Animalis

by John Peter Jones

  Hank pulled over another image. This one was of a huge, black-eyed alien superimposed above the Earth, cradling a cylinder between its hands. There was a stencil on the cylinder depicting evolutionary steps from a monkey to a man to an Animalis.

  “An even more ridiculous idea about the origins of the Animalis,” Hank said. “But this,” he said as he pointed to an image of a pyramid, “might be the real thing. The Ivanovich Machine that created the Animalis.”

  The image of the pyramid was from a CT scan. Dimensions listed beside it said eight feet tall and nine feet across at the base. It had four sides and was hollow. The outer edges consisted of two-inch-wide, one-foot-thick beams. The surface of the beams was smooth and plain. Where the beams connected, at the corners, the surfaces joined in smooth curves, giving it a professional, well-made look. It appeared large enough to stand up in, and sturdy enough to hang on the beams.

  “Ivanovich Machine … You said that to the captain. I’ve never heard of it. Didn’t Romanov create them?” Jax asked.

  “No, Romanov funded it. Schools put all the emphasis on Romanov, and the blame. But the scientist Ivanovich actually created them. And no one ever knew how he did it. Perfect, seamless, self-sustaining genetics. Not sterile.” Hank brought up more documents. “Not sterile—it’s huge. For two centuries, that alone has stumped geneticists.” Hank looked at Jax. “There has always been an unfulfilled promise by scientists, that they could start bringing back extinct species. But they can’t. Every example—passenger pigeons, white rhinoceros, dinosaurs—everything they create has all been sterile.”

  Jax just nodded, feeling like the material was getting beyond him.

  “Even the theory of evolution is suspect,” Hank said. “It postulates that through natural selection, where the mutations that improve an animal’s chance of survival are passed on, whole new species can evolve. But whenever an animal’s genes have been manipulated too far—say, breeding squirrels to have an opposable tail—instead of creating a new species, they go sterile. It’s as if the species can bend a little, but always breaks before something new is created. So when thousands of totally new species are suddenly walking around Russia, geneticists were shocked.”

  “I’ve never heard of the Animalis being a scientific mystery,” Jax said. “How come you’ve never told me about this before?” He knew Hank wasn’t making it up, but Jax felt like he should have heard at least some of this before.

  Hank shrugged. “I wasn’t sure I believed any of the specific theories before now. Of course, when the Animalis were created, it seemed to confirm everything the scientists had been theorizing. And now they have spent the last century trying to reproduce the results. But they can’t. It isn’t that there’s a moral obligation not to; there are plenty of scientists trying. No evolutionist or geneticist is going to admit that they can’t reproduce what was supposed to be possible a hundred years ago. And everyone outside of that tight circle of scientists goes on thinking that there’s no mystery.

  “So this theory has formed, from people that know this, trying to guess at how Ivanovich could have done it. He knew something about genetics that we are still trying to understand today.

  “There’s a second mystery that this theory tries to explain. The Animalis had all been groomed for human society when they were discovered. And there were families of them with two-year-old pups. We know that most species of Animalis sexually mature at around age seven, which means that Ivanovich made most, if not all of the originals, at the very beginning of the ten years he was working for Romanov.

  “The proponents of the theory claim that the Animalis DNA was altered remotely, all at once—as in, there had been no shots, no injections of viruses to mechanically change the DNA. Thousands of animal embryos were all altered within days of each other, something that would be impossible unless his machine worked remotely, and altered the DNA instantaneously.”

  “Okay, I track with you so far,” Jax said.

  “They suggest that for every strand of DNA, there is a unique peptide—which is a special type of protein—that can communicate with other DNA peptides in a remote exchange of quantum mechanical information. There is some scientific grounding to the concept of the DNA peptides being linked in a kind of wireless network. We know now that there is a connection between peptides in the cells of a living creature. Cells that are blocked from receiving messages from peptides gaining and losing ions in chemical reactions will still receive the information the host body is sending. I tend to agree that the information is held as a kind of code in the spin of the atoms themselves; that’s why I call it an exchange of quantum mechanical information.”

  “Mmmm,” Jax said. “Now you’re starting to lose me. So … you think that DNA has its own sort of … internet? All of them are linked together in a network?”

  Hank smiled. “Yes. That’s a great analogy. And the Ivanovich Machine is a terminal to access that internet. Every form of life is like a personal computer, and DNA are the blocks of memory. They hold program codes that make organisms function. And like computers, they have security that blocks us from making changes. But the Ivanovich Machine would have a universal key that lets it through the security.

  “When an animal is growing, the machine can change the instructions to create a new creature. But if the animal is too far along in development, changes in the DNA could be lethal. Say you wanted to give yourself wings instead of arms. Well, your heart is still pumping while your veins break apart to move into their new position, and you die from internal bleeding before taking your first test flight.

  “I could still be wrong about it all, but it’s a terrifying machine if it is real. All DNA would be in your control. You could try and force too great a change on a whole species, and have instant extinction, or change every human embryo to grow into deformed pig-men.”

  “So we destroy it … if it’s real?” Jax asked.

  “Not yet. And I believe it’s real. So does the captain. I’m sending a proposal to him that we retrieve it, making it the top priority for this mission, so that the technology can be understood. We can’t let it be destroyed, because we need to know how to defend ourselves against it if anyone ever builds another machine like it.” Hank closed the programs running on the walls.

  Jax folded his arms, thinking. Hank seemed to be convinced the pyramid was an advanced DNA machine. He had done the research. He knew more than Jax ever would about DNA, and genetics, and peptides—whatever they were—so it was hard to say he was wrong. But it wasn’t what schools taught. He had taken it for granted that the origins of the Animalis were common knowledge. The idea of an Ivanovich Machine was almost too much; how could one machine make all life so vulnerable?

  “When you’re ready, dinner is waiting in the living room,” Grimshaw’s voice came in muffled through the door.

  “Be right there.” Hank stretched and gave a big yawn. He looked down and noticed Jax’s bare feet, and the ripples around them. “Puddles? Aren’t you more of a Play Mat, cushioned guy? Hmm. Puddles. That doesn’t sound half bad.” Hank knelt and methodically untied his shoes, staring absently at the floor.

  “Are you feeling alright? Being around Hodge and all. And being dragged out here because of me …” Jax said.

  Hank stopped, but didn’t look at Jax.

  “I should have just moved, followed the orders.” Jax said. “I’m sorry.”

  Hank nodded. “Yeah, that was pretty dumb not to follow orders.” He stood up with his shoes in hand. “But then we wouldn’t have been able to do anything about this pyramid, hopefully stop some attacks.”

  Jax relaxed when Hank turned to face him. He wasn’t upset.

  “I’m at least glad they sent you,” Hank said. “That’s why you joined the army, to be the white knight that saves everybody, right?”

  “If I can do it without screwing it all up.”

  “Don’t worry about Hodge. He’s like a big dog, and I can handle a big dumb dog. If it was a bull, though …�
�� He glared.

  Hank went to the door and opened it. Grimshaw stood before the opening, wearing a new outfit with a flowery apron over the top, smiling as big as ever.

  “It certainly smells good,” Hank said.

  The diner was surprisingly normal, knowing that it had been Hodge who had prepared it. A little table had risen from the floor in the living room area and was set neatly with dinnerware, folded napkins, and a potted flower in the center. Hank eagerly took seconds, and finished off two glasses of strawberry milk. Jax was still working on his plate of stir fry when Grimshaw brought out a plate of lemon tarts. She announced it as a breakfast treat, now that they were entering Port Hedland’s time zone. Jax abandoned the stir fry and took two tarts.

  Hank and Jax excused themselves while eating their tarts, retreating back to the cabin to go over the mission plans. There was to be a lot of communication, with Hank as the spinal cord for the information coming from each of the units up to the captain. Hank had already given recommendations for where each of the units should land and traverse to, where they could most effectively respond to progressing situations. Two of the units were being sent to probable sites that the first plane’s cargo could have been moved to. Jax and Hank were going to be landing by the rat plane they had been on, and were going to be backup for the transport unit.

  The other units were all three-person groups. Gillian was heading a heavy-weapons unit, the tall staff sergeant was leading the transport unit, the third unit was infantry, and Hank was the information systems specialist. Jax almost laughed out loud when he saw that Felix and Maven had actually been assigned to the staff sergeant’s unit.

  He sent a message to Felix:

  The captain said you weren’t going on this mission. He doesn’t even know you exist. -Jax

  “I’ve arranged for kangaroo transportation when we arrive, Jax,” Hank was saying.

  Jax slid aside the message that Felix had sent back:

  He doesn’t want the others to know I’m his favorite. -Felix

  Then he looked up. “Kangaroos?”

  Chapter 7

  Shootout

  As the Atticus descended to hit the runway, Jax took in the view of the city. Nestled among the teal veins of the bay, Port Hedland was part cruise ship resort, part industrial wasteland. On the west half of the city, cranes and dull gray warehouses fought for water access. To the east, Jax’s retina monitor lit up with luxury hotel names, amusement parks, and adventurous outback excursions, each with translucent icons extending up into the sky. To the south, where the plane was descending to, was the airport. The landing strip led to the corner of the massive half-circle complex of private and commercial boarding gates. Each line of planes radiated out from the center, where the four quarter-mile launch shafts extended into the air.

  “What do you mean, kangaroos? Are you talking Animalis kangaroos?” Jax asked as he and Hank stepped down the staircase once they had landed.

  Above them, the morning twilight was just breaking into a brilliant Australian dawn. Thousands of feathery clouds cut purple and pink slices into the deep blue sky. Jax could hear a constant, deep drone coming from somewhere in the airport, and it gave the atmosphere a palpable charge. Spring birds chirped and flitted past, dancing with and chasing each other. In the distance, the blare of horns from ships coming into port signaled that the city was about to come alive.

  “In case the transport team loses the Animalis cargo, we’ll be more dynamic on foot and could continue to follow. These kangaroos are a world-famous attraction. Forty-five miles per hour … can jump farther than their animal counterparts.” Hank leaped from the last stair and landed with a dusty puff on the orange desert walkway.

  The ground cover of the airport was impressive and brought Jax the instant satisfaction of visiting the Australian Outback. Trees and prickly shrubs broke up the winding paths. He became excited when he saw an exotic lizard sunbathing on the surface of one of the large, red rocks. As he watched, the lizard perked up, scurried to the edge of the rock, and disappeared, flattening back down into the surface of the rock. The wall screen surface of the rock had fooled him. Clever.

  Just beyond the next section of desert, beside a large rock formation, were the two kangaroo Animalis. They stood talking while leaning back on their thick tan-and-white tails. Their khaki shorts and shirts were straight and starched, and matched the expedition hats they both wore. Straps from a harness looped over their shoulders and connected with a heavy buckle across the chest. One of them turned, noticing Jax and Hank approaching.

  “G’day, mates! I’m Talon and this here’s Wes. Starting bright and early today, aren’t we? So much to see.”

  As it stepped closer to them, stirrups bouncing at the hips, Jax could see the legs moving with distinctly inhuman muscle and tendon structures. The furry limbs had looked almost human while standing still.

  Talon smiled as he stopped in front of them. “We can take you to all the best—”

  “We’re not sightseeing, and we’re in a hurry,” Hank said, cutting off Talon’s prepared speech. He held his hand up to his ear, listening to a conversation in his earpiece. “Right. Captain, the transport team has pulled in behind the rat plane. Cargo is being unloaded, they could start to move at any moment. Me and Jax are just about mobile, and will be on site within five minutes.”

  The kangaroo closest to Jax, the one named Wes, turned and squatted. “Hold the horn up here, mate.” It pointed to a thick handhold at the top of the harness. “Once you get one foot in the stirrup here, you can climb on.”

  “Don’t forget to buckle up,” Talon said.

  Jax stepped up to his ride, the long, horse-like head watching him from under the brim of the hat. He pressed his foot into the stirrup and grabbed the horn, just above waist height, while the kangaroo was bent over.

  Once he had mounted it and buckled the belt around his waist, he felt the strength of the legs as the Animalis lifted him. He had expected it to feel like an awkward piggyback ride, but the Animalis was powerful and sturdy. With his weight spread between the seat and the stirrups, Jax felt like he was riding a force instead of an animal.

  “Atta boy. Here we go.” Wes started to bob, lifting and lowering Jax. The motion slowly built to a stationary hop. “First time in Australia, mate? Port Hedland is a beautiful city. For just two hundred more a day, I can be your tour guide and transportation. You can’t get a better deal than that, not inside the city.”

  “Nope!” Talon called out. “Not in this city, mates.”

  “We need to go to Terminal G-2,” Hank said, ignoring the offer.

  “Our pleasure,” they both said.

  The hops turned seamlessly into bounding leaps, and they lurched forward. The walkway in front of them split, going around a grotesque tree and several large rocks. But the kangaroos weren’t slowing or turning. Jax wanted to pull on the shirt to make it move. It was out of control; the stupid thing was going to crash.

  “Hey, turn!” he yelled at the kangaroo.

  “Everything’s keen, mate. Enjoy the ride.”

  It didn’t slow, but instead gave an extra powerful leap and shot over the gnarled tree. Beside them, Talon hopped on a rock beside the tree and launched high onto one of the towering rock formations and kept going. They both landed on the walkway again and started to leap side to side, like slalom skiers, down the path.

  Jax forgot about his fear as it was quickly replaced with exhilaration. The hops were powerful and precise, and intelligent. And because the kangaroos were small, it felt like he was the one rocketing across the terrain. Jax held the horn tight and enjoyed the ride.

  The kangaroos passed under an archway and Jax could see travelers starting to make their way down the rows of private planes.

  There were more Animalis than Jax had expected to see. Kangaroo, koala, and dingo were scattered around, some carrying bags and luggage, while some seemed to be there as characters in a living amusement park. Jax was shocked to see an alligator
Animalis, though it did have a restraining collar, and seemed to be in a controlled, exhibition environment. If it broke free, would it snap up one of the smaller Animalis, like in the arena videos?

  They passed through a second pair of arches into the next courtyard, lined with more private planes. Like a small patch of junkyard, the rat’s scrap-heap of a plane sat decomposing between two new, clean, normal-looking planes.

  “Just arrived on site,” Hank said to his earpiece. He waited for a moment, listening, gave an acknowledgment, then spoke to Jax: “We’ll wait over here till they start to move.”

  The kangaroos stopped near a bench and a drinking fountain, and they crouched for an easy dismount. Hank’s stirrup twisted, holding onto his foot as he tried to climb off. “You see anything from here?” he asked Jax. “Keep an eye out for that lion. We need to confirm if she is here,” he said, struggling to remove his foot.

  “Oh, there’s a lioness alright,” Talon said. “Smells like some other strange Animalis as well.”

  Jax tilted Hank’s stirrup to release his foot. “You smell them?” He gazed up at the large ears. “Can you hear them saying anything?”

  The ears began twitching. “No. Sorry, not over the moan of that turbine.”

  The droning sound of the huge turbine had disappeared when Jax had grown accustomed to it, but he realized it gave the air a thickness, like a kind of fog over his ears.

  “We don’t have visual confirmation, but our kangaroos smell the lioness,” Hank said, holding his hand to his ear. He looked surprised. “Right. Yes, we’ve masked our scents.” He removed his hand.

  Once they had remounted, Hank put his hand to his ear again. He listened for a moment and then turned to Jax. “They’ve started to move.”

  Jax saw a cargo truck with a big blue stripe pull away from behind the plane and start moving silently down the row of planes.

  “We need to follow that truck,” Jax ordered the kangaroos.