Chapter 8
“It’s been six months,” Spencer said, steepling his fingers. “You promised me a full report after six months.”
Marcus was desperate to return to his lab, but Spencer’s order was unambiguous in its directness. He was making huge amounts of progress with his leeches, and the thought of being away from them for even an hour burned in his chest, but when Spencer commanded him to visit the office, he knew he had no choice. The leeches, for now, would just have to wait.
“I did promise,” Marcus admitted, since denying it would be pointless. “But I don’t have one for you. I’ve been accomplishing so much, I haven’t had time to write everything down. The experiment is still progressing. I wanted to wait to write my full report until I had established a clear stopping point, the complete results.”
Spencer set his elbows on the spotless desk and leaned forward. “You haven’t really told me, or anyone else for that matter, much about your experiment.”
“That’s true.”
“If I remember correctly, James, secrecy is not one of your three rules to live by. It is not in the best interests of the company.”
“I take pride in my work. I want to test my own theories without outside influences.”
“Tell me about it,” Spencer said, leaning back in his chair. He folded his hands in his lap and turned the chair sideways so he could look out the back window of his office as Marcus talked. “Tell me about your experiment.”
“In detail?”
“An outline, if you prefer.”
Inwardly, Marcus breathed a sigh of relief. He did not want to go into details with Spencer, not now, not when he was so close to completing the work. He felt an overwhelming desire to fake illness, lie about a prior appointment, do anything to get out of Spencer’s lavish office and return to the safety of his own lab. Spending time there was like feeding an addiction, and being forced to spend time away was like going through withdrawal.
“Well,” he said, speaking slowly, “the experiment started out as a simple test to see how a host species would develop if the Progenitor was bred into it for several generations. I had reason to believe that the offspring of infected hosts could possibly overcome some of the Progenitor’s side effects.”
“The Ashford children,” Spencer said quietly.
After an uncomfortable pause, Marcus said, “Yes, Alexander’s son and daughter. But I wanted to see the effects over numerous generations in a controlled environment. I thought that successive generations of infected hosts could possibly pass on some kind of immunity, or at the very least, give us important knowledge about how the Progenitor develops under those conditions.”
“What host did you select?”
“Leeches,” Marcus said. “Simple enough to make the experiment easy to perform, but complex enough to give the Progenitor a great deal of genetic material to deal with.”
“Okay. Go on.”
Marcus licked his lips, unsure how to continue. He did not want to make Spencer suspicious by leaving out pertinent information, but at the same time he did not want to give him so much information he became suspicious for other reasons. And Spencer, despite the fact that he no longer did hands-on scientific work, knew as much about the Progenitor as anyone and would surely know if Marcus was lying or stretching the truth.
“Well, I infected several dozen leeches with the Progenitor and allowed them to reproduce. As of today, I’ve had about fifty generations, and their development has not gone exactly as I had anticipated.”
“What do you mean?”
“The leeches have mutated far beyond their original form. They’re much larger, more agile, and more aggressive. I’ve dissected over hundreds of specimens from different generations, and over time, the Progenitor has bonded more and more intricately with their genetic material. In the most recent generations, the DNA is neither primarily leech nor Progenitor, but a close combination of the two. In other words, the Progenitor’s presence is all but indistinguishable from the new leech DNA.”
At that, Spencer turned and looked carefully at Marcus. Was the old man simply surprised, or was he trying to detect a lie? Marcus kept his expression carefully neutral.
“Are you trying to tell me that you’ve created a new species?” Spencer asked.
Marcus, keeping his face blank, shrugged slightly. “That’s what I’m working on right now. I haven’t done close analysis yet, but I can say that the leeches are not just leeches infected with the Progenitor. They are something else.”
As he watched Spencer’s reaction, Marcus grew more confident. His superior seemed fascinated with the edited version of the experiment, and it gave Marcus some much-needed leverage in the conversation. Spencer leaned back in the chair once more, touching a finger to his lips in thought. “Have you tested the results of secondary infection?”
“I did in the early generations. But as the leeches began to develop into their current form, most of my time has been spent studying their DNA and trying to record the genetic changes.”
“It seems like you’ve got more work than you can handle. Perhaps you should get some of the new men to assist you,” Spencer suggested.
Marcus stiffened. “I’ve gotten this far on my own, so I’d like to ride the rest of it out myself, if that’s all right with you. Besides, if I brought some assistants down now, I’d have to waste time giving them all the background information before I could proceed. They would just get in my way.”
Spencer waved a hand, silencing him. “It’s all right, James. This project is your baby, so I’ll let you carry it to term. But I still need you to write a full report as soon as possible.”
“There’s a lot of information for me to work with, so that’s why I haven’t written it yet.”
“I understand. Go ahead and continue your research. Take as long as you need. But keep me informed of all new developments, do you understand?”
“Yes, of course.”
“All right, you may go.”
Marcus rose quickly, more than ready to return to the lab and get back to work. He rushed out of the lab, leaving Spencer alone, staring dreamily out the window.
He did not tell Spencer the exact truth, only an edited version of it, and he would have to deal with the consequences when the time came. He wanted to keep certain details secret as long as possible, and if that meant going over Spencer’s head to accomplish his goals, then so be it. If Spencer new the full potential of Marcus’ work, he would never let him finish it on his own. He would demand an entire research staff working on it, expanding the project to his own lab as well. In bits and pieces, he would steal the experiment away. Marcus had seen Spencer do it before to other scientists. And Marcus was not about to let it happen to him.