Lemuria

by Burt Clinchandhill

  “How many people are there?” Bishop asked, walking closer to the screen.

  “About one hundred personnel and some four hundred test subjects,” Fawcett answered.

  “Tribe members, you mean?” De Cremonese asked.

  Fawcett nodded.

  “Can you zoom in?” Bishop asked, pointing to the screen with the group of unnumbered people.

  “Sure.” Fawcett brought the image of the group closer.

  Bishop cocked his head and leaned closer to the screen.

  “You see something?” De Cremonese asked.

  Bishop kept his eye on the screen and waved him closer.

  De Cremonese stood next to him and gazed at the group.

  “It’s hard to see with the image mostly on the back and from above, but isn’t that...?” Bishop pointed to the two people not in uniform.

  “It’s a man and a woman, I think.” De Cremonese took a small step back. “Are those your friends?

  “I think so.”

  “The same ones I met in Indonesia?” Fawcett asked.

  “The ones from the NSA?” Jennifer added.

  “The NSA and NRO,” Bishop corrected. “And, yes, the same ones.”

  “Loyal friends,” Fawcett deducted. “Following you all over the world.”

  “And they brought the police,” De Cremonese said.

  “Or army, or something,” Jennifer added.

  “There’s a rocket,” De Cremonese called out, pointing to the screen. On the screen, a colossal rocket—with its steamy exhausts coming from the side—was standing with its nose almost against the steel tube structure that supported the ceiling. On the support tower, an elevator was bringing people up to the rocket.

  “That’s the launch bay,” Jennifer explained. “Mulder will be there.”

  “Does he have a number?” Bishop pointed to the vast amount of numbers floating over the screen like ants on a hill.

  “He’s the only one who doesn’t have a number,” Fawcett explained.

  “So, what now?” De Cremonese asked.

  “Change of plans,” replied Fawcett. “I suggest we split up. Father, you come with me, and Jennifer, you take the professor to the launch bay. We’ll find and intercept your friends and meet you there at the south entrance, and together we’ll confront Mulder.”

  “What then?” De Cremonese asked.

  Fawcett shrugged. “Then, I guess we try to stop him from whatever he’s doing.”

  “All right,” Bishop agreed. “Let’s do this. After you.” He gestured to the door.

  “I’ll see you later,” De Cremonese said before leaving the room with Fawcett.

  “Do you trust him?” Bishop asked Jennifer.

  She thought for a second. “You know, I think I do. I thought about it before, but I can’t figure out why he would lie. There is no upside in lying for him. In any case, if we’re serious about stopping Mulder, this is our only chance.”

  “I guess you’re right.” He cocked his head. “You lead the way.”

  For the next few minutes, they snaked through the concrete web Mulder had created. As they passed the assembly hall, Bishop stopped for a second and feasted his eyes on its vastness. The ninety thousand-square-foot construction was as high as it was wide and long. The walls and ceiling were carved out of rock and re-enforced with steel tubing, leaving the red rockface behind it visible. On both sides of the lower level, empty glass cubicles filled the sides. The floor was carved in half with tracks leading all the way to the end of the hall, where they disappeared underneath two huge sliding doors. “You can say what you want, but the construction of this site alone is incredibly impressive.”

  “Wait until we arrive at the launch bay,” Jennifer said. “Then you’ll see something impressive. But you’re right. Everything Eldin Mulder does has a sort of greatness about it. But make no mistake. I’ve learned a lot about the man in these past months, and beneath all his boyish charm and his ability to accomplish things no one else can, there’s a ruthless, self-centered, egomaniacal man. Brilliant, but with a hint of schizophrenia.”

  “He wouldn’t be the first brilliant schizophrenic. Where now?” They neared the sliding doors at the end of the assembly hall.

  “There.” She pointed to the right end of the sliding doors where next to it was a small door. “That’s the door to the launch bay. But, first, we need to move all the way to the end, so we can see where the rest is and what’s behind that door.” Together, they passed the sliding doors and into a small glass cubicle.

  “Where is everybody?” Bishop asked.

  “When I first got here, there must have been hundreds of people working these floors. Now that the work here is done, I guess everyone who’s not working the launches has gone home.” She touched a screen on a desk, clicked the ‘General Feed’ button and a multi-camera view appeared. “That’s everything I can do without access, but the view should switch to the other side of these sliding doors any minute now. We can also see if we can locate our friends anywhere on these rotating screens.”

  For a long two minutes, they gazed at the screen.

  Jennifer pointed to the screen. “There’s the inside of the launch bay.” There was considerable bustle going on with numbered people working a rocket not far from the sliding doors.

  “What’s that?” Bishop pointed to the screen where a train of baggage dollies—like the ones used on airfields—disappeared behind the rocket. “Luggage?”

  “I don’t know. Nobody told me what the rockets are carrying. There.” She pointed to the top of the support tower.

  “Who’s that?” At the top of the screen, a non-distinguishable man walked in and out of the open door at the top of the rocket.

  “Mulder.”

  “How do you know? I can barely see if it’s a man or a woman.”

  ‘There’s no number above his head.”

  “Of course.” Bishop tried to get a better look at the profile, but the screen’s resolution was too low.

  “Still no sign of our friends.” Jennifer shook her head. “You see those crates over there?” She pointed to the screen where a large stack of crates, filled with jerrycans, was placed near the sliding doors. “I suggest we get in and hide behind them until the others arrive.”

  “All right.”

  They quickly moved to the doors. Jennifer slowly opened it and peeked around the corner. “It’s free.” She opened the door a bit further and snuck through. Bishop needed to open it a bit further. Then he also went through and closed it again behind him. Jennifer tiptoed to the crates with Bishop on her heels. Once they arrived, they put their backs against the boxes and waited. Bishop peeked around the crates and at the rocket several hundred feet away.

  On the side, in enormous letters, it read, ‘Lemuria-1.’ The rocket was painted bright orange with white squares. Standing on its three legs, the three-hundred-foot-tall rocket reminded him of the one in the comic, The Adventures of Tintin, Destination Moon. On each leg, in bright white letters, it read, ‘Hawkeye-FX1.’ It was public knowledge that Mulder was a huge comic book fan, and Bishop didn’t find it surprising he would sculpt a real rocket after one from a comic. After all, the Lgé One, Logynous’s first electric car was made after Black Beauty, the sleek black vehicle used by the Green Hornet to battle crime. In the center of the three legs, the extensive rocket propulsion system floated on top of a deep cavern that functioned as a fire guiding channel once the engines ignited.

  “There.” Bishop pointed to another train of baggage dollies in the distance. “Can you make out what’s on them?”

  Jennifer squatted next to Bishop and turned her head toward the dollies. Most of the carts were covered with a tarp draped over the sides, except for the last two. “I’m not sure. It looks like drawers. Wait here.” She straightened herself and stepped away from behind the crate.

  “What are you....” Bishop whispered as Jennifer casually walked toward the rocket, where the baggage dollies in the distance had already stopp
ed.

  She nonchalantly passed engineers and other workers on her way and nodded friendly to them.

  Bishop sighed and returned behind the crates when Jennifer went out of sight on the other side of the rocket.

  A minute or two passed when Jennifer, panting, returned to the crates again and placed herself next to Bishop.

  “And?” Bishop asked.

  She lifted a finger. “One second.” She panted, catching her breath.

  “That was nuts. You know that?”

  “You wanna know what’s on the carts or not? In the drawers on the carts are stretchers with people tied to them.”

  “People?”

  “I believe they’re the tribe members.”

  “What?”

  “I think he’s shipping unconscious tribe members in the rockets.”

  “My God.” Bishop covered his mouth with both hands. “When we discovered the tribes on the surface and saw what he was doing to them, we assumed he was using them to test their ability to adjust to a terraformed planet. But it’s worse. He’s planning to actually take them there. He was preparing them for colonizing Mars.”

  Suddenly, the blaring of sirens echoed through the hallway. It sounded like a locomotive, slowly gathering speed.

  As the light in the hall changed, Bishop looked up. A slit of stars in the dark evening sky materialized through the slowly opening rooftop.

  “Everybody out.” Mulder’s voice echoed loudly through the launch bay.

  Men and women working the floors stopped and looked up at the man, now halfway down the tower.

  “Everybody out of the launch bay now,” he called. “Faster, please.”

  Within seconds, the floors were empty. When the roof was almost completely open, Mulder touched the screen on a tablet in his hand. To the left of the rocket, a large LED screen switched on with ‘00:15:00’ in large letters, and then began counting down.

  “Oh, professor.” Eldin’s voice sounded from the top of the support tower. He almost sounded cheery.

  Bishop and Jennifer still behind the crates, looking at each other.

  “Does he mean you?” Jennifer asked.

  Bishop shrugged.

  “Do you two know each other?”

  Bishop shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

  “Yes, professor, you. Professor Bishop, born in Bar Harbor, September seven in nineteen seventy-one. Mother died when you were young, and your father was a traveling salesman for Boeing. Currently, you are employed at Yale University as a professor of mathematics and philosophy. Friend of Jennifer Porter, with which you discovered the secrets behind the Aldaraia document a few years back now. Did you think I wouldn’t investigate you when I recruited your precious Jennifer? You can come out now. Please come closer.”

  Jennifer peeked from behind the crates. “It looks like there’s no one left but him.”

  “Stay here,” Bishop whispered as he stepped from behind the crates.

  “That’s better.” Mulder stretched out his words and his arms. “Welcome, Matthew. May I call you Matthew?” he called out with maniacal intensity. “You can call me Eldin.”

  Bishop slowly walked to the rocket. He glanced back. Jennifer was still hiding behind the crates. “You have me at a disadvantage.” Bishop’s voice carried through the great hall. “I know almost nothing about you.”

  “Who’s to say that’s a disadvantage?” Mulder called down. “What is it you think you came here to do?”

  “Stop you from committing genocide,” Bishop answered, “by launching missiles full of innocent people.”

  “Genocide? Au contraire, my dear professor. I’ve created a backup plan to save humanity. I’m rescuing these people from a world destined to destroy itself. And besides that, you’re too late.” He pointed to the clock. “Everything is automated, and in a little over ten minutes, I will have saved these people from certain doom and started the first colonization of a planet in over five hundred million years.

  “You said it yourself, professor, in your paper on evolution. The turning point in human evolution will be when we find out how to manipulate our genes, accommodating new environments. Our Earth will stop sustaining biological life when humankind generates an AI intelligent enough to transcend its builders. Wasn’t that what you wrote, professor?

  “And you, young lady behind the crates. I believe that it was you who claimed that evolution equals extinction. That with every major upgrade, the older version goes obsolete?”

  “You lied to me,” Jennifer said, stepping out from behind the crates. She stood next to Bishop.

  “I did?” Mulder asked, frowning.

  Jennifer nodded. “You stated AI evolution was still in its infancy.”

  “I also told you things were going fast. I might have understated the timeline a bit, but lied? I don’t lie, do I? It was even a surprise to me when the Occidium One cracked the evolution code in our introns in less than a week. From there, things snowballed. I was able to speed up my research on the isolated tribes and prepare their DNA. Changes needed to colonize another planet. Think about it; it’s the perfect picture. Tribes—people years behind in evolution waking up on a different world, not giving a second thought to minor changes in their environment or in the way they feel. Simply picking up their business and without knowing it, populating an entirely new planet. Humankind can survive again for another hundred thousand years or so. A new civilization that doesn’t need you or me. They simply start anew without all of modern man’s burden.”

  “And what about Earth?” Bishop jammed his hands in his pockets.

  “What about it?” Mulder asked rhetorically. “I truly hope you make it, though I seriously doubt it. It’s like I said at the introduction of the Occidium One. Humanity will always find a way to use new technology as a destructive force. My goal was to give humanity a chance. Now it’s up to everyone else. I once believed that we could artificially evolve mankind faster to keep up with technology. Now I’m not so sure anymore.”

  “So this is your backup plan,” Bishop concluded.

  “Why not go to Mars yourself?” Jennifer argued.

  Mulder laughed out loud. “I could, but you remember that I told you human evolution and technology weren’t in sync anymore. That our technology was moving faster than our bodies could adjust. The same thing, only in reverse, would happen should I, or you for that matter, colonize another planet. We cannot live without our marvels of technology. We would want to take it all with us, need living quarters, heat them, and we would need our privacy. And our bodies are used to regular meals, junk food, vitamin supplements and modern healthcare. Simply said, we would never be able to take everything we need with us. We wouldn’t be able to sustain ourselves and survive in such a harsh environment. And guess who can?” Mulder looked at the clock. “Four minutes to go. If I were you, I would leave the launchpad. That is, if you don’t want to be barbecued at takeoff.”

  “So, what about you?” Bishop asked. “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going nowhere.” He now waved to arms in the air. “I’m staying right here. My mission, the purpose I was put on this Earth to realize, is done. This Earth, with its short remaining lifespan, doesn’t need Eldin Mulder anymore. Three minutes.”

  Behind them, the door opened, and Fawcett, De Cremonese, Lindsey, Ignatowski and four armed officers entered the launchpad.

  “Ah, more visitors,” Mulder called out as they joined them.

  “How’s it going?” De Cremonese asked.

  Bishop pointed to the clock.

  “We know.” Fawcett held his tablet up with the running clock.

  With a loud hiss, tubes extending from the support tower to the rocket released venting gasses.

  “There’s still time,” Mulder cried out.

  “He’s not going?” Fawcett asked.

  “Apparently not. He says he’s not going anywhere.”

  One of the soldiers looked at Mulder through the scope of his rifle. “We could shoot
him.”

  “Great idea,” Lindsey remarked. “Let’s see if he survives a one hundred-foot drop.”

  “Can you stop the launch?” Ignatowski asked Fawcett.

  “I have no idea how, but if there is a way, it would be from the control center.”

  “Can you take me there?” Ignatowski asked.

  Fawcett looked at the clock. “Not in less than two minutes.”

  “Are you sure you want to stay here?” Mulder shouted as he sat down with his legs dangling from the support tower.

  “He’s right. We need to go.” Fawcett pointed to a door on the other side of the launchpad. “We need to go through there if we want to be safe. Come on.”

  “Let’s go,” Bishop added, giving the clock one last look. As fast as they could, the group ran across the concrete to the other side of the hall. There, Fawcett opened the heavy steel door by turning a big wheel. Everyone hustled into the corridor on the other side.

  Before crossing the doorway, Bishop turned and looked at Mulder in the tower’s elevator.

  “Quickly,” Fawcett called out as he pulled Bishop in and closed the door again. “Now, open the door on the other side.”

  Bishop and De Cremonese stepped forward and turned the wheel on the next door. Within seconds, that door slowly opened.

  Mulder’s voice sounded from a speaker in the ceiling. “Thirty seconds until launch.”

  Fawcett moved to the other side of the corridor. “Go inside quickly. Now.”

  Without hesitation, the group went through the door and into another concrete room that was empty except for a large video screen on one of the walls.

  “Close that door,” Fawcett called out as he put a hand on the display. On the screen, an overview of the launchpad appeared. “This is it,” Fawcett called out.

  Everyone in the room backed up against the rear wall. De Cremonese mumbled a prayer as Jennifer moved as close as she could to Bishop. Lindsey closed her eyes, and Ignatowski covered his face with his hands.