The Stone Scry Read online

  The Stone Scry

  Master Hunter, Book 1

  Dennis Fueyo

  To my beautiful, sweet, endearing wife. I love you, Annie. And to my two, strapping, intelligent boys. I am so proud of you.

  CONTENTS

  Part 1: The Dichotomy of Over-Expression

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Part 2: The Divers

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Part 3: Civil Service

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part 4: Halcyon Days Gone

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Sample Chapter

  Part 1: The Dichotomy of Over-Expression

  Scry: to see what will happen in the future, especially by looking into an object such as a mirror or glass ball.

  —Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press

  Dear Grandpa,

  We are settling into Cary, dead-center in North Carolina, and all we hear from the local news is how people die in hurricanes. They get swept away by the flood and ground-up between pavement and debris or squished by an old-growth sycamore. Hurricane Isaac drops two feet of water on us, circles back into the Atlantic, and returns as Hurricane Lorraine to drop two more.

  By the time it reaches us, the swirling mass will be a tropical depression. Those can be worse. They stop moving right over our heads, making North Carolina the state of a million floods. Trees bend over ready to snap and wind roars in big gusts knocking branches over the yard and street. Flash floods drag animals down the road, unearthing the clay and roots that hold our neighborhood together. Me, I avoid the windows like some frightened animal. Mom hopes we get enough wind damage for a new roof, but Dad worries our big sweetgum in the backyard might slice the house in half.

  Cold air normally comes down and shears hurricanes. Less cold air, in combination with warmer water in the gulf, sends more and more of them full force into us. The meteorologist says so, anyway. Flooding in the Sandhills makes homes in Fayetteville look like square mushroom caps in a river as if shoved into tres leches cake displacing milky water into the streets.

  We watch on the TV, helpless. At least Mom and I convinced Dad to donate time towards recovery efforts. Otherwise, he would work in the lab all day. I wish he worked outdoors. Then we could do things together. He keeps asking me to hang out in the lab, but it is so boring.

  Dad’s teaching job is going well at North Carolina State—he seems happy there. He laughs when people here complain about traffic, him being from Los Angeles. When he talks about the big city, I close my eyes and pretend I am back in Southern California. I miss skateboarding with my friends, volleyball at the beach—even gangs like those in your stories, the ones you would tell me while drinking that “celebration soda.” Those in the neighborhood who care more about waving malt liquor bottles than weapons.

  How are you and Grandma doing, did the family celebrate Independence Day with you in Southeast Los Angeles? Have you gotten rain yet or are you still rationing water? When there are no hurricanes, the news reports on the latest drought levels where you live. I have nightmares about you and Grandma trying to turn on the kitchen faucet, and no water comes out. Maybe we can ship all this extra water to you. You could water your lawn and put out the fires we see on TV. I wish we could help.

  Love you both and miss you,

  Sam

  Chapter 1

  Tom Mason donned a bleach-scented lab coat and stamped his feet into a sticky mat at the laboratory entrance. Pressing glasses against his nose, he strolled past familiar heat blocks stained from boiled agar and overused water baths holding a soupy mix of particulate. Though all drawers labeled and freezers monitored, it had a vibrant personality reminiscent of a teenager’s wall of posters or generations of photos packed on grandma’s head-tall shelves. Little stickers dotted lab benches taking on characters of resident scientists: “I out-drank Kavanagh” and “Validate this.” Chubby Hello Kitty and Pokémon faces lined benchtop shelving, and pipette trays hung lanyards reading “WHO Biosecurity Workshop” and “DoD Symposium on Infectious Diseases.” Graduate students affixed magnetic photographs of lewd or ludicrous selfies and formal family get-togethers to benchtop centrifuges and utility cases. The lab looked lived-in, a home away from home.

  He spotted Lou Frasier sitting at the rear bench of the lab, wrestling with an eyelash while staring into a monitor. Multicolored lines waved up and crested in sigmoidal curves as data spilled out the real-time polymerase chain reaction instrument. “Hey Lou, how did the experiment go?”

  Seeing Tom, Lou turned down music thumping out a tiny plugged-in speaker. “The new probes are hitting their target, Dr. Mason,” he said following fluorescence units blip towards the last thermocycle. “I think it worked.”

  “Wonderful! Which one is the suppressor?”

  “I scry with my little eye…that one.” He tapped a blue cresting line and then pointed to a green line near it. “This one is over-expressed mosquito NGF RNA.”

  “Finally, we can start testing on the little blood-sucking shits,” said Tom gleaming into the monitor. “What music are you listening to?”

  “Imagine Dragons: Radioactive.” Lou shifted in his chair. “Doc, a guy was here earlier for you. He came by to check out the lab.”

  “Mr. Stone? Am off to meet him now, what did he say?”

  “He asked for a tour. I showed him the cyclers and HPLC, nothing else. He kept asking for details on neural growth factor proteins; are they species-unique, how did we stabilize introduction, and were the subunits cross-functional. Yadda, yadda, yadda.” Lou rolled his eyes.

  Arms folded, Tom asked, “What did you say?”

  “Nothing much, I barfed out the journal article describing how we get mosquito saliva.” Lou grinned and continued, “I told him we collect five days post-eclosion. We starve them, remove wings and legs, and insert the proboscis into a microcapillary tube filled with immersion oil. Before disposal, we confirm they’re still alive by pinching them. Spin the tubes for separation, extract and stabilize the proteins, and proceed with characterization.”

  “What was his reaction?”

  “If anything, he’s more excited now, the sick bastard.”

  “Come on, quit being facetious, what did he say?”

  “He says, ‘There are numerous diseases in the world that need to be eradicated, yet the scientific community focuses on so few. We are forever weakened as a species when gifted minds continue to avoid humanity’s debilitating conclave of microbial predators. This work, your experiments, all continue to sound promising.’

  “Then he asked which chymase and proteinases we have characterized.”

  Tom squeezed a shoulder, fighting tightening ligaments. “Chymase, huh? What is he getting at, does he want us to start working on this now? We just identified the NGF suppressor site for God’s sakes. Excess NGF would not increase proteinase production in the saliva. The organism dies within hours after expression; females lay eggs carrying the gene, and kaput. Population crash. I have spent years—years, Lou, trying to find the suppressor gene.”

  “I don’t know, Doc. He seems a little creepy.”

  Tom gazed out the window past an “Uncertainty Rules” postcard taped to it. “Look at the rain. Keeps coming down, never a break. The weatherman is clueless to when it will end or how much we might get.” He massaged the tendons in his forearm and mustered a thin smile. “Well, hey, the creepy man is pledging to advance several million dollars. He can sound like Alan Rickman, for all I care.”

  Lou looked confused, as a grandchild to a grandfather describing the origin of two bits.

  “You know, Pro
fessor Snape? The German terrorist in Die Hard? The cheating guy in Love Actually? The bad guy in Quigley Down Under? He plays creepy guys, but in real life he was kind. Eh, never mind.”

  “I don’t think the words kind and Stone mesh together. Doc, after Hurricane Lorraine’s done dumping rain, we’re going to get hammered by blood-sucking little shits.”

  “Based on these results, if the suppressor works in the cinereus mosquito strain, we can get it into aegypti. We can hit back, hard.”

  More massive raindrops pelted the window in increasing tempo, bringing a frown to Tom’s face. Then a phone blared an electronic tone in Lou’s pocket, startling a pen from Tom’s hand.

  “What is that,” asked Tom, “a dying fax machine?”

  Lou flailed around pockets looking for his black smartphone and yanked it out, dragging loose dollar bills with it. Swiping the screen and ignoring cash floating to the ground, he shook his head, saying, “Another flood alert.” Looking up to the window, he said in awed fascination, “Look at the rain come down! Holy smokes!”

  “I will reschedule with Mr. Stone. The creek is already above the flood zone. We can meet after Lorraine leaves.”

  Lou scooped up the cash and asked, “Did they close the schools this time?”

  “Sammy’s middle school closes if a snowflake falls. Poor kid is bored out his mind.”

  “Maybe you could bring him here?”

  “He pets beetles and chases squirrels. His favorite game is to have people guess which animal he is imitating. He would slit his wrist with a pipette tip in ten minutes.”

  Lou laughed, shooting out a hoarse cough. “What, he doesn’t like pulling legs off beetles or dissecting frogs?”

  “In truth, I wish he did. One time, I mashed up a tomato leaf in ethanol and wicked the solution up a coffee filter. We watched for minutes as the chloroplasts separated, creating these, you know”—he widened his fingers—“these faint bands ranging yellow to green. Know what he tells me?”

  Tom said in a childlike voice, “Dadda, how come you didn’t plant the leaf in the ground and make a new one?”

  “Smart kid,” Lou remarked.

  Tom’s attention drew from Mr. Stone to raindrops running in lines wiggling down the window. Each increased in size, absorbing other beads as they clung to the glass exhausted from their incredible journey. He pictured a droplet forming, drifting, and whipping through the air until the cloud released it. Freefalling downward, it sought a beacon. A comfortable, bright, spacious lab window that was clean and loved—a home away from home. Then yanked by another into the chaos of the washing floods.

  “Hey, Doc,” Lou asked, “what if this doesn’t change?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if…what if all this rain is the new norm? Come on, it gets worse every year, right?”

  The rain rushed down in a blinding sheet flooding the parking lot below. Students trudged on as if it were nonexistent until a passing car erupted a tsunami across their faces.

  Lou chuckled at the sight of soggy first-year students in summer wardrobes scattering. “Damn. You know, Raleigh has experienced year over year growth around ten percent since the turn of the century. All that concrete increases runoff.”

  Tom whistled and rubbed the nape of his neck. “Everyone lives in the moment, not seeing the big picture until it sends a tidal wave over their heads. Nature’s out of balance, I guess. Koyaanisqatsi.”

  “Coy I’m a what?”

  “An old film with a bunch of Philip Glass music. Life out of balance. This weather pattern may be the new norm, Lou,” Tom murmured the words, hypnotized by a torrential flood between two nearby buildings.

  A sadistic whimsy overcame Tom, followed by guilt for harboring the same morbid fascination as townsfolk did when the accused dangled from a low tree branch. Part of being human, he reflected, driving morbid curiosity to dissect nature and expose its inner secrets. How exciting life will be as this new norm extends its roots. “Well,” Tom said and brushed his hands together; the gladiator preparing for combat. “I better try catching Mr. Stone to cancel.”

  A booming voice knocked him back against the desk. “Of course this is the new norm, gentlemen, which is why your work is so important!”

  Standing in the entryway, a short, broad-shouldered man of sixty years pulled on a temporary lab coat, stamped on the sticky mat, and sauntered in as though king of the university. A small echo trailed his deep voice. “If you can breed infected Aedes aegypti, we’ll stem the deluge of diseases to follow.”

  “I apologize, Mr. Stone,” said Tom feeling a rush of warmth in his cheeks. “I was going to try catching you. Uh, due to the weather, perhaps we should cancel our meeting? I want to get home and check on my family.”

  Tom shook Arnold Stone’s thick hand, stepping towards the door, but the stout Mr. Stone dressed in a debonair suit withdrew it to lean in and view the monitor.

  “Well, I heard you got a tour,” said Tom, “tell me what you think. We can walk and talk.”

  Arnold Stone remained unmovable. “You have a fine facility here, Tom, but you need to expand. Carry this through and reach the apotheosis of biology! I can almost see it happen right in front of me, just as those lines on the screen rise to a crescendo”—he waved his hand across the monitor—“Tom Mason and Lou Frasier: the gods of biology!”

  Tucking hands in his pockets, Stone continued, “However, I understand if you need to leave. Be careful, Dr. Mason, secondary roads are running rivers. Trees are coming down on the highways. Might be better to wait here in this beautiful lab where it’s safe.”

  Lou asked, “Mr. Stone, are you worried the mosquitos might secrete other proteinases in excess when over-expressing neural growth factor?”

  “Not worried my boy, curious. Over-expression is not a bad thing.”

  Tom lifted his chin and said pointedly, “It could be. Not likely NGF would trigger excess chymase expression, but say it did. Why would that not be bad? The proteinases inactivate the host immune response during the blood meal. Presumably, increased degradation of cytokines would render mast cells useless, producing other body defenses at increased levels serious enough to harm the host. People could get sick, Mr. Stone.”

  Stroking his gentleman’s silver goatee, Arnold Stone replied, “Well, suppose you wanted to introduce a biologic topically? Rather than a vaccine or gene therapeutic delivered by subdermal injection, it would be a safer, non-invasive drug delivery system. The excess proteinases would facilitate the delivery of the biologic.”

  “An interesting concept,” Tom said and kneaded his tightening forearm. “I studied entomology, not immunology. Just speculation. We are characterizing proteins in the mosquitoes’ saliva, will watch for an occurrence.” He envisioned other uses as well, none beneficial.

  Lou broke Tom’s thought train, saying, “I’ll prep the cinereus blood meal for tomorrow. There’s leftover delivery phage for a colony test. You were heading out for the day, Doc?”

  “Yes, yes,” Tom stammered. “Well, uh, thanks again for stopping by Mr. Stone.”

  “Please! Call me Arnold,” he said, holding Tom’s hand on their parting shake. Stone pulled Tom in close and added in a low voice, “And Tom, be sure to apply for the NSF grant. Mention you’re working on the characterization of the other proteins, and be sure to drop my name.”

  “Ok, thanks.” Tom withdrew his hand and disrobed his lab coat, heading for the door. He paused, wrapped in an uncomfortable feeling. Home away from home, it felt strange to leave Arnold Stone in his house unattended. “Mr. Stone…Arnold, shall I walk you out?”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay a little longer,” he replied. “Lou, can you tell me a little more about your phage delivery system?”

  Lou looked for a permissive nod from Tom.

  The old man was too nosey. Tom sensed Mr. Stone’s motives cloaked in deception. However, he knew Lou could handle prying eyes careful not to reveal guarded secrets to a drifting postdoc or i
nfo-digging faculty. The paladin of the lab, Tom thought and nodded.

  Lou replied, “Sure, Mr. Stone.”

  “Ha! Call me Arnold, Lou. I want us all to be friends!” Arnold Stone peered in the monitor as the last thermocycle spewed out its data and emphasized, “Good friends.”

  Chapter 2

  Dear Grandma,

  I am sorry Grandpa is gone. I wanted to see you, but Dad and Mom said I could not miss finals. Imprisoned in high school, I need to keep every college door open. Dad wants the opportunity available for me to become a scientist. If I wanted to be one. He dangles his car keys and tells me, “Either follow the rules and use the car or ride the school bus.”

  Maybe I can fly out over vacation. Are there still riots around Los Angeles? The news said the city is considering barriers around pockets of unrest. They showed Lynwood and Norwalk as examples. The city will not send people in to make repairs.

  Maybe you could live here? We have a big house, more than twice the size where you raised Dad. It would be nice to visit you at Christmas, but arctic blasts come down deep into the south bringing snow storms that keep shutting down airports. This documentary said shrinking glaciers no longer hold the air further north. All I know is for the past three years, they have closed our airports between December and January. Thanksgiving is the only time I could visit.

  We cannot travel to the beach, either. Many coastal roads remain permanently closed from intense flooding. Tons of people leave coastal regions for the mountains. A city up in the Smokey Mountains called Asheville grew ten times bigger! Things have gotten expensive, too. Dad said we moved to Raleigh because California was so expensive. Now, we cut back on buying things like bread and butter. Guess the Midwest and Canada are losing crops. Mom said the Midwest looks worse than the East Coast. More lakes are popping up, and more fields turn into swamps. At least tornados are not hitting us—they get so many!