Instinct (2010) Page 9

  ‘Yo, Lise … You seen Garrett lately?’ asked George quietly. He was dark, squat and toad-like, with wide brown lips that looked as if they’d been spread across his face with a palette knife. At forty-one, he was one of the older scientists, with a Buddha paunch and balding crown to prove it.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lisa said as she completed her pile of beans. She had arrived at MEROS a picture of blond, all-American super-health, but the lack of sunshine and exercise had left her the colour of putty and her toned body slackened like overstretched elastic. The hair was still fair, but with weeds of grey hiding within the gold. Before George had a chance to answer, they both said hello to Mike Irwin, Lisa’s research assistant. He was on his way back to their table with his own plate of chili.

  A frown dragged down Mike’s face as he caught the musty odour of stale meat. He dropped his plate loudly on to the metal table and spoke as he ate.

  ‘Hey, either of you seen Garrett? She hasn’t been that pissed since Madison hid her Playboy.’ Still in his early twenties, he had piercings in his left nostril, right eyebrow and both ears. His dyed-black hair was spiked upwards, elongating still further his whippet body.

  George smiled. ‘Yeah. It’s not just her. All the grunts are buzzing, and it’s been going on since before they went on mission.’

  Lisa shrugged. ‘I’ve been pulling double days on prep, so I’ve barely seen them. They’re crabby? How can you tell?’

  ‘You know that pissed-off sneer they give us because they got concrete where their IQs should be? Well, it’s sneerier. They’re stomping around louder and talking in corners more and giving shittier looks when you catch them doing it,’ said George.

  ‘And your theory?’ Lisa asked Mike.

  Mike wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and sat back in his chair. ‘It’s obvious. Someone died.’

  George and Lisa looked at Mike in such a way that suggested elaboration was now essential.

  ‘There’s only so many things that can happen around here that will rile those guys: the food’s already shit; the work is shit – but, again, same old same old; it’s not love problems because they’re all sour, so unless they had a big orgy that went wrong, that theory is out. Which leaves us with death, backed up by this: when did you last see Roach?’

  George furrowed his brow. ‘Roach … yeah, I haven’t seen Martin in a while, but Roach too. When did you last see either of them? They didn’t go out on mission, and that’s really strange.’ His slight Mexican brogue elongated really into a few seconds of wonder that hung in the dry air waiting for a response.

  Lisa broke the silence in an urgent whisper. ‘Come on, that’s not enough. They could be on manoeuvres … or something.’

  ‘Manoeuvres?’ said Mike. ‘You think they go on manoeuvres? Unless they’ve got a bunch of bugs to clear up, they just man the surveillance room and dick around, maybe pump some iron if they’re feeling constructive. You seen Roach and Martin doing that lately? If not, they’ve disappeared, and knowing how hard recruitment to this place is, Bishop and Webster didn’t just can them. They had no choice but to let them go.’ He paused to lean in for effect. ‘In a fuckin’ coffin.’

  16

  ‘Indeed, but if that were the only problem, we could continue as we are with little difficulty.’ Bishop frowned and leaned forward on to his desk.

  ‘The only record of David’s progress is in notebooks such as the one you saw him writing in. For ten years that hasn’t been a problem, but now his latest findings are in the room with the wasps, and without them we’re going in blind. Are they susceptible to cold, or immune to it? Are they going to die in two days’ time, or can they sustain themselves indefinitely? Is their poison the same as usual, or something more advanced? The answer to any question that might be of importance is in that notebook.’

  With a hint of a smile, Laura looked off into the middle distance. There was something karmic about the quandary they were in. Years of messing with the ancestors of these creatures had created a generation ready and able to take revenge. The humans had all the control, the equipment and the science, and yet in just ten years the wasps had gained the upper hand. Laura couldn’t help doing what she did every day at work: admire them.

  ‘Do they differ from your usual wasps in any other ways?’ she asked.

  ‘Good question. One thing we avoid here is the nest dynamic: queens, workers, etcetera. Removing that characteristic helps to keep them focused on their task. But when I went past the lab a couple of days ago, one of them behaved like it was … in charge. When it saw me, it immediately flew at the lab window, and the others quickly followed. Then, when it lost interest and fell back, the others did the same. We may have some unusual group-behaviour characteristics developing.’

  ‘You used the word “it”. Have you managed to breed the gender out of the subjects, or did you forget to use the word “she”?’

  ‘They are all female, of course, otherwise they’d have no ovipositors with which to sting.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘But we tend to refer to them as “it” down here, because they strike us as objects of manufacture rather than natural living creatures.’

  ‘That could be your first mistake, Mr Bishop. It sounds like these subjects have plenty of personality. You might want to remember that when you’re trying to predict their behaviour.’

  ‘Point taken. Thank you, Dr Trent. Anyway, to continue with the current facts : the first thing I did was call Major Webster and ask him to do what he could to contain the lab. He sent in two of our men – well, one male and one female – to retrieve the notebook and one of the wasps for study, and wipe out the rest. We didn’t think it would be any more problematic than usual mission containment, but just to make sure we pumped in a good dose of insecticide.

  ‘As it turned out, it was far from enough, and when the soldiers went in the wasps just … just swarmed on them as if the poison had had no effect.’ Bishop paused, then looked away.

  ‘So I locked them in.’

  Laura let the horror show on her face.

  ‘If the wasps had been able to gain access to the rest of the compound, who knows what would have happened? In these situations, containment is all. We watched as no more than fifteen wasps chewed the meat off those soldiers in less than a minute. It was like watching starving piranhas.

  ‘The other soldiers were screaming to help their friends. Until I could get the door locked down it was touch and go whether they were going to break right in there and try to save them. They’re a tight unit, and if they didn’t hate me before that moment, they certainly did afterwards.

  ‘It’s not easy making those decisions, Dr Trent. Save lives by being an asshole, or place them in jeopardy by being the nice guy? No one considers the choice I had to make, just the consequences.’

  ‘Tough job.’

  Bishop gave a small shrug. ‘I’m not telling you this to win your sympathy. I’m simply giving you an idea of the nightmarish time it’s been for everybody. Understandably, some of the soldiers wanted my head on a plate, and Webster had to step in to make sure that didn’t happen. Then they all had to fly on the mission you just observed. I guess that’s it with grunts – they’re used to their buddies dying in battle then having to carry on.

  ‘But we are still left with the problem of what to do with the wasps, and the only knowledge we’ve gained is that they’re incredibly dangerous and disturbingly intelligent. We could try all kinds of substances and infusions to attempt to kill them, but without the research notes it’s damn near impossible to know for sure what, if anything, will work, so they’ve just … stayed there.’

  ‘Doesn’t that contain the problem? Let them starve.’

  ‘We would, except we don’t know how long they’ll be able to hold out. Did David increase their ability to hibernate? It’s certainly possible, and that makes things particularly difficult for us.’

 
; ‘Why “particularly”?’

  ‘Well … there’s a way out, and we think they might know it. The heating duct is beginning to interest them. Normally, of course, none of our creations could hope to breach the casing, but the strength and intelligence of these wasps … well, we’re concerned.’

  ‘And you can’t just seal it off?’

  ‘It’s a little more complicated than that. To seal it off, we have to shut it down, and that would put all the other experimental and holding labs at risk. Wasps are not keen on cold weather, as I’m sure you’re aware. That’s also the reason why we can’t freeze that lab alone: the temperature at MEROS is set at a constant 21 degrees. That is the optimal temperature for humans and wasps to co-exist. The central computer will only allow the temperature to drop in an emergency, but that means freezing the entire facility. All ongoing experiments would be ruined, and there are many reasons why that would be less than ideal.’

  ‘And if these wasps breach the ventilation casing?’

  ‘Potentially, access to the rest of the complex and possibly the outside world, where they could attempt to procreate, and then … who knows?’ There was a full pause while Laura and Bishop looked around the room, both trying to avoid asking the inevitable question.

  Laura broke the silence. ‘So how would I be able to help?’

  Bishop pretended to think for a moment.

  ‘We have to try something. You worked under Dr Heath for several years, so you must know how he thinks. At the very least, we’d like your read on the situation I’ve just explained. And if you could find a little more time, we’d also be keen to make use of your expertise throughout the complex, just to steady the ship a little before we find a more permanent replacement.’

  The request Laura had turned down almost two days earlier now looked very different. She had already made the journey, and she might be placing these people at greater risk by refusing to help. She didn’t want to let Bishop win, but the opportunity to find out more about these wasps was even more of an incentive now she’d seen them first-hand.

  ‘OK. Whatever else happens, I want to leave with Andrew as soon as possible. But while I’m waiting to do that, I suppose I could help you out.’

  ‘That is very kind of you. Above and beyond – particularly in light of the circumstances. And the moment we’ve arranged transport out of here, you and Andrew will be on it and heading home. I can’t thank you enough, Dr Trent. This will mean an enormous amount to everyone here.’ Bishop was beaming like a reprieved murderer.

  Laura was businesslike in return. ‘Perhaps you ought to show me these wasps.’

  PART TWO

  The Thorax

  17

  Bishop ushered Laura out of his office in a ‘ladies first’ gesture of oleaginous insincerity.

  ‘I’ll just look in on Andrew,’ she said. Hearing this, Andrew switched Seven back to E.T. and pretended to flick idly through a six-year-old copy of GQ.

  ‘Mr Bishop is just going to take me on a quick tour of the labs. We’ll be back in ten minutes or so.’ Andrew barely looked up from the article on shopping at Neiman Marcus. He had no idea what Neiman Marcus was, but he thought that if he looked interested in it his mum wouldn’t check back anytime soon and he’d be able to get another half-hour of Seven in before she returned.

  Laura and Bishop walked through to the corridor opposite the elevator.

  ‘Welcome to the Thorax,’ said Bishop, striding ahead. He pointed back to where they had just come from. ‘We call the administrative area the Head. Kind of our little entomological joke.’ Laura’s expression remained unchanged as Bishop continued. He gestured towards the room to the left of the elevator. On one side of it, behind a window of Perspex, a thin, intense-looking Japanese man was deep in concentration. He was taking readings from a series of gauges on the wall and comparing them to what was written on his clipboard. Laura didn’t recognize any of the equipment arranged on the tables behind him. There were several rows of what looked like miniature satellite dishes connected by rows of red lasers wired up to a central computer.

  The man was joined from the other side of the lab by his assistant, a woman whose raked-back hair and lack of make-up failed to disguise a soft prettiness that didn’t belong here. She opened a drawer and carefully brought out a plastic case containing one of the giant wasps Laura had seen in the desert. The two scientists examined and discussed the insect before placing it into another drawer.

  Laura could have stood there all day, watching these fascinating subjects and the systems that enabled their investigation, however, Bishop was in a hurry.

  ‘This is the holding bay. On a job, there will be up to one thousand wasps, depending on the number of targets. Of course, they all require meticulous preparation, and that’s down to those two: Dale Takeshi has been here five or six years, and Susan Myers is two years out of college.’

  ‘What did you do to blackmail them?’ asked Laura, still gazing into the lab.

  Bishop smiled. ‘You may be delighted to know that we don’t use the same methods to entice everybody to MEROS. Some of them actually come based on a patriotic calling or a devotion to the advancement of their field of science.’

  ‘But most are blackmailed.’

  ‘Most are blackmailed, yes. Moving on. Takeshi and Susan ensure that the wasps are ready to be deployed and in a proper state for transport: warm enough, docile enough, potentially aggressive enough, etcetera, etcetera. As you can see, there are holding cases and tunnels in place so that no one here ever has to touch a wasp. The delicate balance of genetics and, for want of a better phrase, ‘state of mind’ before the wasps are used is critical to the success of the ten to fifteen missions we complete each year.’

  ‘Out of interest, what happens if you have a mission in a very cold region?’

  ‘Well, we haven’t yet managed to develop wasps that can stay alive long enough. However, we think the nest David was experimenting on when he died may be able to withstand temperatures lower than anything we’ve generated before. That could have been of great use to us; all it’s doing now is adding to the pain in the ass. Thankfully, nearly all our greatest enemies exist in warmer parts of the world. One of the reasons why the Pentagon loves us so much.’

  ‘And you just let these wasps loose by opening a box?’

  Bishop gave a small chuckle. ‘No, Dr Trent, we do not let them loose by opening a box. Although that part of our operations need not concern you, we use a container made of a highly volatile compound of our own devising. One hour’s exposure to oxygen, and the container disintegrates. Then the wasps are attracted to a pre-applied pheromone that will have been administered by another branch of the US military, generally under the impression that they are helping us to track the subject, rather than kill him, or her.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ said Laura. To Bishop’s panicked dismay, she then opened the door to the holding bay and walked towards Susan and Takeshi.

  ‘Uh, this is Laura Trent, one of the finest genetic entomologists working today,’ said Bishop quickly. ‘Dr Trent, Susan Myers and Dale Takeshi.’ They shook hands.

  Takeshi removed his glasses and smiled shyly. ‘I am pleased to meet you, Dr Trent. Are you going to be working with Professor Heath?’ Laura looked around at Bishop.

  ‘We’re just discussing the best way to arrange that,’ Bishop muttered.

  ‘The professor is a bit of a recluse, so a little more one-to-one contact with someone would be helpful, if only to clarify certain aspects of the new developments,’ said Susan.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘It would probably be beneficial to the …’

  ‘I’m sorry, Takeshi, but we’re in kind of a hurry here,’ said Bishop.

  ‘No, it’s OK. What were you going to say?’ asked Laura.

  ‘Uh, well, it would probably be beneficial to be kept apprised of the changes that are taking place. The more n
otice we have of any alterations, the more efficiently we can take them into account and incorporate them into our methodology.’

  ‘And if you’re able to take a look at the aggression levels sometime soon, that would also help. The recent ones have been harder to control,’ added Susan.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  With that, Bishop gave Takeshi and Susan something approximating a smile and manoeuvred Laura towards the door.

  As soon as they were out of sight of the lab window, Bishop spoke quietly and urgently close up to Laura’s face. ‘OK, before you say anything, no, they do not know about Professor Heath’s unfortunate accident. As you heard from Takeshi, they never really see much of him …’

  ‘Never really saw much of him.’

  ‘Exactly. So we made the decision not to worry the others any more than is strictly necessary. The soldiers had to know about it, but if the scientists were aware of the situation with the new swarm then we would not have such an efficient workforce and that would be something of an inconvenience right in the middle of a mission. If we can bring the problem under control without any of them knowing the details of what went on, then so much the better.’

  Laura looked at him as if she were a headmistress who had just been lied to by an earnest pupil who was hoping, rather than expecting, to get away with something.

  ‘What?’ asked Bishop, attempting to prolong the pretence of his innocence.

  ‘Nothing. Just getting a clearer picture of the kind of ship you run here, Mr Bishop.’

  ‘Look, Dr Trent, the staff at MEROS are doing a valuable job that has its unpleasant aspects. If I can make it slightly less unpleasant by not telling them about every little negative occurrence that happens here, then I think that’s excusable.’

  ‘Well, I can’t argue with that.’

  The next area looked more like the conventional labs Laura was accustomed to working in, except that the equipment was greatly advanced. Every surface was pure white, so much so that Laura had to ask how they maintained such a sterile environment.