by E. A. Darl
Albert’s faced creased into a thin smile. “It wasn’t our choice, trust me. What you see is a garbage dump. What we see, is evidence.”
He led Mitch down between tall columns of wood, laid on their sides like retaining walls. Garbage mounded up out of the top of the pile threatening to tumble down into the passage with a good gust of wind.
“I don’t understand,” said Mitch, frowning. “Care to elaborate?” He followed their silent forms, annoyed at the lack of communication. “You went to all the trouble to bring me out here to show me what?”
They took a right fork and then climbed a rough staircase made of leftover paint cans, climbing to the top of the pile. His head leveled then moved above the height of the garbage, and that is when he saw it.
Lying in the midst of the pile of garbage was a flattened section, partitioned off by ropes. The area had been dissected into quadrants. Within each quadrant, masked and gloved people worked with brushes, tiny shovels, and water bottles, clearing away the surface of the area.
“An archaeological dig? In a dump?” said Mitch, in utter amazement. “You really believe you will find anything that old in here?” he gazed around at the trench they had just climbed out of and then it dawned on him how much work they had already completed. As he gazed out over the dump, over the acres of garbage, he realized the retaining walls were sites already dug to bedrock. This excavation had been going on for years.
“Twenty years to be exact,” said Ellen. Mitch turned towards Ellen at the sound of her voice. He hadn’t realized he’d spoken the words out loud. “We first heard of the deposits back in our college days. The hills around Melona show evidence of an ancient marsh that was pushed upwards by seismic activity, and the remains of dinosaurs had been found, on and off, for centuries. We used to volunteer for those outings, to go scavenging for fossils containing dinosaur bones. Those were fun days. Then the government stepped in and stopped it.”
Albert leaned against the temporary fencing, studying the scene. “It was under the guise of protecting our national heritage, declaring the scavenging to be disruptive to the ecology of the area and that all such activities were to cease. We thought it was aimed more at the commercial enterprises that collected the bones for gift shops and such. Dinosaur bone jewellery and belt buckles were all the rage at one point. The government fenced off the areas and posted signs and established huts to control the entry and exit to the most prolific grounds, most at danger for exploitation. Or so we thought.”
Ellen moved up beside him, but her eyes were far away. “Then they brought the big equipment. The government pushed back the boundaries and began issuing passes permitting entry into the area. Everyone was turned away, including scientists, unless they had government issued permission to access the area. Some of those we knew applied to the government and those that were accepted soon became closed mouthed about what they were being asked to study. They were sworn to secrecy and eventually they stopped associating with us at all. Trucks began to leave the area, full of no one knew what, but by the sheer number, we deduced they must be carrying away artifacts in the armoured ones, and debris in the garbage scows. So we started following the trucks.”
“The garbage trucks came here. The armoured trucks went to a secured warehouse near Melona. We never could get a look inside that one,” said Albert.
Mitch scratched his ear, puzzled. “Why dig through this dump? I still don’t understand.”
“Because in all of this garbage, there may be a piece that they missed. A piece of a dinosaur so important to the government that they will kill to protect the secret,” said Ellen.
“What secret?” said Mitch.
“The secret of the disease unleashed by the government on our unsuspecting world. We believe that they unearthed something deadly. Our bet is that it is the same disease that killed the dinosaurs in the first place. A plague that we cannot begin to stop until we find the root cause. That is why we dig.”
Mitch sifted the concept through his mind. “Ok, say that this is all true,” he held up his hand when Albert opened his mouth in rebuttal, “and the disease issue that is affecting the land is related to the dinosaur bones. What do you expect to accomplish in the end?”
“Find a cure of course! We are trying to save this world! We gave up our family to do so.”
“Yeah, well as to that, why didn’t you just bring them with you?” He shook off the protest he knew was coming. “Never mind. What I really need to know is how does all of this tie in to the green houses? You know about them, right?”
“Yes. We are aware of the greenhouses,” said Ellen. “We are not sure of their significance, but we have theories. We are waiting for the scientists of the SOS to tell us this but they are working in many scattered locations. The SOS operates in small cells so that if a government raid were to happen, they would not grab all of us at once. But this makes it difficult to share information too. A courier must move our results from cell to cell as we don’t dare trust the internet, where it is even available. The government monitors every transmission from every server. Rogue servers that are not registered are shut down within days. There is no such thing as ‘freedom of information’ any longer. Only the rich can afford internet service, so it makes it super easy to know who is using it and for what purpose. Cell phone service collapsed long ago, as you know. So most of the SOS teams have gone back to a short wave system of radio and encoded broadcasts. You can only send a limited amount of information that way, however, and a lot of what we are dealing with are samples, and data slides. It must be transported. SOS couriers run between sites, sharing the results of their research. The cell you see here,” she waved a hand back at the trestle, “is one of many.”
“So you are searching for dinosaur bones too small to be caught in the machinery the government was using, to study the same thing they were? How do you know what it was? How do you even know it is related to dinosaur bones? They could have been searching for anything.”
“We know, because we were two of the scientists that applied and were accepted into the government ranks. We were part of their secret order, initially.” Albert grimaced, anger flashing across his face. “That is, until we discovered the truth. The government is behind the entire ecological disaster. Every last bit of it.”
“I thought so, too,” said Mitch, “but I have never had any evidence to back up my hunch. So what have you discovered? Why bring me here?”
“We knew you were searching for us, had been since we disappeared. We also hoped you could help us with a small snag we have run into. Come, let me show you.” Albert crossed over to a small bridge spanning twin piles of refuse, then took a stair case that lead back down to ground level, taking the steps two at a time.
Mitch hurried to keep up. At the base of the stairs, a pair of glass doors on sensors came into view and shushed open, parting to allow them entry. It took a minute or so for his sight to adjust to the dim interior. When it did, what his eyes revealed took his breath away. Mitch whistled, as he slowly he entered the cavern, eyes roving over the incredible sight. Rows and rows of incubators stood solemn sentry, organized into groups, like peas in a pod. Lights blinked on the front of the pods, and a light in the ceiling brightened as he paused in front of a tube. Floor to ceiling in height, each pod contained a person. There was no defining factor to the arrangements that he could determine. Some pods contained women, some contained men. They were of different heights, differently dressed, different ethnic groups. There were even a few children in the groups. He couldn’t stop his eyes from roving over the rows and rows of tubes.
“What is going on here? They are all in stasis, right?” asked Mitch, eyes studying a blond haired boy of about twelve. His heart lurched. He reminded him of Alexa. “Are they infected?”
“They were all stung by bees. Each and every one of them,” said Ellen.
Astonishment washed over Mitch and he ran a hand down his face, welcoming the feel of the scruff on his chin as his eyes to
ok in all the people in stasis chambers.
“How in the world did you get them all here?”
“That is a fascinating story, for another time. Suffice it to say, if we had left them where we discovered them, they would be truly dead,” said Albert, his voice gruff.
Mitch turned around to stare down the two scientists at his back. He folded his arms and his biceps bulged, as he tensed to do battle. “I am not leaving this spot until you explain why you kidnapped me and brought me here. Clearly you want something and I am not cooperating until you explain everything. Are they victims of government experimentation? Or did you do this to them?”
The Gainsboroughs exchanged glances, but remained silent.
“I have been caring for your children,” he continued. “Did you know? For the last three months, I have been housing and feeding them, and all this time, you have been alive. How could you abandon them so? You made no provisions for their welfare, at all. You left them to rot while you staged your own abduction by the government? Is that what I am to understand about all of this?”
“No!” shouted Ellen, angry tears sparkling in her eyes.
They were the same shape as Avalon’s, Mitch noted with a distracted corner of his mind.
“We did not abandon them. We were taken, just as they told you. They dragged us away from our children to continue our work on these,” she pointed at the closest tube, “popsicles, and left our children to starve. There was nothing we could do. We were under lock and key at all times. We were not allowed any communication with the outside world.”
“You created these catatonic people? This is your work? You have been the ones experimenting on people?” asked Mitch, his voice vibrating with fury.
“No. We did not create them. We were brought in to save them,” said Albert.
Mitch’s eyes travelled between the pair. “Explain,” he said his voice a flat slap.
Albert unclenched his fists, pacing the narrow confines of the space between the pods to ease the angry tension stiffening his shoulders. “The government is experimenting with a rare form of DNA that is found within a certain variety of dinosaur. Our research determined that the DNA of these dinosaurs had been altered by their exposure to a prehistoric version of today’s carpenter bee. During our college forays into the badlands where dinosaur bone deposits are most plentiful, we happened on an area of fossilized remains that showed some of the bony processes of the dinosaurs had been hollowed out. A network of honeycomb like complexes had replaced the internal structure of the bones. Fascinated, we took a large thigh bone back to our lab at the college for closer study. What we discovered there was exciting beyond belief. The dinosaurs had been hijacked by a clever species of bee that utilized their very bone structures to create a safe haven to protect them from the ravages of an environment so out of control, that it was killing their hosts in droves. The theory we developed was that the bees would swarm a dinosaur and bore into their bony structures at the ridges of the back or of a horn and once inside the relatively soft core, continue to bore until they reached a sheltered location. Hip bones and sockets were a favoured place to build their vast honeycombs. Living host or dead, it mattered not to the bees. Over many millennia the bees evolved, taking on some of the DNA characteristics of their hosts and were transformed.”
Mitch frowned at the pair of them. “So? What is the point? What does any of this have to do with the government? Or with these people?” he gestured toward the silent host crowded around them.
Ellen took up the recounting of the story. Her face was pasty white in the dull light of the overhead bulbs. “Inside the dinosaur bones, we found living specimens. The honeycombs had protected them, keeping them in stasis within the cavities for all this time. We were able to reanimate them.”
Mitch’s frown faded into a scowl and he suddenly had the urge to scratch all over. His skin crawled with apprehension, the same sensation he felt when he knew a showdown was about to happen, but it was a confrontation that could not be avoided. He tensed, his fight-or-flight instinct kicking in. Bad news is coming, very bad news, he thought.
“Don’t you see? These people are infected the same way the dinosaurs are. The bees are growing inside them.”
Mitch’s chin dropped. “Growing inside them? But...there is only one bony structure big enough to house a bee colony. You mean, there are colonies of prehistoric bees buzzing around inside their heads?”
Chapter 5
The Secret Lair
Avalon crouched behind the bumper of the burnt out car, behind Magnum’s broad back. Her knife slid in and out of her sleeve as she chafed over not being able to see the threat ahead of them. On one hand was Magnum who, for all her taunting words, was as silent as a corpse when on patrol. Cris, on the other hand, was not. A low hiss sounded in Avalon’s ear.
“Can’t you crouch any smaller? Get your ass down and stay behind Magnum, or I will—”
“Or you will, what?” interrupted Avalon, glaring over her shoulder at Cris. “I have lived longer on the street than not, without the backup protections of the likes of her.” She jammed her thumb in Magnum’s direction.
“Shut up, both of you,” growled Magnum, in a low voice that barely carried back to them. “I spy four armed people out front of the building. They have knives, no guns that I can spot. One has a baseball bat stashed in the doorway of cannery. See that fire escape there?” She pointed to the right of the doorway. “There is a fifth up top of the building, acting as a look out.”
Avalon leaned out around Magnum to have a look, and Cris hauled her back by the shoulder.
“Fire escape, roof, got it,” said Cris, giving Avalon a murderous glare.
Avalon smirked at the look of annoyance on Cris’ face. “There is a sixth person,” she said, “there, in the shadow of the burnt out bus.”
Magnum’s head turned in the direction of the bus and stared intently for several moments. “You’re right. Good catch, Avalon. His coat is working as camouflage. I missed him.” She considered the layout of the people, thinking. “Three against six, not good odds. I wonder why they brought so many? The Imbroglio gang likes to operate in pairs. Less chance of a street fight breaking out.”
“Hey, look over there,” said Avalon. “At the side door by the bus. It’s opening.”
“Decoy,” muttered Magnum. “They are all decoys.”
“Yeah,” said Cris, “and look at what’s coming up the alley.”
A black van slowly drove up the alley, making hardly a sound as it moved. Tinted windows blocked any view of the interior or the driver. The van pulled up just short of the street, and the driver and passenger doors opened. A man and a woman, dressed in black, stepped from the van, hands tucked inside the pocket of their coats.
“Cops!” whispered Magnum.
Avalon watched the pair approach the burnt out bus and a chill raced down her spine. “No, it’s worse. They are Feds.”
“Shit.” Magnum pulled away from the edge, backing up into the pair. “Let’s get out of here. We don’t want their kind of attention.” She grabbed Avalon’s arm to turn her around, but Avalon shook it off with a scowl.
“I’m not going anywhere, until I see what they are up to.” She slipped past Magnum and took up the lead spot, crouching low.
The woman in black wore skin tight leggings and high topped black boots. Her eyes darted in all directions, clearly not trusting the sentries posted by the Imbroglio’s. Her eyes settled on the spot where Avalon hid, and she froze, staring back at the woman.
“Don’t move,” she whispered, “she is staring right at us.”
A sharp word from her male companion drew her attention away from their location and she hurried to catch up to his retreating back. The crack widened in the doorway and they slipped inside, the door closing behind them. The Imbroglio lookout under the bus crawled out and started walking down the alley, searching the van’s back trail.
“I’m going inside,” said Avalon, as she sprang to her fee
t and sprinted off across the open space.
“Avalon! Shit!” swore Magnum, and with a quick glance to check the location of the decoys, ran after Avalon, Cris on her heels.
They caught up to her at the side of the burnt out bus, then followed her as she dashed into the tiny concealment of the doorframe. Avalon pressed her ear against the peeling paint of the wooden door, listened for signs of occupants on the other side, and then slowly turned the knob. It was unlocked. She eased the door open an inch, pausing to listen once again. Silence greeted her ear. She pushed with her shoulder, and the door opened wide enough to allow them to slip inside, and then Cris closed it with a soft click.
High dirty windows filtered a murky light into the abandoned garage. Oily patches stained the rough concrete and empty oil change pits carved rectangular hazards across the floor. The room was otherwise empty. Magnum grabbed Avalon’s injured arm and squeezed hard.
“Oww!” hissed Avalon, angry eyes sparking in her determined face.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” said Magnum, “I am in charge of this escapade.”
“No one commands me. I answer only to myself. Besides, you have no idea what you are walking into here. I do. So if you are smart you will follow my lead. Now, let go of me.” She stared down Magnum and after a moment’s hesitation, she pushed Avalon away.
“Go ahead then, get yourself killed. Just don’t expect us to save you...again.” Cris smirked and folded her arms, daring Avalon to go on alone.
Avalon shrugged, and took off at a run, not caring if they followed. Anywhere there were feds, there was a lead to her parents and that was all she cared about. Everyone else could rot.
She flattened herself on the wall of a doorway that lead of the mechanical bay, inching forward until she could peer down the hallway. Several doors branched off of the dark space and from the far end, a light shone through a pane of glass covered over in old newspaper. A soft murmur reached her ears.
“Stay here!” she commanded, and without looking back to see if they had obeyed, Avalon slunk into the dark corridor. She flitted from grey haze to dim shadow, a determined shade on a quest to reveal all. At the door, she ducked low under the glass and pressed her ear to the crack of the frame. This time the voices carried clearly to her.