Extinction Countdown

by James D. Prescott

  “Ah,” he said, waving a long black finger at her. “There is one thing you are forgetting.”

  Kay didn’t have a clue what he was referring to.

  “The aliens you speak of may have created us, I will give you that. But ask yourself, who created them?”

  God. That was her father’s unspoken answer. It was his answer for all things mysterious and Kay grinned at her father’s unflinching logic. She pulled him into a hug.

  “When the house is quiet again,” he started to say, “you can bring your bags upstairs. I made up your bedroom. There’s also a spot for Goggles too.”

  Kay barely had time to thank him when her phone pinged.

  “Ignore it,” he begged, holding out his hand, hoping to confiscate the offending device.

  Kay grimaced, visibly pained from the struggle going on within her. The choir was back at it again, this time belting out They Got the Word, one of her all-time favorites. Staying here to live out what time remained felt like a dream. Basking in the final few moments she would be able to share with her loved ones. They could eat breakfast at midnight, have dessert before dinner and enjoy the kind of carefree days she had longed for as a child when both her parents had been forced to spend long hours working. One of them had always been home to look after her, they had made sure of that. But the times when all three of them had managed to carve out time together, just the three of them, had been few and far between. Her father was always at church, catering to his flock, and her mother at the bank, making sure the family had health insurance and an extra paycheck every month.

  Her father wiggled his outstretched hand.

  It would have been so nice to stay here and hide under the covers as the world went up in flames, but if Kay ever felt there was a time when she was needed, it was now. She looked down at her cellphone and read the text she had received. It was from Lucas. He’d found something on the laptop.

  Chapter 28

  Greenland

  The tracks led the team through a series of winding streets. In some parts, sections of the stone buildings had crumbled, blocking the path. It was an eerie feeling walking these ancient streets. At one time, a sky thick with stars would have been visible overhead. Now, only the dark underbelly of a trillion tons of ice could be seen. Passing under the shells of buildings, the empty sockets of the second- and third-story windows glaring down at them, it was hard to shake the ghostly feeling they were being watched.

  “One can almost hear the soles of their shoes whispering against the cobblestones,” Anna said, seeming to read his thoughts.

  He stopped and stared at her, momentarily stunned. A moment later, she turned to face him.

  “Dr. Greer?” she asked, tugging at his elbow.

  “Yes, Anna,” he replied, resuming the pace he had been keeping.

  “Do you ever superimpose holographic visuals over the reality before you?”

  “Superimpose? Do you mean with the glasses we’re wearing?”

  “Not with the use of technology,” she attempted to clarify. “You appeared distracted, as though some part of your awareness was working through a difficult problem.”

  He nodded. “I’m trying to understand this place. Who lived here. What they might have looked like. Where they might have gone.”

  “I have been doing the same,” she admitted with a tinge of guilt. “I have scanned the dimensions of several of the structures and have found a number of interesting patterns.”

  “Such as?”

  “The ground-level floors are generally larger with fewer rooms. My guess,” she said, pausing ever so slightly on the word, “is that many of the lower levels may have been used as commercial establishments, while the upper levels were what might be considered living quarters.”

  Jack raised an eyebrow. “Store fronts? Any idea what they might have sold?”

  “Unfortunately that is not something I am able to determine,” she said, sounding a touch disappointed. “As you know, most of what remains is either locked in ice or has long since disintegrated with the ravages of time. I have been working on a program I call Magic Mirror, which I designed to identify solutions that logic alone may not arrive at. Part of the process requires the superimposition of images over an existing physical area. This is why I was asking the question.”

  “You mean like that Pokémon Go craze that swept the nation for about fifteen seconds?”

  Anna grinned. “Yes, precisely, Dr. Greer. I use Magic Mirror to run thousands of scenarios through a filter, comparing and contrasting which realities fit best. For example, I have run visual representations from all known historical time periods using archival images from a variety of sources. And I have found that only one closely matches the sophistication and level of technology we are seeing here.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “The second decade of the twentieth century. Already, the development of plastics, rubber and seemingly self-propelled vehicles warrants such a comparison. Of course, there is more work to be done and additional data is required in order to lay down a formal hypothesis.”

  “I understand,” he said, curtly. In many ways, Jack lent tremendous weight to Anna’s opinion, no matter how difficult it might be to swallow. But like Dag, Jack felt a keen resistance welling inside him over the idea that a technologically advanced species might have existed at some point in the distant past.

  There was no denying the evidence before them. This subterranean city had been locked in ice for millions of years. He couldn’t help but wonder what else might be hidden beneath Greenland’s ice sheet. Deep in our planet’s past, could this massive island have once been home to a lost civilization remembered only in our collective psyche as Atlantis? He caught Anna watching him intently. He considered sharing his thoughts, but was not sure the idle speculation would do any of them much good. Instead, he said, “I’m curious, what was it you based Magic Mirror on?”

  “I am not certain I understand the question,” she said, a complicated expression clouding her digital features. “Are you suggesting that I infringed on an existing copyright?”

  Jack laughed. “No, and I didn’t mean to freak you out. It’s only that humans run a very similar program to Magic Mirror. But we have a different name for it.”

  “Looking Glass?” she asked, innocently.

  “No. We call it imagination.”

  Anna was still digesting Jack’s comment when the street up ahead opened into a large plaza. In the center was a single ten-story circular structure, one that looked even older than the rest of the buildings they’d already come across. It rose a hundred feet into the air like a giant wedding cake, each layer slightly smaller than the last. The brickwork was exquisitely done, the outer surface consisting of a series of arches and columns.

  “What do you make of it?” Gabby tossed out to no one in particular.

  Grant cleared his throat. “It looks to me like the fabled Tower of Babel.”

  •••

  “We got a set of footprints heading inside,” Mullins warned. “There’s no saying whether or not they’re still here, but everyone should be prepared for possible contact just the same.”

  Jack and the others readied their weapons. Grant followed apprehensively, both his hands filled with the science gear.

  Mullins lifted a hand, pulling them to a halt. “On second thought, get the robot to go in first,” he ordered.

  Jack brushed past the captain and toward the tower. “Her name is Anna. And the next time you can tell her yourself. It’s the polite thing to do.”

  Anna looked at Mullins and stuck a digital tongue out at him.

  After passing under the large archway, Jack found himself inside a circular hall with what might have once been a marble floor. The open space rose all the way up to a narrow ceiling. Ringing the hall were a series of ten-foot statues in various states of disrepair. From the light cast by Jack’s helmet, whatever they were, they did not appear human. But it was the giant figure in the center that
commanded the room. It stood close to thirty feet high, rising up on a pair of short but powerful back-jointed limbs. In one of its hands—if you could call it that—the figure was holding something large and oval, but from this distance Jack couldn’t make out exactly what it was.

  The figure’s trunk was long and covered in what appeared to be fur. The neck was thickly muscled and came to a sudden stop. Jack then understood why. In a pile next to the statue sat the crumbled remains of what used to be the head, smashed beyond recognition.

  Jack circled the room’s centerpiece, noticing other details, namely the carving of vines crawling up the statue’s legs.

  “Anyone else think this place reminds them of Statuary Hall in the Capitol Building?” Dag asked, coming up behind Jack.

  Rajesh gasped. “Do you suppose this was what they looked like?”

  The others trailed in, each staring with the same sense of awe. Most eyes were glued to the enormous statue in the center of the chamber.

  “It looks like some kind of animal standing on its hind legs,” Grant observed, his eyes narrowed.

  Gabby frowned. “Or a wolf, although the proportions aren’t in line with anything from the canine family. What do you think, Jack?”

  “To be honest, my first thought is that it looks nothing like the Ateans.”

  “Guess that rules out your colony idea,” Dag said flippantly, searching the statue’s square base for some kind of inscription.

  “Not yet,” Jack replied, “but it certainly doesn’t help.”

  Dag made it all the way around and sighed. “Wouldn’t you expect them to carve a few words into the stone?”

  “You’re assuming that, like us, sight was their dominant sense,” Grant said. “Generally speaking, smell is the strongest sense among canines. For whales and dolphins it’s sound.”

  “What Grant is saying,” Jack said, in way of interpretation, “is stop assuming that humans have a monopoly on doing things the right way.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better,” Grant replied.

  •••

  A few feet away, Jack saw Tamura’s gaze locked on the structure’s high, narrow ceiling.

  “You find something?” Jack asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she replied, counting numbers under her breath. Her eyes slowly dropped to the main level. “I believe this tower is based on an upside-down Fibonacci sequence.”

  “Excuse me?” he asked, as though she’d sworn at him in Latin.

  Tamura blinked, her lips parted in deep thought. “Uh, yeah, it’s an integer sequence where every number is the sum of the two preceding digits. You see it everywhere from architecture and the stock market to the spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy. The progression goes like this: one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four.”

  “Anna, did you catch that?” Jack inquired.

  “I was listening, Dr. Greer, thank you,” Anna replied. “Tamura’s observation has also given me an idea for my work on decoding the genetic data Dr. Ward provided us.”

  Jack grinned. “You mean Salzburg?”

  “Correct. There is a link between the prime numbers we used to decode the binary signal inside the blast wave and a number in the Fibonacci sequence,” she informed him. “But please do not worry, the calculations will run in the background and will not disturb our present work. I will report back if there are any meaningful results, although I would not hold my breath.”

  Jack and the others laughed. “Don’t worry, Anna. I’ll try to keep my expectations in check.”

  “Right about now,” Gabby said, sidling up next to Jack, “I’m more interested in what that thing’s holding in its hand.” She was referring to the statue.

  Jack stepped back to the edge of the room and used his optical head-mounted glasses to zoom in and take a high-resolution photograph. He then sent a copy to the entire team. It was only when the close-up was magnified that Jack noticed certain familiar details. “That what I think it is?”

  A simultaneous thought occurred to all present who had been on board that alien ship in the Gulf, but it was Dag who was first to say it out loud. “Looks to me like he’s holding a pod.”

  Chapter 29

  “Has anyone seen the flight crew?” Eugene asked, his voice strained with fear. He had spun in a slow circle and failed to spot them.

  “They went to scout ahead,” Mullins replied. “They even switched to another channel so they wouldn’t have to listen to all of your scientific gobbledygook. They don’t see the point in studying any of this dead stuff. Frankly, I tend to agree with them.”

  Jack turned from the statue. “Haven’t you noticed the tracks we’re following seem to be going in circles? It’s as though they aren’t sure exactly what they’re looking for or where they need to go to find it.”

  “And you do?” Mullins said, challenging him with outstretched arms, suggesting the current delay only bolstered his argument.

  “I know whatever creature that statue is meant to represent is holding a piece of alien tech, which tells me we’re at least in the right neighborhood.”

  Mullins raised his eyes and his helmet lamp until the stone object was brightly lit. “What kind of tech?”

  Dag stopped what he was doing and piped in. “The kind used to seed a scarred planet with new life.”

  “You read our report,” Jack said, his expression changing when Mullins failed to reply. “Didn’t you?”

  Captain Mullins looked away. “Parts of it.”

  “Well, did you catch the part where we jettisoned from the ship in one of those things?” Jack said, raising his voice in disbelief. “I don’t much like flying, but I can tell you, I was never so happy to be airborne in my life.”

  “Dr. Greer,” Anna said, cutting into their argument from the far end of the chamber. “I believe you should see this.”

  “What have you found?” he asked, heading toward her at a brisk pace.

  “Have you had a moment to study the smaller statuettes?” she asked. Anna was talking about the ones ringing the inside wall of the chamber. As Dag had pointed out, they were arranged in much the same way the figures in Statuary Hall at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. were set up. Except these weren’t white men in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century garb. They were creatures and only a handful of them were at all recognizable.

  “There must be thirty or forty of these things,” Gabby said, clearly feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of interpreting the secrets of a long-lost civilization while trying to stop a group of modern-day vandals from pillaging anything they deemed valuable.

  “I can already see three sauropods and one theropod,” Dag said, standing ten feet away before a different group of statues. “Given the people who built this place lived in close proximity to a land that was likely packed with dinosaurs, anatomically speaking, their depictions are pretty darn close to how we imagined them. But the raptors are by far the most interesting.”

  “Why’s that?” Grant asked, moving over to him. When he arrived, he let out a quiet little sigh of surprise. “Oh, yes, the feathers.”

  “Feathers?” Mullins said, standing behind them.

  “It was only in the last few years that paleontologists had begun finding evidence that at least some theropods had feathers. First with Sinosauropteryx, discovered in China in the ’90s, and more recently a feathered Coelurosaur tail trapped in amber.”

  “Well, if they’re so accurate with your beloved dinosaurs,” Gabby said, “then please tell me what the hell this thing is?”

  She was looking at a statue of a furless and naked humanoid creature. Its legs were somewhere between the length of a modern human’s and that of a chimpanzee, except they were coiled beneath the creature. The animal’s back was set at a forty-five-degree angle. It appeared to be a quadruped, which was to say it moved around on all fours, with the slightest hint of a tail. Upon closer examination, the facial features also appeared strange. It bore the enormous eyes of a lemu
r, with large ears and a tiny protruding nose.

  “Whatever that is, it looks oddly human,” Jack said, an unsettling feeling creeping into his bones.

  “Maybe it was a pet,” Eugene said, pointing at the chain. One end was secured around its neck, the other staked into the ground.

  “I’ve just made a complete circuit,” Dag told them. “And I only recognized about twenty percent of the animals depicted here. Here’s the kicker, though. The recognizable ones are bang on.”

  “Therefore the other eighty percent are likely just as anatomically correct,” Jack said, following Dag’s thought. “So the question remains. What were these things?”

  “Genetic experiments gone wrong?” Dag speculated.

  The thought hung in the frigid air.

  “This is some kind of museum,” Grant said. “Certainly the answer is in here somewhere.”

  “Not a museum,” Tamura corrected the biologist, spearing the central statue within a cone of light. “This was a shrine. And they weren’t worshiping the giant in the statue. They were worshiping the pod.”

  “On account of its advanced technology?” Grant asked, scraping a sample of stone.

  “No,” she replied. “Because for them, the pods were the source of life on earth. Hence the diversity you see all around you.”

  “Like Mother Nature, except with glowing buttons and exotic metals,” Dag exclaimed

  “To them the pods were like seeds,” Jack said. “Hence the vines crawling up the main figure’s legs. This was their Parthenon. A tribute to the deity of life.”

  “And death,” Gabby added, motioning several feet above the statues where weathered stone engravings appeared to show scenes of fire and destruction. As one made their way across the wide circular room, it was possible to piece together the basic threads of a terrifying story. First an object streaking through the sky, followed by a blinding flash and a torrential downpour of ash and burning embers. Another panel showed the sun being blotted out by thick clouds and the land engulfed in flames. Strange figures cowered. At an assembly, important decisions were made. The following panels showed a tunnel being excavated and masses of their people crowding into them.