Project Cyrano: A Genetic Engineering Technothriller (Genetic Engineering, TechnoThriller) by Amy Taylor Page B

looked all around her with a huge smile on her face. “I think this is a wonderful place to set up a base, don’t you think, McKusick?”
     
    “Yes.” He gazed up at the dome. “It is beautiful.”
     
    Mader took that as his cue and returned to the plane for all of their supplies. Anders pointed to a nearby door. “There are a series of labs down that hall and a control room over there. I’ll seal them off just to be sure, but you may want to go look at them. There are dozens of labs here.”
     
    Sosa said, “Was this a place for scientific research?”
     
    McKusick limped towards the lab door.
     
    She chuckled at him. “Anders, go find out anything you can. I need to make a report.”
     
    Some hours later, Sosa checked in on McKusick. He was bent over a series of microscopes and had four different tablets providing him information from the lab’s database. He went from microscope to tablet to another microscope and back so quickly Sosa didn’t know how he kept himself straight. The light from the microscopes shed stark light on his pale face.
     
    Sosa touched the door console and the room’s main lights flicked on. McKusick reeled back with a grunt and covered his eyes.
     
    “Don’t do that, Sosa.” McKusick blinked several times and glared at her. “What’s wrong?”
     
    “I am checking on your progress. Have you been able to find this lab’s purpose, what they were researching?” She strode over to him and looked down one of the microscopes. “So fancy.”
     
    McKusick handed her one of the tablets. “Some type of genetic engineering. Early early genetic engineering. It’s so elementary I feel embarrassed for them.”
     
    Sosa slapped him on the shoulder. “There was a time when everything was new. What were they working on?”
     
    “Implants and injectable syrums. They called it the Mind Project.”
     
    “Oh.” Sosa sat down on a stool. “Did they have implant technology back then?”
     
    “Somewhat, but it was highly experimental and still being tested on animals. That’s what I remember from genetic history class. That was a long time ago.” He looked around the lab with its long rows of benches, hosts of complicated machines, and thousands of glass flasks. “I haven’t found out what animals were used here. The logs don’t say whether it was rats, dogs, maybe even monkeys. Every subject is listed only as a number.”
     
    Sosa said, “Okay. What type of implants? We have all sorts of stuff now. Surprise me.”
     
    “As that tablet says, intelligence and strength amplifiers, implants for vision, hearing…they were still at the base level. They probably never thought about increasing mitochondrial efficiency or curing Niemann-Pick in the first trimester, like we can now. They wanted....Superhumans.”
     
    “Amplified people...Not necessarily changed people, right?” Sosa said. “How was their success?”
     
    The corner of McKusick’s lips turned up in an ironic sneer. “What do you think? They failed miserably, at least in the beginning. We’ll see if they managed to get further. How was your report to your CIA director?”
     
    She snorted. “He wasn’t pleased, but he’s given the project a go. He liked Anders’ name, so the base is named Cyrano.”
     
     

 
    Chapter 2
     
    Mind Project 2103
     
    As soon as McKusick heard that Mader discovered a chemical library, he hobbled over as fast as his body would allow him. “This, this is what I need!” He exclaimed when he abandoned Sosa completely.
     
    The geneticist gazed at the thousands upon thousands of stored chemicals, he would later come to find there were around nine hundred thousand distinct compounds, and gorged himself on the database. Sosa, Anders and Mader took a short break just to watch him for the entertainment value.
     
    It took McKusick an hour to realize they were there, but when he did, he ordered Sosa to help him. “Make yourself useful. You’re an agent, so why not? Get #154366. I