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Devoted years of feral genetic hobbyism had brought Fearon a veritable galaxy of condoms, shrinkwrap, blotter kits, polymer resins, phase gels, reagents, femtoinjectors serum vials, canisters, aerosols, splat-pistols, whole bandoliers of buckybombs, padded cases, gloves, goggles, netting, cameras, tubes, cylinder dispensers of pliofilm—the whole assemblage tucked with a fly fisherman's neurotic care into an intricate system of packs, satchels, and strap-ons.
Tupper watched silently, her expression neutral shading to displeased. Even the dense and tactless Malvern could sense the marital tension.
"Lemme boot up my car. Meet you behind the wheel, Fearo my pard."
Tupper accompanied Fearon to the apartment door, still saying nothing as her man clicked together disassembled instruments, untelescoped his sampling staff, tightened buckles across chest and hips, and mated sticky-backed equipment to special patches on his vest and splashproof chaps.
Rigged out to his satisfaction, Fearon leaned in for a farewell kiss. Tupper merely offered her cheek.
"Aw, come on, honey, don't be that way! You know a man's gotta follow his bliss: which in my special case is a raw, hairy-eyed lifestyle on the bleeding edge of the genetic frontier."
"Fearon McClanahan, if you come back smeared with colloid, you're not setting one foot onto my clean rug."
"I'll really wash up this time, I promise."
"And pick up some fresh goat's-milk prestogurt!"
"I'm with the sequence."
Fearon dashed and clattered down the stairs, his nutraceutically enhanced mind already filled with plans and anticipations. Weeble barreled behind.
Malvern's algal-powered roadster sat by the curb, its fuelcell thrumming. Malvern emptied the tapering trunk, converting it into an open-air rumble seat for Weeble, who bounded in like a jet-propelled fifty-liter drum. The weasel Spike occupied a crash-hammock slung behind the driver's seat. Fearon wedged himself into the passenger's seat, and they were off with a pale electric scream.
After shattering a random variety of Miami traffic laws, the two scabs departed Malvern's street-smart vehicle to creep and skulk the last two blocks to the ongoing bio-Chernobyl. The federal swab authorities had thrown their usual cordon in place, enough to halt the influx of civilian lookyloos, but penetrating the perimeter was child's play for well-equipped scabs. Fearon and Malvern simply sprayed themselves and their lab animals with chameleon-shifting shrinkwrap, then strolled through the impotent ring of ultrasonic pylons. They then crept through the shattered glass, found the code-obligatory wheelchair access, and laboriously sneaked up to the ninth floor.
"Well, we're inside just fine," said Fearon, puffing for breath through the shredded shrinkwrap on his lips.
Malvern helped himself to a secretary's abandoned lunch. "Better check Fusing Nuclei for word on the fates of our rivals."
Fearon consulted his handheld. "They just collared Harry the Brewer. 'Impersonating a Disease-Control Officer.' "
"What a lack of gusto and panache. That guy's just not serious."
Malvern peered down streetward through a goo-dripping window. The glorp-ca
"How much of this hot glop you think we ought to kipe?" Malvern asked.
"Well, all of it. Everything Weeble can eat."
"You don't mind risking ol' Weeble?"
"He's not a pig for nothing, you know. Besides, I just upgraded his digestive tract." Fearon scratched the pig affectionately.
Malvern Velcroed his weasel Spike into the animal's crittercam. The weasel eagerly scampered off on point, as Malvern offered remote guidance and surveillance with his handheld.
"Out-of-Control Kevin uses video bees," remarked Fearon as they trudged forward with a rattle of sampling equipment. "Little teensy cameras mounted on their teensy insect backs. It's an emergent network phenomenon, he says."
"That's just Oldstyle Silicon Valley," Malvern dismissed. "Besides, a weasel never gets sucked into a jet engine."
The well-trained Spike had nailed the target, and the outlaw wetware was fizzing like cheap champagne. It was a wonder that the floor of the high-rise had withstood the sheer weight of criminal mischief. Mixogen was no mere R&D lab. It was a full- scale production facility. Some ingenious soul had purchased the junked remains of an Orlando aquasport resort, all the pumps, slides, and water-park sprinklers. Kiddie wading pools had been retrofitted with big gooey glaciers of serum support gel. The plastic fishtanks were filled to overflowing with raw biomass. Metastasizing cells had backed up into the genetic moonshine somehow, causing a violent bloom and a methane explosion as frothy as lemon meringue. The animal stench was indescribable.
"What stale hell is this?" said Malvern, gaping at a broken tub that brimmed with a demonic assemblage of horns, hoofs, hide, fur, and dewclaws.
"I take that to be widely variegated forms of mammalian epidermal expression." Fearon restrained his pig with difficulty. The rotting smell of the monstrous meat had triggered Weeble's appetite.
"Do I look like I was born yesterday?" snorted Malvern. "You're missing the point. Nobody can maintain a hybridoma with that gross level of genetic variety! Nothing with horns ever has talons! Ungulates and felines don't even have the same chromosome number."
Window plastic shattered. A wall-crawling police robot broke into the genetic speakeasy. It closed its gecko feet with a sound like Venetian blinds, and deployed a bristling panoply of lenses and spigots.
"Amscray," Malvern suggested. The duo and their animal familiars retreated from the swab machine's clumsy surveillance. In their absence came a loud frosty hiss as the police bot unleashed a sterilizing fog of Bose-Einstein condensate.
A new scent had Spike's attention, and it set Malvern off at a trot. They entered an office warren of glassblock and steel.
The Mixogen executive had died at her post. She sprawled before her desktop in her ergonomic chair, still in her business suit but reeking of musk and decay. Her swollen, veiny head was the size of a peach basket.
Fearon closed his dropped jaw and zipped up his Kevlar vest. "Jeez, Malvern, another entrepreneur-related fatality! How high do you think her SAT got before she blew?"
"Aw, man—she must have been totally off the IQ scale. Look at the size of her frontal lobes. She's like a six-pack of Wittgensteins."
Malvern shuddered as Spike the weasel tu
Malvern crept closer, clicking flash-shots from his digicam. "Check out that hair on her legs and feet."
"I've heard about this," marvelled Fearon. "Bonobo hybridoma. She's half chimp! Because that super-neural technique requires … so they say … a tactical retreat down the primate ladder before you can make that tremendous evolutionary rush for breakthrough extropian intelligence." He broke off short as he saw Weeble eagerly licking the drippy pool of ooze below the dead woman's chair. "Knock it off, Weeble!"
"Where'd the stiff get the stuff?"
"I'm as eager to know that as you are, so I'd suggest swiping her desktop," said Fearon craftily. "Not only would this seriously retard police investigation, but absconding with the criminal evidence would likely shelter many colleagues in the scab underground, who might be righteously grateful to us, and therefore boost our rankings."