Mutation

Discovering a cancer with a documented alteration in the DNA was not a usual finding. Victor did not know whether he should be excited about the possibility of an important scientific discovery or fearful that he was about to find something that he either couldn’t explain or didn’t want to know.

Victor then started the process of isolating the part of the DNA that was unique in the tumor. By initiating the protocol, it would be that much easier for Robert to complete the work in the morning.

Leaving the main lab room, Victor went through the dissecting room and entered the animal room. As he turned on the light there was a lot of sudden activity in each of the occupied cages.

Victor walked over to the cage which housed the two smart rats whose water contained the single capsule of cephaloclor.

He was amazed to find one rat already dead and the other semicomatose.

Removing the dead rat, Victor took it back into the dissecting room and did an autopsy of sorts. When he opened the skull, the brain puffed out as if it was being inflated.

Carefully removing a piece of the brain, he prepared it to be sectioned in the morning. Just then, the telephone rang.

“Dr. Frank, this is Phil Moscone. Louis Kaspwicz asked me to call you to let you know that the hacker has logged onto the computer.”

“I’ll be right there,” said Victor. He put away his rat brain sample, turned out the lights, and dashed out of the lab.

It was only a short jog to the computer center; Victor was there within a few minutes.

Louis came directly to him. “It’s looking good for the trace. The guy has been logged on now for seven minutes. I just hope to hell he’s not causing any mischief.”

“Can you tell where he is in the system?” Victor asked.

“He’s in Personnel right now,” Louis said. “First he did some sizable number crunching, then he went into Purchasing.

It’s weird.”

“Personnel?” Victor questioned. He’d been thinking the hacker was indeed no kid, but some competitor’s hired gun.

Biotechnology was an extremely competitive field, and most everybody wanted to compete against the big boys like Chimera. But an industrial agent would want to get into the research files, not Personnel.

“We got a positive trace!” the man with the two-way radio announced with a big smile.

There was a general cheer among all those present.

“Okay,” said Louis. “We’ve got the telephone number. Now we just need the name.”

The man with the radio held up his hand, listened, then said, “It’s an unpublished number.”

Several of the other men who were already busy breaking down their equipment booed at this news.

“Does that mean they can’t get the name?” asked Victor.

“Nah,” Louis said. “It means it just takes them a little longer.”

Victor leaned against one of the covered print-out devices and folded his arms.

“Who’s got a piece of paper?” the man with the radio said suddenly, holding the radio up against his left ear. One of the other men handed him a legal-sized pad. He jotted down the name given him over the radio. “Thanks a lot, over and out.” He switched off his radio unit, pushed in the antenna, then handed Louis the paper.

Louis read the name and address and turned pale. Without saying anything he handed it to Victor. Victor looked down and read it. Disbelieving, he read it again. What he saw on the paper was his name and address!

“Is this some kind of joke?” Victor said, raising his head and looking at Louis. Victor then glanced at the others. No one said a word.

“Did you program your PC to access the mainframe on a regular basis?” Louis asked, breaking the spell.

Victor looked back at his systems administrator and realized the man was trying to give him an out. After an awkward minute, Victor agreed. “Yeah, that must be it.”

Victor tried to remain composed. He thanked everyone for their effort and left.

Victor walked out of the computer center, got his coat from the administration building, and walked to his car in a kind of daze. The idea of someone using his computer to break into the Chimera mainframe was simply preposterous. It didn’t make any sense. He knew that he had always left the computer telephone number and his password taped to the bottom of his keyboard, but who could have been using it? Marsha? VJ? The cleaning lady? There had to have been some mistake. Could the hacker have been so clever as to divert a trace? Victor hadn’t thought of that, and he made a mental note to ask Louis if it were possible. That seemed to make the most sense.

Marsha heard Victor’s car before she saw the lights swing into the driveway. She was in her study vainly trying to tackle the stack of professional periodicals that piled up on a regular basis on her desk. Getting to her feet, she saw the headlights silhouetting the leafless trees that lined the driveway. Victor’s car came into view, then disappeared behind the house. The automatic garage door rumbled in the distance.