“His belly’s full,” she said. “At least for the next couple hours. Then he’ll be crying for his bottle again.”

“That should give the lab enough time to finish their genetic analyses.”

“What’s been done so far?”

She was anxious for any news. After arriving at ACRES with the animals, she had spent all her time stabilizing the debilitated animals and assisting in the collection of blood and tissue samples. While she had performed the physical exams, the DNA samples had vanished into the main genetic lab-Dr. Metoyer’s exclusive domain. The director was world-renowned for his pioneering work on cloning and interspecies embryo transplants.

“We’ve barely scratched the surface,” Carlton said. “But an initial chromosomal assay has already revealed an intriguing quirk. We’re repeating the test right now, but I wanted to come down here and fetch you. It’s something you should see for yourself.”

He motioned and headed toward the door. He was clearly enthused about something and that excitement passed to her.

She followed, practically vibrating with curiosity. As she left she glanced back and spotted Igor staring back at her, perched again on the door. He had returned to his shivering.

She heard him whisper behind her.

“Want to go home.”

Chapter 8

Lorna hated to close the door on Igor’s plaintive plea, but she had a bigger mystery to solve. Still, a pang of sympathy coursed through her, dulling the sharp edge of her professional interest.

As the isolation door clicked shut, her boss was already halfway down the hall, moving with long, purposeful strides. He had been speaking, but she caught only the last bit.

“… and we’ve already started PCR tests to begin amplifying the key chromosomes. But, of course, DNA sequencing will take most of the night.”

She hurried to close the distance with Carlton -both physically and mentally. Together they headed down another hallway and reached the double doors to the suite of genetic labs that occupied this wing of the ACRES facility.

The main lab was long and narrow, lined on both sides by bio-hazard hoods and workstations. The latest genetic equipment filled shelves and tables: centrifuges, microscopes, incubators, electrophoresis equipment, a digital camera system for visualizing DNA, and racks of pipettes, glassware, scales, vials of enzymes and PCR chemicals.

Carlton led the way to where two researchers-a man and a woman-were crouched before a computer monitor. The pair stood so close together, both wearing white lab coats. They reminded Lorna of the conjoined monkeys, bonded at the hip just like Huey and Dewey.

“This is amazing,” Dr. Paul Trent announced and glanced over a shoulder as she reached them. He was young, thinly built, with wavy blond hair combed behind his ears, looking more like a California surfer than a leading neurobiologist.

Paul’s wife, Zoë, stood next to him. She was Hispanic. Her black hair was bobbed short-shorter than her husband’s-framing wide cheekbones, lightly freckled. Her lab coat did little to hide the generously curved body beneath.

The two were biologists from Stanford, wunderkinds in the field, earning their degrees before their mid-twenties and already well regarded professionally. They were in New Orleans on a two-year grant researching neural development in cloned animals, studying the structural differences between the brains of cloned specimens and their original subjects.

The pair of doctors certainly had come to the right place.

ACRES was one of the nation’s leading facilities involved with cloning. In 2003, they had been the first to clone a wild carnivore, an African cat named Ditteaux, pronounced Ditto for obvious reasons. And in the coming year, the facility was about to begin the commercial cloning of pets as a method to raise funds for their work with endangered species.

Zoë stepped back from the computer monitor. “Lorna, you have to see this.”

Lorna moved closer and recognized a karyogram on the screen. It showed a set of numbered chromosomes lined up into a chart.

Karyograms were built by using a chemical to trap cell division in its metaphase stage. The chromosomes were then separated, dyed, and sequenced via digital imaging into a numbered karyogram. Humans carried forty-six chromosomes, divided into twenty-three pairs. The monitor showed twenty-eight pairs.

Definitely not human.

Carlton explained, “We built this karyogram from a white blood cell from one of the capuchin monkeys.”

From the general excitement, Lorna knew there remained another shoe to drop.

Paul spoke up, his voice was full of wonder. “Capuchins normally have a complement of twenty-seven pairs of chromosomes.”

Lorna stared at the karyogram on the screen. “But there’s twenty-eight here.”

“Exactly!” Zoë said.

Lorna turned to the facility’s director. “ Carlton, you said you still wanted to repeat the test. Surely this is a lab error.”

“It’s under way, but I suspect we’ll confirm the original findings here.” He nodded to the computer.

“Why’s that?”

Carlton leaned forward, grabbed the computer mouse, and toggled through another five genetic maps. “This next karyogram is from the conjoined twin of the first monkey. Again twenty-eight chromosomal pairs. Same as the first. The next studies are from the lamb, the jaguar cub, the parrot, and this last is from the Burmese python.”

The python?

Frowning, she glanced across the lab to where an incubator housed the clutch of snake eggs. In his desire to confirm what she was beginning to suspect, Carlton must have opened one of the eggs to get at the developing embryo inside and obtain its DNA sample.

“Pythons typically have thirty-six pairs of chromosomes,” Carlton continued. “A mix of micro- and macro-chromosomes.”

Lorna read off the screen. “There are thirty-seven here.”

“That’s right. One pair more than normal. Like all the rest. That’s why I’m sure we’ll get the same results when we run the genetic studies again. It’s beyond statistical probability that the lab came up with the same error six times in a row.”

Lorna’s mind reeled as she struggled to come to grips with what this implied. “Are you saying that each of the animals from the trawler is showing the same genetic defect? That each is carrying an extra set of chromosomes?”

Such genetic abnormalities occasionally occurred in humans. A single extra chromosome caused a child to be born with Down syndrome. Or there was Klinefelter’s syndrome, where a male was born with two X chromosomes, forming an XXY karyotype. And in rare instances, some people were born with an extra pair of chromosomes. Abnormalities this severe usually resulted in early death or severe mental retardation.

She frowned at the screen. None of her animals exhibited such debilitation. The confusion must have been plain on her face.

“I don’t think you’re understanding the full thrust of what we’re saying,” Carlton said. “This extra pair of chromosomes isn’t the result of a genetic error. It didn’t come about from a random mistake in cell division in a sperm or egg.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Carlton manipulated the mouse and flipped through the six karyograms again. He pointed to the last chromosome pair on each of the studies.

“The specimens from the trawler aren’t just carrying an extra set of chromosomes,” the director continued. “They’re carrying the same ones.”

Only now did Lorna recognize that the extra pair of chromosomes in each of the species looked identical. As the implication sank in, understanding began to slowly well up. It felt like a tide shifting the foundation under her.

Impossible.

Carlton poked at the computer screen. “That is not an error of nature. That’s the hand of man. Someone put that extra pair of chromosomes in all these animals.”