Genetech- The Seeds Of Doom Read online

  Genetech: The Seeds Of Doom

  by Kris Schnee

  Copyright © 2018

  Kris Schnee

  All rights reserved.

  Cover art uses images by Grafixar,

  http://mrg.bz/4dc1d9 (Morguefile License)

  and Lorc, https://game-icons.net/lorc/originals/erlenmeyer.html (CC-BY).

  Contents

  The Seeds Of Doom

  Author's Note

  About the Author/Other Works

  The Seeds Of Doom

  * 1 *

  "Can I interest you in one of our unusual pets, sir?" said the saleslady.

  Aldous stood at the doorway of Better Companions, Limited, which had sprung up yesterday in a deserted section of the mall. Warm animal scents wafted from inside, making him think of pets he and his friends had owned over the years. "I'm actually here to look for work. I don't think I can afford even a standard bunny right now." He'd graduated with a useless degree, but a short-term job would help him pay the bills while he figured out what to do next.

  "We don't sell standard anything," the lady said with a cute smile. "Why not have a look around while I get you an application?"

  The clerk led Aldous past racks of cages, past kittens and a parrot that squawked, "Magnetic containment tokamak!" Aldous got distracted by a ferret that peeked out from a plastic tube and squeaked at him. He crouched by its cage and grinned, waving to the critter.

  "A good choice," the clerk said. "Some people mind the musk, but we've toned it down."

  Aldous blinked, his attention drawn back from the bright beady eyes. "You had the glands and everything removed?"

  "Genetically tweaked," she said. "This store is a subsidiary of Genetech."

  Aldous' eyes widened. "Some sort of gengineering firm, selling biotech pets?" He looked around the store again, now noticing unusual colors, exotic breeds, and purpose and curiosity in some of the animals' expressions. The strangeness unnerved him. "I've never heard of Genetech." They hadn't been at the career fair last semester.

  She said, "The company's new. I was only hired last month myself."

  "Oh? How do you like working here?"

  "Seems all right. The application was weird, but they've got a great health plan."

  They chatted a bit. She was a little vague about her own background but said she'd grown up on a farm. It'd be fun to get to know her better.

  "I haven't even had a cat since I went to college," he admitted. "No time or money."

  "Understandable. If you work here they'll probably expect you to change that, though. The boss talks a lot about having employees learn through experience."

  Though it was fun talking with her, Aldous did have some business to attend to. "Is the shop actually hiring, or are they just 'taking applications'?" He sighed, remembering how excruciatingly selective every employer was, lately. The job market for biologists had crashed just as he was graduating.

  "I think so." She pulled out some forms from behind the counter.

  Aldous glanced at the sheaf of papers. "I'm a little surprised you didn't just say 'Go to our Web site'."

  "Genetech tends not to do anything the standard way."

  Well, he could fill the papers out later. "Thanks." He paused, looking away at the cages. "Say, are you interested in meeting up at the food court when you've got a break?"

  She wavered, then said, "Okay. In an hour or so."

  Aldous sat in the mall, nibbling a salad and working through the application. Name, work history, citizenship, favorite color, phobias... Aldous blinked. That kind of made sense, if they wanted to screen out people afraid of animal bites. He put down "None".

  A few questions down: "Have you ever stolen from an employer?"

  No, he answered.

  The next question was, "How much?" He left that blank.

  The next one was, "C'mon, just between us...?"

  He checked the box labeled Seriously, no.

  On the next page he saw, "Have you ever imagined being a different gender?"

  No, he checkmarked. He didn't think it was even legal to ask that kind of thing.

  "Have you ever imagined being a different species?" Aldous was really staring at the form now. He put Yes for the hell of it, thinking of a couple of Halloween costumes he'd had.

  "In fifty words or less: How would you defeat a rampaging velociraptor?"

  Aldous skipped ahead. About half of the paperwork was fairly ordinary, with some fun logic puzzles, and the rest a bunch of nonsense. Okay, so this was a prank on the saleslady's part. While Aldous waited for her, he went along with the joke. For the raptor question he wrote, "Two lamp-posts, and a big rubber band." It went downhill from there.

  "Done yet?" asked the clerk, coming over to his table.

  Aldous said, "Very funny," and handed the papers over.

  "I warned you. That's the actual application."

  Aldous shook his head. "Weirder then Google's, even. I guess that means no job for me; I went into smartass mode halfway through."

  "I did that too, and they hired me. The name's Sue, by the way."

  The two of them had a low-pressure date at the food court, and for a week, nothing much happened. Then came the call.

  * 2 *

  The phone rang at five in the morning. Aldous startled awake, sprawled across his bed. He rolled over, opened one eye, and snagged the phone. If this wasn't a family emergency or a robo-call he'd curse out whoever it was.

  "Mister Dulac?" The voice was deep, and friendlier than it had any right to be at this hour. When Aldous mumbled a response it went on: "I'm Erin, from Genetech TransHuman Resources. I believe we have a position in our Technical Support department that you'll find unique and exciting. If you're interested, meet me at the pet store you applied to, in twenty minutes."

  The line went dead.

  Aldous was tangled up in his sheets and still half asleep. He didn't need this kind of treatment. He fiddled with the phone and thought about calling back to tell the guy off. The mall was at least ten minutes away, and couldn't even be open yet!

  "TransHuman Resources." Advanced biotech. An actual job offer. He didn't want to pass this job up without at least seeing what it was. He threw on the first shirt and slacks he laid eyes on. He left his apartment looking like it'd been ransacked: sheets on the floor, drawers open, papers spilled. He drove through the quiet, empty streets and found the mall's parking lot nearly deserted. The closest car to the entrance had a plush porcupine in the back window and a bumper sticker proclaiming, "DNA Is Life."

  Aldous found the mall's doors locked, of course. But there was a service entrance to one side, held open with a brick. He guessed it would be okay to enter, since he had a mall tenant's permission, but he hoped he wouldn't need to explain that to a guard. He slipped through the door with three minutes left before his appointment.

  The hallway was lined with lasers. Not even the proper infrared kind; these were big, obvious red beams scanning up and down, back and forth.

  "Come on, said Aldous. "This is not standard mall security."

  Aldous watched the beam emitters' timing, hopped over a laser beam, limboed under another, peeked around a corner, hid from a rotating security camera, and dodged more beams and a suspicious floor panel before finding himself in a maintenance hallway behind the shops. He was off-balance, standing on one foot after avoiding another trap.

  Aldous saw a man leaning against the pet shop's rear door. Aldous tried to compose himself, but felt sweaty and gross and half-dressed. In his haste he'd put on a grungy t-shirt that read, "When all else fails, manipulate the data." Not a good way to show up for an interview.

  Aldous stood there catching his breath, and said, "Very funny."
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  Erin met Aldous' glare with a smile. He wore a t-shirt with a DNA spiral design and his hair was unkempt as though he'd just gotten out of bed himself. Aldous felt less disheveled by comparison. Aldous said, "Did somebody at corporate make you show up early just to prank me?"

  Erin checked his watch. "Sorry about that. The company needs people who can deal with the unexpected. Want a job?"

  "Seriously? Dodging laser beams? I thought I'd be working at a pet shop!"

  Erin chuckled. "We have something else in mind."

  "Look, I don't know what kind of enterprise you're running, but I'm not planning to get into organized crime."

  "No, we don't want you to do anything illegal. It's just that the Proactive Acquisitions department was interested in you too, so I gave you a version of their test. You passed that, despite missing the infrared sensor --"

  "The lasers were visible red."

  "The ones that you paid attention to, yes! Anyway, you also took the most obvious route instead of even trying to pick the front doors or use the ventilation grates. But again, you did well enough."

  Aldous was still stunned. "You're kidding, right?"

  "What we'd want you for," said Erin, "is to apply that dusty degree of yours to helping with troubleshooting operations inside and outside the company. You'd get free housing at our Genetech East corporate campus, plus expenses and a company discount." He named a decent salary figure.

  "Troubleshooting," said Aldous. "So it's not 'customer service' in the sense of sitting by a phone?"

  "Oh, hell no."

  "The housing sounds nice." Aldous was surprised to find himself actually considering this job after all. "Where is this campus place?"

  "Near Bermuda, with an ocean view."

  "And what exactly is the discount for? Pets?"

  Erin smiled. "Among other things." Then he flickered. His face was changing, and his hair... Aldous now stared at a man with a little snout, with a head and arms covered with spikes!

  Erin said, "This is me without my disguise projector." He tapped his watch; it was a computerized model that seemed oddly bulky. "As you know, we have some unusual technology."

  Aldous stammered. "You're... you're a hedgehog." He was backing away, stopping just short of the lasers. This guy might maul him or eat him or -- or offer him work!

  "I'm a human with porcupine-related modifications. Not the most popular choice, and it wasn't completely intentional at the time. So, do you want the job? I need to get going; I've been so busy lately dealing with other matters that I've been shedding quills."

  "Well, uh. It seems like a good offer..." Aldous sweated, overwhelmed. "I've got a six-month apartment lease, though, and I don't know what I'd do with my car."

  "The company will work something out. Come on, man, do you want to be fifty years old and wondering why you kept looking for a mundane job after seeing me?"

  Aldous imagined being a grey-haired corporate drone working in a cubicle, and shuddered. It would be safer than whatever Erin had in mind, but he feared that boring fate more than he did the porcupine. His voice wavered as he said, "Fine. I accept."

  Erin seized his hand and shook it, nearly scratching him with a stray spine. "Great! Check your e-mail for a printable airline ticket. Your flight is at ten tonight."

  * 3 *

  The company must have really wanted him. Aldous scrambled to pack his bags and reach the airport. He brought little but clothes and a computer. On the little plane he reviewed some files from his biochemistry and bio-medical engineering classes, and felt inadequate.

  An unsmiling driver with a sign met him in Bermuda, a tiny island of limestone houses where a warm, humid breeze blew even at this hour. The man silently led Aldous to the sparkling moonlit shore to find not a car, but a boat. The other passenger had a hat... no, she had bunny ears on her head. And grey fur, and pink finger-pads on the hand she offered. "Hiya! I'm Cindi."

  Aldous stared until it got awkward, then shook her hand. "Uh, hi. Are there a lot of rabbits at the company?"

  "A couple. So I hear you're a new hire! It's, like, awesome here!"

  The driver took the wheel and the boat zoomed away, carrying the three of them over the waves. Aldous asked Cindi, "What do you do?" He thought she might be a secretary.

  "Like, all kinds of neat stuff. Lately I've been engineering plasmids in vivo for study of the p53/pRB cancer suppressor genes. You know they're the same sequence in different reading frames?"

  Aldous blinked, finding her suddenly less ditzy. "Nice."

  She handed over a shiny computer thumb drive. "So here's the assigned viewing for newcomers to Genetech East. You've got Atlas Shrugged -- the extended version -- Frankenstein, Bioshock, and ya might as well add The Evil Overlord's List. Then there's the Non-Disclosure Agreement From Hell."

  Aldous let the drive catch the moonlight as the boat bounced along. "You know, nobody's explained yet exactly what my job is."

  "You'll be working for Mister Dwalin's troubleshooting squad, in Technical Support. For instance, last month we had a vine-zard outbreak in the Battle Dome, and the trainers tried to contain it with an electric fence. Using electricity on a plant monster? Like, duh!" She slapped her forehead. "So Dwalin had to go deal with that. Got any questions?"

  "I don't think my list is getting any shorter."

  Cindi laughed. "Just roam till Dwalin gets back. There's probably nothing that'll kill you, so the boss would say everything will make you stronger. He also says guided tours are for the weak."

  "Okay... do I get an office?"

  "A room in the Prometheus Dome. Sorry; I can't lead you there."

  The boat stopped after a while in the middle of nowhere. There was just empty water under a starry sky. Aldous stood unsteadily and looked around. He saw nothing special. "What's wrong?"

  "We're here," said Cindi. "See the unusually stable buoy with the suspicious double doors and an elevator call button?"

  Aldous squinted. There was a buoy here, but -- "So what?" His eyes slid away from it.

  "Right, right. Keep staring."

  He was getting annoyed. "Why?" Still he followed Cindi's jabbing finger to look again at the thing.

  "See it yet?"

  "Of course I --" Wait, how could he be dismissing something like this, like -- "An elevator?" There was a little artificial platform on the water's surface, just as Cindi had described. Like a mirage it was hard to see well, but as he focused it got a little easier.

  The driver said, "You saw past the Field faster than some."

  Now Aldous really glared at it. He kept feeling tempted to look away, to ignore it. "I can't quite focus on it. What's going on?"

  Cindi said, "It's got a Someone Else's Problem field. I think it's powered by Higgs bosons and dark energy. Good for when people see the buoy in passing. To them it's just an uninteresting obstacle."

  They docked. Cindi brought Aldous to the elevator, which apparently lead down into the water -- into a big structure hidden beneath the waves! She used a keycard to open the doors.

  "Do I get one of those keys?" asked Aldous, stepping inside.

  Cindi's smile showed buckteeth. "Yep! It's in your room. Good luck!" The doors shut and the car dropped, while from outside, Cindi waved goodbye.

  * 4 *

  The elevator lurched downward, with its speakers blaring "Ride of the Valkyries." When it let him out, he was in a round hall of glass, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean. Beyond the curving wall and the bright clear water was a jungle of blue spheres and tunnels, like a huge molecular model. Fronds of green kelp brushed along domes anchored to the seafloor. Aldous stepped forward until his nose bumped the glass. Erin was right about there being an ocean view! Fish drifted by. It took him a minute to remember he was here to work. Looking back and forth, he frowned; apparently useful signage was also for the weak.

  Through a blue door on the right, he entered a greenhouse. No; the big sphere was an office area full of terraces, draped with fragrant vines. He sme
lled an animal musk somewhere too. At first he thought it was from the laboratory in a glass-walled arc across the room, but actually it was a startled ferret-man baring fangs at him from a cubicle. Aldous hopped away from the creature, eyeing the guy's teeth more than his tie and pocket protector, and hurried towards one of the humans instead. He found a woman who looked perfectly normal but for her bright purple hair, whose shades varied enough to make it not look like a dye job. He said, "I'm new here. I'm looking for my room -- Prometheus Dome, I think. Is there a map anywhere?"

  The employee pushed her chair back from her desk and shook his hand. "Hey there, and congratulations! I'm afraid there isn't a reliable map. Our director says --"

  "-- For the weak?"

  "Last month he issued a directive that we should strive not to take notes, so as to develop our memories better and overcome our mental frailty and dependence on writing. We all got paper copies of the memo."

  "What have I gotten into?" Aldous muttered.

  "Oh, don't mind the director too much. We're the ones who get work done around here."

  "If I may ask about your hair...?"

  She fluffed it. "Specialized transformation virus. It's going to go on sale to everyone soon. We're going to be rolling out a lot of exciting products soon, I think, but have to ease into that. If you got hired, you're less vulnerable to panic at the sight of strangeness than average folks are. So if you're feeling uneasy, imagine how others might react if everything went public at once."

  He nodded. "Even so, I'd like to find my room and lie down for a moment."

  "Right. Understandable. To reach the housing area, just go past the cafeteria up there, then..." She rattled off a series of turns. "Can't miss it."

  Aldous thanked her, and as he climbed the stairs next to a garden terrace, wondered what she was laughing at.

  Aldous got confused by the hallway junctions and was soon lost. Any sane office building would have been designed better than this! He was about to turn back if he could, when he spotted the cafeteria. It had big tables, little tables, beanbags replacing some of the chairs, and even a wooden perch, all in the top half of a glass sphere that lurked just beneath the ocean's surface. "Nice," he murmured at the ceiling. The array of food reassured him enough that he decided to take a break and have a moment of relative normality. He was in no hurry anyway. He hadn't even been given a specific time to report to work.