Pulse Read online

  Absently holding her coffee mug, she tabbed over to the next results. She saw something she hadn’t seen in over a year of working on this team: the red letters ANOMALY stamped at the top of the screen.

  She didn’t realize she’d been frozen, staring at the screen, until the sound of her coffee mug shattering on the ground roused her. She ignored the wet coffee all over her feet and pulled up the detailed view of the result.

  Heart in her throat, she asked the computer to scan for interference. Many things could trigger an anomaly, and she wanted to rule that out before she dove into the base-pairs to study the issue. Since the system was entirely automated, the computer could isolate any interference. There were only so many variables.

  The data returned clean.

  As she analyzed the results, she realized it should have been obvious. She wanted to kick herself for not thinking of it sooner.

  ◆◆◆

  Kubitz fairly sprinted down the sterile corridors toward the lab. He tried to not let himself get excited. There’d been false alarms before and even he’d gotten carried away with inconclusive data. But there was something different in Avani’s voice. An infectious excitement.

  “You’ve checked for contaminants?” Kubitz said as he hurried into the lab.

  “Yes, of course. And radiation interference. I think we have the real thing. This,” she projected the analysis on the large main display, “is the Code.”

  The Code. The gene sequence that gave away the clones’ identity. Proverbial breadcrumbs. He wouldn’t allow himself to fully believe it until he’d analyzed all the data for himself, but a small smile crept across his face all the same. The man in the black suit had given his team a week, and less than a day later, here they were.

  Some of his colleagues had argued that the Code didn’t exist. By nature, clones would be genetically identical, so no telltale markers would exist.

  Foolishness, of course. No copy would be completely indistinguishable from the source. Even before entropy set in. There was always a sign of outside interference. Weizmann said it almost 200 years ago.

  And then there was the matter of the wide gamut of appearance in the clones. No one could alter DNA so systematically and not leave a trail. Kubitz knew there must be a commonality. Something in the genetics that marked them as clones. Thus, the Code.

  “Let me see your interference scans,” he said. “We need to be sure.”

  Kubitz sat at the terminal and reviewed the logs from the computer’s analysis. Any remaining pessimism faded as he scrolled through the screens. The data looked promising. Better than promising. He scrutinized the reports, searching for any kind of error.

  There was none.

  Nothing he could see, anyway. This was it. It seemed too easy.

  “This is incredible. The data… Great work, Avani. Talk to me. What does the mutation do? What is the effect?”

  “Look for yourself,” Avani tapped a few keys and a high-contrast image from the electron microscope filled the screen. The familiar otherworldly gray-scale focused on a single cell splitting into two. Cellular mitosis.

  Dr. Kubitz had a hard time believing what he was seeing, but it was obvious now that he was looking at it. “Fascinating,” he whispered, eyes entranced on the screen. “It’s no wonder we didn’t catch it before. Look there—” he pointed at the spot on the screen where two cells touched just after splitting. “The filament pairs that build the cell wall at the moment of mitosis… humans don’t have filament pairs. But it’s so insignificant, I doubt we ever would have noticed. Not without the breadcrumbs.”

  “Breadcrumbs?” Avani asked.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Well, you’re probably right. We wouldn’t have seen it. But I should have caught it. It’s why you hired me.”

  “Well sure.” Kubitz smiled playfully. A true smile. The first in what seemed like a lifetime. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  The task was far from finished, but they had a lead. That should help convince Black Suit to give them more time. Something to silence the bureaucrats, anyway. “Now to confirm that all the clones have this mutation. This feels undeniable, but we need to test the rest of them.”

  “That makes sense.”

  Kubitz leaned his chair back and thought for a moment. “There is the possibility that we’ve simply stumbled upon a previously unknown, but normal mutation.”

  Avani nodded, considering the idea. “We need a larger sample size.”

  “I’d never get it authorized in time. For now, run the test on this gene against the three clones we have. Then, as a control, we’ll use our own DNA. You’re not a clone right?” Kubitz winked. Avani smiled and shook her head. “This changes everything. This—”

  The screens in front of him went dead. The lights flickered off and back on, before plunging the room into total darkness.

  Discovery

  Dr. Kubitz and Avani sat stunned in the pitch black lab for three heartbeats before either stirred.

  “What was that?” Kubitz asked as he rose to his feet.

  From the darkness to his left, Avani’s voice replied, “We seem to have lost power.”

  “No, listen.” A gentle hum crept through the air under the deafening silence. “The air handlers are still on. Life support is active.” Kubitz fumbled for his comm controls. Static.

  “No signal on mine either,” Avani said. Kubitz heard her punching the keys on her device.

  “As long as we’re breathing let’s round up Holden and head to the junction. I’d very much like to know if the rest of the station is experiencing issues.”

  “They are,” Holden said from the hatch as he flicked on a flashlight. From across the room, Avani jumped and whispered what Kubitz assumed was a Hindi expletive.

  Kubitz met Holden in the doorway. “Good work, buddy. Do you have any more?”

  “One,” Holden said and dropped a cool metal cylinder into Kubitz’ hand.

  “Well, then. Let’s stay together. We’ll find out what’s going on.”

  Kubitz flicked his light on. He led the team into the hallway and veered to the right. The junction to the rest of the facility was that direction. His mind jumped to the man in the black suit. He wondered if the man had finally grown impatient. On the crest of their triumph, no less. But Black Suit was a man of his word. Kubitz hoped, anyway. He’d given them a week, so they would have a week. Kubitz didn’t doubt for a second that his team wouldn’t be afforded a single minute more.

  Having ruled out the man in the black suit as a culprit his mind went to the next logical step: an attack. Had the clones made it so far into the system? The Core Military Federation had little success in thwarting the enemy’s advance, except at Titan. Most considered even that victory to be pure chance.

  By all reports, Titan was the farthest coreward the enemy had traveled, nearly seven years ago. They seemed to have forgotten the home system. Until now, possibly. But he imagined an attack would be noisier. Aside from the low hum of the life support systems and the nervous scuffling of three pairs of shoes, the facility was silent.

  “Is it the clones?” Holden asked from behind, echoing Kubitz’ own thoughts.

  “I don’t think so. There are alarms for that.” Kubitz made that part up. He could sense the nerves in the young man’s voice and wanted to avoid exciting him further. Kubitz had known Holden for a long time. The young man often overreacted. Ever since he took Holden in, Kubitz had spent a lot of time talking Holden off the ledge, so to speak.

  They made their way to the junction without another word. The corridor between their lab and the rest of the station stretched thirty meters across the sleeping lunar surface. Various sizes of pipes and cables traced across the gray silt between the habitats alongside the corridor. Through the glasstic windows, flashes of light glanced across the view ports on the other side.

  “You’re right, power’s out over there as well,” Kubitz said.

  “Didn’t believe me?” />
  “It’s not that, it’s just good to know we’re not alone. Avani, is life support still active in the corridor?”

  Avani brought the panel next to the hatch to life, the dim screen showing minimal content. The reserve battery power supplied just enough to access basic system commands. “Looks to be. Generators are holding containment, anyway.”

  “Good.” Kubitz opened the hatch and stepped through before turning to his team. “Shall we?”

  After crossing the thirty quiet meters, Kubitz tried the hatch to the main facility. It didn’t budge. He peered into the small window to see if anyone was nearby. With his hands cupped around his eyes, he looked side to side.

  Out of the darkness, a face flashed into view, filling the window. Kubitz jumped back as the face disappeared.

  The corridor was silent for a moment. “What w—” Avani started before the locking mechanisms clicked inside the heavy metal hatch.

  “Hey pals,” a rotund scientist with a thick northeastern American accent said, scratching his ear. “Glad you’re all good. Just learning what’s goin’ on here. Slagging power’s out.”

  “We noticed. All over the station? Looks like everything except life support.”

  “Well yeah. Astronomers in section C are losing their minds. Apparently some big event happening somewhere, but they need power to their telescopes.” The scientist shrugged and looked up at Kubitz, impatience written on his flushed face. “We don’t know why, though—why the power’s out, I mean. That’s the worst of it.”

  “An attack? Sardaan?”

  “Maybe. Dunno. Kinda what I was getting at. We don’t know anything, doc.” He held a sweaty hand out. “Kinnear. Steve. I’m ah, data entry.”

  Kubitz grasped Steve’s greasy hand, trying to not show his disgust. “Dr. Mendel Kubitz. What are the next steps?”

  “Yeah, I know who you are. Next steps? Great question.” Steve wiped a considerable amount of sweat from his forehead. As he whipped his meaty hand to the side, Kubitz felt a residual spray and worked to hide his disgust. The same sweaty hand jumped to the comm in Steve’s ear before Kubitz could ask another question.

  As he listened to one side of Steve’s conversation, Kubitz raised an eyebrow to Avani, which, he soon realized, she couldn’t see in the dim light.

  “Alright, here’s the scoop,” Steve said, apparently finished with his call. “Things seem to have gotten a little… ah… political on the home front.” Steve seemed to be waiting for Kubitz to reply. When he didn’t, he sighed and went on. “It’s the slagging social justice warriors, man. They hacked our station. They let us sit around here in the dark for a while before sending in their demands.”

  “Demands?” Avani asked.

  “Yeah.” Steve scratched his neck. “It’s about you guys. They want you to stop using the clones for tests, or whatever it is you guys are doing over there. They threatened to shut down life support systems in modules one by one.”

  Kubitz had wondered when the hostile political climate on Earth would stretch its ugly hands all the way out to Lune. He didn’t love using clones for testing, whether or not they were considered human. On Earth, he’d done his part in working to finally eliminate animal testing in the scientific community. All life had certain intrinsic rights.

  But wartime was different.

  “Look,” Steve continued. “I’m a card-carrying liberal myself and all that, but I say we take those so-called ‘warriors’ and give them a taste of an actual war.”

  “Yes, and exactly how much wartime have you seen, Steve?” Kubitz asked, eliciting a snicker from Avani and Holden.

  “That’s, ah… hey man, that’s not fair.”

  Kubitz waved the comment off. “So what are they doing? We obviously cannot stop the testing—”

  “Obviously.”

  Kubitz stared at Steve for a long, uncomfortable moment.

  “Ah… yeah, we’ve got our top guys on it. It’s just a virus. They’ll be able to—” a light flashed on in the corridor behind him. “Yeah, there we go. Looks like they’re getting systems going now.”

  “And how long until our module is restored?” Kubitz asked. When Steve shrugged, he pointed to the earpiece and said, “Ask them.”

  Steve glared up at Kubitz, a full head taller than him, and opened his comm. “Hey, that German doctor is asking about his station… oh, is that right?… of course. Alright. Whatever. Above my pay grade.”

  “Well?” Avani asked from beside Kubitz.

  “Someone upstairs thinks you all are pretty slagging special. They’re working on your module now. Should be up by the time you get back. So you should probably leave now.” Steve turned back down the corridor towards the main lab without another word.

  “Something tells me that Steve guy didn’t like you,” Holden said as Kubitz led his team back toward their own module.

  “You think?”

  “Doctor, do you think we’re in danger here?” Avani asked.

  Kubitz pulled the hatch open to their section of the facility. “In what way?”

  “This movement from Earth. These activists. Are their threats real? Can they do that?”

  “It’s not impossible.” Kubitz stopped in the dim entrance to their facility. The power crept on, starting with the emergency lights in the entrance. “Dr. Sifra, I’ve been called a straight shooter more than once in my life, so I will be clear and honest with you. Make no mistake that we are engaged in a battle on multiple fronts in more ways than you know. These risks were apparent when we began this journey.”

  Avani held his gaze for long enough that Holden shifted his weight. As the lights came on overhead and filled the corridor with a clean, white glow, she wiped moisture from her eyes. “I never thought we’d be threatened this close to home.”

  Kubitz placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Come what may, we will persevere. They believe in humanity, no matter the form. We are trying to save humanity. We’re not so different. The sooner we sequence the Code, the happier everyone will be.” He glanced around the corridor at the lights. “Now, is everything back to normal?”

  Avani pulled up her datapad. Kubitz sensed that it was a welcome distraction for her. “Yes,” she reported. “All systems appear normal.”

  “Good. Let’s run that last set of tests against the Code. We have five sets of DNA to run now.”

  “The two remaining clones and our own DNA, as controls?”

  “Correct. It’s not ideal, but time is short and we need a breakthrough. If we need a bigger sample size, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

  “Hey, I wonder if the coffee is still warm,” Holden said, and headed off down the hallway.

  Kubitz had almost forgotten the kid was standing there. Kid. Kubitz shook his head. Holden was in his mid twenties. It was hard to see the young man as anything but a kid, with their history.

  He checked his datapad for messages and shuffled through the corridors toward the weight room. Some exercise would do wonders right about now.

  ◆◆◆

  Holden walked into the break room fuming. He’d intended to check on the coffee, but the real reason he wanted to get away was to vent some frustration. He was appalled at how casually the doctors had taken the cyber attack. A group of pansy activists back on Earth threatened the lives of their team on the moon, and all the doctors could do was shrug about it?

  He touched the side of the coffee pot. Room temperature. He was mad enough, he felt like he could heat the coffee with rage alone.

  He was most disappointed in Dr. Kubitz. The doctor had taken Holden in as a young man and helped mentor him and raise him. He’d been in the group home for years before that. They’d always told him that his mom was strung out on every synth known to man. Holden had a hard time remembering her. One day, they told him she’d died.

  So Kubitz had brought him in. It was the doctor’s influence that made him want to become a doctor himself someday.

  Holden had tried his hardest in sch
ool but never had the knack for it. He excelled in biology and history, but couldn’t string together a math problem to save his life. Numbers still made little sense to him. No medical schools would accept the subpar arithmetic scores, and so Holden had to settle for humiliating lab tech instead.

  Not to say he wasn’t grateful for the opportunity. That Dr. Kubitz would bring him along on a mission this important was a testament to the trust the doctor had in Holden. Holden didn’t want to let his guardian down.

  But after a year on Lune helping the two doctors with their research, Holden began to feel like something of a third wheel. He’d suspected nothing romantic between Dr. Sifra and Kubitz, but more of an intellectual bond he’d never comprehend. The doctors simply engrossed themselves in their work. Even in the years leading up to the war, Kubitz had been a decent caretaker, but really invested. Holden’s councilors told him that he often lashed out because he wanted to be noticed. Could be there was some truth in that.

  As they delved deeper into the research and understanding of the echoes and their genetics, Holden grew more and more distant. He was now almost exclusively relegated to menial tasks. He sighed and pulled the pot off the hot plate and dumped the coffee down the sink. Menial tasks such as making coffee. As he poured fresh grounds into the machine, he felt like more of a secretary than anything else.

  And now, with war threatening them from two fronts, the doctors still huddled up over their microscopes, ignoring everything burning around them. Holden hadn’t felt so helpless since the boys’ home.

  His temper grew, and he felt his face flush. He tried to remember what the counselors had told him. Think happy thoughts. Not in as few words, but the sentiment was the same. When he got in this frame of mind, he often wondered who he’d be if things had been different.

  Would he still have these struggles if he’d been left to fend for himself? Or would he be better? He could’ve been a doctor on his own. Or, if his real dad had stuck around, Holden would’ve followed in his dad’s footsteps instead.