Warren Murphy: Killer Chromosomes

The woman made a face.

"Ooooh, that was awful. Let me wash it down with a drink or something."

"Don't," said Sheila. "It won't survive alcohol."

The woman blinked. She smiled. She collapsed on the white sag carpet and breathed slowly.

Sheila peered at the corner of the right eye. The eye was open and the pupil stared unseeing at the ceiling.

Two things would have to happen for this to work. One, Sheila's theory that each cell contained its own program and would, like a tumbler falling properly in a combination lock, go through the bloodstream to its right place. And two, speed.

Sheila herself was evidence that something happened quickly. Exactly what, she was not sure. But would specific changes happen quickly?

And was human saliva the key to keeping the foreign genetic material alive in a new body? She could only wait and see.

The woman's eyes were covered with some light oil. Sheila rubbed it with her thumb. If Sheila were correct, not only would there be the specific change-that is, the baby's cells in their proper relationship to the rest of the body, eye crease to eye crease, but-as with Sheila-a vast amount of changeover would occur almost instantly.

It may have been her imagination or great disappointment but the eyes suddenly seemed more wrinkled than before. Instead of a few lines, there was now a flutter of bumps like very thin paper veneer bubbled up with water. She heard the traffic outside honk for a light that lingered too long. She smelled the woman's light perfume. She touched the heavy crow's feet around the eye. The skin was dry.

Sheila sighed. She had failed. She wondered for a moment if her experiments in the lab had produced not a different species as she thought she was, but just another insane person. One who was so insane she liked human meat.

But if that were so, why was she so strong? How could she move so effortlessly? Perhaps it was the strength of a madwoman. She had heard of these things.

She rubbed the skin around the eyes between her fingers. It crumbled. Little cells giving up in dryness. And then she saw it. Skin removed left new skin underneath.

The eyelines were gone. At corners of the woman's eyes was smooth baby skin. The new cells had pushed out the old, making them even more wrinkly.

Sheila turned the woman's head. The other eye had a translucent white patch just where the eyelids met. With her fingertips, Sheila lifted it off and chewed it like a snack.

When the woman regained consciousness and saw her eyes, felt her skin, and turned this way and that to see how beautiful she looked from different angles-full face forward was best-she had one response as to what she would do for Dr. Sheila Feinberg.

"Anything."

"Good," said Sheila. "Now I know you have friends. And I want to help them too in a special way. I'm starting a special clinic."

"You'll be rich."

Sheila smiled. Rich was for humans. She wondered if her species would have a form of currency someday?

There were no thoughts about her species being a better species than man. Or worse. It didn't matter. Sheila Feinberg understood then, logically, what she had understood instinctively since the transformation, and what almost every soldier knows who has seen combat.

One kills not because one is right or brave or even angry. One kills to live. One kills others because they are others.

Despite all the reasons humans gave for wars, Sheila understood all those reasons were wrong. Humans fought not for justice or even conquest, but because they perceived another person as simply another person. A border. A language difficulty. Different clothes called uniforms. All made it easy to tell who were the others.

She had never studied political science or history as a student. But she knew she understood more about humans now than anyone who had ever majored in those supposed sciences.

Perhaps her species would be luckier and not fight among itself as humans did, but reserve its efforts for other species.

"Yes, rich," agreed Sheila. Let the human woman think she wanted money.

Sheila needed a young girl with big breasts, a young girl with a shapely nose, a young girl with flaxen yellow hair, a young girl with smooth and tender hips.

"Tender?"

"I mean smooth and full," said Sheila.

"That's quite an order for one girl."

"Oh, no. Different girls. But Caucasians."

"Your method only works with similar races?" the woman asked.

"On the contrary. There really isn't any difference between the races. It's a cosmetic thing. Who'd want to put a black breast on a white chest? Or vice versa?"

"How interesting," said the woman, not all that interested. She pulled up at the top of her left breast. She imagined what it would look like young again. She imagined what it would look like very big. She had always said she was glad she didn't have those big floppy breasts. She had always said big breasts were an American distortion, a cultural prejudice not shared by really civilized people.

"I know a 42-Double-D cup," said the woman, grinning. She imagined those battlements parading before her and felt quite excited.

Sheila had other problems. She hadn't eaten for a day. She fell on an old woman carrying a loaf of bread. Sheila left the bread.

The next day the young girls arrived.

Within twenty-four hours, Sheila Feinberg had the sort of features her mother had once called "gaudy."

The nose had lost its prolonging bump. The chest curved massively. The hips came out with soft invitation.

Her hair was long and golden blonde.

She could not be recognized by the police anymore, but even more important, with her new beauty, she now had an awesome power over the male human. Let the government send its best after her. First they would have to find and recognize her; then they would have to resist her physical charms.

Being searched for now wasn't the worst of her problems. She had to find a mate.

The day had become quite itchy for her. She restrained an urge to rub her back against door jambs and put her scent around greater Boston. She was, quite simply, in heat.

She was ready to breed.

She had two more dinners and when the carcasses were found, bellies eaten out, agents from the federal government came pouring into the city. Secret Service men came, although the crime had nothing to do with the U.S. Treasury. FBI men, although the crime had nothing to do with federal laws. CIA scientists examined the corpses, although it was against the law for that agency to operate internally.

The mayor of the city, faced with a problem he neither understood nor had a remote chance of coping with, went on television to tell greater Boston:

"We have stepped up surveillance. We have increased our deployed forces and we are working toward what we expect to be a significant step in stemming this terror."

What he really meant was that the city, along with everyone else, was spending more money. Those who survived would be taxed more in the future.

It was summer and the humans of the city were preparing for their annual fall rioting based on color. But something in their midst knew more about them than they did. She knew all humans were alike.

She also knew that, counting the gestation period, the reproductive process might be too slow.

"Perhaps," thought Sheila," I can make others like me in a faster way."

And by others like her, she did not mean just big-bosomed blondes.

CHAPTER FOUR

Security around the Boston Graduate School of Biological Sciences, where the now notorious Dr. Sheila Feinberg had done her chromosome experiments, was typically tight.

Many men with many guns and serious faces annoyed passers by who wished to use the street in front of the lab. Men with long hair and beards were questioned. That there was no more reason to question men with long hair and beards than there was to question crew cut, well-dressed men didn't seem to faze any of the guards.