I have faith that you can do it. Look, why don’t you just start over. Start with some other host, something really improbable, like a new virus, a macrophage. Or a reovirus. Something that will let you approach things from an entirely new direction. Okay?

All right, Brent.

Several days passed with no entries at all. Then, on June 29—just a fortnight past—came a rush of writing, full of apocalyptic imagery and ominous ramblings. Several times Burt mentioned a “key factor,” never explaining what it was. Carson shook his head. His predecessor had obviously gone delusional, imagining solutions his rational mind had been unable to discover.

Carson sat back, feeling the trapped sweat collecting between his shoulder blades and around his elbows. For the first time, he felt a momentary thrust of fear. How could he succeed, when a man like Burt had failed—not only failed, but lost his mind in the process? He glanced up and found de Vaca looking at him.

“Have you read this?” he asked.

She nodded.

“How ... I mean, how do they expect me to take this over?”

“That’s your problem,” she responded evenly. “I’m not the one with the degrees from Harvard and MIT.”

Carson spent the rest of the day rereading the early experiments, staying away from the distracting convolutions of Burt’s lab notes. Toward the end of the day he began to feel more upbeat. There was a new recombinant DNA technique he had worked with at MIT that Burt hadn’t been aware of. Carson diagrammed the problem, breaking it down into its parts, then further breaking down those parts until it had been separated into irreducibles.

As the day drew to a close, Carson began to sketch out an experimental protocol of his own. There was, he realized, still a lot to work with. He stood up, stretched, and watched as de Vaca plugged her notebook into the network jack.

“Don’t forget to upload,” she said. “I’m sure Big Brother will want to check over your work tonight.”

“Thanks,” said Carson, scoffing inwardly at the thought that Scopes would waste time looking over his notes. Scopes and Burt had clearly been friends, but Carson was still just a grade-three technician from the Edison office. He uploaded the day’s data, stored the computer in its cubbyhole for the night, then followed de Vaca as she made the long slow trip out of the Fever Tank.

Back in the ready room, Carson had unbuckled his visor and was unzipping the lower part of his biohazard suit when he glanced over at his assistant. She had already stowed her suit and was shaking out her hair, and Carson was surprised to see not the chunky señorita he had imagined underneath the bluesuit, but a slender, extremely beautiful young woman with long black hair, brown skin, and a regal face with two deep purple eyes.

She turned and caught his look.

“Keep your eyes to yourself, cabrón ,” she said, “if you don’t want them to end up like one of those chimps in there.”

She slung her handbag over her shoulder and strode out while the others in the ready room erupted into laughter.

The room was octagonal. Each of its eight walls rose ponderously toward a groined ceiling that hung fifty feet above, softly illuminated by invisible cove lighting. Seven walls were covered with enormous flat-panel computer screens, currently dark. The eighth wall contained a door, flush with the wall, small but extremely thick to accommodate the room’s external soundproofing. Although the room stood sixty stories above the Boston harbor, there were no windows and no views. The floor was laid in rare Tanzanian mbanga slate. The colors were a spectrum of muted grays, ashes, and taupes.