by B. C. CHASE
"They surrounded us," he whispered.
“No joke,” Kelle said.
The black, hairy form of what appeared to be a hairy ape with a human-like face and relatively little hair stepped forward, its eyes glinting maniacally under an overhanging brow, as it crept up behind Kelle. It clutched a stone in one fist. An intelligence, an evil glee and expectancy illuminated its face, lending to its already human-like appearance. Without a thought, Wesley slipped his handgun out and shot it. It dropped to the ground.
At that moment a dozen strange apes like it rushed in, screaming at the top of their lungs, pointed sticks held above their heads. One of the apes moved forward, trying to seize Kelle's arm. Wesley immediately shot it. He shot another, and another, dropping them all around as they leaped in for the attack. His pistol was knocked out of his hand by a rock, a sharp pain shooting up his arm. A pair of rough feet knocked him to the ground. Wesley saw that Kelle was swinging her gun around when she was pummeled to the earth and several chimps clambered around to pull her arms, legs, and hair in all different directions.
Wesley grabbed a rock and leaped to his feet, facing the ape that had kicked him down. The ape was armed with a javelin, and it shifted its head from side to side, assessing its opponent. Wesley threw the rock with deadly accuracy, striking its head. Dazed, it toppled to the ground. He pulled the lance out of its hand and stabbed it through the abdomen. The ape's arms swung up to wrestle with him, long tiger-like claws tearing a hole in his shirt. Wesley grabbed the rock and pounded its head repeatedly. When there was no more struggling, Wesley paused his frantic beating, looking at its bloodied face. It stared up at him, its eyes undimmed, an intelligence beyond its species showing in its jagged-toothed, dark smile.
With a sudden fury of strength, it seized Wesley's neck and swung him to the ground. Out of the corner of his eye, Wesley saw Kelle being dragged away by the other apes. He tried to jab his adversary in the face to no avail; it throttled his neck as if he were a doll, a terrible, human-sounding bellow emitting through its clenched, yellow teeth. Its hot breath ranked of rotten flesh and Wesley choked as its fingers dug into his tendons. Using all the power within him, he swung the chimp back over to the ground and managed to lift his leg up and lodge his foot in its stomach. Then he spotted the gun on the ground. In a quick motion, he snatched it and fired repeatedly into the ape's chest until the chamber clicked empty. Blood spurted from its mouth as it quivered in death throes.
Wesley spun around and heard all the apes hooting as they trooped away into darkness with their prize. He raced through the brush after them, but felt a strong grip on his wrist. Spinning around, he saw a red-haired orangutan standing there. Slowly, she raised a javelin up toward him, sideways. At first, Wesley didn’t understand, but then the ape impatiently blew up at her bangs as if she was blowing smoke from a pipe, pushing the javelin further toward him. Wesley took the weapon and said, “Thanks.” The orangutan said, “Reebok!” Then she scampered off into the darkness and Wesley noticed that she was wearing sneakers. He heard shots crack from behind him in the brush, so he spun around and resumed his trek after the gang that had taken Kelle. It wasn’t long before he saw a black form crouched in the darkness. Wesley guardedly crept up toward it and saw that it was an ape curiously examining Kelle’s pistol. When he realized this, he stopped, but it was too late. The chimp had heard him and looked up at him with a wicked glare. Glancing back down at the handgun, it slowly raised it to point directly at Wesley, its finger on the trigger.
Hsin-chu Province, Taiwan
The wind had grown in severity, and Gary grimaced as mud blew up in his face. Through the squinting of his eyes, he saw a tiny, white flower flapping against the fray. He could feel Stacy's chest rise and fall under him with her breaths. As the funnel drew near them, lighting split the sky. The air darkened with debris, and mud flipped up from the ground like book pages. The flower shuddered as if drawing a last breath and then soared up into the storm, disappearing high into the funnel. He felt himself being pulled upward as if giant hands were trying to lift him into the sky. Her breaths grew in fervor and he held his face against hers to shelter it. He felt her hands grasp his sides, a near-blackness veiling his vision as the funnel passed over. He wrapped his hands around her as the rage of the storm roared with the sound of a thousand galloping legions. Then he sensed the wind lessening and light, albeit still gray, was beginning to break through.
They had survived the wrath of the wind. He opened his eyes and looked behind them. The funnel was moving away to the forest that he had been unable to reach. The trees swayed and cracked as if in fear, their leafed arms flailing above their barked heads. The roots pulled taut and finally snapped as the trees swept into the sky and disappeared in the swirling mass. There were three more bursts of lightning. The rain fell lighter now, and when he looked back down, Stacy’s eyes were open, her cheeks rosy. “Honey, that was amazing,” she said breathlessly.
“Huh?” he said, confused. Terrifying is more how he would have characterized it.
“You are amazing,” she said, then grabbed the back of his head and pulled him in to kiss his mouth.
He smiled sheepishly, like a boy who had just gotten his first kiss. Helping her to her feet, he stared in awe at the withdrawing storm. Then he surveyed his wife with no lesser sensation. Her face was covered with streaks of blood and dirt, her muddy clothes clung to her curved body like leather. She was unbelievably sexy. Taking her by the hand, he said, "I think we need to keep going. Can you make it?"
“Are you kidding me? We’re here to save our son. I could make it to the moon without oxygen.”
He smiled, squeezing her hand, “I’ll take that as a yes with just a little hyperbole.”
She smiled, then asked, “Do you think that tornado came from Tom's prayer?”
Gary said, “No.”
“But it just took the soldiers away and left us.”
“We flattened ourselves to the ground. They didn’t.”
“Do you always have to be so rational?”
“I wasn’t aware there was anything wrong with that.”
“Perfect rationality leaves no room for hope.”
He led her into the forest. As they jogged among the ferns and brambles, sporadic raindrops spattered their already soaked clothing. The cold wind howled through the shadows of the forest, occasionally blustering, sometimes only a breeze. He led her along the crest of a ridge. It seemed safer to have the vantage point of the high ground, although he was also concerned that this made them too visible.
"Gary?" it was Stacy's voice, grown slightly hoarse from tension.
"What?"
"I'm sorry."
He stopped and turned to her. Her face was still masked with mud.
“I'm sorry I blamed you. That Jeffery was taken.”
“Thank you,” he said. Then, cupping her jaw with one hand, he wiped her cheeks and forehead with his fingers, removing the dirt. "But you were right to blame me.”
“No, I wasn't. It could have happened to anyone. I mean, he was on the second floor. How could you possibly have thought anyone could get all the way up there without you noticing?”
“I was in the room next door when it happened! I should have been listening! I could have heard something.” Even now, he didn't tell her his secret. The secret that he had agonized over ever since Jeffery had disappeared, the secret that he had kept from Special Agent Jarred Kessler.
She said, “Honey, don't. It's not your fault they wanted his genes. They would have taken him no matter what the situation was.”
Slowly, he moved closer. Then he stroked her lips clean and kissed her softly; not a deep kiss, just a small kiss of appreciation. When he pulled away, her tear-stained eyes opened and she said, “It's been a long time since you did that.”
He managed to grin, “It's been a long time since you let me.”
She bit her lip, “I'm sorry.” Tears rolled down her cheeks.
He nodded, fighting a
frog in his throat, “I'm sorry, too.”
She blinked hopefully, “Do you really think we can save our baby?”
“We've made it this far. I never would have thought we'd even make it to Taiwan. That gives me some hope.”
Her forehead wrinkled with the raise of her soft eyebrows. She asked, “But how did those soldiers know we were here? More will come after us.”
Suddenly, her words rang prophetic as he saw the bright red spot of a targeting laser appear between her eyes.
Paradeisia Operations Center
Nimitz had pushed the play button. On the screen, the still images of the bare room with an isolated bed flashed the minutes by. Andrews was laying there, seemingly asleep. An arm twitch, a head turn was all that happened.
The minutes counted on until Nimitz said, “There!” and hit pause.
A blurry whitish-gray hand with extremely long, thin fingers with bulging joints appeared to reach for the camera.
Nimitz said, “The camera was disabled.” He skipped to the next frame, and the next image on the screen was bare blackness.
Nimitz looked at Henry with alarmed eyes, “Then they took him.”
Henry stood up and placed a hand to his chin. “Took him?”
“Yes, Andrews didn’t leave by himself. He was taken.”
Henry said, “What I’m seeing is that Andrews was clever enough to disable the camera before he made his escape.”
Nimitz backed the video up to pause on the frame with the long-fingered hand. “Look at this,” he said. He pointed to the screen. “Count them, there are six fingers.”
Henry sighed, “Is this one of your conspiracy theories?”
“No, I see six fingers. You don't?”
“I don't.”
“Dude, there are six fingers right there. One, two, three, four, five, six. That's not is a conspiracy theory.”
Bridges warned, “His name is Mr. Potter and you are getting way too carried away, sir.”
Henry shook his head, held up a hand to Bridges. “It’s okay. But tell me this, are there any cameras down below?”
“Below where?”
“Down below the ground, in the portal.”
“No, there aren't,” Nimitz said.
“Why didn't they place any down there? That seems a pretty logical thing to do.”
“I don't know. Technical reasons, probably”
Bridges said, “Nimitz, why didn't you tell me about this image as soon as you saw it?”
Nimitz shrugged, “I’m sorry.” He admitted, “You never want to hear about my ideas.”
It was obvious Bridges wasn't satisfied.
Henry said, “I think it's safe to assume at this point that Andrews reached for the camera himself. So, this aside, the island is ready to open and is fully functional?”
Bridges agreed, “Yes: we should have opened a long time ago. Like I said, I don't know what the holdup was … unless ….”
“Unless what?”
“Unless Mr. Jinkins had some personal reason not to, like I said.”
Paradeisia Hospital
Standing in the hospital's laboratory next to Henry, Doctor Pearce said, “So the odd thing is that before he disappeared he was showing signs of cognition. He was recovering, I think.”
Henry said wryly, “Must have been a bloody shock to him when he disappeared again, then.”
Doctor Pearce raised an eyebrow, “Yes, especially if it was not of his own will, as Nimitz proposes.”
“Nimitz spoke with you?”
“He forwarded me a video.”
“He showed it to me as well.”
“And what did you think, Mr. Potter.”
“Did Andrews have six fingers?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it possible he had six fingers?”
“Yes, there are people who have six. But I didn’t notice anything unusual about his hands. Of course, I only saw him briefly once, when he came in for a physical before his initial expedition. I didn’t do the physicals myself, though. The doctor who did is gone, but he did not note anything about his hands in the records. I checked.”
“Do we have any picture or video somewhere that could show us whether he had six fingers?”
“Not of which I’m aware.”
“Well, I think it’s safe to assume he had a six-fingered hand, and that therefore he was not taken,” Henry asserted.
“If that’s what you’d like to think,” Doctor Pearce said matter-of-factly.
“It’s not what I would like to think. It is the most likely explanation given what is in the video, I believe.” Then Henry stated, “You said you had two things to tell me?”
“Yes. The first thing is that Andrews didn't have the tattoo before he went down the portal the first time.”
“How do you know?”
“I did extensive analysis on the sample of the tattoo I had obtained before he vanished yesterday. Now, first of all, glowing tattoos such as the one he had do not exist.”
“I think that they do,” Henry corrected the doctor. “I did a search for 'glowing tattoo' online. Apparently they're quite the fashion statement in the 'rave' crowd.”
“You are right: there are tattoos that glow in black light, I know that. But there are no tattoos that glow in and of themselves as this one did. When I ran analysis on the sample, it turns out that the glowing was from GFP and aequorin—from the aequorea victoria jellyfish. GFP is very commonly used in molecular biology. Have you ever heard of the glowing cats? Or the GloFish?”
“No,” Henry said. “I'm not a pet person.”
“Well, a Japanese scientist named Osamu Shimomura discovered GFP and aequorin while he was studying the jellies. We usually use GFP to tag proteins and see what cells are expressing certain genes. That is its use in scientific research, at least, and it is indeed so very useful that Shimomura was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering it. In the case of the Glofish, they simply added GFP to ordinary zebra fish and turned them into florescent colors that children would go bonkers for. They've been so popular, in fact, that Glofish is now a household name.”
“So what does this mean for Andrews?”
“It means that whoever took him is very well-versed in genetic technology. In his case, it seems GFP and aequorin were added to his genome to form the script in just the way it appeared on his arm. To make the Glofish, they added the genes to germ cells so that the change would appear in offspring, though not in the parents. In Andrews' case, what was done is far more advanced. In short, we are in above our heads.”
“What about someone who works for an entity that doesn't publish in scientific journals? A government, for example. Could a government have done this?”
“Well, there is, of course, that possibility.”
“And how likely do you think it is that this is part of his genome? I mean, could they just have tattooed this into his skin?”
“Not a chance. For these proteins to work they must be a part of the DNA within his cells. You can't just suck them out of the jellyfish and inject them into a person and expect something to happen. Either he would have had to be born with it, which he was not, or his genome would have had to have been altered.” Doctor Pearce turned to a paper on the counter and said, “I wrote to an old linguist friend of mine at Oxford.” He handed the paper to Henry, “Take a look.” The paper had the script:
ודדחשוטעבו
—followed by several long paragraphs.
“What does he say, in a nutshell?” Henry asked.
“Well, in short, these are numbers. Hebrew. 6-200-200-8-300-6-9-70-6. And it's not a single, gigantic number, as in 6 gazillion, two hundred trillion, rather, the actual digits. There is a difference, in Hebrew.”
Henry said, “So what I'm hearing is that whoever took him is a geneticist and speaks Hebrew?”
“Well, I suppose you could take it to mean that.”
“And where would you rate your level of expertise in genetics
?”
“I used to be a geneticist.”
“I see. How fortuitous that we have you, then.” Henry paused, and then asked, “So what was the second thing you found?”
“It would appear that we know exactly where he went.”
“And where is that?”
“He went down the portal.”
“And how did you deduce that?”
“Because Security inserted a radio tracking chip into him when he was here. I asked them to. Its range is not significant, but the device is so miniscule that it is certainly undetectable by anyone who isn't looking for it. The ping map showed he was heading straight for the portal.”
“They received pings from the portal site itself?”
“No. We only got a few pings before he was out of range. But the trajectory was a beeline toward it. And I do mean a beeline.”
“I see. So what has Security done about this?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Yes. I suspect they agree that Andrews was taken down the portal. But they won't do anything about it.”
“Why would that be?”
“They are afraid.”
Henry grunted, “Ah. And how are we supposed to label the portal as our major attraction if we can't even get our own security personnel to go down there?”
Doctor Pearce raised his eyebrows, “I think you've found the elephant in the room.”
Operations Center
Bridges was dead serious, “The next time you jump over my head like that, you're done here. Is that clear?”
Nimitz nodded apologetically.
“There's nothing I hate more than a suck up. If you know something I should know about, you tell me straight up. Don't save it for my boss. Understood?”