by David Meyer
“One of them got off a lucky shot. Blew up the wreckage all over again.” Caplan bent over, chest heaving for air. He searched the clearing for signs of the trio. But they were gone. “They got away.”
“Damn it, Zach. I told you this was a bad idea.”
Caplan winced. “We can fix this.”
“You don’t get it.” Pearson shook his head. “If you’d kept quiet, those guys would’ve thought everyone was dead. Now, they know otherwise.”
Chapter 29
Date: Unknown; Location: Unknown
“Lost in time?” Pressing his back against rough schist, Brian Toland managed an exaggerated eye roll. “Well, that’s … interesting. Does anyone else have an idea? A real one?”
Her face warm with shame, Bailey Mills dipped her head to her lap. “It was just a thought,” she muttered softly.
“Yeah, a stupid one.” Toland gave her a withering look from the opposite side of the thin cave. “I can’t believe an entire generation of women look up to you. Oh, how I weep for the future.”
“How about you?” Tricia Elliott interjected.
Toland blinked. “Me?”
“At least she’s trying. So far, you’ve been nothing but dead weight.”
“Oh, I see. You’re one of those solidarity types. Feminism and girl power, right?” He smirked. “How droll.”
“You don’t know anything about me, old man.”
“Oh, an age joke! So original. Well, I may be older than you, my dear, but at least my entire personality isn’t wrapped up in my hair.”
Elliott’s eyes flashed. “Why you—”
“Stop it.” Travis Renjel’s voice rumbled through the semi-enclosed space. “Both of you.”
Mills leaned back, pressing her shoulder blades against the rock wall. After skirting around the woolly mammoths, their little group had followed the running water upstream, hoping to find some kind of village or encampment. Although they came up short, they’d ventured upon a grassy hillside, partially shaded by pines and spruces, cedars and Douglas-firs. The hill, which rose several hundred feet above ground, promised a much easier way of locating the nearest town. They’d started to climb it, but a sudden outburst of rain turned the ground into a sloppy mess. And so, the group had sought out shelter instead, eventually locating a tight but deep cave a quarter up the hillside.
Peering outside, Mills watched the rain. It was a mesmerizing rain, full of ancient mysticism and strange vibrations. But unfortunately, this was no cleansing storm from a generous higher power, capable of erasing everything that had transpired and spiriting her back to New York City. Rather, it was a force of pure isolation, one that made her feel lonelier by the second.
“I wish I’d never agreed to go to that stupid ball.” Tearing her gaze from the rain, she stared at a spot of rock wall between Toland and Renjel. “I wish I’d just stayed home.”
Toland cocked an eyebrow. “Ball?”
“Yes, a charity ball.” All her anger, all her frustration came out in a sudden spurt of emotions. How dare this man continue to sit in judgment of her? How would he like it if she mocked every aspect of his life? “What about you? What were you doing before you woke up here? Harassing innocent women, I assume?”
“Writing, actually,” he said with an air of superiority. “You see, I’m working on a new book.”
“Fiction?” Renjel asked.
“As if I’d waste my time on that nonsense. No, it’s a generational study, fully and gloriously unauthorized, of the Corbotch family.”
Mills’ eyes widened.
Elliott’s jaw fell agape. “You too?”
He eyed her with disdain. “Are we supposed to believe that you, my yellow-haired friend, are writing a book?”
“Not a book, no. But I’ve spent the last two years fighting the Corbotch Empire on behalf of northern New Hampshire communities.” She looked upon him with fierce interest. “Tell me about this book of yours.”
“For centuries, conspiracy theorists have accused the Corbotch family of assassinating leaders, arming terrorist groups, toppling governments, and inciting wars. But no one has ever been able to prove anything. My book will change that.” He eyed her with curiosity. “Your turn. Why are you fighting the evil empire?”
Elliott winced slightly. “Before … all this, Randi and I worked at Scrutiny. She is—was—the executive director and I serve as president.”
“With that hair?” Toland asked.
“Yes, with this hair.” Elliott rubbed a thin hand through her close-clipped, yellow hair. “Appearances are everything and me being a so-called wild child helped bring a certain class of donors aboard.”
“What’s Scrutiny?” Renjel asked.
“A global non-profit organization based out of Chicago. Our mission is to shed sunshine on corporate misconduct. You know, scandals, crimes, illegal deals. Stuff like that. So, about two years ago, we stumbled upon something strange.” She paused. “Has anyone ever heard of the Vallerio Forest? It’s a Corbotch holding.”
Toland nodded. “I have.”
Mills felt like she was coming out of a drunken stupor. “Me too.”
“Then you know it’s almost completely cut off from the outside world. A giant fence surrounds it and the U.S. government has designated it and its airspace as an official Prohibited Area. The only known residents work out of an isolated building called Hatcher Station. Supposedly, it’s some kind of observation center. Anyway local residents have registered all sorts of complaints about the forest. Strange sounds, missing pets, even missing people. The Vallerio Foundation, which Corbotch owns, refuses to listen to them. So, Randi and I have been helping them prepare a lawsuit to open up the Vallerio as well as its records for inspection.”
“Any luck?” Renjel asked.
“Not really,” she admitted. “But we have uncovered documents hinting at a weird project in the Vallerio. It’s called Apex Predator.”
“Weird how?”
“Mind you, this is mostly speculation. But we have reason to believe it involves the illegal importation of large predators to the Vallerio. Bears, lions, tigers … you get the picture.”
“Why would Corbotch do that?”
“From all appearances, he believes the world is in imminent danger of a systemic ecological collapse. He thinks this is because we’ve killed off too many predators. If they aren’t replaced soon, ecosystems will fail.”
“That’s crazy,” Mills said.
“Don’t be so quick to judge. I’ve read up on the subject and there seems to be a lot of truth to it. One example I remember dealt with large pieces of grassland in Australia. After predators died out, grass and shrubs grew faster and the soil received far less compaction. Seeds and shelter became more available. Rodent populations took advantage and doubled in size. The diseases they carried doubled with them.” Elliott shrugged. “Make no mistake about it. A kink at the top of the food chain can have disastrous consequences all the way down the line.”
“You make it sound like Corbotch is doing God’s work,” Renjel remarked. “So, why the lawsuit?”
“I’ll tell you why,” Toland said before Elliott could respond. “Because James is a veritable snake of a human being. Everything he does looks positive on the surface. But if you dig a little, you’ll find a whole rotten core on the inside.”
Renjel nodded and turned his attention to Mills. “So, you’ve heard of this Vallerio place, too?”
“Tricia isn’t the only one with a pending lawsuit.” Sighing, Mills stared at the schist ceiling. “You see, I rightfully own the Vallerio, or at least a part of it.”
“Impossible.” Toland gawked at her. “I would’ve known.”
“Back in the late 1700s, Alexander Corbotch sold part of the Vallerio to my ancestor, Thomas Mills. Thomas died shortly thereafter, willing everything to his sole heir, Daniel Mills. It appears Daniel never knew about the Vallerio transaction. He filed away the paperwork and it went unread until my lawyers discovered it last ye
ar.”
“And you’re suing to get the land back? Centuries later? Wow, I thought you were greedy before, but this—”
“I’m suing because it’s not right.” She brushed strands of damp, dirty hair back from her face. “The Corbotch family can’t just take things that don’t belong to them.”
“Curious.” Renjel turned to Toland. “Does your book deal with the Vallerio?”
“Not really,” Toland replied. “There’s not much material on it. Just stories of strange experiments and even stranger animals.”
Elliott perked up at the words, stranger animals. “Like sabers and woolly mammoths?”
“Unfortunately, the specifics are a little murky. For example, back in 1904, Miles Corbotch invited a famous zoologist named Professor Dasnoe to study the Vallerio Forest. All went well until a sudden attack—wolves, according to newspapers of the time—killed six expedition members. However, Dasnoe went to his grave—an unexpectedly early grave, by the way—trumpeting a different story. They weren’t wolves, he said, but rather mythical four-legged monsters of Abenaki lore.” Toland shrugged. “There are other stories like that one. Suffice it to say, the Vallerio has earned its reputation as one of the most mysterious places on Earth.”
“How about you?” Mills looked at Renjel. “Are you connected to the Vallerio?”
He paused, then nodded.
Her heart skipped a beat. “How so?”
“The New Yorker Chronicles is a tabloid paper. But we do a lot of investigative reporting, too. That’s my area of expertise.” He paused. “For the last four months, I’ve been researching a story on the Vallerio Foundation. Officially, the Foundation owns the Vallerio. But as most of you probably know, it’s really just a front for the Corbotch Empire.”
Mills flicked some dried dirt off her legs. “What’s the story about?”
“This probably won’t sound like a big deal,” he replied. “But over the last few years, dozens of the world’s top scientists have disappeared from the public eye. They’ve quit their posts at top universities and companies, stopped publishing research, and basically vanished into the ether. From what I’ve been able to gather, they took secret assignments with the Vallerio Foundation.”
Toland grunted. “Doesn’t sound like much of a story to me.”
Renjel took a deep breath. “The Foundation doesn’t produce anything. No research, no products. Its sole purpose is to manage the Vallerio Forest. So, why would James Corbotch, acting through the Foundation, recruit some of the world’s most brilliant scientific minds? What’s he really up to?”
“Do you have any theories?” Elliott asked.
“Not yet. But I have reason to believe the scientists work out of Hatcher Station. Which, of course, is located in the Vallerio.”
A moment of silence passed over the small group.
“So, we all have something in common.” Mills’ gaze hardened. “We were all, in one way or another, a potential threat to James Corbotch.”
Chapter 30
Date: June 19, 2016, 3:14 p.m.; Location: Hatcher Station, Vallerio Forest, NH
“I hate this thing.” Jermain Bernier, a biochemist and geneticist with four years experience at Hatcher Station, shook his head. “It always plays tricks with my brain. I mean, I know it’s a marsupial, but look at it. It practically screams rhino.”
Amanda Morgan glanced at the skeleton, mounted exhibit-style on top of a sturdy platform. Indeed, it looked a little like a rhinoceros. A rhinoceros, sans horn, to be specific.
But the skeleton, nine feet end-to-end and possessing a shoulder height of six feet, was actually that of a Diprotodon. The largest marsupial of all time, the Diprotodon was just one of many strange megafauna that had once roamed Australia. Related to the modern koala and wombat, it had died out approximately 40,000 years ago during a still-unexplained mass extinction of Australian megafauna.
She moved on, wincing as stabbing pain erupted from her side. Clutching her waist, she squeezed the pain, forcing it to subside a bit.
She walked past numerous exhibits, all devoted to skeletons of long-extinct megafauna. Miracinonyx inexpectatus, or the American cheetah, which had sported retractable claws and outran cougars. Canis dirus, also known as the dire wolf, a fearsome predator with powerful jaws and pack-hunting skills. Megalania prisca, or Megalania, the largest terrestrial lizard known to mankind. And many others. It was a fine collection, rivaling that of the world’s best-known museums.
She passed a pair of technicians who were cleaning blood and gore from the floor, utterly oblivious to the partial ten-foot tall skeleton of Gigantopithecus blacki—the only one known in existence—towering behind them.
She reached the central platform and climbed the stairs, pausing for a short respite at the halfway point. She found Bonnie Codd and Zlata Issova sitting in swivel chairs and fixated on computer screens. “What have you got for me?” she asked.
“We’re making progress,” Codd replied. “It shouldn’t be—”
Yells and shouts for help rang out from the entranceway. Swiveling her head, Morgan saw a trio of men limping across the slip-resistant vinyl floor. Covered in soil and uprooted foliage, the men looked in desperate need of baths. “What happened to them?” she asked.
Codd didn’t look up. “Who?”
“Page, Rice, and Sherman.”
Codd lifted her gaze and studied the men. “I sent them to check on 48A,” she said, a hint of concern in her voice. “I hope they didn’t run into trouble.”
“Okay, I’m going to talk to them. Keep me—”
“Amanda!” Bernier raced onto the platform. Lungs heaving, he bent down, hands on knees. “The … the incubators…”
Morgan swiveled to face him. She saw the redness in his cheeks, the urgency in his eyes. “What about them?”
“They’re …” He gasped. “They’re undergoing expulsion.”
Unimaginable horror filled Morgan’s heart. Turning in a slow circle, she spied eight silken ectogenetic incubators, part of Hatcher’s 2-Gen initiative. All of them trembled, quivered, and vibrated with quiet force. Two or three of them showed signs of cracking.
A dizzy spell assaulted Morgan’s brain, engulfing it in silken threads of haziness. A full expulsion sequence? How was that even possible?
Morgan snapped out of her haze. Her brain began to work, to plan. Hatcher had protocols for any number of lab-related emergencies, everything from a chemical spill to a full-on incubator failure. But a mass expulsion? Until that very minute, it had been an unthinkable prospect.
Unfortunately, it was now a reality.
She had to figure this out. Otherwise, she’d be forced to evacuate all personnel from the Lab and security checkpoint. Codd and Issova would have to cease work on the communications. All of her plans to stop the Foundation would come to a screeching halt.
Her eyes traced the array of computers and mechanical devices scattered about the platform. The trick to handling the situation, she decided, was to build upon existing protocols. “Bonnie, Zlata,” she said. “We’ve got a full expulsion sequence underway.”
Codd froze, the tips of her fingers hardening just above her keyboard. “Does that mean what I think it means?”
“Yes.”
Codd and Issova stood up. Moving as if in one body, they turned in tight circles, taking in the entire facility.
“They’re not even fully cooked yet,” Morgan said in a voice full of equal parts awe and terror. “This could be 1-Gen all over again.”
Issova and Codd gave her wide-eyed looks. They hadn’t been in the Lab during the 1-Gen debacle. But she’d told them all about it while recruiting them to her cause.
“That bad?” Issova asked.
“Maybe worse.” Morgan’s heart palpitated. “Speaking of 1-Gen, can you see if we have access to the incubators in Sector 48A?”
Issova hurried to a large monitor. For a few seconds, she pounded on the keyboard. “Okay, the system’s working fine.” She paused to chec
k the screen. “I can’t access the wireless network. But it looks like a general expulsion frequency was sent out to all incubators within twenty miles of this station.”
“Oh, wow,” Codd whispered. “We’re dead. We’re so dead.”
Morgan exhaled a long breath. If Issova was right, then every single incubator in 48A had been activated at the same time. And in an unprotected setting, with nothing to quell the enormous energy outburst. What would that look like? Sound like? Feel like? She could scarcely imagine it.
Morgan steeled her gaze. “Zlata, how long will it take to deploy the isolation chambers?”
Issova gawked at her.
“How long?” Morgan repeated.
Issova’s fingers flew across the keyboard. “Five or six minutes apiece from the looks of it.”
“Can you deploy them en mass?”
“Probably. But I’d need to figure it out. If I had an hour—”
“You don’t.” Morgan scanned the incubators, taking note of their movement and relative cracking. “Okay, we’ll do one at a time. Start with the Arctodus simus. It’s the closest to expulsion.”
While Issova worked the keyboard, Morgan turned to Codd. “Can you initiate a general shutdown of the expulsion sequence?”
Codd’s face twisted with doubt. “These programs are brand new to me. And even if I figure them out, it could be too late to stop the expulsions.”
“Just try.”
Codd flung herself into the swivel chair and zoomed across the platform to a mid-sized monitor. Quickly, she got to work, pecking keys with fierce intensity.
Morgan walked quickly to Bernier, who was still trying to catch his breath. Looking toward the entranceway, she saw a group of people gathered around Page, Rice, and Sherman, offering assistance to the beleaguered men.
Cupping her hands around her mouth, she lifted her voice to a shout. “Attention, everyone.” She paused as all eyes shifted to her. “The ectogenetic incubators are undergoing a simultaneous expulsion. We are doing everything in our power to stop it, or at least contain it. But to be on the safe side, I need all of you to evacuate this floor in an orderly manner.”