August

July 18

The nice thing about Al-Aera's exchange was that in addition to everything else, the demand of two carriers gave Henrik two more bodies to work on. He pored over his notes, going through the classic Phantom models first, then the more recent, complex ones that Tyson and Everett had created, then Mahir's and Denis's, then his own. Denis had identified some particularly influential molecules that he felt might be the catalysts, but Mahir had pointed to some peculiarities of Phidias' physiology that he felt might be to blame.

Henrik had been up half the night before Al-Aera arrived, synthesizing those two thoughts into something he felt had potential. Now, he looked forward to testing his hypothesis with eagerness and concern. Al-Aera was expecting results, another pressure on top of the greater one of the Union government.

The younger one would go first, Henrik decided. The change should show itself more quickly on him, anyway, and if separated from each other, perhaps the older one wouldn't have so much fight in him. They stuck close to each other, as it was - they might be brothers, as far as Henrik could tell. He'd inquired about their history; if Al-Aera had picked them up recently, there might be some more information on the two. But none of the guards had any information beyond the fact that the boys had been fed, watered, and dewormed twice. Eventually, Henrik was able to understand that both were promised to a distant ally in the south, and so the general consensus of Al-Aera's people had been to take as little interest in them as possible.

The two boys had been sedated, bathed, and dressed in simple robes, and were under observation in two of the patient rooms in the laboratory. In the cold room, Henrik prepared the first sample. Al-Aera watched him; the man had been hanging around for two days now, lurking in the lab and in the hallways of Wafra. Sometimes he occupied himself in the library, and at other times ran exercises with his men. But right now he was lingering, touching things around the lab, and waiting for the procedure to begin.

"It will be quick?" the sheikh asked, suddenly, crossing the room to Henrik's side. Henrik nodded.
"It requires only one injection."
"And then?"
"And then we take a sample from the same one, and try to resynthesize the formula."
Al-Aera raised a skeptical brow.
"You don't have enough of the serum for both?"
Henrik threw a quick, annoyed glance at the sheikh.
"We have enough. But this is a rare opportunity. We want to make the most of it."
Al-Aera relaxed.
"Explain this to me."
Henrik wasn't entirely sure he wanted to do that, but in for a penny, in for a pound. Al-Aera was already in the lab, anyway, and if he were, in fact, going to be conducting some of their overseas operations, it might be best for him to have almost-full disclosure.

"The Phantom," Henrik began, "has two weaknesses. First, it requires a base made from the tissue of a natural carrier."
"Wait, that is the formula?" Al-Aera interrupted. "The Phantom is a carrier's blood?"
Henrik narrowed his eyes.
"No, the Phantom is not a carrier's blood. If it were so simple, don't you think someone else would have figured it out by now?"
Al-Aera was silent. Henrik continued.
"As I said, the basis of the serum must be the blood of a naturally-changed carrier. There can be no second generation synthesis. The Phantom cannot be made from the tissue of a carrier changed with the Phantom."
Al-Aera blinked.
"And your second weakness?"
Henrik didn't take the bait in the sheikh's phrasing, and went on.
"The second is that no carrier changed with the Phantom has ever borne a natural carrier in the next generation."
Al-Aera nodded slowly, understanding dawning.
"It's a self-limiting change." he said, quietly. "So if the use of this became widespread...we would be forever dependent."
Henrik nodded as he prepared the swabs and syringes on a steel tray in front of him.
"Almost. Not completely. Spontaneous changes might still occur in those who hadn't taken it. But to those who had, no carriers would be born. If it became widespread enough..."
"Why not?" Al-Aera demanded suddenly. "Why doesn't it work?"
Phidias glared at him as if he were a particularly bothersome breed of desert animal.
"Obviously," he said, coolly, "I don't know."

Henrik double-checked the layout before him and glanced at the clock.
"But, recently, the Firm has been working on a new serum. It's untested, but I plan to use it today. And we are expecting better results."
Al-Aera looked evenly at Henrik.
"You need better results, you mean."
Henrik fretted with one of the swabs.
"Yes. We need better results." he looked up, calmly, at the sheikh. "It would keep things cleaner. If we can surpass the other serum, then the Union will handle the rest. They'll determine the old serum to be a threat to humanity, and they'll move hell and earth to destroy it. This crazy man claiming to know the secrets of Donovan or whoever will mean nothing to anyone, which may be better for him even than it will be for us."
Al-Aera must have understood, because he was quiet and thoughtful for a moment.
"And if it doesn't work?"
"Then the situation will have gotten out of hand."
"And what shall I tell my men? If we find that the situation has gotten out of hand?"
Henrik paused.
"Tell them to clean it up."

~:~

Sean wrote a letter to his parents on spare scraps of old government letterhead and sent it out through the representatives who visited daily. Ren and Adrian were sitting with the children in the other room, working quietly through some workbooks and amusing themselves with conversation. Will Mackenzie had been gone all day and not been back, but there was an anticipatory spin to the air - a sort of frantic waiting, as if they all teetered on the very thin edge of something.

It unsettled Sean. He watched a video chip and slept through most of the afternoon.

~:~