©GeraldineBanksJanuary2025
Sandy’s Condo, was beside a lake , it had a stunning view, but not of the mountains. It was all man-made and artificial. There were fountains and a number of three dimensional sculptures made of glass or Perspex that appeared to change shape depending on the angle you looked at them or how the natural light shone through them .
Sandy needed some fresh air and decided to go for a walk around the nearby artificial lake. Gerry would have loved this place she thought to herself. She was surprised he hadn’t made the effort to come.
After her walk Sandy showered and drank a cup of herbal tea. It was nearly six o’clock in the evening and the phone rang, it was Joss, the Professor would like Sandy to start the tour at six thirty, Joss would send the car at six twenty. Was that alright? Sandy agreed and she was ready when the car came to collect her.
The chauffeur driven car again glided along the pristinely grey tarmac and made a sharp turn to the left. Sandy realised that behind the fancy architectural front there were more functional , plain and she thought forbidding buildings hidden . They were well disguised. Smaller and plainer. The car stopped and the driver signalled to her that they had arrived and she stepped out of the car , Allenby was waiting for her.
He stood patiently as she walked towards him. ” I’m pleased to say that you have me all to yourself for the next few hours. I want to show you the heart of what we do here. What we are capable of. I am sure you will find it most interesting. As I have said previously I want you to see the whole operation “Warts and All”. We are fighting some very dangerous people and organisations and we have to use some very harsh techniques to find out the information we need to destroy them. Some of what you will see , you no doubt , will find upsetting. He smiled, his perfect white teeth showed as he parted his thin brownish chiselled lips. Sandy noted they were moist.
Allenby opened the security door and walked briskly in, Sandy followed him at a pace. A long narrow corridor led to the laboratories which Professor Allenby described.
“Here is the low-end research facility, repetitive, but necessary analysis.”
The walls were clinically white, occasionally broken by some windows enabling Sandy to see inside. There was no one about all the workstations were empty. There were rows of microscopes.
” Has everyone finished for the day , it seems a bit quiet?” Sandy asked.
“Yes in this area, there’s no need for 24/7, it’s just routine Science here.” Allenby replied.
” These people still live on Campus though.”
” Yes , they are employed here and we provide them with accommodation. We have a lot of land and we have created a village like atmosphere. It’s mainly for our ancillary workers, they are good facilities and good working conditions. I don’t visit there myself, but we couldn’t function without it. “
” I see, so they live here permanently.”
” Yes, we have everything here for them , schools , gyms , medical facilities and entertainment venues such as a Concert Hall and a Bowling Alley. We attract the best , but sometimes we need the average, so it works for us. “
They reached the end of the corridor and moved into another Security Area, this time Allenby and Sandy both had to go through the Iris Recognition software. It took a few seconds for the door to open and Allenby took Sandy immediately to his office which was at the end of another row of laboratories. Sandy saw there were people working inside of them, however none of them even looked up to acknowledge her or the Professor. The Professor’s office was unassuming in comparison to the opulence she had experienced so far.
” Sit down Sandy” Allenby gestured to a chair . ” What you are about to see , may well shock you to the core, and what I’m going to tell you may find distasteful, but be aware I have the backing of some very powerful people. We need to tell our side of the story . We can no longer continue in the background, we are strong and we must use our strengths.”
Sandy sat and listened.
Allenby pressed a button underneath his desk and a projector screen rose from a hidden cupboard opposite Sandy. The lights in the office dimmed and the Professor began to talk as he began a prepared presentation.
“What you see on the screen Sandy is your DNA Profile. We collected your saliva when you had lunch. Totally illegal of course. In normal circumstances we would have to ask your permission, but these are not normal circumstances. Please forgive us. This shows how quickly we can process the information.”
” There’s nothing to forgive Professor, I mean this is part of the story isn’t it?” The penny dropped why Gerry had not been able to make the visit with her and had made his excuses.
The Professor, pressed his hand held device and more information about Sandy flashed on the screen. Scientific classifications, but basically reflecting your strengths, where you fit in in the general population and any problems that we foresee. Without knowing you personally I can tell that your genetic makeup is one that is beneficial to our future. Country programmes vary, but I assume you are sponsored to have children?”
” Yes, I have twins, glad to say. After my sports career, there were so many incentives, but I didn’t feel pressurised. By then my maternal instincts had kicked in and I had been with Martin a long time, so it was quite natural. Not at all clinical, like your analysis , don’t get me wrong, I think it’s wonderful what you can do , but it’s the old Nature versus Nurture isn’t it? Are we just strands of protein?” Sandy wondered just how much the Professor knew about her history of child bearing.
” Thank you for being so direct, well those strands of protein are very important to our future, the future of our World”
” Well that’s why I’m here, to find out what we can do to help. Promote the cause. I have to admit though I’m a bit scared of what I’m about to find out. I can imagine that your work must be constantly under threat from people who don’t support it”.
” I appreciate that, so let us continue, there is no point in me trying to hide anything .”
A new slide popped onto the screen.
“This presentation shows the Global Picture, the patches of red are where we are experiencing problems, no matter what we do the gene pool gets contaminated. If I show you over the last five years, it changes and moves around and then comes back again and we don’t know why. It can only be subversive forces. I find it extremely frustrating. I don’t think the raw data is as accurate as it needs to be , but we are finding resistance when gathering it, even violence in some instances. Increasingly members of our field staff are being ostracized and prevented from collecting samples.
” I’ve never came across anyone collecting my DNA, you mean like a medical facility, swabbing people , analysing and recording their DNA, perhaps they do it like you’ve just done it to me. Without my knowledge. So the areas that aren’t red , how do they work?”
” Resource mainly and Government Support.”
“That takes money, I suppose”.
“Yes, these Underground Agencies have won historically, they have backers and they have battled successfully. The problem is we just don’t know who they are. We clean one area and a few years later we’re back to square one again to do the same work as some rogue DNA has appeared out of nowhere.”
” So a bit like a virus re-infecting.”
” Well , similar , but scientifically there is no similarity. DNA cannot be transmitted, it’s within us. The only way DNA can be passed on is through Progeny. We know there are people who want to play God and we need to stop them. “
” Perhaps they think you are playing God Professor?” Sandy eyed the Professor, to see how he reacted to being directly challenged.
” Do you think so?”
Sandy wished she had not been so direct, but Allenby continued.
” God doesn’t come into it, I’m an atheist.”
Sandy thought quickly and decided to play Devil’s Advocate. ” I suppose to stop these people we need to think like them.”
” Yes, exactly, we’ve got a lot of data and we know what we think is going on, but up until now we haven’t had the Authority to deal with these people like criminals they are. As of last week, we have a Global, cross border agreement which allows us to hunt these people down. I don’t like wasting valuable scientific resource, some of these miscreants are at the top of their game, so I prefer to use other methods to persuade them that they’ve been pursuing the wrong path.”
” I feel we are getting to the nasty bit , Professor”
” Sandy , unfortunately the situation we are in calls for extreme measures. We can record all the data we want, but now is the time to take action. That is one of the reasons I want the Media in here, I wouldn’t like this information leaked and cause some furore that would get out of hand. I want to present the facts and our arguments for doing what we are doing. I need your input just to keep us straight. So we don’t come out of this looking like the villains .”
” Will I need a strong stomach Professor?”
“No, no we’re not animals, it’s harrowing, but the ends justify the means.” The Professor moved away from the screen and pressed the button under the desk to make it retract.
” OK Professor, I think if you show me what you are doing, I may understand it better and of course we can talk about everything in the best light. I’m intrigued by the change to the the Law and last week. Would I be right in thinking that the ” Criminality ” is going to be a major part of the story?”
“As the Law stands now these men and women are now classed as “Criminals”. They are offered re-education and rehabilitation in some cases but not all. We’ve had some success stories. One of them joined us recently and is now working for us. I believe you met Gregor Lavlet at the Conference in Barcelona.” Allenby waited for Sandy’s reaction.
” Oh yes, Gregor, I met him in Barcelona, but he was at a very successful institution in Iceland. Iceland had totally wiped out all genetic illnesses, screening was 100%. It was definitely not a Country to cause you concern. I did have a long chat with him and yes I would say he expressed some doubts about what was taking place in Iceland. We were going to meet up in London, I still have his business card somewhere…”
Allenby smiled.
” Gregor was captured at a site just outside Berlin. There were three hundred children who were being kept in a secure location.”
” Three hundred children.” Sandy knew she had to be careful and not ask too many questions now.
” My are you confident that he is rehabilitated now?”
” Well he will never leave here, all in all , it’s not a bad place to live, his expertise as a statistician is invaluable. He says he now believes he was wrong, it doesn’t really matter , the main thing is a talented researcher like him is out of the mix working for the opposition, and now can help us with our work. ”
” And what happened to the children?” Sandy asked.
” Oh they would have been relocated at a new facility , that would be dealt with at local level.” Allenby turned off his computer and moved towards the door of his office.
” I’m ready now to show you our facility where we keep those who are resistant to our ideas. The ones who don’t accept that what we are doing is necessary.” He opened the door of the office and led the way into a small room with a large window looking out onto a laboratory. The Professor and Sandy could see out , but the people they were watching could not see in.
Sandy continued talking to the Professor.
” A Life Sentence, is there anything worse? ” Sandy said.
The Professor turned towards her and Sandy looked him straight in the eye. She felt it was expected of her as a hard nosed journalist , but in side her stomach churned with the thought of what she was about to witness. The stakes were high and the means ruthless.
Sandy and the Professor entered the small room and closed the door . They both sat down on a bench from which they could look out the large window onto a laboratory. The Professor continued talking.
“This is the tricky and untidy part.”
Sandy couldn’t help but think that “tricky” and “untidy” were not the adjectives she would have used, she was very concerned about what she might be about to witness.
” It’s still up in the air, for the moment we are trying persuasion. We have many options , some not so palatable, but all now thankfully legal and above board.”
Sandy remembered Alex playing with the other children when she had visited him and looked at the Professor. Sandy would do anything to stop this man. The Professor was sitting almost knee to knee with Sandy and she felt his hand touch her knee. Sandy did not react. In other circumstances she would have turned and made her position quite clear, but the only thing on her mind was Alex and she was going to do anything to protect her little boy from this Monster.
She felt that she had won over the Professor and she realised that her DNA was the perfect cover . Gerry would not have passed Allenby’s analysis and most likely would have been arrested by now. Sandy would be the cuckoo in the nest just like her little boy was to Allenby’s plans. Sandy though had to play her part perfectly. She’d do anything to help the people who would help Alex. Martin would understand.
thenotsomightyom 