Relic

by Douglas Preston

  “And the rest of the Museum?”

  “We thought about sealing all five cells, but decided against it.”

  “Good,” said Pendergast, eyeing another panel. “In the event of a crisis, we wouldn’t want any emergency personnel to be hampered.” He pointed at the illuminated panel. “But what about the subbasement? The basement areas of this cell may well connect with it. And that subbasement could lead almost anywhere.”

  “Nobody would dare try to use that,” Ippolito snorted. “It’s a maze.”

  “But we’re not talking about an ordinary burglar. We’re talking about a killer that’s eluded every search you, I, or D’Agosta here have mounted. A killer that seems to call the subbasement home.”

  “There is only one stairwell connecting the Hall of the Heavens to other floors,” Ippolito explained patiently, “and it’ll be guarded by my men, just like the emergency exits. I’m telling you, we’ve got this figured out. The entire perimeter is going to be secure.”

  Pendergast examined the glowing map for some time [256] in silence. “How do you know this schematic is accurate?” he asked finally.

  Ippolito looked a little flustered. “Of course it’s accurate.”

  “I asked: how do you know?”

  “The system was designed straight off the architectural drawings from the 1912 reconstruction.”

  “No changes since then? No doors knocked open here, sealed off there?

  “All changes were taken into account.”

  “Did those architectural drawings cover the Old Basement and subbasement areas?”

  “No, those are older areas. But, like I told you, they’ll either be sealed or guarded.”

  There was a long silence while Pendergast continued to look at the panels. Finally, he sighed and turned to face the Security Director.

  “Mr. Ippolito, I don’t like it.”

  A throat was cleared behind them. “What doesn’t he like now?”

  D’Agosta didn’t have to turn around. That abrasive Long Island accent could belong only to Special Agent Coffey.

  “I’m just reviewing the security procedures with Mr. Pendergast,” said Ippolito.

  “Well, Ippolito, you’re gonna have to review them all over again with me.” He turned his narrow eyes on Pendergast. “Remember in the future to invite me to your private parties,” he said irritably.

  “Mr. Pendergast—” Ippolito began.

  “Mr. Pendergast is up here from the Deep South to give us a little help here and there when we need it. I’m running the show now. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Ippolito. He reviewed the procedures again while Coffey sat in an operator’s chair, twirling a set of earphones around his finger. D’Agosta wandered around the room, looking at the control panels. Pendergast listened carefully to Ippolito, looking for all the [257] world as if he hadn’t heard the speech before. When the Security Director finished, Coffey leaned back in his chair.

  “Ippolito, you got four holes in this perimeter.” He paused for effect. “I want three of them plugged. I want only one way in and one way out.”

  “Mr. Coffey, fire regulations require—”

  Coffey waved his hand. “Let me worry about the fire regulations. You worry about the holes in your security net. The more holes we have, the more trouble we have waiting to happen.”

  “That, I’m afraid, is precisely the wrong way to go,” Pendergast said. “If you close these three exits, the guests are going to be locked in. Should something happen, there would be only one way out.”

  Coffey spread his hands in a gesture of frustration. “Hey, Pendergast, that’s just the point. You can’t have it both ways. Either you have a secure perimeter or you don’t. Anyway, according to Ippolito here, each security door has an emergency override. So what’s your problem?”

  “That’s right,” said Ippolito, “the doors can be opened using the keypad in an emergency. All you need is the code.”

  “May I ask what controls the keypad?” asked Pendergast.

  “The central computer. The computer room is right next door.”

  “And if the computer goes down?”

  “We’ve got backup systems, with redundancies. Those panels on the far wall control the backup system. Each panel has its own alarm.”

  “That’s another problem,” said Pendergast quietly.

  Coffey exhaled loudly and spoke to the ceiling. “He still doesn’t like it.”

  “I counted eighty-one alarm lights on that bank of controls alone,” Pendergast continued, oblivious to Coffey. “In a true emergency, with multiple system failure, [258] most of those alarms would be blinking. No team of operators could deal with that.”

  “Pendergast, you’re slowing me down,” Coffey snapped. “Ippolito and I are going to work out these details, okay? We’ve got less than eight hours to show-time.”

  “Has the system been tested?” Pendergast asked.

  “We test it every week,” said Ippolito.

  “What I mean is, has it ever been put to the test in a real situation? An attempted theft, perhaps?”

  “No, and I hope it never is.”

  “I regret to say it,” said Pendergast, “but this strikes me as a system designed for failure. I’m a great advocate of progress, Mr. Ippolito, but I’d strongly recommend an old-fashioned approach here. In fact, during the party, I would disable the whole system. Just turn it off. It’s too complex, and I wouldn’t trust it in an emergency. What we need is a proven approach, something we are all familiar with. Foot patrols, armed guards at every ingress and egress point. I’m sure Lieutenant D’Agosta will provide us with extra men.”

  “Just say the word,” said D’Agosta.

  “The word is no.” Coffey began to laugh. “Jesus, he wants to disable the system right at the moment when it’s most needed!”

  “I must register my strongest objections to this plan,” said Pendergast.

  “Well, you can write up your objections, then,” said Coffey, “and send them by slow boat to your New Orleans office. Sounds to me like Ippolito here’s got things pretty well under control.”

  “Thank you,” Ippolito said, swelling visibly.

  “This is a very unusual and dangerous situation,” Pendergast continued. “It’s not the time to rely on a complex and unproven system.”

  “Pendergast,” said Coffey, “I’ve heard enough. Why don’t you just head down to your office and eat that catfish sandwich your wife put in your lunchbox?”

  [259] D’Agosta was startled at the change that came over Pendergast’s face. Instinctively, Coffey took a step back. But Pendergast simply turned on his heel and walked out the door. D’Agosta moved to follow him.

  “Where’re you going?” asked Coffey. “You better stick around while we work out the details.”

  “I agree with Pendergast,” D’Agosta said. “This isn’t the time to start messing with video games. You’re talking about people’s lives here.”

  “Listen up, D’Agosta. We’re the big boys, we’re the FBI. We’re not interested in the opinions of a traffic cop from Queens.”

  D’Agosta looked at Coffey’s sweaty red face. “You’re a disgrace to law enforcement,” he said.

  Coffey blinked. “Thank you, and I will note that gratuitous insult in my report to my good friend, Chief of Police Horlocker, who will no doubt take appropriate action.”

  “You can add this one, then: you’re a sack of shit.”

  Coffey threw back his head and laughed. “I love people who slit their own throats and save you the trouble. It’s already occurred to me that this case is much too important to have a lieutenant acting as NYPD liaison. You’re gonna be pulled off this case in twenty-four hours, D’Agosta. Did you know that? I wasn’t going to tell you until after the party-didn’t want to spoil your fun—but I guess now’s a good time after all. So put your last afternoon on this case to good use. And we’ll see you at the four o’clock briefing. Be on time.”

  D’Agosta said
nothing. Somehow, he wasn’t surprised.

  = 37 =

  An explosive sneeze rattled beakers and dislodged dried plant specimens in the Museum’s auxiliary botanical lab.

  “Sorry,” Kawakita apologized, sniffling. “Allergies.”

  “Here’s a tissue,” Margo said, reaching into her carryall. She’d been listening to Kawakita’s description of his genetic Extrapolator program. It’s brilliant, she thought. But I’ll bet Frock supplied most of the theory behind it.

  “Anyway,” Kawakita said, “you start with gene sequences from two animals or plants. That’s the input. What you get is an extrapolation—a guess from the computer of what the evolutionary link is between the two species. The program automatically matches up pieces of DNA, compares like sequences, then figures out what the extrapolated form might be. As an example, I’ll do a test run with chimp and human DNA. What we should get is a description of some intermediate form.”

  [261] “The Missing Link,” Margo nodded. “Don’t tell me it draws a picture of the animal, too?”

  “No!” Kawakita laughed. “I’d get a Nobel Prize if it could do that. What it does instead is give you a list of morphological and behavioral features the animal or plant might possess. Not definite, but probable. And not a complete list, of course. You’ll see when we finish this run.”

  He typed a series of instructions, and data began flowing across the computer screen: a rapid, undulating progression of zeros and ones. “You can turn this off,” said Kawakita. “But I like to watch the data download from the gene sequencer. It’s as beautiful as watching a river. A trout stream, preferably.”

  In about five minutes the data stopped and the screen went blank, glowing a soft blue. Then the face of Moe, from the Three Stooges, appeared, saying through the computer’s speaker: “I’m thinking, I’m thinking, but nothing’s happening!”

  “That means the program’s running,” Kawakita said, chuckling at his joke. “It can take up to an hour, depending on how far apart the two species are.”

  A message popped on the screen:

  ESTIMATED TIME TO COMPLETION: 3.03.40 min.

  “Chimps and humans are so close—they share ninety-eight percent of the same genes—that this one should be fairly quick.”

  A light bulb suddenly popped on the screen over Moe’s head.

  “Done!” said Kawakita. “Now for the results.”

  He pressed a key. The computer screen read:

  FIRST SPECIES:

  Species: Pan troglodytes

  Genus: Pan

  [262] Family: Pongidae

  Order: Primata

  Class: Mammalia

  Phylum: Chordata

  Kingdom: Animalia

  SECOND SPECIES:

  Species: Homo sapiens

  Genus: Homo

  Family: Hominidae

  Order: Primata

  Class: Mammalia

  Phylum: Chordata

  Kingdom: Animalia

  Overall Genetic Match: 98.4%

  “Believe it or not,” said Kawakita, “the identification of these two species was made solely on the genes. I didn’t tell the computer what these two organisms were. That’s a good way to show unbelievers that the Extrapolator isn’t just a gimmick or a kludge. Anyway, now we get a description of the intermediate species. In this case, as you said, the Missing Link.”

  Intermediate form morphological characteristics:

  Gracile

  Brain capacity: 750cc

  Bipedal, erect posture

  Opposable thumb

  Loss of opposability in toes

  Below average sexual dimorphism

  Weight, male, full grown: 55 kg

  [263] Weight, female, full grown: 45 kg

  Gestation period: eight months

  Aggressiveness: low to moderate

  Estrus cycle in female: suppressed

  The list went on and on, growing more and more obscure. Under “osteology,” Margo could make out almost nothing.

  Atavistic parietal foramina process

  Greatly reduced iliac crest

  10-12 thoracic vertebrae

  Partially rotated greater trochanter

  Prominent rim of orbit

  Atavistic frontal process with prominent zygomatic process

  That must mean beetle browed, thought Margo to herself.

  Diurnal

  Partially or serially monogamous

  Lives in cooperative social groups

  “Come on. How can your program tell something like this?” Margo asked, pointing to monogamous.

  “Hormones,” said Kawakita. “There’s a gene that codes for a hormone seen in monogamous mammal species, but not in promiscuous species. In humans, this hormone has something to do with pair bonding. It isn’t present in chimps, who are notoriously promiscuous animals. And the fact that the female’s estrus cycle is suppressed—you also see that only in relatively monogamous species. The program uses a whole arsenal of tools—subtle AI algorithms, fuzzy logic—to interpret [264] the effect of whole suites of genes on the behavior and look of a proposed organism.”

  “AI algorithms? Fuzzy logic? You’re losing me,” Margo said.

  “Well, it really doesn’t matter. You don’t need to know all the secrets, anyway. What it boils down to is making the program think more like a person than a normal computer would. It makes educated guesses, uses intuition. That one trait, ‘cooperative,’ for example, is extrapolated from the presence or absence of some eighty different genes.”

  “That’s all?” Margo said jokingly.

  “No,” Kawakita replied. “You can also use the program to guess at a single organism’s size, shape, and behavior by entering the DNA for one creature instead of two, and disabling the extrapolation logic. And assuming the funding holds up, I plan to add two other modules for this program. The first will extrapolate back in time from a single species, and the second will extrapolate forward. In other words, we’ll be able to learn more about extinct creatures of the past, and guess at beings of the future.” He grinned. “Not bad, huh?”

  “It’s amazing,” said Margo. She feared her own research project seemed puny by comparison. “How did you develop it?”

  Kawakita hesitated, staring at her a little suspiciously. “When I first started working with Frock, he told me he was frustrated by the spottiness of the fossil record. He said he wanted to fill in the gaps, learn what the intermediate forms were. So I wrote this program. He gave me most of the rule tables. We started testing it with various species. Chimps and humans, as well as various bacteria for which we had a lot of genetic data. Then an incredible thing happened. Frock, the old devil, was expecting it, but I wasn’t. We compared the domesticated dog with the hyena, and what we got was not a smoothly intermediate species, but a bizarre life form, totally different from either dog or hyena. This happened with a [265] couple of other species pairs, too. You know what Frock said to that?”

  Margo shook her head.

  “He just smiled and said, ‘Now you see the true value of this program.’ ” Kawakita shrugged. “You see, my program vindicated Frock’s theory of the Callisto Effect by showing that small changes in DNA can sometimes produce extreme changes in an organism. I was a little miffed, but that’s the way Frock works.”

  “No wonder Frock was so anxious that I use this program,” Margo said. “This can revolutionize the study of evolution.”

  “Yeah, except nobody is paying any attention to it,” said Kawakita bitterly. “Anything connected with Frock these days is like the kiss of death. It’s really frustrating to pour your heart and soul into something, and then just get ignored by the scientific community. You know, Margo, between you and me, I’m thinking of dumping Frock as an adviser and joining Cuthbert’s group. I think I’d be able to carry much of my work over with me. You might want to consider it yourself.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll stick with Frock,” Margo said, offended. “I wouldn’t have even gone into genetics if it weren�
�t for him. I owe him a lot.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Kawakita. “But then, you might not even stay at the Museum, right? At least, that’s what Bill Smithback tells me. But I’ve invested everything in this place. My philosophy is, you don’t owe anyone but yourself. Look around the Museum: look at Wright, Cuthbert, the whole lot. Are they out for anyone but themselves? We’re scientists, you and I. We know about survival of the fittest and ‘nature red in tooth and claw.’ And survival applies to scientists, too.”

  Margo looked at Kawakita’s glittering eyes. He was right in a way. But at the same time, Margo felt that human beings, having figured out the brutal laws of nature, could perhaps transcend some of them.

  [266] She changed the subject. “So the G.S.E. works the same way with plant DNA as with animal DNA?” “Exactly the same,” Kawakita replied, returning to his businesslike manner. “You run the DNA sequencer on two plant species, and then download the data into the Extrapolator. It’ll tell you how closely the plants are related, and then describe the intermediate form. Don’t be surprised if the program asks questions or makes comments. I added a lot of little bells and whistles here and there while I was developing my artificial intelligence chops.”

  “I think I’ve got the idea,” said Margo. “Thanks. You’ve done some amazing work.”

  Kawakita winked and leaned over. “You owe me one now, kid.”

  “Anytime,” said Margo. Kid. Owing him one. She disliked people who talked like that. And when Kawakita said it, he meant it.

  Kawakita stretched, sneezed again. “I’m off. Gotta grab some lunch, then go home and pick up my tux for the party tonight. I wonder why I even bothered to come in today—everybody else is home preparing for tonight. I mean, look at this lab. It’s deserted.”