39

Sarah Bellman watched Professor Kennedy inject the pieces of fruit with a liquid that would carry nanoparticles into the digestive tracts of the four macaques crouching listlessly in their cage. She noticed a tremor in his normally steady hands. His skin had taken on an unhealthy grey pallor as if he were coming down with a fever and he looked a decade older than his sixty-five years. The breezy, permanently cheerful man she had worked alongside for five years was reduced to a silent, brooding ghost of his former self.

She knew the reason why. She was young enough to spend several years in obscurity and later emerge from their ordeal to redefine herself, but this was the end of her mentor’s career. What they were about to achieve here in this place would be his legacy: a black stain that would cancel out forty years of pioneering work.

Kennedy dropped the syringe into the trash, lowered himself stiffly on to a chair and gestured for her to continue.

Bellman pulled on a pair of gauntlets, opened the principal cage and reached for one of the two male macaques – the friendliest and most amenable of the four. He clung to her hand like an infant to its mother. Even through the layer of tough fabric that separated them, she felt the warmth of his belly and the rapid beating of his heart as she transferred him to a smaller cage on a bench at the side of the room. She placed him inside, secured the door, then fed several pieces of fruit into the feeding chute. Having been starved for several hours in readiness, he devoured them greedily. Bellman stared, entranced, at his tiny semi-human face and marvelled at the fractional differences in genetic make-up that separated this creature from a human being.

They waited for ten minutes for the nanoparticles to be delivered through the monkey’s bloodstream to their target. Sarah attempted to lighten the atmosphere with small talk, but the professor was too deep in thoughts of his own to engage. She wanted to ask him what he was thinking, whether he was as appalled by the perversion of their work as she was, but decided to spare him. He had a wife, three adult children and a clutch of grandchildren to think about. One day soon he would have to answer to them. She guessed that in his silence he was composing his defence or even his confession.

An alarm sounded the end of their wait. If their modelling was correct, the particles would now be attached to the target cells, primed and ready to activate.

Without exchanging a word Bellman and Kennedy went about their tasks. While Kennedy recorded the experiment on a video camera, she produced a small red chew-toy, moulded, for reasons known only to the manufacturer, into the shape of a bear. She poked it through the bars and quickly turned to her computer.

With her finger poised ready to hit the key that would play a short burst of white noise the moment their subject’s skin came in contact with the toy, she waited and watched. The monkey approached the unfamiliar object cautiously, searching for signs of life or danger. He studied it for a while and only when he was sure that it posed no immediate threat reached out a tentative finger and prodded.

Bellman hit play.

A sound like a burst of static resounded around the room. The codes it contained activated the nanoparticles, stimulating the target cells. The effect was instantaneous. The macaque took a step backwards as if suddenly having to correct his balance, then, without any trace of fear, picked up the toy with both hands. Sarah played the sound a second time, reinforcing the program. The monkey clung to the plastic bear and rolled over on his back, all four of his limbs wrapped around it.

They allowed him to hold on to it for a full minute before Sarah opened the cage door and attempted to prise it away. The macaque screamed and kicked and scrabbled, holding on to its new possession as if his life depended on it. Finally, Sarah used her superior strength to tear it away from him and slammed the cage door shut. The macaque shook the bars and screamed and screamed with wild, staring eyes.

‘For God’s sake, let him have it,’ Kennedy said.

‘But surely we need to observe the tailing off –’

‘Give it to him. I can’t stand the noise.’

Bellman pushed the plastic bear back into the cage. The macaque grabbed it and instantly fell silent, wrapping it once again in a tight embrace. What she observed in the monkey’s expression was the closest thing to a state of ecstasy that she had ever seen. Its eyes were closed, its face fixed in an expression of bliss.

This result was both shocking and thrilling and far beyond anything they had anticipated. But as soon as her initial amazement had passed, Bellman was gripped by an overwhelming sense of terror at the possibilities it unlocked.

‘What have we done?’ she said.

Kennedy replied in a flat monotone. ‘We made a monkey like a plastic toy.’

She turned to look at him. There was no need for words – they understood each other perfectly.

Somehow, this had to be stopped.