Lemuria

by Burt Clinchandhill

  A loud pounding on the door disturbed her thoughts and she sat up straight. “Yes,” she called out. “Come in.”

  The door swung open. “Forgive me for banging so loud.” Mulder stood in the doorway. “I was already knocking on your door for a minute or so. Did I wake you?”

  “No, I was looking outside. Must have been lost in thought.” She shook her head a couple of times. “What can I do for you?”

  “May I come in?”

  Jennifer pointed to the chair at the desk opposite her bed.

  “Thank you,” Mulder said as he sat down.

  “What do you want?” The tone of her voice shifted.

  “I just came by to see you and tell you that the choice I told you about is forthcoming, in twenty-four hours.”

  “You still didn’t tell me what choice that is.”

  “Hmm,” Mulder grunted. “You’ll know in an hour or so. Please indulge me just a little while longer. You know about my work, don’t you?”

  “What part of your work is that?”

  “My work with genetics.”

  Jennifer thought for a moment and decided this was as good a time as any to speak out. “You mean your experiment on my brain or the experiments you conducted on those poor people in Peru?”

  Mulder smirked. “I mean, my efforts to create a better future for the human race.”

  “What’s a better future?”

  “You’ve got to see that our world is dying. Our planet is vastly overpopulated, a problem that grows by the day. We’re poisoning ourselves and our food supplies. We’re contracting and transferring more and more animal viruses that could—and will—kill us. Our bodies can’t keep up with the speed of technological advances.”

  “And you know how to correct all those problems?” Jennifer faked a smile.

  “Do you have any idea how special your treatment has been? Do you have any idea what we had to do to get here, and what implications your success brought to our search?”

  Jennifer tilted her head.

  “What do you know about DNA?”

  Jennifer gave half a shrug. “I know DNA is a molecule that contains the genetic code of organisms and tells cells what proteins to make.”

  “Correct. DNA transcribes into RNA, that translates into proteins. But do you also know that DNA consists of exons and introns?”

  Jennifer shook her head.

  “Longer and shorter stretches of exons encode DNA that creates proteins. But those stretches are discontinuous and interspersed with long stretches of non-coding DNA called introns. These introns are edited out after DNA transcribes into a string of RNA, but before it’s translated into proteins.”

  “So?” Jennifer shrugged. “What’s that got to do with me?”

  Mulder lifted a finger in the air, screwing up his face. “Patience, I asked you. It was long believed that those introns didn’t have a function at all. Non-functional, non-coding, or junk DNA. The only thing that researchers always wondered about was that if introns have no function, why have they been preserved during human evolution.”

  “The appendix has no function,” Jennifer said. “And it’s still there.”

  “True, and that’s also why it’s on its way out, shrinking. Did you know that one in every one hundred thousand people is born without an appendix? In earlier times, the appendix probably helped in the digestion of large amounts of leafy greens. In animals with the same diet, the appendix is much larger and functional. In 1978, Harvard professor Walter Gilbert suggested for the first time that introns could help speed up evolution. He called it exon shuffling. He proposed recombining exons and in that way, format new genes.

  “Introns have always been in our genes to support evolution. They are the blank slates on which future design is being drawn. I based my research on his and soon found I could manipulate introns, not only to create new genes. I also proved I could re-create old genes that were removed through evolution. Shuffle back, so to say.”

  “Proof?” Jennifer asked.

  “Of course, my dear. You’re living proof that all that was lost over hundreds of thousands of years doesn’t have to be lost forever.”

  Jennifer frowned. “What did you do to me? There was no activated sleeping G2 quiescent stem cell?”

  “Oh, no, my dear. Of course there was. The hospital did great work on triggering the regenerative potential of the G2. The only thing I did was piggyback on their procedure, to replace a piece of recombined DNA, your own recombined DNA, that is. A two for one, so to say.”

  “And if it wouldn’t have worked, or something terrible would have happened, or evolved?”

  “We only recombined genes of which we knew the purpose beforehand.”

  “That’s also why you needed the isolated tribes.” Jennifer tilted her head. “You needed a template of how DNA looked before it evolved into modern man. And since those isolated tribes are far less evolved as we are....”

  “That among other things,” Mulder confirmed. “But you’re not wrong. Once I created new DNA by using introns to reshuffle exons, I needed comparative material. Those less evolved tribe members were the ideal subjects. Did you know that on every continent, homo sapiens evolved differently? Today’s DNA of all humans is 99.9 percent the same, but it’s that 0.1 percent that makes all the difference.”

  “But why?” Jennifer asked. “What’s your purpose with that knowledge? Do you want to re-create a prehistoric man or create a future man, Homo Futurus?”

  “That’s a nice name.” Mulder laughed. “But why do those two have to be mutually exclusive? Why can’t the future human benefit from our prehistoric forefathers’ traits?”

  “So, what’s your plan?” Jennifer asked. “Change humans according to your own liking? More suited to what you think are our future needs? What’s wrong with people as they are?”

  “For here and now? Not much, I guess. I believe that humanity, as it is, deserves the Earth it has created. I also believe that this Earth is lost. Mankind is lost. There’s nothing to be salvaged.” Mulder shook his head. “No, instead, Homo Futurus, as you so eloquently called it, will develop into a species capable of living in a completely different environment.”

  Jennifer frowned. “And become immune to a polluted Earth, eat and digest plastic and live beneath the sea?”

  “You still don’t get it, do you?”

  “You said you would explain it to me.”

  Murder rose from his chair and walked to the door. “Follow me.” He walked into the hallway.

  “Where are we going?” Jennifer asked.

  “You’ll see in a minute.”

  After snaking through the concrete hallways for two minutes, Mulder stopped at a large double door crisscrossed with black- and yellow-striped tape. ‘DANGER, DO NOT ENTER.’ On the right side of the door was a screen with a red light flickering on top of it. Mulder stepped toward the screen, and from a foot, he put his face in front of it. The red light turned green, a click sounded and the door slowly swung open toward them.

  “Be careful.” Mulder took Jennifer by the shoulder, pulling her back from the doors. A massive room, about one hundred square feet with a fifty-foot-high ceiling, appeared. Rows of desks with dozens of computer screens divided the place. Over one hundred men and women worked computers, talked into headsets and anxiously paced the room.

  Astounded by the scale of things, Jennifer examined the room.

  “This is our base of operations, the control room to The Core, as we like to call it.” Mulder approached a woman behind a desk in front of him. He put his hand on her shoulder, and she typed on her keyboard. The entire wall at the end of the room became a huge video screen with one large image in the center, surrounded by smaller screens with different views.

  Jennifer’s jaw dropped at the images on those screens.

  “Now you understand?” Mulder asked.

  Chapter 30 – Toilet Paper

  Galápagos Islands, Ecuador

  The Eurocopter EC130 took off f
rom the landing pad behind the Finch Bay Hotel at Puerto Ayora, in the south of Santa Cruz Island on the Galápagos Islands. Santa Cruz was the second largest, and most populated, island in the center of the archipelago. Over the year, more than two hundred fifty thousand tourists visited the island in search of plants and animal species found nowhere else in the world.

  Threatened by climate change, pollution, deforestation and the introduction of invasive species, the fragile islands were the first-ever on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1978.

  The oval-shaped island was home to unique indigenous specious like the marine iguana, the Galápagos giant tortoise, the magnificent frigatebird, the Galápagos penguin, the Galápagos sea lion, and the fur seal.

  “That’s phase one.” Bishop waved to Lindsey and Ignatowski on the ground as the helicopter left the helipad. He adjusted the microphone from his headset as he looked down where the island’s landmass quickly changed into the Pacific Ocean’s water.

  A loud hiss sounded through the headset. “Hello. I’m Mike,” the pilot said with a heavy Spanish accent. “Our flight to Darwin Island, about one hundred fifty-five miles north, will take us about forty-five minutes. Since we’re not allowed to fly over Santa Cruz Island, we leave the island in the south and fly west until we can fly north in a straight line to Darwin. Just relax and sit back, and we’ll be there in no time. If you want to talk to each other, simply press the green button on the cable running from your headsets.”

  De Cremonese clicked the green button. “You know, I always wanted to visit the Galápagos. I can’t tell you how many books I’ve read about the islands, and now we flew in, dropped off our friends, took a helicopter from the airport and immediately are off again.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bishop replied. “But it took us over a day to get here, and we don’t know how much time we have.”

  “We don’t even know if we’re at the right location, or even what we’re looking for.”

  “Not yet.” Bishop patted him on the shoulder. “Have a little faith, Father.”

  De Cremonese’s eyes pierced his.

  “I’m sorry. I always wanted to say that to a priest. But, seriously, there has to be something out here. Why else would Mulder need to be the sole owner of a deserted island without anything of value?”

  “Maybe he wanted to sell it for a profit.”

  “Yeah, maybe he needed the money,” Bishop said sarcastically.

  “What are we going to look for?” De Cremonese asked.

  “I’ve no idea,” Bishop answered. “But don’t worry. Darwin Island is the second smallest of the Galápagos Islands. If there’s something there, it’ll stick out, and we will find it.”

  Darwin Island was the most northern island of the Galápagos, formed by the remains of an extinct volcano. Discovered and first visited by helicopter in 1964, the landmass—mainly covered by grasses—not bigger than half a square mile, rose some four hundred feet above sea level, defined by huge white cliffs. Since humans aren’t allowed to visit the island, it has become a massive bird sanctuary. Divers seldom visited the waters surrounding it because of its distance from the main islands and its treacherous currents.

  “So, Father, you told me that you’d like to discuss the finer points on evolution with me.”

  “I would, but that would probably take a bit longer than our flight today.”

  “Sure,” Bishop replied. “But I was wondering about one thing. If evolution is real, it happened. Then, for sure, the bible can’t be. I mean, both can’t be true, can they?”

  De Cremonese pressed the button on his microphone and laughed out loud. “The century-old question. I think it’s like Pope John Paul II stated in 1996. He said that ‘new knowledge has led to the recognition of the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis,’ but, referring to previous papal writings, he concluded that, ‘if the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter, the spiritual soul is immediately created by God.’”

  Bishop gave a tiny smile and nodded. “Okay, all right,” he mumbled.

  “You know there are no roads on the island, no man-made structures,” De Cremonese said, changing the subject.

  “That’s why we brought....” Bishop waved his arms to the back of the helicopter, where two Kawasaki KLX250SF motorcycles occupied the space where seats opposite Bishop and De Cremonese had been removed.

  “Still, no roads.”

  “According to?” Bishop asked.

  De Cremonese frowned. “The satellite images?”

  “The satellite images on the maps owned by Logynous Corporation, you mean?” Bishop asked with a broad smile.

  “Maybe,” De Cremonese said reluctantly.

  “There’s always the dynamic duo,” Bishop said, referring to Lindsey and Ignatowski. “Who knows what they will come up with at the hotel. How long now?”

  De Cremonese looked at his watch. “Little over half an hour. Did you know that some of these islands are only four hundred thousand years old?”

  “I know,” Bishop agreed. “Darwin made a good choice when he came here to study evolution.”

  “How’s that?” De Cremonese asked.

  “Well, time—or, rather, evolution—kind of stood still here. The islands were untainted by humans for a long time, so animals that lived here didn’t adapt to humans’, um, destructive forces. Take, for instance, the cormorant. You know the bird?”

  “Sure.”

  “Here it’s called the flightless cormorant. Exactly the same bird we see everywhere else in the world, only here, it has tiny wings. More like a penguin. So, it can’t fly. With industrialization everywhere else in the world, the cormorant was forced to flee its habitat time after time. It had to survive, so it developed wings. Here, it didn’t. Here, the birds’ wings are just as short as they were probably thousands of years ago. Without any predators here, it still fishes for its meals like it always has.”

  “And that’s proof of evolution?” De Cremonese asked.

  “Proof of adaptation, I would say. Although there are about one thousand of those birds left, which makes it the rarest bird in the world.”

  “Survival of the strongest,” De Cremonese added.

  “That too. If you don’t adapt quickly enough....”

  Both men took a deep breath and looked down at the ocean.

  ***

  One hundred fifty-five miles to the south, on Santa Cruz Island, with approximately 381 square miles, the twin crater volcanic Santa Cruz Island was the most popular island of the Galápagos archipelago. The island was first discovered by Father Tomas De Berlanga, Bishop of Panama. In 1535, he was delegated to investigate the accounts of the conquistador’s barbaric actions in Peru. His ship got caught in a dead calm and drifted west and stranded at Santa Cruz Island. They searched in vain for fresh water until they found a cactus and drained it for its liquids. After the winds started blowing again, they left the island and would later send word to King Carlos V of Spain, explaining about their detour, and told him about the strange and foolishly tame wildlife. They also mentioned the numerous giant tortoises, giving the islands their name, “Insulae de Los Galopegos.”

  These days, over one hundred hotels occupy Santa Cruz Island and over two thousand people are directly employed by tourism, generating over a $150 million a year. From 1974 until now, the islands have seen a 4,000 percent increase in population. To meet the demands of the community, the humid zones have been changed to farming. Humans have also introduced invasive animal and plant species, threatening the island’s biodiversity. Native and endemic Galápagos populations have declined as a consequence of invasive species’ population growth. Many of the endemic plants and animals are now critically endangered.

  Lindsey and Ignatowski walked into the crowded Finch Bay’s lobby.

  “Amazing,” Ignatowski said, looking around. “That can’t be good for nature’s prosperity.”

  “What do you mean?” Lindsey asked.

  “I mean, all these people will
sooner or later wander off into the island’s nature in search of its unique splendor and indigenous and endangered species.”

  Lindsey nodded before sitting down. The beige sofas, wicker tables and large ceiling fans gave the lobby the impression of an early twentieth-century hotel in the tropics. The exclusive marble floor finished its luxurious look. Lindsey looked at the middle-aged woman behind the counter who gave instructions to the men working the lobby. “Do you have the file?” she asked.

  “Here.” Ignatowski took a small folder from his briefcase and handed it to Lindsey.

  Lindsey took out a picture, looked at it and then showed it to Ignatowski. “What do you think?”

  He compared the light brown curly-haired woman in the picture with the woman behind the counter.

  “It’s been a few years, but it looks like her.”

  “I agree,” Lindsey said.

  “So, what do we do now?”

  “Let’s ask her,” Lindsey suggested.

  “Ask her what?” Ignatowski asked, frowning. “If she knows anything about a missing professor or assistant? Or maybe if she’ll be so kind as to tell us where Eldin Mulder is?”

  “Something like that. We can also wait until she spontaneously walks up to us and tells us.”

  “We could follow her and see where she goes.” Ignatowski sat down, sounding irritated.