Oath of Office

CHAPTER 35

Sebastian Bachmeier donned a pair of safety glasses, then released the top button of his meticulously pressed lab coat. His unshaven face was sunken from lack of sleep, but his ice blue eyes sparked with excitement. Though he was a strapping German, standing six-foot-three or — four, Sebastian looked pocket sized when compared to the massive array of scientific equipment crammed inside his laboratory.

He was standing in front of a long conveyor belt that at first glance appeared to be painted gold. But a closer inspection would show it to be covered with kernels of corn. The belt zigzagged like an amusement park ride throughout the enclosure. When Sebastian spoke, his deep, accented voice reverberated off the steel walls of the underground facility like the cries of a lost spelunker.

“This is experiment number seven-thirty-eight in our efforts to create an effective biolistic delivery mechanism to transfect gold particles coated with the DNA plasmid we have code-named MB45R directly into the corn seed. This represents the final set of experiments before certifying the process we have dubbed RAPTURE for commercial readiness. Though the outcome of RAPTURE will obviate the time-consuming and resource-intensive sexual process for creating hybrid corn seed, rest assured, this transformative technology cannot be extended to human reproduction.”

Sebastian chuckled at his own humor. His giddy mood resulted from years of seventy-hour workweeks that were about to pay off to the tune of a multibillion-dollar technologic breakthrough. Sebastian paused here, mesmerized by the significance of the moment.

“Soon, farmers the world over will be able to custom-order corn seed with the unmatched yield potential of our TruGrow genetics. I am now going to demonstrate the process used to make the TruGrow corn seed. This technique not only delivers the holy grail mark of three hundred bushels per acre, but also dramatically speeds up the time to market by using actual kernels instead of the widely accepted tissue-culture process.”

Sebastian approached a gleaming stainless steel apparatus suspended directly above a section of the conveyor belt. A long bazooka-like tube extended downward from the apparatus, its muzzle about an inch above the corn kernels.

“I have increased the PSI of the helium powering our gene gun, ensuring low transfection efficiency to obtain the optimum number of transfected neurons in the kernel’s targeted cells. To save time, I have preloaded the gun with pellets coated with a mix of positively charged gold particles and the MB45R DNA plasmid. In ten minutes’ time, the gun’s self-loading mechanism will transfect enough corn seed to plant a thousand acres. It would take six months to replicate this process using hybrid corn and tissue cultures, with substantially lower yield.”

Sebastian reached for a tablet PC that was secured to a concrete support post with several strips of Velcro. As he was tapping on the computer’s display, a series of machines instantly thrummed to life. The conveyor belt groaned and shook as the roller mechanisms became engaged. The corn needed to travel fifteen feet before the first batch could be blasted by the gene gun’s massive barrel.

Sebastian put on his protective earphones, anticipating the loud boom to come. The conveyor belt stopped in the expected location.

However, the gun failed to fire.

Seated feet up on his desk, across from his built-in forty-eight-inch television, Edwin Chester watched the informational video, made three months before, for perhaps the twentieth time. Each time, his research assistant behaved as stupidly as the last. Edwin held his thumb on the button of the DVD remote and considered shutting off what he knew was to follow.

Sebastian removed his earphones and rubbed his chin, perplexed. “Hmmmm,” he said as he ruminated on the problem. He sauntered over to the gene gun, where he inspected the barrel in search of the malfunction.

Stop! Edwin urged silently. For God’s sake, you stupid bastard, stop.

The scene moved on with the inexorableness of a glacier.

Sebastian could not discern the nature of the problem from an upright position, so he knelt on the concrete floor. Using a penlight, he peered into the dark aperture.

Power down. Jesus, Sebastian, cut off the fucking helium, and power down.

Sebastian turned toward the camera and smiled. “The contact points in the firing mechanism are off by a millimeter or so,” he said. “I should have it fixed in no time.”

Sebastian pulled down on a lever, which raised the barrel of the gun two feet. The repositioning allowed him access to the gun barrel’s internal mechanics.

Corn seed scattered onto the floor as Sebastian wriggled himself into a supine position on the conveyor belt. Then he reached one hand into the gun barrel and began to fiddle with the connection until there was a satisfying click.

“You stupid bastard,” Edwin said out loud. “You know better than to do this.”

As always, there was nothing he could do.

Sebastian again used his penlight to peer into the muzzle. A thin smile creased the corners of his mouth.

Success.

A second passed.

Edwin cringed and sank farther down in his chair.

His eyes refused to close.

The deafening pop from the huge gene gun seemed louder every time-like the backfiring of an eighteen-wheeler. The sound was followed immediately by a faint discharge of smoke from the barrel.

Sebastian cried out and rolled off the conveyor belt in obvious agony, clutching his face. Blood instantly seeped out from between his fingers and spewed through multiple punctures in his neck. He lay on his back on the corn kernels, his body jerking spasmodically as jets of scarlet sprayed the equipment and soaked the floor beneath him. Then he lowered his hands and pressed futilely against the skin over his carotid arteries as if knowing that was where the wounds were mortal. The thousands of gold pellets embedded in his face were like an obscene Seurat painting.

Shrieking in pain, Sebastian began picking at the pieces of searingly hot gold microshot. The pellets, used for inserting the DNA plasmid into the kernels, were cooking him alive. Blood continued spurting from his neck while his gold-pockmarked face smoked from the embedded metal.

He writhed on the floor, screaming and pleading for help, gurgling on blood that had seeped inside his mouth and down his throat.

The handsome German, an obsessive weight lifter, was already a corpse whose head and neck were virtually the same golden color as the corn surrounding him.

Edwin snapped off the video playback. Sebastian’s gruesome remains, for a moment frozen on the screen, faded into black.

He had seen enough of the scientist’s bizarre death-especially now that he had the first inklings of an explanation for the man’s behavior-an explanation provided unknowingly by Dr. Lou Welcome.