“A good idea. Mr. Tremaine, show our guests to their accommodation.” The General left.
Location: Secret base, somewhere in the Nevada desert, USA
The door was blocked by a large man whose silhouette was blurred. It was dark, but the sky was strange and dreary with fast-moving, white clouds racing from left to right.
Kelly approached the man but still could not focus properly on him. The huge individual with a featureless face held up one hand, protesting against Kelly’s request to move through the door. Kelly paid no heed and, with surprisingly little effort, was able to move the man out of the way with a simple push.
The door knob was ice cold as Kelly clasped his warm hand around it and turned. There was a faint clunking sound as the mechanism shifted, allowing the door to be opened. He gave a short but purposeful shove. The door swung slowly open, revealing a small, dark room. In the dimness, he could see shapes—people. They were huddled around a table, a dim candle burning in the middle.
One of the shapes moved—slowly at first but then jerked from one location to another like a stuttering paused image on an old VHS cassette. Caught unaware, the human-shadow was now upon Kelly, centimeters from his face. Izel.
Her face was gray; her black and hollow eyes gazed into Kelly’s. She shook her head slowly and stretched out one arm, palm first, in protest, just as the doorman had done. The door slammed in Kelly’s face, waking him.
* * *
He sat in the dark for a few seconds, listening to his own heartbeat. Izel. Shit. Kelly looked at his best friend asleep on the adjacent bunk. They had to get out of this. Kelly had to get them out. The floor was cold as he slipped out from under the covers. He shivered. Picking up his jeans, he slid them on before wrestling with a t-shirt. Finally, he pulled on his boots and crept out the door.
Chris turned over, watched his friend leave and sighed heavily.
Kelly wandered down the corridor, aware the guards were paying him no attention, until the door to the lab stood in front of him, a single guard in the way.
“It’s okay,” the professor said behind Kelly. “Let him through.” He had on the same clothes from earlier. “Can’t sleep?”
“No.” Kelly shook his head.
“Come inside. I have a little work to do anyway.”
The men stepped inside. The professor walked over to the white wall, manipulated the control panel, and whispered a few words. The doors once again slid back, revealing the aquarium. He turned on his heel and gave a weak smile to Kelly before strolling over to a desk.
Kelly cautiously approached the tank. His brawny shape was silhouetted against the huge glass barricade. The room was dimly lit by the faint yellow glow of a few wall-embedded halogen lights. A low hum rumbled in the background. A motor? A pump of some kind? Kelly wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, it was soothing. Gentle vibrations from the source of the noise rose through his feet, massaging him. What the hell had happened? What had he got himself into? And Chris—he was meant to look after Chris.
Kelly peered into the dark water of the massive aquarium. Deep in the cold liquid, he watched K’in swirling, circling, and gliding. What the hell was that thing? He had to admit, he’d never seen anything like it. His thoughts turned to Izel. She would have loved this. She loved all living things. Didn’t even kill spiders. She would have found fish-face fascinating. A feeble smile broke across his lips but faded almost instantaneously.
He put his hand up to the glass and pressed his palm against it. The creature swam up, slowly but confidently. It reached out one arm and mirrored Kelly’s gesture, pressing its own hand against the glass. Kelly didn’t move. He wasn’t scared, but he was a little dizzy. Lightheaded. Confused. He peeled his fingers away slowly, staring at the creature. It gently swayed its head from side to side and then slipped back into the dark liquid.
“Relaxing, isn’t it?” Professor Alexander stood next to Kelly in the golden haze, his hands resting together behind his back. “I can imagine you have had a long couple of days, Mr. Graham.” He paused, considering Kelly. “You know, I come here a lot myself, when I can’t sleep. I feel serene when I’m with him.”
“Him?” Kelly asked.
“Yes, well, according to anatomy, K’in is a him.” The professor chuckled.
“Interesting ... what else do you know about Moby Dick in there?”
“You’d be surprised. We’ve had sixty-five years to study—we know a lot. For instance, you can see his eyes are regressed; while they do retain some sensitivity to light, our experiments revealed the skin is also sensitive to light. This photosensitivity is due to the pigment melanopsin inside specialized cells called melanophores.”
“So he sees through his skin?” Kelly was a little repulsed.
“No, no, we think it’s a combination of sensory input—the ability to take in his entire environment through a myriad of senses. Take his head for example; it carries sensitive chemo-, mechano-, and electroreceptors. K’in is capable of sensing very low concentrations of organic compounds in the water through the red plumage that sprouts from the back of his head.” The professor was more excited now. “The sensory epithelia—sorry—skin of the inner ear is very interesting; it enables K’in to receive sound waves in the water and vibrations from the ground. In addition, if you look carefully, you can see a line running the length of his body. It’s called the lateral line. It’s a specialized organ that supplements inner ear sensitivity by registering low-frequency nearby water displacements. Also, also ...” The professor flapped his arms, waving them about like a schoolgirl recounting a concert she’d been to. “Also, K’in has the ability to register weak electric fields—like a shark! It’s amazing.”
“Clearly,” Kelly said, smirking.
“But that’s not the most exciting part.” The professor hushed his voice and beckoned Kelly closer. “The most amazing thing is K’in is adaptable. He retains his neotenous state.”
“Ne-ot-what? English, Doc.”
“Neotenous, think of it as an adult retaining childlike properties in a suspended state of development. It’s what makes Chihuahuas and other similar creatures look cute: big eyes, small head, big ears. Anyway, in the case of K’in, it means he can adapt.”
“What do you mean, adapt?”
“Adapt! K’in has rudimentary lungs, but when exposed to air for more than a few hours, these lungs begin to mature and allow him to breathe on land. And his eyes ... if he’s exposed to strong UV light for an extended period, his eyes begin to mature, allowing binocular vision. It is truly astounding.”
Kelly stood silently for a while, thinking, absorbing. “Okay, well, I’m no scientist, but our fishy friend here doesn’t appear to be able to speak, so how do you reckon he communicated to a bunch of tribal South Americans all those millennia ago?”
“You would have made quite a scientist, Mr. Graham! Well, you have to imagine him as an empty vessel. We cloned him but have no idea how to communicate with him, so he has not had any education from us. And without it from his peers, he relies on instinct. Don’t get me wrong, his innate puzzle-solving skills are amazing. We’ve set various tests, and he passed them extraordinarily quickly.”
“So your answer is: you don’t know—right?”
“Essentially, no, we don’t know. That’s why we needed the object you retrieved; we think it might hold the key. In fact, our preliminary analysis has revealed some interesting things about the object already. Would you like to see?”
Kelly laughed. “Well, perhaps it’ll bore me to sleep.”
The professor spun around and almost skipped over to a nearby desk and monitor. Kelly duly followed. The excited scientist tapped rapidly on the keyboard, rifling through various password encryptions and security codes. As he slowed, Kelly managed to catch a glimpse of various folders that appeared on the black screen: I, II, III. A final folder was labelled differently, but the professor sailed past it.
“So, as you can see here, we have an image of the object you re
covered. Now, as I mentioned previously, many of the images from ancient cultures that we believe to represent K’in also have him holding a strange object in his hand. No one has ever been able to identify what it is. Do you remember I mentioned in Egypt some of their ancient gods, such as Thoth, are described in the same fashion as Viracocha and Quetzalcoatl of the Americas? Well, the Egyptians describe the book of Thoth, which possessed great knowledge. We think the object might be linked to this somehow.”
“Okay.” Kelly nodded. He was more interested than he had thought he would be. It was probably her fault. She had rubbed off on him. Izel would have loved this.
“From our initial scans and chemical analysis, we can see this is some kind of self-contained neural network—highly structured and very complex. In fact, we have yet to find a way to access or read it.”
“Hmmm, stuck again. So not that helpful after all, huh?”
“Well, we have only had it a few hours, Mr. Graham; even scientists need time. But I can tell you what happened to the diving equipment.”
This grabbed Kelly’s attention. “Oh?”
“Yes. Tell me, Mr. Graham, what are most diving tanks made of?”
“That’s easy: chrome–moly alloy.”
“Correct, a chrome and molybdenum alloy. Most molybdenum compounds have low solubility in water, but the molybdate ion is soluble. Recent theories suggest the release of oxygen by early life was important in converting molybdenum from minerals into a soluble form in the early oceans, where it was used as a catalyst by single-celled organisms. Molybdenum-containing enzymes became the most important catalysts used by some bacteria to break atmospheric molecular nitrogen into atoms, allowing nitrogen fixation. This in turn allowed biologically driven nitrogen fertilization of our oceans and later the development of more complex organisms.”
“Jesus, Doc, give me a break. I got like half of that.”
“Basically, there was a strong link between early life and molybdenum. Today, we know of at least fifty molybdenum-containing enzymes in bacteria and animals. Indeed, molybdenum is a required element for life in higher organisms.”
“Right, okay. Makes a bit more sense. But what’s your point, Doc?”
“Well, the object was leaking, correct? Our analysis has shown a massive concentration of enzymes and chemical compounds that would have basically sucked all of the molybdenum from the equipment. It was like the liquid was engineered to do this. Molybdenum may have been very abundant at that time.”
“Well, shit, Doc. That’ll do it. But I guess until you figure out the password on the blob thing, we are still no closer to knowing if your little historical journey with the fish-man has any credibility.”
“We have a massive amount of evidence, Mr. Graham.” He clicked the folder closed. “It would take more than a few hours to be able to properly brief you on all of it.”
“I take your point, Doc. But since we’re here, what’s in these files ... like this one?” Kelly smudged his finger on the screen over the icon of a folder: fusion.
“That’s classified, Mr. Graham.”
“Ah, of course. You guys should really label your folders better. Even I can figure out our fishy friend isn’t the first clone.”
The professor squirmed in discomfort. “That’s true. K’in isn’t the first clone. He’s the fifth. The four before him were ... used for experiments.”
“Which would then lead us on to the ‘fusion’ folder. Military application, I’m assuming?”
The professor’s eyes widened and his voice cracked as he began his vehement denial. “Those are archived files. Those kinds of experiments were stopped a long time ago. General Lloyd and I saw to that. Anyway, the experiments didn’t work.”
“I’m sure, Doc. Anyway, ain’t none of my business. I’ll be heading to bed now.”
“Good night then, Mr. Graham.”
“Good night. See ya later, Moby,” Kelly called over his shoulder as he sauntered out of the room.
The professor stared at his monitor. Analysis complete blinked on the screen. He double-clicked on the window and scanned the results. He sighed and immediately picked up the phone on the desk next to him. It didn’t even ring. “Yes, it’s confirmed. Yes, I am sure. I understand. We move to the final phase.”
* * *
Chris lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, arms behind his head, one leg resting on the other. What a day. It was crazy. And the creature—could he be the source of his grandfather’s myth? All myths had some truth to them, a shred of fact that was built upon, changed and embellished. Perhaps. Izel would have loved this; she wouldn’t be lying here waiting. She’d be in there, trying to talk to him through Morse code, or sign language, or interpretive dance. He laughed. Yeah, this little journey was wasted on him.
The door swung open, and Kelly marched in. He strode to his metal-framed bed on the opposite wall from Chris and plonked down heavily onto the mattress, the coiled springs groaning and protesting under the weight. Kelly studied the room. It was as expected—bare, white-walled, no windows. The U.S. military sure knew how to make someone feel at home. After a few minutes, he felt Chris’s gaze boring into the side of his head.
“You wanna kiss me or something?”
“You wish, ya big girl! I was thinking, is all. About this whole situation, about K’in, and my grandfather’s stories, and us as humans. It’s fascinating, don’t you think?”
“Fascinating? I guess. Although the nerd with the perma-tan got all giddy in there spouting this, that, and the other.”
“Anything interesting?”
“Not really. Some guff about Moby Dick in there being able to adapt and sense lots of things like chemicals and electrical fields, you know, things we can’t. Bit like a shark, I guess. But I did find out what happened to the equipment. Turns out that thing we recovered from the sea floor was leaking some pretty powerful shit—enzymes that like moly-alloys.”
“Hell, that’d do it.” Chris sat up, swung his legs over the edge of the mattress, and faced his friend. A serious pose. “You know, Izel would have loved this stuff.”
“Yeah.” Kelly sighed. “I had the same thought myself.” He looked solemn. Tired.
“I bet she’d even have named it by now.”
“Oh, like Snuggles or Fido?”
Chris laughed. “No. C’mon, she had a thing for the old world and languages, remember? She particularly liked Quechua, the language of old Peru.”
“Yeah, I know; just trying to avoid making these connections, you know? It’s like someone reached into her head and pulled out all the things she loved and then laid them in front of me.”
“Yeah, well, I think she’d have called it—”
“Him, apparently.”
“Oh, well, called him ‘Huahuqui.’”
“Huh?”
“Wow-kay. I think that’s how you say it. It means ‘supernatural guardian or brother.’”
Kelly admired his friend. He was so much like her. Ever happy, positive, inquisitive. Never letting the situation get her down ... until. He heaved another sigh. She obviously couldn’t deal with losing Carmen. Some things you just can’t force a smile through. His thoughts were interrupted by a light, hollow knocking on the metallic door to the small quarters. Ms. Nilsson stood there, her slender body barely filling half of the archway.
Chris rolled his eyes to heaven and swung back into a lying position. “Here we go.”
“Excuse me?” She threw a scathing glare in Chris’s direction.
“He just wonders what you are doing here so late, Ms. Nilsson.”
“Freya.”
“So ...?”
“I’m checking how you are after your accident at sea. Have you had another check up with our site doctor? We have the best physicians here at Paradise Ranch.”
“Paradise Ranch?” Chris looked down his torso, awkwardly pushing his neck forward to see the woman. “You know, this place still sounds like a massage parlor with a happy ending.”
&
nbsp; The men chuckled.
“Indeed. Although, I imagine you would best know it as Area 51.”
The men stopped laughing.
Location: Los Angeles, California, USA
Jerry sat in the Internet café. He’d been there all night and all morning with no word. He was tired and groggy but could not leave—dared not leave. He sipped on his fifth coffee, struggling to stay awake.
There must have been thirty people in the room, all sitting at their desks, yet he felt very alone. The shuffling bodies and smell of coffee were no longer comforting. He listened to a conversation beside him—some guy Skyping with his girlfriend in another country. Driveling on about how much he missed her. Jerry thought of David. God, no one had told David’s girlfriend. Did she even know? Had she been round to the apartment? Jesus. A man became aware of Jerry staring and tried to hide down behind the small dividing screen. Jerry blushed and turned back to his own desk. In fact, he was feeling a little hot like his skin was burning. Must be the adrenaline or the lack of sleep. He pulled off his jacket so the sleeves ended up inside out and shrugged it off over the back of his chair. That’s a little better.
He wiped the sweat from his brow and stared at the screen in front of him. The Google homepage stared back. He thought about how all of this had started with this bloody map project. And David. Poor David. He pulled the USB key from his jacket pocket. Such a small thing—what was it for? What would it show him?
His phone rang. It didn’t shock him anymore. He was numb. He fumbled around in his other pocket, struggling to pull the phone out. It popped free. Caller unknown. Jerry knew exactly who it was, or at least, he knew it was the same person who had been calling all night. He slid his finger across the unlock bar.
“Hello.”.
“Put the key into the computer.”
Jerry tried to comply, but was strangely weak.
“Have you done it?”
“Sorry, I’m trying. I just feel a little ... dizzy.” The room became a little out of focus, and Jerry could feel his stomach begin to knot up.
Children of the Fifth Sun Page 6