‘So I’m guessing,’ said Hollis, ‘with that kind of power you’ve seen some things we haven’t. Am I right?’
‘Oh, you’re right.’
Jack pushed his hair from his eyes, rubbing the closing wound as he did. ‘And it’s from my longevity, my experiences, that I think I can explain what’s triggering these changes in the Earth.’
Eva took another shot of tequila.
‘A long time ago,’ said Jack, ‘a dear friend and a brave woman told me a story about energy forces called the Helix Intelligences.’ Jack shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘Sarah Jane said it was possible that when our solar system was forming one of the helixes was trapped in the centre of the Earth.’
Eva held her glass out to Hollis who refilled it. Again.
‘My first inkling,’ continued Jack, ‘of what might be happening under the sea and to me, and to all these women, including Gwen, was a hunch, a response to the fragment of a memory, and the urgency of a thin voice in my head reminding me of Sarah Jane’s story.’
‘Great!’ snorted Eva, recovering from the shock of what she’d witnessed, the tequila helping too. ‘We’re supposed to trust you because of a voice in your head.’
Jack shrugged. ‘Listen. I know this is difficult to get your head around—’
‘You think?’ said Eva.
‘But I think given how quickly these chimneys are forming we don’t have much time to act.’
Eva exhaled a long exasperated sigh. She sat at her desk, close to tears. Vlad put his hand on her arm. This time she let it stay.
Hollis passed her another drink. ‘It’ll cure what’s ailing you, darlin’.’
She shot back two.
Jack refused another, but Cash joined Eva and shot back two. ‘Can’t have the lass drinking alone.’
‘I know about the Helix Intelligences,’ said Vlad. ‘There was a cadre of physicists in the 1960s – some said they were a cult and spent too much time experimenting with LSD. Anyway, they posited a theory that a powerful sentient astral force was caught in the Big Bang and part of the astral force broke off and was later fused into the centre of the planet. The energy force gives the Earth its organic nature and it’s from this sentient force that life evolved and is protected.’
Eva looked at Vlad. ‘Do you really believe that? It sounds like another creation myth, only one that involves aliens of a sort.’
‘And that’s the strangest thing you’ve heard today?’
‘The Helix Intelligences are not aliens per se,’ said Jack, ‘but sentient astral forces. The Greeks called them Titans, the gods of the gods.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The friend I was telling you about, she witnessed the Helix splitting.’
Eva looked at Jack, then Cash and finally Vlad. ‘You’re not seriously believing this, are you?’
‘Eva,’ said Vlad, ‘Shelley has data to prove that Earth functions that should be taking two million years to develop are suddenly happening overnight. Thousands of women across the world are being driven mad from an ecto-hormone, a sophisticated pheromone that’s slowly seeping into the atmosphere. Jack’s explanation is the best one I’ve heard, and,’ he held his hand up to stop Eva who was about to interrupt him. ‘And in 2009 a virus infected the net. It was a fragment of a Helix Intelligence. I was one of the techs tasked to study it.’
Eva put her head down on the desk. Hollis pulled his chair next to hers, and gently stroked her back.
‘Hollis, what about you?’ asked Jack. ‘Are you buying my theory?’
‘Jack, I’m buying anything you’re selling, darlin’. I’m from N’Orleans. I’ve seen plenty of weird shit in my day too.’
56
FIVE MILES OFF the coast of Wales, HMS Churchill reached its cruising depth at 300 feet below the surface of the Atlantic.
‘Torpedoes at the ready.’
‘Ready, sir.’
‘Position confirmed.
‘Confirmed, sir.’
‘Release torpedoes.
‘Fire!’
Inside the brightly lit sonar room, three officers of the Royal Navy and two visiting commanders from the US Navy watched the screens as the torpedoes shot through the water to the ribbed trunk of the hydrothermal chimney. Both torpedoes hit the structure at the same time, detonating against the surface of the rock, sending a screaming sound wave bouncing back to the submarine. The waves spiralled around the entire ship, shorting every piece of electrical equipment inside, and flipping the submarine a full 360 degrees in the water.
The emergency generators switched on immediately. Only a handful of men and women sustained injuries. When the engine crew adjusted the ballasts and the submarine steadied itself in the water, the officers, shaken but remaining steady on their feet, took a closer look at the damage the missiles had inflicted on the hydrothermal vent.
‘Let General Laine at HQ know that the chimney has sustained no damage from our attack,’ said the British commander. ‘We are awaiting further orders.’
57
‘FOR MONTHS,’ SAID Jack, ‘fragments of a memory have been haunting me, flashes of something that until recently I thought was part of a dream, or perhaps some kind of genetic memory. But when Cash sent me your data and I reviewed your discoveries about these eruptions, I knew my blood had triggered something deep in the Earth’s core, and that I had started a countdown to the planet’s self-destruction. Again.’
‘Again?’ asked Vlad. ‘This has happened before?’
‘My blood,’ Jack told him, ‘along with global warming, over-population, the extinction of certain species, all the things Eva was mocking, started decades ago, in 1930 to be exact, but a friend saved me and unwittingly saved all of us. I think the helix, the astral energy force trapped at the centre of the Earth, has been searching for me ever since. It needs my genetic code, my 51st-century DNA, to free itself. This sentient mass at the centre of the Earth has a limited time span.’
‘It’s like the Earth has a planned obsolescence,’ said Cash.
Jack nodded. ‘Sort of.’
‘Aliens were here,’ said Vlad, ‘and they slapped a Best Before date on us, and now humanity’s reaching its expiry date.’
‘That’s one way to put it,’ said Jack, smiling. ‘But the timing is wrong. If global warming and those other elements continued then the trigger should have been in the 51st century. Not now. Not today. But my DNA in the morphic field messed up the geologic time scale and stimulated the archetypal memory of the helix.’
‘What’s the geologic time scale?’ asked Hollis.
‘Shelley, explain please?’ asked Jack, his exhaustion making his bones ache. The closer the Ice Maiden got to the Panama Canal, the worse his synaesthesia.
Hollis slid the chair he’d been sitting on across to Jack, who straddled it. Hollis parked himself on the edge of Eva’s desk, his weight nudging her. She lifted her head and looked into Hollis’s dark eyes. ‘You’re awful sexy.’
Hollis winked at her.
‘Geologists,’ explained Shelley, appearing next to Jack, ‘and other scientists use what’s called a geologic time scale to map the history of the Earth. The time scale describes the relationships among critical biological and geologic events, using strata studied in volcanic rock formations, fossil analysis, population growth as well as climate and oceanic changes.’ Shelley tapped her pen to her leather journal, opening a chronological spiral above Jack’s head, spinning the conch shape only slowing it down at critical points as she spoke. ‘There have been numerous cataclysmic events that are marked on the geologic timeline. The breaking up of land masses, the freezing of the polar ice caps, the mass extinction of dinosaurs and other plant life, to even a minor ice age in the northern hemisphere. All of which suggests the Earth adjusting and shifting to balance her systems.’
Jack leaned over the back of the chair, looking directly at Eva. ‘So, yes, Eva, the Ice Maiden has been monitoring the oceans for me, but I was hoping that you’d not find a
nything out of the ordinary. But then when the behaviours of certain women started to be affected, especially Gwen’s, and when I discovered that Gwen had carved a message to me on her arm, then I knew there was a connection between the two events. First tremors and changes in the body of the Earth and then tremors and changes in the bodies and minds of women, especially a woman I’m close to. Not a coincidence.’
‘So what’s the connection?’ asked Vlad.
‘When Shelley confirmed what was spewing from the hydrothermal vents then I understood that women who were synaesthetes were being affected for a reason, but not the one I initially thought.’
Eva pushed away from her desk. ‘I can’t get my head around this. I need some fresh air.’
She wobbled to her feet, and all the tequila shots had their effect, toppling her into Vlad’s arms.
She smiled up at him. ‘You’re very sexy too.’
Vlad rolled his eyes and sat Eva back down at her desk.
‘Go on,’ she said, resting her head on her desk. ‘I’m listening, Captain Harkness, sir. Mister bossy spaceman. I’m listening.’
Jack pointed to the seven vents that as of today were all visible above the surface of the oceans. ‘Each one of these vents triggered synaesthesia in clusters of women living close to them. I think their heightened synaesthesia was simply a by-product of these deep-water vents. I think the Helix Intelligence, the sentient force at the centre of the Earth, was looking for me.’
‘But,’ interrupted Hollis, ‘and I say this from quite convincing experience, you’re pretty much all male. How come you’ve been affected by this female hormone.’
Jack smiled at Hollis. ‘Thank you, but my DNA, my cell structure, is much more complex than yours and much less a dichotomy between male and female chromosomes and if I’m right about my dream, about some of the… the hallucinations I’ve been experiencing then, because I’ve connected with the force at the centre of the Earth before… it wants my DNA to free itself.’
‘It’s as if Jack’s the helix’s exodus code. It’s way to escape back to the universe,’ said Cash.
‘The Helix Intelligences are sentient astral forces,’ Jack explained. ‘They’ve existed everywhere in the galaxies before any life forms. They may in fact have been responsible for the first life forms. They are neutral, impassive energy forces. But I think after this helix was trapped in the Earth’s core, over the eons it has absorbed many of our human passions, especially the ones that make us dangerous to each other – anger, hatred, revenge. Think about how much blood has spilled on this planet since the beginning of time, never mind in the last seventy-plus years. I think it needs my life force to break free.’
Cash started to laugh, a loud deep infectious one.
‘What’s so funny?’ slurred Eva. ‘The world’s facing annihilation and you’re laughing.’
‘My Calvinist father was right all along,’ chuckled Cash. ‘The world is in the hands of a spiteful, vengeful God. He must be rolling in his grave.’
‘So what are we going to do?’ asked Vlad. ‘Other than call our families and say goodbye.’
‘I’m going to convince the Helix Intelligence that it’s made a mistake – that it needs to stop its self-destruct.’
‘How the hell are you going to do that? If the Helix Intelligence is at the centre of the Earth, you’ll need to go there to stop it.’
‘That’s the plan.’
‘That’s the plan?’ asked Eva.
‘Well, sort of,’ said Jack. ‘But we do have one or two obstacles to overcome before we get there.’
‘We?’ repeated Eva and Hollis in unison.
‘One or two obstacles,’ said Vlad.
‘Maybe three.’
58
AN HOUR LATER, the comms room was taking on the look and the feel of a Hub. The tequila had been put away and maps, graphs, notes and calculations spread across Vlad and Eva’s desk. Shelley was running diagnostics with Vlad’s help and Jack’s supervision. Jack smiled to himself, glad to be part of a team again, and then he remembered that if his hunches were wrong, if his plan didn’t work, they’d all be dead in four days.
All. Everyone. The entire human race. No reset. Nothing. The End.
Except what would the complete destruction of the world do to him?
Best not to find out.
‘Can I help?’ said a slurred voice from the passageway. Jack jumped from behind the desk as Gwen stepped into the room. ‘You didn’t think I’d let you save the world without me. We’re a team, remember.’
Jack took Gwen’s arm and helped her over to chair. ‘How are you not comatose?’
‘Oh, you know.’ Gwen managed an easy shrug. ‘If a Welsh girl can shake off six pints and four jaegerbombs and then order a flaming Sambuca, don’t expect the strongest tranquillisers known to man to keep her down for long.’ She smiled wearily. ‘Although I could murder a bacon sandwich.’
‘Me too,’ said Vlad.
Cash was taking apart a computer drive in the back corner of the room. Without taking his eyes off the task, he raised his hand. ‘Me three.’
‘Coming right up.’ Hollis headed off to the galley.
Jack brought Gwen up to speed on his plan, the others passing her notes and graphs when she needed them for clarification. By the time Hollis returned with a platter of sandiwches, Shelley was playing them the video of the vents building under the oceans.
The footage ended on the feed of the chimney rising higher off the coast of Wales. Gwen stood at the screen with Jack, watching the rocks around the geyser get taller.
‘Are Anwen and Rhys OK?’
‘They are, and so is your mum.’
‘Do you think Rhys will ever forgive me for what I tried to do?’
‘Of course. It’s Rhys. He loves you unconditionally.’ Jack pulled his handkerchief and dried her tears. And so do I, he thought.
‘Are you sure this plan is going to work, Jack?’
‘Have I ever been wrong?’
Suddenly everyone stopped what they were doing, waiting for Gwen’s answer.
‘Well, there was that time…’ She let her voice trail off.
Eva’s eyes widened.
‘Trust him,’ said Gwen. ‘He’s the world’s last best hope.’
Eva put down the notes she was looking at, and said to Gwen, ‘So you don’t think we should let someone in power – I don’t know, like the President or the United Nations – know what’s about to happen so they can create some kind of evacuation plan?’
‘And flee to where?’ asked Vlad. ‘Anyway, even if every country had their own space shuttles, it still wouldn’t be enough to save everyone.’
Eva tore into her sandwich, hot sauce dripping down her chin. Vlad reached over and wiped it off with his thumb.
‘You don’t think anyone else could be monitoring the hydrothermal vents who can hypothesise, as we did,’ said Eva, her mouth full, her pulse quickening, ‘about what’s going to happen when they all seal themselves?’
‘The US Navy and the Royal Navy have submarines full of scientists already examining the vents in Wales and off the coast of New Zealand,’ said Shelley. ‘For the past twenty-four hours, they’ve been trying unsuccessfully to take a rock sample. Nothing is permeating the structures. They’ve tried an array of weapons from their arsenal. It will take them longer to trace the ecto-hormones in the atmosphere and the increase of carnosine in the water; most of their technology is not yet equipped for the tests.’
‘Unlike ours,’ said Eva.
‘Unlike ours,’ said Jack.
‘Because some of our technology is alien,’ said Vlad.
Jack scanned the room, making eye contact with each one of them, then he nodded. ‘Most of my technology is alien.’
‘Fuck me!’ He waved his hand at Shelley before she could respond. ‘I know. I know. Not operational yet.’
‘I predict,’ said Shelley, ‘that it will be another three days before the world will be fully aware of its
predicament, and at the rate of evolution of the hydrothermal chimneys, by then it will be too late.’
‘Someone else must realise we’re facing an apocalyptic event and know what to do to stop it, right?’ asked Eva, the full force of what was happening finally, incontrovertibly sinking in to her consciousness. She began to cry.
Jack and Cash glanced at each other. Jack shook his head.
‘That’s not fair,’ said Eva, tears running down her cheeks. ‘Why should we have to be the only ones who know the Earth is a turning into a big, stupid, awful bomb? I never asked for that responsibility. I don’t want that responsibility.’
‘Hey,’ said Jack, ‘I’m taking most of the responsibility and I really do have a plan, but—’
‘But you need our help,’ said Vlad.
‘I need your help. All of you. Because there are a few other events at play that need to be handled before I can implement my plan.’
‘Are you sure we can’t just throw you into the stupid mountain and get it over with?’ asked Eva, wiping her face with her sleeve.
‘Not going to be that easy,’ laughed Jack.
‘Of course, it’s not.’
‘The helix needs my consciousness, my humanity, as one of the pieces to initiate its big bang and to seal the chimneys. I’m going to give her exactly what she wants, but with a slight change in the code.
‘You’re going to fool Mother Nature?’
‘That’s the plan.’
‘Well,’ said Hollis, ‘I’m tired of being the chief cook and bottle washer on this ship. I’d like to earn a little respect. Think savin’ the world might be the thing to do.’
‘If my plan works, Hollis, no one is going to know what you or any of us have done.’
‘Trust him,’ said Gwen. ‘It’s better that way.’
Jack tapped the map on the screen until it zoomed in on the southern coastline of Peru. ‘This is where it all began. And this is where it will end.’
He smiled at them all. ‘One way or another.’
Part Four
Torchwood: Exodus Code Page 21