The Messiah Code Read Online Free PDF

The doors closed and as the elevator soared silently past the mezzanine level to the next floor, he watched the atrium and the guards shrink below him. In the quiet he could hear Jasmine's breathing.
    She started to say something, then seemed to think better of it.
    "Go on," said Tom. "Ask it!"
    "Okay. What if Holly has inherited the defective genes? What can you do about it?"
    The elevator door opened and Tom stepped out into the corridor that led to a secure chrome-and-glass door with the legend MENDEL LABORATORY SUITE--AUTHORIZED ENTRY ONLY etched into it. Putting his hand into the DNA sensor, he waited for the door to recognize him.
    "A gene therapy cure's about five years away. I'll make damn sure it's no longer," he said. "So if Holly does have a susceptibility and it surfaces in her thirties, like her mother and grandmother, then she should be okay."
    The door hissed open and they both stepped through. Lights flickered on automatically as the sensors detected their presence. The tungsten bulbs gave the impression of natural daylight as they walked past the large cryopreserve bank where live tumor samples were stored at temperatures of-180 degrees Celsius. The empty laboratory looked eerie with nobody sitting at any of the workbenches: a pristine sea of white, chrome, and glass. The only sound came from some of the instruments in the center of the workbenches and the low hum of the air conditioning system. Tom strained his ears for the growling sound of DAN, but of course he knew it would be silent by now--its task complete. He could see the doorway to the facility at the far right of the main lab and felt his stomach contract. He had run the test countless times before, but never on someone close to him with a suspected lethal defect.
    "But what happens if the prediction's earlier, Tom? Before the five years?"
    He couldn't answer that. Tom pulled open the door to the Genescope facility, revealing the six towering black swans that seemed to look down on him with malevolent pity. "Come on!" he said. "Let's see what DAN has to tell us."

    J asmine loved the Genescopes. They were her children. It had been this instrument that had transformed GENIUS from a progressive but medium-size biotech company into a world leader.
    The Genescope was so advanced when it had been launched just over three years ago that rival companies had paid to use it rather than lag behind trying to create their
    own. Jack Nichols had used all his marketing and venture capital skills to ensure that the instruments were quickly licensed around the world through GENIUS-approved laboratories. As Jack liked to say, sending in a tissue sample for gene scanning was now as easy as "sending in a film to Kodak." Genescopes had become the gold standard for reading human software, and only last year Time magazine had called Tom Carter "the Bill Gates of genetics."
    The Genescopes' power was so awesome that even Jack was wary of them. On more than one occasion Jasmine had heard him laugh nervously and say: "No fucking robot's going to tell me my expiration date." Always out of earshot of clients of course.
    Jasmine had been one of the first to run the test on herself. She hadn't felt particularly scared, but she had been relieved to discover there were no inherited killers waiting in her near future. But now as she followed Tom past the battery of Genescopes she understood Jack's fear. There was something deeply unsettling about a machine that knew more than you, about you. And tonight, she was frightened of what one of her children might tell her about Holly.
    She took a seat next to DAN at the far end of the facility. She could hear a slight hum coming from the round body. The monitor on the desk next to it was dark.
    She looked over at Tom. "You sure you want to do this?"
    He gave her a tight smile and nodded.
    "DAN," she said into the microphone on the black neck. Not everyone liked the name she had coined, but it had stuck and now they all called the