The Eden Project (Peter Zachary Adventure)

by John Bolin

  Peter scowled.

  “Sadly, he went to his grave without the secret.” Khang looked at Peter and opened a clear plastic cover over a keypad. “But I have it. And the new world he desperately sought begins today.”

  “Dr. Khang,” Anna said, “please look again at—”

  Too late. Red lights began to flash.

  Peter heard a loud click, followed by a humming sound. A moment later, the assembler—Peter’s “octopus”—began moving through the water, its metallic arms snaking through the air.

  Khang moved quickly from pod to pod on the center platform, adjusting knobs and pushing buttons. The noise was building. It pulsed like an amplified guitar strum. The air in the cave changed noticeably. It now had a metallic tang to it.

  The assembler began moving faster, thrashing in the water, its tentacles moving and writhing around. As Peter watched, the silver tentacles turned black. He thought he saw movement along their length, like tiny black ants. The assembler was creating, organizing the nanites in front of his eyes. New tentacles began to form even where there wasn’t a silver tube, climbing on one another like a colony of army ants.

  “Ten minutes until activation,” the computer’s automated female voice said over the loudspeakers. “Maintain a safe distance from the assembler.”

  The room echoed with the buzzing sound from the assembler. The sound of the machine competed with the soft strains of the classical music. The assembler itself had grown. Peter guessed that it had nearly doubled in size it the minutes he watched. Its tentacles were now each more than twenty feet long, moving around the surface of the cave like hundreds of snakes. He wondered how Linc was faring.

  The electronic voice sounded again over the loudspeakers: “Eight minutes until activation. Maintain a safe distance from the assembler.”

  Khang turned and made a few adjustments on the control panel. Anna was seated now and rolled back in her chair to give Khang room to work.

  “Lucky for you,” Khang said, “once the mechanism is powered up, an invisible shield will surround the control platform. We will be completely insulated against the effects of the assembler.” He paused. “I can’t say as much for your friends.”

  “Too late, Khang. They’re long gone now, along with your human guinea pigs.”

  Khang faced him, a slow smile crossing his face. “I wouldn’t be so certain, Zachary.” He pressed a few buttons on a handheld remote-control device. An electric noise was followed by sudden movement behind Khang.

  Even before Peter saw it, he knew what it was.

  The white pods situated on the edge of the center island rotated around so that Peter could see the other side of them. Four of the six pods were empty. Two were not.

  Gator and Alex.

  Their eyes were open, but they could not speak or move. Breathing tubes had been inserted into their mouths, making it impossible for them to speak, and canvas straps held them in place against the machinery of the pods. Two words popped into Peter’s mind: aqueous swarm.

  He lurched toward his friends, but a black shadow moved by his feet and knocked him to the deck.

  It was a tentacle. From the monstrous assembler thing, which now thrashed the water just beside the platform. A dozen black tentacles slithering across the slippery deck, pointing at him like eyes.

  The assembler moved alongside him in the water, sending its arms out onto the deck. Each tentacle was made of up thousands, millions of individual organisms, connected somehow and operating as a unit.

  He kicked at one of the tentacles, knocking off some of the particles like beetles off a rotten tree branch. They fell to the surface or floated in the air like dust motes.

  The arm snaked back as if in pain. One of the tentacles hung six inches from his ear. It sounded like thousands of insects climbing on one another. Clicking and buzzing.

  He struggled to his feet, but as soon as he did, tentacles wrapped themselves around his arms and legs. He instantly tried to kick away, but it was useless. He stood, immobilized by the assembler’s arms.

  Khang strode up to Peter’s face. “You see, Mr. Zachary, I do have the advantage.” He raised his remote-control device. “Do you see this red button? If I press it, your friends will die.”

  The black arms squeezed across Peter’s legs and chest, crushing him more surely than any jungle python. He couldn’t move his body, but at least his mouth was still free. “Let them go. Let us all go, you freak.”

  “Freak?” Khang seemed to consider it. “Yes, exactly.” He shrugged. “Your friends are going to help the human race evolve, Mr. Zachary, one way or another. In three minutes, unless I intervene, your friends will be injected with microscopic organisms. My nanites. The Peng.”

  “The things you’ve programmed to kill people, you mean.”

  Khang nodded. “Not all people, Mr. Zachary. Just the inferior ones. Perhaps your friends will be spared. The nanites will access their DNA and determine if it’s defective. If it is above a certain threshold, they will live. Of course, only about 20 percent of the human population is above that line, so it is a sort of gamble.”

  “And if their DNA isn’t suitable?” Peter said.

  “They will die, of course,” Khang said. “I’m sure you’ve already seen what the Peng did to the Indians. I’ve accelerated the same process.”

  Peter glanced at Alex. Her eyes were red with fury. And fear. Too bad Tima wasn’t here with some supernatural force. Any kind of divine intervention would be nice right about now, actually.

  “When the Peng have finished with your friends,” Khang said, “they will leave this place. I have programmed them to do the same thing with every human organism they encounter. Beginning with some troubling warmongers who are bearing down on us even now.”

  “Six minutes until activation,” the electronic voice said. “Maintain a safe distance from the assembler.”

  “You’re insane! You’re going to kill every human on the planet who isn’t standing on this platform?”

  “Of course not, you imbecile,” Khang said, his eyes shut as if listening to his favorite part of the music. “Only the 80 percent who are holding the rest of us back. I’ve done the research, Mr. Zachary. You’ll thank me one day.”

  “That’s genocide!” Peter shouted, struggling against the black arms.

  Khang smiled. “If only. No, just some preternatural selection. If I’d had ten more years to develop truly pure DNA, I could’ve begun with a genocide. But,” he shrugged, “we don’t live in a perfect world.”

  “So what are you going to do with me?” Peter said.

  “Oh, you’re joining them. A pity your friend—what was his name? Bogart?—couldn’t be with you. Raul, Anna! Go secure the rest of the compound. You’ll be safe beyond the doors. I want to watch the fun from here.”

  Raul snarled as he and Anna walked off the dock toward the double doors.

  Peter could feel the anger, a pressure building in his chest. But there was nothing he could do about it. He tried to free his arms and legs, but the tentacles held fast. He felt set in concrete. He could only watch as Raul and Anna walked through the doors and disappeared beyond them.

  Khang turned to Peter. His eye twitched with delight. “It really is less painful if you don’t fight it.” Khang punched a few buttons on the remote control.

  Instantly, Peter felt increased pressure on his legs and arms. He had the sensation of a thousand pinpricks as the creature pulled him off the ground. He could feel his body hovering in the air. He was five feet above the platform floating on the lagoon.

  Khang pressed another button and the black tentacles released him, dropping him like a dead weight. He fell hard on the wood planks. He leapt to his feet and lunged at Khang.

  But the assembler was too fast. He had barely moved when the black arms struck out like cobras, wrapping around him again. He was lifted in the air, but this time Khang flung him across the dock, nearly sending him over the edge. Peter scrambled to his feet.

  Kh
ang was toying with him.

  “You’re a coward, Khang! Fight for yourself!” Peter said as the creature wrapped itself around Peter again. It began to lift him into the air, this time moving him toward one of the empty cylinders on the platform.

  “Yes, well, now it’s time for you to die, Mr. Zachary,” Khang said, working the controller in his hands.

  The great black tentacles carried Peter to the pod and shoved him into it. He fought against it, but it was no use. He could feel the machine pressing his legs and arms in place. The sound of the assembler moving in the water was loud. The entire room was humming now. He felt the straps being secured to his legs. One of the tentacles wrapped itself around a tube, like the ones in Alex’s and Gator’s mouths, and slid it toward Peter’s mouth.

  He could feel the nanites on his skin, digging and probing. The tube came closer until he could taste the plastic. He turned his head away.

  Something moved in the water behind Khang. The assembler?

  No, a person. A black figure rose, dripping wet, on the edge of the platform.

  It was Linc, his muscles taut and veins bulging. His eyes looked glazed and distant. Linc shook his head, like he was fighting to focus. He wasn’t himself. Suddenly Peter recognized the look on Linc’s face. It was the look Tima had had in the cave.

  Khang hadn’t heard Linc over the roar of the assembler and the classical music.

  In a flurry of movement, Linc lunged forward and pulled the remote control from Khang’s hand. With a brutal strength, he snagged the pistol from Khang’s side and pushed the man to the deck with his other arm, sending him catapulting to the planks.

  Khang looked up in surprise. “Who are—? No!”

  Linc worked the remote, moving the assembler around with the joystick controls. The black arms and legs moved away from Peter and began to flail in the air.

  “Hurry up!” Linc shouted, sounding anguished. “I don’t know how to use this thing.”

  Peter pushed the tubes off him and undid the straps around his legs. He tumbled out of the cylinder and turned to look at Gator, whose eyes shifted to him. Peter reached up and yanked the tube from his friend’s mouth. He did the same for Alex. She gasped and her head fell forward in relief. Peter turned to Khang.

  Linc had the pistol to Khang’s head with one hand and was operating the assembler with the other. Both hands were shaking. “Pete, I . . . can’t do this. You’ve got to take the remote.”

  “Linc,” Peter said, moving toward him, “did you plant the charges?”

  A metallic din interrupted Linc’s answer. The assembler trashed around the cavern, smashing into metal cylinders and the dock and walls. A tangle of arms crashed against the black speakers, ripping them from the ceiling. The music stopped abruptly as the speakers tumbled into the lagoon.

  “No!” Khang shouted, a look of terror suddenly crossing his face.

  “What’s the matter?” Peter said. “Hooked on classics?”

  “You don’t understand!” Khang said. “You’ve destroyed the protective shield! We’ll be killed! You fool, the speakers—”

  “What about them?”

  “Here,” Linc said. He handed the remote to Peter and held his pistol at Khang with both hands. He wiped water from his forehead and blinked heavily.

  Peter moved the small joystick on the remote, but nothing happened. He pressed buttons, including the red one in the top left corner, but the assembler wasn’t responding. He tossed it to Khang. “Shut it down.”

  Khang watched his creation in horror. It had grown again. Now it took up an entire end of the cavern. It glistened blackly, its fat limbs looking almost like oily roots of giant trees. Long pulsating tentacles moved everywhere, exploring the space of the cave.

  “It cannot be stopped,” he said, almost to himself. He stood and leaned over a computer station. “Once the process has begun, the assembler begins a countdown that is activated by the lodestones. Even if I—”

  “The what?” Peter said. “What lodestones?”

  Khang gestured irritably at the stalactites hanging from the roof of the cavern. Peter saw again the metal tubes encircling them like belts. “The natural lodestones that cover the roof of this cavern. The secret of the assembler’s energy. It’s why I chose this location, of course. They are unrivaled on the earth.”

  Linc looked up and moaned. His hands were shaking worse, and he began to sway on his legs. Peter took the pistol from him and eased him to the deck.

  “The process cannot be reversed,” Khang said from the console. “Even if I wanted to stop it, I couldn’t.” He turned to watch the assembler. “And I don’t want to.”

  An alarm sounded and blue light began to flash in the water, coming from the assembler. The machine itself was pulsing quickly now. A rolling fog was filling the room. Peter could feel pressure building in his chest. His eyes flashed to his watch.

  “Two minutes until activation,” the electronic voice said. “Maintain a safe distance from the assembler.”

  “What’s going to happen when it counts down to zero?” Peter asked.

  “The assembler will begin to replicate nanites faster than we can contain them. The nanites will quickly assemble themselves into Peng and then will be released through that chute into the Amazon River and the other waterways of Peru and Brazil. Within a week, the Peng will be in the Atlantic, and from there they will travel to every water system in the world. Along the way, the creatures will assemble and reassemble in any shape or form they need to accomplish their goal.”

  “Their goal?”

  “To ultimately be ingested by every human on the planet. Even then, they will continue to replicate, feeding on human tissue, until they either destroy or enhance every genetic signature on the planet. Good DNA survives, bad DNA dies. It’s as simple as that. Then we will see the rise of a new race of humans. One that is genetically superior and prepared for immortality.”

  “Come on, Khang! There has to be an override. Where is it?”

  Khang’s face was red. “Stop it? Why would you want to stop it?”

  Peter grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved the pistol’s muzzle into his ear. “Because if you want to enter the new world, I’m guessing you’ll want to still have your brains in your head when it starts.”

  Khang looked back at him, breathing heavily. “There’s only one way to stop it. And even then, it may not stop it for long.”

  “Tell me!”

  “On the assembler, there’s a red LED button,” Khang said. “It won’t stop it, but it will reset the process.”

  Peter looked out at the monster. “On that thing?” He turned back to Khang. “You’re lying.”

  Khang shook his head. “No, it’s the only way.”

  A howl behind Peter drew his attention. Linc doubled over, face in his hands, and rocked back and forth. Veins pulsated on his forehead. Gator and Alex convulsed behind their straps. Peter could see their veins bulging with the nanites, too. Alex had her eyes shut. Gator’s eyes shifted all around the room.

  “What’s happening to them?” Peter said, turning back to Khang.

  “They’re near the end. The nanites have already begun to affect their frontal lobe, blurring their realities. Oh, to see what they are seeing!”

  The assembler thrashed in the water. It sent waves ahead of it as it began closing the distance toward the platform. How was Peter supposed to even find a tiny red button somewhere on it, much less avoid the tentacles long enough to press it?

  He looked back at Khang. “It doesn’t look like either one of us is going to survive this. Your pet roach creature is going to tear us both apart.” He raised the pistol to Khang’s head again. “But I will have what I came here for.”

  Khang stood woodenly. “I am not afraid of death.”

  Peter smiled. “Lucky for you.” He took the pistol off safety. “You killed my best friend. A man worth twenty of you. And I have come all this way to even the score.”

  “You’re pathetic,” Kh
ang said, sneering at him. “If I die, so do your friends.”

  Peter hesitated. “You said they were as good as dead already.”

  “You think I don’t have a fail-safe?” He lifted his nose. “Imbecile.”

  The assembler was halfway across the lagoon now. Its tentacles slapped the water like redwoods falling into a river. The roar and spray of it were overwhelming. Peter judged the distance to the thing’s floating core. It still wasn’t close enough to jump to. Not yet.

  But if he went into the water, he would lose his best chance to kill Khang.