by A. G. Riddle
“They are a medium. For a message.”
Avery squinted. “A message from whom?”
“I don’t know,” Lin said flatly.
“Aliens?”
“You’re comparing apples to oranges.”
“What does that even mean, Lin?”
“It means that your question is out of context, and more importantly, we’re out of time. I leave you with this: since our species emerged, our genes have been shifting. Several turning points in human history hastened these shifts. The cognitive revolution. Agriculture. Cities. The scientific revolution. They were necessary steps along the way. And each of these turning points left a bread crumb in our DNA. Think about it. It’s the perfect medium for a message.”
“And you found those DNA samples on the Beagle. Now what?”
“Only some of them. I believe the rest of the samples were hidden.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I suggest we discuss that en route.”
Avery got up. “Fine. En route to where?”
“Oxford.”
“Mississippi.”
“England.”
“Okay, this helo is definitely not going to get to England.” Avery thought for a moment. “I refueled at Post/Rogers Memorial Airport on the way here. I saw a few planes.”
“Any you can fly?” Adams asked.
“I can fly anything.”
Chapter 18
Conner had ordered the vans to avoid Sand Hill Road. With the X1 treatment camp at Stanford, the thoroughfare would be crawling with mixed units of National Guard, Army, and FEMA employees. So they drove slowly through the residential roads of Sharon Heights, their headlights off, only the moonlight and occasional streetlamp lighting their way.
They staggered their arrival. The scout van was the first to turn left off Middle Avenue onto Windsor.
On his laptop screen, Conner watched the vehicle’s video feed. The street was lined with houses built in the sixties, though a few had been torn down and replaced with larger homes that looked slightly out of place. In a few years they would probably be the majority.
Lin Shaw’s home was one of the originals. It was a ranch with a double garage, stucco exterior, and a shingle roof that was showing its age.
As planned, the scout van drove by once. Save for a smattering of lights inside a few homes, the street was quiet, not a soul in sight. Conner knew that some of the residents were in the Stanford Treatment Center. Others had died. Many had fled—into the California mountains, or for those with the means, offshore to private islands. The ones left had ridden out the pandemic at home. With the recently enacted curfew, they would be peeking out their windows at any movement on the street.
The scout van parked several houses down from Lin’s, and three of Conner’s men got out. In their unmarked black uniforms, they strode down the street with purpose, as if they belonged there.
The view on Conner’s laptop split, and he saw a feed from the lead soldier’s helmet cam. He knocked on a door. Curtains in the window to the right were drawn back, and a woman’s face appeared, eyebrows raised. A click, and the door swung open, catching on a chain.
“Yes?”
She was middle-aged, with wavy brown hair and dark bags under her eyes.
“Evening, ma’am. We’re just canvassing the neighborhood making sure everyone heard about the curfew.”
She swallowed, seemed a little more at ease. “Yes, we heard.”
“Good. Can we do anything for you?”
She shook her head. “They brought food this morning.” She hesitated. “Our internet’s down. So is everyone else’s I’ve talked to—uh, during the day.”
“We’re aware of that. Hope to get it fixed soon.”
“Thank God. My daughter is in Seattle and we haven’t heard anything. Phones don’t work either.”
“That’s connected to the internet issue. It’ll all be over soon.” The man’s words brought a smile to Conner’s face. “We’re going to be conducting operations on the street, so you’ll see some of my men and some other vans.”
“Is everything—”
“Nothing to worry about, ma’am. Just routine. Have a good night, now.”
The next house was right beside Lin Shaw’s home. It looked deserted, and no one came to the door when the soldier knocked. He walked around the house, jumped the chain link fence, and used his knife to open a double-hung window. He searched the two-story residence quickly, confirmed it was empty, then opened the front door and let his team in. They set up a base of operations in the breakfast room off the kitchen, at the back of the house, out of view of anyone walking down the street.
They opened a crate, drew out what looked like a camera with a telephoto lens, and connected it to a laptop.
On his laptop, Conner watched them sweep the camera back and forth, revealing an infrared view of Lin Shaw’s home. There was nothing living inside. Still, Conner wasn’t taking any chances where Lin Shaw was involved. Or Desmond. The home could be booby-trapped, rigged to blow, or some kind of failsafe to facilitate Desmond’s rescue.
Conner watched his team jump the fence between the two homes and set up a recreational camping tent that wouldn’t seem out of place in this residential neighborhood. The men placed the tent against the home’s rear wall and crowded inside, out of sight.
One soldier drilled a hole in the wall, then used a hacksaw to make it larger, just big enough for a man to squeeze through. He reached into his black bag and took out a small rover. It was perfect for the search: rubber tracks, a long arm, and a 360-degree camera. The man slid it through the hole and manipulated it with the remote control.
The rover crept through the home, revealing it in the green glow of night vision. The sink was filled with dirty dishes. Clothes were strewn across the bed. The alarm wasn’t set. All were indications of someone leaving in a hurry—or of someone who had wanted it to look that way.
Methodically, the rover worked its way through the home. There were no cameras, no wiring to the doors or windows, just the standard alarm contacts.
“Permission to breach?” the soldier asked over the comm.
“Granted,” Conner replied.
The men crawled through the hole, still wary of using a door or window. Within seconds, they had searched and secured the home.
“Entry point?”
“Garage,” Conner said. “Keep the lights off.”
“Copy.”
Conner’s van pulled away from the curb and crept through Menlo Park. When they arrived at Lin’s home, they backed onto the driveway and into the garage. The door closed behind them.
“Should we unload?” Dr. Park asked.
“No. We need to stay mobile. But you should recharge your equipment.”
Conner pulled out the phone and studied the Labyrinth Reality app.
Downloading…
Extension cords were strung from outlets inside the home to Dr. Park’s equipment. Conner then waited while his troops canvassed the rest of the street and took up positions in abandoned homes at each end.
The phone beeped.
Download Complete
Conner turned to the doctor, who was studying his laptop.
“Brain waves just changed,” Park said. “Another one is starting.”
“How long?”
“If the patterns are consistent, this one is shorter. An hour maybe.”
Conner got out and walked through the home, to the bay window in the living room. In the distance, he saw the light of the fire that burned at Sand Hill Road, the thick column of smoke rising to the moon. It was coming their way. For the second time in his life, he was trapped inside a home, a wildfire barreling toward him.
Chapter 19
Avery banked the helicopter and swept its exterior lights over the darkened airport. From the back, Peyton peered out. Post/Rogers Memorial Airport had only a single runway and no signs of life. She spotted two helicopters and five planes.
The airpo
rt was a few miles outside Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the United States. The city was small even before the X1 outbreak—less than five thousand inhabitants—and Peyton wondered how many they had now. They were over two hundred miles north of the Arctic Circle, which meant the sun wouldn’t rise again for another month. She felt as though she had lived in darkness for years; the sun was a distant memory.
They landed, and stepped out into the cold December night. Avery paced ahead of the group to look the planes over. She strode quickly past the four single-engine prop planes and headed straight for the jet, which had a logo for an oil and gas exploration company Peyton didn’t recognize.
“It’ll do,” she said.
“How far away is Oxford?” Peyton asked.
“Don’t know. London is four thousand miles, give or take.”
Lin studied the plane. “Oxford’s close to London. I used to ride the train there twice a week. What’s the jet’s range?”
“It’s a G5. Over six thousand nautical miles, roughly twelve thousand kilometers. It’s fast, too—up to six hundred and seventy miles per hour. Ninety percent the speed of sound.”
Adams eyed her suspiciously, as if she were kidding.
“Rubicon used to own one,” she explained.
They fueled it up and transferred their gear. The inside of the craft was worn; Peyton estimated that it was probably twenty years old. But it started immediately and felt surefooted on the runway.
As soon as they were at altitude, Avery engaged the autopilot and walked back into the cabin, where her five passengers were gathered. “All right,” she said. “What did I miss?”
“The freezing part,” Nigel muttered.
Lin ignored him. “As we said at camp, we found bones on the Beagle, but not nearly as many as I expected.” She waited for everyone to focus on her. “We did find a clue, however.”
Avery pinched the bridge of her nose. “Okay. I’ll bite. I’ll take Cryptic Things You Found on a Sunken Submarine for a thousand.” She leaned in theatrically. “Please tell me it’s a Daily Double.”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself, Avery,” Lin said. “We lost a lot of people back there, so it’s not as easy for us.”
The statement stopped Avery cold.
Peyton was amazed at her mother’s ability to control the situation. In a single breath, she had focused everyone and made them feel what she wanted them to feel.
Lin continued without looking up. “In an office deep inside the Beagle, Peyton and I found a picture of a cave painting.” She drew it out and passed it around. “Read the back.”
When it reached Peyton, she read it again.
Do fidem me nullum librum
A Liddell
Avery handed the page back to Lin. “I took Latin in the eleventh grade, but I got a B. So… gonna need a little help here.”
“Only the first part is Latin,” Lin said. “It’s the beginning of an oath. A very old one. Do fidem me nullum librum vel instrumentum aliamve quam rem ad bibliothecam pertinentem… It’s an oath I took. For almost a thousand years, it was a covenant agreed to by some of the greatest humans who ever lived. And by those who had the potential to join them.
“The people who have spoken or signed this oath have won fifty-eight Nobel prizes. In every category. Twenty-seven prime ministers of the UK have signed or said the words. Margaret Thatcher. Tony Blair. David Cameron. Theresa May. The prime ministers of Australia and Canada. Sir Walter Raleigh. Lawrence of Arabia. Einstein. Schrödinger.”
“Impossible,” Avery said.
“It’s true. The list is even longer when it comes to writers. T. S. Elliot. Graham Greene. Christopher Hitchens. Aldous Huxley. J. R. R. Tolkien. Phillip Pullman. C. S. Lewis. Even philosophers like John Locke and William of Ockham.”
“As in Ockham’s razor?” Avery asked.
“The same,” Lin replied.
“What kind of oath?” Nigel asked.
“One to protect knowledge.”
“How?”
“By not burning books.”
Lin’s statement drew silence from the others.
“It’s a vow that was required before admittance to a library.” Lin folded the page and tucked it away. “One of the oldest libraries in Europe, built nearly a thousand years ago. It’s the largest library in the UK, after the British Library. Under British law it can request a copy of every book printed in the UK. Irish Law gives it the same rights in the Republic of Ireland.”
“The Bodleian,” Nigel said. “Oxford University’s main library.”
“Yes.”
“What’s the oath?” Peyton asked.
“Not to carry a flame inside the library. In the centuries before electricity, the Bod closed at sundown. No candles allowed. No cigarettes. No chance of burning the stacks of priceless books inside.”
“What's the second part? Nigel asked. A Liddell?”
“It’s a reference to a work by an author who took the oath. A professor at the university. He first originated the term ‘Looking Glass.’ The Citium took inspiration from him in their great project. He wrote under the pen name Lewis Carroll to protect his true identity. I believe his book is what we’re looking for: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
Chapter 20
The night he saw Peyton at the restaurant in San Francisco, Desmond barely slept. He kept replaying the moment in his mind, the look on Yuri’s face as they stood outside on the street in the falling snow. Something was wrong about it. The thought gnawed at him. There was a connection—there had to be. But he couldn’t see it.
He got up, splashed water on his face, and exited his condo. He expected to see Jennifer sitting at the desk in the lobby off the elevator, but a young Asian man sat there instead, studying a laptop screen.
At the sight of Desmond, the man stood. “Morning, sir.”
“Morning …”
“Huan.”
“Nice to meet you.” Desmond paused. “Is Jennifer off today?”
“Who?”
“Jennifer. Nelson. She usually works the day shift.”
“I don’t know, sir. I’ve never met her.” Huan paused. “Can I get you anything?”
“No. Thanks, Huan.”
Desmond once again sat at the long table next to the towering window in the library, pondering the question of why early humans, during their march across the world, had wiped out Neanderthals, Denisovans, floresiensis, and every other hominin species, but had allowed primates like chimpanzees, gorillas, and bonobos to live.
Yet try as he might, Desmond couldn’t focus on the question. His mind kept drifting back to the scene in the restaurant. Peyton’s face. Lin, sitting there, placid, almost a mirror of Yuri. Focus.
Desmond stood, climbed the winding metal staircase to the library’s third floor, and stopped at the archives of the Citium conclaves. He pulled out a volume from the late sixties, scanned it, then pulled out another. He found the presentation he needed.
It was a piece.
On the second floor, he found the expedition logs from the Beagle. Multiple volumes. He carried the books down five at a time, stacked them high on the table, and pored through them.
Two days later, he had found the answer to Yuri’s question.
The echo of the voice in the tall room startled him. “You look like a man who’s discovered something.” Yuri walked to the table and sat. “Let’s hear it.”
Desmond cleared his throat. “Our species is the greatest mass murderer in the planet’s history.”
“Motive?”
“Calories and protein.”
Yuri gave a rare smile, but it was quickly gone. “Explain.”
“The other human species—Neanderthals, Denisovans, floresiensis—were competitors for calories. The primates in the jungle, not so much. The apes consume far fewer calories than we do. Chimpanzees and bonobos need about 400 calories a day, gorillas about 635, and orangutans 820. That’s despite them being far larger than us. The reason is
our brains. A pound of brain tissue uses twenty times the amount of energy a pound of muscle does.
“But more importantly, those other primates are mostly herbivores—bananas, nuts, et cetera. That meant they weren’t competitors for the ultimate fuel our bigger brains needed: meat. And especially cooked meat. Our pursuit of meat is what drove us out of Africa and all the way to Australia. And it had a huge impact on the planet—nothing less than a global extinction event.”
“Extinction of what?”
“Megafauna—large animals. Every time behaviorally modern humans moved into an area, the megafauna went extinct. It happened 45,000 years ago when those ancient humans reached Australia. When they arrived, they found thousand-pound kangaroos, two-ton wombats, twenty-five-foot-long lizards, four-hundred-pound flightless birds, three-hundred-pound marsupial lions, and tortoises the size of a car. And then, in a very short amount of time, more than 85 percent of the animals weighing over a hundred pounds went extinct. This wasn’t an isolated incident.”
Yuri’s face was expressionless. “Go on.”
Desmond opened one of the expedition logs from the Beagle. “All around the world, the researchers found remains of species we killed off. This global die-off is called the Quaternary extinction event. And they proved,” he pointed to the book, “definitively, that our ancestors caused it. A global holocaust, not just of other humans, but of every large mammal on Earth, with only a few exceptions. Even today, we humans account for 350 million tons of biomass on this planet. That’s three times the biomass of all the sheep, chickens, whales, and elephants—combined. This planet has become an ecology almost completely dedicated to fueling our massive calorie-hogging brains.”
“And what happened when the megafauna were gone?”
“Crisis. Our population receded. And then we kept going, expanding—that’s what drove our ancestors across the Bering Strait, to the far edges of South America and the Pacific Islands, and all the way to Hawaii and Easter Island. Food.