IDIOPOTENT

Chapter 6: Genome Enigma

The hours of the next two weeks flowed in a steady stream of data entry and intense study. Beyond short breaks taken whenever he remembered he needed to eat and bathe, Phin didn't leave the radiation unit. He wished to form a good impression, to show Kane and Reiniger and Lazarus that he was committed to this job; more than that, he wanted to be good at his job. He looked over the vitals data from the spider-bitten boy. The monitors here were advanced, and Phin imagined some were prototypical: wireless electrocardiogram, single-point processed EEG, a pulse oximeter that consisted of an oval sticker placed over the radial artery that somehow streamed blood gas values in real time. Beyond the diseased arm, which was showing progress, the patient was a healthy teenager with according vital signs, stable and boring. Phin did his duty reviewing them, but the work was hardly stimulating. He thought about getting up for a minute or two to prune the gojira, grown from a Japanese ivy that had been found in the rubble of an atomic explosion in the 1950s. A cutting was transported to the Mission, Reiniger told him, when the hospital established its radiation unit, since the plant's mutated photosynthesis let it absorb levels of radiation that might otherwise prove fatal to humans.

"Dr. Cole." Like a ghost, Kane appeared behind him. He spun his seat to face the older physician, who handed him a folded sheet of yellowed paper. "I received this from an old colleague today. I need you to deliver it to Dr. Jones in the research laboratory. Ask him if he has a device that can duplicate the effect." He didn't extend an invitation to look at the paper, so Phin took it, leaving it folded.

The research lab was on a different floor of the building, but with Reiniger's directions, it wasn't hard to find. Phin had expected white walls and stainless steel. What he found - and the winding stone staircase he should have been a clue - were tables and towers of sleek, high-tech equipment set in a chamber out of a medieval castle: worn stone floors, blocky columns supporting an arched ceiling, ancient painted scenes on the walls barely legible from the peeling. A long alcove filled with a row of half-dissected bodies lying on steel tables added to the dungeon-esque feeling of the place. Masked and gowned figures worked at a few of them under bright lights. Phin walked past these into rows of wooden shelves that housed grotesque medical specimens in jars of formaldehyde. He recognized some: syndromic stillborns, holoencephalic fetuses, human heads with the disturbingly misshapen mandibles and pitted flesh of phossy jaw. One smaller jar contained what looked like a fully-grown, proper-proportioned female adult human, but the body was no more than eight inches tall.

"Can I help you?" The voice behind him startled Phin.

"I'm looking for Dr. Jones."

"Breakthrough! I'm Theo Jones, so you've found him."

Jones was tall and thin, with medium-length brown hair that looked like he didn't care about it. He wore a once-white lab coat with full pockets and too-short sleeves over a bright patterned shirt unbuttoned lower than was strictly professional.

"I'm Phinehas Cole, one of the new fellows. Dr. Kane wanted me to give you this." Phin handed the paper to Dr. Jones, who unfolded it, perused it for a second or two, and tucked it into an inside pocket.

"Can I ask," said Phin, "what is that?" He pointed to the tiny woman floating in preservative.

"Oh." Jones chuckled. "That." He stared at the specimen in open-mouthed amusement, then turned away without answering Phin, as if he'd already forgotten the question. "Come on, let's see what we can find. Dr. Kane can be impatient, especially with the new guy. You may have noticed." He exaggerated a grimace, platysma muscle in his neck stretching wide.

Past the shelves, Jones unlocked and entered a storage unit, free-standing, made of metal and black plastics.

"Pause." Jones pointed a finger at Phin and pantomimed pressing a button. "Wait here, please."