“But stone walls?” Dag said, incredulous. “Wouldn’t they build some kind of dome like you see in the movies?”
“Build a dome made out of what?” Jack countered. “Think about it. They’re light years from home, and stuck using whatever local resources you can scrape together on earth. Hmm, imagine for a moment you’re stranded on a desert island. Are you going to build a smart house? Course not. You’re going to use your trusty Swiss Army knife and slap together a crude but effective shelter made from palm leaves and driftwood.”
The group grew silent as they contemplated Jack’s idea.
“Astronomers knew of black holes because the mathematics predicted their existence,” Eugene said. “Yet by their very nature black holes sucked up all the light around them. So how could we ever expect to spot one in the blackness of space? Instead of looking for black holes directly, we learned to search for their effects. Sure enough, signs of their existence soon began to emerge. I guess my point is that every civilization leaves clues behind of who they once were long after they’re gone. I suspect ours won’t be any different. It’s enough to tie your brain in knots.”
“Whatever the answer is,” Jack said, “I’m sure we’ll come across the evidence. Whether we allow ourselves to believe it is another matter entirely.”
•••
The team pressed on after that, following the tracks left in the ice and dust. Before long, they found signs that the enemy party had also stopped from time to time. The small piles of trash they left behind were well hidden—sometimes on the second or third stories of buildings, other times stuffed into what the team discovered were sewer drains. Unfortunately, none of this did much to clarify who the assassins were or what specifically they were after. For Jack, he was growing increasingly certain they were members of Sentinel. Of course, the shadowy organization was not the only player in town eager to get their hands on advanced technology. But they were one of the few players who didn’t need to worry about creating an international incident. And yet the impending end of civilization opened the door to any number of other possibilities. How many countries or organizations cared about maintaining good relations when the whole enchilada was about to go bye-bye?
They decided that for every three hours of walking, the group would rest for thirty minutes. It would be just enough time to grab a power nap, choke down a tastebud-assaulting MRE or snoop around for additional clues about the original occupants of this sprawling ancient metropolis.
Wincing, Tamura eased herself down next to Jack.
“How’s the shoulder holding up?” he asked.
“It only hurts when I move or breathe,” she said, grinning. “But the meds are helping.” Both of their helmets were off and Jack appreciated being able to see her face without thick visors between them.
There was no wind down here, but he relished the cool air brushing against his cheek all the same. It also gave him a chance to utilize another sense he had largely been ignoring since their descent. Smell. Jack drew in a lungful of air. It was earthy. Like cut stone, mixed with something else. Was that ash? It lay all around them, a light dusting, sometimes locked beneath the ice and the cold. Since the roofs were all gone, the second or third floors often had it too.
“You know, this place sorta reminds me of Machu Picchu,” she said, brushing crystals off her knee.
“That’s funny,” he replied. “I was thinking Pompeii.”
She looked at him. “Have you been there?”
He nodded, the corner of his mouth rising ever so slightly. “Years ago, as a graduate student. As the story goes, while excavating the ruins, they kept finding these air pockets. Then one day someone got the bright idea of pouring plaster inside and letting it set. When they cracked it open, they were amazed to find the cowering bodies of young children or pregnant women or a boy and his dog. After Vesuvius blew its top, it created a pyroclastic wave of hot ash, killing every living thing and entombing the city for centuries.”
“How horrible,” she said, grimacing. “What do you think happened here?”
Jack shrugged. “Hard to say exactly, but there are no bodies lying in the streets. At least we haven’t seen any yet. I’d like to think whoever lived here chose to relocate.” Jack clapped his hands together, feeling a tiny shockwave rustle his hair. “It’s all rather strange, don’t you think?”
Tamura paused before she said. “I think it’s fascinating and beautiful.” Her eyes sparkled with life. Her features were soft and angular and when she smiled, her generous cheekbones became even more prominent.
“Do you have a scientific background?” he asked, trying hard not to sound like he was questioning Tamura’s credentials or her enthusiasm.
“I have an advanced degree in engineering,” she explained. “I’m with the Army Corps of Engineers. We were sent in to dig the tunnel through the ice sheet and install the elevator system. There were so many more of us at the beginning. Most of them had already left to make room for you folks when the attack came.” A momentary look of sadness filled her face before it was replaced with anger.
Jack put his hand over hers. He decided to change the subject. “Gabby says you’re from Idaho.”
She nodded. “Twin Falls, our family moved there after the war.”
“Which war was that?” he asked. He hadn’t intended the question to sound comical, but that was how it had leapt past his lips.
“World War II.”
Jack’s eyebrows made a little dance. “Oh, the big one. That was a long time ago. Are you from a military family?”
“No, not at all,” Tamura said, quickly. “And my grandfather didn’t serve, he was locked away.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Jack said, fighting the uncomfortable memory that his biological father had also done time.
“I just figured as an archeologist, you knew about the camps.”
Jack sat up straight. “Camps? Well, first of all, I’m a geophysicist, not that that’s any excuse. But when you say camps do you mean…”
Their eyes met in the dim light. “The Japanese internment camps set up during the war,” Tamura said, the muscles of her jaw tensing and relaxing, working like an angry fist. “They were established a few months after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Seems back then everyone just assumed my people would jump for joy if America’s shores were ever invaded.
“By May of ’42, it was a crime for a person of Japanese descent to walk the streets of Oakland, California. A sweet elderly family living next door took pity on my grandparents and their three small children. My mother was the youngest of those three and used to describe in detail the fear they experienced living in that couple’s basement, never knowing if and when the authorities would find them. Although by then much of the damage had already been done. My grandfather had been forced to sell his dried goods store for pennies on the dollar.
“A month later, a vengeful woman across the street had caught wind of what was going on and called the cops. They hauled my grandparents away and fined the couple who had been harboring them. Within a week they’d been transported by cattle car to a local race track set up as a temporary depot. Made them sleep in the horse stalls, still reeking of manure. My grandmother couldn’t take it and cried all the time. This only made things worse for my grandfather. My mother did what she could to comfort them, but as a child she felt helpless. By the time they were relocated to one of the internment camps, his health had already started to fail him. In June of 1944, as the Allies were storming the beaches of Normandy, my grandfather was being buried.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said, feeling the inadequacy of the words. “It’s a testament to your character that despite everything your family went through, you still chose to wear the uniform.”
Tamura closed her eyes and Jack watched as tears rolled down her cheeks. He put an arm around her, pulling her close to him.
•••
Not long after, Grant came by to continue to feed samples into the portable mass s
pectrometer.
He’d been at it for nearly fifteen minutes when Jack asked, “Anything so far?”
Grant looked up, startled. “Oh, yes, indeed,” he replied enthusiastically. “Turns out those metallic flakes on the ground are an unusual steel alloy I’ve never seen before. My guess is it’s stronger than the steel used on the Golden Gate Bridge or the Empire State Building.”
“And here we were thinking steel was a modern invention,” Jack said, shaking his head.
“The Chinese were making a form of steel sword at least as far back as the Han dynasty,” Tamura told him, “but the modern industrial version was the product of the Industrial Revolution.”
Grant laughed. “I can see Jack loves it when you talk dirty.”
Tamura blushed.
“Don’t listen to the dirty old man over there,” Jack said, playfully scolding him. “Even if he is built like a heavyweight boxer now.” A second later—“Anything else?”
Grant flipped through the tiny display screen, scrolling through the results. “The black chunk near the metal flakes you broke off is indeed a type of rubber compound and the thing you were calling a straw is plastic.”
“Plastic was invented in the twentieth century,” Jack said, shocked and amazed.
“It appears the history books were wrong,” Grant replied.
Jack thought back to the ship and the true origin of mankind. “Makes you wonder what else we were taught in school that was dead wrong. Dag’s never gonna believe it. Heck, I hardly believe it.”
“You do realize,” Grant began in a lecturing tone, “that if we burned every single scientific textbook ever written, in a few thousand years, they would all be back describing the same principles? The law of gravity might be called something quite different, but our understanding of how it operates in the world would not change one iota.”
Jack furrowed his brow at the thought. “So you’re saying in another few million years, some other civilization might stumble upon things we’ve left behind and marvel at how technologically similar we were.”
“Precisely.”
“So if they were so darn advanced,” Jack said, continuing the train of thought, “what happened to them?”
The expression on Grant’s normally jovial face grew somber. “Perhaps they suffered the same fate that has befallen ninety-nine percent of all species that have ever graced the planet. They went extinct.”
Chapter 26
Kolkata
Mia paced about the cheap hotel room, the odor of dirty socks wafting up from the wall-mounted air conditioner, assaulting her nose with every breath. It was decorated like any other seedy joint: a pair of twin beds covered with gaudy spreads, curtains and carpet both from the mid-eighties. The only reminder they hadn’t been whisked back to the era of moonwalks and shoulder pads was the small flat-screen TV facing the beds. It got three channels. Two of them were in Hindi. The third was the twenty-four-hour news station Al Jazeera.
But even the Hindi channels had been preempted by coverage of the chaos erupting around the world. That tiny TV was also how Mia, Jansson and Ollie found out what was going on back home. The president of the United States was in a coma, a video had surfaced purporting to show top members of his cabinet—including the VP—conspiring in the attempted murder and, if that wasn’t enough, martial law had been declared throughout most of the country.
Soon, the news turned to the riots in central Kolkata. Back at the research hospital, they had found a service elevator, normally used to transport food and medical equipment. They had ridden it down to the parking garage and found a way out behind the police barricades. Another reason she’d been flipping between the channels was for any news on the fate of Agents Chalk and Ramirez. Ollie had said they were likely dead. Sure, they were grown men and could take care of themselves. Still, the idea of having left them behind like that continued to gnaw at her conscience.
On TV, the VP was denying he had had anything to do with the attempted assassination.
“He’s a bloody liar,” Ollie bellowed.
“What makes you so certain?” Mia asked, distinctly aware of the pistol tucked beneath her belt. Well within reach should she need it. She had trusted Ollie once and he had betrayed her. Or had he? The answers he gave over the next few minutes would decide his fate.
“Don’t think I didn’t see you and your boyfriend getting grilled before the Senate Intelligence Committee,” Ollie said, leaning back on the bed, his arms bracing him at a forty-five-degree angle. That famous smug look of his was back.
“Who, Jack?” she said defensively. “He’s not my boyfriend. What are you talking about?”
Ollie let out a cackle of laughter and eyed Jansson. “The lady doth protest too much, is what I think.”
Jansson smiled weakly and excused herself to the washroom. She didn’t look well and Mia assumed the shock of seeing those men killed before her still hadn’t worn off.
“Wasn’t it during your little televised fiasco,” Ollie went on, “that your friend Admiral Stark told those distinguished senators that Sentinel had been ‘greatly diminished?’”
“Are you saying he lied?” Mia asked.
“Maybe not knowingly. I’m not doubting the Feds made some arrests, threw a few low-level blokes in the clink, but I can guarantee you Sentinel’s reach hasn’t been ‘diminished’ one iota. If anything, they’ve just become stronger than before.”
“How so?” Mia asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.
“Who do you suppose is behind the president’s assassination?”
“He isn’t dead.”
Ollie shook his head. “Not yet, sweetheart, but quite frankly, none of that matters. With him out of the way, the next in line gets to take the helm and it isn’t looking like anyone’s got the balls to stop ’em.”
“You’re saying Sentinel orchestrated the assassination?”
“I might not have first-hand knowledge, but I’m saying the chances are mighty good.”
“But why would the VP, Speaker of the House and the Secretary of Defense, among others, knowingly collaborate with Sentinel?”
Ollie tilted his head. “Maybe they didn’t know they were collaborating. Maybe they didn’t care. Look, I haven’t got a stitch of proof to back it up, except I worked for those bastards for far too long not to know how they operate. If there’s one thing they’re great at, it’s getting decent people to do terrible things. Back in Brazil…” Their eyes met and Mia spotted a hint of sadness there before Ollie’s gaze broke free. “I wasn’t sent to just keep an eye on you.”
Mia swallowed. “Tom told me. Said you’d been ordered to kill me.”
“Aye.”
“By whom?”
“Who knows?” he shot back. “A ghost, a phantom, an apparition. The organization’s got more faces and compartments than the CIA. The left hand never knows what the right hand is doing. It’s why those chaps have been at it so long. Their roots run deep enough to turn your hair white.”
“But you disobeyed,” Mia said uncrossing her arms and taking a step toward him.
“I did. And they’ve been hunting me ever since. In the military you might get the brig, maybe a court martial. You disobey Sentinel and they do you worse than the Cosa Nostra.”
On the TV, a reporter from Al Jazeera was interviewing a doctor in Rome.
“But why?” Mia asked, staring at him intently.
“Who knows? Because they’re used to having their way. Because when you’ve managed to convince yourself the fate of the world rests in your hands, you’re able to justify pretty much anything. Just look at those Scientology nuts.”
Mia sat down next to him. “That’s not what I meant.”
Ollie shifted, uncomfortable. “I’m not following.”
“You didn’t only spare my life, you helped me. Why?”
The weathered skin on Ollie’s cheeks came about as close as it could to flushing. “Maybe I’m a sucker for an intelligent, beautiful woman in a t
ough spot.”
Mia leaned in to kiss him when the door to the bathroom swung open. She recoiled and brushed imaginary lint off her pants.
“So what now?” Jansson asked, unaware of what had nearly just happened. “I hate to state the obvious, but hanging around this hotel room isn’t doing us any good.”
Back on the screen, the doctor from Rome was discussing the research he was doing. But it wasn’t until the word ‘Salzburg’ came up that it really drew their attention.
“I have not concerned myself with whether or not the planet is about to be destroyed,” Dr. Antonio Putelli told the man interviewing him. His hands arched through the air as he spoke, as though he was not really speaking, but conducting an invisible orchestra. He was strikingly handsome and refined with salt-and-pepper hair and he had a way with words. “Humanity has faced many brushes with extinction in our short time on this earth. What concerns me more than asteroids, earthquakes and alien spaceships is the damage being done to the human genome. We have patients exhibiting new, unusual symptoms every day. One recent example is a pair of ten-year-old twins. One week ago, they were average little girls. Today, one of them is composing her second symphony while the other is about to solve one of Kaplansky’s conjectures.”
Mia stood up and headed for the hotel room door.
“The hell are you going?”
“We’re leaving,” she said forcefully.
Ollie stood up and tucked in the back of his shirt. “Then I’m afraid this is where we part.”
Mia stood holding the door handle, trying to stifle the sudden pain spearing her heart. “Running away again,” she said, hating herself before the words had crossed her lips.
He scratched the back of his head. “I’m doing it for your own good.”
“I’m sure you are.”
The corner of his mouth rose up. “I forgot how difficult you could be.”
Jansson’s eyes ping-ponged back and forth between the two of them.
Extinction Series (The Complete Collection) Page 39