How to Lead a Life of Crime

chapter SEVENTEEN



THE HYBRID EXPERIMENT





I must be dead. I’m in a morgue. The first thing I see is the wall of metal drawers where they store all the corpses. I try to roll my head to the right, but a sharp, searing pain prevents me. I look to the left instead. Lucas is lying on an autopsy table. The blood has been drained from his body, and he’s perfectly white. I return my gaze to the ceiling. I won’t examine my own body. I don’t want to know what they’ve done.

I hear footsteps approaching. Peter Pan has come for me. I’m finally ready to go.

“Hello, Flick.” Mandel’s boyish face appears above me. He’s wearing a lab coat. I won’t be leaving for Never Land. I’ve been sentenced to hell instead. “You should be able to sit up by now. Here. Let me give you a hand.”

He helps me lift my back. I’m naked beneath my hospital gown. The icy steel table chills my balls. My teeth start to chatter, and my skin sprouts goose bumps.

“It’s a bit cold in here, isn’t it?” Mandel observes. “We’ll go somewhere warmer as soon as you’re feeling steady enough to stand. In the meantime, there’s a question I’ve been dying to ask you. Would you really have amputated your own arm?”

“What?” My mind is a block of ice, with its memories trapped in the center. I know they’re still there. But I can’t seem to reach them.

“To get rid of the tracking chip.”

I remember now. I wish I didn’t. “Yes.”

“Fan-tastic!” Mandel exclaims. “My colleagues refused to believe it. But I never doubted you for a second. That’s why I took the opportunity to have your chip relocated. It’s somewhere much safer now.”

I peer down at my arm. There’s a bandage where the chip once was. I’m confused for a moment, but then my hand instinctively flies up to the right side of my head. They’ve hidden the incision under my hair. The chip’s there. I can feel it.

“If you’re willing to amputate your head, I’ll be very impressed,” Mandel says. I think he just cracked a joke. “It’s only a precaution, of course. Your escape plan was ill-conceived. There was never any chance you’d succeed. After curfew, the balcony railings on floors two through six are electrified. And the security on the ground floor is absolutely impenetrable.”

“Why am I still alive?”

“Why wouldn’t you be?” Mandel asks. “Everything is going according to plan. Are you ready to take a little stroll?”

I slide off the side of the table. My feet freeze as soon as they touch the tiling. I see three autopsy tables, four lockers, and one desk. There are too many corpse drawers to count. I wonder if they’re all occupied.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“The Infirmary floor,” Mandel responds. “That’s what the employees call it, but my laboratory takes up most of the space. I’ll give you a quick tour of the facility before we head upstairs to my office.”

“I’m naked,” I say.

Mandel glances down at my hospital gown. “Of course! I almost forgot. There’s a fresh set of clothes in the locker with my name on it. Go ahead, get dressed. I’ll wait for you outside in the lab.”

I open the locker. There’s a mirror fixed to the inside of the door. I start to get dressed, but it’s almost like I’ve forgotten how. I pull on pants before I remember that boxer shorts should be worn beneath them. And it takes me a moment to remember which go on first—the socks or the shoes. I assume it’s the lingering effects of the anesthesia. But when I look in the mirror, I see the truth. While I was under, they didn’t just add a chip to my head. They took something away from me too.

• • •

Mandel keeps glancing over at me. I think I’m supposed to be oohing and aahing. The narrow aisles make the massive laboratory feel like a labyrinth. All around us, machines hum and whirl and beep. The workers down here seem to understand the strange language. Every new sound sets off a flurry of activity as humans rush to obey the machines’ commands. We pause for a moment as a man in a full-body lab suit temporarily blocks our path while he feeds a tray of blood-filled test tubes into a giant white box. All I can see of the man are his eyes. His surgical mask and hood hide the rest.

“What kind of research are you conducting?” I ask my guide. “Who are these people?” I can string words together in my head now, but my tongue still struggles to spit them out.

“Some are neurologists. But most are sequencing DNA. You see, Flick, I’m a geneticist by training. I never thought I’d end up as an educator. My older sister was tapped to run the family business after our mother passed away, but she died in a car accident five years ago. As the only surviving Mandel, I had no choice but to assume control of the school. At first I was extremely annoyed. Then I discovered a way to combine my duty with my true passion.”

“By experimenting on dead teenagers,” I butt in. “Have you told your doctors where their lab specimens come from?”

“The better you pay people, the fewer questions they ask,” Mandel says.

We pass a small room to my right. The door is ajar, and the overhead lights are off. Two females in lab coats are examining a series of backlit blobs that are laid out in a grid on a massive screen. At first I think they’re Rorschach blots. Then I realize they’re slices of someone’s brain.

Mandel sees me lingering and gestures for me to catch up with him. There’s a pair of steel doors ahead of us, and he seems impatient to reach them. “Before I took over, the academy used to incinerate the bodies. It always seemed like such a terrible waste to me. Now at least the brains and blood are being put to good use. Mandel Academy students are helping to further the cause of science in ways they never dreamed possible.”

“And to think they’re just a bunch of kids who flunked out of high school. I’m sure they’re thrilled. What exactly are they helping you accomplish?”

“I’m searching for a gene mutation. One that’s rewired the brains of some remarkable individuals.”

“Let me guess . . .”

“No.” Mandel stops me. “Don’t guess. Follow me up to my office, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

• • •

Judging by the angle of the sunbeams that shoot down through the atrium, it must be early afternoon. A bell rings just before our elevator climbs past the classroom floors. I don’t know which of the students shouts, but I hear my name echo through the building. Mandel has timed our journey perfectly. He wants everyone at the academy to see us.

“You’ve just risen from the dead,” he tells me. “You used to be a prodigy. Now you’re a god.”

We step out on the ninth floor, and Mandel uses his card key to open an unmarked door. Behind it lies a staircase. I used to peer out the windows in the Wolves’ Den and wonder what might be kept in the identical tower on the opposite side of the roof. Now I know. It’s Mandel’s private office.

“Interesting choice of décor,” I remark when we arrive at the top of the stairs.

Aside from a coatrack standing beside one of the windows, the room is completely empty.

“I work underground. When I come up here, all I want to do is enjoy the view.” Mandel sorts through three black coats that are hanging from the rack and passes the largest to me.

“I had this made for you,” he says as he chooses one for himself.

The only coat left has a rounded, feminine collar. It looks about the right size for Gwendolyn.

“Has she taken you out to the roof yet?” Mandel asks.

“No.”

“Ah well, she’s probably been saving it for a special moment. Do try to look surprised when she shows you.”

The window next to the coatrack opens like a door. Frigid air rushes into the tower as Mandel steps outside.

My body has a way of warning me when I’m being observed. An unpleasant tingle starts at the top of my spine and spreads until even the tips of my toes are buzzing. After a couple of months at the Mandel Academy, I’ve learned to live with the sensation. But this is different. It’s more than a tingle. It’s like I’ve just jammed a fork into an electric socket. We are out on the roof, surrounded by skyscrapers. I can see my father’s building in the distance. His office faces south, overlooking the harbor. He’s probably not watching. But others must be.

The academy’s glass pyramid sits in the center of the roof. We’re on a flat, tar-papered widow’s walk between the two towers. A six-foot-high railing lines the edge of the building. Which means I can’t just push Mandel over the side. I could try to kill him with my bare hands—but I’d be willing to bet that he’s packing a Taser. I’d never make it out of this place alive. And God knows what they’d do to me before I died. Maybe I should shove Mandel through the glass pyramid. Then I could climb the drainpipe on the side of his tower, get past the fence, and jump. If my body splatters on a city street, at least it wouldn’t end up in one of those drawers. And that is a very comforting idea.

I could jump. I want to jump. I must jump.

I won’t jump. I’m here for a reason. Lucas died to keep me alive. I owe it to him—and to Aubrey and Felix—to do everything I can to survive.

“So how do you like my office?” Mandel laughs. “I know all of this probably seems very cloak and dagger, but I’d prefer to keep our chat private.”

“How can you call this private? We’re standing on a roof in the middle of the financial district. Half of New York can see us.”

“And what do they see? An older man counseling a teenage student? The only thing that matters for now is that no one can hear us. The alumni know about my research, of course. But the experiment I’m currently conducting is the most important of my career. I’m on the cusp of proving a remarkable theory. And I’d like the chance to present all of my findings at once.”

“You said you’d made a wager with my father. Now you’re conducting an experiment. So what does that make me—your guinea pig?”

“No, Flick. You’re going to be my superhero. My Captain America.”

Captain America. The dipshit from the Lower East Side who let the government dose him with Super-Soldier serum. As a kid, I thought special powers like his were just another form of cheating. In my opinion, the only true superhero was Batman, who kicked ass without being anything other than human.

“Did you do something to me down there in that lab?” I demand.

Mandel shakes his head as if the question doesn’t make sense. “All I did was change the location of your chip. If I altered you physically, it could ruin the experiment.”

“Then how do you expect me to become some sort of superhero? I don’t even have what it takes to escape from a building in downtown Manhattan.”

Mandel beams. I’ve never seen him so animated. He’s practically giddy—like a grade school geek presenting his first science fair project.

“What if I were to tell you that there’s a switch somewhere inside you? Until now, it’s been in the off position. But if it were on, you would be completely unstoppable. The point of my experiment is to locate that switch—and flip it.”

I open my mouth, but Mandel holds up a finger.

“I’ll explain everything. But you won’t understand unless you allow me to give you a bit of background information.” He pauses. “Perhaps you’ve noticed that some of the students here at the Mandel Academy are . . . different. Caleb and Ivan, for instance. What do you suppose sets them apart?”

I remember Caleb’s empty eyes. “They’re sociopaths,” I say. “I don’t know why it took me so long to figure it out. They’re both completely insane.”

My diagnosis neither shocks nor insults my companion. “Ah, see! You just made two very common mistakes. To begin with, Caleb and Ivan are not sociopaths. They’re psychopaths.”

“Aren’t those the same thing?”

“Not quite. Psychopaths and sociopaths are often confused because they share the same traits. Most are intelligent and cunning, for instance. Many are also remarkably charming. But both groups lack what you’d call a conscience. They always act in their own self-interest. They cheat, steal, or kill to get what they want, and they feel no remorse for their actions. Some—but not all—become criminals. Others find success in a variety of professions.

“The difference between the two groups is simple. Psychopaths are born. Caleb and Ivan have always been the way they are now. Sociopaths, however, must be made.”

“How do you make someone a sociopath?” I snort.

“There’s more than one way, of course. The most effective is to find a child who’s been neglected, traumatized, or abused. Then you force him to fight for his own survival. You give him no option but to kill or be killed. You tell him he must survive by any means necessary—and offer him a prize if he does.”

“Sounds a lot like the Mandel Academy.”

“And that’s no coincidence. My mother perfected the recipe I just recited, though I don’t think she knew what she was making. But I’ve been studying the academy’s students since I was your age. It didn’t take me long to realize that those who managed to graduate were either psychopaths or sociopaths. Some had been born that way. Most Mandel alumni, however, had not. But they were raised in environments that offered no sense of safety or hope for the future. That experience, along with the training they received at the academy, turned them into sociopaths. By the time they graduated, none of them possessed a conscience. Their sole concern was their own survival.”

“You made them monsters,” I say.

“Not monsters,” Mandel corrects me. “Predators. That’s the term we use here. The alumni hate being labeled sociopaths or psychopaths—and they’d be furious to hear you call them all monsters. They don’t want to be thought of as mentally ill. And they’re not. No one at the Mandel Academy is insane. Psychopaths and sociopaths are not defective humans. As a matter of fact, I’m convinced they’re superior beings.”

I feel like we just took a detour into sci-fi land. I do hope extraterrestrials are involved. If Mandel turns out to be barking mad, he might as well be entertaining, too. “Superior beings, you say?”

“That’s the theory I’m testing. I believe that, at some point in history, the human race split into two different species.”

It’s not quite as crazy as it could be, I guess. “How?”

“A mutant gene evolved. Those who inherited the gene were smarter, stronger. Better. They became predators. Those without the gene were weaker, less intelligent, more prone to illness. They were the predators’ prey. That’s what psychopaths and sociopaths share in common. Both possess the mutant gene.”

“Wait a second—you said sociopaths seem totally normal at birth. How is that possible if they inherited some kind of predator gene?”

Mandel smiles. He loves playing professor. “Science has shown that many of our genes can be switched off or on. Psychopaths are born with an active predator gene. But they’re a very rare breed—perhaps less than one percent of the population. A much larger percentage of people are born with a gene that isn’t switched on. But if they’re placed in the right environment, the gene can be activated, and they’ll become sociopaths.”

I don’t want to ask. “What does this have to do with me?”

“You have the mutant gene. There’s little doubt that you inherited it from your father. But you haven’t been exposed to the conditions that will make your gene active.”

“You’re saying I have the predator gene, but it isn’t expressed.”

Mandel claps. “You know the proper term! Very impressive. That’s right. You’re what I call a hybrid.”

“A hybrid?”

“When predators mate with prey, the offspring inherit an inactive mutant gene. Hybrids look like predators but behave like prey. However, over the years, the Mandel Academy has proved that it’s possible to turn hybrids into full-blown predators. That’s what my mother did to your father. He arrived at this school a broken, battered little weakling. He left as a sociopath. My mother activated his predator gene. And that’s what I intend to do to you.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. “And that’s going to be your big breakthrough? You just said your family’s been ‘switching’ hybrids for decades.”

“Yes, but we’ve been terribly inefficient. This school recruits eighteen students a year. Only nine ever graduate. Our success rate is low because we’re forced to recruit students we hope can be predators. We’ve been relying on guesswork rather than science. Half of our recruits never become sociopaths, and that’s why we must expel so many students. However, if we find the predator gene—and develop a test for it—we can recruit only genuine hybrids and produce twice as many graduates each year.”

“That’s what you’re searching for in the lab downstairs? The predator gene?”

“Yes, and when my scientists finally find it, we can test every potential student and admit only those who possess it.”

“Gee, that sounds awesome,” I drone.

“I think so,” Mandel says. “Unfortunately, your father and his supporters claim my research is far too expensive. The board of directors has threatened to close my lab unless I can prove that the mutant gene actually exists. They’ve given me a single year. But great discoveries cannot be rushed. I knew we might not locate the gene in time—so I offered to show it in action instead.”

“I have a hunch this is where I come in.”

“Yes. Like all genes, the predator gene is passed from one generation to the next. In order to prove its existence, I needed a subject who was likely to have inherited the mutant gene from one of his parents—but showed no sign of being a predator. It had to be someone particularly unpromising—a young person the academy would have never dreamed of recruiting. Then I would expose the subject to the kind of conditions that I believe can activate the mutant gene—and turn the hybrid into a first-class predator.”

My blood has been drained and my veins pumped full of poison. “And you chose me for your experiment. How flattering.”

“You weren’t an ideal choice. I appealed to the alumni first. Most of their offspring are likely to possess the mutant gene. I only needed a single hybrid for my experiment, but I quickly realized that no graduate would ever willingly enroll a child in our school.”

“I bet. They wouldn’t want to risk their own kids getting killed.”

Mandel chuckles. “It would be a difficult thing to explain to one’s spouse, that’s for certain. But I think most alumni were more concerned that their children might graduate. Predators don’t enjoy competition inside their own homes. Eventually I had to insist that your father volunteer one of his sons. He wasn’t terribly fond of the idea, but at the time he could hardly refuse.”

“So you’ve been trying to prove your theory by activating my gene?”

Judging by Mandel’s smile, he thinks my question was naive. “No, we haven’t reached that stage yet. You see, thanks to your stellar performance in the Incubation Suites, some of the alumni argued that you must have been born a predator. I had to take a step back and prove that your gene is not yet expressed. Last night, you showed the alumni how weak you still are. A true predator would never have acted in such an illogical manner. But that’s why I gave you a room next to Lucas. Cowardice is contagious. I knew he would scare you into acting rashly. Now it’s time for the second stage of my experiment to begin.”

I can’t imagine how life at the academy could get any worse. “Fabulous. What do you have in mind for me?”

“Whatever it takes to flip the switch, Flick. And when I do, you’ll be my masterpiece. A super-predator like your father. You’re smarter than the rest. Physically stronger than most. And you’ll have something that students like Caleb and Ivan will never possess—a profound understanding of your prey.”

“And you’ll get your name in the evil scientist Hall of Fame, right next to Hannibal Lecter and Dr. Frankenstein.”

“This is not about my own personal glory!” Mandel almost looks hurt. “My work will benefit all of mankind!”

“How is turning kids into sociopaths and training them to be white-collar criminals going to help mankind?”

He’s been expecting this. There’s more to his theory. And I can see it on his face—he truly believes he’s going to single-handedly save the world.

“Nature doesn’t make mistakes, Flick. There’s a reason humankind split into two different species. Once humans reached the top of the food chain, our fellow carnivores stopped keeping our numbers in check. So nature created a new predator, and a delicate balance was maintained. A small group of human predators culled a large group of prey. Without the predators, the population would have exploded. And do you know what happens when there are too many prey in an ecosystem?”

I’m about to answer, but Mandel beats me to the punch. He’s on a roll.

“They eat everything! They consume all of the natural resources, and famine follows. So long ago, a cycle began—a cycle in which hybrids played a key role. Whenever the prey group grew too large, life became difficult for everyone. The harsh conditions activated the mutant gene in some of the hybrids. They became predators, and they helped reduce the prey population until balance was restored. That’s how it was for millennia. But here in America, the cycle has stopped—and one group is now threatening the existence of the others.”

“The predators?” I ask, just to annoy him.

“The prey! There’s no longer enough hardship in this country to turn the right number of hybrids into predators. Meanwhile, the prey keep breeding. The weak, the sick, and the feeble-minded are growing in number at an almost unimaginable rate. If they’re all allowed to eat their fill, there will soon be nothing left for any of us.

“When my mother ran this school, the Mandel Academy was a profit-driven organization. But now we must serve a much higher purpose. In order to preserve our ecosystem, the prey must be culled. If I can find an error-proof way to identify hybrids, we can increase the predator population and restore balance.”

“By helping a bunch of psychopaths and sociopaths get into Harvard?” I snort. “If you really want to ‘cull’ the herd, you’re going to need an army of serial killers, not a bunch of politicians and investment bankers.”

“You’re thinking too small! Even successful serial killers only dispose of two or three dozen people at most. But the academy is producing politicians who can start wars that will eliminate thousands. Investment bankers who will plunder the nation’s resources. Our businesspeople will build factories that will pollute the prey’s water. We will sell them food that poisons their bodies. We will coat their children’s toys with toxic paint—and put chemicals in their toiletries that will leave them sterile. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that our species survives.”

This is real. It is not hypothetical. I’m actually standing beside a mass murderer. A lunatic who believes that he can play God.

“So my dad knows all about this theory of yours?”

“Of course!”

“And he doesn’t share your desire to ‘save the world’?”

“No,” Mandel says with the sigh of a misunderstood genius. “I think it’s the very idea of a gene that upsets him most. Men like your father need to feel like they’re in control at all times. He refuses to believe that he’s just a part of something much bigger.” Mandel turns to me. “That’s another reason why you’re so important, Flick. What better way to humble your father than to take the son he’s always despised—and create a predator who’s more powerful than he’ll ever be?”

“I appreciate your confidence in me. But there’s still one thing that I don’t understand,” I say.

“Yes?”

“Why you’d tell me all of this. Do you just like to share?”

“There’s a reason for every action I take. I leave nothing to chance. You should know that by now.” With Mandel’s piercing blue eyes trained on me, I feel like a beetle that’s been pinned to a board. “I offered you a reward for graduating from the academy—the information that could send your father to jail. I still intend to honor our deal, but I can see that incentives are no longer enough. I shared my theory with you because I want you to understand that you have no control over the outcome of this experiment. There is no way to leave the academy. The switch is inevitable, and you will remain at this school until it’s complete. There are no decisions for you to make. Your body will function the way it was intended to function. One day, the gene will be activated, and you may not even notice the difference.”

“It’s funny you say that I have no control. I could put an end to your experiment right now.”

“How?” he asks with a smile. He’s certain I’m joking.

“We’re up here alone. You think you could stop me if I decided to scale the drainpipe on the side of your tower and jump over the fence?”

“You’re talking about killing yourself?”

“Sure. I’m not going to, but I could.”

“And your point is?” Mandel plays it as cool as ever, but I know I’ve surprised him. Which means he hasn’t thought of everything. A tiny flicker of hope is still burning inside me. I need to find Gwendolyn right away.

“The point is, I want to stay. So maybe my gene was activated last night.”

“Maybe it was,” Mandel says. “It’s a hypothesis that I’m fully prepared to test.”

“Give me everything you’ve got,” I tell him.