Dr. Mansfield turned, took one step toward her, and raised a hand as if to strike her. Lauren cowered to the side, fighting the rope around her hands in a reaction to fend off the coming blow.
Slowly, the doctor lowered his hand.
“People don’t speak to me like that. You’re lucky I need your help.” He knelt down until his face was level with hers. “This is the most important scientific find ever. You saw it with you own eyes and still refuse to believe it. How can you explain away what you saw?”
Lauren met his eyes and stuck her chin out in his direction. She decided if the bastard moved to hit her again, she wouldn’t move. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “There are a thousand things. Hypnosis, for example. Or maybe you have developed a drug that put me into a hyper-suggestive state and are initiating my hallucinations.” Lauren said. “Give me a few minutes and I could come up with a dozen explanations.”
“But there wouldn’t be a single one that felt right. Come on, you know what you saw. You’re a scientist. Open your eyes to the evidence and let yourself look beyond the boundaries imposed by your limited knowledge of what is possible in the natural world. Make no mistake, this is a natural phenomenon. It’s not ghosts and magic, but a biological process.”
“This isn’t science. What you’re doing is murdering kids for an insane delusion.”
“But hasn’t science always been pushed forward by men who chased their ‘delusions’ and proved them right? Copernicus, Pasteur, Newton, Einstein. All delusional fools who found truth where others saw impossibility. Hasn’t truth always been victimized by the limited creativity of the scientific minds charged with uncovering it? Progress stalls until someone is willing to challenge the boundaries. Newton was heretic for saying Aristotle was wrong. Then Einstein came along and explained Newton was wrong. Then Stephen Hawking challenges everything once again. Think about it. Even our most basic understanding of life has changed. We had immutable laws that governed requirements for life to exist. Then organisms were found around volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean, living in conditions that our laws told us were impossible. If it were up to you, scientists would have looked at the evidence and said, ‘Hypnosis’, ‘Drug-induced hallucinations,’ and left the laws as they were. But we didn’t. We rewrote the laws about what it meant to be alive.”
“That’s different. What you’re talking about is…”
“Is what? Impossible? Or just against the natural laws that you learned from medical textbooks? Maybe there are no laws, Lauren, only frontiers that we’ve reached. The spot on the other side of the frontier is not impossible, it’s just the unknown.” He slid closer to her. “You’re confused and scared and that’s understandable. But like it or not, I’ve found a way to take the life force of a human being and turn it into something tangible. Something storable. Something transferable.” Dr. Mansfield lowered his voice. “Can you imagine what we could do if we gave this gift to the world? Can you imagine how it would change everything?”
“Jack described a cave where women were kept in cages. Bred for this insane idea. Is that what you mean by changing the world?”
“Yes, yes,” Dr. Mansfield said with a wave of his hand. “A terrible thing. Very primitive. That’s why my research is so important. Once I develop a synthetic method to replicate the function of the Source in the cave, we can use manufactured genetic material. With this done, the Source will no longer be needed. Huckley believes there’s a supernatural force behind this, but I’m convinced it’s a biological process. The Source is an organism that absorbs organic material for its own survival and produces a fluid as a residual by-product. This fluid, when ingested, actually changes cellular function to protect from disease and deterioration. Somewhat like oxygen produced by plants: the by-product sustains human life. I’ve tried to replicate the serum, but you’ve sent the results.”
“Wait, you said manufactured genetic material. What do you mean?”
“Cloning, of course. That’s why the time has come to reveal the serum to the world. Now that the human cloning has been successful, we can create specimens specifically for this purpose. Engineered for minimal brain function, subjects can be mass produced. An unlimited supply of material without the moral issues.”
“Without the moral issues. Just because science can do something, doesn’t mean it should. Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you sense the evil in all of this?”
He ignored her. “I’m close, so close to understanding it. Once I can replicate the process, it will be possible to mass produce the serum. I’m so close. I thought I had it with the Moran girl, but think I know what was wrong. With more test subjects, I can—”
“Test subjects? Is that what you call Felicia Rodriguez? Don’t try to make it sound respectable. She was murdered. She was just a baby for God’s sake, and you murdered her. And that poor girl in the elevator at the hospital was Scott Moran’s daughter? Jesus, don’t you understand, as soon as you go public they’ll lock you away in an asylum? Or, if there’s justice, they’ll fry you in the chair. You are a murderer, nothing more. How could you go this far for this…this stupidity?”
Dr. Mansfield stood up. His cheeks were flush. “I thought you, of all people, would understand what I’m trying to do. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good.”
“I’m sure the Nazi doctors in the concentration camps said the same thing,” Lauren said. “You can’t justify murder. I don’t care how you dress it up.”
“Don’t be naïve. We justify murder every day. What do you think about all those Iraqis civilians killed in the war? All those Afghans? Just collateral damage, right? Not really murder? But weren’t they sacrificed so Americans could feel more secure? Weren’t they murdered so you could live? Take it to a different extreme. Didn’t a child die somewhere in the world today of starvation? Didn’t someone die because they didn’t get a ten dollar malaria shot? But you didn’t do anything to stop it, did you? ‘Not your responsibility’ is the rationalization. For the price of the car you drive, you could have saved a hundred children from starvation, but you didn’t. And you didn’t sacrifice them for science. You sacrificed them for your own comfort. Your own hypocrisy damns your argument.” He leaned forward and whispered, “This is science. It’s not personal. I want you to listen, closely, to me. We don’t have much time before the others come back in. There’s a reason I’ve taken the time to tell you all this”
“And what’s that?”
“Since you moved here I knew you were meant to help me to finish my work. I need your insights to finish what I’ve started.”
Lauren stared at him, incredulous. “You think I’ll help you with this madness? That will never happen.”
Dr. Mansfield glanced to the door and held a finger to his lips. “Before, when I asked you if you would sacrifice a thousand children to save the world, you said no. I wonder, does your conviction hold if we change the question to saving one particular child?”
Lauren choked back the emotion that surged inside her as she realized he was talking about Sarah. Only now, with this glimmer of hope, did she realize she had already given herself and her daughter up for dead. Maybe there was a way to save her. “Anything,” she whispered. “I’d do anything.”
“I can save Sarah. Huckley insists we sacrifice her. He believes she holds the key to freeing us from the limits we face, but I can control him.” He dragged his tongue across his dry lips. “If I spare Sarah, will you help me develop the serum?”