The Quake Cities by Mark Wheaton

Author:Mark Wheaton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448304387
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2020-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

Thirty

Alice marveled at all she saw as she was whisked through the Kellner Group building. If her recovery suite had been like something out of a five-star hotel, the Kellner labs were like something Willy Wonka might come up with. While she understood logically that she was two decades into the future, the technology being used in station after station, lab after lab, was almost incomprehensible.

There were dozens if not hundreds of scientists and technicians, all in lab coats, some in masks, others in cleanroom suits, at work on various projects, giving the place more a feel of a university science department than the pharmaceutical company that Ben described.

‘What is everyone working on?’ Alice asked after getting off an elevator to find yet another floor filled with techs at work.

‘When we were pharmaceuticals, food additives, cosmetics, and personal products like medicated shampoos, every lab was on a different project,’ he said, whisking her down a series of long corridors. ‘But now, everything – all our resources – are focused on exploiting the discoveries relating to your cells.’

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely,’ Ben said. ‘It’s not just the biggest thing, it’s the only thing. You don’t have to imagine a future past all this anymore, as you’ll be a part of it with a couple of injections.’

Alice knew Ben was right. She felt it everywhere they went, this tangible fear of what might happen next. What wouldn’t people pay to get some feeling of security back in their lives that something as monumental as an earthquake couldn’t take away?

So why did she want no part of it? What was that little voice in the back of her head that was telling her this wasn’t the way?

‘Oh, watch this,’ Ben said, leading her into a lab.

Three lab technicians were gathered around a large, sealed-glass container with troughs of thick powder on the bottom of assorted colors and consistency.

‘What are those?’ Alice asked.

‘The building blocks I mentioned. Proteins, carbohydrates and amino acids, but also trace metals that exist within living creatures,’ Ben explained, picking up a small tablet to show her the information.

‘Given all the disasters, are supplies hard to come by? The trace metals, I mean?’

‘Not at all,’ Ben said. ‘You can find them in almost any all-in-one-type multivitamin, particularly for seniors. Chromium. Manganese. Selenium. Zinc. Copper. Anything too extravagant and this process becomes impractical, particularly on a large scale.’

A raccoon in a small cage sat nearby. A tech used a syringe to extract a sample from the base of its skull. This was then placed in a pressurized canister similar to the one Este had shown her.

‘I’ve seen one of those before,’ Alice said.

‘It’s how we preserve the ghost bacterium when in stasis,’ Ben said. ‘Now watch.’

The tech inserted the canister into the side of the glass case. Mist filled the space as a tech turned the dial on a nearby oxygen tank with a hose feeding into the case. The glass fogged.

‘What’s going to happen?’ Alice asked.

‘Magic.’

The tech touched the button on the back of the canister.

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