Rothman went back to his office for a few minutes of quiet in the controlled chaos that was growing around him. He was a gifted geneticist and virologist. He hoped the specimens would be enough, but he had too much technical knowledge to believe that it would be and not enough to recreate the results. He hoped he could get undifferentiated virus strains, if not; it would be twenty or more years of research trying to work backward from whatever animorph they caught.
Problem was this; the virus had been built from the ground up by Morsie. It was his founding research that had made it possible. Later, Random and Norcott were brought in on the project for their superb talents and keen minds. The three of them together averaged out at an IQ of 195 with Random being on the high end at 205 and Norcott at the low end at 187. Rothman often felt like the ‘special’ kid among them; even at a very respectable 153.
The project had several applications, military being only the first and most lucrative. If human DNA could be altered only slightly with an animal’s DNA, then transplant organs from cloned animals wouldn’t be rejected. Pigs could donate livers and it would function in the human body for the rest of the person’s life and better still, if the person’s liver became damaged, a new cloned liver would replace it. The project had broader applications still; a gen-engineered human with a thick coat of musk-ox fur could inhabit some of the coldest planets. Some of the most arid could be home to future humans, if the DNA for kangaroo rat kidneys was used. The whole project could eventually lead to all the genetic lines Gaia produced going to the stars, not just those of Homo sapiens. In a way, all the children of earth would inherit the stars.
Now, Rothman wasn’t sure that even with the specimens that he could work backwards, even if he found three more scientists for a new team.
It had never been conceived that he would need to extract the altered virus from metamorphosed DNA and refine it back down to its original state. It was like trying to get the missing link from a modern human. Worse still, the three week expiration factor that Jason Random had added for military applications had added a clock and it was ticking. Any unbound virus in the wild would become inert in three weeks. Any virus that was in an animorph’s system would do the same and he didn’t know how long it had been since the virus had been released.
That last part was a neat trick; inject your volunteer super-soldier to be with the virus and DNA from the desired mammal and quarantine your new bull-man for three weeks. During that time, you could introduce human females or males into the quarantined compound and any transfer of DNA from kissing to fucking to blood transfusion would produce new bull-men or cow-women. After that time, your new Minotaurs couldn’t make any more of their kind unless they bred with other Minotaurs. In this way, one country could have control and exclusive use of Special Forces animorphs. The pentagon was extremely interested, he heard rumors that one General had been very interested in taking part in the metamorphosis, when the transformation proved to be reliable and wouldn’t leave him with the intellect of a lion, for that was the species into which he wished to be transformed.
The thought of a seal-man navy seal crossed Rothman’s mind. How he had laughed when he first heard it from Dick. He had congratulated Dick on the wonderful comic image of an extremely lethal muscular Navy Seal with a beach ball balanced on his seal nose. It was far more likely that Navy Seals, Green Berets or Marine Snipers would become part wolf, pig, bear or big cat depending on what was needed. After the initial mono-species tests, phase two would be to combine features from multiple species; the hearing of one animal, the vision of another, the overall physical bulk and muscular power of something else, the agility and grace of yet another.
All of that was a dream now. Even with specimens, the project was at least five years behind schedule at the best and thirty years at the worst and possibly would never be realized if funding was cut.
He knew Dick wouldn’t betray him; he knew it even though his rational mind said it was possible. Still, he knew it had to be one or both of the others. Dick had been loyal through all the bull shit and had never grumbled about the deadlines, much. They probably killed Dick and buried him out there in the woods; he knew Jason was jealous of Dick. They were probably in a lab at Transgene at this very minute with all the data and samples from Project Circe.
Rothman reflected on the name, the name he had given to it.
Circe, in Greek mythology, was a powerful witch who, with the help of herbs, muttering incantations or praying to her weird gods, could turn men into animals or create unsubstantial images of beasts. She was able to darken the heavens by hiding the moon or the sun behind clouds and destroy her enemies with poisonous juices, calling to her aid Nyx, Chaos, or Hecate. In her presence, and because of her enchantments, the woods could move, the ground rumble, and the trees around her turn white.
Rothman leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. It had been a very long day. After five or so minutes, he dozed quietly.