GENESIX: THE TRILOGY

by Greg Logan

  “That’s why I’m trying to decode the disks.”

  “No, Scott!” Jeff turned away and took a breath so he wouldn’t shout. “We need real information. We need answers. And I can get them.”

  Chloe said, “Easy, Jeff.”

  But Jeff didn’t take it easy. He glared at Scott and almost shouted, “We’re facing an alien invasion! A potential world-changing event. Possibly an extinction level event. Every bit as devastating as an asteroid hitting us. Like,” he looked at his father, “that asteroid you stopped on Akila’s world. Doesn’t anyone get that?”

  Jake said, “We get that.”

  “The rules about polluting time lines can’t apply here. Don’t you see that? I did what I had to do. I got us some answers.”

  Scott took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Like he was making an effort to be patient. “Even still, we have to do things accordingly. You don’t just go off on your own and take things into your own hands.”

  “What? You expect me to ask you first? While you sit around and try to weigh all the possibilities, looking at the ethics of the situation and all of that? It’s no wonder nothing ever gets done around here.”

  Jake said, “Okay, that’ll be enough.”

  “You bet it will. When this is done, when this invasion is stopped, I quit.”

  Chloe said, “Jeff..,”

  “No. It’s time I said it. I’m not going to go around exploring other times and other planets, and all of that, while Scott trips over his own feet and fouls up time lines and everything. I’ve had enough of it. After this, I’m done.”

  Jake said, “I said, that’ll be enough.”

  “But for now, we need answers. And I’m going to get them. If you want to sit around and do nothing, debating your ethics and your philosophies, feel free to do so.”

  Scott said, “All right, what do you propose we do?”

  “I propose you look at the readings you took of that alien from back in 1880. Analyze his genetic code. And do so damn fast. There are shape-shifting aliens among us right now, and we have to find a way to identify them.”

  Scott looked at Jake, then back to Scott. “How do you know this?”

  “I talked to one of them. Sara Reid.”

  Chloe said, “Ashley’s sister? When did she tell you this? At the party?”

  “No. Seventeen years from now. You don’t want to know what they did to her. But she’s a shape-shifter and I think she’ll help us.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Scott said. “We have to examine..,”

  “No. We have to do something. Now.”

  “Jeff, we have to examine all of the possibilities. We can’t just go off half cocked..,”

  “Like you did on Akila’s world? You don’t just jump into another world like that, another time period, and then,” he looked at his father, “go off and do something drastic like you did. Stopping that asteroid.”

  Jake said, “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  “And yet, look at all the lives you disrupted. Millions. Literally.”

  Akila said nothing.

  Jake said, “You’re out of line.”

  “No. You’re out of line, Dad.” Jeff turned his gaze back to Scott. “And so are you. Quentin Jeffries was right, in a way. He was going about it all wrong, but he was right. Don’t you see? All of the power you have here. The two of you and the entire team. And yet what do you do? Sometimes you think something through to death and fail to take advantage of opportunities, and other times you just jump in without even knowing the situation and cause more problems than you can fix. Look at 1880. You had me take you back there on a fact-finding mission, but we weren’t prepared at all. The alien responsible for the genesis gene was killed, and his plan to stop the invasion has been mucked up. His entire operation destroyed. And it was I who had to kill him, even though he was really on our side.”

  Scott said, “Admittedly, that didn’t go as planned.”

  “Well, now we have a new plan. We’re going to win this war. That’s what we’re going to do. Because, believe me, it is war. Get working on analyzing that alien genetic code. Forget figuring out their language. I’ll be right back.”

  Scott said, “Where are you going?”

  But Jeff was already gone.

  SIX

  Sara Reid stepped into the girl’s room at Branham High School. She was in a tank top and jeans, and had a purse slung over her shoulder. Her strawberry blonde hair was tied back into a tail and she had ear buds in. She chewed on a piece of gum, even though the school rules didn’t allow it.

  She stepped into the stall and shut the door and did her business. When the toilet flushed and she opened the door again, she found a guy standing there in front of her.

  She stopped and took a step back. Then she recognized him. The guy she had met at Ashley’s college party a couple weeks ago.

  “Jeff?” she said.

  He was wearing the strangest looking suit. One piece, made of what looked like some sort of nylon material. A belt holding what looked like a Blackberry and a small flashlight.

  “Sara,” he said. He couldn’t believe how spellbound he felt himself becoming when he looked into those eyes. The anger he had felt toward Scott and his father was quickly fading.

  “Jeff,” she said, “what are you doing here?”

  “Have you eaten?” he said.

  “What? Eaten?”

  “Lunch. Have you eaten?”

  “Not yet. Not for..,” she glanced at her watch, “another twenty minutes.”

  “Good. I almost got thrown-up on once already today. Hang on.”

  He grabbed her arm, and before she could say what? they were gone into the time stream.

  They arrived in the lab at the facility. Scott was still standing where he had been ten seconds earlier when Jeff had abruptly departed. April was still sitting on the table. Chloe had her bottle of water in hand. Chuck was standing beside her, trying but failing to look discrete while he checked her out. Dad standing there like he wanted to reprimand Jeff severely.

  Sara staggered back, but Jeff caught her before she could fall. “Easy, there. This kind of thing can be a little disorienting if you’re not braced for it.”

  Chloe took Sara’s arm, and said, “Are you okay?”

  “Chloe?” Sara said. “Is Ashley here?”

  “No. But everything’s all right.”

  Sara looked at Jeff, “How...did you..?’

  Jeff said, “It’s a lot to explain. But first we have to start by telling you we know what you are.”

  She looked at him with confusion.

  Scott said, “Jeff, this has gone on far enough. You’re scaring this poor girl.”

  Jeff said, “Run a quick scan.”

  Sammy was there, also. With the central computer down, there was no monitoring to be done in the alcove. All the screens were dead.

  He said, “A scan for what? We can’t identify the shape-shifter genetic coding, yet.”

  “Not for that. For a small device implanted in her head. On the left side. They call it a controller box.”

  Sara looked at him for a second. Just a second too long. Then said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do. But hang on. Sammy?”

  Sammy nodded. “Toss me your tricorder.”

  “Sammy,” Scott said. “We can’t go along with this. I can’t condone him just grabbing people and pulling them in here like this. What Jeff just did is awfully close to kidnapping.”

  But Jeff tossed his tricorder to Sammy.

  Sammy tapped some figures quickly onto the touch-screen. He was entering binary code, his fingers working so fast it was hard for Jeff to follow them. The tricorder then hummed.

  Sammy said, “Indeed, she has a device in her cranium. Attached to the left side of her skull.”

  “Now, wait-a-minute,” Sara said. “You people are nuts.”

  Sammy said, “It’s emitting a subspace signal.”

&nbs
p; Scott looked at him incredulously.

  April said to Scott, “What do we do? What’s our next move?”

  But Jeff wasn’t waiting for Scott. He looked at Chloe. “Do your thing. Disable that box.”

  Chloe was about to glance to Scott or Jake for confirmation, but decided not to bother. Jeff had asked her to do it. That was all the confirmation she needed.

  She didn’t even need to close her eyes for this one. She could feel the tech inside Sara’s head. She just reached out with her mind and engaged with the device.

  “Nano-tech,” Chloe said. “Micro-circuitry. Extremely sophisticated stuff. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Jeff said, “It’s alien tech. Can your ability work on it?”

  She said, “Oh, yeah. It might be alien, but it’s still tech. I’m shutting it off.”

  And she did. Just like that.

  Sammy, looking at the digital read-out, said, “The signal has stopped transmitting. Electronic activity within the device has ceased.”

  But Sara didn’t need Sammy’s report to know the controller box was dead. She could feel it.

  She stepped back, her eyes widening in what Jeff though was a look of horror, but then realized was overwhelming joy. He had never seen joy like this before. Tears streamed down her face.

  “I’m free!” she shouted. She pumped her arms into the air and fell to her knees, and was crying and laughing.

  Chloe knelt beside her and held her. April joined her. Sara was shaking and crying and screaming with joy.

  Scott stood speechless.

  Jeff said to him, “Don’t just stand around looking smart. Get to work on that alien genetic coding. And let’s get that box out of her head. I know you can do two things at once. That four-dimensional thinking, and all of that.”

  Sara managed to get to her feet, and she threw her arms around Jeff in a hug that was so powerful it almost brought them both down to the floor.

  He wrapped his arms around her, and they just squeezed each other for a minute.

  She said, “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” he said.

  She nodded. “Words don’t cover it.”

  “I have to know,” he said. “Will you stand with us?”

  She stepped back and nodded again, wiping away the tears. “What do you need?”

  “To stop that fleet.”

  She nodded again. “Whatever I can do. Just tell me.”

  “First, will Ashley work with us?”

  “Yes. I think so. I’m sure of it.”

  Chloe brought one hand to her mouth as the realization struck her. “Ashley’s an alien.”

  “Oh yeah,” Sara said.

  Jeff looked to Scott and his father. “I’m going to get her. Be right back.”

  And he was gone again.

  SEVEN

  Ashley did the predictable thing and lost her lunch on the lab floor. Jeff was getting good at stepping back after he pulled someone forcibly through the time stream. When he had brought Scott and April back to 1880, they had been prepared for it and had braced themselves. Scott seemed to be able to handle it all right. Probably that four-dimensional thing going on in his brain. But April had still found it a little dizzying. But to just grab someone unannounced and pull them through could do terrible things to the equilibrium.

  The problem was, when you were in the time stream, there was no longer any sense of past, present or future. That stuff only seemed to be in effect once you were out of the time stream. But when you were within it, all seemed to be happening at once and the human mind wasn’t set up to handle this kind of thing. Fortunately, the journey from the dorm room Chloe and Ashley shared to the mountain facility took only about a second in real time. But for the human mind to lose all sense of past, present and future for even a second could be overwhelming if you weren’t prepared for it.

  It never bothered Jeff. He figured it was part of being a time traveler. But poor Ashley was on her hands and knees on the floor.

  Things went predictably with Ashley. First she denied knowing anything about shape-shifters or aliens and acted like they were all crazy. Then Chloe shut off the controller box, and Ashley was free and wept uncontrollably for a while.

  “Are you with us?” Jeff said to her.

  “After what they did to our mother,” she said, tears forming rivulets down her face, “I’m with you all the way.”

  Scott went about conducting a deep scan on both of girls, which meant nothing more than asking them to stand still for twenty seconds while his tricorder did the work.

  “This is going to be slower going than usual,” Scott said to Jake and Jeff, who were both standing by. Sammy was there, also, along with April. “With the central computer down, we’ll have to do this manually, with tricorders.”

  Jake said, “Is there any way you can link the tricorders?”

  Scott nodded thoughtfully. “The tricorders do have the ability to link together wirelessly. It would increase their processing strength. But it’ll only last until they run out of power. There’s no way to recharge them, now.”

  Scott and Sammy each held a tricorder. Scott’s was beaming its findings over to Sammy’s.

  Sammy said to the girls, “You know, just based on these readings, there is nothing to indicate you are anything other than human.”

  Ashley was standing still while Scott ran his scan on her. Ashley was a little taller than Sara and her hair was a walnut brown and fell fully out and over her shoulders. Sara was sitting on a stool with a bottle of water.

  Ashley said, “That’s because, essentially, we are human. We’re exact copies of the original Ashley and Sara, right down to the most minute genetic coding.”

  April said, “Are you actually squid-like things? With tentacles? Like that alien we saw in the past?”

  Ashley shrugged. “Apparently. I’ve never seen a member of our species in their true form. Sara and I were shaped into human infants when we were only a few days old. We were shaped right down to our DNA, and they used a medical procedure to lock us into this shape. This way we can maintain the shape consistently. It also would take a medical procedure to unlock us. Again, this is all based on what I’ve been told.”

  “How does the shape-changing ability work?” Scott said.

  “I have absolutely no idea. I’ve never done it, myself.”

  “So,” April said, “if you’re human, right down to the DNA...”

  “We’re human in every aspect. Emotionally, included. This was used against us when they tortured our mother to death right in front of us. To frighten us. Apparently in our species’ natural form, they don’t have emotions. At least, not like humans. But since Sara and I are essentially human, they were able to use fear as a way of motivating us. There’s a lot of dissension in the ranks, and they’re using any tactic they can to retain control.”

  Sara sat and drank her water. Ashley was the scientist, between the two of them. She had a much greater understanding of the whole process. And she thought like a scientist.

  April said, “You always refer to your species as your species. Doesn’t it have a name?”

  “Sure. But the language is based on the verbal sounds they make when in their natural form. Lots of hisses and whooshing sounds and squeals and stuff. I’ve only heard a recording of it a couple of times. Sounds you can’t even begin to make it with a human mouth.”

  Scott ceased the scan. “Thanks, Ashley.”

  He looked at Jeff. “I can’t see what good this is doing, really. As far as these scans indicate, these are just two girls. One’s seventeen, and the other’s twenty. And we didn’t have time to get a very tricorder reading the alien from the past. I’m not sure we can come up with any kind of method of screening for them, especially with the central computer down.”

  Ashley hopped up on a lab table to sit. “Then, don’t scan for aliens. Just scan for the controller box. We all have one, and outside of this facility you won’t
find anything like it technologically.”

  Scott glanced at Jeff. “That could work.”

  Jeff was still in his battle suit. He began to pace impatiently. “We’re still not doing enough. What’ll it take to get the generators in this place working?”

  “Well,” Scott said, “first we have to repair the central computer. Which will mean replacing most of the components, since you and your father tore them to shreds.”

  Chloe said, “You know, I can probably feel the presence of a controller box, too. Now that I know what to look for.”

  “From how far away?” Scott said.

  She shrugged. “Fifty feet. Maybe more.”

  Jeff said. “Good. That’ll serve as an asset. But we have to get the power up and running in this place so we can recharge the tricorders. And this time, the generators have to run independently of the central computer. That was another mistake.”

  “Hey,” Jake snapped. “I’m getting a little tired of that attitude.”

  “Yeah, Jeff,” Chloe said. “What’s with you? I mean, I know this is important, but, jeeze. Lighten up a little, will you?”

  Scott said, “You’re not acting like yourself at all.”

  Jeff wheeled on him. “You didn’t see what I saw. Telling you about it just doesn’t do it justice. You have to have been there, to have seen what a ruin the world had become.”

  “All right. You saw it, and it had an impact. I’ll grant you that. And I haven’t seen it.”

  “Maybe you should have.”

  “Well, that’s all moot now.”

  Jeff walked over and placed an arm around Scott’s shoulders. “Maybe not.”

  Jeff smiled, and said, “You ready to pull a Marty McFly?”

  “A what?”

  “Ready to go back to the future?”

  And then they were gone.

  EIGHT

  Jeff and Scott were gone for seven hours. While they were gone, the team busied themselves preparing the tricorders to scan for controller boxes. While Sara had no knowledge of the native language of the aliens, Ashley had been schooled in it – she couldn’t physically speak it but she could read it - and volunteered to have a look at the data disks. Sammy and Jake checked out the electrical system, but they were going to need to acquire materials in order to build a control panel so the generator could be turned on and off from the computer alcove. April got into her battle suit and zipped off to Boulder and returned with a few bags of Wendy’s. Burgers and salads and tubs of chili.