Somewhere in a desert

It’s been a hectic week and a bit, what with prom, graduation, Canada Day and a visit to Weymouth to see my older daughter and her family. Back home again and things are a little more settled. Time at last to write.

***

Across the world, in a building that had once been suspected of housing a factory for the creation of weapons of mass destruction, a small group of genetic engineers studied the latest results of their tinkering.

“Well? Is it viable?” said one of the younger members of the team.

“Oh, it’s viable enough,” said another. “After the first—what?–seventy-six attempts, they’ve all been ‘viable’. Some of them reproduce a lot faster than I thought they would.”

“And that last batch matured way earlier than we expected,” said a third.

“Yes, these are a little more controllable,” said yet another. “They mature quickly, to be sure, and reproduce quickly, but they die early, too. It wouldn’t do to have them living for more than one reproductive cycle. We’d be overrun in no time.”

“It’s a good thing we thought of that, Tim,” said the second, whose name was Jonah.

“I agree,” came the voice of yet another. He was the most senior member of the genetic research team, although not the oldest.

The others all looked over at him. He alone was not hovering over the wire cage where their latest creation paced sinuously back and forth, restless and seeking escape. He sat at one of the computers and didn’t let on that he alone knew something of critical importance. “It’s too bad no one thought of it sooner,” he said, raising his eyes from the monitor to gaze at the others. Was this the time to let them in on the news? Might as well be now as later. Privately, he thought it was far too late and whether they knew it or not, it wouldn’t change the ultimate result. “There have been some escapes from the, er, samples we sent out.”

A long silence descended on the room as the others mulled over the implications.

“How many ‘escapes’?” asked Jonah. “And where, exactly?” Jonah looked into Marcus Billings’ eyes.

Marcus knew Jonah suspected the escapes had been deliberate, which some of them were, but he had just gotten word of one which was accidental and potentially catastrophic. He was sure the others would be self-limiting, but this particular species bred very fast. And they were on the loose in an urban area.

To Marcus’ way of thinking, it was just as bad as it could be that the accident had happened in New Orleans. Not in terms of immediate victims—the count would certainly be higher in New York City or D.C. in the early days—but in terms of the difficulty involved in tracking the creatures to their lairs and exterminating them before they spread beyond the city limits. Once they got into the swamps, there was an easy way for them to spread out unseen and get themselves to other cities. And they were just bright enough to hitch rides on the undercarriage of trains. The scientists could be proud of their tinkering, he thought with a bitter inward smile. They had created an animal that was cunning, deadly, fast to reproduce and eager to kill. The perfect weapon. They could infiltrate where soldiers couldn’t hope to go, and wipe out entire platoons overnight. They were terrific against Taliban members hiding in Afghan caves, and against other enemies in well-protected and hard-to-reach areas. But they were impossible to tame and they didn’t care who or what they attacked. There was no easy way to stop them. He looked back at the report from New Orleans and prepared to break the news.

***

I like Marcus. And it’s time to wander away again.