The Tomorrow Code Part 10

Rebecca nodded silently.

Vicky continued, "And is your mum still conducting research into climate change? I seem to remember that her work was quite radical. Groundbreaking. But I never saw anything published in the scientific journals."

"She's taking a sabbatical this year," Rebecca said.

Tane thought of the blue flickering windows of Rebecca's mother's room and said nothing.

They reached a high wire fence, topped with vicious-looking barbed wire. There was a gate set into the fence and beside it an electronic keypad.

Tane glanced over as the professor tapped in a four-digit pattern. He caught the last number. Three. Like the Powerball number. Like the three of them.

The path continued inside the fence, and they made their way through some brightly colored flowerbeds to another door, another keypad, and through some polished corridors to her office.

Vicky fussed around them, getting them each a gla.s.s of cool water, despite the fact that they hadn't asked for one.

There was a painting on the wall of her office that Tane recognized immediately and knew that Fatboy would, too. It was one of their father's works, ent.i.tled Tuatara Dawn. Tuatara Dawn. It was worth a lot of money, Tane remembered. It was worth a lot of money, Tane remembered.

"So how can I help?" Vicky's emerald-green eyes flashed brightly once again.

Rebecca began, "Well-"

"What kind of security reasons?" Tane interrupted, looking up at the CCT security camera mounted in the corner of Vicky's office. Another had stared at them in the main entrance area.

"I'm sorry?"

"Earlier you said you don't usually allow visitors, for security reasons. What kind of security reasons? Do you work with dangerous viruses here?"

Vicky laughed, a soft, bell-like trill. "Good heavens, no. Nothing like that. All our work is with rhinoviruses, nothing dangerous. The security, and the reason we operate all the way out here on an island, is to get away from protestors, who have no idea what we are doing but object to it anyway. Because we're a genetics lab, they a.s.sume we are creating genetically modified tomatoes or cloning sheep or something like that. Do you know what rhinoviruses are?"

Fatboy answered smugly, "Of course. It's the common cold."

Tane caught a brief smile from Rebecca.

"Come and have a look," said Vicky.

She talked as they walked along a short corridor with large gla.s.s windows looking in on a laboratory where technicians and scientists in white lab coats and plastic hair caps were doing unguessable scientific things with microscopes and test tubes.

"This is our level-one lab. That's what we call a biocontainment level. The lab is sealed while people are working in there, but there's no real danger to anyone."

"And if there was an accident?" Fatboy asked.

"Well, you might catch a cold, I suppose." Vicky laughed again, pleasantly.

Tane had been expecting to meet some evil scientist with devious plans, thick gla.s.ses, and maybe a Persian cat on her lap. Vicky Green didn't fit the bill at all.

Vicky continued, "We made provisions for a level-two lab when we built the complex, but we haven't used it yet."

Tane noticed that her eyes involuntarily flicked toward a solid-looking door at the end of the corridor as she spoke.

She continued, "That would be for any dangerous pathogens, like influenza or hepat.i.tis C. Labs go all the way up to level four, you know, but that's only for people who are working with the really deadly viruses like Ebola. The United States has one at the CDC, their Centers for Disease Control, and I think the Russians have a couple."

They stood and watched the lab staff at work for a while.

"What area of rhinovirus research are you conducting?" Rebecca asked.

"Well, our main area is conserved antigens. Are you familiar with that field?"

"Slightly," said Rebecca.

"I'm not," Tane said quickly.

"Okay, do you know how your body's immune system works?"

"Antibodies?" Fatboy queried.

"Well, that's a part of it. Antibodies Antibodies are your body's watchdogs against viruses and bacteria. are your body's watchdogs against viruses and bacteria. Macrophages Macrophages are your body's soldiers. When the antibodies recognize something dangerous-a are your body's soldiers. When the antibodies recognize something dangerous-a pathogen pathogen-they latch on to it, smother it, and send out a call for the macrophages to come along and swallow it up. But viruses like the rhinovirus keep changing. Mutating. Your body learns to recognize one rhinovirus but next winter along comes a new one with a different shape, and your antibodies don't recognize it."

She stopped and looked around them, to make sure they were following her, which they were. "We are looking for conserved antigens, which means looking for common characteristics."

She drew a felt pen out of her pocket and, seemingly absentmindedly, drew a diagram on the gla.s.s window looking into the lab. Tane suspected she did things like that a lot.

Her diagram looked a bit like a flower, a central circle, with smaller circles surrounding it, joined to the center by stalks.

"Suppose this is a rhinovirus. Our antibodies recognize these shapes here"-she pointed to the smaller circles-"but then along comes a new virus." She rubbed out the small circles with her thumb and drew in small triangles. "With a different shape, which they don't recognize."

"Then it wouldn't be able to smother it," Rebecca said.

"Right, but look, the stalks are the same on both viruses. That is what we call a conserved antigen. conserved antigen. What if you had antibodies that could recognize the stalks, instead of just looking at the overall shape?" What if you had antibodies that could recognize the stalks, instead of just looking at the overall shape?"

"Wow," said Tane.

"You'd cure the common cold," said Rebecca.

"What about the Chimera Project?" asked Fatboy, and there was a sudden silence.

Tane winced. They had to be subtle, he thought. Fatboy was as subtle as a bull in a china shop.

"What is the Chimera Project?" Vicky asked after a while.

"We were rather hoping you could tell us," Rebecca said.

Vicky thought for a minute, then shook her head. "Never heard of it. It could have something to do with genetics, though. A chimera is what we create if we splice together genes from two different organisms. The University of California created a 'geep' a few years ago, part goat, part sheep, but there was a lot of hoo-ha about that, and you don't hear about that sort of thing very much anymore."

Tane looked carefully at her. Was she telling the truth? If there was no Chimera Project, then maybe they could just get back to Auckland, cancel the order for the submarine, and get on with spending the six million dollars. That sounded like a good plan. However, he couldn't get three small letters out of his mind: S, O, S, O, and and S. S.

Rebecca said, "What if you were to genetically splice together two, or more, different cold viruses? To help find your conserved antigen. What if you did that?"

Vicky laughed, a little too quickly this time. "A chimera rhinovirus. I'm afraid that's just science fiction, young lady."

The trip back was silent. Even the pilot sensed the mood and cut his usual cheery chatter. It wasn't until they were almost about to land that Rebecca said what they were all thinking.

"Professor Green was lying through her back teeth."

WATER W WORKS

WTRWKSBTMP1000:2.80,24,341,55,500. 80,24,342,54,499,1.80,24

Rebecca's software, trawling through weeks of gamma-ray bursts, had found the next pattern, but this one made no sense at all. of gamma-ray bursts, had found the next pattern, but this one made no sense at all.

All three of them stared at the characters dotted across the computer screen, trying to see order in the chaos. The early Sat.u.r.day sun cast long streaks of light across the carpets of the lounge of the West Harbor house but did nothing to illuminate the puzzle.

"So you've checked earlier messages too?" Fatboy asked.

"Weeks of them," Rebecca replied. "The messages start on the day we visited Dr. Barnes."

"As if they knew you would visit him that day."

"Exactly. That can't be just a coincidence."

"I still don't understand where we're going to get this time transmitter from." Fatboy frowned.

"Me neither," Rebecca said with a smile. "I'd invent one, if I had the slightest idea of where or how to start."

"SOS means an emergency," said Tane, whose mind was somewhere else entirely. "It means 'help, save us,' but from what?"

"Water Works," said Rebecca, looking at the printout. "Like on Monopoly. You know, the Electric Company and the Water Works."

The other two looked at her and she shrugged. "Still doesn't make much sense, though, does it."

"Maybe it's a plague," Tane said. "Maybe Dr. Green is going to accidentally create some horrible disease and wipe out half of mankind!"

Fatboy asked, "What if we just went and saw her again? Maybe she'd listen to us if we told her about the message."

"Maybe she'd deny everything again and have us arrested," Tane said.

"What are you up to?" It was Rebecca's mother, drifting through the room. They hadn't heard her come in.

"Runescape," Tane lied quickly.

"What's that?" she asked vaguely.

"It's an online game where you get to be a kind of a character, called an..." He trailed off as she drifted out of the room, not listening to his answer. Tane stared at the computer screen, careful not to look at Rebecca.

"I think we have to involve the authorities," Fatboy said. "If it is the end of the world that we are talking about, then that's too big a problem for the three of us to deal with."

"You're right," Rebecca agreed. "But first we have to prove it. So far it's all just guesswork, and as Tane says, maybe we have misunderstood the message."

"And what if we tell the authorities, and they don't believe us, and they alert Vicky, and we lose our chance to do something about it?" Tane said. "Then the end of the world will be our fault!"

"Maybe that's why the message said, 'Don't tell anyone,'" Fatboy considered.

Rebecca said, "We need to know more about the project. I mean, what's it about? What are they really trying to do? I think we need to go back to the island."

Fatboy shook his head. "She's not going to admit anything."

"I know," Rebecca agreed. "That's why we have to go when she's not around. When n.o.body's around."

"Ooooh kaaay..." Tane drew out the words.

Rebecca continued, "We get in there at night when n.o.body is working, and go through her files. Find out what she's up to, then figure out what to do about it."

"That sounds pretty reasonable," Tane said, "but what about her security? The barbed-wire fences and alarms."

"Worry about that next," Rebecca said. "Are we agreed on the basic idea?"