Standard psychological evaluations to assess his wellbeing. Reese had been the one to do the session while Echols looked on from the viewing room. Those one-on-ones were probably what let Reese lose his heart to the young man.
But Koda had changed the project. His very presence had brought a glow to the facility Reese couldn’t explain.
He closed out the file and rested his elbows on the edge of the table for a moment. When had things gone wrong? He didn’t want to believe it started that way, but the more he thought about it, the beginning was the only answer.
He exhaled a frustrated breath and scrolled back to the early stages of the project only because it gave him something to do.
Fragments of other files broke up the neat rows of cataloged reports. Some video, audio, a few simulations they’d run to try to predict genetic compatibility with the ichor that favored particular amino acid chains despite having nothing biological to examine.
It had all been trial and error, in the beginning, using hundreds of cadaver tissue samples. Later they’d changed to bone marrow because of how much easier it was for the ichor to fuse with the stem cells.
Then they got smart and used the instruction manual left behind in that tomb.
Shortly after matching the amino acid chains written on the wall to search for a donor, they found Koda. The high number of compatible amino acid chains in his DNA practically guaranteed success. Reese never imagined the level of that success.
He’d never forget the day, three days before Christmas 2007. Since Reese didn’t have any family, he rarely paid attention to the holidays. The only reason the date stamped his memory was because a couple of the upper floor personnel had hung garland on the glass walls on level two and Echols had promptly sent a mass email threatening disciplinary action if it wasn’t removed.
That’s why Reese stopped at the file with the simulation records run on November 20th labeled subject K-A20.
Koda’s permanent ID number.
A number that shouldn’t have been cataloged for another month because it hadn’t been assigned yet. They’d only had Koda’s anonymous multiple digit ID assigned at random by the screening system. Koda wouldn’t have received the permanent number until after his profile had been confirmed which only happened right before a cadaver entered the facility or immediately after.
Reese might have dismissed it as mislabeled except for the surrounding files ordered by date. It still could have been a slip up.
Reese opened the file to a page of case files each with an initial and last name. A highlighted line marked Koda’s name about halfway down. Reese opened it. Scanned documents from one of New World’s hospitals popped up where Koda had been admitted as a donor for a Hematopoietic transplant.
Reese backed out and clicked on another linked to the simulation. Dozens of results from other DNA samples all with percentages. Koda’s name was at the top.
A cold dread settled in Reese’s gut.
None of the lists they received from donors or recipients had contained personal information like a name.
What were the chances of a person on a donor list, of presumably healthy individuals, conveniently dying? Let alone the subject with the highest rate of markers out of thousands listed?
Reese opened up a web browser and typed in Koda’s first and last name and the state where his house was located.
Three hits down, an article in the local paper.
On November 22nd, a nineteen-year-old college student had been found dead from a single stab wound to the chest, resulting in exsanguination. Services were dated to occur three days later. There would be no burial because he would be cremated.
A smiling Koda stared at Reese from a photo accompanying the article.
“No.”
Reese shoved himself up but couldn’t tear his eyes from the computer screen.
Echols wouldn’t.
He wouldn’t.
Reese returned to the table and the data folder. He opened a different document. This one an internal email sent to Echols, threatening to remove him from the project unless he showed results within the next three months.
Less than a month after the date on that email was Koda’s murder.
Reese shook, and his chest tightened. Numbness coated his lips. Air thinned.
He forced himself over to the bed and sat. He exhaled and inhaled at a measured pace. Now was not the time to have a heart attack and fall over dead.