The Einstein Pursuit

34

Dr Zander knew the answer to Dial’s question about the identity of the victims without consulting his notes. Details like this were impossible to forget. ‘The five felons.’

Dial nodded. ‘That’s what I figured.’

‘Felons?’ Hedman remarked. ‘What felons?’

‘We’ve identified the majority of the victims,’ Eklund explained. ‘Most were scientists, but there were also five men with distinguished criminal records. As of yet, we have no idea what role they played in all of this. We can’t say for certain why they were there.’

Hanna launched into a line of questioning, but Dial had to wait for Hedman to translate.

‘She wants to know if cell activity within the sample has changed over time. Was this exact number of living cells always present?’

‘What does that tell us about the criminals?’

‘Nothing,’ Hedman answered. ‘At least not directly. Frankly, Mr Dial, the presence of criminals is the least of her concerns. That is a mystery for you and Agent Eklund to solve. Her focus is on the science involved.’

‘And the number of living cells tells her …?’ Eklund asked.

Miles answered. ‘It tells her whether the cells were dying off, or whether they were multiplying.’

‘They were dying off,’ Zander announced. ‘At least at first.’ He sat in front of the keyboard and tilted a nearby computer monitor so that he could see the screen. After finding the right file, the image on the large plasma screen changed as he loaded a video. ‘This is a recording of the cellular activity over the course of our examination. As you can see, the cell count was much greater when the sample was first taken.’

Dial could see that the footage plainly supported Zander’s claim. The image they were looking at a moment ago had only showed a handful of pale blobs; now the screen was completely speckled. Dial guessed that at least seventy-five percent of the picture was covered in the pale oblong cells.

‘Watch what happens over the next several hours,’ Zander said.

With a click of the mouse, the footage began to roll forward at high speed. A day’s worth of video sped by in the time-compressed clip. Dial watched intently as more and more of the screen changed from white to blue.

‘Do the cells always stand out like that?’ Eklund wondered.

‘No,’ Zander explained. ‘We add a blue dye to the sample before it goes under the microscope. The walls of healthy cells keep the dye from penetrating into the interior of the cell, so they show as white against the blue background.’

‘And what happened when the screen turned mostly blue?’

‘The balance shifted from a majority of living cells to a majority of dead cells. The cell wall loses integrity when the cell dies, allowing the blue dye to permeate the remains.’

Miles, the microbiologist, stared at the screen. ‘Something kept the cells alive through the fire, but let them die afterwards. Something common to the subjects? A mutated gene, perhaps?’

Zander shrugged. ‘It’s impossible to answer that without a full sequencing of each subject, but the odds of probability would suggest otherwise. For an unknown genetic mutation of that type to manifest itself in five individuals from the same Scandinavian subset would be a nearly impossible likelihood. If it were that common — present in one out of every five million people, given the populations of the relevant countries — it would have been detected long ago.’

Miles agreed with the assessment. ‘Which means you believe the variable was introduced into the subjects.’

Zander nodded. ‘I do.’

Eklund was a half-step behind the others. ‘Introduced into the subjects? Does that mean what I think it means? The scientists at the lab were running tests on humans?’

‘That’s exactly what they’re saying,’ Hedman answered.

Eklund stared at them, incredulous.

Hedman did his best to explain. ‘The world at large condemns those who would dare to use humans in the name of scientific advancement. But the truth is, such experimentation is essential to the development of science. Innovation in every field — surgical, pharmaceutical, medicinal and more — requires exhaustive studies across a wide range of subjects. There is only so much that can be gleaned from mice, rats and chimpanzees.’

Miles concurred. ‘Eventually you must involve the targeted recipient. That means humans must be tested, and studied, and tested again.’

Hedman continued. ‘Every medical advancement in history was tested on humanity in one way or another, but today’s society only accepts it in the form of sanctioned clinical trials. However, many of the true breakthroughs came as a result of so-called “unscrupulous” behavior involving human volunteers and those willing to push the boundaries of accepted doctrine.’

Miles glanced at Hedman. ‘I only question the decision to use prisoners. Why draw exclusively from that pool?’

The answer was obvious. Prisoners — especially those with lengthy sentences — were willing to do just about anything to get out of prison, whether that was risking their lives in dangerous escape attempts or volunteering for speculative medical trials. But to coordinate a program like that would require government involvement, or at the very least corrupt prison officials.

In Dial’s mind, neither topic was suitable for ‘mixed’ company, which meant he needed to focus the scientists on a specific task, which would give him a moment to pull Eklund aside for a frank conversation about the Swedish justice system.

He pointed at the computer screen. ‘Dr Zander, if you don’t mind, can you play the video for my colleagues one more time? I’m sure they have plenty of questions about your discovery.’

Zander smiled with pride. ‘Yes, of course, it would be my pleasure.’

‘Johann,’ Dial said to Eklund, grabbing his arm, ‘can we talk?’

‘Of course.’ They walked toward the entrance of the lab, far enough away from the others to have a private conversation. ‘What is it?’

‘Do you understand what’s going on?’

‘With the science? Not really. It’s all—’

‘No,’ Dial said, ‘I mean with the prisoners.’

‘Unfortunately, yes. It seems that some prisons aren’t playing by the rules.’

‘It fits the facts, doesn’t it? They could offer freedom as a reward for participation. Not only would it ensure a steady supply of volunteers, but if anyone died in the testing, they could use their own doctors to sign off on the paperwork.’

Eklund nodded. ‘Yes, it fits the facts, but for us to make accusations like that and have them hold up in a court of law, we would need a lot more proof. Scratch that. We would need proof period — because right now, it’s just wild speculation on our part.’

Dial shook his head. ‘You’re missing my point. I’m not interested in the prison officials; I’m interested in the program itself. What if word leaked out about biological testing on dangerous criminals? Don’t you think someone might try to shut it down?’

‘You mean, like an activist group?’

‘They’ve bombed abortion clinics. Why not a lab?’

Eklund considered the possibility.

‘Or, what if it was government-sanctioned?’

‘The lab?’

Dial shook his head. ‘The hit.’

Eklund groaned and ran his fingers through his hair. It was a nervous tic that only appeared when the stress of his job was getting to him.

‘Think about it. The building wasn’t just destroyed; it was incinerated. In my experience, you don’t rig an acetone fire for the hell of it. A fire that hot is designed to consume everything. Nothing survives. Not even bacteria or viruses. Maybe something got out of control and they had no choice but to eliminate the threat before it spread?’

‘That’s highly doubtful,’ Hedman said, making his presence known. Dial and Eklund were so wrapped up in their conversation that they hadn’t seen him approach. ‘Sorry to overhear your speculation, but I’m not sure I agree with your assessment.’

‘In what way?’ Dial asked.

‘Come take a look at what I found,’ Hedman said before leading them back to the video screen. ‘By my estimation, the cell count hasn’t changed in nearly three hours. At the start of the high-speed sequence, the cells began dying off at an appreciable rate. You could actually see a wave of blue washing over the sample as the cell structures collapsed. But for the last few minutes the image has been static. No change.’

Everyone looked at the screen to see what Hedman was talking about. He was right. The number of remaining pale orbs seemed to have stabilized.

‘They’ve stopped dying,’ Zander remarked.

‘They’ve stopped dying,’ Hedman repeated, ‘and they show no signs of cellular division. The system can’t propagate on its own.’ He turned toward Dial and Eklund. ‘It can’t spread.’

‘How can a cell exist like that?’ Miles asked. ‘Life is a continuum. The cell should either be growing and dividing, or it should be withering and dying.’

‘I’ve got a theory on that,’ Hedman said. ‘Go back to the microscope view.’

Zander ended the footage and projected the image of the slide in front of them.

‘Zoom in until only one cell is visible,’ Hedman ordered.

A single cell filled the screen.

‘Now capture that image and select a different cell. Capture that, and move on to another. Get six or seven images for comparison.’

Zander quickly copy-and-pasted a selection of cells on to his computer screen. ‘There, that’s ten of them. Now what?’

‘Locate the Golgi apparatus and mitochondria of each cell, and arrange them north to south.’

Zander scrolled through each image, rotating the cells to align their organelles — the internal structures responsible for the cell’s life processes — per Hedman’s specifications.

‘Now superimpose all the images on top of one another, lining up the organelles.’

As Zander layered each new image on top of the others, Hedman’s smile grew and the group watched in amazement. The organelles of the ten cells matched perfectly. Only the cell walls were different. The internal structures were exactly the same.

‘Look at the spacing, the orientation,’ Hedman pointed out. ‘It’s perfectly duplicated within each cell.’

‘That sort of specificity is not found naturally. You simply don’t find organelles with that level of repetitive organization,’ Zander said.

‘What are you saying?’ Dial asked.

‘I don’t think they’re organelles at all — I think they’re synthetic,’ Hedman said.

‘You mean someone built these cells?’

Hedman nodded. ‘It’s why I don’t consider them a threat. They can’t replicate. They can’t spread. The only thing they can do is follow their programming. It’s nanotechnology of the highest order. Truly remarkable.’

‘If they’re so remarkable, why is someone so determined to destroy them?’

Hedman glanced at him and smiled. ‘I wish I could answer all of your questions, but I can only do so much. After all, my specialty is science — not people.’