Dissolution of the Veil

By P.C. Gebo

Dr. Paul Noar, an Tri-Consortium Prize Recipient for Advance Research in Recombination, and Dr. Lea Weathers, a young and brilliant biogeneticist, embark on a search for the answer to DNA abnormalities found in recent victims of suicide. Noar, unknown to Weathers, has uncovered the catalyst for the genetic changes that have lead to this growing trend. After years of examining declassified government files, he discovers a small-scale biological experiment with cataclysmic potential. He has enlisted her help to verify his findings. What Weathers believes to be a widespread mutation is actually the result of a unique, multigenerational study, that has culminated in the dissolution of the veil between the conscious and subconscious minds of a limited number of targets.

Veil Theory, nontraditional scientific speculation on the relationship between the conscious and subconscious mind, is thrown into the mainstream when the offspring of the victims begin to display prescience. Unfortunately, the money behind the madness belongs to two powerful men determined to own what could be the key to immortality.

Neland Gatti, past Desert Storm and Desert Fog consultant, directs the lab used by Noar in his investigation into discarded government research. Gatti plays the end game and values only the outcomes he can command. A cold and calculating chemist, he seizes the opportunity to have the government fund his research by promising the delivery of a new chemical tool for its use. He has not been able to repeat past successes and this early pinnacle drives him over the edge in his attempt to achieve control of time through his most recent find, the Alys-1 Project.

Cameron Brooks is owner of the Brooks Agency and son of the late Marion Brooks. His fathers company developed the original Alys-1formula for the Department of Defense. It was shelved in favor of LSD and mind-control. Thirty years later, Noar uncovers documents relating to the experiment and Cameron Brooks takes notice, as does Gatti. But Brooks has the edge. He is also in possession of a list of children, offspring of the original test group who have begun to mutate and die. Over the years he has manipulated the lives of three of these children. A perverse soul, his twisted personality has created sadistic killers of twin boys, soon to be affected by the mutation. They do his bidding as he directs the actions and discoveries of Noar.

Within six months of her enlistment, Weathers discovers Noars secret files. She learns that Gatti has given Noar false information and tainted his findings. When she reveals this to Noar, in the presence of Gatti, Noar is exposed. He must escape the secret base, where the experimentation has been conducted, and flee to Cameron Brooks.

Dissolution of the Veil becomes a race to find the true formula, and understand its veridical potential before the mutations bend their hosts toward suicide. It is a competition confused by altered time and displaced reality as the victim experiences past identities and fluid futures. Veil Theory has become a dangerous fact which threatens the structure of society and the stability of the world.

The author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 4, 2000
• ISBN: 9781462833986

P.C. Gebo

P.C. Gebo grew up on the move. With each new location, new friends and difficult adjustments became the norm. It was easier to assume control in a world that I create, than in reality, she says. Dissolution of the Veil contains one of those worlds. P.C. Gebo has lived and worked in Fort Collins, Colorado; a beautiful community located near the Foothills of the Rocky Mountains for the past 20 years.

Book preview

CHAPTER I

Hover technology burst forth from the seed of the new millennium and soon everyone, it seemed, floated through the sky in bubble-shaped machines. Twenty-three years later, the pavement beneath the snow heaved in jagged neglect, and passengers and snowflakes swirled in disarray through the night sky over Boston. Their hovercrafts dimpled the snow, wrapping the streets and sidewalks in fat, sequined quilts.

Dr. Lea Weathers paced before a synthflame glowing green against the tall walls of her brownstone flat, waiting for the telarriver to come alive. She was expecting a secured transmission from parties unknown. At least, that is what the telegram said to expect.

She glanced at her watch. Now, she thought, and the screen breathed static across the room. Thin rays of smoky light darted from the projector and reorganized themselves into a perfect holographic image of Dr. Paul Noar.

Dr. Weathers dropped to the sofa and stared open-mouthed at the glittering image standing before her eyes.

Dr. Weathers, I am Dr. Paul Noar. I-

I know, she interrupted. Anyone who has anything to do with recombinant DNA knows who you are.

Dr. Weathers, may I continue? Dr. Noar adjusted his console. His imaged faded slightly. I have followed your work, Dr. Weathers, and I would like you to join my team. It would mean leaving Boston immediately and living on a classified installation. You would not be permitted to tell anyone where you were going or what you were going to do.

"Followed my work?" stammered Lea.

You may name your price, Dr. Weathers, but I must have your decision tonight.

What would I be doing? she asked.

What you have trained yourself to do, doctor-Biogenetics. You would be working in one of the most advanced laboratories in the world. I cannot discuss it further unless we meet in person. I will contact you again in two hours.

With that, the projector sucked the image of Dr. Noar back into its tiny mouth and the room relaxed.

Five months later, at the Evogen Lab, Dr. Lea Weathers gazed absently at her monitor. She thought she heard the beating of a helicopter engine overhead and glanced out the window to see if she could spot it.

Instead, she saw a circling hawk screaming victory, a snake dangling from its claws. Its shape in black relief, floated freely through a brilliant orange sky. She wondered if the snake was still alive, then returned to her stool and her work.

The door to the lab hummed. Someone was about to disturb her.

We’ve got a new one Doctor, a jumper in Boston. Our people were on the scene immediately. Paul Noar waved a piece of paper in the face of his associate, Dr. Lea Weathers. She glanced up briefly, then returned to her monitor

Why do you think your jumper is part of the pool? She asked, without looking up.

Take a look. Paul nudged her with the data sheet of gene pool comparisons. Just read it. Noar smiled as he produced a small, insulated canister labeled TOP SECRET. It had been hidden behind his back.

How did we get this? What is it? Do we have samples? She reached for the canister.

Noar handed it to her. "Epithelial cells, brain tissue, blood—

all right here. We were lucky this time."

No kidding! Dr. Weathers said. She set the canister beside her monitor and turned to Dr. Noar. You must have already analyzed it?

I did it while you were working on those. He pointed to her screen. It still displayed a DNA series that she had been studying for the last several days. She rubbed her face and glanced at the monitor. Paul stepped up behind her.

Each sample is the same? It was more of a statement than a question. Dr. Weathers stared at the canister with astonishment. That would indicate a mutation in the general population. She punched data into her keyboard. We have to find the catalyst; this could be worldwide. Lea turned back to her screen and studied it briefly. Dr. Noar pulled up a stool and sat beside her.

So, let’s go over this again. What are you sure of?

Three more screens flashed before she responded.

Sorry. She turned to face him. I guess I am too tired for this tonight. She tossed him a thin smile and turned back to the monitor. So far we know that the pseudogenes have absorbed enough of the protein, Alys-1, to initiate a recombination. The resultant identical mutation of DNA has occurred in every test subject. This can’t be an isolated accident—or a single, random mutation. The samples we have suggest a mass affectation of the subject DNA.

Paul shrugged. So?

Paul, I have no doubt that Alys-1 caused the gene mutation. I just cannot wrap my brain around the catalyst.

Paul held his breath. She was so close. He tossed her an offhand assessment.

"Can we agree that we have a natural accident?" He waited. Surely she would put this together, he thought.

I thought so until today. Our subject group is varied, but I have linked the samples genetically. I am beginning to believe that this mutation was intentionally engineered. I seem to be reviewing the results of some sort of experimental exposure.

Lea stared into his face as she spoke, looking for some type of reaction. Noar’s expression remained fixed and curiously unruffled.

Do you think we can control it—the mutation, I mean?

Something in his intonation struck her wrong. Hell, Paul, do you know something I don’t? I haven’t even determined the complete formula for Alys-1. Unless we can find the catalyst, the specific enzyme or protein that is causing the recombination to occur—I have no idea. All I know is that we have a group of human beings that have been contaminated, deliberately or otherwise. Their bodies have responded with a gene mutation, which, for some reason, causes them to jump out of windows-or something just as deadly! Make sense of that. She pushed her way around him and crossed the lab to the opposite counter. She felt strange around him tonight, uncomfortable.

He turned away to consider what he had just heard. Dr. Paul Noar, Tri-Consortium Prize recipient for advance research in recombination, was impressed. He had known Doctor Weathers for nearly five months. A biogeneticist, specialized in protein mutation theory, she’d been able to sift through the thousands of tests he had performed quite efficiently. She had synthesized the data to produce a viable analysis. He thought that she would eventually come to the more obvious conclusion—a random event. If not, he had planned to steer her toward that way, even though he knew the truth to be otherwise.

Lea, I have been over and over the classified files. Current year 2017 DNA research in recombination has nothing to do with what we are seeing. Bio-warfare, nerve resection, gene displacement, artificial strands, New Man theories—we’ve both studied them. No one has even considered this type of integration. No one believes that the wall between the conscious and subconscious mind can be broken. Veil theorists walk on water.

VEIL THEORY. Of course, I’ve been so blind. Why didn’t you say something sooner? She nearly knocked him over trying to get back to her computer. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling data files for alternate DNA strand comparisons. Paul stood, abandoned in the middle of the lab.

I thought you knew. He whispered, almost to himself. He had overestimated her and in one short blunder, revealed the solution he never wanted her to believe.

Veil Theory was a relatively new application of scientific fact and fiction aimed at the integration of the human psyche. Most serious scholars considered it Buck Rogers’s science, not something to spend considerable time on. There were a few; however, who dabbled in what others considered obscene. His thoughts were interrupted.

The Veil! Of course! Why couldn’t it happen? Her eyes glistened as a Jekyl-Hyde transformation occurred. Months of research fell into place. The minutia swirled into form as she leaped toward the answer. This mutation did not happen within the last year. Alys-1 is the result of generational storage. Consider this. Lea stood and began to pace. Her words were barely able to keep time with her thoughts.

"Baby’s mother ingests Alys-1. Maybe it’s on the fruit, in the soil, in the air, I don’t know. Anyway, you can toss the Gras list into the air and pick your own combination of poisons. Then bingo! Twenty years later that woman’s children start to exhibit signs of mutation. They have a biological response to the toxicity level in the mother’s body. You and I start to see what we believe to be isolated cases of super-clairvoyance followed by suicide, and Evogen decides, secretly, to study their DNA.

This is the first generation of what could be a total species mutation—the biological answer to the pollution we have buried ourselves in. It all fits! My God, Paul, this is fantastic. The Veil. Why else would each of our samples carry the chromosome?

Whoa. Paul stepped in front of her and put a hand on each shoulder. You are making huge, unsubstantiated conclusions. Leaps in assumption too great for me to follow.

She barely heard what he said. Her thoughts raced ahead. Someone had succeeded in removing the Veil, she mumbled. But who?

CHAPTER II

In an abandoned building on the outskirts of Bethesda, Maryland, Capt. Fenian Thrall pushed aside the thin muslin curtain from a second-floor window with the muzzle of his gun. He counted four jeeps and two larger transport vehicles; their litter of soldiers had scattered around the building.

Capt. Thrall, boomed a voice from below. We have the building surrounded. Come out of the building with your hands in clear view."

Thrall grinned at his hostages. You guys hungry? he asked. Neither cadet replied. Thrall called out the window to the unit below. We need some food up here. What about it?"

A few seconds passed and then a disembodied voice floated up from below. Will you let us bring it up?

Hell no. I want Col. Monroe to bring it up. Thrall lay flat against the wall and stifled a laugh.

Monroe is not here, the voice replied.

"Get him. Get him before I start throwing pieces of his army out the window." Thrall dropped to the floor beneath the window, landing in a mound of plaster that had fallen from the wall. It seemed a perfect pallet on which to begin his tic-tac-toe board. After two lost games he sat back against the wall and addressed his hostages.

You boys having fun? I know Monroe will come if I got you. He won’t let me down. I know he will be here. I know it all. Thrall lowered his head and a tear dropped into the powdery dust. I know it all.

Two hours passed. The new cadets crouched to Thrall’s left and leaned against the wall. They had loosened their crisp jackets and pulled their shirts from beneath their black slacks. Plaster dust wounds bled white against their red uniform coats. Occasionally, Thrall would kick a chunk of fallen wall and stir the dust into a thick haze in the afternoon sun. Thrall unbuttoned his sweat-drenched shirt. You boys must be awful hot over there. Why don’t you take those jackets off?

An amplified voice crackled against the tension in the room.

Thrall, I have your chicken.

Fenian smiled and crawled toward the window. He peaked outside.

You bring it, Colonel, but remember, I gotta gun on your new boys. You be real careful on your way up. Thrall stuffed the gun into the rim of his pants and squatted beside the window facing the door. He rubbed his brow with the back of his hand.

Sparkling comets of light splashed into his brain and bounced in front of his eyes.

A knock sounded at the door and Thrall looked up.

That you, Colonel? he asked.

It is me, Captain, said Monroe through the door.

You alone?

Yes.

I hope so, Colonel, ‘cause I gotta gun right in this boy’s baby smooth cheek. Open the door real slow—no wait, I’ll send one of these boys to open it for you.

Thrall edged toward the wall and grabbed Cadet Masters’ collar. Go open that door and invite the colonel to dinner, cadet. He pushed the boy from behind and huddled beside the other boy. He could smell his own breath, sour on his lips, as he whispered into the boy’s ear.

I left my gun in the middle of the room. How could I have done such a thing? I bet you noticed. Thrall rolled his eyes toward the gun in the center of the empty room.

The cadet had noticed. The gun was in easy reach.

Go ahead, Thrall shouted. Go for it. You could be a hero and save the day.

The colonel pounded on the door, alarmed by what he was hearing inside. Neither cadet could match Thrall’s honed reflexes if they took him up on his game.

Thrall! Are you going to let me stand out here like a delivery boy?

Thrall nodded for the first cadet to proceed while pulling a second weapon from beneath his waistband. The door creaked open slowly and Monroe squeezed through the crack. He scanned the room, assessing its layout and occupants. He immediately noticed the gun in the center of the room, perched atop a manmade mountain of plaster dust. Both cadets were alive and Capt. Thrall looked like hell.

He offered the bucket of chicken to the Captain. Thrall, do you really want this? Monroe stepped inside the room. Wouldn’t it be easier if you let them go? He gestured toward the two young men, now back together against the wall.

Nah, colonel, Thrall said. Then I would bet we would have too much chicken.

Monroe positioned himself between the cadets and Thrall. The open door gaped behind him. Thrall glanced toward the window. One cadet made a leap for the door, flung it wide and dived into the hall. Several pairs of waiting hands grabbed him and threw him to safety.

Thrall fired. A chink of wall sprayed into the path of the second cadet. He sunk to the floor.

Damn it, Monroe, that was good, smirked Thrall. NOW CLOSE THE DOOR AND GET OVER THERE NEXT TO LINGTOP, he screamed. Shit!

Captain, let Lingtop go. I will stay with you. I am all you need. The Colonel motioned to Lingtop to stand. Get out of here, son.

Colonel? stammered the young cadet. Colonel, he will kill me, sir.

Thrall’s lips twisted into a jagged grin. He leaned against the wall across the room, next to the window, and fingered the frayed edge of the curtain. The gun rested at the side of his leg. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, waving the gun aimlessly. Yellow stains blossomed in his armpits. He leaned and dug through the chicken bucket.

Go, son, said the colonel.

"Lingtop inched toward the door and slipped out. Unused energy twisted through Thrall’s body.

Monroe turned to Thrall. Captain, give me your gun.

A voice called through the closed door. Colonel?

Just stay outside, soldier. We are going to be fine in here. Give us some time.

Thrall pursed his lips and growled. Get them out of here, Colonel. I want them to clear the hall.

Monroe stared hard into Thrall’s face, searching for the young man he knew. He shrugged.

Clear the hall, Colonel. Thrall pointed with a chicken leg. Tell them to clear the hall or I am going to kill you.

Monroe lowered himself slowly to the floor and spat. A staccato burst from Thrall’s gun whizzed over his shoulder and shattered part of the door frame. He heard boots scuffle outside.

Stryker, is everyone ok? yelled Monroe.

Yes sir, Colonel.

Clear the building, Stryker.

Yes sir.

Thrall chewed on his chicken and waited until he could no longer hear the sound of boots receding down the hall. He wiped his greasy hand across his shirt, leaving a claw-shaped imprint in the plaster dust that had settled there.

Monroe shifted his weight to one thigh. His 50 plus years did not appreciate the chairless room. He wondered how had he managed to come through two gulf wars to end up facing his death in an abandoned building. He leaned on one arm and looked at Thrall.

Captain, what is this all about? Now that you have me here, I think you owe me an explanation. That is what you wanted, isn’t it? To get me up here?

Thrall stared at the ceiling. The colonel glanced at the gun on the floor.

Go ahead, Colonel, it’s empty.

Monroe reached for the weapon and checked the chamber. Empty. His jaw clenched.

Relax, Colonel. I am going to tell you a story that you won’t believe.

This had better be good, Capt. Thrall, growled Monroe.

Thrall rested his weapon on his right knee and locked his haggard eyes on Monroe’s face. His usually tan skin was pale. Fatigue hung below his eyes and his lips began to quiver.

I know what you have done, Colonel. Last night I saw it all. How could you do it? You were closer to me than anyone. Thrall pleaded. I trusted you and you murdered me." A shadow drained the room of light momentarily, and then sunlight caught Thrall’s hair and encircled his face in a halo of soft dust particles.

Monroe tried to move closer to Thrall. The gun leapt in Thrall’s hand and stared at Monroe’s chest.

"Colonel, don’t move, sir. I’m not ready yet. I just want to talk so you can forgive yourself for killing me. I deserve it anyway. You can understand, can’t you? Last night, all of the pictures came together, Thrall continued.

Thrall, what are you talking about?

My mother died, and that put me closer to you. Your son and wife died and that put you closer to me. Don’t you see? Thrall cried. It has to be this way!

Capt. Thrall, Fenian, don’t do this. We can solve this. I won’t kill you. Damn, you have the gun. You are like my own son. Fenian, please, give me the gun. Monroe moved forward slightly. The weapon snapped into his face.

I’ve been there, Colonel, the future. There is no other way.

Thrall sagged against the wall and sobbed. I thought I could trust you.

Capt. Thrall lifted the gun toward Monroe, then positioned the barrel over his own heart.

Colonel, I just want you to know that I forgive you. Tears ran down his cheeks. It had to be hard, losing your family like that. I know the decision had to be hard to make.

Thrall’s knuckles whitened.

Monroe lunged. His full weight dropped on Thrall’s chest, wedging the gun between their bodies. Monroe covered the barrel with his huge fist, but could not release Thrall’s grip. They rolled over and over, coating themselves with dust and debris.

The Colonel shoved his knee into Thrall’s groin. Searing pain shot through his leg. He felt the impact the moment Thrall did. Thrall gasped. He released his hold on the weapon and crumbled. Monroe jammed his elbow into Capt. Thrall’s chin, knocking him back to the floor. He retrieved the gun and struggled to stand.

Thrall lay back. His chest heaved. Tears etched pale lines across his cheeks.

Get up, Fenian. It’s all over.

Fenian Thrall rolled to his knees and stood. He was taller than Monroe was, younger and slimmer. Monroe hobbled toward the window. He’d cracked his kneecap in the lunge. He winced.

The warmth of the afternoon sun greeted his face. His leg was on fire. He called out the window to his team below.

It’s all over up here. We’re coming down. Monroe turned back to his young captain.

Thrall swayed as he stood. He faltered. Monroe reached out to steady him.

Thrall gripped Monroe’s wrist, pulled the gun into his own chest, and squeezed the trigger. The burst forced a moist breath from his lungs into Monroe’s face. The captain slumped to his knees, blood gushing from his wound.

I told you Colonel. A mist of bloody spittle blossomed into the air. It had to be this way. I saw it. Thrall dropped to the floor.

Monroe backed against the wall and slid to the floor. Members of his team poured into the room. They examined the colonel