BEYOND EXTINCTION

by John Keeble

  "I'm so glad you had your human animal genes boosted," says Jack and her body agrees more readily than she would have guessed before having what Galen calls her "human animal downgrade."

  Later, they lie back and Max inches his way back on the bed and lies across Jack's legs with his head snuggled into Alice's chest.

  "Max, you're going to break my legs," says Jack, with Max's weight forcing his knees against the joints. "That's better," he adds, as they pull Max in between them, a friendly rough and tumble that leaves Max on his back with his legs in the air.

  "This is very romantic," says Alice, pleased to make a human joke.

  "In this case, three's not a crowd," says Jack.

  "I think you're feeling better," she says. "Do you want to sleep?"

  "No," he says. "Listen, I need to talk to you about Galen."

  "What did he want?" Please don't say Galen revealed anything damaging.

  "He asked me to join him in killing you and saving him and me by going to the World Council. Oh yes, he wants to dump Aleksi, Aapeli and the troopers. Have you caught up with the troopers' names yet?"

  "That malakas. What did you say?"

  "Malakas? What does that mean?"

  "Numans have only one terrible insult. I hardly ever use it and nor does any numan, except the troopers, of course. Think of every obscene human insult, add them together, and double them. That's malakas."

  "Oh, okay. I wish I'd known it. I could have used it on Galen."

  "Jack! Just tell me what happened with Galen, will you!"

  "I was a little unkind to Galen."

  "And..."

  "I haven't been happy with Galen since he hit you at the Center. Then he hurt you getting into this place. Now he wants me to help kill you."

  "What did you say?" But she knows what his reaction would be. He would have told Galen to back off or else.

  "He said some other things that we – you and I – need to talk about."

  "Max!" cries Alice in pain as Max wriggles free and jumps onto the floor. "You beast."

  "He's too hot," says Jack and she resists commenting on his stating the obvious.

  Instead, she murmurs, "So you told Galen 'no' and politely left his room?"

  "No. I hit him, hard, on the chin. Numan4s had a bone-strength upgrade, didn't they?"

  "Yes, but what about you?" she says quickly, grabbing his right hand off her bare waist to examine it. "Are you hurt?"

  "No. I'm fine, but I guess I must have hit Galen harder than I thought. I busted his jaw and had to call in Aleksi to fix it."

  "Aleksi would rather slit his throat than repair his jaw." I wouldn't blame him if he did.

  "The troopers are helping him," says Jack. "I get the idea that they see us as their new leaders."

  "So they should if they want to survive."

  Jack kisses her, holds her tightly, then releases her slightly. "We need to talk about what Galen said."

  "What did he say?" Shall I tell him the truth now or the old cover story? Or maybe just part of the truth?

  "He said you've been betraying me from the beginning. He seemed to be claiming that my DNA was changed to serve as a testbed for his research into genetic memory upgrading. He said you're still acting for him as my minder. Is that why the banya gave me such violent trips?"

  Is this all Galen told him? "It wasn't street banya, Jack," she says. Am I going to lose him if I tell him everything? Will I lose him eventually if I don't tell him now? The thought of it makes her tighten her arms around him.

  "Steady, everything is okay," says Jack, kissing her forehead. "Tell me what you can. I know much of it. I know it has been torturing your mind. I know you will tell me everything when you can."

  "I'll never hurt you, Jack." He understands what I have been going through. How could I have done this to him? But she knows why she did it. I've been as much a victim as Jack.

  "Tell me about the banya."

  "Galen was working with a colleague at university on the ultimate science prize – the control of genetic memories, which would give a form of immortality and complete control of numan2s. If you control memories, you control behavior. It has always been clear that DNA has a rudimentary memory built in. Many living organisms know what to do without being taught by an earlier generation."

  "And Galen found out how to use it?"

  Memories of their university days flood back into her mind. It was a wonderful time: the work, the success, the hope for the future, the excitement of their child bearing years.

  "His university colleague was the one who spoke to him on the drone. His name is Aini. We were all good friends. Galen and Aini were like brothers and Aini's wives were like our sisters," says Alice. "Aini was brilliant at unconventional thought, and Galen was brilliant at conventional thought and dealing with numan protocols and the hierarchy. They made a formidable team."

  "They didn't sound that friendly during the drone link."

  "They argued, but that came later. At university, Aini came up with the theoretical science for building DNA that can store detailed memories from generation to generation. Galen designed the practical methodology and got them enough funding for a trial program. Something happened between them. Neither would say what. It may have been Galen's secrecy. There was much he would not tell even Dalen or me."

  They lie for a moment, looking into each other's eyes, looking for truth and trust like any lovers.

  "I wonder if other people enjoy this kind of pillow talk," quips Jack, and she feels her past with Dalen – where is Dalen? Is she still alive? – fading and Jack being her world now.

  "I doubt if others would like our kind of pillow talk, but it works for us," she says. He is offering me a way out of this excruciating conversation but I cannot take it. "Jack, I need to tell you," she says, forcing herself to confirm the tip of the truth. "Galen did modify you as part of his Cambridge work to develop a practical genetic memory model. I was assigned to handle you, under Galen's control."

  "But it didn't work out, did it?" he asks gently.

  "I found that thinking human and acting human stirred up my primitive human genes."

  "Hmmm, I noticed," he says, and she smiles gratefully.

  "At first, sex with you was a problem for me," she explains. "I knew what to do but, in my numan way, not why we were doing it when we were not conceiving offspring. I was just doing what I thought was pleasing you. Galen gave me DNA downgrade to boost my human sexual needs – it changed my life."

  "Mine, too."

  "I came to love you and I loved Max from the moment I saw him. Do you remember that day? You thought Max would push me over and you were so desperate to protect me. I think I started loving you then."

  "I remember. I couldn't take my eyes off you. I had been waiting all day in the hope that you would come. And then that beast Max threatened to wreck it all."

  She laughs. "He didn't. He was lovely."

  They fall into an awkward silence, their minds grappling for some way forward. "Alice, I need to know. The genetic memories. It was the banya that triggered my experiences?"

  "It was all controlled," says Alice. "Galen made the banya himself and added some chemistry he designed. He brought in a human-looking operator from the spookpolice in London who played the part of a banya pusher." I don't want to tell him but I must. I cannot live with the secret any longer. "Jack, when you nearly died in hospital, it was because we did not foresee you taking it with so much alcohol."

  "Later, I didn't need the banya or the alcohol. And now the genetic memories come whether I want them or not."

  "We didn't foresee that either."

  He laughs, mirthlessly but not maliciously. "Our past is our past. We did things that we wouldn't do now. But, we're here in bed together and we have Max with us. So it's not all bad."

  "No, it's not all bad. Some of it is quite good."

  Jack stirs, looks into her eyes. "The extinction memories. What happens to me now?"

  He needs the t
ruth. He trusts me. She feels tears well in her eyes. So unnuman, so comfortingly human. "I don't know," she says. "No one knows, except perhaps Galen. And he is only guessing." Galen! Aleksi! "Jack! If Aleksi is treating Galen, he'll report to us when he finishes. I don't want him finding us in bed!"

  "I could do with a cup of tea anyway," says Jack, easing himself off the bed.

  *

  White Death has no knowledge of what is happening anywhere outside his region – even much of his immediate area is a mystery to him as the other mobs close their borders to outsiders.

  He sits at the table, the same as his first negotiation with Sandro, and waits for the prisoner to be brought to him. He hates every part of the deal that Sandro is offering but he is trapped. If he says no, he is finished. He will become just a mob leader, one among scores, maybe thousands, throughout FedUK. If he accepts, he might be able to control and lead the numan2s to prosperity, at least pull them back from the precipice of starvation and warfare. But the price will be contempt from his own people.

  His mother told him when he explained the proposition, "If you accept, you will be a numan2 leader but you will not be my son, you will not be one of our mob, you will not be a true numan2. You will be a traitor, a lackey of the numan4 hierarchy that enslaves us." No one else would be as kind as his mother. Whichever way he chooses, he is damned.

  He watches Sandro strutting in with numan4 authority and contempt. "Sit down, Commander. What do you propose as our next step?"

  "We will flood SubFedEngland with information," says Sandro, immediately the leader who believes his army will triumph. "The information will say that the rebellion must end and that food and water supplies will be restored."

  "And if there is resistance?"

  "We will crush it in the name of the new numan2 FedUK leader. You."

  *

  Aini steps into the blazing heat outside Marseilles's biggest drone port. He is accustomed to scorching temperatures in FedOz but here it must be one hundred and twenty degrees or more. Waves of heat shimmer on the cracked asphalt, which is strewn with debris and broken glass. The empty shells of looted and burned stores sit like gaping wounds. There are so many troopers around that it feels like a war zone.

  "Keep away from any demonstrations or trouble," the military reception official told him at the drone port. "Looting has broken out and troopers are shooting law-breakers on sight. The troublemakers say we are not protecting them from rot death. It's just another excuse for violence."

  Aini could have asked for a military vehicle but he prefers the freedom of autotaxis. If I can find one.

  Half an hour later, just as he gives up waiting and starts walking towards the research center, a taxi drops off a fare and he waves his taxi card. Others wave their cards too but he has Grade Two status – only World Council members and Class One commanders like Galen can claim higher priority.

  "The Center for Genetics Research," he tells the taxi and it accelerates away.

  "Everyone else wants to get out of the city and you want the research center," says the taxi. "Are you stupid?"

  He expects tight security at the center but the gate is open and no one is guarding the six domes as they drive into the compound and up to the main entrance.

  "Wait here for me," Aini commands the taxi, but even his Grade Two rank cannot stop it hurrying off to find the next fare.

  He walks into the first dome. The whole place is silent. Where is everyone?

  At the entrance to the fourth dome, he hears voices. They are calling out. They sound distressed; he cannot make out what they are saying.

  "Who are you? Where are you?" he calls and he is battered with a clamor of voices.

  As he gets farther into the dome, he can pinpoint the voices. He pushes open a door. "Huh!" he grunts in disappointment. "Human animals being used for experiments." I should free them. That would be the numane thing to do. But he does not. Three are dying with fungus growing over their faces and torsos. Two others have bled to death. The rest have a wild, fiery look in their eyes and their skin is dry, overheated in the stinking air. He closes the door and hurries on.

  The center has the same layout as every other genetics research center in the world. He pushes through the door to the Director's office, turns on the office mediamat, and uses his World Council key code to dump the Center's research data into the FedOz storage system. Then he rapidly submits an emergency report to Security Control – my old lover Dalen? – covering research centers.

  "Time to go," he mutters and gets out fast.

  He checks flight availability as he walks. As he expects, comfortable civilian drones are booked out but there are seats available on military drones.

  I wonder how long before the military pull out and let the numan2s tear themselves apart.

  He does not give the rot death risk a thought.

  *

  Aleksi is trying to save Galen's life. He has never tackled an injury as bad as this – he can see that any normal numan would have died from the massive explosion of force from Jack's fist.

  He maneuvers the Amazon Head Unit in place as the troopers support Galen's head. Why isn't Galen unconscious? He scans the unit's emergency treatment instructions and tries to work out what to do. He saw a similar model being demonstrated at a first-aid course but then it was treating a human animal damaged to simulate a numan fall injury. It seemed simple enough then. He follows the instructions, makes sure the unit supports Galen's neck and that the self-adjusting helmet is in place.

  He sets it on auto and activates the unit, his heart beating faster. I want to kill him but not like this, not through my medical incompetence. A gold light – one of a dozen – blinks to indicate scanning. After two minutes, a solid gold light shows scanning is complete. More lights flash as the unit sedates Galen and treats his injuries. In the first-aid demonstration, the animal was healed in less than five minutes before being injured again to show how the machine reacts to a patient dying. Now, the lights and time are indicating more extensive work on Galen until, one by one, the lights stay on to confirm a successful operation. The procedures take more than an hour.

  "Lift his shoulders carefully," Aleksi orders the troopers. He removes the unit, more aware of his clumsiness now that the emergency is over, and uncovers Galen's cold eyes staring at him.

  "Stay with him. Call me if there is any change," he tells the troopers and walks out to check that Aapeli is all right before reporting to Jack and Ali.

  A few minutes later he walks into Jack and Ali's room. The simple domesticity of it, with them sitting on a three-seat sofa and Max draped across their laps, brings a rush of emotion. If only my family had survived!

  "I used the Amazon headmed unit on Galen and—."

  An emergency blare sounds from Twinkle and then her voice, shrill and hysterical: "Alice! Alice! Something terrible has happened."

  Aleksi is not surprised by Twinkle. The human term "drama queen" sums up her artificial intelligence personality.

  "What is it this time, Twinkle?" Ali sounds relaxed, tolerant. Maybe she really likes Twinkle. I would have replaced her in a second.

  "Oh, Alice, prepare yourself! I have dreadful news."

  "Twinkle! What is it?"

  Aleksi knows all about Twinkle's hysteria after Jack's love rat phone, Spartacus, used his vibrator on her.

  "It's Dalen!" says Twinkle. "I got a message from Ohno – that's Dalen's new phone."

  Aleksi is startled to see Ali jump up, with Max leaping off her with the agility of a cat and the power of a golden retriever.

  "Tell me!" Alice almost shouts as she scoops up Twinkle.

  "Well, I have been chatting to Ohno during the past few days while she has been left unattended in—."

  "I'm not interested in your techno gossip! Tell me about Dalen."

  Twinkle sniffs loudly, a sure sign of an oncoming tantrum, and says: "I thought I was telling you about Dalen."

  "Now! Or you'll go in the freezer for a month."<
br />
  "You don't have a month," Twinkle replies with evident satisfaction and Aleksi has an uncharacteristic urge to smash her like Galen is reputed to have smashed his office phones.

  Alice looks like she has the same urge but says calmly: "Twinkle, please tell me about Dalen. Is she all right?"

  "No. She is dead. Ohno was there. Dalen took poison when the military investigators arrived. They traced Ohno's last call to me. They are on their way to arrest us all."

  Alice slumps down next to Jack and says: "All for nothing. Dalen laid a false trail and killed herself to protect us. All destroyed by gossiping phones."

  "It wasn't my fault," shouts Twinkle but Jack stuffs her under a cushion as he comforts Alice.

  Aleksi can only watch, a silent witness, as Jack holds Alice close. Max is there too, his head in her lap.

  "Aleksi," says Jack. "Get the others moving. Emergency evacuation. We have only minutes to escape."

  *

  Chapter 27

  To Alice, who has never been near a desert before, the Namib sea of sand looks like an alien planet – shifting sand from horizon to horizon, 100km into southern FedAfrica from its Atlantic coast.

  Alice is stationed at the back of the drone, scanning her surveillance quadrant on the drone's 360-degree wall screen as the sun, a white glare, slowly sinks to her left. The drone is punching through the hot and unstable air at two hundred feet, low enough for its stealth design to mask it from satellite tracking as Jack weaves it between enormous sand dunes that, at times, tower above it.

  She has seen no sign of life and that is good. A unit of troopers, or even local people reporting a drone, would mean almost certain capture. She takes her eyes off the surface for a moment to check how Jack is assessing the situation as he flies the machine manually. He looks back at the same moment and winks. How do we always know?

  Around the hull, everyone is watching for any risk. Even Galen. At this height, a shell or missile could bring them down.

  "Where are we going?" asks Aapeli, watching the same quadrant as Alice.

  "We don't know yet. We need to find somewhere safe until we decide what to do," Alice tells him, putting her arm around his shoulders and giving him a gentle squeeze.