The Omega Project

by Steve Alten

  “I know you believe this to be the reason you are here, but there are forces in play among the higher realms of existence that are pulling the strings. Robert, every soul born into this physical realm is bound by karmic law to complete its own journey. Your presence onboard this vessel marks the beginning of a journey, the effects of which shall ripple beyond our days. The karma that draws you to this place … this moment in time … it is very powerful.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Do not mock me! I am sixteenth-generation Buddhist, disciplined by Mañjuśrī, transcendent deity of wisdom — one of the four great Bodhisattvas. Your chi disrupted my aura on the ice sheet. For anyone, especially a westerner, to break into my soul consciousness — it is simply not possible.”

  She was a firecracker, I had to admit it. “Listen, Dharma, don’t feel bad, I’ve sort of jacked up my chi with a biological implant. ABE allows me to focus my brain waves in ways you’ve obviously never experienced before.”

  “Karma cannot be affected by a neurological device; karma is a reflection of past lives.” She paused. “I can see by your reaction you do not believe in reincarnation.”

  Oh, boy … “Dharma, no disrespect, but I really have to go.”

  She moved, blocking my escape. “As a clairvoyant, I am trained to tap into one’s past life experiences. I have accessed yours in an attempt to understand the nature of your karma and the journey that lies ahead. Would you like to hear about your past lives, Robert?”

  The intensity of her gaze unnerved me, tossing ice water on my plans with Andria. “Just give me the highlights.”

  “There aren’t many. Each of your past lives has ended brutally, each death associated with an act of evil perpetrated by someone acting on an impulse dictated by the darker side of human existence. Darkness is the absence of light, the light being the Creator’s life force — the energy shared by every soul. In the earliest life I was able to glimpse, I saw you as a Hebrew slave, beaten to death by your Egyptian taskmaster. In another incarnation you were born and raised in Spain, the son of an Orthodox rabbi. Through your eyes I witnessed the Spanish Inquisition herd you, your family, and tens of thousands of Jews onto wooden sailing ships and taken out to sea, only to be tossed overboard and drowned by your Spanish captain.”

  “This is ridiculous. I don’t remember any of this.”

  “Regression therapy would bring everything to the surface. Regrettably, there is no time.”

  “Maybe after we surface. Right now, I really have to—”

  “In your last life, I saw you held captive as a young boy in a Nazi concentration camp. I felt your wrath at the Creator as you witnessed your mother being sent to the ovens; I experienced your desperation and fear when you were delivered into the hands of Josef Mengele, a psychopath who performed genetic experiments on Jewish children.”

  “Stop!” My heart was racing, my skin lathered in perspiration. “Why are you telling me about these nightmares?”

  “Not nightmares, Robert, past lives. Each leaving an indelible imprint on your karma. In Buddhism, we call yours the spirit of the Hungry Ghost. Filled with rage from past lives, consumed by a terrible emptiness, you live your life trying to correct the past. The Hungry Ghost possesses a mouth the size of a needle’s eye and a stomach the size of a mountain. You are destiny’s castaway, Robert, a man who has witnessed the darkest days of existence. Now you live again, but only to change history.”

  “Not history, Dharma. Hatred. Greed. Violence. All the darkness you imagined. My goal is to accelerate human evolution beyond the bounds of man’s ego. ABE is the prototype, the first step to reach what you’d call Nirvana. While you’re mining energy on Europa, I’ll be back on Earth, enlightening civilization.”

  “You cannot achieve enlightenment while hanging on to anger.”

  “ABE can. Think of it as the candle that illuminates the darkness. If it was created from my anger over the Great Die-Off … over the suffering and loss of my own family, then so be it.”

  ABE zapped me with its chronometer—9:11 P.M. “I’m late. Thanks for the insight. Maybe we’ll try that regression therapy after you defrost.”

  I pushed past her, heading for the galley doors, escaping into the outer corridor. God, what the hell was that all about? Imagine being stuck for six years on Europa with that witch as your psychologist. Skip the dinner, get right into the make-up sex. Andria had a lot of making up to do.

  I knocked on the door of Stateroom Two. “Andie? Sorry I’m late.”

  The door slid open, revealing Omega’s six male crewmen. They were standing in a semicircle, waiting for me like a lynch mob.

  Their ringleader stepped forward, Kevin Read’s Cheshire cat grin jump-starting ABE’s fight-or-flight command. “So, Eisenbraun, have you decided which one of us is the sociopath?”

  “Are you campaigning for the position, Commander?”

  Jason Sloan’s chuckle was silenced by the other men’s harsh glares.

  “How much is Sebastian Koch paying you?” Dr. Bruemmer demanded to know.

  “Paying me? No one’s paying me.”

  “It has to be Koch,” spat Egor Vasiliev. “Everyone knows the bastard is the one behind the tar sands initiative in Canada.”

  “He’s also been subsidizing the coal conversion campaign,” added Kyle Graulus.

  My heavyset Israeli friend pointed a thick finger at my chest. “Who poisoned GOLEM’s algorithms with the false helium-3 results? It was you, admit it!”

  “Yes, Yoni, it was me. Because I secretly want to terraform Europa with O-negative blood types.”

  Kevin Read intercepted the charging fat man before he could flatten me. “Enough! We’re not here to debate conspiracy theories, Yoni. This is about the Europa mission. Each of us has made tremendous sacrifices in order to be here; I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow the opinions of some … jerk to break up my crew.”

  “You mean ‘Jew.’ You were about to say, ‘the opinions of some Jew,’ weren’t you, Commander?”

  Yoni turned to his captain, his anger ceding to disappointment.

  “Don’t even go there, Yoni. He’s just being clever, trying to divide and conquer.”

  “Release Professor Eisenbraun.”

  Everyone looked up at the sensory orb peering at us from the corner of the ceiling.

  “This is not your concern, GOLEM.”

  “All matters pertaining to the success of the Omega Project are of concern to the GOLEM system. It was the GOLEM system that requested Professor Eisenbraun’s presence on the training mission.”

  “For what purpose?” Bruemmer snapped.

  “Efficiency.”

  “Who’s he here to replace?” Jason Sloan asked.

  “Those crewmen who are deemed liabilities at the time of the December launch. Mr. Limor’s additional weight gain increases the risk of heart failure during the mission. Ms. Moss has failed to master mini-sub operations. Ms. Saints has become emotionally attached to her biologicals. Dr. Bruemmer’s advancing osteoarthritis renders him a long-term liability. Professor Eisenbraun’s brain-stem implant allows him to be trained to take over any position on Oceanus II.”

  I stared at the optical sensory device, my skin crawling as I marveled at my prodigy’s skewed process of evolution. GOLEM had lied. The computer had actually fabricated a story in order to alter the outcome of a situation.

  If it lied about my presence on board …

  “As mission commander, I should have been briefed.”

  “Your role is to oversee the welfare of the crew. You are not in command of the Omega Project.”

  It was a tense moment, the reason I was here. I sensed the true sociopath was revealing itself.

  The crewmen huddled to talk.

  Commander Read rendered their verdict a minute later. “Welcome to team Omega, Dr. Eisenbraun. Mr. Sloan, has our friend here had his full protocol of cryogenic shots?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then let’s tuck him in.
” Kevin nodded to Dr. Bruemmer — who jabbed the hypodermic needle concealed in his palm into the left side of my neck.

  15

  No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

  — EDMUND BURKE

  The lights dimmed, the room spun. Waves of panic rolled like fading jolts of electricity through my being. Voices became echoed and muffled, no longer recognizable. My legs disappeared, the numbness spreading from my limbs and into my upper torso — the thought of losing control of my breathing muscles terrifying. I was laid out, an oxygen mask strapped over my nose and mouth, the portable unit forcibly blowing air into my lungs.

  Hoisted horizontally, I felt neither my body nor the hands carrying me down the corridor.

  Drowning in a lake of hot anesthetic, ABE became my life preserver, the bio-chip furiously rerouting my brain’s neural pathways to find a channel of clarity.

  My hearing returned as they carried me through the arboretum and down the spiral staircase to the lower level.

  “… not following protocol.” Lara Saints’s voice pierced the bubble of deafness, causing my chest and rib muscles to spasm … I could breathe!

  “He was nervous about being placed into stasis,” Kevin Read lied. “We decided this was the best way to handle it. Jason, has Eisenbraun’s IV been prepared?”

  “Yes, sir. But we’ll need to strip him before he’s placed in the interior harness.”

  “Lara, care to do the honors?”

  “Fuck you, Kevin.”

  My vision sharpened. Still paralyzed, I realized I was watching my reflection in the octopus tank as rough hands peeled the unzipped jumpsuit from the body I could no longer feel.

  “Pod’s ready. Lower him in … Wait, hold him there while I position his arms and legs.”

  My mind screamed in silence as I was tucked inside the pod’s interior harness. My stare caught Jason Sloan’s eyes as the cryogenics expert hovered over my chest, frantically attaching a series of electrocardiogram leads.

  “Jesus, he’s conscious.”

  “That’s impossible,” said Dr. Bruemmer. “I shot him with enough anesthetic to knock out a horse.”

  “Look at his pupils. They’re responsive to light. He can see … and hear us!”

  Commander Read’s face loomed into view. “It’s that damn brain chip. Sloan, hook up the IV and put him under. The rest of you can return to your stations. Lara, I’ll speak to you outside, in private.”

  ABE continued to work to revive me, increasing the oxygen-carrying capacity of my red blood cells, burning off the anesthetic. My skin resurfaced from its numbness with stings from ten thousand pin pricks.

  Jason knotted a rubber hose around my left biceps. Selecting a vein, he gently slid the IV needle inside the blood vessel and started the drip.

  My voice returned as the elixir quenched the fire in my veins. “Don’t … please.”

  Jason’s eyes widened in shock. Looking back over his shoulder, he verified we were alone, then he leaned over me, lowering his voice. “Listen closely: Read’s got it in for you. Not everyone agrees with this, but no one’s got the balls to challenge him or Monique. The IV will calm you and induce sleep. Don’t fight it, the last thing you want is to regain consciousness before the tetrodotoxin takes effect.”

  My body was floating again, this time in a cool, soothing stream.

  “That’s it, you’re doing fine. Once you enter Omega-wave stasis, you can use the override command to drain the tank. You remember your command?”

  “Yes.”

  “Only use the override if you’re really flipping out. It’ll be fine, you’ll see. Time is a nonfactor in cryogenic stasis; thirty days will fly by in a catnap. Just remember our deal: I take care of you, you take care of me when we go home next month.”

  My eyelids grew heavy, my body sinking fast.

  Jason positioned the wafer-thin skull piece over my head and face. “Pleasant dreams.”

  A second skin conformed to my flesh, sealing out all sound, save for the flow of sweet air pumping into the mask.

  The gentle hum of hydraulics tweaked a ripple of anxiety as a cold weight weighed me down, as if gravity had doubled.

  Fully sedated, I slipped into an ocean of darkness …

  PART THREE

  Awakenings

  When it is impossible for anger to arise within you, you find no outside enemies anywhere. An outside enemy exists only if there is anger inside.

  — LAMA ZOPA RINPOCHE

  16

  The future has a way of arriving unannounced.

  — GEORGE WILL, columnist

  Consciousness — teased by a singularity — a pinprick of red-hot pain that pierces a cold, forgotten heart.

  A tube inflates a pair of lungs, functioning as a bellows.

  “Uhhhhhhhhh—”

  Inhale.

  “—huuuuuuuuuuu.”

  Exhale.

  An erratic heartbeat threatens to cease, struggling to find its cadence.

  Zzzzttt! Zzzzttt! Zzzzttt!

  Charges of electricity ripple outward from seven chakra points — long-dormant neurological way stations maintained once every ninety-six hours just to respond to this moment.

  “Uhhhhhhhhh—”

  “—huuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.”

  Zzzzttt! Zzzzttt!

  Fueled by the sudden injection of oxygen, sticky red blood cells energize and begin to mobilize.

  “Uhhhhhhhhh … huuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.”

  “Uhhhhhhhhh … huuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.”

  “Uhhhhhhhhh … huuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.”

  Zzzzttt! Zzzzttt!

  Alpha waves replace Omega, forcing the submerged dreamer up from the depths. The vegetative state is thawed in an erratic tidal change of forced neurological activity. Nerve endings direct gradually quickening impulses across miles of abandoned highways. Muscles twitch involuntarily — everything except the right arm.

  The strain is too much for the reviving heart, effecting cardiac arrest.

  Electricity shuts down the disgruntled organ. Sixty seconds pass before the needle stabs it again, the elixir of adrenaline rebooting the heart so that it can maintain a steady cadence.

  “Uhhhhhhh … huuuuuuuuu.”

  “Uhhhhh … huuuuuuu.”

  “Uhhh … huuuuu.”

  Erratic breathing becomes self-sustained.

  * * *

  The dreamer opens his eyes. Shadows dance, the mind remains disconnected.

  A suffocating weight crushes his chest, cutting off his air supply. Like a trapped animal, he lashes out with his left arm, his mind stuck in a primordial gear that lacks cognizance or reason or complex thought.

  With a grunt, he heaves the object off the splintered cryogenic pod, sending the corroded spiral staircase crashing to the floor.

  The primordial response has left him sitting up awkwardly. His lower torso is still concealed in the pooled remains of the draining steel coffin, his mind — void of reality or memory upon which to anchor his thoughts, remains a blank canvas.

  He is primordial man.

  The sudden rush of blood to his brain is too much and he faints.

  * * *

  Pain beckons.

  He reopens his eyes.

  Buzzing sounds swirl in the predawn grayness. He stares, mindless, at a hole in the tilting sky that leads to a dark forest.

  Manna has fallen from heaven, landing on his stomach. Startled, he reaches for it — his left arm brushing the two emptied hypodermic needles still protruding from the left side of his chest. He stares at them — an inquisitive Neanderthal — then brutally yanks the sharp objects from his heart and doubles over in agony.

  He locates the rotted apple that had fallen from the hole in the sky and shoves it into his mouth, half chewing, half swallowing.

  His blood sugar spikes.

  His insides quiver.

  Sitting up, he pukes the morsel of fruit across the puddle of muck.

  Bees attack th
e vomited meal. A few sting him.

  He watches in horror as the swarm grows more aggressive, forcing him to flee. He drags himself out of the fractured cryogenic pod like a wounded animal, collapsing on all fours onto a deck slanted forty degrees.

  The bees organize their attack.

  Crying out, he stumbles past the rusted coil of steel steps and slides out of the tilted chamber into the hallway.

  The air is cold in this new environment.

  The bees circle, then return to their tropical domain, preferring the warmth.

  He hobbles upright along the angle where wall meets deck, all the while trying his best to distance himself from the buzzing swarm. Attracted to a blue emergency light flickering ahead in the darkness, he moves toward it, his brain progressively relearning how to engage his limbs, his right arm still dangling uselessly by his side — a piece of raw meat.

  He shivers in his nakedness. The new world spins in his vision. He locates a rising row of steel bars. Using his legs, he manages to push himself up the angled ladder rungs, climbing to another level.

  He sniffs the air, detecting the earthen scent of a rainforest. Self-preservation demands he find water, and so he hurries through the tilting gray darkness — tumbling through the open galley doors and down the slanted deck, crashing sideways into a barrier that had once been the computer’s automated ordering counter.

  He climbs over the angled wall, past scraps of broken machinery and empty sorting bins to a strange object angled downward at forty degrees. He sniffs the cool surface, smelling food originating from within.

  Gripping the handle with his functional left hand, he stands awkwardly, attempting to lift the heavy hinged aluminum door to access the walk-in refrigerator. He grunts, only he’s too weak to budge the ninety-pound barrier with only one functional arm.