“Since I have your big brain here,” Eugene said, grinning, “I wouldn’t mind getting your opinion on this.” He motioned to the screen he’d been staring at so intently when she first entered the lab. It was an image of the cells they’d cultivated from the flying alien creature. “You’re the geneticist, maybe you can make sense of how these cells work. They aren’t carbon-based, we know that much.”
Mia moved closer, studying the screen. The alien cell appeared to have a membrane filled with a type of cytoplasm. That much was the same. But there was something about the oval-shaped structure in the center that looked disturbingly familiar. “Can you magnify this any more?”
Eugene did so. The screen flickered as the object in the center of the cell grew larger. In carbon-based life, the nucleus was where most of the DNA was stored. But here, the outer casing looked hard, almost synthetic. That was when she made the connection to what Jansson had showed her nestled inside the cells of people with Salzburg.
Jansson had found that exposing the cell to a GMO mixture had caused the strange oval object to activate a form of CRISPR inserting the HISR assembler gene into the cell’s nucleus. Earlier, Mia had discovered this same HISR gene had lain dormant within thirty percent of the population, waiting for signs of those same GMOs. Once that occurred, the assembler gene would then begin drawing upon segments of junk DNA in our genome in order to create the beginnings of the Salzburg chromosome.
So how was it then that the alien cell Eugene was showing her so closely resembled what Jansson had found in those suffering from Salzburg? But more than that, why did both of them look as though they had been manufactured?
Chapter 36
Jack and the others leveled their weapons.
“Don’t stop!” Stokes shouted to the men paddling them forward.
The wave struck against the side of the raft, spraying them with water and clumps of red algae.
Swinging around, Jack called out to Anna, “Where did it go?”
“It appears to have passed underneath the raft,” she said, a hint of worry in her voice.
The water grew still. Everyone was on edge, especially the four men paddling. Grant and Dag were on the port side, their suits dripping from water and red gunk. To starboard were Conroy and Diaz, both men no doubt itching to swap their paddles for the M4 rifles at their sides. But luckily they didn’t, which meant the raft kept moving forward.
Jack held his breath, hoping whatever had swum at them had decided to swim away. The thought had barely taken shape when a long spindly arm emerged from the water. The skin looked dark with red and green specks, a perfect camouflage for the grimy water they were pushing through. At the end of the arm was a barbed spear, which it thrust at Conroy. The Delta operator rolled out of harm’s way, coming up with his weapon. He locked on with his laser sights and fired three rounds. The creature’s arm was thin, but each homing bullet hit its mark, causing explosions of translucent liquid with each impact. Now the others were firing too, the strange-looking arm torn in two from the barrage.
Suddenly, a scream filled the radio from the paddler at the back of the raft.
“It’s got Diaz,” Kerr shouted.
A ten-inch barb protruded from Diaz’s back. This second arm lifted the screaming soldier into the air as he hacked at it with his combat knife. From the center of the raft, Ivan opened up with both guns, kicking up bursts of water with every missed shot. Despite their efforts, Diaz was pulled into the water, still shrieking in agony.
“What the hell was that?” Dag asked, a look of abject terror streaked across his face.
Gabby’s expression was no different. “Turn this boat around, we’re going back.”
“It’s too late for that,” Jack told her, his weapon still at the ready. “I tried to warn you. This place is no picnic.”
“It sure is a picnic,” she countered. “And guess who’s on the menu.”
They stood watch for several moments, positioned in the center of the raft.
“Stokes,” Jack said. “We need to keep moving. That thing comes back and pokes a hole in this boat and we’re done for. Stokes!” he repeated, finally getting through to the sergeant.
“Yes, you’re right.” He glanced over and saw the soldier’s paddle floating in the water three feet from the edge of the raft. Stokes grabbed the one at his feet that Conroy had dropped and went to the edge. Kerr, Conroy and Bates covered him as he leaned over the edge to fish out the fourth paddle. “Mark my words,” Stokes instructed them. “You see so much as a toe poking out of that swamp and you toast it, you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” Kerr replied, his M4 dug into his shoulder.
“I do not think that is very wise,” Anna said to Ivan, who turned and lifted his massive shoulders in a shrug.
Stokes reached out, using the end of one paddle to snag the one floating a few feet away. When it was flush against the side of the raft, he reached in and plucked it out of the water. He then handed the first paddle back to Conroy and told him to return to his post. Stokes would take Diaz’s spot.
Grieving and still in shock, they pushed on, thankful whatever came at them didn’t return for more.
•••
Minutes later they reached the opposite shore and pulled the raft a few yards inland to prevent it from floating away.
“The structure should be this way,” Jack said, pointing toward his one o’clock.
“Stay alert,” Stokes barked, not that any of them needed reminding after what they’d seen on the lake.
They began pushing into the thick brush, Stokes and Jack taking the lead, each armed with fifteen-inch machetes and no shortage of exuberance. The suit didn’t only help you walk, it also helped you swing your arms with tremendous power.
“Dr. Greer, could you please pause for a moment?”
Jack and Stokes stopped, neither man even remotely short of breath.
“You see something?” Jack inquired, the hand with the machete resting on his hip.
“I believe so.” She patched an overhead image in to everyone’s glasses, adding a red blinking box around the anomaly.
“Looks like another building,” Gabby exclaimed.
“This one’s only half the size,” Dag added. “Might be why we missed it.”
Jack saw that it was fifty yards away, just over a nearby hill. “Doesn’t look like much of a detour. I say we take a quick look.”
“All right,” Stokes agreed, changing direction and hacking away.
By now the fog had lifted completely, increasing their field of vision, but not doing much to diminish their anxiety. Before long, they arrived at a squat structure, covered with overgrowth. At some point, the seed from a large yellow tree had taken hold on the flat roof and now it stretched a hundred feet into the air, its foliage unfurled like a giant crimson umbrella. The tree’s roots snaked along the exterior walls and into the ground below. Moss dangled over a high archway in the center of the structure marking the way inside. Jack was the first to enter, switching his headlamp on and keeping his rifle in front of him.
A ramp, pitched downward at a low angle, gradually led to an enormous chamber. Even in a dank, sunless place, nature had found a way. Like the greenhouse, most of the surfaces were covered with one form of plant life or another. Here, the ceiling was high enough to support trees thirty feet and taller. Scanning the ground, somewhere between the vines and the sapling roots, Jack spotted the hint of a slate-gray metal floor, one of the few signs the room they were in had been built by hand, in this case alien hands. The other sign came from the faint blue lights he saw blinking at various points up and down the walls. His eyes traced to the ceiling, where he discovered what resembled the outlet from a huge energy device. The thought crossed his mind that it could be a release valve just as easily as it could be the barrel from an impressive laser weapon. Whatever it was, why it was pointing at the ground mystified him.
Grant walked beneath the object on the ceiling, busy inspecting something he had discovered on the gro
und beneath it. He tore at the vines covering what looked like the pedestal for a small round statue. Flecks of blue light danced around the object whenever Grant’s hands drew near its rounded surface.
“Dr. Holland,” Stokes said as politely as he could. “May I suggest you don’t start touching things just yet. I’ve already lost two of my men to this place and I have no interest in adding you to that list.”
Dag and the others continued looking around the immense space.
“Perhaps I should try,” Anna said. “That way, no human will be harmed if something goes awry.”
Jack began to protest, but she was already there. Grant backed away when he saw her approach. Squatting down, Anna inspected the base where she’d seen some of the twinkling lights. Then she stood and placed her palm over the statue’s smooth surface.
Nothing happened. Grant returned and did exactly as he had done before. The blue lights shimmered once again. Then he placed one hand next to the other and suddenly the chamber was engulfed in a spectacular display of brilliant blue illumination. Rotating around them for a few fleeting moments was a hologram of what looked like a solar system, maybe even a galaxy. Grant struggled to hold it, shifting his hands about the object’s surface, but no matter what he did, the stunning sight would begin to waver before disappearing.
“What the heck was that?” Dag shouted from the other end of the chamber.
Jack shook his head, the ghostly hologram still visible in his mind’s eye. “I believe it was a star map.”
Chapter 37
Kay had been surprised when her blog, the American News-Letter―named after the first continuous paper in North America, the Boston News-Letter―had racked up five thousand followers after her very first posting. And she was positively stunned when that number exploded into over a million, much like the event at Kennedy Space Station she had written about. Normally, that sort of thing would never happen to a humble news blog, but with all of the major news outlets either shuttered or toeing the government line, the public was hungry for a real and unvarnished source of information. Put another way, they were hungry for the truth.
Kay began by reposting the exposé she’d written on Sentinel’s long and sordid history, followed by the conspiracy to remove President Taylor and replace him with Secretary of Defense Myers. But being imbedded, so to speak, with the resistance made reaching out to her contacts extremely hazardous. The use of cellphones was strictly off limits, since as Ollie liked to say, those infernal things were little more than tracking devices.
Not surprisingly, Armoni also had a role to play in Kay’s success, in large part by shielding her blog from government denial-of-service attacks and other nefarious means they employed in an effort to silence her. But the hacker/programmer showed her true genius with the secured private messenger service she created. Called ICE for Input Character Emulation, it enabled Kay to interface with all existing messenger platforms. She could even use it to send text messages without revealing her location. If the world hadn’t been in such turmoil, Kay was sure ICE would have made Armoni a billionaire many times over.
Currently, Kay was sketching out plans for her next story. In it she planned to reveal the existence of the government’s internment camps and how they were desperately trying to keep them quiet. Pictures of conditions there had been smuggled out and sent to her. In each case, her heart went out to the dispirited faces she saw staring back at her. Decades had passed since the world had known the depravity of camps like Auschwitz and Dachau, and yet even now the pictures from past and present were largely interchangeable. The buildings were different, so too were the guards’ uniforms, but more of what made the sight ghastly then still remained.
Skipping through the images one by one, Kay wasn’t ashamed to admit she lingered a little longer on group shots, hoping she might find someone she knew. Perhaps even proof her parents were still alive. Armoni had been the one who found their names listed in the arrest and transfer documents. Which meant at some point the two of them had arrived at one of the thirteen camps currently dotting the eastern seaboard. Whether or not they were still there or even alive was another matter entirely. Kay’s stomach lurched from the mere thought. She focused in an effort to steady herself. She was nearly there when her computer dinged with a new private message. She checked and saw it was from Special Agent Ramirez.
“Kay, is that you or is someone ghosting your byline?”
“Of course it’s me,” she replied.
“Prove it. Tell me something only the real Kay would know.”
She laughed. “You like to shout, ‘Who’s your daddy?’ when you’re having sex.”
“Damn, I didn’t think you could hear that.”
“You were dating my roommate, what can I say? Anyway, I’m guessing you read my article about the sabotage.”
“I did. The bureau’s set up a task force to find out who did it. You had details that only the assailants knew. I’d ask you who your contacts are, but I know there isn’t any point.”
Kay smiled. “You’re a wise man. I’m about to tell the world about the concentration camps. Of course they’re calling them something far more benign, not that anyone will be fooled. Not when I’m done exposing them.”
“I’ve heard rumors.”
“Rumors are one thing. I’ve got pictures and corroborated firsthand accounts. I also have a list on Homeland Security letterhead that happens to have my parents’ names on it.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Then for the grand finale, I’m going to reveal the despicable reason why they’re all situated close to the coastline. My only worry is Sentinel’s plan is so insidious people may not believe it. Well, at least the incoming ship has been destroyed, removing the threat of Armageddon.”
“That’s part of why I was reaching out.”
Kay’s brow furrowed and the pulse in her neck quickened. “Go on.”
“The missiles from Vandenberg impacted that ship, that part is true. But the propaganda the government’s putting out that the ship was destroyed isn’t.”
That sinking feeling in Kay’s gut was getting worse. “I did get a bunch of PMs from friends at the European Space Agency refuting the ship’s destruction. I suppose I just didn’t want to believe it.”
“I’m sorry.” Ramirez went away for a few minutes and then returned to write. “There’s something else and I wanted you to be the first one to know about it. President Taylor was taken off life support.”
“What? On whose order?”
“President Myers, but he’s claiming the ex-First Lady made the decision.”
“Oh, no.”
“Myers also expedited the executions of the cabinet members he accused of orchestrating the downing of Marine One. Myer’s grip on power has officially been consolidated.”
Kay felt the world swimming away from her. To be hit by so much in one shot was almost too much to bear. With Sentinel digging in its nails and the doomsday ship still on its way, only one thing was clear. In less than eighteen hours, the human race would top the list of endangered species.
Chapter 38
18 hours, 22 minutes, 57 seconds
Jack was standing next to the pedestal, struggling in vain to get it to light up again, when he caught sight of Grant in the distance, plucking a wisp out of the air. At once, the biologist hurried over to a folding table and microscope he had set up.
Stokes and his men continued to sweep the rest of the chamber, ensuring nothing aggressive was using this place as a den.
Not far from Grant, Anna appeared to be teaching Ivan about humor, Yuri looking on like the one boy at prom without a date.
“I don’t get it,” Dag said, rubbing the round surface the way a man might rub a prized bowling ball. “Grant was the only one that had any luck with this thing,” Seconds later, his grimace deepened when the light show still failed to start. “Guess I’m not the chosen one,” he joked.
“That’s too bad,” Jack replied. “Maybe we could have
gotten some answers.”
Dag starred down at his feet. “You realize this ship is not only twice as big as the Atean craft, it’s also far more advanced.”
Jack nodded. “The thought had crossed my mind.” He glanced at Gabby, who came to stand next to him.
Dag straightened. “I mean, the power requirements alone for something this size are so much greater, not that the other one wasn’t impressive.”
“No, but I see what you mean,” Jack said. “We know the first ship impacted sixty-five million years ago, wiping out the dinosaurs along with a flourishing Mesonyx civilization. We also know they built an entire city on top of the ship we’re in now. Which means this must have crash-landed on Earth long before that.”
“Well, two hundred and fifty million years ago was the Permian extinction,” Dag said, drawing the next logical inference.
Gabby tightened an arm strap on her exoskeleton suit. “Since we’re quite certain the arrivals of these ships are tied to the major extinction events in Earth’s history, then it could be even older.”
A light went on behind Jack’s eyes. “The Cambrian explosion?” he asked, breathless.
Dag shook his head in disbelief. “But that was five hundred and forty million years ago.”
“It’s a long time,” Gabby replied. “I think you two are missing the most obvious point.”
Jack caught her eye. “Which is?”
“How is it possible that the older of the two ships is also the more advanced one?” she said.
Both men grew quiet, contemplating the magnitude of Gabby’s question.
“Time travel?” Dag said, jumping as usual to the wildest solution.
“Given the similar shape of both craft, we simply assumed this was an Atean ship,” Jack said, trying to rid himself of preconceived notions. “Or at the very least from a civilization closely linked to them. But you’re suggesting they may not be connected after all.”
“Not only might they not be connected,” Gabby replied, “but the mighty beings who built this vessel may not be the ones who created the Ateans in the first place.”
Extinction Series (The Complete Collection) Page 69