“No, you misunderstand, Quinn.”
“I think I understand very well. I’m guessing he caught wind of some government program through his connections and saw dollar signs. He commissioned you to undertake the genetics side of it, and somewhere along the line, it went horribly wrong. Am I close?” He’d slowly gained his feet during the tirade, the anger and adrenaline cocktail pumping through his veins like a drug, heightening the indignity, the outrage. Everyone dead, only suffering for those who were left, and why?
“No, you’re not,” Gregory said, beginning to tremble again. “This was not a government project. Genset was privately funded solely by your father.”
“Why would he try to make monsters out of people?” Quinn said. “What purpose would it serve?”
“The abominations that were created in the aftermath were not the goal; they were an outcome of a mistake.” Gregory sagged, his neck slackening so that he stared at the floor, breathing hard.
“If they weren’t what you were trying to create, then what were you doing here?”
Gregory managed to raise his head high enough to look him in the eye.
“Your father was trying to cure you.”
Quinn felt like he’d been kicked by a horse. The air buzzed, and he lost vestibular sense. The ground was the sky and then it reversed, sending him into a dizzying tailspin.
“What?” was all he managed, all he could get himself to say.
“When all of the surgeries for you were ruled out, he came to me. He knew I was trying new gene therapy strategies, —that I was on the forefront of discovery—and asked if there was any way to help with your condition. He wanted a normal life for you so much, Quinn; it was his sole ambition. He built this place, gave us tens of millions for a budget, all for you.”
Quinn lowered himself to the floor as the world continued to whirl around him.
“I don’t understand…why?” he breathed.
“Because he loved you. More than anything or anyone. He was driven beyond any man I’ve ever met.” Gregory paused, glancing around the operating theatre as if he’d heard something. They all listened too, but there was nothing but the hum of the lights and the rain. “We began work on mice, then moved on to primates, slowly verifying what route we needed to take to get to the end goal. It became clear early on that a virus would be necessary for the delivery of the genetic program.”
“A chimeric virus,” Quinn said, recalling the information Holtz had told him.
“Yes. An adenovirus holding a common flu virus gene. We mutated the gene responsible for transmission so it could never become communicable.” Gregory swallowed and shook again as if fighting off another coughing episode. “But something went wrong with our first test in a human.”
“You said you were working with primates. How did you ever get clearance to go ahead with human testing?” Alice asked.
Gregory seemed to focus on her for a moment before sliding his gaze back to Quinn.
“We didn’t. Your father pushed the tests forward. I told him we needed another two years of clinical trials after gaining licenses, but he couldn’t be dissuaded.”
“But what did he hope to achieve with all this? You said so yourself that the surgeries were out of the question. How was this virus supposed to help me?” Quinn asked.