Chapter 44
Chapter Forty-Four
John made an effort to sound calm.
“And just how are you gonna do that?”
Robert got to his feet once more, pacing up and down the porch between them and the railing.
“Are either of you familiar with the four gas laws?” John and Rich exchanged puzzled glances, and Robert chuckled.
“I’m going to go with no, so let’s try this from a different angle.
Have you ever noticed that when you inflate a bicycle tire with a hand pump, the pump and nozzle get hot? ”
“Sure.” Rich flashed John a look that plainly said, What the fuck?
“Ever wondered why that happens?”
Rich shrugged. “Friction of the piston?”
Robert nodded. “Yes, but it’s not just that. You’re introducing more air into something with a fixed volume. That’s why the bike tire gets harder. The pressure inside increases with more air.”
John quirked an eyebrow. “Obviously.”
“But your bike or car tire can only occupy a certain volume until it splits. The more air, the higher its pressure at a given temperature.”
“Again, obviously.” John may not have had the professor’s smarts, but he was no dummy.
“Yes, but why is the pressure higher? It’s because gas molecules are bouncing around, hitting each other, and hitting the walls of whatever contains them. It creates more conflict between them.”
John was lost.
“If you take your car tire that’s been sitting on your driveway up to working pressure, then drive about twenty miles and back, the pressure goes up more.
Why? Because the tire’s gotten hotter. You’ve increased the temperature of the air inside it.
The molecules move faster, hitting the internal walls—”
“Are you going somewhere with this?” Rich blurted.
That was Rich all over, no patience.
Robert came to a stop and leaned back against the railing.
“Think of a big city. All its inhabitants are like the molecules of a gas. Look at all the interactions, all the tensions. If you increase the size of the city, there are fewer interactions, and hey, the pressure decreases. So here’s another option.
What happens if you keep the city the same size—but remove people from it?
” He smiled. “The number of collisions decreases. The pressure and/or tension in the city decreases too.”
Rich folded his arms. “What’s your point?”
Robert took a deep breath before continuing.
“This little planet is a fixed volume. It’s the tire.
We are the particles of gas bouncing around.
We can’t change the size of the planet, but we can change the number of gas particles.
” He flung his arm out to encompass the view.
“Take a look at our world. With increasing information, increasing globalization, mobilization, the potential for conflict at local/national/international levels increases.”
Rich gave him an incredulous glance. “So your solution is to reduce the number of people? How exactly are you gonna do that? Build a better bomb?”
Robert studied him for a moment in silence, and despite the sun’s rays, the skin prickled on John’s arms. “I’m not talking about wiping out mankind,” Robert said in a quiet voice. He looked from Rich to John. “I’m talking about culling it.”
Holy fuck.
John struggled not to react, to keep the tremor from his voice.
“And how do you propose doing that? I mean, without anyone noticing.”
Robert cocked his head to one side. “Remember Wayne Theland? The actor? He died last year.”
“Sure.” John hadn’t been a fan, but Lorraine damn near swooned every time he came onto the screen. She’d cried when the media reported his death.
“He died of cancer,” Rich remarked.
Robert nodded. “Do either of you know if he smoked?”
Rich let out one of his explosive snorts. “Like a chimney. You never saw him without a cigarette. I saw him in an interview before he died, complaining about how politically incorrect it had gotten to smoke and how many places he couldn’t smoke in anymore.”
Robert studied Rich again. “You smoke. A lot, I might add. I think you smoked three in the space of an hour last night.”
Rich arched his eyebrows. “What’s your point?”
Robert didn’t break eye contact. “Does your dad smoke?”
“Yeah. Well, he did. Died last year.”
“My condolences.” Rich gave a nod. Robert didn’t look away. “But he didn’t die of cancer.”
“Nope. He died because he drank himself to death, the stupid bastard.”
“And the probability is you won’t die from cancer either. Now why is that?”
Rich stared back at him. “I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say because it’s not in my genes. Is that the right answer, Professor? Do I get a gold star?”
Robert beamed. “Exactly. You don’t have the genetic marker that would make you susceptible, unless it’s from your mom. But Wayne Theland had that marker.”
“Sorry, Rob, you’ve lost me.” Rich frowned. “So I’ll ask again—where are you going with this?”
Robert didn’t respond. Instead, he helped himself to a beer.
Rich darted a glance in John’s direction but kept silent.
Robert drank deeply, then stood there, the can in his hand.
“It’s said life is all about the law of unintended consequences.
Take the guy who introduced lead into gasoline to solve the knocking problem.
No one could have foreseen the consequence: lead building up in people’s brains.
You could even put forward the argument that it reduced intelligence.
” Another long drink. “Now look at what Dr. Phillips and I are doing. We’re looking for the holy grail, not just to cure diseases but prevent them at a genetic level.
What are the consequences going to be of that?
I’ll tell you. People will live longer. Their health while they’re alive will be better.
Hell, we all want that, right?” He narrowed his gaze.
“But what about the unintended consequence? People living longer, lower infant mortality rates—it all adds up to one thing. More people on the earth.” He glanced at John.
“I think we talked about this, remember?”
John wasn’t likely to forget it, nor the part he’d played in what had followed.
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Let’s look at that equation again. More people equal more interactions equal conflict equal stress equal wars. Perversely, my work to improve the quality of life for mankind actually makes it worse.”
John was too sober to cope with this conversation. “So what’s the solution? Stop doing what you’re doing?”
Robert let out a bitter laugh. “If I don’t do this, someone else will. If Oppenheimer hadn’t headed up the Manhattan Project, someone else would have. So what I need to do is what no one else will. What no one else would even think of doing.”
“Before you go any further, I need more beer. Because this is turning out to be a four-beer conversation.” Anything to put off the moment when Robert revealed whatever it was he had in mind that no one else would think of doing.
That part scared the hell out of him.
Apparently, Rich was on the same page.
“We’re not talking hypothetically anymore, are we? Sounds to me like you already have an idea how you want to achieve your goal.”
Robert’s eyes gleamed. “Yes, I do, and I’ll need your help.”
John didn’t want to hear this.
He cleared his throat. “Going off on a tangent here. Bearing in mind your field—genetics—and all this talk about reducing the population, imagine if you could engineer a bioweapon that only took out stupid people.”
Rich let rip with a loud cackle. “Or gingers. I vote for wiping out the gingers.”
John raised his eyebrows. “What have you got against gingers?”
“Redheaded kid stole my bike when I was eight.”
He laughed. “Wow. When you hold a grudge….” He wanted to hold on to the lighter tone, to delay Robert’s next words, which he felt certain would be something he would not like.
Robert smiled. “So if a plague suddenly wipes out all the gingers on the planet, I’ll know where to look. But let’s take your idea in another direction. What if we discovered there was a gene only found in people with a propensity toward violence?”
Rich grinned. “There you go, John. We’re back to your bioweapon idea again.”
John ignored him.
Robert wasn’t done. “We could wipe out everyone in a foreign country who had that gene. Most of their army drops down dead. And those who don’t have the gene? They lay down their arms.”
Rich chuckled. “It’s like something out of a sci-fi novel.”
John wasn’t chuckling. “Wait a sec. What’s to stop it hitting the US? If it’s a virus, it’ll find its way around the world. It’ll take out everyone with that gene.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?” Rich suggested.
John ignored him again.
Robert removed his glasses and cleaned then with the hem of his shirt. “What if your virus is tailored to two markers—a propensity toward violence and the genetic code that makes someone, say, Chinese.”
John stilled. “I see where you’re going.”
He wasn’t sure he liked it.
Rich frowned. “Wait. We’ve got Chinese citizens in the US.”
“That’s absolutely right,” Robert said with a nod. “Unless you develop a parallel gene vaccine to prevent it. I’m not talking about engineering a bioweapon to give the US the upper hand in warfare. I’m more concerned about creating something that exposes everyone around the globe.”
John gaped. “Killing all mankind?”
“No,” Rich corrected. “He said culling, remember?” He winked at Robert. “I think that’s another gold star, Prof.”
Doesn’t he see how deadly serious Robert is?
And deadly was the perfect word.
“Can you see where I’m coming from? Do you have any idea how many deaths there were as a result of WWI?
Twenty million. WWII? Sixty million. The bill for WWI was two hundred and eight billion dollars.
WWII? Four trillion dollars.” His cheeks flushed.
“I’m not talking about winning wars but preventing them.
Is it conceivable that in all those deaths, there was one person who could have discovered the cure for cancer?
Only they were wiped off the face of the earth.
And all that money…? If we threw that amount at the problems we face today, we’d have solved them decades ago. ”
“Look at all the tech that came out of those wars,” John interjected. “The rocket, jet engines, communication. Wars aren’t all bad. There are benefits.”
Robert shook his head. “Those things would have happened anyway. No one put a gun to their heads and said ‘solve this problem.’”
“Hey.” Rich met Robert’s gaze. “Can we go back to this culling thing? Where? Where would you let something like this loose?”
Robert gave a shrug. “Everywhere.”
John flinched. “Even on US soil?”
Robert flung his arms wide. “Look at what we consume. Not just fuels and other resources. Food. Look at what we throw away. It could have a massive impact on the world’s food supply by simply removing a quarter of the world’s population.” He locked gazes with John. “Half would be even better.”
Rich’s brow furrowed. “Not sure I like the sound of this.”
John definitely didn’t like the sound of it, but at least now he knew for certain where Robert had gotten the idea.
Robert drained his beer can, then tossed it into the trash.
“Look at Africa. A developing continent with a population of more than one billion, and they are still struggling with food production. The population of Africa has outgrown its ability to provide for itself, yet it has the resources to do it. Imagine if the population doubled. Conflicts would increase. Mark my words, wars will be fought over food in the not-too-distant future.”
“So how would you change things?” John asked.
“I’d like to see a smaller, industrialized, stable population. People living in peace with one another. Increases in health care and education. We should be seeing centers of learning like Harvard and Yale in places like Cape Town.”
John had heard enough.
“Stop circling the issue. Talk straight. Because I’m now realizing you didn’t organize this reunion for us to go fishing.”
Rich’s breathing hitched, and John knew he’d caught on as well.
Robert folded his arms. “You both joked about bioweapons taking out stupid people and gingers. But you and I know there are labs out there—doing gain-of-function work—that are developing bioweapons not too far removed from what I’ve described.
So that’s what I’m going to do.” He peered at Rich.
“You said something about building a better bomb. What I’m proposing is less of a bomb and more of a guided missile. ”
Shock ricocheted through John, and he stared at Robert with wide eyes. “You’re serious.”
This wasn’t just talk.
Shit.
“Never more so.”
Rich studied him, brows knitted. “When would you start work on this?” Then he froze.
That’s it, Rich. Do the math.
Rich’s jaw dropped, his eyes widening. “Oh. My. God. You’ve already started, haven’t you?”
Robert went quiet for a moment. Finally he nodded. “I call it Project Thanos.”