The Rot

Catalyst

The phone rang insistently. As if sensing it was being ignored, it rang twice more. Emily Brekenridge switched her phone to silent before returning it to her pocket without looking at the screen. Her crystal blue eyes remained locked on the large snake in front of her as she wasn't sure it was safe to be this close.

"Max, is there a reason you wanted to talk with me here instead of over the phone?" Emily questioned. "And, why does this snake have to be in attendance?"

The burly man currently holding the snake behind its head with both hands grinned slightly at her.

"I needed you to see this," Max explained.

"I assume this has some relevance," Emily remarked, gesturing to the snake. Her dwindling patience started leaking into her tone.

"It usually takes 3-4 years for a python to grow to adulthood, depending on the variety," Max explained. "This one is only a week old."

"You have a fast growing snake," Emily replied. "What of it?"

"It would've made sense if you'd let me explain rather than hitting me with questions like an artillery barrage the moment you walked in the door," Max complained as he lifted the massive snake and put it carefully back into its environmental enclosure. He motioned for her to follow him to his office at the back of the herpetology center. "This way."

The office was neat and well organized with all papers either sorted in the metal drawers occupying the corner of the room or neatly stacked and clipped in a set of vertically aligned boxes on the long counter taking up the entire wall opposite the filing cabinets. The desk in the center of the room was metal and bare, and it reminded Emily of the cold medical exam tables she'd seen during her only visit to the county morgue. A shiver crept up her spine as the hairs on her neck bristled at the merest thought of that place. She tried to focus on Max in the hopes he would quickly give her something else to think about.

"After our last rally out in front of the Helix Corporation's headquarters," Max explained as he crossed the room in four long strides to reach the file cabinet. He continued talking while searching through the hanging folders contained inside for the document he wished to show her. "I've been doing some digging on the catalyst being developed by the Helix Corporation, like you asked me to, and I discovered they're doing their testing outside the lab."

"What do you mean by outside the lab?" Emily questioned. "Are they working offsite or did they hire someone else to do the work?"

"No," Max denied. "I mean outside. They have a crop field behind the building."

Emily closed her eyes in dread. The glasses she wore were framed in thick plastic of solid black, and she removed them to massage the length of her long and narrow nose. "Please tell me they aren't that stupid."

"I wish I could," Max lamented. "When that snake I showed you started growing so rapidly, I tested it and found the catalyst present in its system."

"How?" Emily questioned in disbelief. "It's inside a snake center. How could it possibly have been exposed?"

"Most likely birds and insects feeding on the plants in the treated field picked up the catalyst and passed it in their systems to new creatures and locations, either in their droppings or in their bodies when fed on by predators. Once in the food chain, widespread exposure is a near certainty. Contaminated animals or insects transfer it to other crop fields, those crops are harvested for the rodent food I give to the feeder mice and rats, and they become carriers until passing it on to the snakes."

"The catalyst was designed alter plant genetics and speed growth," Emily pointed out. "Why is it affecting animals?"

"The catalyst I discovered in the snake is a mutated form, but there's enough in common to recognize its ancestral similarities to the original," Max clarified. He pulled out a green folder from the file drawer and produced a pair of magnified images of the catalyst for her to compare them.

"They match," Emily agreed. She let out a frustrated sigh. "I've been organizing protests against the Helix Corporation since they first unveiled this three months ago, and before any kind of safety concerns could be addressed, they test it in an open air environment with no safeguards against a possible spread. Unbelievable. Stopping this is now out of the question, so the only thing left to us at this point is damage control. I'll get everyone together in front of City Hall. Maybe if we can get the bureaucracy moving early, it might have time to do something before things get too bad."

"They'll have to hurry," Max said.

"Why?" Emily asked.

"It's the snake," Max answered. "There are some creatures like snakes and crocodiles that continue to grow every year they are alive. This usually slows down when they reach maturity, but with the catalyst increasing their natural state, I'm not sure it will stop. They could increase to truly massive proportions. We're talking about the return of dinosaur sized creatures prowling the planet, and if you factor in the increased birthrate, humanity could be overrun in very short order."

"What increased birth rate?" Emily prompted.

"Sorry, I thought I told you about it," Max sighed. "I've just got a lot in my head at the moment."

"It's alright," Emily accepted. "Now, what about the birth rate?"

"Most animals usually have a set time for mating season and then are done until the following season," Max clarified. "With the increased growth, this process has been sped up as well. The snake I showed you is laying a new clutch of eggs every day."

"I thought I heard somewhere that pythons lay lots of eggs," Emily replied.

"They do, but these eggs are hatching that day, and the snake produces more the following day," Max stated. "The young grow very fast and are full sized within a week and start laying their own eggs."

Emily leaned back against the wall while doing the math in her head. "At that rate, the center is going to be overloaded with pythons if you don't do something."

"We've separated the males and females to prevent a population explosion," Max told her. "However, we can't do that in the wild, so you can imagine what's happening out there. Now, factor in other species, such as crocodiles, alligators, anacondas, Komodo dragons, and you can see this is serious problem."

"Not to make this worse," Emily remarked, "but I wonder what will happen if the catalyst mutates into something that can affect people."