Mutation

Victor ran down the list: polypeptide synthesizers, scintillation counters, centrifuges, electron microscope . .

.

“Electron microscope!” Victor yelled. “How the hell did that vanish? How did this guy get the equipment off-site, much less fence it? I mean the market for a hot electron microscope has to be small.” Victor looked at Colleen questioningly. In his mind’s eye he saw the van parked in Gephardt’s driveway.

“You’ve got me,” was all she could offer.

“It’s a disgrace that he was able to get away with it for so long. It certainly says something about our accounting methods and our security.”

By eleven-thirty Victor was finally able to slip out the back of his office and walk over to his lab. The morning’s administrative work had only agitated him to an even more exasperated state. But, stepping into his lab, he began to unwind. It was an immediate, almost reflexive response.

Research was the reason he’d started Chimera, not fussy paperwork.

Victor was walking to his lab office door when one of the technicians spotted him and hurried over. “Robert was looking for you,” she told him. “We were supposed to tell you as soon as we saw you.”

Victor thanked her and began to look for Robert. He found him back at the gel electrophoresis unit.

“Dr. Frank!” Robert said happily. “We had a positive on two of your samples.”

“You mean—” Victor asked.

“Both blood samples you gave me were positive for trace amounts of cephaloclor.”

Victor froze. For a moment he couldn’t even breathe. When he handed those samples over to Robert, he’d never expected a positive finding. He was just doing it to be complete, like a medical student doing a standard work-up.

“Are you sure?” Victor voiced with some difficulty.

“That’s what Harry said,” said Robert. “And Harry’s pretty reliable. You didn’t expect this?”

“Hardly,” said Victor. He was already considering the implications if this were true. Turning to Robert he added,

“I want it checked.”

Without another word, Victor turned and went back to his lab office. In one of his desk drawers he had a small bottle of cephaloclor capsules. He took one out and walked back through the main lab, through the dissecting room, and into the animal room. There he selected two compatible smart rats, put them in a cage by themselves, and added the contents of the capsule to their water. He watched as the white powder dissolved, then hooked the water bottle to the side of the cage.

Leaving his Department of Development Biology, Victor walked down the long hall and up one flight to the Department of Immunology. He went directly to Hobbs.

“How are you doing now that you’re back to work?” Victor asked him.

“My concentration isn’t one hundred percent,” Hobbs admitted, “but it is much better for me to be here and busy.

I was going crazy at home. So was Sheila.”

“We’re glad to have you back,” Victor said. “I wanted to ask once more if there was any chance at all that your boy could have gotten some cephaloclor.”

“Absolutely not,” Hobbs said. “Why? Do you think that cephaloclor could have triggered the edema?”

“Not if he didn’t get any,” said Victor in a manner that conveyed case closed. Leaving a somewhat confused Hobbs in his wake, Victor set out for Accounting to question Murray.

His response was the same. There was no way that either child had been given cephaloclor.

On the way back to his lab, Victor passed the computer center. Entering, he sought out Louis and inquired about the evening’s plans.

“We’ll be ready,” Louis said. “The phone company representatives will be here around six to start setting up.

It’s just up to the hacker to log on and stay on. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

“Me too,” Victor said. “I’ll be in my lab. Have someone get in touch with me if he tries to tap in. I’ll come right over.”

“Sure thing, Dr. Frank.”

Victor continued on to his lab, trying to keep his thoughts steady. It wasn’t until he was sitting down at his desk that he allowed himself to consider the significance of cephaloclor in the two unfortunate toddlers’ bloodstreams.

Clearly the antibiotic had somehow been introduced. There was no doubt it had turned the NGF gene on, which when activated, would effectively stimulate the brain cells to the point at which they’d begin dividing. With closed skulls unable to expand, the swelling brain could swell only to a certain limit. Unchecked, the swelling would herniate the brainstem down into the spinal canal, as discovered in the children at the autopsy.

Victor shuddered. Since neither child could have gotten the cephaloclor by accident, and since both got it at apparently the same time, Victor had to assume that they’d both received the antibiotic in a deliberate attempt to kill them.

Victor rubbed his face roughly, then ran his fingers through his hair. Why would someone want to kill two extraordinary, prodigiously intelligent babies? And who?