De Novo (The Gene Thief Series Book 1 - Short Story) (4 page)

Boom, boom, boom.

There was a sledgehammer inside of her face, pounding away. Her sinuses felt swollen and her forehead was under severe pressure. She felt a pulling, an indescribable force ripping at her. Her world felt completely upside down.

Slowly opening her eyes, she was staring at a tree that had been flipped over. As her senses returned, the pounding in her face turned out to be the blood pulsing as it rushed into her head. Looking up towards her feet, she noticed that the vine had wrapped itself around her ankle and snagged just before her head met the ground.

Out of every mission she’s ever been on, not once had she relied on luck. Her head was splitting, her foot was as white as a ghost from the life-saving tourniquet, and none of it mattered. She was alive and just seven feet from the safety of Earth. There were no broken vials dripping liquid from her bag, so the gene may still be in intact.

Kira reached up and started to saw at the vine with her pocket knife, getting ready for the drop. As the last few fibers of vine shredded apart and with her bags and camera in her hand, she landed flat on her back. Lying there for a second, she waited a minute to recover before she got up and pressed on. The excruciating pain of blood flow returned to her foot and left her almost crippled. The pain was so unbearable, she was afraid she would lose consciousness again.

She couldn’t help but wonder how long she’d been hanging? If her foot was numb, it must've been more than a minute or two. Did she fail the mission? Had time run out, and she was too late?

She started to feel nauseous at the thought of failing the client. The idea that someone may die because she made such a mess of this extraction gnawed at her.

She rushed to her feet, making little effort to avoid the nose-making branches and leaves. The only thing she could think about was getting back to that plane.

She threw her backpack back on, took the camera in, and started to sprint. As if her life depended on it, no, as if someone else's life depended on it. The brush was thicker than she remembered, the floor was soggy, and her clothes felt like they were lined with weights. She felt as if someone had dunked her in a pool while she was unconscious and tied her back up when they were done. The entire situation was miserable. Every step caused the water to squish out from the padding inside of her shoes, blisters were inevitable. She reminded herself that at least she could still feel pain. That hallucinogenic was unlike anything she had experienced and getting out alive was a successful mission in and of itself.

Swiftly dodging sharp thorns and zero concern for attracting any sort of wildlife, Kira continued to sprint on. The map indicated she was just a mile away from where the plane would be waiting. At this rate she could do that mile in under ten minutes despite the setbacks and conditions. It felt good when all of the brutal conditioning paid off for once. Only her lungs and muscles weren't in agonizing pain.

Finally, reaching the outer limits of the rainforest with the runway now in sight, she was able to make out the outline of the plane. The closer and closer she got, the more details appeared, and eventually she was even able to see the silhouette of the indifferent pilot. She was never so happy to see him, regardless if he would say a word to her or not.

Maintaining her pace, she had made it in a time that led her to believe there was still a chance. She smiled at the pilot with an awkward and tired smile. His reaction was typical and unrevealing. A slight smile, but that was all she found due to his dark aviators. Once she entered the plane, he folded up the staircase and door behind her and rushed into the cockpit.

The plane was already running and before she could even buckle herself in, he floored it. She stared out the window looking down on the canopy and, unlike many other missions, there was no longing to return. Tired, starving, and soaking wet, she couldn’t wait to return to her own space.

The danger level may have only been a 5.5, but the suck-factor was definitely an eight or higher.

They landed. Kira rushed into her apartment and got straight to work. No time to change into dry clothes or eat. Mixing different PCR primers and other chemicals to cleave the sequence at specific sites, she was able to get it done in record time. The final product was a normalized amount of DNA with the target gene suspended in nuclease-free water. She sealed the top with parafilm and rushed out the door.

The blue drop box was around the corner, an old USPS box. Located next to an abandoned building, the compartment for the vial was inside, and it required a code.

76432901.

It always boggled her mind how she remembered that number, or when she learned in the first place.

Add it to the list of never-to-be-answered questions.

Inside of the old post office box, a small black box shot out of the inner left wall like a drawer. She stuffed the vial side and closed it.

Once the black box sealed itself shut, she left.

Job complete. On her walk back to her apartment, she was able to breathe, and relax. Her heart could stop skipping beats, and she could sleep. Yes, sleep. Nothing in the world sounded more attractive than a good 10 hour nap.

Casually walking back to her apartment, she looked up at the sky. The sun was beaming. It made her feel like she had spent years in that rainforest. The warmth of the sun felt so foreign. The rays washed over her, cleaning off the filthy residue of the rainforest. She could feel her body replenishing itself. As soon as she entered her apartment, she plopped down on the couch like a sack of potatoes and crashed. Nothing could stop this. It was as if her eyelids were weighed down by anchors.

Tomorrow morning, payment would be in the bank, and life would be good. That is, assuming she was able to deliver with time left to spare.

Enter password here.

She rapidly entered the password on the tablet and waited to see the balance in her account. It was the only way to figure out if the mission was a success or not.

New payment received.

Just what she liked to see. It wasn't a large sum, definitely not the biggest she's ever received, but it was more than she needed. The balance on her account reached well into six figures but no one would ever know by looking at her apartment. She had adopted a minimalistic lifestyle, and money carried very little weight in her world.

What did spark her interest was why the payments varied so much. Sometimes the amounts made her look twice at the number of digits, and others made it seem like she did it all for peanuts.

Did that indicate something about the people she was stealing these genes for? Were the smaller sums of money indicative of everyday people dealing with some sort of crisis?

Who knows?

Add it to the list of never-to-be-answered questions.

She walked over to one of the bare walls and took out a magic marker. She added an X next to the others. Each one representing its own mission. She didn't feel the need to differentiate the missions because at the end of the day, they were all the same. A different gene, different targets, but the same outcome.

She was yet to fail at any single mission and, by the grace of that vine, she was able to continue that streak. She walked away from the wall and went back into her living room. She turned on the small box TV, and sat on the old, worn out couch. She could feel her butt hit the springs inside of the couch, and she chuckled as it happened. There was something inside of her that could never understand the appeal of acquiring material possessions, even when there was comfort and luxury to be gained.

Flipping through the channels on her small box TV, there was nothing good on as usual. After flying all over the world and stealing the rarest genes made, the average daily news seem pretty lame.

She figured she would flip through the rest of the channels before she turned it off and did some sort of yoga or meditation. Then the national news came on and it was a breaking news report. Intrigued by this, she left it on and turned the volume up.

On the screen was a picture of a father with his pregnant wife in the hospital bed, and their daughter standing next to them. Kira’s mind began to flicker, flashes of images appeared before her eyes.

She relaxed, taking a few deep breaths, trying to ground herself. The images repeated themselves until they were a constant stream. Conceding, she opened her eyes and saw a mother and father. Similar to the ones on the TV, but different. There was no girl standing by them, instead she was lying in a bed. She looked frail and debilitated. Kira felt a tsunami of emotions crash inside of her, tears streamed. The sight of that little girl, the needles coming out of her arm, the plethora of monitors on thin metal stands behind her did something inside of her. Something she couldn’t explain and didn’t care to explore.

The images stopped and she was back in her apartment, the cheap springs from the couch shooting into her ass helped her snap back to reality. She ran over to the kitchen table, opened up a marble notebook, and scribbled down what she saw. The entries were sporadic, no correlation between the images, but it seemed to be the same people. Was this her family?

She threw the pen down on the table, slammed the notebook shut, and walked back over to the couch. No room for weakness. Emotions can be lethal if not kept in check. She wiped her face and looked back at what was being reported.

"This just in, breaking news. A child with one of the rarest genetic mutations in the recorded history of medicine has just been found cured. They are calling it a modern-day miracle, and no doctor has been able to speculate or present a reasonable explanation. Claiming they found no signs of errors or false positives in their initial genetic screening they are amazed that this unborn fetus is no longer testing positive for what they are calling a de novo mutation. All of the other reported cases led to infantile death, and they are now looking into what may have caused this sudden change. More to follow later this evening."

Mouth completely open, jaw practically on the floor. Could it be? Did that shaman have some sort of gene that could save this unborn child's life? There was no way she could find out definitively, but it made sense. Her heart began to race. This was the happiest she had felt in who knows how long. There was one other case where she was able to figure the outcome of a mission, and it was five years ago. The day after she delivered the gene there was some massive press conference by a biotech company claiming they found a gene to cure obesity. It turned out to have massive side effects, lead to deaths and law suits and made Kira sick to her stomach. She felt nauseous even thinking about that incident.

This was different, though. Her eyes were fixated on the screen. The news had now moved on, but it didn't seem to register. She sat there staring at the screen as if they were still reporting on this medical breakthrough. This was the kind of news that kept her going. The possibility that she saved a life or two along her journeys helped her wake up in the morning. Make sense of this nonsensical world she lives in. No memories, sense of identity, nothing. That was worth not having if it meant saving this child she saw on the news.

Locating and copying genes was all she knew how to do in life and all she wanted to do. Ever since Kira woke up in that apartment as a confused and naïve teenager, just five years ago, this was her entire world. Besides, who else gets to travel the world and make copies of other people's genes? When she put it that way, she figured she had it pretty good. Working a 9-5 sounded much scarier than what she did.

Her mind escaped this good news for a second and thought back to that shaman. His eyes continued to haunt her. The way he failed to react, and the look of expectation on his face. Never before had she snuck up so elegantly and perfectly, and yet had the feeling that the element of surprise was nowhere to be found. Maybe he had started that incense of hallucinogens on purpose. As she went over the sequence of events and how they took place, that vine began to stand out as more and more of a lifesaver. They probably would've tied her up and sacrificed her to the merciless gods of the rainforest. It never sat well with her that she had to steal these genes. One of the only rules had to follow was the one found on a note left in the apartment. It was there when she woke up in the room and stated very clearly that if she questioned the process, her life would take an unpleasant turn. Ever since that note Kira toed the line, but deep down she knew that her thirst for answers would become so insatiable, that it would take over.

For now, she was back in her apartment, home again.

Ready for the next mission.

For Book 2 follow this link:
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