Робин Кук - Mutation

The room was about fifty feet long and rather narrow. On a long bench built of rough-hewn lumber sat four fifty-gallon glass tanks. The sides were fused with silicone. The tanks were illuminated by heat lamps and gave off the eerie blue light as it refracted through the contained fluid.

Marsha’s jaw dropped in horror when she realized what was in the tanks. Inside each one and enveloped in transparent membranes were four fetuses, each perhaps eight months old, who were swimming about in their artificial wombs. They watched Marsha as she walked down the aisle, their blue eyes fully open. They gestured, smiled, and even yawned.

Casually, but with an air of arrogant pride, VJ gave a cursory explanation of the system. In each tank the placentas were plastered onto a plexiglass grid against a membrane bag connected to a sort of heart-lung machine. Each machine had its own computer, which was in turn attached to a protein synthesizer. The liquid surface of each tank was covered with plastic balls to retard evaporation.

Neither Marsha nor Victor could speak, so appalled were they by the sight of the gestating children. Although they had tried to prepare themselves for the unexpected, this was a shock too outrageous to behold.

“I’m sure you’re wondering what this is all about,” VJ said, moving up to one of the tanks and checking one of the many read-out devices. He hit it with his fist and a stuck needle indicator sprang into the green-painted normal zone. “My early work on implantation had me modeling wombs with tissue culture. Solving the implantation problem also solved the problems of why a uterus was needed at all.”

“How old are these children?” Marsha asked.

“Eight and a half months,” VJ said, confirming Marsha’s impression. “I’ll be keeping them gestating a lot longer than the usual nine months. They will be easier to raise the longer I keep them in their tanks.”

“Where did you get the zygotes?” Victor asked, although he already knew the answer.

“I’m pleased to say that they are my brothers and sisters.”

Marsha’s incredulous gaze went from the fetuses in the tanks to VJ.

VJ laughed at her expression. “Come now, this can’t be that much of a surprise. I got the zygotes from the freezer in Father’s lab. No sense letting them go to waste or letting Dad implant them in other people.”

“There were five,” Victor said. “Where’s the fifth?”

“Good memory,” VJ said. “Unfortunately, I had to waste the fifth on an early test of the implantation protocol. But four is plenty for statistical extrapolation, at least for the first batch.”

Marsha turned back to the gestating children. They were her own!

“Let’s not be too surprised at all this,” VJ said. “You knew this technology was on its way. I’ve just speeded it up.”

Victor went up to one of the computers as it sprang to life and spewed out a half page of data. As soon as it was finished printing, the protein synthesizer turned on and began making a protein.

“The system is sensing the need for some kind of growth factor,” VJ explained.

Victor looked at the print-out. It included the vital signs, chemistries, and blood count of the child. He was astounded at the sophistication of the setup. Victor knew that VJ had had to artificially duplicate the fantastically complicated interplay of forces necessary to take a fertilized egg to an entire organism. The feat represented a quantum leap in biotechnology. A radically new and successful implantation technology was one thing, but this was entirely another. Victor shuddered to consider the diabolic potential of what his creation had created.

Marsha timidly approached one of the tanks and peered in at a boy-child from closer range. The child looked back at her as if he wanted her; he put a tiny palm up against the glass. Marsha reached out with her own and laid her hand over the child’s with just the thickness of the glass separating them. But then she drew her hand back, revolted. “Their heads!” she cried.

Victor came up beside her and leaned toward the child. “What’s the matter with his head?”

“Look at the eyebrows. Their heads slant back without foreheads.”

“They’re mutated,” VJ explained casually. “I removed Victor’s added segment, then destroyed some of the normal NGF loci. I’m aiming at a level of intelligence similar to Philip’s. Philip has been more helpful in aiding me in all my efforts than anyone else.”

Marsha shuddered, gripping Victor’s hand out of VJ’s sight. Victor ignored her and pointed to the door at the end of the room. “What’s beyond that door?”

“Haven’t you seen enough?” VJ asked.

“I’ve got to see it all,” Victor said. He left Marsha and walked down the length of the room. For a moment Marsha stared at the tiny boy-child with his prominent brow and flattened head. It was as if human evolution had stepped back five hundred thousand years. How could VJ deliberately make his own brothers and sisters — such as they were — retarded? His Machiavellian rationale made her shudder.

Marsha pulled herself away from the gestation tanks and followed Victor. She had to see everything too. Could there really be anything worse than what she had just seen?

The next room had huge stainless-steel containers lined in a row. They looked like giant kettles she’d seen at a brewery when she was a teenager. It was warmer and more humid in this room. Several men without shirts labored over one of the vats, adding ingredients to it. They stopped working and looked back at Victor and Marsha.

“What are these tanks?” Marsha asked.

Victor could answer. “They’re fermentors for growing microorganisms like bacteria or yeast.” Then he asked VJ, “What’s growing inside?”

“E. coli bacteria,” VJ said. “The workhorse of recombinant DNA technology.”

“What are they making?” Victor said.

“I’d rather not say,” VJ answered. “Don’t you think the gestational units are enough for one day?”

“I want to know everything,” Victor said. “I want it all out on the table.”

“They are making money,” VJ said with a smile.

“I’m not in the mood for riddles,” Victor said.

VJ sighed. “I had the short-term need for a major capital infusion for the new lab. Obviously, going public wasn’t an alternative for me. Instead, I imported some coca plants from South America and extracted the appropriate genes. I then inserted these genes into a lac operon of E. coli, and using a plasmid that carried a resistance to tetracycline, I put the whole thing back into the bacteria. The product is marvelous. Even the E. coli love it.”

“What is he saying?” Marsha asked Victor.

“He’s saying that these fermentors are making cocaine,” Victor said.

“That explains Martinez Enterprises,” Marsha said with a gasp.

“But this production line is purely temporary,” VJ explained. “It is an expedient means of providing immediate capital. Shortly the new lab will be running on its own merit without the need for contraband. And yes, Martinez Enterprises is a temporary partner. In fact, we can field a small army on a moment’s notice. For now, a number of them are on the Chimera payroll.”

Victor walked down the line of fermentors. The degree of sophistication of these units also amazed him. He could tell at a glance they were far superior to what Chimera was using. Victor pulled away from them with a heavy sigh and rejoined Marsha and VJ.

“Now you’ve seen it all,” said VJ. “But now that you have, we have to have a serious talk.”

VJ turned and walked back toward the main room with Victor and Marsha following. As they passed through the gestation room, the fetuses again moved to the glass. It seemed they longed for human company. If VJ noticed, he didn’t show it.