Greg Bear: Blood Music

Genetron did not want publicity or even a tinge of controversy. Not yet. It needed a spotless reputation when it made its stock public and announced it was manufacturing functional MABs.

They had not been concerned with Hazel’s papers, however. They had allowed her to keep them. That Harrison had retained his file bothered Vergil.

When he was certain their guard was down, he went into action. He requested access to the company computers (he had been put on restriction indefinitely); quite properly, he said he needed to check his figures on structures of denatured and unfolded proteins. Permission was granted, and he logged onto the system in the share lab one evening after eight.

Vergil had grown up a little too early to be classified as an eighties whizkid, but in the last seven years he had revised his credit records at three major firms and made an entry into the records of a famous university. That entry had practically guaranteed his getting the Genetron position. Vergil had never felt guilty about these intrusions and manipulations.

His credit was never going to be as bad as it had once been, and there was no sense hi being punished for past indiscretions. He knew he was fully capable of doing Genetron’s work—his fake university records were just a show for personnel directors who needed lights and music. Besides, Vergil had believed—until the past couple of weeks—that the world was his personal puzzle, and that any riddlings and unravelings he could perform, including computer hacking, were simply part of his nature.

He found it ridiculously easy to break the Rinaldi code used to conceal Genetron’s confidential files. There were no mysteries for him in the Gödel numbers and strings of seemingly random digits that came up on the screen. He slid into the numbers and information like a seal into water.

He found his file and switched a key equation for the code in that section only. Then he decided to play it safer-there was always the possibility, however remote, of someone being just as ingenious as he was. He deleted the file completely.

Next on his agenda was locating the medical records for Genetron employees. He altered his insurance designation and hid the alteration. Queries from outside sources would find him fully covered even after his termination, and there would never be any question about his not paying premiums.

He worried about such things. His health was never completely satisfactory.

He thought for a moment about other mischief that could be worked, and decided against it. He was not vindictive. He shut the terminal off and unplugged it

Surprisingly little time—two days—passed before the deletion was noticed. Rothwild confronted him in the hall early one morning and told him his lab was off limits. Vergil protested mildly that he had a box of personal belongings he wanted to take with him.

“Fine, but that’s it. No biologicals. I want to inspect everything.”

Vergil calmly agreed. “What’s wrong now?” he asked.

“Frankly, I don’t know,” Rothwild said. “And I don’t care to know. I vouched for you. So did Thornton. You’re a great disappointment to us all.”

Vergil’s mind raced. He had never removed the lymphocytes; they had seemed safe enough disguised in the lab refrigerator, and he had never expected the boom to be lowered so quickly. “I’m out?”

“You’re out. And I’m afraid you’re going to find it hard getting employment in any other private lab. Harrison is furious.”

Hazel was already at work when they entered the lab. Vergil picked up the box in the neutral zone beneath the sink, covering the label with his hand. He hefted it and surreptitiously removed the tape, balling it up and dropping it into the trash basket “One more thing,” he said. “I have some lab failures laced with tracer that should be disposed of. Properly. Radionucleides.”

“Oh, shit,” Hazel said. “Where?”

“In the fridge. Not to worry—just carbon 14. May I?” He looked at Rothwild. Rothwild gestured for the box to be put on a counter so he could inspect it “May I?” Vergil repeated. “I don’t want to leave anything around that could be harmful.”

Rothwild nodded reluctantly. Vergil went to the Kelvinator, dropping his lab coat on the counter. His hand brushed over a box of hypodermics, palming one.

The lymphocyte pallet was on the bottom shelf. Vergil kneeled and removed a tube. He quickly inserted the syringe and drew up twenty cc’s of the serum. The syringe had never been used before and the cannule should therefore be reasonably sterile; he had no time for an alcohol swab, but he had to take that risk.

Before he inserted the needle under his skin, he wondered briefly what he was doing, and what he thought he could gain. There was very little chance the lymphocytes would survive. It was possible that his tampering had changed them sufficiently for them to either die in his bloodstream, unable to adapt, or do something uncharacteristic and be destroyed by his own immune system.

Either way, the life span of an active lymphocyte hi the human body was a matter of weeks. Life was hard for the body’s cops.

The needle went in. He felt a dull prick, a brief sting, and the cold fluid mixing with his blood. He withdrew the needle and lay the syringe in the bottom of the refrigerator. Pallet of tubes and spinner bottle in hand, he stood and shut the door. Rothwild watched nervously as Vergil put on rubber gloves and one by one poured the contents of the tubes into a beaker half-filled with ethanol. He then added the fluid in the spinner bottle. With a small grin, Vergil stoppered the beaker and sloshed its contents, then placed it into a protected waste box. He slid the box across the floor with his foot. “It’s all yours,” he said.

Rothwild had finished turning through the notebooks. “I’m not sure these shouldn’t remain in our possession,” he said. “You spent a lot of our time working on them.”

Vergil’s idiot grin didn’t change. “I’ll sue Genetron and spread dirt hi every journal I can think of. Not good for your upcoming position in the market, no?”

Rothwild regarded him with half-lidded eyes, his neck and cheeks pinking slightly. “Get out of here,” he said. “We’ll send the rest of your stuff later.”

Vergil picked up the box. The cold feeling in his forearm had passed now. Rothwild escorted him down the stairs and across the sidewalk to the gate. Walter accepted the badge, his face rigid, and Rothwild followed Vergil to the parking lot.

“Remember your contract,” Rothwild said. “Just remember what you can and cannot say.”

“I am allowed to say one thing, I believe,” Vergil said, struggling to keep his words dear through his anger.

“What’s that?” Rothwild asked.

“Fuck you. All of you.”

Vergil drove by the Genetron sign and thought of all that had happened within those austere walls. He looked at the black cube beyond, barely visible through a copse of eucalyptus trees.

More than likely, the experiment was over. For a moment he felt ill with tension and disgust. And then he thought of the billions of lymphocytes he had just destroyed. His nausea increased and he had to swallow hard to keep the taste of acid out of his throat.

“Fuck you,” he murmured, “because everything I touch is fucked.”

Humans were a randy bunch, Vergil decided as he perched on a stool and watched the cattle call. Mellow space music powered the slow, graceful gyrations on the dance floor and flashing amber lights emphasized the pulse of packed bodies, male and female. Over the bar, an amazing array of polished brass tubing hummed and spluttered delivering drinks—mostly vintage wines by the glass—and forty-seven different kinds of coffees. Coffee sales were up; the evening had blurred into early morning and soon Weary’s would be turning off and shutting down.