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?
Victor could hardly contain himself. He rose to his feet and paced the length of the room. The only idea that came to mind was a long shot: some rapid, half-baked moralistic reactionary had stumbled onto the details of the NGF
experiment. In a vengeful attempt to blot out Victor’s efforts, the madman had murdered the Hobbs and Murray kids.
But if this scenario were the case, why hadn’t the smart rats been disposed of? And what about VJ? Besides, so few people had access to the computer and the labs. Victor thought about the hacker who had deleted the files. But how would such a person gain access to the labs, or even the day-care center? All at once, Victor understood that it was only at the day-care center that the Hobbs and Murray babies’
lives intersected. They had to have received the cephaloclor at the day-care center!
Victor angrily considered Hurst’s threat: “You’re not the white knight you want us to believe.” Maybe Hurst knew all about the NGF project and this was his way of retaliating.
Victor started pacing again. Even the Hurst idea didn’t fit well with the facts. If Hurst or anyone wanted to get back at him, why not old-fashioned blackmail, or just exposure to the newspapers? That made more sense than killing innocent children. No, there had to be another explanation, something more evil, less obvious.
Victor sat down at his desk and took out some results from recent laboratory experiments and tried to do some work. But he couldn’t concentrate. His thoughts kept circling back to the NGF project. Considering what he was up against, it was too bad he couldn’t go to the authorities with his suspicions. Doing so would require a full disclosure of the NGF project, and Victor understood that he could never do that. It would amount to professional suicide. To say nothing of his family life. If only he had never done this experiment in the first place.
Leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head, Victor stared up at the ceiling. Back when VJ’s intelligence had dropped, Victor had never even considered testing him for cephaloclor. Could the antibiotic have been sequestered in his body since birth, only to leach out when he was between two and four years old? “No,” Victor voiced to the ceiling, answering his own question. There was no physiological process that could cause such a phenomenon.
Victor marveled at the storm of events whirling around him: Gephardt’s murder, the possible purposeful elimination of two genetically engineered children, an escalating series of threats to himself and his family, fraud, and embezzlement. Could these disparate incidents be related in some fantastic, grisly plot?
Victor shook his head. The fact that all these things were happening at once had to be coincidence. But the thought they were related nagged. Victor thought again of VJ. Could he be at risk? How could Victor prevent him from receiving cephaloclor if there was some sinister hand trying to effect just that?
Victor stared blankly ahead. The idea of VJ’s being at risk had disturbed him since Wednesday afternoon. He began to wonder if his warnings about Beekman and Hurst had been adequate. He got up from the desk and walked to the door.
Suddenly he didn’t like the idea of VJ wandering around Chimera on his own.
Starting out in the lab just as he had done on Wednesday, he began asking if anyone had seen VJ. But no one had seen either him or Philip for some time. Victor left the lab building and went to the cafeteria. It was just before lunchtime and the cafeteria staff was in the final countdown in preparation for the noontime rush. A few people who preferred to get a jump on the others were already eating their lunches. Victor went directly to the manager, Curt Tarkington, who was supervising the stocking of the steam table.
“I’m looking for my son again,” Victor said.
“He hasn’t been in yet,” Curt said. “Maybe you should give him a beeper.”
“Not a bad idea,” Victor said. “When he shows up, would you ring my secretary?”
“No problem,” Curt said.
