“There’s something you’re not telling us,” Mia said, feeling the fingers of her right hand inch towards the gun tucked under the belt of her cargo pants.
Ollie kicked at the loose ends of the bed sheet. “Sentinel inserted a tracking chip in me somewhere when I first started with them. I’ve tried to take it out, but for the life of me I haven’t got the foggiest idea where it is. They said they were gonna do it and gave me a half-dozen injections. I’ve had all those spots checked and came up short. So as much as I would like to join you, I’m afraid it’s impossible. They’ll see where we are and have an assault team banging down the door within twenty-four hours.”
“So we keep moving until we find it and rip it out,” Mia said.
Jansson suddenly didn’t look so sure. “Are they on their way now?”
“No doubt they are. Those two men you killed in the research hospital—they were following me. I led them to you and nearly got you hurt, maybe even killed.”
“If it wasn’t for you, I would have died a long time ago. If not in Brazil or Tibet, then a dozen other places. It’s settled. You’re coming. Now stop whining and grab your stuff.”
Ollie laughed. “I used to think of you as a delicate flower. I know now I was wrong. You’re a carnivorous plant.”
Mia shook her head. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“But shouldn’t we discuss this a little further?” Jansson said. She was new to a life on the run, but the time for baby steps was over. “We don’t even know where we’re headed.”
“Sure we do,” Mia told her, pointing to the TV where Dr. Antonio Putelli was still discussing Salzburg. “We’re heading to Rome.”
Chapter 27
Germantown, Maryland
The sheer joy on Felix Mahoro’s face upon opening the door nearly brought tears to Kay’s eyes. She had no sooner gotten out of the car than she was struck by the sound of singing coming from inside the house. And now with the front door open, it was as though her father had brought the entire church choir home with him. Stepping over the threshold, she quickly realized that he had. They were gathered in the living room, singing To God Be the Glory, a hymn her mother Therese had always been fond of. Felix was the pastor at Poplar Grove Baptist and so summoning the faithful in times of need was one of the many perks.
“Ah, I knew you would come,” he said, squeezing her in a warm hug. “Your mother will be terribly happy to see you.” Her parents had been in America for close to twenty-five years and yet the old African pronunciations had never quite died out. Mother sounded like ‘moutha’ and happy ‘heppe.’
Kay stepped from the entrance into the foyer. To her right was the dining room where a smattering of guests in fine clothes were picking at finger food. Straight ahead sat a set of stairs, leading to the second floor. To her left was the living room and the source of the music. Her mother was in a makeshift hospital bed, encircled by a ring of holy singers, doing what they could to convince God to spare her mother’s life.
Therese lay on her back, her head oddly cocked to one side, staring off into the distance. Lost, it seemed, in a world all her own.
“Is it working?” Kay asked, motioning to the choir and smiling. They had moved onto Amazing Grace.
“Absolutely,” Felix replied. “Just yesterday, we noticed your mother has been gaining weight.”
Kay looked surprised and a thought crossed her mind about Dr. Mia Ward and her battle against the genetic disorder affecting billions around the globe. “I thought you said she wasn’t eating much.”
“Yes, that’s why it’s a miracle.” Her father’s smile was infectious.
“Is there somewhere less noisy we can talk?”
“The backyard,” Felix said, putting his arm around her and leading the way. As they passed through the kitchen, one of the church-goers was placing a bucket under a leak in the ceiling.
“What happened there?” Kay asked.
“It started yesterday afternoon. You know of my many talents and that none of them extend to home repair.”
“Yeah, Dad, everyone knows, but have you thought of calling a plumber?”
Felix let out a sardonic laugh. “Such things are not as easy as they once were. Most of the plumbers still taking calls are fully booked. Others are in no better shape than your mother. And the rest have decided to stop working and spend time with their families. I’m sure every profession is suffering in the same way. Be that as it may, our present suffering will not last long. Soon enough, we will all be heading home.”
“I hate when you speak like that.”
Felix took his daughter’s hands. “It is because you put your faith in facts and the world of human affairs above a greater truth.”
He led her into the backyard where a pair of off-white plastic deck chairs awaited them. From here, the sound of singing was muffled and almost enjoyable. Wind blew through an old elm tree. The sound was calming.
For a man in his sixties, her father was in peak physical condition. Every morning he ran the ten-mile distance to Poplar Grove where he spent the day preparing sermons and tending to his flock. Originally a Roman Catholic, her father had become a Baptist following an encounter with a pair of missionaries in a Congolese refugee camp. They had offered food and a bit of money at the lowest point since the war.
After the genocide, the ambassadorship Felix had enjoyed had been stripped away, along with any property and possessions they had left behind. Mostly that meant things, although in many cases, it had meant leaving behind parents who were too old or infirm to make the arduous journey to the Congolese border. The story most Westerners were familiar with depicted the Tutsis being summarily slaughtered by the Hutus. For those on the ground, however, the situation was far more fluid. One block might have a Hutu checkpoint where Tutsis were chopped to pieces with machetes, while the next block might be controlled by the Tutsis. The truth was, both sides had stopped seeing the other side as human beings. For many young men, the act of murder rapidly became an insatiable drug, more addictive than heroin. But far from shaking her parents’ faith, the genocide had only helped it grow stronger.
The daughter of a Baptist pastor, Kay too was raised in the church. Growing up she’d sung those same songs and helped her father with anything he needed. Toward the middle of high school, however, Kay had begun to question things—tiny inconsistencies in the biblical stories her father loved telling them. None on their own was enough to tarnish the aura of sanctity. But as high school became university and her journalism professor, Dr. Laura Sighs, insisted she dissect everything with the sharpened blade of logic and reasoning, it was practically inevitable that Kay would deploy that same skillset to the religion of her youth. That process hadn’t made her an atheist, by any means, but it had certainly left her with far too many doubts to continue without feeling like a hypocrite. For Kay, truth was vitally important. That applied to universal truths just as much as it applied to world truths. More than that, she’d reached a point when she was done trying to be what everyone else wanted her to be.
“I want you to stay here with us,” her father said, leaning forward in his chair. They were sitting directly opposite one another and he took both her hands, a sign he meant what he was saying. A gentle breeze ruffled the leaves. From somewhere close by came the soft chirping of birds.
“I have a job to do, Dad,” she told him. “People who depend on me.”
Felix shook his head. “Then let them depend on someone else. Your family is here. And this is where you belong. There is so little time left, I don’t see how anything else is nearly as important as ensuring the passage of your soul into heaven.”
“If I came home, it wouldn’t be for any of that,” she said, keenly aware how her words would surely wound her father. He was always surprised when others did not share the clarity of faith he possessed.
“As long as you’re here with your mother and I, then I will be more than satisfied.”
Kay couldn’t help but think that
maybe he had a point. Just as quickly, a nagging question began to form in Kay’s mind. The reporter side of her never went entirely away. It hung in the air, like the smell of coffee on a Saturday morning. You could toss and turn, but eventually it would yank you out of bed.
“I guess I just don’t see how you could still believe the way you do after we found proof of life on other worlds.”
Felix recoiled momentarily before regaining his composure. “Where is this coming from?”
“I don’t mean any disrespect, Papa. But it’s something that I’ve been thinking about this last week. Didn’t you watch the news reports and the Senate Intelligence hearings?”
He lowered his chin and pressed his tie flat against his chest. “Of course I watched.”
“Those scientists said the aliens had destroyed most of the life on earth millions of years ago, only to introduce new species. And that human beings were descendants from one of the life forms the aliens released.”
“Yes,” he said, with unshakable confidence.
“Well, doesn’t that change things?” she asked, slightly incredulous. “If our ancestors were made in a test tube, then our creator wasn’t the God you worship, but another God. One who had mastered the laws of science and genetics.”
“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.
Extinction Series (The Complete Collection) Page 40