by Nicholas Lim
“Arshu says we will be pleasantly surprised at the speed of recovery of the land, once the business of industrialized agriculture is ended. The tropical rain forests will begin to recover. Whales will repopulate their depleted oceanic nurseries. Fish stocks will see explosive expansion. The great coral reefs – Pulley Ridge, Belize, the Barrier, those rainforests of the oceans – will bloom again.”
“Of course some damage – plastics, nitrogen – is irreversible.” Bryce’s eyes twinkled, “But I think we will be surprised at how resilient Mother Nature is, given a fighting chance.”
“And then there’s us,” Bryce focussed on Garrett, his gaze confiding.
“Us?” Her voice sounded all right to her. She felt sick inside. She closed her eyes but the voice continued, relentless.
“–Homo sapiens, that unwise race of primates. Krissa is a powerful pathogen, unlike any I have seen,” Bryce glanced at the screen. The newscaster was back. “We have run models.”
“Absolute quarantine is really the only effective barrier. Countries with biological warfare reaction plans will activate pre-prepared research facilities. Some protocols will prove effective. A few command and control structures will survive, although blind, deaf, dumb and impotent.”
“The Cold War paranoids, who have dug their own bunkers and filled them with tinned goods, and those few within effective reach of resources and the intelligence to use them without delay, they will have a chance.”
On her closed eyelids, Garrett saw again Jason’s punctured body. She remembered his questions, asking why she was doing nothing. Tears ran down her cheeks. She wanted to slip to the floor, to curl up and cover her ears. Above all, she wanted the voice to stop.
“And of course no disease is perfect. Certain blood groups confer limited resistance. Some lucky few will discover they have inherited some rare unpredictable immunity: a ten thousandth is the lower predictions of my models. Why do you flinch? The current human population is six point six billion. That means there will still be about sixty million survivors.”
Garrett shivered and opened her eyes. She felt cold and hot at the same time. She looked around at the walls, at the television screen spewing its Technicolor infection news, at the blank windows tuned to a dead channel. Bryce continued to speak.
“Of course some knowledge will be lost. With the rioting and looting will come the destruction of many libraries, museum collections and electronic data stores. But just as Mother Nature is resilient, so are we. Haven't we proved we are her equal?”
Bryce stared up into the fluorescent lights. He spoke from a faraway private place. “Isolated individuals will find each other. Scattered bands will form communities. Talents will be shared. Farmers and gardeners will husband seed and animal stocks. Technologists will reassemble our networks. Librarians will work to rescue our intellectual heritage. And everywhere, on all continents, we Asari will be there to guide the process.”
Bryce raised a hand in front of his face as though to scold, or trace a warning sign in the air. “The human animal only breeds in pairs, and we rear our young over decades. So we will have the space of many centuries to reflect and understand.”
Bryce gestured at the screen. “Our earthly ark, sinking beneath the sheer weight of human numbers, is being suddenly lightened and set on a wiser course. We have given our race a second chance. Yes, we will survive. But we will be changed.” Bryce bowed his head. “As Arshu says, we will have learnt a necessary lesson.”
***
Garrett looked around at the walls. She met Bryce’s eyes. There was nowhere else to turn.
“And you? Will you be one of the survivors?” she whispered.
“Will I?” Bryce smiled. “Will we?”
He stepped towards her.
“Why do you think I came back here? It was for you. I am going on the Exodus. It will be a long trip. I don't know when I will be back here.” He held out his hand. “I want you to come with me.”
“Rheinnalt–”
“Osei please. You know me truly now.” His outstretched hand opened. His voice trembled with excitement. “I want you to meet Arshu. If you come with me you will have that chance.”
“Where is the Exodus?”
“It is hidden. I am one of the few who know the way. He's there. Waiting for Rebirth.”
Bryce looked at her, his eyes were shining.
“You have no idea what it is like – the silence, the peace – when you meet Arshu for the first time.” Bryce dropped his hands. “He’s not a charlatan, not some tourist baba, or spiritual huckster like those televangelists. He is a true visionary, a great soul gifted with second sight, a man who radiates love through his whole being. Imagine meeting someone who can be relied upon, who can tell us answers, solve our problems.” He opened his arms, like a preacher extending an invitation. “It is liberating.”
“You have grown up with the endless chatter of voices, knowing only a world of competing opinions,” he put his hands up over his ears and his voice was mocking, “Of opposed theories, where all the prizes go to those with the loudest voices, or worse, to the naysayers and sceptics for whom nothing is sacred. I don’t believe you are one of those. But how many of us have been properly trained to recognise a great soul when he walks amongst us? How many know how to still the chatter of our modern minds, and accept the peace he brings, the love he offers? I want you to have that chance. As I had. When you see him, you will understand. Will you come with me?”
“Rheinnalt, you must give me all Richardson’s research notes and samples.” Her appeal was direct, simple, like a mother to a child.
Bryce frowned. “What for?”
“So that we can try to follow the work and find some defence. Find a cure.”
“That would be a waste of time.”
“Why?”
“Because we have a cure already.”
Garrett stared at Bryce. The shine to his eyes made them appear separately alive.
“It was always a part of Arshu's plan. And I can't claim any credit for the work – that belongs to Sikanda.” He waved a hand like a confident conjurer over a top hat. “It was the first instruction I gave him when he joined us.” Bryce began to pace the room again in slow steps. “I pointed out it was the only chance of limiting the damage that his new strain might cause if it got out into the general population. He was in no position to argue. He came up with a new protocol. It was brilliantly simple.”
“The strain has a deliberate weakness to an engineered protein. Sikanda described it as a chemical Achilles heel.” Bryce smiled. “He called the prophylaxis protein Paris.”
“There is a cure,” Garrett said. A cold still point formed in her stomach. She calculated the geometry of the lab room.
“But it is not for others.”
There is a cure. Garrett’s thoughts narrowed, swept out beyond the walls of the room. Where? She took the smallest of steps. She held the tremors in her body in check. She judged distances again.
“How effective is it?”
“Completely. Remember, Paris isn't a drug designed to cure a disease. It's a drug for a disease designed to be cured.”
Garrett took another step forward.
“We have a limited stock of the drug. But Christine, if you come with us–” His gaze was intimate as an unwelcome kiss. When he saw her reaction he looked confused for a moment, like a lover caught out offering a bribe. “Please, come with me. Meet Arshu. Then you will understand.”
He strode over to the wall screen and pointed at the spinning worlds. “Look at the evidence!”
In three large bounds Garrett crossed the fifteen feet, her eyes fixed on Bryce’s gun beside the keyboard. As she reached out, her hand shook badly and knocked the gun away. She trapped it with splayed fingers. The metal was cold and heavy in her hand. She raised the muzzle to point at Bryce’s back and thumbed off the safety.
He cocked his head to one side, like a listening bird, then turned round. Garrett stepped backwards and gla
nced to either side.
“What are you going to do? Fight your way out?” Garrett kept the gun trained on Bryce’s chest. Her hand trembled. “You wouldn’t make it five yards. Those gunmen out there are not amateurs. And they will already have the whole valley covered. They are searching for their leader’s murderer.”
“I must tell what I know.”
“Without me, you are standing in a death trap.”
“Then help me.”
The gun sights wavered but stayed pointed at Bryce’s chest. Bryce studied her, head still on one side. He ignored the gun.
“Rheinnalt, please? Stop this madness.”
“You haven’t been listening, have you? Madness is trying to stop true prophesy. Look,” Bryce gestured at the screen. The speckled map was visible in a corner. “It is already real.”
“We can stop–”
“Madness is allowing the destruction of ninety-nine percent of life on earth when you have a chance to prevent it. Madness is knowingly repeating the mistakes of the past. Put down that gun.”
Garrett stepped back again. His calmness alarmed her and she was having trouble with her hand. The gun shook badly.
Bryce shook his head. “You wouldn’t use it against me anyway.”
“Not willingly.” Garrett kept the gun aimed at Bryce’s chest. “But I must try to stop the disease. And I will shoot in self-defence.”
“No you won’t.”
“Help me publish the cure.” She allowed herself a personal appeal. “Rheinnalt? We could do it together. Stop the deaths.”
He was still a moment. She had touched him.
“I came because of you. You know that don’t you?” His voice was soft. “I hoped you would understand.”
“Would your father have understood?”
Bryce blinked.
“You told me he taught you a lot. Was it to kill indiscriminately? To commit mass murder?” Garrett looked at the gun sights, corrected her aim. She wondered what it would be like to pull the trigger, to fire a metal bullet. She wondered if she could do it. She had treated gunshot wounds.
“He was a good man but in many ways he was naïve.” He cocked his head, like a bird listening to a distant call. Garrett recognised the attitude of attention from Jason, listening to the invisible. “I understand that now. Seeing your parents for what they are is part of growing up.”
“Would your father have agreed with what you are doing?”
“I don’t need his approval,” Garrett saw a brief flash of anger, “but good has come of his death, and my mother’s.”
“Good? Help me Rheinnalt. Please?”
He shook his head sadly. “You haven’t been listening.”
“What you are doing is an atrocity.”
“It is sanity. It is salvation.”
“So the dead will just be unlucky,” Garrett said bitterly.
“Everybody dies of something.”
“Even your own people. Like Christmas.”
“He welcomed his fate.”
“Like my son?”
Bryce was silent a moment. “I regret Skyler's death. I told you it was not on my order. I even warned him. He ignored me.” He paused then continued. “He chose his own fate. He became involved with Sikanda and his family, treading where he had no business. He was visiting their cell.”
Garrett sagged against the edge of the desk. The pain of the loss rose and fell inside her, uncontrollable and unending, sucking her down in a black hopeless whirl. She saw the cell again, and Jason sitting on the bunk praying. Garrett stared at Bryce. The cell. She blinked with both eyes. The cell.
Suddenly she knew. She knew where to find the cure.
The slim hope bobbed up in her mind, small but certain. She clung to it, let it carry her briefly out of the helplessness, the unfathomed waiting grief. For a moment her mind cleared, free of the black pain. She tested the hope. Yes – it was possible. The anger she had felt in the greenhouse returned, strengthened with the sudden hope. She sensed she would pay a price but she clutched at it. The brutal energy steadied her. She stepped away, glancing once behind her towards the door leading to the greenhouse. When she looked back she noticed Bryce’s right hand down by his hip. She remembered the gun he had picked up.
“Don’t Rheinnalt. If you won’t help, don’t try to stop me. I will shoot.”
He shook his head. “You wouldn’t shoot me.”
He reached behind his back. Garrett hesitated, checked her aim. He pulled out the other gun. He looked down at it as though counting change in his palm.
“There. That was easy, wasn’t it?” He looked up at her, smiled, then raised his gun. “What you don’t understand Christine, is the strength that faith gives–”
She pulled the trigger. There was a click. Nothing more. She looked at the gun. No bullets.
“I had to test you.” His head twitched sideways. “I didn’t think you would do it.”
Despair rose in her again. She watched obsession curdle into mistrust. She knew what it would become.
“You realise I must kill you now.” He looked angry, as though it were her fault. He pointed at the screen. “Krissa is spreading and during this time we must remain hidden. All over the world our communes are empty. We will not return for years, not until Arshu says the time has come for us to lead.”
“The only thing that can stop us is if we are discovered. Arshu said you were a threat. I told him no. But I was wrong. He was right, as always.”
“He told me you must be tested, your faith, in me, in us. And like any experiment,” his voice was quiet, sad, “The outcome is always uncertain. You failed, Christine.”
He raised his gun.
***
“I’m sorry Christine.”
Garrett found in Bryce’s eyes only calculation. A click sounded between them as he thumbed off the safety.
“Rheinnalt–”
Bryce's eyes narrowed in their aim. His fingers tightened around the gun butt.
“Before you kill me would you like me to tell you how Professor Richardson's message will be found by the authorities?”
Bryce's eyes adjusted focus. The pistol did not move. Garrett felt a moment of vertigo, looking down through another eye on two strangers faced off like arguing lovers. A memory of familiarity returned. She suppressed it with a shiver; it would cripple her for the effort to come. She studied the question lurking in Bryce’s eyes. The understanding of him was intimate and offensive, but it calmed her. He wouldn’t kill her. Not before he had heard what she had to say. He needed to know. She would confide in him. After that, he wouldn’t be able to do without her.
He would start by asking what message.
“What message?”
“The message he threatened you with.” Bryce gave no reaction. “Before he was killed.”
Bryce was silent. Garrett used her anger to ignore the trembling in her legs.
“You were right to take him seriously. The threat was real.” The silenced muzzle of the pistol nosed at her, within spitting distance but out of reach.
“What are you talking about?”
“The message was real.” Garrett watched the gun track to the left then right then back centre.
“I don’t have time for fantasy,” Bryce said. “It’s too late.”
“Yes. How could he send a message? He must have been lying.”
Bryce shook his head. Garrett watched his hand shift its grip on the pistol. His fingers tightened again. She spoke quickly. “Just think: a brilliant geneticist, a leader in his field, kidnapped, trapped in a lab without access to the outside world, unable to call for help. How could such a man have got a message out beyond the walls of his prison?”
“What had he got access to? His wife and daughter?” Garrett shook her head. “Also prisoners. What about the tools of his trade? Test tubes, microscopes, organic reagents? No – all going nowhere, certainly not out of the lab.”
Bryce smiled. Garrett watched the gun. “But there was one thin
g that was leaving. Something the professor had intimate day-to-day access to. Something designed to leave, to make its own way, its own living you might say, in the outer world.”
Bryce became still.
“Yes. The organism itself.” Garrett said. “His creation, the very thing he was forced to work on.”
Garrett found the trembling calmed a little more with each purpose-filled word. She watched Bryce consider. She saw the dismissive shake of the gun.
“It’s true it couldn’t speak for itself. It couldn’t be told to post a letter or make a telephone call. But remember our professor is brilliant.”
Her voice became hard and cold as steel wheels set on a fixed rail. “You are not sentimental so it’s important you understand what I am suggesting. Real possibilities. My life depends on it. And perhaps the lives of many others.”
Garrett looked past the gun, past the man to the terrible, useful fact that she knew him. If she showed fear he would assume desperate imagination, not fact. But he would yield to a real threat to his obscene plan. A threat he understood. She forced herself to imagine a young medical intern requiring a lecture, and started casually.
“You know, computer scientists who work in computational genomics often observe that the mechanisms of biogenetics read like a communications protocol. Base pairs versus ASCII encoding sets, protein transcription versus data transmission, error handling through redundancy: genetics is an apparatus of chemical communication. Creationists have described it as the divine script, the genome as God’s book of creation.”
“So, you’re a trapped geneticist,” Garrett shook her head, “your only working medium an organism of your own creation. You need to get a message out. Why not use God’s own script?”
Bryce stepped back. Implications fractured in his eyes. Garrett plunged on, committed to his education.
“Yes. You begin to see. As I did last night. So how? How could you communicate genetically? Is it really possible? Remember how a human message is stored in a document on a computer: it is a string of binary digits. Those ones and zeros represent letters – A is 1000001, B is 1000010, C is 1000011 – put them together and you make words, so 100001110000011000010 is CAB. Use enough binary digits and you can store many words, many sentences – a message of any length. All you need to write that binary document are the translation codes.”