The Fourth Layer Read online

  In truth Hannah’s drawing looked more like a velociraptor or compsognathus than it did a chicken, though she supposed that, sans feathers and with green skin, it was no wonder chickens looked like little dinosaurs. Birds were direct descendants of most meat-eating dinosaurs, after all.

  Great, so Walsanto has recreated Jurassic Park, Hannah thought gloomily. In another situation, the idea of a real-life Jurassic Park would have excited her to no end. Because—how could it not? She was a forensic geneticist. She adored reptiles and amphibians. Dinosaurs were Hannah's original obsession.

  But this was different.

  If all the chickens become sterile then they’ll die out, and every other crop fed animal eating Walsanto’s products won’t be far behind.

  Hannah checked her cell phone for what felt like the millionth time that afternoon but, other than a text from Dr. Greene telling her he expected a full report about what she’d spent the last two weeks researching, she had no missed calls or new emails or messages of any sort.

  “C’mon, Rusty,” she murmured into her milkshake. “This is time-sensitive…”

  Hannah had no idea how long the nanobots would actually take to excise the foreign genetic material from affected individuals. Hell, she had no clue how she was supposed to program the nanobots to do such a thing in the first place. She did have a couple of friends who worked with nanobots at MIT that she intended to contact as soon as she got the go-ahead from Rusty, hoping that they’d be able to help her get her project off the ground. Other than that…

  Well, there was no ‘other than that’. This was completely novel territory that Hannah was venturing into. It was either going to work—or it wasn’t.

  When her cell phone rang suddenly Hannah yelped in fright, once more drawing suspicious looks from the next table over. She’d forgotten that she’d turned the device off vibrate and put it on full volume to ensure she didn’t miss his call. Heart pounding a mile a minute, Hannah gulped down a mouthful of air when she saw that it was indeed Rusty calling her.

  This is it, she thought, accepting the call and raising her phone to her ear. This will determine everything.

  “Rusty, thank you for getting back to me so quickly!” Hannah exclaimed breathlessly.

  Silence. Just a beat or two of silence, but it was all Hannah needed to hear. Then the man sighed. “Hannah—”

  “No!” Hannah mouthed. “No. The FDA can’t have refused my study. They can’t have, Rusty. Don’t they know what’s at stake?!”

  “I’m so sorry, kiddo. They were fine for you to experiment on yeast and flies—and, eventually, mice—but…there’s no way they’ll approve human trials. They said the technology is far too new and unknown to risk such experiments.”

  “But Walsanto’s products have already caused instant evolution in people!” Hannah cried. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “There are reports of folk in Texas developing green-tinged skin. Babies being born that are part plant, part human for God’s sake! This is happening now, Rusty! We don’t have years and years to develop the nanobots for human trials. Within five years we’ll all be something else, and—and green and weird and hairless and basically plants and I don’t know what else but our entire species will die out and—”

  “Shh, Hannah, keep your voice down,” Rusty interrupted, tone frantic. “You’re out in public, aren’t you?”

  She frowned. “How did you know?”

  “I can hear a bell ringing over a door in the background. Are you at that milkshake café?”

  “That’s…how did you know that?”

  “I had to have you monitored after you wrote that article. Standard—”

  “That’s such an invasion of privacy, Rusty!” Hannah yelled, not caring about keeping her voice down. “How dare—”

  “You’re not under surveillance anymore, Hannah!” Rusty corrected quickly. “It was protocol. Anyway, all anyone learned from it was that you basically only leave your apartment for work, a record store, and that café. You’re no longer deemed ‘suspicious’. But that’s only because of me, Hannah. If you so much as look into ordering some microbots—”

  “Nanobots—”

  “Nanobots, then you’ll likely be taken into custody again. Do you understand, Hannah? Your career will be destroyed. You’ll be put on no-flight lists and pegged as a bio-terrorist. So don’t try anything and don’t talk to anyone. Do you understand?”

  Hannah said nothing. She understood full well. The United States government, along with the FDA and basically anyone influential who was ‘in the know’ did not want Hannah attempting to fix this mess. They were just going to let Walsanto get away with whatever it was they were trying to achieve, as long as it made them lots of money. Just like that. Everything Rusty had told her about the President wanting to find a way to reverse the hybridization before it got too far had been complete and utter bullshit.

  “Hannah? Earth to—”

  “I get it,” she said, voice flat.

  “You getting it and you agreeing to keep out of trouble are two entirely different things.”

  Hannah bit her lip. “Fine. I’ll keep out of trouble, even though the FDA is making a huge effing mistake. Happy now?”

  “Of course not,” Rusty replied, voice soft and sympathetic. “You know I’m trying my best on my end to sort things out. I won’t stop doing that. Just…we won’t be able to sort it out using your nanobots. There will be something else. Something less…risky.”

  Hannah could tell that Rusty himself was not convinced by his own words.

  She hung up before the man had a chance to say goodbye. Hannah slumped in her chair, appetite for her banana shake gone entirely. What was she supposed to do now? Her only plausible idea had been shot down. She was back to square one.

  No, further back than square one, because when Hannah had been at square one she’d still had hope. Now she had nothing.

  The world was going to end and Hannah Withers could do nothing but sit back and watch it burn.

  Chapter 3

  South Carolina

  Hannah’s Apartment

  Okay, so when Hannah had told Dr. Greene she’d come into the lab on Monday morning she hadn’t actually lied. She’d meant to. She really had.

  But how could he expect her to come in after that call with Rusty? What was the point?

  “Life’s a bitch and then you die,” Hannah told Blue, who bobbed his head as if in agreement, though in truth he was merely waiting for her to sprinkle his fish food into the tank. Hannah had been hovering in front of it for five minutes, hand stuck in the jar of unpleasant smelling flakes even as Blue flailed back and forth impatiently just below the surface of the water, mouth gaping desperately for food. With a sigh, she flung in more than she probably should have—not that Blue would complain.

  “At least one of us should be allowed to stuff their face,” Hannah said, before heading to the kitchen sink to wash her hands. She glanced at the T.V. She was streaming a recorded version of Jekyll & Hyde the musical—the version with David Hasselhoff in it as the eponymous doctor himself. My eighties movie binge has certainly taken an odd turn, Hannah thought, though she didn’t care. She would accept any kind of distraction from thinking about her call with Rusty the day before.

  Hannah’s stomach grumbled insistently. She hadn’t eaten all day, for fear that everything in her kitchen was somehow full of Walsanto products. After all, who really knew when exactly their CornPlus had entered into the food stream? If Hannah wasn’t vegetarian she would probably have ingested some affected chicken or beef by now. Nobody tested everything. Not even her, and she’d invented the test!

  She flung open her fridge and stared at the eggs and cheese inside it. They were also from a local farm, so they should be fine. They should be, but Hannah couldn’t shake the fear that they weren’t. So, she dutifully laid down a few test swabs on the counter as ultimately, her stomach forced her into action. After testing each ingredient, Hannah made a cheese and spinach om
elet, which she seasoned with paprika and chili until it was tongue-twistingly spicy. When she finally sat back down on her sofa to watch the rest of the musical, David Hasselhoff had taken the formula that would turn him into Mr. Hyde. Hannah almost choked on her omelet at the guy’s terrible acting and singing; a quick Google search told her that he was only in the filmed version of the musical because he had provided the money for the production.

  Nepotism and narcissism at their finest, she thought, hungrily shoveling food into her mouth. Despite Hasselhoff’s terrible turn as the doctor—or, perhaps, because of it—Hannah found herself thoroughly enjoying the musical. But as the story progressed and Dr. Jekyll fell further into madness, Hannah couldn’t help but realize one thing in particular.

  Henry Jekyll’s research had technically worked. Sure, he’d turned into a murderous, lustful monster who lurked London’s dark streets in search of bodies to slaughter or sleep with, but he had managed to isolate the evil from the good within a human. If Jekyll had had a team to support him—people to bounce ideas off of and troubleshoot with—then perhaps his dream would have become a reality, not a nightmare.

  So if I made sure I had some collaborators, could I…?

  But no. It was ridiculous. There was no way Hannah could test her nanobot theory on herself. She’d spend the next two weeks proving that her theory worked in lower organisms, as approved by the FDA, then force Rusty to show them that her research worked. It was the only thing she could do now.

  And yet…

  Pulling her laptop towards her, Hannah had to wonder if she’d gone as mad as the good doctor Jekyll himself. For this was madness, even if she did discuss the idea with others first. It was unethical and unscientific and—

  Quite possibly her only viable option.

  After the debacle that was Hannah’s never-meant-to-be-seen exposé being auto-posted, she had set up an online chat hidden deep inside the dark web in order to talk to her friends at different colleges. Todd and Grace, her best friends, were on here, too, since they had known each other since their undergraduate degree. There were another few undergraduate friends sprinkled across the States and the U.K., too, and then there was Helena and Rei, the ones who worked with nanobots at MIT It was the two of them whom Hannah needed to talk to, and the rest of their team if possible.

  If anyone knew what to do, it would be them.

  Breathing deeply, Hannah drafted a message for the chat board.

  Hi guys,

  So as you all know (and absolutely shouldn’t know, but whatever, we’ve gotten this far without being caught)—Hannah cast a furtive glance towards her curtained windows at this, since Rusty had specifically told her not to talk to anyone or get into any trouble, but she was in too deep already—my viral research has come to a complete and utter standstill. I had an idea to use mechanical nanobots to target the genes Walsanto corn integrated into the genomes of anything that ate it. There are only three in total—the terminator gene, the gene from bamboo for quick and efficient growth, and the gene from algae that causes photosynthesis in animals. The DNA sequence for each of these genes is entirely unique, with no long stretches of bases that match any other gene sequence. In theory they should be straightforward to target, but viral methods just aren’t working.

  Hannah huffed out all the air in her lungs as she furiously typed in a stream of consciousness typical to the way she spoke out loud.

  This is where the nanobots come in. I want to program some to remove these genes from animal genomes completely, and then to just quietly go away on their own. The only problem is that the FDA absolutely won’t approve testing them in humans—I can barely get them to say yes to mouse models. I’m sure you’re all well aware of the time-sensitive nature of the Hybridization virus. We don’t have the weeks and months and years the FDA requires before approving such a treatment in humans.

  So what I propose is this: I prove that the nanobots can be programmed to be used effectively in yeast and fruit flies over the next two weeks, and if they work then…I try them out on myself.

  I know, I sound crazy. But desperate times, right? I’m looking at you, MIT, to look after me while I do this. I know I can’t do this alone. Anyway, let me know if I’m insane.

  We’re all dead anyway.

  H. W.

  Hannah knew she’d signed off her message in typically over dramatic fashion, but she couldn’t see another situation more appropriate to be dramatic in than this one.

  Yawning loudly, Hannah stretched her arms up and over her head and allowed herself to lie back onto her sofa. Now that she was full of omelet and Hasselhoff-as-Jekyll had effectively vanquished Edward Hyde by dying, she felt pleasantly sleepy. She hadn’t felt this nicely tired in a long time, having bounced between insomnia and passing out from exhaustion for two weeks straight. A nap sounded great. A nap sounded like the best thing Hannah Withers could do with her time right now.

  “See you when I wake up, Blue,” she mumbled into the blanket she always had lying on the sofa, curling up beneath it with a smile on her face. This was going to be a good nap, she could feel it.

  ~~~~

  Hannah awoke with the sense that she had been asleep for a hundred years. All around her the room was dark, cast in an eerie, blue glow from the screensaver on the TV and Blue’s fish tank. Her laptop was lying on the floor. Clearly she’d knocked it off the sofa in her sleep. Blearily she reached for it, stabbing the power button with her index finger only to discover that it had run out of battery.

  “Figures,” she yawned, massaging out a crick in her neck before stumbling to the drawer in the TV stand to retrieve her laptop charger. When she plugged it in and turned it on, Hannah saw it was close to three in the morning.

  Wow. I slept for eight hours. That wasn’t so much a ‘nap’ as it was a full night’s worth of sleep. Shaking the blur out of her eyes, Hannah tried hard to bring her brain back into full consciousness as her laptop ping, ping, ping-ed away with dozens of notifications.

  “Oh yeah, my message,” Hannah said, still somewhat dazed. She scrolled back up to the top of the chat board to her original request and, as expected, saw several replies that essentially ran along the lines of ‘Please don’t kill yourself, Han’, and ‘This is your craziest idea yet and that’s saying something.’

  But Rei, one of her friends studying at MIT, had another opinion.

  Since there’s no way I’ll convince you otherwise, fire over the gene sequences for each of the three offending genes and I’ll program some ‘bots for you. Show me your theory works in lower organisms and then we can have you take some.

  Hannah felt a slow grin creep across her face as she saw that Helena had agreed with her colleague.

  No secrets though, Hannah, she wrote. You note down each and every tiny thing that happens and you report back to us every day, okay?

  There were several messages beneath Helena’s that essentially asked Hannah where the hell she’d disappeared to, after writing such an evocative message, so Hannah typed out with trembling fingers:

  I was asleep. Sorry. Too much excitement, clearly. Sending you the sequences now, Rei. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s save the world.

  Hannah could barely contain her excitement as she headed through to her kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. This was really happening. Sure, she couldn’t tell Rusty about it—yet—and she’d have to keep it secret from Dr. Greene, too, which sucked. Her stomach twisted guiltily at the thought. But Hannah couldn’t risk telling her supervisor. As well-meaning as he was, he’d side with Rusty. She knew in her heart that he would. It’s what adults in positions of responsibility had to do, after all.

  “Which leaves me and my dark web crew,” she said, for nobody to hear but herself and Blue.

  She grinned.

  Looked like she would actually be showing up to work today.

  Chapter 4

  South Carolina

  Clemson’s Forensic Genetics Lab

  “So you’re alive, M
iss Withers! I was beginning to believe you had simply been a long-term figment of my imagination for the past three years.”

  Hannah made a face at Dr. Greene. “I never take holidays. It was about time I took one.”

  “Exactly,” he replied, raising an eyebrow. “You never take them, even when I insist that you do. So what caused you to willingly take two weeks off? It can only be the Walsanto drama.”

  “If you know what the cause is then why ask me at all?”

  He shrugged. “I wanted to hear it from you directly. You’re a terrible liar, Hannah. I figured if I put you on the spot then you’d tell me exactly what you were up to.”

  Hannah said nothing, turning back to stare blankly at her laptop screen. Dr. Greene was right, after all; she couldn’t lie to save her life. Better to say nothing at all than to be caught trying to cover her ass.

  “Your silence is incredibly reassuring,” Dr. Greene sighed. “I’ll be in my office when you realize that you can’t do whatever it is that you’re doing on your own. Remember that I’m on your side, Hannah. I’m not the enemy here.”

  Maybe not, Hannah thought as her supervisor retreated into his office, but you’d probably tell Rusty what I’m up to, and he can’t know.

  Rei and Helena had sent out the nanobots first thing that morning by special courier directly to the Clemson Laboratory, so all Hannah had to do was wait for them. She already had a strict, meticulous plan for testing them in yeast, fruit flies and mice as efficiently and as thoroughly as possible. Within two weeks she’d know if her methods were working. Two weeks. It felt like a lifetime, especially since Hannah had to keep her intentions hidden from Dr. Greene. He could know that she was testing on lower organisms—she was sure Rusty would tell him about it, anyway—but he couldn’t find out what Hannah ultimately intended to do.

  She didn’t think she’d be able to keep quiet about anything for fourteen days straight. Hannah’s propensity to talk and overshare was the reason she’d gotten in trouble in the first place. But if she was uncharacteristically quiet then Dr. Greene would know she was up to something. And Hannah wasn’t just a bad liar—she was a terrible actor, too. She had to hope the impending end of the world would be a good enough explanation for her introversion that she’d be able to complete her research reasonably trouble-free.