The Genesis Illusion

Chapter 21

Paul entered Nara's office for the second time, but this time the circumstances were quite different. Not a suspect but a trusted associate. Nara greeted him with a smile and a handshake and waited for him to settle into a side chair.

Eager to report what he had found Paul spoke first, ignoring protocol, "I'm not sure I found anything that will help but I hope so. I'd like to get this cleared up so I can get my passport back and return home."

Nara was about to speak but Paul couldn't wait to tell what he had discovered.

"I looked through the patent documents for all three of the inventors. The applications were the same as the ones sent to us in New York. But the IPO (Intellectual Property Office) had on file a few other documents. These were provisional patent applications. The IPO officer told me these established the date of the patent before the final approval. The provisional patent applications only contained minimal information. There was, however, one unique line on the form where applicants identified the location where they created the invention. The agent told me most forms simply listed Singapore in this space, but occasionally they wrote in an address or another location. On the first provisional application by Mr. Lim, and only that one, an address in the Ecopolitan complex filled the space."

"That's interesting," Nara said, hoping for more. "Perhaps that is their research laboratory location?"

"That's what I would guess. I've written the address for you." Nara took the note and said he would have his investigators follow up on that lead.

"What about the newspaper archives? You know I thought it was probably a dead-end."

"I looked at newspapers for the year before the first date on the provisional patent. I had no idea how many pages are in each day's newspaper. It was impossible to read all those articles, so I looked only for headlines. Not just the bold headlines on the front page but the headlines on the news articles too. That's still a lot."

"I appreciate your time, Paul," Nara said, halting Paul's story and resigned to hearing he couldn't find anything. "You know it's sometimes helpful to have another set of eyes look at things."

"Well, there was a lot to go through, but I stumbled onto something that seemed strange. It was at the right time." Nara lowered his arms from his desk and bent forward to hear Paul's discovery. "I found many articles about a disease outbreak in the Bukit Timah area. Two dozen people became seriously ill and all of them died except for three unnamed survivors. That's what stuck out to me. The number three and the time-frame. You know it could be just a coincidence but it fit. We have three inventors we're following."

"That's an interesting observation. I remember that event. I was a precinct officer at the time and my station was here, so I joined in the emergency response and follow-up investigation. That was right after the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) scare. Health officials treated it as a contagious disease at first. They thought we might have had an Andromeda Strain catastrophic event on our hands. We took extreme precautions. The level-four biohazard containment isolation procedures scared the people. There was mass hysteria for a time."

"I was hoping you might remember." Paul, absorbed in his story continued. "As the days went on the articles reported no other cases. The emergency ended and the biohazard procedures were no longer needed. I couldn't find a report that explained the cause."

Nara sensed a pause in Paul's monolog so he volunteered his memory. "Most of the doctors determined that it was a severe auto immune response to a virus or another environmental source. They ruled out poison and biological weapons as possible causes."

"What about the identity of the three survivors?"

"Our privacy regulations prevented them from being released. We can probably get them now. I'll check with our legal department to see what they can do."

"This doesn't appear related but there was one other thing. The night before the first cases there was a very intense meteor shower in the same area. One person even died from a meteor strike."

"I live in the Little India area so I didn't see the shower. Now that you mention it, I recall one mortality was from a meteor strike. I'm not sure what that might mean. Do you have a theory?"

"You know, Inspector..." Paul interrupted Nara. He stopped himself realizing his idea might sound farfetched. This wasn't easy because he was bursting to tell him about it.

"Please call me VK." Paul felt good they were now on a first name basis. "Go ahead with your..." Paul couldn't help interrupting again.

"If I remember correctly, NASA reported test results that found viruses, and maybe bacteria, could survive inside a meteorite."

"Hold on, not the aliens did it? I am a police officer and I only deal in facts." Nara sat back in his desk chair and folded his arms across his chest.

"But viruses can insert genes in DNA."

"And mosquitoes can carry viruses. So mosquitoes CAN alter DNA." Nara used sarcasm to halt Paul's wild speculation, but he continued.

"Maybe?"

"I know our methods seem slow and methodical and they are for a reason. We must use the available evidence to lead us to our conclusions. We need substantiation and verifiable facts."

"I still think. Ok, I get it." Paul slumped in his chair and didn't pursue his line of reasoning any further.

Nara needed to move on to the facts of the case. "Well, no matter what the cause, one thing I can do is to find out the names of the three survivors. If we need to file court papers,it could take a while. But I'll try to speed up the process as much as possible.If that's all, I have something else I want you look at while you're here."