BEYOND EXTINCTION

by John Keeble

  As they drive in, Mark moves uneasily, craning his neck to see around the driver. Patti follows his eyes. She had expected offices and a little activity. But this! Acres of buildings: a vast administration block, a production plant, covered walkways, roads and numans, hundreds of them, all busily going about their tasks. But, more shocking than anything else, the profusion of midnight red spookpolice uniforms.

  The van's sliding door slams open. "What is this?" breathes Mark as they climb out.

  "I don't know," Patti says. Is this where they expect me to work?

  A security detachment trots from the nearest building and heads towards them. Patti flinches as the squad surrounds them, pushes them into line, and, with practiced efficiency, marches them off, quickly, without hesitation. A silent officer shadows them from the side, a pacifier ready for use.

  "Where are you taking us?" she explodes. But the squad ignores her and presses on. Fast and uncompromising, through an inner compound gate, along a maze of walkways, up a flight of stairs, into corridors bearing spookpolice logos. The officer with the pacifier slips in behind Mark.

  They burst from a dim concrete tunnel into the light of a glassed concourse, palm trees shivering in the comfortably cool aircon breeze, and elegant numans exuding power and privilege as they leisurely conduct their working lives.

  "Oh," escapes from Patti as she involuntarily tries to stop. The unyielding steel of the squad thrusts her forward like a piece of trash blown in its path.

  The squad slows to a respectful march as it crosses the concourse, the tramp of military boots acting as a warning to numans who might carelessly get in its way.

  Patti casts apprehensive glances around. She catches uniform insignias, subtle details of seniority and appointments engineered into clothes: an intimidating array of status and power. All the numans quickly give way to this apparently low-status squad with two prisoners. We're prisoners of the spookpolice.

  The squad halts by a pgold door. Patti and Mark are propelled in, effortlessly, even courteously.

  "Hello, Dr. Bagathon – or Miss Patti, if you prefer your human identity," says a numan seated at a vast technology desk, a video of Patti and Mark showing on a wall screen behind him. "I am Commander Nadir, head of security for this establishment. I have been looking forward to meeting you."

  *

  Galen has never been this tired before. He feels like he has not slept for a month, though he has had more sleep than specified in his genetic design. His tiredness is caused partly by working twenty hours a day, but mostly through the enervating pain of emotions triggered by experiments to increase his brain's speed to numan6.

  Balen is another problem. They had their time of animal sexual madness between fourteen and eighteen. That was normal enough. Now there should be nothing between them but calm and impersonal loyalty and cooperation. Why am I obsessed with Balen? Why do I hate Jack when I should welcome him as a triumph?

  "Head of security Sandro says he needs to see you urgently, Director," says Galen's private assistant, on the office suite's communicator.

  "I will see him now." Galen locks his authoritative manner in place but a flutter in his stomach adds to his anxiety.

  Sandro marches into the inner office, no respectful courtesy or ceremony. He has changed. An uncertain new commander before the crisis and now a confident commander with a junior place in the Military High Command. Sandro looks even more tired than Galen feels. His deceptively placid face is lined, blood is clotted over his right ear, and dirt is streaked across his commander's gown.

  "Director, we must evacuate to the military base at Cirencester," he says urgently. "The numan2 mobs are gathering in such numbers that soon we will not be able to stop them."

  "Sit down, Sandro, and calm down too," says Galen, goading Sandro with a deliberate insult. He sees anger burn in Sandro's eyes. "What genetic modification did you receive at your last hospital upgrade?"

  "The same as you, Director. They gave me a choice and I felt it would strengthen the effectiveness of working together if our upgrades were the same."

  "Quite," says Galen. But in his mind, in his sensitized emotions, there is a worm. What if Sandro is suffering the same instability as myself? Will he be reliable as the crisis gets worse? "Report."

  "The good news first, Director," says Sandro. "We have cleared the last of the wild lab humans on your list. They are being detained pending action by the medical unit. We have been bringing them in faster than the unit can handle."

  "I am aware of that."

  "Now security. We are defending an irregular area of about twenty-two square kilometers. We pulled back from areas not regarded as essential. About seventy percent of our current perimeter is secured by fixed and electronic defenses. We have, as of now, 382 security personnel – that is everyone: regulars, volunteers from the Center, the Attack Drone unit and officers up to and including me."

  "We had 428 security officers four days ago," says Galen. He thinks of the files awaiting his attention. Has he missed security reports?

  "Yes, Director. As I have been reporting to you, we have suffered casualties. The mobs are not only killing our people, they are seizing their weapons. This is giving them the ability to ambush us from a distance."

  "How will you counter this? Drone strikes?"

  "Yes, Director. But the mobs have possession of our smart bullets and they have been destroying the drones. We are running short of drones and there is no prospect of replacing them."

  "I need another five days," says Galen. "You will fight to the last trooper to protect the area until I release you from that order."

  "I understand, Director. I think there will be very few of my troopers alive in five days. I need you to give me this order in writing."

  *

  Twinkle, Alice's phone, shyly asks her if they can talk. "It's not a good time," says Alice, breaking off from her difficult confession to Jack as they sit in their cottage. "I am having an important conversation with Jack."

  "I know," says Twinkle. "But my problem is more serious and urgent than your conversation."

  "It is not. Now do not interrupt again or you will go in the freezer with Jack's phone."

  Alice and Jack wait a few seconds. Twinkle has gone back inside her circuitry. There is nothing except a reproachful silence.

  "Do you remember when a smartphone was smart enough not to answer back?" asks Jack.

  "Just about."

  They sit in silence for a long moment. The tension is palpable. They may be together on the sofa and holding hands but she fears her whole life with Jack is about to explode. He is not liking this situation and his silence forces her to take the lead. As I must. Max is tense, too, and sticks his cold nose into their entwined hands.

  "It's okay, Max," she says. "Now lie down, there's a good boy."

  Max sighs and throws himself on the floor, his eyes following every move they make.

  "Jack," begins Alice. "Please do not judge me until I have finished telling you everything."

  She watches him examining her. What is he thinking? How is he seeing my injured face? Does he think it is proof of some personal crisis between me and Galen? Why is he so silent, his hand so neutral in mine?

  "You guessed already one of the main points," she says, trying for numan4 psychology geneticist detachment but giving up in a cloud of shame. Haven't I deceived and manipulated him enough? Don't I owe him contrite honesty? I still cannot reveal the ultimate deceptions.

  "I'm a numan4 psychology geneticist. I head a team that has been studying the minutiae of human emotions and intellect. The Director thinks the answer to the numan2 instability is their human genetic rootstock."

  Jack lifts his head suddenly in shocked protest. "But we know everything there is to know about the human genome," he says sharply.

  She looks at him, thinking. I am telling him that I have deceived him from the moment we first met and he protests about our work. "No. We do not know everything. No one knows."


  "But—"

  "Jack, what I am going to tell you is a World Council secret. I have no authority to tell you. If the spookpolice find out, they will kill us both. Immediately."

  "Okay, but—"

  "Jack, listen! We thought we knew everything there was to know about human and numan genomes. But then, about twenty years ago, a young numan scientist made a remarkable discovery."

  "Galen? Was it Galen?"

  "Yes. It was Galen."

  "Your husband." She hears the words like the rustle of dried kaffir lime leaves in the mountain plantations of SubFedWales.

  "Yes," she replies. "He was my husband then. Galen, Dalen and I were matched from birth. We had no choice, no control over ourselves in the human sense."

  "And now?"

  "Now," she says, surprised at her venom, "he is the Director and I am Alice."

  "Then everything is fine," he says with relief. Even Max perks up.

  "I hope it is," she says. "I truly hope it is. But you need to hear more before we can say if it is fine – or not."

  "What did Galen discover?"

  "Have you heard of the Golden Key? Maybe not. It's a secret even from the mass of numans."

  "I saw a passing reference once. I tried to track it down but got nowhere. What is it?"

  She can hear he is eager and it makes her uneasy. Shouldn't he be more worried about me than about learning numan secrets? Am I making the right decision in telling him?

  "You are familiar with the crude human refactoring attempts in the 2020s – the attempts to use the seemingly useless coding in human genomes?" She smiles as his eyebrows lift. "Yes, of course you are. Basic knowledge in your university training."

  "Yes, but—"

  "Twenty years ago, Galen patterned the 'useless' ninety-six percent of coding and then made it useful by redesigning elements of it. His work produced new genetic coding combinations which made proteins which controlled aspects of numan conditioning. It gave the World Council and commercial interests unprecedented control. It made Galen one of the most powerful scientists on the planet."

  "And now you and Galen control your people with genetic modifications," says Jack accusingly. "What about humans? Do you control them too?"

  "Sometimes," she concedes carefully. "We use it selectively on humans. Individually on occasion. Just to control or change a localized difficult situation. We do not have the hospital infrastructure for whole human communities."

  "Yes, I see," he says in that polite SubFedEngland voice that he uses when he is not going to argue but does not like what he is hearing. "How did you lose control of the numan2s?"

  Right to the point as usual. But is this all I mean to him? Just a source of information when I am giving up everything, including my work and my family, for him?

  "That's the center of the crisis," she says. "How did we lose control of the numan2s? They amount to ninety-three percent of the numan population worldwide at the moment. How can we regain control? We think that our upgrade coding in some parts of the genome is causing complications in the proteins produced by other parts. Every time we think we have an answer – a patch to cover the problem – it goes wrong and makes the numan2s more unstable."

  "Yes, I can see that would be difficult." The polite, distant voice again. Is he trying to be infuriating? If he is, he's succeeding. I wish I'd never had the human animal downgrade. Then I wouldn't have to feel like this!

  "We improved the simulation software – another of the Director's achievements – but the situation continues to deteriorate," she says. "Galen set up the Center and the wild lab—"

  "Wild lab? What is that?"

  "Jack, please let me tell you slowly. It is difficult enough! There's so much and I want you to understand it all and how I've been torn between my duty and... and you and Max."

  "Yes, of course. I'm sorry. Tell me about Galen. If that's okay with you. His World Council file, the open part at least, doesn't sound like the description of a brilliant scientist – more like an administrator."

  This is a path entangled in thorns. She does not want to talk too deeply about Galen. Nor her part in his experiments. Nor what the numan world expects of her as his genetically matched wife. Nor the potentially lethal choices she has made, and must make, if she is to stay with Jack.

  "That's the tragedy of the Director," she tells him, picking a path between the thorns. "He was genetically designed as a scientist. The most advanced of his generation."

  "Designed? You make him sound like a machine."

  "We're all biological machines, Jack," says Alice. "Numan4s are just more effective machines than numan2s and humans." She hesitates. If I tell him more, will his restless mind uncover the ultimate secrets of our relationship? "Some are more constructed than others."

  "How so?" he asks.

  She can tell him some. Not a lot. She owes him as much as she can say – it will not make up for the lies but it will be part of that careful, dangerous path to the truth.

  "Have you ever wondered how numan2s slot so easily into tasks and communities?" she asks.

  "Of course."

  "The reason, never revealed, not even to numan2s, is that natural conception is augmented with designer DNA fragments from other sources. The concept originated in humans. It was then known as mitochondrial donations."

  "But the human use was very limited," says Jack.

  "Numan specialists developed and perfected the procedure. It's a major part of population engineering. The numan4s were the first numans to be built entirely of designer DNA snips. Everything. Galen was the wonder of his birth year. He excelled at every level, at every age. My sister Dalen and I were built to match and support him. He achieved such spectacular successes that he was noticed by the World Council."

  "That must have been very good for all of you," he says.

  "At first. Our early lives were tough. We were educated in ways that supported our state sponsors. We got the very best of university education. At work, we got the best jobs, though we were expected to act as numan supercomputers. Always, we were given more research funds, more status and more power."

  She is aware that she is faltering. She remembers the golden times, their children before the World Council took them for leadership modification and training.

  "Galen was taken by the World Council for one of the most powerful science appointments in the world – to set up and run the Abbotsford center to extend numan2 control and develop a new super-fast numan6 DNA design. But Galen was so far ahead in his field that no one was qualified to write his genetic upgrade to include administration functions. He had to write it himself and he has never been the same since then."

  "It damaged his computational speeds?"

  "No. The opposite. It gave him faster speeds and the possibility – the ambition – to upgrade himself to numan6."

  *

  Aapeli, his natural numan sallowness faded to shades of sickly white, stares up at three yellow-coated lab technicians in the Center's medical unit. He is surrounded and trapped on the bed. He wants his father but Aleksi has been sent out of the room. Aapeli is alone and powerless in an alien place.

  One of the medical technicians, with no name badge and a fixed smile, leans towards Aapeli. What is he? No numan ever smiles.

  "Don't be afraid, Aapeli," says the medtech.

  "I'm not afraid," he replies, hoping his voice is steady and his shaking hands cannot be seen.

  "We're not going to hurt you. We'll just take some blood, analyze it to make sure you are healthy and then give you a simple medicine. You will be going home by the weekend."

  "No. I do not want to do this. I want to go home now!" Where is my father? Tears blur his vision.

  "Enough," says another technicians. "Strap him to the bed."

  They grab Aapeli with a mature strength that he cannot resist. "No, no, please," he begs. The straps bite into his wrists and ankles. "Please," he sobs. "Why me? I haven't done anything."

  The man who gave the or
der stands over him. He says blandly, "It's not personal, Aapeli. We know you have not done anything. But the Director needs test results from a boy of your age. We will not try to hurt you but we have to carry out the tests regardless of what they do to you. To us, you are just an animal to experiment on."

  That frightens Aapeli more than anything. He has reviewed human vivisection records and he knows the cold, barbaric treatment inflicted on helpless animals.

  The tears stream unhindered down his face and, in his terror, he hates the medtechs, the Director who ordered his torture, and, most of all, his father who has abandoned him.

  *

  Chapter 13

  The cottage's living room is cozy, comfortable in the soft lighting, but Jack, Alice and Max make strange inhabitants frozen into uncertainty. Jack is so tense, so still, that his muscles are aching. He is ready for anything she has to unburden. The most important point has already been covered: she is not going to leave us. Now he must travel with her story and understand it all – understand her and what she needs.

  I can accept that she deceived me as part of her work and got caught in a world of slipping shadows between humans and numans. But I will not forgive her if she tries to lie now. Either she is mine or she is not: no more lies, no more secrets, no more fool's paradise. There's no compromise on this.

  "You've mentioned the Abbotsford wild lab twice," he says. "It would help me understand if you explained what it is."

  His smile masks, he thinks, his intense interest and he watches numan Alice working out what to tell him.

  "The Center is the foremost genetic research and design facility in the world. It researches the links within emotional and intellectual modification."

  "And the Abbotsford wild lab?"

  "We needed a controlled, unaware population of humans and numans to study," she says. "A constant and long-term test group. We selected this area as suitable for our purpose. We obtained residents' genomes by offering free health checks and set up a network of numans posing as humans to observe and interact with specified subjects."

  "I didn't accept the offer of a free health check."