Project Apex by Michael Bray Read Free Book Online Page B

research, which piqued my interest. As fantastical and indulgent as it seemed, I decided to seek out Mr. Draven in order to speak to him myself, if for no other reason than to satisfy my own curiosity. After numerous rejections of my requests to speak with him, he finally decided to meet with me, only because he was in London and had some time to kill between appointments."
    Genaro paused for another drink of his water, and scanned his audience again, his eyes lingering for just a split second on Marcus.
    "I wasn’t sure what to expect from Draven before we met. I think I had half an idea he would be some kind of weirdo, or as you Americans might say a goofball. I was certainly surprised to find upon our meeting that he was a perfectly respectable, intelligent man. He was very humble, very wary of me, especially in light of the way his name had been dragged through the mud by everyone in the scientific community. He had done his research too and knew who I was even if he didn’t know the nature of my work. Within half an hour of speaking to him, I was half convinced he was telling the truth in his article. By the time another hour had passed, I was absolutely sure and was offering him a place on my team. He, of course, declined. He said he was already worried about the damage the backlash would do to his already tarnished reputation, and didn’t want to further aggravate the situation. He did, however, agree to take us to the location where this specific species of monkey could be found as long as we were willing to fund the trip, as he had spent pretty much all of his funds on his own research. Of course, with the ridicule of the scientific community came the stoppage of grants and funding. I assured him I would raise the funds needed and that he should stand by and be ready to fly out. Sure that my superiors would be thrilled with such a potentially monumental breakthrough, I requested a modest amount of funding to go and retrieve a sample of this particular species of monkey in order to see if we could use it to further our research."
    He smiled, and Marcus thought it was a bitter expression rather than one of fondness, an intuition which proved to be correct as Genaro went on.
    "Sadly, my superiors refused to authorise the trip, claiming it was a waste of valuable resources that would be better spent elsewhere, which, as we all know is ironic considering the trillions of dollars spent by the US alone on their military programs. Anyhow, that’s not the issue here.  The decline of the funding was final, yet fortunately, something was just around the corner which would change the lives of everyone and make those in power change their mind."
    "Nine-eleven, right?" Marcus said.
    Genaro nodded "Exactly. The most important day in recent history was, as we all know a terrible tragedy, and yet it opened the door to my research. With war looming and a world shell-shocked and frightened, the quarter of a million I had asked for to do my research which could directly help the war effort seemed like peanuts. In fact, I was given an open budget. For the first time, I was given free rein to do the work I had been trying to do on a shoestring budget for the last few years."
    "Did you and Draven find the monkey?" Marcus asked.
    "I did. Draven didn’t come with me. He said he had changed his mind and was moving on to other projects. He had been invited to do some research in Antarctica and thought the isolation would be better to help repair his reputation. He did, however, give me extensive notes and directions which were enough for us to locate the animal, which we have since learned only inhabits that particular area of the Congo, or at least to the best of our knowledge."
    "Was it true?" Harding asked. "About the regenerative properties?"
    "If you mean was Draven lying, then the answer is no. In fact, he was quite conservative in his report."
    "So he was right?" Harding said.
    "He was more than right. He had discovered a creature