“A twenty-one-year-old who survived this procedure. He’s suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and will be on antidepressants for the rest of his life. His mother told us that he and others were experimented on by physicians who, among other things, were attempting to extract and replace their blood. Many of the victims died. When we spoke to the medical examiner who examined the bodies we found, he said that the blood in their bodies was genetically unrecognizable, not human. One of the victims had suffered the extraction of reproductive tissues.”
Dr. Holloway’s face drained of color, turning almost as pale as the white of his coat. He looked from Tyrell to Lopez and back again.
“I can’t imagine what that would mean.”
“Try.”
“If you were to put a gun to my head and force me to suggest something, then the only thing that I can think of is that somebody was trying to use humans as incubators, perhaps to generate blood lines or stem cells for a chimera.”
Tyrell looked at Lopez, who had also paled. “What’s a chimera?”
Holloway spoke quietly.
“A species that is a combination of the genetic codes of two preceding species, a hybrid if you will.” Holloway paled again. “Whoever conducted those experiments is using human incubators in order to bring something back to life.”
What do you mean, bring something back to life?”
Lopez watched as Dr. Holloway removed his spectacles and cleaned them as he spoke.
“With the recent advance of genetic science, it’s been possible to cross-breed two distinct species in order to create a half-breed, a chimera. It happens in nature quite a lot, but the more separated the two species are from their common ancestor, the less likely they are to be able to produce offspring.”
“But it’s been done,” Tyrell guessed.
“Oh yes. Sheep and goats produced a chimera, the so-called ‘Geep.’ Such interspecies are made in the laboratory by transplanting embryonic cells from an animal with one trait into the embryo of an animal with a different trait. This practice is common in the field.”
“So why would somebody want to conduct that procedure on humans?” Tyrell pressed.
“I really don’t know,” Holloway said. “But whatever the aim, the procedure would be highly illegal. In 2003, researchers at the Shanghai Second Medical University in China successfully fused human skin cells and dead rabbit eggs to create the first human chimeric embryos. The embryos were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory setting, then destroyed to harvest the resulting stem cells. But from what you’re suggesting—”
“They’re using unwilling victims,” Tyrell said. “Which means that they’re probably taking things further than stem cells.”
“Could they produce another species if they had the required materials?” Lopez asked, clearly appalled by the thought of such genetic engineering.
“Absolutely.” Holloway nodded. “Though there would be a number of obstacles to overcome.”
“Such as?” Tyrell pressed.
“Well, the immune system would need to be repressed, which could explain the hypothermic cooling. Then there’s the fact that sperm and eggs of differing species won’t recognize each other, and the number of chromosomes won’t match, which will prevent effective fertilization. They would need to acquire stem cells from the species they’re trying to clone, or at least culture cells from existing material in order to produce viable embryos using host or donor cells, which could explain the surgery marks on some of your victims and …”
Dr. Holloway suddenly trailed off. Tyrell saw the doctor’s expression sag and his eyes fill with horror.
“What is it?” Tyrell asked.
Holloway shook his head, his voice throaty as he spoke.
“If they fertilized human eggs that had had their nucleus replaced with foreign stem cells, they could possibly create an embryo that could then be implanted into a host.”
Lopez winced.
“They can do that?”
“They could use bone-marrow stem cells,” Holloway said, “from the species they are trying to clone. From those cells all the various types of blood cells are descended, and using a laboratory can give rise to even non-marrow cells.”
“Like embryonic stem cells,” Tyrell suggested.
“It’s cloning, in effect.” Holloway nodded. “Whole cell or animal cloning occurs through the transfer of the nucleus of an adult cell into an enucleated egg. This can result in the reprogramming of the adult cell DNA to produce a cloned animal. They could create an extinct species, for instance, from the nucleus of a cultured mammary gland cell or similar that is then fused to a human egg cell that has had its own nucleus removed. The fused cell can then be implanted into a female human