Children of the Fifth Sun

by Gareth Worthington

  “I do not listen to you, Jia-nghù Tsai. Yes, I know who you are. You are not even Chinese blood. You are Japanese. You bring shame to the Green and Red Societies.” He laughed long and loud, looking at his bodyguards standing on either side of the only door in and out of the room.

  “Yes, my family is Japanese,” Jia-nghù Tsai replied. “But you pathetic Triads were not complaining when my Yakuza ancestors helped you overthrow the Manchu Emperor. Some Yakuza took positions within the Green and Red Societies to facilitate order.” He grinned. “You Chinese can’t be trusted to run things on your own.”

  “But you are not with your Yakuza brothers now, Jap. You are alone. And I am not.”

  The door swung open, allowing ten Triad soldiers to file in. They constructed a human circle around him, Wan Kuok-Lóng forming the critical link.

  Jia-nghù Tsai closed his eyes and concentrated on the minute sounds and air movements that informed him of the position of every man in the room. He slowly slid his eyelids open and stared coldly at the Dragon Head.

  “Why are you here, Jia-nghù Tsai?”

  “To give the 14K an opportunity.”

  “An opportunity for what?”

  “World domination.”

  The Dragon Head laughed. “You are out of your little Japanese mind.”

  “I am in possession of a great power—one that will allow me to control a magnificent weapon, a weapon the Americans have but do not understand. I will take it and use it against them.” He calmly crossed his legs and straightened his tie, allowing his words to sink in.

  “You are crazy. And the 14K is under my control. We have built an army and wealth through my leadership. I will not lose everything to follow your crazy ravings. Go speak with your Yakuza scum, Jap.”

  The Shan Chu sighed. “I do not have time to educate you, ignorant pig.”

  Before Wan Kuok-Lóng could respond, Jia-nghù Tsai had sprung over the desk and somersaulted over the man’s chair. He tucked the blade of his machete firmly under the Dragon Head’s throat and pressed a hand on the back of his head.

  “Let me make this simple. I need your army, and I need them now. We will go to New Mexico and take the weapon from the Americans, and with it, destroy them. Then we will use this power to unite all the Sen He Hui across the globe and establish a new dynasty. Mine.” His eyes flared with passion, his voice straining with rage.

  The Triad Leader choked. “This is madness. Dreams of gold and a time past.”

  “It is a time coming, Wan Kuok-Lóng. But you are too stupid and Americanized to see it. I am of the old world, and I will lead your men to great honor and wealth.” He eyed the room, ensuring that each soldier’s gaze was met.

  The Triads’ resolve waned. They threw confused glances at each other.

  “I am the Dragon Head here. The 14K follow me.”

  The Shan Chu turned his attention to his captive and calmed his voice. “Yes, Wan Kuok-Lóng. There can be only one Dragon Head.”

  The Shan Chu pulled on the machete with sharp and deliberate force, slicing through the Dragon Head’s neck muscles, trachea, and carotid artery. Wan Kuok-Lóng’s eyes bulged from their sockets as he choked on a voiceless scream. Blood spattered down his chin and across the desk in thick globules. The Shan Chu released his hold, dropping the Dragon Head lifelessly onto the bureau with a dull thump.

  After climbing onto the desk, Jia-nghù Tsai stood with his feet on either side of his victim’s head. He fished inside his overcoat and pulled out a transparent, sealed, plastic bag that contained a strange gelatinous orb glowing with a furious cobalt light. He held it aloft, his eyes wild. “I will lead the 14K to victory. To power.”

  The Triads looked on in awe and fear, unsure of whether they should move against the insane man. They eyed each other nervously but knowingly, making a silent agreement. Clutching their knives, swords, and side arms, they edged with deadly purpose toward him.

  Location: Dulce Base, New Mexico, USA

  Lurching from her deep slumber, Victoria yelped and fell from the bed, smacking her knees and palms on the cold tiled floor. The pain burned through her stinging skin into her very bones—through her forearms and thighs, surging into her spine.

  She collapsed into a heap, the thin, sweat-soaked hospital gown clinging to her skin. Victoria sobbed deep breathless cries of frustration and fear. The nightmares were so vivid, so strong. But they weren’t hers. They were the animal’s. The animal’s overwhelming desire to escape was primal, without rational thought or language, just pure emotion—pure rage.

  The door to the room hissed open. Dr. Parnham and Kelly rushed in, practically falling over one another to get to her. They fired lots of questions. Was she alright? Was she hurt? Could she hear them?

  She could hear them, but their voices were muffled and distant as if she were watching the scene from outside her own body. They kept screaming, but she couldn’t answer. She was too weak.

  Victoria tilted her head and rolled her eyes so her gaze fell upon the ever-swirling form of Wak. It was bouncing off the inner walls of the aquarium as it bolted from one side to the other. It stopped mid-stroke and locked its gaze on hers. Its deep red eyes drew her further and further into its mind. She exhaled and slumped into unconsciousness.

  Location: Dulce Base, New Mexico, USA

  Victoria’s weightless form hung in the cold water of the stasis tank—relaxed, serene. At least, she seemed that way. But Kelly knew better. Each twitch and every spasm told another story. In her mind, she was fighting with the animal, Wak. Placing a hand on the cold glass, Kelly sighed and closed his eyes, allowing his mind to drift back.

  Victoria had been a young, polite, and quite naive woman when Kelly had met her. It had been on an assignment for the BBC, a UK television broadcaster famed for its cutting-edge wildlife documentaries. They had been filming mating elephant seals in Peninsula Valdes, Argentina. It was pretty dangerous work. The producer had requested Kelly’s expertise with the underwater filming and photography.

  Bowling into the camp, he’d literally bumped into Victoria as she ran about her business trying to impress the director. Kelly caught her as she fell over her own feet. The young woman squeaked but never actually thanked him before running off.

  Laughing, Chris had joked about yet another woman falling at Kelly’s feet. It hadn’t gone down well. Izel had been buried barely a year earlier, and Kelly was still not dealing with it well. In fact, this had been his first job since then. He’d only taken it because Chris had badgered him into it.

  For the next few weeks, the team had camped on the rough, gray shale coastline, the cold sea lapping at the shore. They had waited and watched, keeping their distance all the time.

  Elephant seal mating is no picnic. The beachmaster battles between males, measuring up to fifteen feet and weighing close to six thousand pounds, were often fierce—and fatal. Victoria had taken to following Kelly about. Seeing he was revered by the team for his underwater photography skills and tendency to charge in where angels feared to tread, she decided he was a good role model. Every move he made, she was there watching, noting it down.

  Early one morning, eager to show what she had learned, Victoria rose before everyone else, grabbed Kelly’s camera and crept down to a clump of rocks that overlooked a herd of seals. She’d been busily snapping away and not paying attention to her surroundings—or to the angry, two-ton male that was bounding toward her. Before she could react, the animal was upon her, trumpeting an awful battle cry, its massive form rearing up.

  By sheer fortune, Kelly had woken to pee. Tramping awkwardly in bare feet across the jagged gravel, he’d heard the elephant seal and saw it vaulting along the coast—directly toward Victoria.

  Quickly, and quite painfully, he raced across the shore, grabbing a flare gun along the way. He shoved Victoria from her spot and dropped to his knees in front of the seal. He screamed at the top of his voice, pointed the flare gun toward the sky, and pulled the trigger. A combination of the dea
fening bang, the screeching flare, and the final bright explosion of red and white had been enough to warn the boisterous animal off.

  Nursing his lacerated feet, Kelly muttered under his breath about how stupid she had been. When he noticed his beloved camera in Victoria’s grasp, the mutterings became outright ravings.

  She burst into tears, clasping the crucifix dangling on a thin silver chain around her neck. Completely ignoring Kelly’s ranting, she had blubbered thanks to God for sending the crazy American to save her.

  The clip-clopping of high heels on the tiled floor snapped Kelly back to the present. He spun around to see Freya gracefully gliding into the room with a cell phone firmly glued to one ear.

  Freya smiled and gently nodded. Then her gaze flicked to his, her eyes glassy.

  “You too. Of course. Okay, see you soon.” Freya quickly ended the call.

  “Anything important?” Kelly asked.

  “No ...” She hesitated. “Not really. What happened in here?”

  Kelly eyed her suspiciously. “Vicky had an episode. The Doc put her back in the tank to calm her. I think her bond to that crazy ass thing in the other tank is getting stronger.”

  “I agree. Her mood swings have been getting progressively worse. Initially, we put it down to the fact she was getting her memory back, but I think it may be something else.”

  He nodded. “My bond with K’in was pretty strong, and that was only a matter of weeks. She’s been hooked up to that thing’s psyche for a year. Frig knows what’s going on in her head.”

  “I think it’s more than in her head.” Dr. Parnham strolled toward them, drying his hands on a towel.

  Kelly grunted. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, I thought I saw something when you picked her up just a moment ago. So I checked when I put her in the tank.”

  “And?” Kelly demanded, his frustration building.

  “Her fingers have webbing.”

  “What?” Freya asked.

  “Yes, I thought it strange, too. Mr. Graham, when you were bonded with clone five, did you notice any physiological changes?”

  “Not that I remember. Though ...”

  “Yes?”

  “My eyes did change color—remember, Freya?”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, but actually, in that case, it was more like K’in was taking on your features. K’in’s eyes changed from black to blue. Yours just became bluer, I guess.”

  “Yeah, that’s true.”

  “Well, I think it’s the opposite way around for Victoria. Perhaps you, Mr. Graham, were the stronger of the two in the bond. But in this case, it is most definitely not her.” The doctor waved a hand at the tank holding Victoria and then glanced at the tank holding Wak.

  The animal was staring at him, all four limbs pressed palm-outward against the glass. Its head ticked two or three times in an awkward shudder to the left, its eyes squeezing shut for those few, brief seconds before it once again locked its stare on him.

  Kelly raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think it likes you, Doc.”

  “Would you like me if I kept you in an aquarium all day, every day?”

  “S’pose not. Anyway, what’s the deal here? Vicky’s changing. It’s gone beyond re-growing her arm, right?”

  “Right. I think the bond they have has activated dormant genes—ones we weren’t aware of. I don’t think it’s just in her. I think it’s in Wak, too.”

  “I’m sorry, Doctor, what are you talking about?” Freya cocked her head, quizzically.

  “You may or may not know we learned the K’in clone was neotenous.”

  “Oh, sure. That means it adapts, right?” Kelly nodded as he spoke, hoping for reciprocation.

  The doctor nodded back. “Basically, yes. The K’in clone developed the ability to see and breathe in air when it was removed from water for any significant period of time. Having studied Wak now for some time, I’m not sure we had it right. I don’t think it’s neoteny, I think it’s full metamorphosis.”

  “You mean that thing is gonna turn into a giant fucking butterfly?”

  “No, no, Mr. Graham. But I can use butterflies as a way to explain.” The doctor pulled a pad and a pen from his lab coat pocket and positioned himself between Kelly and Freya so they could both see what he was sketching.

  “Here’s an egg, and here’s a caterpillar. Here’s a chrysalis, and here’s a butterfly.”

  Kelly nodded. The drawings were simple and childlike but conveyed the message clearly.

  “Okay. A caterpillar is a juvenile form of a butterfly, right?” He circled the caterpillar. “They have high levels of juvenile hormones running around inside them that are not present in such high quantities in the adult butterfly. They keep the animal in a young state. Moreover, there is a specific gene, the broad gene, which allows the formation of a chrysalis. If this gene is blocked, knocked out, the caterpillar never becomes a butterfly. The hormone levels remain the same.”

  Freya sighed. “So?”

  “The point is this—genes are turned on and off to control what happens both inside and outside the animal. During the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly, a whole host of genes are activated and hormone levels change, completely altering the animal’s morphology. Something has to trigger this. It can be environmental like with K’in, or it can be something internal—a body clock of sorts.”

  “You think their bond is turning on certain genes,” Freya said.

  “Yes, and not only in Wak but in Victoria, too, since we used the animal’s DNA to grow her a new arm.”

  “So Victoria is changing?” Kelly asked.

  “I’m not sure. I’ve been monitoring her hormone levels, and they’ve been fluctuating wildly over the last few weeks. The development of webbed fingers would suggest whatever changes she’s going through are manifesting externally now.”

  Kelly rubbed his temples in frustration. “This is fucking nuts. We’ve got to get her away from that thing. If it’s the bond that’s doing it, then we separate them.”

  “And then what of the animal, Mr. Graham?” Lucy had just stepped inside the doorway and caught the tail end of their discussion.

  “What the fuck is it with you people waltzing in on other people’s conversations?” He huffed and turned back to the doctor. “As I was trying to say, Doc, we separate them. But that won’t be enough. Victoria kept telling me it wanted to escape but not just randomly. It has a particular direction in mind. Maybe it’s like a migratory thing? What if we let it out, supervised, or sedated, or something? See where it wants to go? We could leave Vicky here.”

  “That is actually not a bad idea, Mr. Graham.” Lucy raised her eyebrows and fixed an expectant gaze on the doctor.

  He shook his head. “I agree in principle but letting the animal take the route it wants would mean we’d have to let it loose. How would we supervise it? How would we stop it from running into a populated area and hurting people?”

  “What if it understood it was being escorted?” Kelly rubbed his newly shorn hair.

  “I’m sorry?” the doctor asked.

  Lucy took a seat. “Please explain, Mr. Graham.”

  Kelly paced the room. “When I was bonded with K’in, he seemed to understand me. He even listened to instructions I gave him. I’m not saying he could speak or understand English, but he got what I meant. Perhaps it would be the same with Vicky and the psycho salamander in there. If she explains to it we are willing to escort it where it wants to go, maybe it’ll be calmer?” He stopped pacing and examined the other faces in the room. Only the Secretary seemed enthused.

  Lucy stood. “I think it’s worth a shot.”

  “Madam Secretary—” the doctor began.

  “Dr. Parnham, until now, we have had no other plan, and right up to the point Mr. Graham walked in, we couldn’t even get the young woman to talk to us rationally—”

  “Kelly, please. I’m not a Mr. Graham. It’s too formal.”

  “Okay, Kelly.
Anyway, we have enough military personnel at our disposal to be able to form an escort, and you, Doctor, should be able to devise a safety protocol, a way to disable the animal without hurting it, should we need it.”

  “I guess, but I’d want it sedated the whole time.”

  “That would be sensible.”

  “So, I will need to talk with Vicky?”

  “A helpful suggestion, Mr.—Kelly.”

  “Okay, come get me when she wakes up. I need to catch up on some sleep.” Kelly started toward the door but stopped mid-stride. “Where’s Minya?”

  “On the surface, smoking if I remember correctly. We don’t allow it down here,” the doctor answered.

  Freya narrowed her eyes.

  “I wouldn’t worry, Ms. Nilsson,” Dr. Parnham said. “We’re in the middle of the desert. There’s nowhere to go and no one around for a hundred miles.”

  “I suppose so.”

  * * *

  The desert wind whipped about the end of the cigarette, snatching the ash and casting it into the air. With squinted eyes and through the stinging smoke, Minya watched the orange sun disappear behind the horizon. She sucked the last of the nicotine she could and flicked the butt away into the sand. Clasping a small plastic device in her other hand, she glanced once more at the short message, took a deep breath, and pressed send.

  Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA

  The Shan Chu stared at the advancing Triads, ensuring he made eye contact with each one. They looked scared but determined. If he wasn’t careful, they would attack en masse. And even with his skill, it wouldn’t be an easy fight. He placed the bag containing the glowing orb back inside his coat and raised his machete high in the air.

  “My brothers. We may be from different families, but we are brothers. Brothers by honor, by code.”

  Their advance slowed.

  “Too long have we lived in the shadows. Our great ancestry lost, our power forgotten. After restoring the true emperor to power, our people were cast aside.” He jumped down from the desk to the floor in a cat-like motion before stowing his blade and calming his demeanor. “My friends, now is the time. The Americans are weak. Their economy is poor. Their President would rather show his love of trees than a strong arm to his enemies. Even as we speak, their military prepares to destroy the last chance of great power. Because they are afraid.”