Pulse

by Jeremy Robinson

  “Looks harmless enough,” Queen said as she stood next to King. Without the pounding surf soaking them to the bone, she remained in her skimpy outfit, absorbing the cooling yet still eighty-degree air.

  The settlement of Edinburgh emerged from the darkness, lit by a combination of moonlight and a few streetlights. Most of the buildings, both home and official, were stark white, while their roofs were brightly colored with reds, yellows, greens, and blues. King’s attention drifted to the hill just beyond town where a strong glow illuminated the misty air and side of the volcano. He thought it strange that the Manifold facility would be so wide out in the open and glowing like a beacon for all to see. But with two thousand miles in every direction separating them from the outside world, who would be looking?

  They cruised past several docked sailboats and fishing vessels. All seemed in good repair but not one looked like it had been built within the past twenty years. Steering toward an open spot on the dock, King saw an old man with a scraggly beard hobbling toward them. “Here comes the welcome wagon.”

  The old man gave a feeble wave as the Mercury slid up to the dock. He seemed slow and ungainly, but deftly caught the tie line as Queen threw it to him. He tied them off quickly, then repeated the process at the catamaran’s stern.

  “What brings ya to Edinburgh,” the man asked.

  King recognized the accent as coming from Massachusetts. By the looks of him, the man had spent a lifetime at sea. Probably a fisherman or lobsterman. He laid on his phony French accent and said, “We are traveling the world. Seeing the...ehh, sights. And my sweetheart...she wanted to see the world’s most remote locale.”

  “Well, you’ve found it,” the man said, scratching his long, thick beard. “And you’d be wise to leave it.”

  King raised an eyebrow. “And why is that, monsieur?”

  He nodded toward Queen, “This one’s going to cause a ruckus.”

  “Oh?”

  “There are two hundred and seventy-one people on this island. Almost two hundred of them are men. And the women here are either married or too young, though that doesn’t stop most from marrying at sixteen. You’re the first visitors we’ve had in six months. And there ain’t anyone here who’s going anywhere fast. You catching my drift?”

  “Then add one more married woman to the list,” King said.

  “Listen, boy, it ain’t gonna matter if she’s married or not.” He looked at Queen’s breasts silhouetted inside her sheer white half shirt and emerging from the low-cut collar. “I haven’t seen a rack like that in twenty years and I’m feeling some life in places I’d long since given up for dead.”

  King smiled. He liked the old man, but not what he was insinuating. He knew Queen could take care of herself, but if the locals turned on them it would compromise the mission. “I see what you are saying. Honey, make yourself decent.” He shooed her away with his hands, which garnered a quick glare. She disappeared belowdeck a moment later.

  King hopped onto the dock and found the thick old man stood as tall as he did and a good portion thicker. Aged, but with a body earned through hard labor. He shook his leathery hand and said, “Etienne Brodeur, a pleasure.”

  “Captain Jon Karn,” he returned, pronouncing his last name Kahn.

  “How did you come to live on Tristan da Cunha?”

  Karn eyed him. “Why you want to know?”

  “I am a, ahh, connoisseur of life. I am interested in people. You see?”

  Karn smiled and shook his head. “You better watch your back, too, buddy. You’re about as feminine as the gals here.”

  King guffawed. “You are from Massachusetts, no? I recognize the accent. We’ve summered on the Cape Cod.”

  This got a smile from Karn. “I’ll bet you have... I’m a Gloucester-man. Third-generation fisherman. But the waters dried up. Fish disappeared. Made living hard. At the time the waters here were thick with fish, so I left home and tried my hand out here in the middle of nowhere. Worked out great for a while. But two years ago the fishing factory burned down. Most folks lost their income. Course, that all changed about a month later when they showed up.”

  Karn motioned toward the distant glow of the Manifold facility. “Most everyone gave up on the fish and went to work for them. Now the lights stay on day and night. We get cable television. High-speed Internet. The works. Me, I liked it here before they came. You don’t come to the settlement if you like being connected to the world. And that’s just the start of—”

  “Is this better, monsieur?” Queen exited the cabin dressed in hiking boots, loose-fitting blue jeans, and a baggy sweater. A sports bra combined with the sweater hid her curves nicely. Her hair was tied in a bun that protruded from the back of a Yankees baseball cap. She’d washed off the makeup she’d applied for her role, but her natural beauty would be impossible to hide without a thick coat of mud.

  “Lose the fucking Yankees cap and I won’t throw you to the fishes.” Karn gave a nearly toothless smile.

  “All Americans are Yankees to the French,” she said, smiling fiendishly.

  “Watch your language, lady,” he replied, though he couldn’t hide a grin of his own.

  Queen removed the cap and tossed it into the water.

  Karn nodded. “You should be fine.” He caught King’s eye. “Just don’t leave her alone.”

  King pulled Queen up and into his arms. “I would never let anyone harm my darling Dominique.”

  Queen feigned a giggle as she jabbed her thumb into a pressure point on King’s back. He winced and covered it with a laugh of his own. “Please, Monsieur Karn. Is there an eatery on the island?”

  “An eatery?”

  “A restaurant. Someplace we might socialize...pick up the local flavor?”

  “The local flavor is shit, boy. But if you’re in the mood for shit, Jake’s Tavern is three streets up on the right. There ain’t no sign, but it’ll be the only place with lights in the front.”

  “Merci,” King said with a wave. He placed his arm around Queen and they strutted off toward town.

  Karn shook his head. “French people.” He thought the two were nice enough. He just hoped they could stay out of trouble. Strange things had been going on in Edinburgh since Beta Incorporated had arrived. And more than a few volunteers had yet to return. Including his brother, who had made the trip to Tristan da Cunha with him. He’d volunteered to undergo an experimental treatment for a tumor on his leg. That was a month ago. He hadn’t heard a peep from his brother since and was beginning to think he never would again.

  24

  Tristan da Cunha

  Pierce entered a large computer lab with Reinhart right behind him. He’d been summoned from his room once again, this time from a dead sleep. The bright white light of the lab caused him to squint, which in turn caused him to stumble into a chair. The chair shot across the room as Pierce fell back. He managed to stay on his feet, but the corner of the desk caught his funny bone, sending a wave of pain from elbow to fingertip. The clatter announced their entry into the lab rather noisily, but neither Ridley nor Maddox, who stood in front of a large, six-monitor computer display, turned or bid them welcome. Behind the display screens sat rows of slate gray computer towers, whirring and humming as their cooling fans filled the room with heat from the hardworking processors. Judging by the mass of cabling attaching each computer to the next, he could see they were all networked, functioning as one supercomputer. He couldn’t guess at how much computing power the system contained, but it was clearly built for something monumental, far beyond the capabilities of a human mind. That seemed to be Manifold’s M.O. at least.

  Reinhart shoved him forward. “Try not to trip on your shoelaces.”

  Pierce glanced down at his shoes, just in case. Tied tight. He headed for Maddox knowing that he, at least, had some small amount of decency in him. His reaction to Ridley’s death threat earlier was proof of that. But it did little to comfort him as he looked around the vast lab and found it empty. There would be no w
itnesses for what was about to occur. And though Maddox might have a conscience, Pierce doubted the man would risk his life to take a stand. He clearly prized his research over all else. Probably his life, too.

  Rubbing his arm, he made his way past workstations and lab equipment. He stopped at the computer display, acutely aware that Reinhart remained behind him, rather than circling around. Ridley looked up from the sheet of paper he and Maddox had been looking at. Both men wore smiles.

  Success.

  “Dr. Pierce,” Ridley said. “Just in time to share in our little celebration.”

  Pierce forced a smile and did his best to sound nonplussed. “No balloons or champagne?”

  Ridley stood tall, his bald head gleaming in the room’s bright light like a polished statue. He looked as monolithic as his deep voice sounded. “Time for that later. A few tests are in order before the true celebration can begin.”

  “Then you haven’t finished?”

  “Not completely.” Maddox’s smile would have been contagious under different circumstances. The man was truly excited. “But we’re days away from a final product. Thanks to you, of course.”

  “The Hydra DNA worked then?” Pierce couldn’t hide his interest. The idea that a mythological creature was not only real, but impacting modern-day science was intriguing despite being a prisoner.

  Maddox nodded quickly. He handed Pierce the sheet of paper he and Ridley had been examining. Several charts containing series of numbers filled the page. “What am I looking at?”

  The page was ripped from his fingers. Maddox held it like a treasured prize. “When I first began analyzing the Hydra sample I thought my equipment was flawed. We recalibrated everything. Used new equipment. The results came back the same every time.”

  Maddox ran a hand through his messy hair. Disheveled and excited, he looked like some of Pierce’s friends. He chuckled as he continued, “At first, things went disastrously. Extracting DNA, while not exactly trivial, has become somewhat routine. Not so with the Hydra sample. We had to break new ground. You see, DNA extraction is performed...in water.”

  “Ahh,” Pierce said, understanding.

  “The sample continued to replicate and grow, but I’m assuming, without a head or other controlling force in the flesh, it took no shape. We ended up with a three-pound sample. The solution was discovered quite accidentally as we tested the large sample. It turns out that once absorbed, water inside the Hydra flesh became D20—heavy water—its natural and nonreactive state. Using heavy water, we were able to extract the DNA and analyze it. That’s when we discovered how truly unique the Hydra is.”

  Maddox rubbed his stubble-covered chin, eyes looking off into the distance as he relived the discovery. “All life on the planet is composed of the same stuff. We share the large majority of our genomes. That’s why you hear things about humans being ninety-eight percent similar to apes, or bananas, or such things. But the Hydra is totally different. DNA bonds in pairs. Adenine pairs with thymine. Quanine with cytosine. They’re the building blocks of DNA structure. This is true with Hydra as well, but it’s what binds those base pairs together that is different. For most of us, its hydrogen...water. For Hydra, it’s heavy water. It’s this unique bond that allows for the existence of genes not found in other living creatures. We can’t simply switch on dormant regenerative genes, we need to introduce them.”

  “That is odd.”

  “Odd is an understatement. The word that best describes it is alien. Not that I think that’s what we’re dealing with, but it’s as close as you can get without leaving the planet. There is no record of anything else like it, anywhere. Have you ever heard of something being able to grow a second head?” Maddox typed on the keyboard. Images displayed on the six screens: DNA strands represented by double helixes, a series of chemical structures that looked like patterned hexagons bearing labels such as: adenine, thymine, guanine, cytosine, hydrogen, deuterium, and tritium, along with more streams of numbers, and photos of the oversized Hydra sample. Again, Pierce could make little sense of the images, but the man seemed determined to use visual aids. “And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The Hydra is so mind-bogglingly different that just understanding it is slowing us down. We’re interested in a single trait, regeneration. But Hydra’s extra genes are full of traits that are, for now, undesirable.

  “Poisonous breath and a penchant for human flesh,” Pierce said. Maddox caught his breath and looked at him. “Hydra traits,” Ridley said.

  “Ahh. Yes. Exactly,” Maddox said. “Finding out which genes trigger which traits is our last stumbling block.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “Experimentation.”

  Pierce began to sweat despite the room’s air-conditioning.

  Maddox saw his apprehension growing. “Volunteers, of course.”

  Feeling Reinhart behind him, and the towering Ridley beside him, Maddox’s assurance did little to quell his growing fears. Perhaps from the adrenaline filling his veins, Pierce noticed five needles, the syringes filled with red liquid, standing on the counter next to the keyboard. “And those?”

  “The first batch. By using a virus, in this case porcine circovirus, a single-stranded DNA virus, as a carrier. The virus crosses the cell membrane and infects the cell with the DNA alterations. The infected cells divide, the virus spreads, the host becomes...something new. When we’re done, we’ll have the world’s first cure-all vaccine.

  “We’ve already weeded out the most obvious undesirables. By comparing the Hydra genes to those of humans and virtually every other creature on earth, we were able to remove ninety-nine percent of the DNA. The D20 bond may be different, but the code combinations still match. These first samples contain one fifth of one percent of the remaining genes.” Maddox picked up a needle, but left the rubber stopper on the tip. He had no intention of using it. He simply admired it. “If the subject in question is able to regenerate, we’ll be able to narrow down our search to the few hundred genes contained in this serum. In the same way, we’ll whittle down the potential genes until we’re left with one. The one. The future of human civilization could be inside this syringe.” He stared at the red liquid. After a few silent seconds, he snapped out of his trance. “We’ll be able to re-create the human race...making us stronger, healthier, and, for all intents and purposes, immortal, soon enough.” He put the needle back with the others.

  This bit of information was enough to distract Pierce. It seemed unthinkable... Inhuman... Godlike... To achieve such a thing in such a short period of time. “I’ve only been here for two days...”

  Maddox began to explain, but Ridley interrupted him. “All things are possible with enough money.”

  Pierce understood. “The computers.”

  Gesturing to the networked computer systems, Ridley added, “The NSA has their one Cray Triton supercomputer. It can handle sixty-four billion instructions per second. Used for breaking encryptions and the like. The system you see here, Yahweh, is the equivalent of five NSA systems, capable of handling three hundred twenty billion instructions per second.”

  Pierce shook his head. What kind of person names a supercomputer after God?

  “With access to the most complete DNA database on the planet assembled over the last three years, Yahweh can dissect any living thing down to its basic genes. It searches for and identifies flaws. It can combine gene sequences of different creatures, creating superior chimeras. And it made short work of identifying the one percent of Hydra’s genes that make it unique.”

  In short, the machine was capable of breaking life down to its smallest components and rebuilding something new. Hence the name. Yah-weh. God.

  “What I don’t understand, is why you explained any of this to me.”

  “You were part of the discovery,” Maddox said. He gave Pierce a genuine pat on the shoulder. “You deserved to know.”

  “Thanks,” Pierce said, amazed by his naivete. He turned to Ridley, tired of the game. “What’s the real reas
on?”

  Ridley shrugged. “A courtesy.”

  Pierce took a step back and bumped into Reinhart, who didn’t budge—a wall of muscle. Maddox looked confused.

  “I thought you might like to know what you were volunteering for.”

  With the same elbow he’d been holding since injuring it on the desk, Pierce swung around, attempting to smash Reinhart in the nose. If he could knock the man down, escaping and hiding in another part of the vast complex might be possible. He knew he’d never make it through all the defenses, he just didn’t want to become a guinea pig. Unfortunately, Reinhart either had catlike reflexes or he’d anticipated the move. Probably both.

  With intense pressure, Reinhart caught Pierce’s elbow, pulled the arm back, took hold of his hand, and twisted. Pierce’s wrist cracked audibly. He screamed in pain as Reinhart pulled him up, holding him by the broken wrist and a handful of hair. Just as quickly as he’d been pulled up, Pierce was thrust down, his jaw breaking upon impact with a desktop. In five seconds, the fight had been taken out of him. And it would be a lifetime before he could forget the pain.

  “Your first volunteer,” Ridley said. But Maddox put his hands up and backed away. He wanted no part in the action, but also didn’t voice an objection. He simply watched as Ridley picked up a needle, flicked off the stopper, and buried the needle in Pierce’s neck. Pierce fought, but Reinhart had no trouble holding him down. He felt the warm liquid enter his body. It stung. Then burned. But before he could scream at the pain coursing through his veins, he was struck in the back of the head. As he slumped to the floor, he saw Reinhart standing over him, holding his handgun like a club.