Paradeisia: The Complete Trilogy: Origin of Paradise, Violation of Paradise, Fall of Paradise

by B. C. CHASE

  He switched off his headlights and pulled his SUV up over the curb and onto an area clear of brush where he had a view of the loading dock at the back of the structure.

  This had been the only address he could find for “Biocertica.” He figured that if they had any illicit pickups, they would happen at night. So here he was, waiting in the dark.

  For a long time, nothing happened and he alternated between wondering what he was doing there and if he should go home. He hadn't told Stacy where he was going. He knew she would probably tell him to stay home and it would turn into an argument. Whenever they spoke anymore, that’s what it was; an argument. Every time.

  Finally, at three twenty-seven, there was movement. A black Mercedes cargo van pulled into the parking lot and slowly drove around to the back of the building. It backed up almost to the dock, which was much taller than the floor of the van. Two men emerged from the front doors and stepped around to open the van's rear cargo bay. They hopped up inside together, and, after a bit, Gary saw a long black box being pushed out. The men appeared again and grasped handles on each side. As they extracted it fully, Gary got a good view. It was the size of a coffin.

  The figures carried it up a ramp to the top of the dock and set it down. One of them pushed a button on an intercom at a door which opened after only a short time.

  A middle-aged, overweight woman holding a screen came out. She motioned to the box. One of the men unsnapped some latches and flipped open the lid. He moved his arms into the box and grappled something inside—Gary couldn't see what.

  When the man pulled his arms up out of the box, Gary almost jumped at what he saw. The man had jerked a child upright by his hair. The child's large eyes belied a state of shocked terror.

  He was a very young boy, maybe only two or three.

  To a man who had lost his son only weeks before, the scene was mind-numbing. The pieces suddenly came together for him. He had found an answer here that he wasn't looking for. This was the explanation to his son's disappearance. Jeffery was kidnapped by Biocertica. This facility was where his little boy's short life had ended.

  How had he not thought of this? He had been in the business of using biological samples for years. He knew how expensive they were and how difficult it was to procure the right ones. And yet, day in and day out, the perfect samples arrived at Cognitive LifeScience. Samples that aligned with whatever the secret Preseption project required. How else could they obtain so many samples of such a specific nature?

  What had made him so blind? Was it the money? Had a deep, dark part of his mind immunized him against the fact that the samples rolling in were too good to be true?

  He wasn't the only one running samples at Cognitive—far from it. Hundreds of scientists were at the facility running hundreds of samples. His own child, his little boy could have been sent to the very building where he worked. Gary lowered his head, putting his face in his hands. How many other families had lost someone precious; someone who had ended up in bloody pieces on his lab table?

  When he looked up again, the woman was holding her screen out and comparing a portrait image on it to the little boy in the clutches of the man before her.

  She nodded her approval and the boy was shoved back into the box, the lid slammed shut, and the latches locked. As the men lifted the box to carry it through the door, Gary's feelings of regret were now transforming into a hot rage.

  He opened his glove box and slipped out a handgun. He relished the feel of it. Resting the gun on his lap, he quickly pulled up Jarred Kessler on his speed dial.

  There were a couple of rings, but a sleepy sounding answer came. “This is Jarred.”

  “I know what happened to Jeffery. I need help now.”

  The reply he received stunned him: “Don't call me. I'm off the case.”

  “But I found—”

  “The case is closed.”

  And the line went dead.

  Towson, Maryland

  The good news for Wesley Peterson was that his test results had come through and he had been cleared to leave Towson.

  The bad news was that his mother couldn't be cleared. They couldn't clear her because they couldn't run the test on her. They couldn't run the test on her because she was only one of thousands of infected and possibly infected.

  They had evicted his mother from the hospital because it was overrun; high-risk and emergency patients had taken precedence. Because his mother couldn't leave Towson, they were sleeping in a large U.S. Army tent at Robert E. Lee Park, a forested wilderness area. They shared the tent with thirteen other people, all of them men; and even with all those bodies it was still freezing. They had been promised that this crowded state of affairs was only temporary as the Army erected more tents. But as more trees were cleared and more tents went up, it seemed those were immediately being filled by a constant stream of new refugees.

  In the tent, there was only one electric outlet in the form of an extension cord, and competition was fierce with electric toothbrushes, cell phones, shavers, and other essentials sucking power. When Wesley was lucky enough to have his cell phone charged, getting call through wasn’t possible. The lines were too busy.

  Aggravating the situation further were signs everywhere with a Red Cross number to call for missing persons. But of course with no working phones, getting through was hopeless.

  There was only one TV that he knew of in the entire camp, and it was watched religiously by a crowd of hundreds day and night. The irony was that the reporters couldn't get inside Towson to find out what was going on, but all the quarantined who were already inside Towson didn't know what was going on either.

  Wesley got most of his news by word-of-mouth. So far, most of what he had learned was nothing more than camp gossip. For example, a group of environmentalists had decided the Army shouldn't be bulldozing the trees, even though there was no space otherwise, and had staged a tree-hugging protest. This lasted for days with the camp administrator reluctant to infringe on any constitutional rights, fearing legal repercussions. Finally, someone in the Army had decided enough was enough and had the protesters forcefully removed and placed in internment.

  Now, tents stretched over the hills everywhere within sight, and still it seemed that room was running out.

  The lavatory situation was awful. Comprised of rows of portables in the mud, the lines were long and the stench was unbearable.

  Showers were rationed, and getting a spot at one of the plastic sinks for dental hygiene was a nightmare. It was so bad that fights broke out.

  Recently, a constant, billowing smoke had appeared in the east and ash had begun to rain down on them like a constant snow, only it was gray and foul.

  The worst, however, was the boredom. People were left with nothing to do but idle around the camp. Gas was not available in Towson any longer, so anyone who was lucky enough to have access to a car couldn't use it. Certain areas of the town were blocked off by soldiers and Humvees anyway.

  One thing appeared certain; they weren't getting out any time soon. That is, Wesley could get out any time he wished, of course, due to his negative test result. But his mother was stuck here, and he wouldn't leave her without a very good reason.

  So Wesley and his mother were now sitting in the tent playing with a deck of the cards somebody had given them at the hospital.

  “I just don't understand why they can't bother to do something about those port-a-potties. The last one I used looked like it was almost full. Why don't they open up some of the local businesses for us?”

  “Nobody is working at those businesses. They probably don't have the keys.”

  “Well, the only good thing I can say is thank heavens it's mostly men in this camp or the lines to the washrooms would be much longer.” She placed her discards down and said, “You think the government has everything under control and a plan for every contingency, and then something like this happens. We're all packed in here like rats and there's not even a decent washroom!”

  “I'
m sure they're doing the best they can, mom.”

  “And what is that huge cloud of smoke? I think the city's on fire and they're not telling us. Now that they've got everyone trapped here including the firefighters, the fire is probably going to sweep through and kill all of us!”

  “Mom, really.”

  “Well if they've let things get this bad I certainly won't place my bets on the hopes they won't get any worse! This is nothing less than full-fledged incompetence. I'm sure that if they hadn't bungled this crisis, we could all be sleeping soundly in our beds.” She slapped down her cards, “I win again. Full house.”

  Suddenly the tent flap was opened from the outside and a masked man in uniform stepped in. “Wesley Peterson?” he said loudly.

  Wesley stood up, “Here.”

  “Follow me, sir.”

  Lake Vostok

  Doctor Ming-Zhen waited thirty minutes. The screen told him he had fifty hours of oxygen left.

  He jumped when he heard a voice on the speaker, “Ivan the terrible is back!” Then Doctor Toskovic's sub whooshed past him, “This is the island for sure. I went all the way around.”

  “That is good news. Now we know which way to go.”

  “Yes, this way.” Doctor Toskovic's sub continued straight, with the rocky wall to his left.

  Doctor Ming-Zhen started to follow, but then paused. “But isn't the island on the north coast? We would need to go the other way to reach the west side of the lake.”

  “No, my friend,” Doctor Toskovic said in the unfriendliest way possible. “Island is on south coast.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen thought very hard, trying to bring the topographical map into focus in his mind. For some reason, he couldn't, but he was pretty sure that the island was on the north side. Yes, the island was on the north, the drill shaft on the west corner, and the magnetic anomaly was on the east. He said, “No, I believe the island is on the north.”

  “Trauma from monster has made you forget. Island is on south, without doubt. And, remember, you were mistaken about depth in middle.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen had to admit that he was having trouble remembering the details of the topographic map, but he was not able to separate the island from the north coast in his mind. On the other hand, what Doctor Toskovic said was true: he had been wrong about the middle of the lake. Perhaps he wasn't thinking clearly. He asked, “Are you absolutely certain?”

  “Yes. I would bet life on it.”

  “Well, you certainly are betting your life on it because we probably will run out of oxygen if you are wrong.”

  “I would bet both our lives on it, my friend.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen said, “All right. Let's proceed.”

  For some time they traveled in silence, the craggy cliff on their left grading into a gradual slope, the oxygen monitor ticking off the hours. 49. 48. 47. 46. 45....

  Doctor Ming-Zhen was still wary of encountering the elasmosaur again, so he kept a careful eye out, monitoring not only the view outside the bubble, but also the monitors with video of other angles.

  As they traveled, he wondered what had caused the tremendous current that pushed them so far from the borehole. He knew that one side of the lake had a larger mass of ice weighing down on it, while on the other end the ice was somewhat thinner. Could the difference in weight and pressure be causing currents?

  That could be part of the cause, but that did not seem to explain a current that had been so strong and so long as to push them halfway across a 160 mile lake. Perhaps the real answer was that the geothermal activity was stronger than anyone had suspected. That would also explain why the water was relatively warm.

  Doctor Toskovic's voice interrupted his train of thought, “Did I tell you what made me become scientist?”

  “I don't believe so.”

  “I was ten years old. My family went to ski with friend of my father’s in the Caucasus Mountains. His friend was scientist, an Evolutionary Biologist. We had been hiking below the snow line when we came across one hand-sized shell. It wasn't fossilized, just one half of shell mostly buried in the ground. My father's friend dug it up and told us, 'This doesn't belong here.' My father asked him, 'Why not?' He said, 'Because these mountains formed in the Pleistocene, the most recent epoch. This shell is from brachiopod. That is marine organism, from ocean salt water. These mountains were not under an ocean since they were formed.' So he carried shell all the way back down the mountain and threw it into Black Sea.

  “As child, this did not seem right. How could he take shell that was there in the ground, say it shouldn't be there, and take it where he thought it belonged? It was not honest. I told my father it wasn't right, but he said, 'My friend is good scientist. He knows.

  “But I argued with my father. I begged him to let us return to the mountain so we could look for more shells. But my father would not listen. I pleaded, I even cried.

  'My father told me I was thinking too hard, I was going mad.

  'But I knew it was they who were mad. I knew I could do better. I could be better scientist. I could prove to them. Instead of changing the evidence to fit my way of thinking, I could learn from the evidence I found. That is why I became scientist after he die. Not to be possessed by science, as my father's friend was, but to possess it.

  “I devoted my life to study. Endless hours in the night, reading, researching. Do you know how many PhD's I have?”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen said, “No.”

  “Five. I have five PhD's. There have scarcely been hours in my life when I have not toiled for the sake of science.

  “Eventually, of course, I came here, to Antarctica. We captured the water from the lake. We took it to St. Petersburg. We studied it. We found organisms in the water. We told the world, the lake has organisms, a living biology. And the world told us, 'That doesn't belong there. You are wrong. You don't know what you are doing. You are fraud.'

  “So I said to myself, should I have done what my father's friend did? Should I have said, 'This doesn't belong here,' and thrown it into the sea, just to fit with their unenlightened worldview?

  “But then I received call from China. You were launching an expedition. You needed expert. There was hope that I could redeem myself.

  “So here we are. We have seen vast living biology. It has exceeded my wildest expectation. And when I return to surface, I will bring enough evidence to prove to them that I was right all along. I will laugh at them, for their simplicity of mind not to listen to me. I will receive all glory. I will not be mad. They were mad all along.”

  Doctor Ming-Zhen was troubled by Doctor Toskovic's phrasing. He had been so welcoming, so inviting before. Now he sounded almost like a megalomaniac.

  Doctor Ming-Zhen momentarily entertained the persuasion that it might become necessary to abandon Doctor Toskovic and try to return to the surface himself.

  This was not to be an exploratory mission, anyway. They had only come to be certain the equipment worked and to take a sample or two of the water. That was all. Just those two things and then they were to return. When Apollo 11 landed on the moon, they didn't attempt an ambitious tour. They just picked up a few samples, planted a flag, and left.

  The oxygen monitor beeped. Thirty-five hours left.

  CDC

  A deep, sick feeling was billowing within Karen Harigold. She was accustomed to being in charge. She was always the one with the answers. Things were always under control on her watch. And yet, here she was, asking them to lend their support to quarantine the entire Baltimore area—an area with over a one point five million people . . . and she wasn't even sure if it was the right thing to do. The crises had grown so fast and so out of control that she truthfully wasn't sure that anything could stop it.

  Of course, years of theory and emergency preparedness studies had proposed that this might be the case. The Clinton administration had run a simulation that started a pandemic in Chicago. The simulation predicted that it would be impossible to contain it: that it would spread to the rest of the n
ation regardless of quarantine efforts or other measures. The only thing that could be done was to try to manage it as well as possible as it ran its course.

  But that was for a disease which left merely thirty percent of the infected dead. This was far more serious.

  By closing off Baltimore, they could be condemning those million-and-a-half people whether the disease claimed them or not. Inside, it would be anarchy. Besides the virus, the lack of security would transform the place into a living hell overnight. If they'd had so much trouble sustaining the situation in Towson, how honest was it to believe they could handle a population twenty times as large?

  And then, of course, there would be the dismal repercussions to the rest of the nation. Once they made a quarantine of Baltimore public, travel would grind to a stop. Many people would probably quit showing up to work for fear of getting sick. There would be a run on the banks. The country would quickly come to a terrified standstill.

  The longer it lasted, the more doubtful it would be that America's economy could sustain the blow. As Secretary of Health, she was about to preside over the health crisis that could cripple the nation.

  How had it come to this so quickly?

  Suddenly, a calm voice sounded from behind her.

  “I have very bad news.”

  She spun the chair around. Standing there, silhouetted in the light pouring through the doorway, was the President.

  Lake Vostok

  “Look at this,” Doctor Toskovic suddenly said. “Yet another example.”

  Towards the right was a disconcertingly large gray shape easing through the water. Doctor Ming-Zhen's body froze with fear. “Do you know what it is?” he asked.

  “I believe so, yes. We must get closer to be sure.”

  “No, no!” Doctor Ming-Zhen said, almost desperately. He calmed his voice, “Let's not get closer until we're certain it is harmless. Or even if we know it's harmless.”