Waking Gods

by Sylvain Neuvel

  [You think it will make it this far?]

  I’m looking through the window now. It’s everywhere, as far as I can see. Anything smaller than twenty-five or thirty storeys is completely covered by the cloud. It looks like a white sea, with a few tall buildings rising out of it. Get everyone out of the office and to the top floor. You should be safe there.

  [What about you?]

  I breathed as much of this smoke as Janet did. I don’t know why I’m not dead and she is. I feel fine. I’ll stay here until it dissipates.

  [Be safe, Jacob.]

  Goodbye, Jack.

  FILE NO. 1567

  INTERVIEW WITH DR. ROSE FRANKLIN, HEAD OF SCIENCE DIVISION, EARTH DEFENSE CORPS

  Location: EDC Headquarters, New York, NY

  —Dr. Franklin.

  — …

  —Dr. Franklin. What are you doing?

  —I’m … I’m not doing anything.

  —You are sitting on the floor with your eyes closed, surrounded by a thousand body bags. You are doing something.

  —There are 861. It seems random. Why not eight hundred, or a thousand?

  —I assume it is the number of cadavers they could fit inside the cargo plane that brought them here.

  —I guess so.

  —You have not answered my question.

  —What was it?

  —What are you doing?

  —I was trying to imagine what four million body bags would look like. Could I see them all? Or would it look like an endless sea of dead people in every direction?

  —I do not know the answer. It should be relatively easy to calculate if it is important to you.

  —It’s not. It’s just hard to get a sense of what four million really means. Did you know it would take about three months with no sleep just to read their names out loud?

  —I see you have been giving this number a fair amount of thought. You should know that four million is only an approximation of the death toll based on other very rough figures. We do not know how many people were able to leave London before the attack, how many people lived in the area affected, how many were gathered near the alien robot, and so on. The final count, if there is ever one, may be significantly different.

  —It doesn’t matter. It’s still sad.

  —Four million dead is indeed terribly sad.

  —I don’t mean that. I mean it’s sad that their deaths aren’t as important just because there are so many.

  —I do not see how the magnitude of the event makes their passing any less tragic?

  —It just does. Kara told me how devastated I was … how the other Rose was when eight people died in Flagstaff while we were looking for giant body parts. I can only imagine. I sure felt the weight of the 136,000 who died during the first London attack, but I’m certain it wasn’t 136,000 times what I would have felt for one. I’m not four million times sorrier now.

  —That seems perfectly normal.

  —Is it? Don’t you think I owe it to every person I killed to feel their death equally?

  —You did not kill anyone, Dr. Franklin. It is only human to feel a certain part of responsibility—I certainly wish I had been able to prevent this tragedy—but you did not kill anyone. Aliens did, without having so much as a conversation with us first.

  —I started this, they didn’t. I fell in a hole and I started all this. I had a chance to put it all behind me, but I managed to not only find the hand again, but to put Themis together entirely. How many people get a second chance? I got one. Look what I did with it. I should have stopped looking.

  —Technically, you are not the one who kept on looking. The … other Dr. Franklin did—

  —I should have stopped looking! I should have left Themis alone. She knew. She killed me for it.

  —Mr. Couture and Ms. Resnik killed you, however unwillingly.

  —You don’t think it means anything that I was killed by the robot I put together? By the robot whose discovery put everyone’s lives at risk? I see poetic justice, but please tell me you at least find it a bit ironic.

  —You discovered parts of a very powerful weapon. There is risk in dealing with dangerous things. People die every day because of their proximity to handguns, or power tools, or chemical drain cleaner. You found a two-hundred-foot-tall alien weapon that weighs thousands of metric tons and is capable of destroying armies. You worked with it all day, every day. Had your insurance company been aware of what you were doing, your premiums would have increased a thousandfold. Your death was devastating, but it was also highly probable. Furthermore, I do not believe you had a choice. I suspect you were steered towards the hand by forces well beyond your control.

  You did, however, get a second chance. You are here now. You are here so that you can help us save people. You will not be able to save them all. I could have told you that long before the attack. But I am convinced that you can save some. That may not sound wonderful, but there is a strong possibility that saving some of us is the best that we can hope for at this juncture. With that in mind, and with all due respect to your disproportionate feeling of guilt, I would like to know what you have managed to learn since these bodies arrived from London.

  —They died a horrible death. There are a dozen medical examiners doing autopsies around the clock, but the twelve they’ve looked at all died the same way: extremely severe sepsis. Inflammation quickly spread throughout their entire body. They would have had a very high fever. Blood clotting would occur very quickly, restricting blood flow to the entire body. Without oxygen, all the major organs would start failing. The kidneys, liver, and lungs would go first, then death. They died burning up from the inside, gasping for air.

  Do you still think it was a good idea to bring children for a picnic around the alien robot?

  —I never thought of it as good. I merely stated that it might have been our best chance of showing them our peaceful nature. I still believe it was our best chance.

  —It didn’t work too well for these people.

  —It did not. Therefore, we must proceed knowing that peace is no longer an option. How long did it take for the victims to die?

  —It happened quickly. I’d say under a minute. We’re getting video surveillance from all over London. The gas reached a uniform height of 230 feet. It spread in a perfect circle, approximately twelve kilometers in every direction—that’s about 450 square kilometers—in just under eighteen minutes. Everyone was dead after twenty. The alien robot vanished shortly after. Has there been any sign of it?

  —It reappeared in Madrid almost immediately.

  —Are they evacuating?

  —General Govender is coordinating with local government in the thirteen cities under immediate threat.

  —The other robots, are they … ?

  —No. Fortunately for us, none of the others have sent out any gas, up to this point. We can assume it is only a matter of time before they do. If the survival rate is as low as it was in London, and only half of the population remains in these cities, we could have one hundred million dead within thirty minutes.

  —How many have survived? I was told only a few hundred.

  —We are finding more as rescue teams sweep the city. The latest figure I received had the number of survivors near fourteen hundred.

  —That’s still horribly low.

  —It is. Most of them were found within five kilometers of the point of origin. The density of the population affected decreases as we move away from it, as more people were able to get away. I would not expect the number of people who came into contact with the gas and survived to increase significantly from this point on.

  I have requested that some of the survivors be sent here for examination.

  —They’re here. They arrived an hour ago.

  —Have they been examined?

  —No, but they’ve all given blood
samples on the plane. We should have those results in an hour. I talked to four of them already. I’ll interview the rest when they come back. I sent them all to get something to eat.

  —How did they manage to stay clear of the deadly gas?

  —They didn’t. From what they told me, there was no way to escape it. They tried to seal themselves inside a room, block every orifice with whatever was at hand, but the fog—that’s what they called it—found its way in as if nothing was there to stop it. They say it came in through the walls. I know many of them didn’t even make it inside. Some were part of the group gathered around the alien robot. They were exposed to the gas, breathing it, for over an hour before it dissipated.

  —How did they survive? Were their symptoms any less severe?

  —What symptoms? They had none. They’re all perfectly healthy. That’s not true; one of them has a pretty nasty case of the flu, but I doubt it has anything to do with it. He says he’s been sick for days. Whatever this “fog” does, they’re completely immune to it.

  —Do you have any idea why?

  —No. They’re all physically very different. They come from different parts of the world. I’ll try to get as much information about them as I can, see if they share eating habits, some activity. It could be something they’re in contact with at work, or at home, the kind of soap they use, their shampoo. The ones I talked to aren’t on any medication. I’ll keep asking. It’s possible something will come up when I talk to the others but, in all honesty, I doubt I’ll find anything. There’s a six-year-old girl in that group and an eighty-year-old man. How much of their daily lives could they have in common? I’m not the one who should be doing this.

  —You should stop doubting yourself, Dr. Franklin. I have every confidence in your ability to solve this puzzle.

  —You keep talking about me like I’m some sort of savant. I’m not. I’m good at what I do, but this isn’t it. There is one thing, though. The person you want me to meet, the one who helped bring me forward in time, could he be a descendant of the aliens who left Themis here on Earth?

  —What if he were?

  —It’s just a thought, but if these people, the survivors, were descendants of the people who built Themis—they’re obviously not full-blown aliens but say they were only part human—it would make sense for the attackers to spare them.

  —I was thinking the very same thing. I find it extremely difficult to view the survival of the people that were brought here as coincidental. If, as my contact suggested, people of alien descent have been walking among us throughout history, they might have some form of immunity to the gaseous agent used in the attack. Can you think of a way to confirm this hypothesis?

  —Like I said, this isn’t my thing. I don’t have the knowledge or training to deal with any of this. What you need now is a geneticist.

  —I may know someone who can help.

  FILE NO. 1570

  INTERVIEW WITH DR. ALYSSA PAPANTONIOU

  Location: EDC Headquarters, New York, NY

  —Are the handcuffs really necessary?

  —They are not. This is a secure facility, and the odds of a successful escape are infinitesimal. However, given your history with the members of this team, I believe the restraints will help keep everyone at ease.

  —It’s really hard to work with my hands t … tied together.

  —The chain is fourteen inches long. I have requested it to allow you some freedom of movement. If any of the tasks you must perform require that your hands be farther apart, I have provided you with an assistant whose freedom of movement is unimpeded.

  —We’re on the sssame side. You realize that, don’t you?

  —You have made a habit of changing sides whenever it suited you.

  —Four million dead. What I meant was that there are no sides anymore. It’s us and them. I don’t think they would t … take me on their team even if I wan … even if I wanted to.

  —Sixty million people died during the Second World War. There are still sides.

  —How many dead will it take for you t … to trust me?

  —Rest assured, Ms. Papantoniou, I personally do not fear you. The restraints are not for me. That said, I believe that Mr. Couture would like you to keep them on even if you were the only two people left alive. That would make the answer to your question approximately 7,125,000,000.

  —Why is Vincent still here? Haven’t you sent Th … Themis?

  —What we have and have not done does not concern you. You were brought here for a very specific purpose.

  —I was just mmm … making conversation.

  —Then converse about the people who died in London. The medical examiner said they all died of sepsis.

  —Close enough.

  —Are you saying they did not die of sepsis?

  —Not exactly. They died of a systemic inflam … matory response, but sepsis implies there is an infection present. There’s no harmful pathogen in the gas, no virus, no b … no bacteria, at least that’s what I think.

  —What you think? Did you not analyze the gas samples they sent you?

  —There was nothing to analyze. The ca … canisters were empty when I received them. But, based on the cell samples I looked at, I believe the gas contains a really, really smart molecule, one that binds to long DNA chains and causes the gene to cr … create a different protein, one that the body doesn’t recognize. The body thinks every cell is infected and starts attacking itself. The reaction is extremely severe, and almost ins … tantaneous.

  —Is there anything out of the ordinary about the genetic makeup of the victims?

  —I didn’t check, but no.

  —I brought you here because of your expertise in genetics. I cannot understand why you would not see it fit to perform even the most basic genetic profiling on the victims.

  —I didn’t count the bodies in London m … myself, but the report you gave me says that about four million people were exposed to the gas, and that around two … two thousand people survived.

  —Exactly 1,988, by the latest count.

  —That’s about five out of ten thousand, 5 percent of 1 p … percent. That means 99.95 percent of the people exposed to the gaseous agent died. I don’t need to do a lot of t … testing to tell you that there’s nothing really unique about 99.95 percent of the population. The living, all 1,988 of them, are a lot more … interesting.

  —Very well. What can you tell me about the living? I trust you have at least examined the survivors we flew here.

  —I’ve done a full genome sequencing on all t … twenty-seven of them. They have really bad ge … genetics.

  —How so?

  —They all share a co … cocktail of genetic variations and mutations, most of which are bad for you. These people shouldn’t even exist.

  —Because of poor genetics?

  —Because of rrr … because of rare genetics. There shouldn’t be more than one person with all these anomalies.

  —Please explain.

  —There are little “errors” in everyone’s DNA. Most of them are SNPs—

  —Pardon me, I know very little about genetics.

  —They’re differences in only one base pair of nu … nucleotides, one pair of letters. Replace a T and an A with a G and a C, that t … type of thing. The vast majority of these differences are in noncoding areas between the ge … genes and no one really cares, or knows anything about them. Those that occur inside genes are usually more interesting, and we’re beginning to understand how … some of them work. Differences that are more common are called p … polymorphisms, those that occur in less than 1 percent of the population are called mutations. People shouldn’t share multiple mmm … mutations.

  —And the survivors do?

  —A lot of them. Enough so that the molecule in the alien agent doesn’t re … recognize any of the long DNA chains it�
�s looking for. This many people should definitely not share this mmmany mutations. It just doesn’t happen.

  —It obviously does. How unlikely is it?

  —Well, let me give you an example. All the people you s … sent me have a mutation in their TREM2 gene. One of the things TREM2 does is help re … regulate immune response to disease and injury in the brain. There are all sorts of mutations that can make TREM2 not function p … properly. These people all have the same one: variant R47H. That one is rare. It occurs in a little more than half a percent of the po … population in certain places like Iceland, and it’s even harder to find everywhere else. All of the survivors have the same TREM2 mutation, in both co … copies of the gene. That’s rare enough, I don’t even have frequencies for it.

  —Is it debilitating?

  —It’s been shown to increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s, but most people with the mutation won’t get the d … the disease, so no. There is also a mutation in the BCR2 gene. It increases your risk of br … breast cancer.

  —Do all the survivors have it?

  —They do. Both copies of the gene.

  —How uncommon is that mutation?

  —It’s ha … hard to tell. It’s more frequent in certain ethnic groups, but overall, it’s found in less than half of one percent of the general population. You see w … what I’m getting at. Assuming the two mutations are unrelated, half a percent times half a percent means that out of a mi … million people, you should only find about twenty-five with both mutations. Of course, that’s not all the survivors have in common.

  —Do all the mutations shared by the people you examined increase their risk of contracting a disease?

  —No. Most of them will have no effect at all. They do have one g … good thing going for them. They have a variation in their PCSK9 gene that leads to lower bad cho … cholesterol. That one is found in about 3 percent of the po … pulation. If you do the math: There should be no more than three people with just these three mutations in the four million who were exposed to the gas in London.