“But contact with an advanced alien race would be the greatest event in human history,” Mia said, imagining the possibilities. “Think about what they could teach us. Free energy. An end to war. The secrets of the universe. Maybe even the existence of God.”
“That coin can always be flipped,” Ollie replied, refilling his coffee mug, his thick fingers looping delicately through the handle. “What if they want something we have? Our water, minerals, or perhaps a resource we aren’t even aware of? We only discovered uranium a couple hundred years ago and the periodic table continues to expand. It’s hard enough figuring out what people in other countries are after, let alone beings from another solar system, galaxy, or even universe.”
“Ollie has a point,” Armoni said, settling onto the futon. “The people at Sentinel believe they’re keeping us safe from a threat we don’t understand.”
“Maybe, but I’m not buying it.” Mia’s hands went to her hips. “You said yourself they were a bunch of rich industrialists. Can you imagine what would happen if humanity was given the means to produce free energy? Seems to me what they’re really scared of is losing their cushy spot at the top of the pecking order.”
“Free energy sounds great in theory,” Ollie said. “But imagine the economic consequences. First the energy sector would go bust and before long everything else would follow.”
“Wars big and small would be fought to fill those vacated spots at the top,” Armoni added. “Not to mention the tens of millions who would suddenly find themselves out of a job. It would be chaos.”
Ollie’s face hardened. “This message we found. It can never get out or fall into Sentinel’s hands. You all saw the news. At the moment, the planet’s on a high about meeting our cosmic neighbors.” He turned to Mia. “You said yourself this message was prone to misinterpretation. And Armoni’s right, there would be chaos, but not from the threat of free energy. It’ll come from the fear and panic that takes hold the minute they realize these aliens aren’t here to help us, but to wipe us out.”
A buzzing sounded from Armoni’s computer room.
Her brow furrowed. “Someone’s here.” She hurried to the monitor to see who it was.
Mia heard her curse from the other room a second before an explosion rocked the building. Cinderblock dust rained down on them in a fine drizzle, coating the tops of their shoulders. A jolt of terror shot through her. She ran to Armoni, who was watching one of the monitors. Armed men in black military gear were charging up her stairs.
Mia withdrew the USB and pushed it into her pocket. Where was the rest of her stuff? The panic pumping through her system was inhibiting her ability to think clearly. In the living room, Ollie drew his pistol and positioned himself along the narrow hallway.
“That door won’t hold them for long,” Armoni shouted, grabbing the back of Ollie’s shirt and pulling him. “There’s a way onto the roof, but we have to go now.”
By the futon, Mia was scanning the couch, searching for her red knapsack. While they’d been waiting for the algorithm to run its course, she had slid the notebook back in place. The printed pages were also strewn about. From down the hallway, she could hear the hollow boom as the men pounded against the door with a ram. Armoni called after her to hurry up, that it was now or never.
Fumbling through papers on the floor, Mia finally found the one she’d been looking for and shoved it into her pocket. Still unable to find the backpack, she ran for Armoni, who ushered her into a back room and closed the door behind them.
No sooner had they stepped inside than the clang of metal reverberated back to them, followed by the stomping of heavy boots through the apartment.
In the back room, Armoni drew aside thick curtains, revealing a pair of French doors and a burst of light from outside. She flung them open and charged onto a small patio. Sitting next to a wrought-iron table and chairs was a ladder that she began to climb. Mia was waiting to climb next, Ollie behind her, when the door in the room opened. Ollie leaned into the line of sight and fired off three rounds, striking the assailant twice in the helmet and once through the tactical goggles, painting them red.
As soon as Armoni had made it up, Mia began climbing, pumping arms and legs powered entirely by the horror of what would happen if they were caught. Seconds felt like hours as she heard Ollie continuing to exchange gunfire with the attackers. At last, he darted back toward the ladder and began scaling it. He was nearly at the top when the special ops soldier stepped onto the patio. Mia reached down, grabbed Ollie by his shirt collar and yanked on him with everything she had. Rounds from the soldier’s automatic weapon riddled the ladder and the eaves, striking only inches from Ollie’s feet as he jumped clear.
With all three of them up, Mia kicked the top of the ladder, sending it tumbling backwards off the patio and into the alley below.
The three of them clattered across tin rooftops, jumping from one to another, Ollie first, followed by Armoni and Mia. They needed to find a way down to street level soon. Once the armed men scaled onto the roof, they’d be sitting ducks.
At one point, Mia ran past Armoni, who pulled to a stop just shy of a two-meter gap between rooftops. The adrenaline pumping through Mia’s veins meant she hadn’t even considered stopping. To stop meant to die. After landing hard, Mia rolled, struggling to keep from sliding over the edge. Ollie reached out and caught her with one hand and waved Armoni on with the other.
The crack of a rifle made all of them turn at once. A soldier who had made it onto the roof was firing at them. Quickly, Armoni backed up and took a fresh run, building up speed. She reached the edge and thrust herself into the air, arms and legs bicycling wildly. For a moment, it appeared as though she was going to make it. Then with a boom she struck the edge of the roof, her fingers scrambling for purchase. Mia dove to catch her and managed to clamp down on Armoni’s forearm. Rounds thudded all around them. Mia saw the white-hot fear in Armoni’s eyes and then heard a final thump as a bullet struck her in the back. The scrambling stopped as Armoni’s body went limp and slid over the edge. Mia shouted, only dimly aware it would do her no good.
In a single motion, Ollie scooped Mia up over his shoulder and moved along the downward slope of the roof. Nearby was a balcony. The drop couldn’t be more than a dozen feet. He lowered her over a table, bullets whizzing around him. She landed, steadying herself before turning back to the roof. But Ollie was already gone. Mia called his name, her voice drowned out by the sound of rifle shots filling the air. He never answered and somewhere beneath the sharpened sense of terror still clawing at her, Mia wondered if she would ever see him again.
Chapter 36
Jack surveyed the evenly-spaced horizontal slats that ran along the walls.
Meanwhile, Dag was focused on the nets strung from the ceilings. Most contained mummified remains. “How can you be sure this wasn’t some sort of abattoir?”
“This was no abattoir,” Jack replied without elaborating.
“Should we not be calling this in?” Grant asked, bracing himself against a nearby container.
Jack ignored the proposal and headed for the bars he’d seen. “Only once we’ve figured out what we’ve got.” He gripped the bars, dug in the toes of his boots and began climbing toward the closest net. It was no more than fifteen feet in the air, but in the biosuit, flexible as it was, it might as well have been a hundred.
“You’re gonna fall and break your neck,” Grant said.
Jack couldn’t help but laugh. “You sound like my mother.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you shoulda listened to her more.”
I spent most of my life listening, Jack thought. And most of what she said turned out to be a lie.
Jack drew even with the mummified body in the net. He held on with one arm and dug in his sample kit for his scalpel with the other.
“This is no meat locker,” Jack told the others.
“Really?” Dag said, sounding unconvinced. “What would you call it then?”
“Sleeping
quarters.”
They looked at him strangely.
“It wasn’t so long ago sailors on wooden ships used hammocks,” he argued. “For all we know, these things once lived in trees, or something comparable. As a biologist, you know firsthand how evolution can flavor behavioral traits.”
“This is true,” Grant acknowledged. “Take something as simple as eye contact. Whether we interpret it as a sign of love or a threat, the significance of the act has been hard-wired into our primate brains. Other species evolved along different lines. Anyone who doubts it need only stare in a cat’s eyes, then do the same thing to a dog and see what happens.”
“Precisely,” Jack said. “Now get ready to catch this, will you?”
Both men moved into place, their arms outstretched.
Jack swung out a hand, wrangling the four cords attached to the ceiling. They felt springy and soft. Dag came over and pushed his legs against the wall, giving him use of both arms. Jack slashed at the cords until they frayed and finally gave way. Although the remains were mummified, they still had weight to them, much of which fell into Grant’s waiting arms. The biologist staggered, but stayed upright.
They then pushed three waist-high containers end to end, using them as an improvised autopsy table. Given there was no way they’d be permitted to bring these bodies back to the Orb, much of their work would have to be done here, a decision born as much out of prudence as it was necessity. Any sequencing of DNA—assuming it was present and could be collected—as well as any isotopic analysis would be performed later on.
Jack got on the main channel and informed the others what they had uncovered. Degraded as the bodies were, it was nonetheless a monumental discovery, the first non-terrestrial biological beings ever found. Predictably, the reactions ranged from surprise to jubilation. While Gabby and Rajesh rushed down to witness the momentous occasion, Eugene chose instead to continue searching other levels.
Then Commander Hart piped in. “Doc, I suggest you don’t touch anything until I’ve notified Admiral Stark.”
“I’m sorry, Commander, but time is ticking—you heard the admiral.” When Jack didn’t hear a reply, he asked, “How’s Olsen?”
“He’s up now, although still a little groggy. Musta hit his head when all hell broke loose up here.”
“We’ll be filming the preliminary autopsy. Maybe you can pipe it up to Stark. Throw the admiral a bone so he can’t accuse us of sitting on our hands.” Jack still had a few minutes before Gabby and Rajesh arrived. “What about you, Anna? Interested in joining us?”
“I am occupied at the moment, Dr. Greer.”
“It’s not you, it’s me, right?” he said, grinning. “Don’t worry, you’re not the first to give me that line.”
The others laughed. So too did Anna, although Jack figured she couldn’t possibly have understood the joke and was simply reacting to peer pressure. What’s next? he wondered. Smoking cigarettes? Skipping class?
When all were assembled, Jack reached into his sample kit and removed a large pair of tweezers. Each of them decided to record what they were seeing just so that nothing was missed. Although none of them had any medical training, Grant’s background in biology made him by far the most suited. Jack handed him the tweezers and a scalpel.
“All right, the subject appears to be wearing a delicate fabric of some sort,” Grant said. He rubbed the thin material between his fingers and watched it disintegrate. “There it goes. Grab a sample of that, please, Dag. Hard to say for sure whether this was a uniform or some sort of ceremonial attire.” Grant then moved on to the body itself. “The subject appears to be an arthropod.” Which was to say, a large invertebrate with an exoskeleton. But to the average person, it looked like little more than a giant insect. “Large head, wide at the top and tapering to a narrow point at the… uh, mandible.” He glanced over at Jack. “You know, I nearly said mouth.”
“It happens,” Jack said, trying to ease the tension. “Given this is a first, it’s inevitable some of our own biases are bound to sneak in.”
Grant nodded and carried on. “The subject appears to be a quadruped with an estimated length of eight or nine feet and a height of six or seven feet. Of course, in this state it’s impossible to know for sure.” He leaned in closer. “It also has what appears to be an advanced form of compound eye.”
Compound eyes, found in insects and crustaceans, were formed by hundreds and sometimes thousands of photoreceptor units.
Gabby motioned to the ceiling. “You add up the soft lighting and the large eyes. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if their home planet orbited a red dwarf.”
Dimmer than our own star, red dwarfs were older and far more common throughout the galaxy. Still, many scientists questioned their ability to sustain life.
Gabby used her scalpel to collect some samples for potential DNA testing.
Grant and Dag then turned the body over. “Attached to the thorax are a pair of what appear to be wings. Though they look far too small for actual flight.”
“You think they’re vestigial?” Dag asked, meaning they once had a function in the creature’s evolution.
“That’s where I’d put my money.” Grant raised one of the spring-loaded arms. “It has three six-inch digits at the end of each arm.” He then turned to the creature’s mouth, prying apart flaps of dried skin along with a small, perhaps vestigial, mandible he’d noted earlier. “Inside, I see two rows of small sharpened teeth.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Dag chimed in, “we’ve got a carnivore on our hands.”
“The mandible and sharpened teeth certainly point in that direction,” Grant admitted. “Although I’d say this creature evolved into an omnivore.”
Jack smirked. “He’s an enlightened meat-eater.”
“Perhaps,” Grant replied. “From what we know of animals on earth, carnivores tend to hunt in packs and as a result develop forms of planning and communication.”
“The precursors to intelligence,” Dag said.
“In some cases, yes.”
“And what of the poor herbivores?” Jack threw out, standing up for the little guy.
“Well, consider our own planet,” Grant said, glancing up from the body. “Of course, it’s all we really have to go on, but most intelligent species tend to either be meat-eaters or congregate in groups. Dolphins, chimpanzees, elephants, dogs, crows…”
“Humans,” Gabby said. “Don’t forget we may be at the top of the food chain, but in many ways we’re still just as much an animal as everything else.”
They grew quiet. Jack’s gaze settled on the creature’s shriveled wings and the nets they slept in. Those two were perfect analogies, weren’t they? No matter how far you travelled, you could never really outrun the forces that made you. These beings, with all of their technological advancement, were still prisoners of their own evolutionary history. Jack wasn’t sure if the thought gave him solace or a resounding sense of despair.
Chapter 37
Mia exited the apartment building and ducked into an alley. Thankfully, the crowded housing and narrow passageways of Villa 1-11-14 aided in concealing her movements. Although the shooting on the roof had stopped, that didn’t mean the men who’d come to kill them had left.
What had become clear was that both Armoni and Ollie were missing. One had been shot in the back and was likely dead, while the other, Ollie, had probably fled in an effort to lead the gunmen away from her.
She wrung her hands, heading toward the sunlit sliver of street up ahead. The alley was less than ten feet wide and marked by a series of stairwells leading to basement doorways. As she reached the street, Mia craned her head out far enough to see a group of black vehicles and an ambulance parked in front of Armoni’s apartment. Noticeably absent were the flashing lights from the Buenos Aires police. The street was also mostly deserted, as though the locals knew from experience when to mind their own business and stay inside.
From the next alley over, four men appeared carrying a stretche
r. Mia’s heart leapt. Was it Armoni? Then another emotion struck her. Dread at the thought that maybe it was Ollie, also wounded or perhaps killed.
Were these men part of what Armoni had called Sentinel? Given their nondescript uniforms and vehicles, they didn’t appear to be affiliated with any known government agency. If they were out to squash any signs of E.T. contact, it made sense that suppressing Alan’s research would be high on their list. It also followed that they would be actively trying to locate the underwater object plastered all over the news these last few days.
An unusual sound drew her attention across the street. There she caught sight of a large hairless rat, lurking in the shadows. But rats didn’t make noises like that. It sounded more like a cat. As the thought crossed her mind, the animal rose and hurried through a patch of sunlight. This wasn’t your regular alley cat. This poor creature was emaciated, its furless body covered in red blisters. The sight reminded her at once of the patients crowding the emergency room at Santarem Municipal. Could it be this woeful cat was also suffering from a form of Salzburg?
She was still struggling to come to grips with this stunning revelation when she heard the shouting.
“Hey, you! Stay where you are.” Three men in black uniforms broke into a run, racing in her direction. And in that split second of terror, all her staggering mind could register was:
They speak English.
As reality elbowed its way back in, Mia tore off, darting back into the alley. She reached the middle of the dimly lit space when a pair of powerful arms grabbed hold and yanked her off her feet. Before she knew it, she was being hustled through a doorway and into a sparsely furnished room where a black bag was put over her head.
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