Runaway Heart (50 page)

     
The war party ran up the stairs. Jack felt wetness on his back
where his blood-wet shirt was sticking to him. He lost his balance and
accidentally dropped the laser gun. It rattled back down the stairs.
"Shit." Jack started back down for it, but Susan stopped him.

     
"Leave it," she instructed as they heard heavy footsteps
pounding up the enclosed staircase.

     
They picked up Digby in the barn and ran outside. Now the whooping
alarm was joined by the distant sound of arriving fire trucks and squad cars.
"Here come my guys," Jack said. "City services to the
rescue." In seconds, the red lights from two fire units were ping-ponging
on the stable walls. Four sheriff's squad cars barrelled in behind.

     
"It's gonna blow!" Jack yelled as the firefighters got
out of the trucks dressed in their red helmets and yellow slickers and started
toward him.

     
"Get back! It's gonna blow!" he yelled again. Jack
literally pushed one of the firefighters back into the truck.

     
Izzy was doing more or less the same at the second truck as Jack
jumped onto the engine nearest him, then pulled Susan aboard.

     
"Get it outta here!" Jack yelled. "Go! Go! Go! This
place
is gonna
explode!" In all truth, he wasn't absolutely sure it was going to explode,
but the alarms had him in an adrenaline panic.

     
The cops and the firefighters finally got the idea and backed the
vehicles out fast. They were about two hundred yards away when the driver of
Jack and Susan's truck stopped and set the brake.

     
"No! Get back further!" Jack yelled as the second truck
with Izzy, Carlos, and Digby aboard pulled up beside them.

     
"There's supposed to be a fire out here. Where's the fuckin'
fire?" the truck captain yelled at them.

     
Just then they felt the earth tremble. The ground around the barn
began to explode upwards into the air. It blew mighty chunks of dirt and sand
hundreds of feet into the night sky, one huge eruption after another. Boulders,
rocks, and jagged pieces of the underground lab swirled around, then began
raining down on them. The last charge erupted somewhere near the middle of the
barn, blowing the walls and roof apart. More huge pieces of the metal-walled
lab shot up into the sky, whirling around like deadly confetti, then spiraled
dangerously down to earth.

     
Jack dove under the truck, pulling Susan with him. Several
firefighters followed.

     
Somebody's footlocker landed ten feet from the truck, blazing
merrily.

     
Finally the explosions stopped and what was left of the lab was
either flying around in the air or burning in little piles all over the desert.

     
"Fire's right there," Jack said to the cowering fire
captain who moments before had been wondering where it was.

     
"Thanks. I see it now," the man replied sarcastically.

     
After the rest of the fiery debris landed, they crawled out from
under the truck and watched it all burn. Jack and Susan hugged each other, just
glad to be alive.

     
Izzy was standing next to them, his handsome features scrunched up
into a frown. "I told you it was no fun out here," he finally said.
"This place always sucked."

"
I
want to get out
of here," Jack whined, looking
up at Susan. His shoulder was stitched up and he was rigged
with more plastic plumbing than a high school science fair. Some clear stuff
was leaking into him and some evil-looking brown shit was leaking out. Pain
radiated from his shoulder to his spinal column down his back and into his
balls. From there it went into his toes. He reasoned that when you got shot in
the shoulder your toes shouldn't ache, but they were killing him.

     
"What's this?" Susan said, picking up the clipboard
hanging on the end of the bed.

     
"My meds."

     
"Percocets?" she cocked a suspicious eyebrow at him.

     
"Little Jack has a big boo-boo. He needs his pain meds."

     
"Jack. . ."

 
    
"I'm not hooked on this shit,
okay?"

     
"You say."

     
"I'm not. If I was hooked I'd know it. I'm an experienced
police specialist. I used to bust guys for drug abuse. Give it a rest,
okay?"

     
"I think you should get checked into a clinic."

 
    
"Is that any way to talk to the guy
you've been screwing?" He was dodging madly as she scoped him with a
critical stare.

     
"Jack, if I'm going to have a meaningful relationship with
you, we have to be honest with one another."

     
"Susan, honesty is my middle name. Well. . . maybe not
exactly honesty, but certainly expediency is. Or Wendell.

     
And, hey . . . if there aren't a few tiny deceptions in a
relationship it can get pretty damn boring."

     
She didn't smile.

     
"I'm serious," she said, then turned and walked to the
door. "I've got to get to the courthouse. We're back in front of
Krookshank at two."

     
"Susan . . . y'know, it's hard for me to . . . to . . . to
come to grips with this."

     
"I know."

     
"I don't think you do. And it's not denial or anything,
y'know. It's . . . well, it's just. . . I hurt a lot."

     
"I know."

     
"And I hope this isn't going to be a problem for us."

     
"If you don't get it taken care of, Jack, there is no
us." Standing in the doorway, frowning, she looked at him for a long
moment. "You can deny this, Jack, but then I'm gone. If you go to the
clinic I'll be there. I'll help you through it. It's your choice." Then
she walked out.

     
In that moment his life was as confusing as the tangle of tubes
running in and out of him. He was wondering what to do when his chronic back
suddenly went into spasms, making the decision for him. He buzzed for the nurse
and she came in ten minutes later.

     
"I think I need my pain medicine," he said to her in a
low whisper. He was sad, and lost, and consumed with self-hatred.

In Federal Courtroom Sixteen, Herman was
submitting the rest of his evidence in support of the TRO.

     
He entered the vials of chimera DNA that Susan had taken from the
lab. Izzy had already testified to the fact that they had found them five
stories below ground on reservation land he had leased to DARPA. The Indio fire
captain testified that the lab had been detonated and that there were trace
elements of radioactivity, indicating the explosives had been low-yield nuclear
charges.

     
Dr. Adjemenian and her two genetics experts explained the genome
map and how it matched the DNA in the lab,
proving beyond any doubt the existence of the chimeras. It
was an awesome presentation. Now Herman was doing his closing argument, and he
was in rare form.

     
"Your Honor, our expert scientific witnesses have testified
that the DNA in this vial is in fact 99.3 percent human homology. We have here
in court an actual DNA sample taken from the secret government lab. We also
have irrefutable evidence that the government built this underground facility
at the Ten-Eyck reservation. A lab, I might add, that they chose to destroy
with a low-yield nuclear device to cover up the existence of their dangerous
experiments. Mr. Amato challenged the existence of the chimeras, and it appears
that now there are none left alive to bring before you as I had promised. It
also appears that Charles Chimera and his five John Doe brothers perished in
that nuclear explosion. However, if need be I could take the very material in
this vial before you and hire my own genetics lab to harvest a chimpanzee egg,
fertilize it with this genetically engineered DNA, and create a chimera zygote.
I could then grow the very same hybrid being myself and bring it into this
courtroom six months hence. My question is, Your Honor, is all of that really
necessary?"

     
"Are you asking for a ruling on that now?" Judge
Krookshank asked from the bench, looking at the government lawyers.

 
    
Amato had chosen not to be in court this
afternoon, leaving the retreat and final surrender in the less-than-capable
hands of a skinny government lawyer named Chris Webb. He was a lean, intense,
boringly nondescript man who could not convey six conflicting emotions in one
ten-dollar word, but was pretty good at his one expression, which was forlorn
humiliation. It wrapped his features in a tight frown.

     
"Your Honor," Chris Webb said. "Before you rule on
that, I would like to put on my closing argument. That is, if counsel is
finished with his."

     
"I'm not quite finished yet," Herman said.

     
"Go ahead then," Krookshank said.

     
"I think it is important to note here that, as a society,
we give up
certain powers and freedoms to our government . . . powers that we entrust to
them by virtue of the fact that we, as individuals, cannot undertake them
ourselves. It is therefore incumbent upon our government, when it accepts this
gift of power, not to abuse it.

     
"I think we have ample evidence of abuse of power here.
Genetic engineering for the sole purpose of creating subhuman warriors is way
beyond the scope of this society's gift of power. Here today we have seen not
only ample evidence of this abuse of power, but also a staggering lack of good
sense and scientific morality. Therefore I implore the court to grant my TRO
and then injunctive relief on behalf of the DNA life-forms I have brought into
court today. This court—your court, Your Honor—must make sure that these abuses
will never occur again."

Susan entered the crowded room full of
reporters and onlookers and took a seat at the back. Herman saw her but didn't
wave. He had one more thing to say.

     
Sandy Toshiabi at the plaintiff's table turned to give Susan a
smile and a thumbs-up.

 
    
"Life is
precious, Your Honor," Herman went on. "Precious in all forms
wherever it exists. But it is important that we don't try to redirect or
redesign the course of natural evolution. The results can become ungodly
nightmares, but they won't all stay in our dreams. Some are bound to get away
from us and, like these chimeras, chase us into the streets. One day they may
even overthrow us, become our masters and enslave
us.
It is with these
frightening scenarios in mind that I beg the court to rule for the
plaintiff."

     
He sat down.

     
Chris Webb didn't have much to offer. He wandered around trying to
attack standing and Herman's lack of a fiduciary obligation. "Mr.
Strockmire doesn't have an attorney-client relationship," he argued.
"Earlier he claimed that this animal, Charles Chimera, reached out to him.
But now he says the animals are all dead. He cannot produce his client or any
evidence that he was ever retained. This alone is enough to disallow the TRO.
Further, Mr. Strockmire doesn't have the legal right to represent vials of
liquid." Chris Webb also argued that science had to be allowed to flourish
if we were going to have a brave new world.

     
Herman smiled. This dipshit didn't even know that
Brave New
World
was the title of a novel about science and government gone mad.

     
So there it was, lawyers dressed in black, bullshitting just as
always. And once again only Herman seemed to be standing alone between the
forces of tyranny and sanity. Only Herman the German seemed to give a damn.

     
Judge Krookshank called a recess and went into chambers to
deliberate—or maybe, Herman thought, he just went in there to take a whiz,
because he was back in less than ten minutes.

     
They were all hustled out of the hall and reseated in the big, gothic
courtroom looking up at the judge while he polished his glasses.

     
"On the issue of standing, which I said I would rule on at a
later date . . . it is the decision of this court that these chimeras, this
DNA, is not essentially human DNA, despite the fact that it is closer than the
DNA of some humans who have been granted standing in court before. These
animals, while close, are still not essentially
Homo sapiens,
so this
court rules that they cannot be plaintiffs in a court of law."