Devoted(66)
According to some news reports, Refine, Inc., was a subsidiary of Parable, which had been founded and was still controlled by Dorian Purcell, the multibillionaire. Instead, Refine was a separate company entirely, private rather than public, largely but perhaps not entirely owned by Purcell.
They said Lee Shacket had been at the labs in Springville when the catastrophic gas leak had destroyed the complex and everyone in it. Given the inaccuracy of that information, Carson made a fearsome assumption: Whatever work Refine might be doing in Utah, cancer research was the least of it or perhaps not a part of it at all; they were preoccupied with something of a much more exotic and dangerous nature, and the explosion had been no accident.
After he brooded about the situation for a few minutes, he made three more assumptions. First, whatever else Refine might be doing in Utah, it must have contracts to perform research for the National Security Agency or for other government entities that relied on the NSA to cover their tracks for them. Second, no accidental explosion and fire at such a large facility could be so sudden and complete as to leave not one survivor; the intensity of the blaze suggested a doomsday device designed to halt the spread of highly contagious pathogens that might inspire a plague for which no cure existed, and the lack of a single survivor implied that a biologically secure lockdown program had intentionally trapped the ninety-three people in the facility. Ninety-two. Third assumption: Lee Shacket had slipped out seconds before he, too, would have been imprisoned.
And something was seriously wrong with him. Extreme violence and cannibalism weren’t symptoms of disease. Rabies? No, not even that retrovirus. In humans, the symptoms of rabies were high fever, muscle spasms, thirst, the inability to swallow liquids, seizures, eventually total paralysis. Outrageous violence and cannibalism suggested mental illness rather than a physical disease.
Or . . .
As Carson recalled the ravaged face of Justine Klineman, it seemed that Shacket must be shedding the customs, conventions, and practices of civilization, descending into a primitive moral state. Not just descending. Plummeting. Carson could think of no condition, physical or mental, that could lead to such an abrupt collapse—until the word devolution occurred to him. He didn’t know what he meant by that, why the word hung stubbornly in his mind. Then halfway through another mug of coffee, he found himself considering genetic engineering, by which some enthusiasts in the scientific community believed human evolution, the opposite of devolution, could be facilitated to improve the health and longevity of the species—and even to give it superhuman powers. Transhumanism and posthuman were words that thrilled them, that engendered visions of humankind raised to a godlike condition.
In recent years, momentous advances had taken place in genetic engineering. That technique of gene editing known as CRISPR had been used in China and elsewhere to edit out a disease-causing gene from the parental sperm and egg. But little was known about how genetic information was expressed in the individual or what the consequences of editing anything out might be. A grave danger existed that those engaged in such experiments might introduce inheritable changes in the genome that could lead to a cascade of faults that, over a few generations, might result in a new humanity of critically diminished physical and mental capacities. Or even bring on the extinction of the species. Some of the cooler heads thought it the most reckless practice of science in history, but there were always the true believers for whom a new trick of science became their religion.
And CRISPR was only one of several new techniques. If it or something even more effective was the subject of research at the Springville labs of Refine, might Lee Shacket be sliding down the evolutionary ladder into a terrifying primitive state? Or was it even possible that some material had been added to every cell in his body with the result that he was . . . What? Neither moving up nor down the evolutionary ladder? But somehow sliding . . . sideways?
Less than half an hour earlier, Carson had considered washing down a NoDoz tablet with his black coffee. He no longer needed any help staying awake. Cold dread did the job better than caffeine ever could.
He switched off the computer and got up from his chair and stood listening to the silence of the morgue. A line from T. S. Eliot came to mind: I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Room by room, he turned off the lights. He set the alarm and stepped outside and locked the door.
The wind sang requiem for the world, and it seemed to Carson that the chilly currents of harried air were more than that, were also time itself racing toward some plug that had been pulled, to drain away and leave the world eternally still, silent, and dark.
In the postmidnight alleyway, as he turned toward the town square, intending to walk home, he heard the sirens of ambulances. One seemed to be coming, the other going.
70
When Ben and Kipp were nearing the front of the line, the officers stopped inspecting vehicles. They removed the roadblock.
“I started to wonder if they were looking for you,” Ben Hawkins said. “Seems like someone should be trying to find the smartest dog in the world.”
Kipp wasn’t the smartest. Not nearly.
Someday Ben would have to meet Solomon to learn what a really smart dog was.
Solomon and Brandy. They were mates and very wise.
Leaning forward, Kipp panted and whined. They needed to move faster.
The boy hadn’t begun screaming again. But he was suffering, crying and miserable and alone.