Project Cyrano: A Genetic Engineering Technothriller (Genetic Engineering, TechnoThriller) Read Online Free

where Mader’s last signal was and fell to her knees. She hoped it wasn’t true, that it was just an anomaly in the system. “Mader.” She took off her helmet and let her tears fall in the dark.
     
    He lay on his belly with broken and twisted limbs. She hardly recognized him, but he still wore his pilot jacket and had his beam pistol in its holster. One of his legs was gone. The rest of him was torn as if by claws or fangs, with huge, regularly placed gashes. Some of his organs decorated the floor. Blood splattered the entire hall. Sosa crawled towards the body, took his gun and tags, and wiped her tears on her arm.
     
    “Anders, seal this area when I leave.”
     
    “Yes ma’am.” She heard the quiver in his voice.
     
    McKusick’s face went flat when she told him the news. He sat down in his lab chair and clasped his hands together in his lap. “It is what I expected.”
     
    Sosa nodded. “I know. I know.”
     
    “I’m sorry, Sosa.”
     
    “Don’t blame yourself, McKusick.” She inhaled a fluttering breath. “It is no one’s fault. Better that people like us discovered this place than a group less prepared.”
     
    “Sosa.”
     
    She looked at him.
     
    “I think we are going to die here.”
     
    Her mouth opened to respond, but he interrupted her.
     
    “I cannot make a cure. I don’t have the lab I need.” McKusick said. “Think about this, Sosa. Why did this happen to Mader? We were the ones exposed. He was on another side of the base scouting. Do you know what that means? It means that what you dropped wasn’t just a chemical to use in genetic engineering. It was an accidentally made weapon. These researchers were so primitive that they didn’t recognize something they could not control. This thing acts differently in every person depending on their own unique genetics. They made an aerosol weapon.”
     
    “Do you think that is what happened to them? They either mutated or were killed? And eaten?”
     
    “That would explain why there are no bodies, not even bones. The survivors ate whatever they could.” He leaned forward. “Sosa, those other mutants are the originals. Anders told me the logs say we are the first to find this place after the project was shut down. These things are two hundred years old, but trust me when I say they are not human anymore. Even if one might still look like it, they are monsters in the truest sense of the word.”
     
    Sosa’s eyes regained a bit of their former gleam. “Don’t worry about me, McKusick. You know I’m perfectly willing to shoot. If you changed and you were no longer the aggravating and impudent geneticist I’ve worked with for so many years, I would shoot you in the face without hesitation.”
     
    “And that’s why I like working with you, Sosa.” He smiled, and it was a real, affectionate smile. “We have a good understanding. If you weren’t married…”
     
    “Don’t finish that, McKusick.” She held up her hand to stop him. “Don’t go soft on me now just because we’ve been infected by an unknown genetic pathogen. We have been in worse.”
     
    “True.” He graced her with a low chuckle. “That’s true. I think I would rather be mutated than do that one mission in Prague again.”
     
    Sosa covered her hand with her mouth to suppress her laughter. “Oh, my. Yes.” She chuckled and looked down at the floor. “McKusick.” Her voice went flat and hard. “Who would do something like this?”
     
    Neither spoke for a long time. The geneticist finally got up, patted her on the shoulder, and went to the door. “We should probably go comfort Anders. And you have to give your report.”
     
     

 
    Chapter 4
     
    Quarantine
     
    The next evening, Sosa went to her office to give her daily report, but the tablet’s screen did not stop whirling. The call eventually failed. She tried again. It failed.
     
    “Anders.”
     
    The programmer’s voice blossomed in her ear. “Yes?”
     
    “Are we having