The Paradise Key (Harvey Bennett Thrillers Book 5)

by Nick Thacker

  Reggie strode forward, ignoring the woman’s outstretched hand. “Then I guess you have some explaining to do. You’re a criminal, you know that?”

  The woman retreated, head down.

  “No, Reggie,” Julie said. “It’s okay. She’s with us. She was working on some stuff she’s not proud of, but she wants out.”

  Reggie glared at her, but he didn’t try anything. Ben waited, knowing the exchange wasn’t over.

  “What kind of stuff were you working on?” Reggie asked. “Did you know they were growing limbs? After they chopped them off live people?”

  She shook her head, still sheepish. “No — yes. No, I mean I didnt’ know they were trying to grow them back, but I had heard stories of what they were doing in the deeper labs.”

  “So you were okay with it?”

  “Of course not,” Susan said. “But I couldn’t do anything. They wouldn’t let us out; they still won’t.”

  “Crawford?”

  “Crawford, the board, all the higher-ups here. They’re keeping a lid on all of it, and those of us who ask too many questions get removed.”

  “Removed?”

  “Shown the door, I guess,” she said. “But not in a nice way, probably.”

  “Probably not,” Julie said. “Ben, Reggie. They captured people against their will. They’re still down in the sublevel labs.”

  “We know,” Ben said. “And Crawford’s been pulling the strings.”

  “We know.”

  “So anything we don’t know?” Reggie asked, looking around the small room. The Subshuttle had started working its way along the cable, and they were well away from any structure by now. The water was thick and dark around them, and very little light made it to them from the surface.

  “A lot,” Julie said. “Like the giant tank of saltwater crocodiles?”

  “Saltwater crocodiles?” Ben said. “You’ve got to be — that’s a thing?”

  Reggie and the three women nodded.

  “I have a theory about that,” Dr. Lindgren said. “I think it has something to do with the genetic material in the crocs. Something dormant in their genetics that’s been there since they first evolved. For whatever reason, they essentially stopped evolving some-odd millions of years ago.”

  Susan nodded. “She’s right. I’m not sure exactly what they’re using them for here, but my own research is in genetics. I’m focusing on trying to isolate the genes and chemical structures in the jellyfish.”

  “The Turritopsis dohrnii?” Sarah asked.

  Susan seemed shocked. “Yes — how’d you know?”

  “We saw a tank full of your little pets back in the lab area,” Julie said. “The ‘Immortal Jellyfish,’ right?”

  “Yes,” Susan said. “But it’s not an accurate name. The specimens themselves don’t live forever. But they do have a weird characteristic that lets them ‘hop’ from one life stage to another. Like an egg becoming a tadpole, then becoming a frog.”

  “Only the frog could choose to become a tadpole once again?”

  Susan shook her head. “No, it would essentially be forced to for predatory or environmental reasons, and it wouldn’t become a tadpole — it would just break up into a bunch of little eggs, and the process would start all over. But there would be more tadpoles the next time, you see…” she let her voice drift off.

  “Right, so this little jellyfish can become — an egg?”

  “A polyp,” Susan said. “Or rather, a bunch of polyps. The life-cycle would start all over again, and technically speaking it would be made up of the same stuff the jellyfish was made up of, so…”

  “Immortality,” Reggie said. “Creepy.”

  “Definitely weird,” Julie said. “And you’re trying to figure out how to make that work in humans?”

  “What, like we’d just turn into fetuses again?” Reggie asked. “That’s gross.”

  “No, nothing like that,” Susan said. “It’s far more… complicated. With humans, we’re not as simple as a jellyfish, and even with the dormi it’s a complicated task. Isolating genes is tricky business, because life works in mysterious ways. One thing affects another, so you can’t just remove one of the things and expect it to function properly.”

  “Right,” Dr. Lindgren said. “So you’re trying to figure out how to recharge human cells into their previous state — making new stem cells?”

  Susan looked at Sarah, smiling. “Close, but no. Stem cells are a completely different field of research, and aside from the political and social fallout of admitting to studying it, we’re pretty close already to cracking the code.

  “But what we’re trying to do here isn’t changing the human genome at all.”

  “It’s not?” Julie asked. “If you’re playing with stem cells, and other stuff in the human body, then —”

  “We’re not. We’re trying to activate what’s already there.”

  45

  BEN WAS LISTENING TO THE conversation, but his focus was out the window. He didn’t like being in the water — swimming wasn’t really his thing. He could do it, of course, but he felt it was like running. The only time it should be truly necessary to run was when being chased, and the only reason it should be necessary to swim was when one found themselves in the water without knowing how they got there.

  In short, he didn’t like this Subshuttle thing. He hadn’t paid it much thought before, but he felt the ominous pressing of the sea, mere feet from him, trying to get in and —

  He shook his head. There was no point in thinking about it. He could compartmentalize his fear of ‘death by drowning’ into its special place in his mind for a while, until they figured out what to do to get out of this mess.

  And that was a far better topic to be thinking about, mostly because he had no idea how to solve that problem.

  The women and Reggie were still discussing the research, trying to piece everything together, but Ben couldn’t help but stare out the window. And everything was a window. They were standing in a window, a bubble of glass that trudged along underwater like a slow, stupid tugboat.

  He wondered why it had to be underwater. Why not just have a ferry? he thought.

  But he knew the answer: this was an experience. Besides an easy way for people across the park’s three rings, it would be something that added perceived value to Crawford’s offerings here. Like the monorail at Disneyland, this little ‘ride’ would attract all sorts of people who had always wanted to be in a submarine.

  This would be the closest they would ever get, but it would be enough. Crawford was sitting on a gold mine without the research that lived and breathed in the laboratories beneath the second ring.

  “…the jellyfish is like a salamander?” he heard Julie ask. He turned around and saw the four of them sitting, each of them appearing comfortable, as if there wasn’t an entire ocean sitting right outside the bubble, trying to get them.

  “Sort of, but instead of recreating itself into a completely different life stage, the salamander has a unique ability to regrow arms and legs.”

  “Like some lizards’ tails,” Reggie said. “We used to pick them up by their tails when we were kids, shake them around, see which ones fell off first. It was a game. I was pretty —”

  He looked around. Ben smiled. Wrong crowd for that story, he thought.

  “In a way, yes,” Susan said. “But the salamander does it in a different way. It’s really quite fascinating.”

  “It is,” Julie said. “So you’re building a medication that will give humans that ability?”

  Susan shook her head. “We don’t need to. As I said before, we’re activating what already exists in our DNA. The salamander has mastered this through its evolution — it’s called a blastema, and it’s sort of like a ripe stump — a mass of cells — that can regrow complex multi-tissue components. Crawford believes humans already have this ability, it’s just been repressed into our evolutionary history.”

  “Wait, humans already have the ability to regrow
limbs?”

  “They do, but for whatever reason that ability was stifled and shut off by our own evolution at some point along the way. It’s there, coded right in our strands, but it doesn’t work.”

  “So you’re working on how to activate that,” Sarah said. “Absolutely fascinating.”

  “Yeah, if you don’t mind the methodology for testing around here,” Reggie said.

  Susan hung her head. “I told you, I’ve been involved only for a short time, and most of that was working on just the chemical compounds. I never knew until recently what it was all for, and that we were actually using it on people.”

  Julie swiveled around in her seat to face Susan. “Is that what you were doing when we found you? With that other doctor?”

  She shook her head. “That woman was already dead, if you remember. We were trying to see what effect the serum would have on her, if any. It’s supposed to do two things: allow for the creation of a blastema, allowing the stem cells to do their work to regrow the limb, and it acts as sort of an anesthetic, preventing the subject from feeling.”

  “Feeling? You’re taking away their ability to feel?”

  Susan shook her head. “It’s not a bad thing — it’s the only way we’ve found for the medication to do its other job. The brain must not be allowed to think something is wrong, that some foreign chemical compound has been introduced, or it will shut down the processes.”

  “So the people in the cages,” Julie said. “You were regrowing their limbs, but you were also taking away what made them human.”

  “No, I wasn’t involved in that. Not directly, at least. I didn’t know they were using it on live test subjects, like I said. It was all — it still is — theoretical.”

  “Well something’s going on in that lab,” Reggie said. “And those people don’t deserve that.”

  Dr. Lindgren put her hand on Susan’s shoulder. “Does it work? The medication?”

  Susan nodded. “From what I have seen, yes. Sometimes we can restart some basic growth in dead species of frogs, fish, some mammals, even long after they’ve passed.”

  “You’re building zombies,” Ben said. “Great.”

  Susan smiled. “Not at all. No one is coming back from the dead, not by a long shot. But we might be able to get a finger to twitch for a minute, unrelated to any brain and nervous system activity. Or we’ve seen hair start to grow again, at least until the cells die from lack of supplementation.”

  Reggie shook his head. “The end doesn’t justify the means.”

  “No,” Susan said. “Of course not. That’s why I’m here with you. I want out. I started working for Dr. Lin, and that gave me access to the deeper labs. The ones in the back.”

  “The ones where they’re keeping the bodies,” Julie said.

  “Yeah,” Susan replied. “Those. The first time I saw those tanks, I was absolutely horrified. I didn’t — I still don’t — believe what they’re doing here.”

  “What you’re doing here,” Reggie said.

  “Enough, Reggie,” Ben said. “She’s out, she said so. You want to kill her? Do it.”

  Reggie fumed, but he didn’t get up.

  “That’s what I thought. Give the lady a break. She’s obviously been through — and lived in — hell. Best we can do is get her off this island and back into the real world.”

  “Yeah,” Julie said. “About that. We’re not going to get off this shuttle by just walking off on the other side. The Hawk’s going to have his entire team waiting for us, and I’m sure they’re not going to let us explain ourselves.”

  “We already tried the ‘explaining ourselves’ bit,” Reggie said. “It went about as well as you might think.”

  “Is there any way to manually drive this thing?” Julie asked. “Maybe we can start going back to the other side, where we came from. Might be able to get there faster, before The Hawk can assemble his crew on that side.”

  “No,” Susan said. “It’s manually controlled from somewhere in the central ring, or by the control panel outside each entrance, like an elevator. Keeps things running smoothly.”

  “Yeah,” Reggie said,” except in an elevator there’s at least an emergency shut off button.”

  “No,” Julie said, shaking her head. “A lot of times those are just there to put peoples’ minds at ease. They don’t do anything except alert the control desk that there’s a potential problem, and they can control the elevator’s movement.”

  “Great,” Reggie said. “So we’re screwed. We’re floating right toward Crawford and Garza, nice and slow, giving them enough time to get ready to pepper us with holes.”

  Ben felt the Subshuttle lurch, and he involuntarily grabbed the chair in front of him. He caught his balance again, but noticed something after.

  We’re no longer moving.

  “Well, speaking of having no control,” Reggie said. “Seems like we’ve been shut down.”

  “Wonderful,” Julie said. “Just great. Now what the hell are we going to do?”

  Ben thought for a moment. He knew there was only a small amount of oxygen left inside this machine, but it should last a decent amount of time since there were only five of them inside. The problem was that he had no idea how much time a ‘decent amount’ was, and if it would be enough oxygen to keep them alive until The Hawk decided to start their shuttle moving again.

  Or if they’ll start moving it at all, he thought. It wouldn’t have been a bad strategy to just let them sit there, slowly asphyxiating, choking on their own expelled breath. It would save resources, and his crew could essentially go back to what it was doing without even giving the people inside the Subshuttle a second thought.

  We suffocate or we get shot, he realized. Those were the two options that made most sense to him, were he in The Hawk’s position.

  Neither sounded very fun.

  Ben looked around, sighing. He had an idea, and he knew none of them would like it.

  Worst of all, he liked it the least.

  46

  JULIE HAD KNOWN BEN FOR nearing two years by now, and she knew him well. He was a capable man, able to do things that ‘normal’ people couldn’t, just due to the man’s sheer willpower and resiliency. In every other way, however, Julie would have defined the word ‘normal’ by holding up a picture of Ben. He was no superhero.

  And he wasn’t a leader.

  Not that he wasn’t capable of being one, but Julie had only seen Ben step up and take charge a few times. He was more than happy to play shotgun to someone else’s leadership role. It had been Joshua Jefferson at first, when the CSO had been officially formed, but throughout their relationship he had allowed Julie herself to take charge numerous times. When Reggie had walked into their lives, guns blazing, Ben quickly stepped aside to allow Reggie to take point when it counted.

  But this was a different situation, and Julie was somewhat surprised to see Ben taking charge. Something came over him there, standing in the Subshuttle in front of the rest of the team. He had a certain decidedness to him, a drive. It was in the way he was standing, his nostrils flared, his jaw set, and his hands confidently resting on the seat back he stood in front of. He looked like he knew exactly what he was about to do, that he had mapped it all out, planned for every contingency, and was about to act on it.

  She had no idea what that plan was, but she was interested to find out. She’d never seen him like this before. It was impressive.

  She hoped it would pay off.

  Ben looked around the Subshuttle, his eyes searching. He took a few steps down the center of the shuttle’s fuselage, toward the back, everyone stepping out of his way.

  “What do you have on your mind, big guy?” Reggie asked.

  Ben ignored the question, deep in thought.

  “Anything we can help with?” Julie asked.

  Still, nothing.

  Ben reached up and pressed hard against a curved panel of plastic near the floor. It separated from the wall, revealing an open space behind it. A drawe
r, similar to the cabinets Julie had found in the morgue. A simple door that slid back and clicked into place, no handles or knobs necessary.

  Ben must have spotted the hairline cracks around the cupboard.

  “There’s an oxygen circulation system in here,” he said. “On the floor, but it pushes the air out and up, see?” He pointed at one of the tiny vents between one the chairs and the wall of the shuttle. “There would have to be, assuming these things were ever full of people. No way to keep all that breath from turning into carbon monoxide without scrubbing it or at least expelling it out into the water, then replacing it with the good stuff.”

  “What are you getting at?” Reggie asked. “You want to try to use the oxygen tanks as a weapon?”

  Ben shook his head, walking across the back of the shuttle to the opposite side, feeling around for another hidden cupboard. “No, I just wanted to make sure. There’s also a small LED panel on it — the tanks are about eighty percent full. I’d guess the antechambers refill them whenever the shuttles are docked. Not sure how long eighty percent will last us, but I’d guess it’s not much.”

  Julie frowned. “What — what are you planning, Ben?”

  Still, he didn’t respond. Finding what he was looking for, he reached down and pushed against the panel, opening yet another plastic cupboard. The door, like the previous one, conformed to the shape of the wall around it, curving upward and to the right, to match the bubble-like interior of the craft. The top edge of the drawer ended at the glass wall that extended upward until it rounded up and over the ceiling.

  Ben reached around inside and finally found something. He pulled it out. “This’ll have to do,” he said, talking mostly to himself.

  Julie, Reggie, Sarah, and Susan all watched, interested in Ben’s sudden fixation on the small object. It was a miniature metal broom, short and stubby, with a set of bristles in the shape of a triangle. The type of hand broom used to sweep up small messes, the type Julie might have expected to find in a boat or a car.

  Or a shuttle, I guess, she thought.

  Ben examined the broom. Whether it was what he was looking for or he was about to MacGyver something was unclear.