Project Hyperion (A Kaiju Thriller) (Kaiju #4)

“Kendra,” Gordon said, his voice insistent. “How?”


Her eyes flicked to him, back to the baby girl she’d created, then back to Gordon. “I attached the DNA you supplied to a retroviral vector, which wasn’t as hard as it sounds, because we’re making a systemic change rather than targeting specific organs. The vector was injected into an embryo already in progress, to speed things along. It’s fast acting and has few side effects, so there was no danger to the embryo, but the end result was that all of the DNA, in every cell, was altered inside an hour. I had no idea what the effect would be, but I would have never guessed… Gordon, this—she—was barely four weeks along.”

“And now?”

She huffed, unable to believe the words coming out of her mouth. “Seven months, at least. It might survive if it was born.”

“If it doesn’t turn to sludge, you mean?”

She nodded.

“How long until we can extract the heart?”

“What time is it?”

Gordon looked at his wristwatch. “Five-twenty. A.M.”

Her eyes widened and this time she said it aloud. “Impossible.”

“What?”

“Gordon, I—”

“Stop calling me Gordon.”

She barely heard him, but spoke again, “General. I put the embryo in the womb at four-thirty.” She’d been sleeping for just over thirty minutes, but she’d never felt more awake. She opened the calculator via the touch screen and tapped furiously, speaking her equations as she worked them out. “It’s only been growing for fifty minutes. If we assume that it’s roughly thirty-two weeks along, minus the four weeks it had grown prior to the DNA insertion, that’s twenty-eight weeks of growth in fifty minutes. To make it easy, lets round up to one hour.”

General Gordon spoke, but she didn’t hear him.

“Twenty eight weeks is seven months. Divide sixty minutes by seven. The fetus is growing a month every eight point—let’s round to nine minutes. A year’s growth takes one hundred eight minutes, or one hour and forty-eight minutes.”

“Going to round that to two hours?” Gordon asked.

“Actually, yes.” She glanced up and saw the dubious look in his eyes. “This is hardly science at this point. Best I can offer is a guess, but by the time I figure out exact numbers, the growth rate might have changed.”

He nodded. The answer was acceptable.

“Two hours for every year of growth,” she said. “If we take this out to twenty-one years, just to be sure that the organs have fully matured...we’ll have a fully grown fetus—a woman—in forty two hours.”

Elliot plopped down in her chair like she’d just finished running a marathon. She smiled wide and looked up at Gordon feeling true excitement for the first time since she ended her father’s life. “This changes everything.”

“Yes,” Gordon said. “Yes, it does.”

Elliot turned back to the fetus. She felt if she watched closely enough she should be able to see it actually growing.

“But,” Gordon said.

She turned back toward him.

“Why did you use a female embryo?”

She knew the reason for the question. “Don’t worry, General. Female hearts are generally smaller than male hearts, but I chose the fetus genetically predisposed to have the strongest heart. It just turned out to be female.”

“Who is she?”

“The DNA donor?”

He nodded.

“A girl, sir. From Mass General Hospital in Boston. Strange name. Maigo. Japanese, I think.” BioLance had been using DNA gathered from transplantation waiting lists around the country. The moment they managed to grow a viable organ, one of those people would get a brand new kidney, liver, heart, lung, whatever. And since the new organ, made healthy through genetic tinkering, would be grown from the recipient’s own DNA, there would be no risk of rejection. No drugs required. No side effects. Elliot saw it as a chance for redemption. She didn’t really regret killing her father, but if there was a God, maybe He could forgive the act if she managed to save millions of lives. Of course, she might also piss Him off by keeping Him from claiming people when He wanted to. “Maigo,” she said again, pronouncing the name my-go. “She was waiting for a liver.”

“Was?” he asked.

“She died last week. Gunshot wound. Blood loss, and a concussion from falling onto a tile floor, left her in a coma and needing a transplant. Her...father is a suspect, but hasn’t been arrested because of lack of evid—”

“I don’t need the details,” Gordon said. He pursed his lips for a moment, staring at the floor. Then he clucked his tongue and turned around, heading for the door.

“Sir?” she called after him.

He paused, but didn’t turn around. “You should know. I also modified the DNA...with your own.”

This spun him around.

“You did what?” Both eyebrows were raised. This was a new expression—genuine surprise.

“The heart,” she said, squeezing her hands together. “It’s for you?”