Subhuman

by Michael McBride

  “The majority of the remains are disarticulated and scattered in no apparent pattern. Definitely abandonment context. There is a complete absence of grave goods. No readily identifiable midden or coprolite.”

  “Are there any articulated specimens?”

  Anya flippered slowly over the bones, her face mask mere inches from them so that she could see anything resembling detail as she fanned away the sediment.

  “Found one,” she said. “Individual number one. Sprawled, on back. Upper torso flexed, but incomplete. Bones from the lower torso and appendages are missing. Abandonment context, like everything else.”

  She came face-to-face with the malformed skull they’d seen on Dreger’s monitor, with its wide eyes and elongated cranium. Its lower jaw was gone, but several of its upper teeth remained.

  “Can you get a little closer?” Jade asked. “Those teeth . . . it looks almost like there’s a gap between the lateral incisors and the canines.”

  “They do have certain simian qualities I didn’t appreciate on the other skulls since they didn’t have teeth, although the way individual teeth vary, the observation is of questionable significance.”

  “Without another specimen.”

  Anya knew exactly what Jade meant and was already a step ahead of her. She found another partially articulated conehead near the back and behind a mound of bones that appeared to have been broken to scrape out the marrow.

  “Individual number two,” she said. “Part flexed, part sprawled, on right side. Semi-articulated, but not formally interred. Concentration of disarticulated remains. Abandonment context.”

  “Same cranial deformation?” Jade said. “Can you focus on the teeth?”

  “All that’s left are the molars.”

  “And the alveolar sockets?”

  “The spacing is similar, if not as dramatic.”

  “You sequenced this species’ genome, right? Did you compare it to all known hominin populations?”

  “No, we ran it through a database of plants. Of course, we compared it against every known protohuman and simian genome. You saw the PCR results. It’s genetically distinct.”

  “Outside of the extra chromosome?”

  “The closest match is Homo sapiens sapiens.”

  “That’s not very helpful, is it?”

  Anya contorted her body in an effort to turn around in the small space.

  “Wait!” Evans said. “Go back.”

  “Go back where?” Anya asked.

  “The wall behind you. Not that way. No. There. Can you expand the field of view?”

  “You mean get farther away?”

  “Yeah. Not too far, though. I want to see—right there. Perfect.”

  Kelly added her light to Anya’s and focused on the faded design, the majority of which had either been smoothed by eons of running water or had crumbled to the ground, leaving behind portions of what looked like two stylized men with their arms raised in adoration to either side of a figure with an elongated head. The markings surrounding them appeared to be little more than the scratches and dots she associated with Sumerian cuneiform, although these were organized into columns. Above them was a design like a giant sun, only the rays radiated outward from a smaller circle in the center and crisscrossed in spiraling arches. The entire piece was framed by a giant pyramid.

  “Jesus,” Evans whispered. “The human depictions look almost Egyptian. The stylistic similarities are astounding.”

  “That’s the design Roche was talking about,” Kelly said. “The one that represents the standing wave of a sound frequency of five hundred twenty-eight hertz.”

  “There are more over here,” Anya said.

  She turned sideways and used her palms to pull herself along the wall. Entire sections of hieroglyphics had crumbled from the wall. The remainder required a little imagination to piece together. There were bulls with long, curved horns and stags with massive racks of antlers. Something that kind of resembled a lion. A line of men holding aloft what looked like one of those long alpine horns from the cough drop commercials. Chimeric men with human bodies, animalian features, and spread wings. A giant disc perched on the head of each and their cheeks bristled with beards that culminated in exaggerated points.

  “There’s an entire pantheon on this wall alone,” Evans said. “Is there anything on the ceiling?”

  Anya rolled over and faced the fallen roof balanced precariously above her. She’d been totally fine until she saw just how unstable the entire structure was.

  “Try to hold the camera still,” Evans said.

  “You’re kidding, right? It looks like a gentle current could bring this entire place down and you want me to hold still?”

  “You’re doing great, Anya,” Jade said. “We’re here for you.”

  Each breath came harder and faster until Anya feared she was on the verge of hyperventilating. The rectangular stones were braced against each other at odd angles that defied the laws of physics. The sides that had once formed the ceiling were covered with a seemingly random design of dots and the lines connecting some of them together. There was something familiar about the patterns they created, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Evans made the connection for her.

  “It’s a star chart.”

  “I’ve got to get out of here,” Anya said.

  It felt like the chamber was constricting, compressing the air from her lungs. Jade said something, but Anya couldn’t make it out over her own heavy breathing, which echoed inside her mask. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath any more than she could control her body.

  “Try to remain calm,” Jade said.

  “Are you okay to keep going, Kelly?” Evans asked.

  “Yeah, but Anya’s freaking out. She needs to get out of here.”

  Anya kicked wildly and connected with the wall. Twisted. Propelled herself across the room through the billowing sediment toward the lone egress. Bones passed below her in a blur. She caught a glimpse of one final body with a deformed skull, leaning against the wall near the collapsed threshold and the rubble that must once have been a stone door. The edges were gouged and chipped where it appeared as though something had attempted to claw the door from the frame.

  Kelly’s voice was in her ear, trying to calm her down, but she couldn’t focus on the words. She was only peripherally aware that the other woman wasn’t following her.

  Anya burst from the makeshift tomb and slithered through the maze of rubble as fast as she could. Propelled herself out of the narrow orifice and straight up toward the surface. She didn’t pause to catch her breath until she was safely aboard the Zodiac.

  26

  ROCHE

  Roche was missing something; he could feel it. He paced the rocky coastline, his breath trailing him over his shoulder. Much of the face of the cliff was concealed by ice so thick it would take months to chisel down to the bare rock, obscuring all but the most prominent of the massive petroglyphs, which must have stood out above the ancient village like the Hollywood sign over Los Angeles. Each of these giant symbols must have represented a part of a whole, like letters in a word, the summation of which remained a mystery.

  He’d spent the better part of the night in the research library, learning everything he could about the electromagnetic properties of sound, its physical relationship to standing waves, and any overlapping references to primitive cultures.

  Numerous societies throughout history believed that sound was an elemental force of nature, much like the wind or the rain. It circulated along the surface of the planet in currents that could be tapped to provide a continuous source of physical and spiritual power, one so sacred that many believed it could bring man closer to God, undermining the control of organized religion by essentially cutting out the middleman. It was for that very reason that the sheet music for hundreds of medieval Gregorian chants—hymns that utilized the Solfeggio frequencies in an effort to commune directly with the Almighty—was confiscated by the Church and locked away in the
archives of the Vatican.

  The Vedic tradition of India was built upon the idea that there were seven chakras—centers of spiritual power—in the body and that each corresponded to a specific frequency of sound—the same Solfeggio frequencies—responsible for the healing of the body and the mind. Tibetan monks used their “singing bowls” to produce those same seven frequencies for the exact same reason.

  Many New Age practitioners theorized that for every part of the body there was a specific frequency of sound responsible for healing, frequencies based upon the principles of sacred geometry and vibrational harmonics. They even claimed that sounds of the proper frequency could be used to alter moods and cure diseases. And while most of what they put forth as scientific evidence struck Roche as largely a product of anecdotes and wishful thinking, he did find several interesting studies more firmly rooted in fact.

  One study demonstrated that subjecting chrysanthemums to certain sounds accelerated the synthesis of RNA and soluble proteins, meaning that some genes could be activated by sound and their rates of transcription accelerated to alter the structure of DNA and its physical expression. A Russian biophysicist showed that modulating certain frequency patterns could essentially do the same thing in human beings.

  Sonic vibrations were used to separate contaminants from water at the molecular level, and were so effective in doing so that they were employed following oil spills and were even used to recycle drinking water on the International Space Station. Revolutionary scientists like Nikola Tesla believed that sound frequencies could be harnessed to produce inexhaustible amounts of free energy. He designed a device—the Tesla coil—that utilized electromagnetic force and resonance to create a wireless source of energy transfer. In fact, there were many archeologists who believed the Great Pyramid of Giza had been built to serve as an ancient power plant.

  Who knew why the pyramid out there under the lake had been built, but if there truly was a correlation between it and the crop circles, then maybe they were on the precipice of unlocking one of the greatest mysteries of all time, the key to which was chiseled into the stone and preserved behind several inches of solid ice.

  As far as Roche could tell, there were four main designs. They were separated by smaller petroglyphs similar to those inside the collapsed temple, only three-dimensional, statuesque reliefs carved from the stone like the faces of Mount Rushmore. There were more human figures, some with elongated craniums, and chimerical beings with circles upon their heads, which appeared to be revered like gods. They were larger than the rest and featured in positions of prominence, while the others raised their arms in adoration or knelt in worship at their feet. The reliefs read like stories he could have perused all day, were it not for the scene in the background that gave him goosebumps. It depicted four stone pillars on top of which stood four figures, each with an enormous horn that reached all the way to the ground.

  He found what was left of the pillars among the rocks on the shoreline. He probably wouldn’t have noticed them at all had he not been specifically looking for them as they were a mere shade of gray apart from the others and unadorned by any designs. The rubble was concentrated on the ground in front of each of the four symbols, which he believed corresponded to different frequencies of sound.

  In addition to the one that looked like the number five on a die, which represented the standing wave of 396 Hz, were three others of increasing complexity. There was a hexagon inside a circle with an odd checkerboard pattern that almost looked as though someone had pinched the corners and stretched them outward until they formed peaks, which compressed the squares outside of the hexagon while drawing those inside farther apart. He’d seen the same pattern in pictures from Avebury, England, in July, 2002, and speculated that it matched the standing wave produced at 639 Hz, or fa.

  The third featured the spiderweb crop circle from Alton Priors, England, in July, 1998, the one he and Kelly speculated matched the standing wave produced at 741 Hz, or sol.

  The fourth reminded him of a flower with six large petals on the outside, between which could be seen the tips of six leaves. Inside was a circle that housed another flower with six petals, only at its heart was a six-sided star, at the core of which was a third flower with six petals. The design matched that from Alton Barnes, England, in June 2003 and the expression of 963 Hz, or ti.

  The fact that all of the designs had appeared in such a short span of time and within mere miles of each other in Wiltshire County—near Stonehenge in southeast England—was not lost on him.

  “Where do you want this thing?” Dreger called.

  He and Connor carried the makeshift frequency generator between them as they traversed the rugged shore. The unwieldy contraption was composed of several speakers built into a homemade wooden box designed to serve as a resonance chamber. It utilized an amplifier mounted to an oscilloscope, both of which connected to Dreger’s laptop. Richards followed them from the platform beside the elevator, where a series of laptops served as the communications center with both the station and the Zodiac.

  “How about over there?” Roche said, and pointed toward the ground in front of the sun design.

  “You’re the boss,” Dreger said.

  “I’m certain this will work,” Richards said, and clapped Roche on the shoulder. “I have complete faith in you.”

  Roche had expected his theory to encounter resistance, but instead it had been met with enthusiasm. He supposed that should have been gratifying; instead it set off all sorts of internal alarms. It was like they’d already guessed that there was some relationship between the designs and sound waves, which confirmed his suspicions that they knew a whole lot more about what was going on than they let on.

  He watched the Zodiac floating on the still lake in the distance for several seconds before joining the others at the edge of the water. They’d leveled the contraption on the rubble of the collapsed column and angled the speakers toward the submerged pyramid.

  “Were do we start?” Richards asked.

  “Three ninety-six hertz,” Roche said.

  Dreger opened the laptop and a frequency generator program that allowed him to input specific frequencies in cycles per second. A sine wave appeared on the oscilloscope at the same time as the speakers emitted a low-pitched hum.

  “Louder,” Roche said.

  Dreger dialed up the volume, tweaked the waveform, and looked at Roche, who signaled for him to increase the volume until he could feel the tone resonating in his chest. Three figures stood up on the Zodiac and turned in their direction.

  Connor had to shout to be heard over the sound.

  “Nothing’s happening!”

  Richards knelt at the edge of the water and held his hand in front of the speakers. It appeared to take tremendous effort to hold his hand still.

  Thud. The distant sound reverberated through the darkness.

  Roche instinctively glanced at the dome overhead, expecting to see cracks racing through the ice, only there was no sign of movement.

  He stood on top of the largest rock he could find and stared out across the dark water toward where the Zodiac swept its lights across a localized section of choppy waves. Bubbles burst on the surface as though the lake were boiling.

  “It’s working!” Roche shouted.

  “What should we do?” Dreger yelled.

  “Move on to the next one!”

  Dreger shut off the deafening noise, and he and Connor hefted the box from the ground.

  “What’s going on over there?” Jade’s voice was so loud through the speaker in Richards’s right ear that even Roche could hear it. “It felt like the entire lake dropped out from under us.”

  “What do you see?” Richards said into the microphone as he bounded over the rocks, trying to keep up.

  “Now? Just a string of bubbles, but it sounded like something exploded below us. And Kelly’s still down there.”

  “What in the name of God is she still doing in the water?”

  “Docum
enting the hieroglyphics for Evans.”

  “I thought both divers were back in the raft.”

  “Anya had to return, but Kelly said she was fine to keep going.”

  “Tell her to get out of that structure and hold on tight!”

  “Hurry!” Roche said. “If these sounds are supposed to be played at the same time, we might already be losing whatever progress we made.”

  “What now?” Dreger asked.

  Static burst from the speakers.

  “Six thirty-nine.”

  A similar tone with a slightly higher pitch boomed across the lake.

  Thunk!

  This time the reaction was instantaneous. The lake dimpled and sent waves racing outward, nearly capsizing the Zodiac.

  “Keep going!” Roche shouted, but the others didn’t need to be told. They hefted the speaker box between them with the laptop still perched on top and crossed the uneven shoreline toward the next symbol, where they practically threw it to the ground.

  “Seven forty-one!”

  Waves broke against the rocks and filled the air with spray.

  An even higher-pitched tone erupted from the speakers.

  Thud!

  The ground trembled beneath their feet. Roche covered his ears and turned toward the lake, where the raft roared away from the volatile surface behind it. Even taller waves raced outward behind them as though a boulder had been dropped from the sky.

  “Nine sixty-three!” Roche shouted.

  Dreger and Connor lifted the box so quickly that they nearly dropped it. Roche caught the laptop before it could fall off and typed in the frequency as he ran. A sound like the emergency broadcast signal exploded from the speaker before they even set it down.

  A resounding thud echoed across the lake.

  The frigid water raced outward so fast that it was up to their knees before they even knew it was coming. They barely lifted the speaker box from the water in time.

  Roche leaned into the current and fought for balance on the slick stones. He caught a fleeting glimpse of the top of the pyramid before the Zodiac and its light sped out of range.