by JC Ryan
The only good news was that with three of the victims identified as having come from the same area of London as the most recent, people were looking out for each other more in the slums, and work had begun on repairing or replacing the neglected CCTV cameras.
Aside from the ongoing work of eliminating the archaeology students who weren’t responsible, MI6 was working overtime to connect any archaeology student to the Nabatean conspiracy. The only thread they had to go on was the link between the Nabateans and archaeology. It was a thin one, indeed, but also the reason they’d asked for the loan of Carter Devereux for the investigation. Now that Devereux had left the area, they were making no progress at all, and they weren’t happy about it. Some of the team had even begun to blame Devereux for their lack of progress.
Eventually, a call went to Irene O’Connell to request her to force Devereux back to London. Irene didn’t appreciate the approach.
“Tell me exactly why you think Carter can be of any help. He’s not a detective by any stretch of the imagination. Catching murderers is not his job.”
“But these murders may be linked to the Nabateans. Some of them are old enough.”
“Pardon my Americanism, but that’s BS,” she replied. “Carter told me there was no evidence whatsoever for that link other than the carvings on the bones of just two of the older victims. I think you’re grasping at straws.”
“If straws are all we have to grasp, then grasp them we will,” the investigator on the other end of the call said hotly. “The evidence is that archaeology is involved.”
“No, an archaeologist may be involved, but that’s not even a straw,” she answered. “I’m sorry, but Devereux is involved in something important to him right now. I won’t order him back to London. Call me if you find anything else to convince you the Nabateans are involved, but we cleaned out that lot last year. We have no reason to believe they’re still active.”
After ending the call, Irene looked around her office for something to throw but found nothing that wouldn’t make her regret the action. Sometimes her job was too frustrating for words. But there was no way in hell she was going to admit to anyone, much less MI6, that Carter was looking for the Minotaur. Just in case she was missing something, though, she called him.
“How’s it going?” she asked when she had him on the line.
“Not well, I’m afraid. Merrybeth is torn between rescuing her daughter and betraying a trust the dolphins have been keeping for thousands of years.”
“How many thousands?”
“Hard to say. The stories of the Minotaur that we know today originated in the century before the Christian era. But the story is likely much older. Most of these myths were passed down by word of mouth before being written down. The palace where the Labyrinth was supposed to have been was built around 1800 BC.”
“So, three or four thousand years, give or take?”
“At least.”
“The dolphins don’t really believe this thing existed, do they?”
“They seem to. Apparently, they have a story of their own, of one of their kind witnessing it tearing the head off a teenaged girl.”
“Do dolphins have mythology?”
“I guess that remains to be seen.”
“Carter, are you taking this seriously?”
“There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” he quoted.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Shakespeare said it, but I’ve lived it, Irene. Who could have believed there were actually giants in the earth?”
“Good point. Well, I called to tell you MI6 wants you back in London. I put them off for now, but we may get pressure.”
“I can’t leave here without resolving this issue, Irene, pressure or no pressure.”
“What do you want me to tell them if they call again?”
“Tell them if I have to, I’ll resign from A-Echelon before I’ll break loose from here. But I could use your support here. We may need a submarine, or something I haven’t even thought of yet.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not kidding. Isn’t this perfect for our mission? Investigating ancient weapons?”
“What weapon?”
“Why, the Minotaur, of course. Can you imagine an army of these things? That would freak out an enemy, for sure.”
“You send me a picture of a live one, and I’ll do whatever you need. And don’t you dare even think about resigning!”
“I need to go, Irene. Looks like we’re getting ready to follow Merrybeth.”
19
MERRYBETH LED THE way to a spot near where she and Carter had met the day before. She wanted to show him the place they’d guarded so many years, but she told him there was no longer a way into the cave system from that place. It had been, as she put it, many, many, many suns since they’d checked the entrance. If they’d known the monster couldn’t escape from there, they would not have been guarding it. But they’d stayed far enough away that they couldn’t see it, yet close enough to prevent approach.
Carter prepared to dive with SCUBA equipment, so he could follow her to the spot. While the boat could have come closer, he had no authority to approach inside Cretan waters. As a tourist, he could have, but if A-Echelon became involved, he’d need to be circumspect about respecting sovereign territory.
Before they left, Merrybeth gave him a description of what they’d see. “The water is much deeper now than it was when we started guarding, Carter. This entrance was once partly above the water, and then there was a long part below water that opened into the cave system. We could not go farther than the first cave, because the river that made the caves came out a small crack in the rock. But we know there were other caves beyond the first one. Land-humans we befriended told us.”
Carter tried to calculate how long ago that must have been. The giants lived about 70,000 years ago. They understood dolphin speech as well as the dolphins now understood his. Had the sea grown deeper since then? Or had the land sunk? Probably both, he realized. He was no geologist, but the strata he’d dug through on some of his sites made it clear the earth had undergone many changes, even in so short a relative time.
“Merrybeth, were the land-humans larger than we are now?”
“I think so. Not as large as those you call the giants, but larger than you, Carter.”
Carter was tall, maybe a bit taller than average, at over six feet. He knew that the men who’d worn ancient armor were much smaller. So, humans – land-humans – had undergone radical shrinkage, most likely due to poor nutrition as well as in response to oxygen levels diminishing. Now they were experiencing a rapid growth spurt as a species.
He settled on an arbitrary estimate that the dolphins had guarded this cave entrance for perhaps half the interval between the giant’s times and now. Maybe 30,000 years. When he thought about how long that was in dolphin generations, it amazed him that they could remember. Land-humans, he thought, could barely remember yesterday if it wasn’t written down. Whenever he got new insight into dolphin intelligence, he became more convinced that they were actually more intelligent than his own kind in many ways.
He slipped over the side after his crew checked his SCUBA gear and grasped Merrybeth’s dorsal fin as they’d agreed. Having her tow him would conserve his air supply, and they’d make better time as well, even though she would surface for air every few minutes. When they got near the place, he’d swim on his own, to allow her to conserve her own air. It would be a long dive for her.
They swam as fast as they could without ripping Carter’s hand off Merrybeth’s fin. Even so, Carter’s tank was less than half full when they reached the spot where Merrybeth indicated they’d need to separate. Carter let go of her fin and nodded. Merrybeth surfaced for a minute, and then swam past him at a near-vertical angle. Carter followed, seeing immediately that they were following a slope of land.
At about 15 meters in depth, Merrybeth entered an openi
ng and disappeared. Carter followed, trusting they wouldn’t be underwater more than seven or eight minutes, as Merrybeth would need air by then. At ten minutes, with no end to the tunnel they were traveling in sight, he began to worry about Merrybeth. At twelve minutes, he started worrying about getting back himself.
But a minute later, the close confines of the tunnel opened out, and Merrybeth swam upwards. As he followed, finally breaking out of the water into a low-ceilinged cave, Carter checked his watch. Merrybeth had held her breath for an astonishing fifteen minutes. They were still at about fifteen meters below his starting point, so the tunnel must have taken a downward turn. He pulled the mouthpiece away to breathe the air in the cave and found it fresh enough.
His demand valve would only deliver gas from his tank while he was inhaling, so he was saving the rest for the trip back. Merrybeth bobbed up and down to signal him to follow her, and he did, but swimming on the surface. He considered climbing out, but when he made to do so, she stopped him, the translator screaming at him that it wasn’t safe. Instead, he swam, finding it awkward to do it with the tank on his back while staying at the surface.
But they didn’t have far to go. The dim light from the bioluminescent organisms in the cave hadn’t shown him just how close the far wall was. He estimated they’d gone less than ten yards when they ran into another rift in the rock, this one too narrow to pass through.
“Does it widen underwater?” he asked aloud. Merrybeth whistled ‘no’, a word he recognized even without the translator.
“Okay. Is this the cave where your ancestor saw the Minotaur?”
This time Merrybeth answered, “Yes.”
“And there is no other entrance?” Carter realized his mistake immediately. Merrybeth would know of no other entrance if it was approached from the land. If the cave entrance was now further under sea level than it had been, then it was possible other entrances were buried under land strata as well. He’d have to get out of the water and explore the cave to find out. But Merrybeth was violently opposed to that plan, as he’d already discovered.
“You don’t believe your daughter is here?” he ventured.
Again, she whistled ‘no’. She was being briefer than usual, but when Carter asked her to explain why he shouldn’t get out and explore, she didn’t answer.
“Then let’s go back to the boat. I have some questions.”
The dolphin took off so quickly that Carter was rushed to jam the mouthpiece back in. He had no time to check his pressure, but even if he didn’t have quite enough gas, he still had to go out through the tunnel. He just hoped if he ran out of air, he could hold his breath long enough to get to the surface.
The trip back to the boat took longer than the trip out, mostly because Carter had run out of air in his tank before they got all the way back, so the last six miles were done at the surface. This time it was Merrybeth’s need to dive and cool off that slowed them. But Carter was still grateful for the tow. He didn’t think he had it in him to swim six miles on the surface with an awkward tank on his back.
The experience brought home to him the problems they’d face when they located Carmen. There was no way he’d make the 12-mile swim to land again. It was time to officially involve A-Echelon. He didn’t envy Irene her task of convincing the Greek government that a dolphin had told him her daughter was being held hostage until they revealed the hiding place of a mythical creature that the dolphins believed was real.
20
“HOW DID HE do?” Mackenzie dropped in at the vet lab to check on Methuselah later on the day of the ethics debate.
“He survived the surgery. I won’t really know more for a few days.”
Mackenzie had only known her assistants for a few weeks, but she could read that the veterinarian still wasn’t happy at being required to reverse the surgery. “Can we talk? Is it okay to leave him for a while? I’d like to get some air,” she explained.
He nodded brusquely. “All right.”
Mackenzie led the way outside. From previous rambles, she knew he could keep up with her outdoor stride, long steps taken quickly. It covered ground, and soon led them to a wooded area where Mackenzie liked to walk and think. She hoped it would calm his nerves as well.
“You understand why we had to put Methuselah through that, don’t you?”
“Yes. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
Gently, she probed further. “Is this work too much for you? Do you want to leave?”
“No, Mackenzie. I’m sorry. I understand that it’s important, and that my animals will potentially suffer.” He lifted his hands in a gesture of defeat. “I’ve been fired for this before, you know. I’ll do my duty, whether or not I like it.”
She put her hand on his arm, stopping under a tree whose spreading limbs lent a dappled shade to its shelter. “I admire your heart for the animals. I won’t fire you, but I can’t have your attitude spreading discontent among the others. Can you find a way to temper its expression?”
He smiled. “That’s the loveliest reprimand I’ve ever received. I’ll do my best, Mackenzie.”
“That’s all I ask. Now, do you have any idea why the respirocyte generator would have created a change in Methuselah’s personality?”
“Honestly? I’ve wracked my brain, and I can’t. Unless…”
“Unless?” she prompted.
“The damn things are so tiny. What if one of the three we implanted migrated out of his lungs and into his brain?”
Mackenzie considered the idea. “I don’t know if it’s possible, but if it did, how would you see it working in the way it did?”
“I’d have to consult with the others. I don’t know whether excess oxygen in the brain could result in a personality change, or not. But maybe that’s the reason for the IQ change. And maybe that is the reason for the personality change.”
“You think being smarter also makes him a bully?” Mackenzie smiled. The notion seemed preposterous.
“I’ve known geniuses who were antisocial and felt themselves superior to others.”
Mackenzie’s smile died. She remembered a few of those herself. The mother-son team who’d led the Nabatean conspiracy were certainly geniuses, and certifiable sociopaths. “That would complicate our research considerably. Can you devise some IQ tests for the other rats, so we’ll have a baseline when we give them the respirocytes?”
“No need. There have been plenty of tests for lab rat intelligence. The most famous one, devised at Tokai University in Tokyo, had to do with the breeding of super-intelligent rats with which to test the effects of chemicals used in agriculture. Whether they would adversely affect intelligence in humans.”
“Fascinating.”
“Indeed. They spent thirty years breeding a line of genius rats.”
“Are you thinking of asking them whether those rats were antisocial?”
“Oh, no. I was just thinking about the intelligence tests they gave them. Rats vary wildly in intelligence, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know.”
“Well, they do. Listen, can we go back? You’ve got me curious now.”
“In a moment. Your idea about the respirocyte generators is also intriguing. Did you examine the capsule you took out of Methuselah to determine if all three generators were still in it?”
“No. But I didn’t dispose of it. We can do that now.”
“Get the engineers involved. We need to know.”
Before Methuselah was fitted with the nanobots, the group had determined together that the lungs were the best place for the respirocyte generators to be inserted, and the article in the Library of the Giants had seemed to corroborate the conclusion. The article had not indicated how to keep them there, however. The trio of engineers had been pressed to further miniaturize the devices, as the giants’ lungs were so much larger than today’s humans that making them on the same scale would create a device a modern human would be able to feel and involuntarily try to clear by coughing.
The miniaturiza
tion, however, presented another problem. How to affix the devices to stay put. The answer had been to encapsulate them in an impossibly fine mesh, which could be inserted inside an individual alveolus. One ‘capsule’, which looked nothing like the infinitely larger medial capsules one would think of when hearing the word, could hold three of the 500 nanometer-sized respirocyte generators. This number was calculated to be a little less than half what a human would be able to carry without feeling it, based on the average alveolus size of a mature rat being approximately half that of a human.
The surgery to insert the capsule was relatively simple. They had determined that, since the rat would not be able to feel the capsule, no involuntary expulsion would occur. The veterinarian had merely to insert a superfine needle with the capsule in the nozzle using an image-guided microscope. Due to the small size of the subject, only one surgeon could do the work, but the others observed. When Mackenzie questioned them one by one, no one could recall seeing anything that might have ruptured the capsule mesh to allow the generators to escape. But examination under the scanning electron microscope would give them the definitive answer.
As soon as the nano-engineer had done the examination, he reported to Mackenzie. “I think we can say the problem is solved. There was a tear in the mesh. You’d have to ask a pulmonary expert to tell you how it migrated from there, and where it might have gone.”
“I’m glad to know you were able to confirm the mechanism, but our problem is by no means solved. Now we have two problems. One – does a respirocyte generator in the brain, if that’s where it went, cause antisocial behavior, and if so, how. And two – how do we prevent this outcome when we begin to test on human subjects.”
A talk with her clinician, her research assistant, and the veterinarian convinced her there were in fact three problems. The only way to know if the missing generator was in Methuselah’s brain was to euthanize him, section his brain painstakingly, and search with the electron microscope. The veterinarian was devastated.