Read Online The X-Files: Antibodies by Kevin J. Anderson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kevin J. Anderson
Tags: Fiction, Media Tie-In
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dirt all over his back . . . but he didn’t even notice.
A heavy truck rumbled overhead across the bridge with a sound like a muffled explosion.
Like the DyMar explosion.
That night, the last night, came back to him too vividly—the darkness filled with fire and shouts and explosions. Murderous and destructive people: face-less, nameless, all brought together by someone pulling strings invisibly in the shadows. And they were malicious, destructive.
He must have fallen asleep . . . or somehow been transported back in time. His memory had been enhanced in a sort of cruel and unusual punishment, perhaps by the wildcard action of his affliction.
“A chain-link fence and a couple of rent-a-cops does not make me feel safe,” Dorman had said to David Kennessy. This wasn’t exactly a high-security installation they were working in—after all, David had smuggled his damned pet dog in there, and a handgun. “I’m starting to think your brother had the right idea to walk away from all this six months ago.”
DyMar had called for backup security from the 62
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state police, and had been turned down. The ostensi-ble reason was some buried statute that allowed the police to defer “internal company disputes” to private security forces. David paced around the basement laboratory rooms, fuming, demanding to know how the police could consider a mob of demonstrators to be an internal company dispute. It still hadn’t occurred to him that somebody might want the lab unprotected.
For all his biochemical brilliance, David Kennessy was clueless. His brother Darin hadn’t been quite so politically naive, and Darin had gotten the hell out of Dodge—in time. David had stayed—for his son’s sake.
Neither of them understood the stakes involved in their own research.
When the actual destruction started, Jeremy recalled seeing David scrambling to grab his records, his samples, like in all those old movies where the mad scientist strives to rescue a single notebook from the flames. David seemed more pissed off than frightened. He kicked a few stray pencils away from his feet, and spoke in his “let’s be reasonable” voice.
“Some boneheaded fanatic is always trying to stop progress—but it never works. Nobody can undiscover this new technology.” He made a rude noise through his lips.
Indeed, biological manufacturing and submicroscopic engineering had been progressing at remarkable speed for years now. Genetic engineers used the DNA machinery of certain bacteria to produce artificial insulin. A corporation in Syracuse, New York, had patented techniques for storing and reading data in cubes made of bacteriorhodopsin, a gen-etically altered protein. Too many people were working on too many different aspects of the problem. David was right—nobody could undiscover the technology.
antibodies
63
But Dorman himself knew that some people in the government were certainly intent on trying to do just that. And even with all the prior planning and the hushed agreements, they hadn’t given Dorman himself time to escape, despite their promises.
While David was distracted, rushing to the phone to warn his wife about the attack and her own danger, Dorman had not been able to find any of the pure original nanomachines, just the prototypes, the leftover and questionable samples that had been used—with mixed results—on the other lab animals, before their success with the dog. But still, the prototypes had worked . . . to a certain extent. They had saved him, technically at least.
Then Dorman heard windows smashing upstairs, the murderous shouts pouring closer—and he knew it was time.
Those prototypes had been his last resort, the only thing he could find. They had been viable enough in the lab rat tests, hadn’t they? And the dog was just fine, perfectly healthy. What choice did he have but to take a chance? Still, the possibility froze Dorman with terror, uncertainty, for a moment—if he did this, it
A heavy truck rumbled overhead across the bridge with a sound like a muffled explosion.
Like the DyMar explosion.
That night, the last night, came back to him too vividly—the darkness filled with fire and shouts and explosions. Murderous and destructive people: face-less, nameless, all brought together by someone pulling strings invisibly in the shadows. And they were malicious, destructive.
He must have fallen asleep . . . or somehow been transported back in time. His memory had been enhanced in a sort of cruel and unusual punishment, perhaps by the wildcard action of his affliction.
“A chain-link fence and a couple of rent-a-cops does not make me feel safe,” Dorman had said to David Kennessy. This wasn’t exactly a high-security installation they were working in—after all, David had smuggled his damned pet dog in there, and a handgun. “I’m starting to think your brother had the right idea to walk away from all this six months ago.”
DyMar had called for backup security from the 62
T H E X - F I L E S
state police, and had been turned down. The ostensi-ble reason was some buried statute that allowed the police to defer “internal company disputes” to private security forces. David paced around the basement laboratory rooms, fuming, demanding to know how the police could consider a mob of demonstrators to be an internal company dispute. It still hadn’t occurred to him that somebody might want the lab unprotected.
For all his biochemical brilliance, David Kennessy was clueless. His brother Darin hadn’t been quite so politically naive, and Darin had gotten the hell out of Dodge—in time. David had stayed—for his son’s sake.
Neither of them understood the stakes involved in their own research.
When the actual destruction started, Jeremy recalled seeing David scrambling to grab his records, his samples, like in all those old movies where the mad scientist strives to rescue a single notebook from the flames. David seemed more pissed off than frightened. He kicked a few stray pencils away from his feet, and spoke in his “let’s be reasonable” voice.
“Some boneheaded fanatic is always trying to stop progress—but it never works. Nobody can undiscover this new technology.” He made a rude noise through his lips.
Indeed, biological manufacturing and submicroscopic engineering had been progressing at remarkable speed for years now. Genetic engineers used the DNA machinery of certain bacteria to produce artificial insulin. A corporation in Syracuse, New York, had patented techniques for storing and reading data in cubes made of bacteriorhodopsin, a gen-etically altered protein. Too many people were working on too many different aspects of the problem. David was right—nobody could undiscover the technology.
antibodies
63
But Dorman himself knew that some people in the government were certainly intent on trying to do just that. And even with all the prior planning and the hushed agreements, they hadn’t given Dorman himself time to escape, despite their promises.
While David was distracted, rushing to the phone to warn his wife about the attack and her own danger, Dorman had not been able to find any of the pure original nanomachines, just the prototypes, the leftover and questionable samples that had been used—with mixed results—on the other lab animals, before their success with the dog. But still, the prototypes had worked . . . to a certain extent. They had saved him, technically at least.
Then Dorman heard windows smashing upstairs, the murderous shouts pouring closer—and he knew it was time.
Those prototypes had been his last resort, the only thing he could find. They had been viable enough in the lab rat tests, hadn’t they? And the dog was just fine, perfectly healthy. What choice did he have but to take a chance? Still, the possibility froze Dorman with terror, uncertainty, for a moment—if he did this, it
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