Project Cyrano: A Genetic Engineering Technothriller (Genetic Engineering, TechnoThriller) Read Free

look at something anyway. I found something you will want to see.”
     
    Everyone congregated in Anders’ console room. He made one wall an enormous holographic screen for optimum viewing and they sat down on floating chairs.
     
    Anders tapped his tablet. “I have two things: information about the base, and a video. Which do you want first?”
     
    “Tell us about the base, Anders.” Sosa said.
     
    “I found out how Cyrano has hid itself from all of our satellites and planes for two hundred years.” Anders brought up a schematic of the base. “It generates its own clouds and moves around with the local weather patterns of central and northeastern Canada. Basically, it hides itself in the storms, and when there isn’t a storm, makes a dense cloud. The electromagnetic field keeps any of our machinery from picking it up. The fact it moves also helps to evade detection and prevents aircraft collision.”
     
    Mader laughed. “But McKusick saw it anyway.”
     
    McKusick scowled.
     
    “That is an interesting concept. I’m sure the director will love hearing about it.” Sosa chuckled at McKusick’s expense. “You said something about a video?”
     
    “I found it in a corrupted database. It’s only a few minutes long. I’ve tried to find more, but this is all I have.” He turned off the lights and started the video.
     
    Sosa’s hand went to her mouth. “What in the world is that, Anders?”
     
    The programmer shook his head.
     
    The data reading said “Mind Project 2103: Subject 12-A3, Day 46.” The subject was housed in a sizable glass box with a locked door. It was bipedal, with grotesque musculature and grayish, flaky skin. Wide, crazed eyes darted around, taking in everything outside its chamber. When a group of lab technicians came into view, it howled and clawed at its prison. Foam flew from its mouth. A familiar type of mouth, with a familiar set of teeth.
     
    McKusick’s face grew unnaturally pale underneath the blue light of the screen. “Sosa, do you see it?”
     
    She nodded, unable to speak.
     
    The geneticist said what they all were thinking. “That used to be a human, once. That was a man.”
     
    The video continued. The researchers filled the box with a sleeping gas and hauled the unconscious creature onto an examination table. They took blood and tissue samples for testing and then cut the subject’s throat. It woke immediately, for one split second. Hate, fury, confusion, and terror contorted the human-like face into a grim, otherworldly mask. Then it was dead, and two men came to throw the body down a chute. This repeated six times.
     
    Finally the video ended. Silence fell. Sosa leaned back in her chair, gazing at nothing.
     
    Anders looked at them with sorrowful, entreating eyes. “Who would do this? McKusick, you’re a geneticist. You don’t do things like this.”
     
    “No, of course we don’t.” He frowned as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. “We don’t experiment on people and then kill them like they were petri dishes of bacteria. We treat our mice better than they treated that man. They were monsters. They didn’t even know what they were doing. No one did stuff like this. The review board wouldn’t allow it.”
     
    “But someone did.” Sosa ran her hands through her hair. “A lot of people did. Someone sponsored this facility, McKusick. Someone paid for it, built it, supplied it with flesh to experiment on. This place is enormous. How many people lived here?”
     
    McKusick looked at Anders. “Have you found anything on this Mind Project?”
     
    “Not much.” He went back to his computers. Lines of code and data flew over the screens. “It went on for three years and was suddenly canceled. No telling who started it, or any of the names of the geneticists, though they did list base numbers.”
     
    “How many subjects, Anders? How many slaves?”
     
    “Over thirty thousand, sir.”
     
    McKusick just stood there for a long, agonizing moment.