This Mamba Mystery is in the final stages of preparation. ARC reviews are in progress. Looking at a release date of 5/27/2020.
BETRAYAL IN BLUE
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In the late 1970s, a police officer in a city in the western United States was part of a task force against a violent criminal gang. The summary report from that task force to the police department was five pages long. The first four pages were a narrative of the task force’s actions and results. It was released to the media for their use.
The fifth page was a list of task force members with annotations of their specific contributions. It remained in-house . . .
. . . at least it was supposed to remain in-house.
Somehow, a copy of the fifth page found its way out of police headquarters. Several task force members and their families were targets of anonymous threats, vandalism, and drive-by shootings. At least one member of the task force was directed to leave the city and his career in law enforcement after his family home and personal vehicles were riddled with bullets. The police department could not guarantee his family’s safety.
This story is based on that incident.
The quaint village of Gachupin is nestled in the rugged hillsides near the intersection of the borders of the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Chihuahua, Mexico. Occupied long before Hernando Cortes arrived in the New World, Gachupin is an enduring example of the heritage of the indigenous populations in what remains a dangerous, undeveloped area of Mexico.
That is what a travel brochure might read if anyone had the desire to travel to such a desolate location. Gachupin is roughly one hundred and ten kilometers east of the Gulf of California and five hundred seventy kilometers south of Nogales. The best travel time from the US Border is eleven hours in a 4-wheeled drive vehicle with extra-high clearance and twenty gallons of gasoline strapped to the back. Less arduous routes might take as many as eighteen hours to traverse, assuming the driver has access to gasoline en route. Four-wheeled drive vehicles are recommended on those routes as well.
One native puts it, “You don’t need four-wheel drive, unless you want to get to Gachupin.”
Working cover
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The Drunk Gene
Brief Synopsis
Mexican drug cartels are the focus a third time in this book. A cartel partners with a corrupt genetic engineer to sabotage American military involvement in the Caribbean.
Dr. Meria Brieviance, genetic engineering specialist left the CDC because they refused to allow her to release a vaccine even though it was shown 98% effective with no harmful side effects in all studies performed. She now lives on Grand Cayman Island where she conducts her research, produces, and sells her vaccines at a fraction of the cost by major drug companies.
Military officials contact the CDC about their issue. The CDC directs the military to Dr. Brieviance.
Negotiations lead to her working with military on an anecdote or a a gene blocker gene. When the partnership breaks down. Dr. Brieviance takes matters into her own hands.
Intrigue and fighting abound as the doctor wages her own war against Arcenas’s cartel.
Just time
There is no link to this book yet.
Aliens from the planet Synclr have searched our galaxy for over ten-thousand-years. A single objective drives their actions, locating brain waves of specific types that indicate the potential for critical, analytic thought.
Synclrians’ first contact with Earth came in 900AD. The potential for critical and analytical thought was present, but remedial in form and function. The aliens left after setting up a data collection cloud around the planet—essentially an elaborate camera network to record visual and audio twenty-four hours every day all around the planet. All activity performed by sentient beings of any level was recorded.
They returned in 1980.
“The mirror ship reports their completion of the insertions.”
“Understood. What is our status?” The Captain asked.
“The procedure is in process for our final subjects.”
“Very good. Estimated completion time?”
The question was greeted by silence. That was uncommon. Her first officer was rarely unprepared for one of her questions.
“Begging the Captain’s pardon,” the first officer managed. “I neglected to obtain that piece of information.”
“That is unusual. Was there a problem?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
The Captain waited.
The first officer tapped the side of her head where the receiving unit for their communication grid was biologically linked to her brain.
“They are teleporting the final complete pair and incomplete pair specimens back to their domiciles now. One-hundred-thousand incomplete pair and one-hundred-thousand incomplete pair two-year-old human children were interjected.”
“I find that odd,” the Captain said.
“What’s that, Ma’am?”
“The different chromosome configurations on this planet.”
“I believe the completes are designated females. Incompletes are males.”
“Our archivist reported that this is the primary method of ensuring variation in the human populations,” another member of the bridge crew of the cloaked research vessel interjected.
“Primitive,” the Captain responded. “Randomness is a certain outcome. How do they control the quality of their offspring?”
“I believe that what you consider randomness humans consider individuality, Captain,” the first officer offered.
“All DNA implants are complete. Prepare to move to high orbit and enter stasis chambers.” The announcement echoed through the ship.
“Set the timer for four planetary revolutions. Then, see that we’re buttoned up tightly before you enter stasis,” the Captain ordered the first officer.
The first officer nodded what acted as her head.
*
Four years to the minute later, the crews of both the flagship and its mirror ship exited stasis. Inventory was taken.
One-hundred-thousand incomplete pair and one-hundred-thousand incomplete pair two-year-old human children were interjected with alien DNA four years earlier. Ninety-seventy-thousand-two-hundred-four complete pairs, females and eighty-six-thousand-six-hundred-seven incomplete pairs, males were still alive.
“The losses are within acceptable values,” the Chief Medical Officer reported. “We were hoping for fewer casualties, but the reproductive process and developmental calendar for these humanoids is unique in my experience.”
“Results,” the Captain said.
“None.”
“None? That’s a most unscientific comment, Doctor,” the Captain said.
“No subjects manifest the change in brain function anticipated by our DNA insertion.”
“I cannot recall another planet with completely negative results.”
“There are none in our records,” the CMO confirmed. “I’m waiting for a response to my compressed digital communication burst to Synclr.”
“It doesn’t matter if there are other cases,” the Captain said, ignoring the communiqué to their homeworld. “Recommendation?”
“One month of direct monitoring of the surviving subjects followed by an additional single planetary revolution of stasis.”
“While that sounds like a reasonable course of action, it exceeds the time limits of both our presence here and the amount of stasis in that period of time for my crew.”
“I’ll program our A-I bots to have a progress report ready as soon as we exit stasis,” the CMO promised.
“Carry on,” the Captain ordered.
*
Puberty is well-known and well-understood by Earthlings. What the Synclrians failed to recognize was that humans spend significant time growing and developing before reproductive hormone levels increase substantially.
Synclrians reproduction and development is a modified form of cloning. When the new member of their species is released from the growth chamber, it is fully functioning at every level of Synclrian anatomy and physiology.
Children selected by the aliens were two-years-old when the insertion of DNA into brain tissue occurred. Now six-years-old, puberty wasn’t even approaching their developmental radar screen. That proved to be the death knell of Synclrian intervention on Earth. Inserted DNA requires high levels of reproductive hormones to trigger the encoded actions in the hosts.
*
The crew of both alien vessels exited stasis thirteen months later. None of the now seven and eight-year-olds’ estrogen or progesterone levels were significantly different than they were earlier.
The hoped-for addition of empathic ability to half the subjects and the addition of the ability to access the cloud data storage without equipment did not manifest at an observable level.
Two of the subjects selected lived in Venice Beach, California, in the United States of American. Harmony Nguyen and Daniel Gambal were removed from their beds and teleported to the alien ship. Modified Synclrian DNA was inserted in the right temporal lobe of Lorelei’s brain in hopes of enhancing humanity’s innate empathic tendencies. Danny’s left temporal brain received the alien DNA. The hope was to provide him with the ability to recall any data from the cloud storage by thinking of date and place.
Two Synclrian exploratory medical space transport vessels decloaked, broke free of Earth’s gravity, and set a course for their next target.
“What do I tell our planetary command?” the first officer asked her Captain.
“Unsuccessful in all aspects of the protocol. Recommend deleting Earth from the database,” the Captain answered.
“Are you certain, Ma’am. That phraseology pretty much shuts the door on this planet.”
“Tell them we’re leaving the cloud storage.”
“Ma’am?” The first officer knew that without enhanced brain waves, the cloud was useless to Earth inhabitants.
“It’ll cost more to dismantle than to leave it. Sooner or later the solar batteries won’t hold a charge. That’s when this whole visit ends.”
“Understood. Message sent.”
“Thus begins the Mystery/SciFi tale of two high school friends that were part of the alien experiment.”