It was from a large secured door in Building 21 that Medical Service Corps Officer J. Prodol stepped out into the lobby where he found both women.
“Commander Lawton?”
“Here,” Neely said, stepping forward.
Even though she was both indoors and out of uniform, Prodol still gave a respectful nod. At six foot three and two hundred and forty pounds, Prodol almost towered over both women.
“I’ve been instructed to escort you to our lab as soon as possible.” He glanced at the small cooler in Neely’s right hand. “Is there anything you need that I can secure for you?”
“No, thank you.” She shook her head and immediately passed through the door as he held it open. Alison promptly followed as did Prodol, who then escorted them down a short white hallway. At the end, they turned and continued through a much wider hall.
Just before reaching the end, Prodol retrieved a key card attached to his belt loop and pressed it against a flat scanner. A red light turned green and the door to his left made a loud click. With that, he pulled it open and stepped through.
“It’s not much, but we should have most of what you need.” He crossed the room, passing two researchers perched in front of their oversized computer monitors and stopped before a larger set of double doors. He repeated the step with his access card and pulled the right-hand door open.
Inside, the Clinic’s lab was larger than either was expecting, filled with three rows of familiar beige tables and shelves. The chairs were upholstered in a sharp royal blue matching the white/blue motif of the room, a common look for most modern laboratories.
Prodol motioned to the nearby equipment. “We have five microscopes — two inverted and three confocal. The centrifuge and hemocytometer are both behind you and most supplies can be found in the cabinets above them. Per my instructions, the room has been cleared for your use only, and for as long as you need.”
Alison was impressed. She turned to Neely, who scanned the room.
Prodol handed her a business card with the Clinic’s logo on the front. “Please take your time. If there is anything you need, feel free to ring me on my mobile. Restrooms are outside.”
“Thank you. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
Prodol smiled politely and excused himself from the room, closing the door behind him.
As soon as it clicked shut, Neely moved to the silver tabletop refrigerator and transferred her samples from the cooler.
She then grinned at Alison. “Let’s find the coffee.”
Several hours later, Neely Lawton leaned away from the confocal microscope and rolled her chair back. “I think we have something.”
Alison stepped forward from behind her and peered into both eyepieces. It was filled with a sample of red blood cells, grouped together in dense pink clumps, each cell with the recognizable indentations in the middle.
“Are these from Sally?”
“Yes.” She brought up an image on the screen. “These are Sally’s,” she said, pointing to the first. “And these are Lee’s red blood cells.”
“They look almost the same.”
Neely nodded. “Most mammalian RBCs look pretty similar.”
Alison peered harder at Lee’s samples. “Are they supposed to be doing something?”
“Not necessarily. The normal life span of red blood cells is between a hundred to a hundred and twenty days. If Lee or Chris’s systems were exhibiting anything similar to the plants, we should see many more cells in these clusters by now, showing a sharp acceleration in cell production. But we’re not, which means their underlying DNA hasn’t changed.”
“You mean not like the plants.”
“Exactly. And it’s just as I was expecting. On the ship, it was immediately obvious that something was different about the plants, which is why we investigated deeper. Their cells were replicating at an astonishing rate. But DNA changes don’t work that fast. It’s evolutionary, which means it takes a number of generations, and mutations, for a change to take effect.”
“So a lot of time then,” Alison murmured.
“Well, yes and no. I actually have a friend who likes to argue with me, insisting that the sheer number of genes in a living organism is too vast. And that even if a significant change occurred with every single generation, a billion years still isn’t enough time to accommodate an evolutionary path that gets us to where we are today. But my point to him is that he’s thinking too linearly. His argument is true until you consider that every second of every day, there are trillions, even quadrillions, of cells in every life form on the planet that are constantly splitting and replicating. And even if a mutation does not result in a significant biological change, there are trillions elsewhere that have. And given enough time, those changes will eventually coalesce throughout the species, and in some cases, between species.”
“And how does that apply to us?”
“Sorry. I was just making a point that DNA changes can happen faster than most people think, but yeah, it still takes time. DNA doesn’t change overnight. A lot longer than a few weeks, and the exposure would have to be very intrusive, something at a cellular level.”
“So nothing with Sally either.”
At that, the corner of Neely’s lip curled. “I didn’t say that. I was speaking only about the men’s samples.”
Alison looked at her with an anxious trace of excitement. “Well, what does that mean?”
“Well, I’m not intimately familiar with the biology of dolphins, but most mammals’ red blood cells have replication speeds that fall within a certain range. And Sally’s are well outside of that. In other words, hers are replicating significantly faster.”
“Really?!”
“Really. It’s not nearly as fast as I saw in the plants, but it’s faster than I’m guessing it should be. And much faster than either Lee or Chris’s.”
“So I was right about Dirk and Sally?”
“Maybe,” Neely said. “There could be several reasons for the growth rate in their cells. We won’t know until I put this through a DNA sequencer. It’s also a long shot that we’d find the exact same base order as the plants had.”
“But you found it before.”
She looked up at Alison. “Only because the behavior was so similar to cancer cells. I knew where to look.”
“So now what?”
“Now I need to find a sequencer. The Army doesn’t have one here.”
“How hard is that?”
“Not very, they’re pretty common these days. Lots of small private labs have them. All we probably need is a phone book.”
Alison gave her a sarcastic grin. “What’s a phone book?”
28
Alison awoke to the sound of a crying child and felt a brush of air as someone walked past her. Gradually, she opened her eyes and lifted her head off a firm vinyl seat. It took a moment to recognize the large room and to recount how she had gotten there.
It was almost two a.m. before she and Neely located a sequencer in a location that was still open. Most businesses in Puerto Rico closed much earlier than in the States, so she considered it nothing short of a miracle when they found an available machine in San Juan at the Axilio Mutuo, the largest civilian hospital in Puerto Rico. After a few phone calls, a tired and disheveled technician appeared in the parking lot to escort them to the Genetics Lab.
The process of sequencing was not fast, which was why Neely had sent her out to get some sleep. Now, in the hospital’s main waiting room, Alison sat up and rubbed her eyes while a small ten-year-old girl watched curiously from another chair, next to her father.