Alex walked over and looked closer at the carving, hoping to find some similarity with the world’s current plague. The picture clearly had no relationship with The Disease, nor did it give any warning when this event would occur. “Again, another catastrophic event,” he said aloud, “but it certainly doesn’t look like what’s occurring now.” He contemplated a second and said, “Probably represents some cataclysmic tectonic plate movement.”
As much as Alex enjoyed admiring all of these carvings, he knew their time was limited. Plus, every twenty seconds William would give him a stare as if to say: Is it time to get out of here yet?
“Jonathan,” Alex asked while trying not to sound too rushed in his cadence, “is there a carving here that seems to pertain to The Disease? I bet the answer is hidden in here somewhere. We just have to find it.”
Jonathan looked around the cave with the sole intention of finding something that correlated to their current situation. Marissa did the same, hoping to unlock the 2,000-year-old mystery.
Father Kritikos stood at the side of the cave, patiently keeping his thoughts to himself. Alex was not sure if he simply didn’t want to interfere or had a different agenda all together. Did he not want to commit sacrilege by walking around the cave? Was he left speechless because of their momentous discovery? Whatever the reason, Alex knew he needed to keep an eye on him.
“I’ve been looking at this carving here,” Guri said with his usual weak intonation, “and it does bear a resemblance to the events of today.”
They all walked over to the drawing while leaving enough space for Jonathan to see from his seated position. It appeared that mankind had succumbed to a dynamic solar event. The sun, depicted with long, undulating beams seemed to consume the earth and lay waste to her inhabitants. The few people touched by one of the beams remained standing while the rest lay on their sides, dead from whatever cosmic event had occurred.
“I don’t know Guri,” Marissa admitted. “It looks more like what would happen if the world lost its entire ozone layer or it could possibly represent the outcome of a massive solar storm.”
“Marissa may be right,” Alex agreed. “There have been many theories of how a flurry of emissions from the sun could cause devastation to the earth.”
Guri pointed at Jonathan. “I hate to say this,” he acknowledged, “but if you looked at Jonathan without knowing anything about him, what would you think?”
They all stood quietly, trying to understand Guri’s point.
“That he had a really bad sunburn,” Alex said as if hit by an epiphany. “I see what you mean Guri! John probably had a vision of mankind succumbing to some unknown event and because they all died with reddened skin, he must have surmised the cause was somehow from our sun.”
Jonathan quoted, “‘The fourth angel poured his bowl into the sun. It was given the power to burn people with fire. People were burned by the scorching heat and blasphemed the name of God who had power over these plagues, but they did not repent or give him glory.’”
“It’s been in the New Testament all along,” Marissa said, “but we failed to see it.”
“Just like the Bible code,” Jonathan concurred. “There are many layers to it; you just have to know where and how to look.”
William was not impressed. Though John may have predicted The Disease 2,000 years ago, how did it help them now? The plague continued to spread and this carving only proved to reiterate the world’s current plight.
“Where’s the cure?” William finally said in frustration. “I didn’t risk my life to find some hidden carving, even if it is 2,000 years old.”
“There’s one more thing,” Guri interrupted. “Take a look at the sun’s beams a little closer. What does it look like it represents?
“Oh my God,” Marissa blurted. “From the distance I didn’t notice it!”
“It’s a double helix,” Alex said. “These beams of light look like small strands of DNA. That’s amazing!”
Even William seemed impressed. Despite all his complaints he knew this carving was the archeological find of the millennium and may in fact be the answer they had all been seeking.
“But is the carving supposed to tell us The Disease originated from our own DNA or are we to hypothesize something else?” Marissa asked.
Guri responded, “No, I think he’s trying to infer that the cure lies within our DNA. Just think of it,” he continued to say while pushing up his glasses, “there must have been something that genetically protected ancient man from this retrovirus. If there weren’t, humanity would have gone extinct eons ago. Also, look at the double-stranded beams of light. Only those people touched by one of them live while the rest have already perished.”
“Guri’s right,” Alex concurred. “It’s almost like the sickle cell gene. Where malaria is endemic it helps protect people from this disease. And I concur with Guri. There must be something in our own DNA that can cure The Disease.”
Always the curmudgeon of the group, William asked, “But where is it?”
“I think we can figure this out a little later,” Alex said with alarm . He turned to look at everyone in the cave. “Listen. While we’ve been down here the UAA has surrounded the monastery and are about to assault our position any minute.”
William gasped as if he had just heard the news for the first time. Marissa and Jonathan too appeared astonished by Alex’s revelation. This moment was certainly not the time to be running for their lives once again, especially when the cure seemed so close.
“I have three aero-bikes right outside this church under stealth,” Alex went on to say. “They just arrived and we can all safely escape before those UAA soldiers close in on us.” He looked over to Marissa. “Why don’t you take Jonathan and get a head start while William, Guri, and I digitally catalog the entire cave. Tom’s already set the bike’s autopilot to fly us to an undisclosed location. Just get on the aero-bike and let it do the rest.”
Alex grabbed Jonathan’s arm and with Marissa’s aid helped him up the ladder. Luckily, he had regained some of his strength after the last injection and did most of the climbing himself.
“Take care of yourself,” Marissa said, looking down from the hole in the church’s floor. She blew Alex a kiss and quickly went out of sight.
“We only have a minute to do this,” Alex said while handing the other three a small pen-like device. He then directed each of them where to stand in the cave. “When I say go, I want each of you to snap the digitizer into the wall at eye level and walk to the center of the cave. It’ll only take a second and we’ll get out of here. Father, I want you to come with us, too.”
Before Alex had a chance to look at the priest, he saw William collapse to the ground and jerk upon impact. Guri followed a second later. Their digitizers both fell to the rocky floor with a clang.
What’s going on?
“Father!” Alex began to say until the words seemed to freeze in his mouth. His whole body became instantly numb and his lungs felt like they were about to collapse under the weight of gravity.
As he fell to the ground, Alex’s last sight was of Father Kritikos standing over him. The priest had his cane extended and its tip was aglow with a red light.
Chapter 36
Police and fire vehicles still ran amuck within the Neurono-Tek complex. It almost appeared reminiscent of a demolition derby. The cars and trucks caused significant damage not only to the buildings but also to themselves. This loss of so many public vehicles seemed insurmountable. Financially, both the state and local governments would be unable to recoup the losses.
Despite the future economic fallout of this event, the real problem still remained: the necroids. They continued to infest Neurono-Tek and their numbers were possibly growing, threatening to spread outside the complex and into neighboring areas.
“Alex,” Samantha repeated again on her tele-communicator. “Alex.”
She had been trying to contact him for over an hour but without any success. It was unchara
cteristic of him to fail to respond to her call, even in the most inopportune moments.
Dear God, I hope nothing happened to him.
Whatever the reason, it preoccupied more of her thoughts than the chaos above. The entire complex had been evacuated. All emergency personnel ran off by foot, leaving the place deserted except for her down in the bunker. She watched on her video screens as the chaos continued above without any intimation of stopping.
She shook her head in disgust. Since the dawn of time humanity has been at war with itself, and now in the twenty-first century, it remained the same. The only difference currently was that humanity had become more creative in the ways to wreak havoc and lay waste to one another. The necroids proved to be the latest in a never-ending list of self-destruction.
Samantha sat behind the console and evaluated the data emerging from her experiments on the necroid remnants. After taking a few relatively intact pieces, she had vacuumed them into the sterile autopsy room for further analysis.
The results took her by surprise. Her instruments at first had trouble identifying if it were more mechanical or biological in nature. Robotics and flesh seemed to merge synchronously as one in this creature.
A computer chip made completely out of cellular material, wiring created from endothelial tissue, and a cerebral matrix produced from a combination of neurons and fiber optics encompassed just part of this creature’s unique design.
Samantha could not help ponder the philosophical consequences of what she had witnessed over the past few days. Between discovering that The Disease had been inadvertently cast upon man through their tinkering with the genetic code and now with these necroids, she wondered how long it would be before humanity wiped itself from the planet.
Not today. Not under my watch!
Samantha evaluated the streams of data pouring out of the instrument panel. The more she read, the more she realized the true revolutionary nature of these necroids. The science behind them had such potential for good, but sadly it had been used only for this macabre creation. It was a shame to see such brilliance wasted on a machine meant for destruction.
“Who would have thought?” Samantha said. “These things aren’t bugs, they’re snails?”
A schematic of the necroids’ DNA appeared holographically before her. In the shape of a circle, the strand of DNA had multiple colors along its length, representing individual genes.
Samantha tried to contact Alex once more but without success. She had discovered something truly amazing about the necroids and needed to speak with him immediately about her findings. Since he seemed to know significantly more about these creatures than she, Samantha wanted his input on these results.
I guess it’s up to me.
Two more circular strands of DNA appeared above the console. These looked slightly smaller than the first but again had multicolored genes throughout the ring.
Mollusks?
The data returned with the same results. The necroids’ DNA was largely taken from a mollusk, not unlike the common garden snail. Though other creatures such as an oyster, octopus, and a mussel fell into this category of creatures, the DNA had an 80% match rate with that of a common snail.
“I’ll never look at another snail the same way! I just wish we had a bunch of birds out there to eat them all.”
She did not understand why a snail’s DNA proved so compatible in making such a vicious beast. These docile, slow-moving organisms seemed to be the last creatures anyone would think to use in creating this machine-hybrid combination. There must be something in the other 20% of the necroid’s DNA that turned it into such a vicious beast.
“I got it”, Samantha said aloud as a possible solution came to mind.
“If it’s good enough to kill a snail,” she thought while setting up a new experiment on the console, “it should be good enough to get rid of a necroid.”
A single necroid replaced the hologram of the three circular DNA strands. Numbers and symbols surrounded the creature while a small digital clock was positioned underneath it.
“Here we go,” she said.
The clock began to run, and the numbers and symbols within the hologram changed rapidly. As the digital display read two minutes the necroid’s outer shell began to whither and turn a dull shade of gray.
At the three-minute mark the experiment ended. Most of the numbers above the console reached zero and the creature now appeared more reminiscent of a raisin than of its former self.
Samantha immediately hit the console’s emergency line. “Get me Commander Gorman!”
Within a minute the man greeted her with the same unfriendly welcome as before. Charm was obviously not one of his better points. He again sounded impatient, but after their last verbal altercation, he seemed more apt to directly confront a horde of necroids than a single Samantha Mancini.
“Commander Gorman, I know how to stop the necroids.”
“Well, so do I,” he countered gruffly.
The response surprised Samantha as she hadn’t expected him to find a solution that quickly. For a moment she had regained at least a little faith in the man.
“That’s wonderful,” she said. “I’m delighted to hear the news. Did you also discover these necroids are susceptible to molluscicides or have you and your team reached a different conclusion?”
“I don’t know what you just asked me, but in exactly five hours the U.S. military will launch an air attack on Neurono-Tek, leaving a crater where the entire complex once stood. Bye-bye necroids!”
Samantha could not believe what she heard. The man was clearly insane and his lunacy appeared to be spreading. Only a madman would order an air strike to solve a simple problem.
“Let’s think this through,” Samantha tried to respond calmly. “Blowing something up isn’t always the right thing to do.”
She felt as if she were speaking with a toddler. And she attempted to use the same tactics that had worked on her own kids when they were that age.
“I know it may seem like the next logical step,” she slowly continued to say, “but I found something a little less violent that won’t cause billions of dollars worth of damage.”
“Unless you can tell me there’s a thermonuclear warhead sequestered down there in that bunker, I’m not interested. We’re at war with these necroids and if they spread, the damage would be in the trillions. I must act now to stop the spread of these damn bugs.”
“Mollusks,” she corrected.
“I don’t give a damn what you call them. Hell, they could be walking pieces of shit for all I care. All I know is that they caused twenty casualties at Neurono-Tek with eight being fatal. I don’t like those numbers at all!”
Before Samantha could respond, he added, “And I suggest you get out of that bunker down there before the bombing begins or you’ll be fatality number nine. Commander Gorman out!”
As if this day could get any worse!
Chapter 37
After turning off the autopilot, Marissa flew the aero-bike with ease. Fearing the UAA would give chase, she had wanted complete control over the vehicle in case of any unwelcome incident. Though this particular model boasted the latest advancements, it still handled like any of the other bikes she had flown in the past. Jonathan sat behind her on the seat with his arms wrapped around her waist. Both donned a self-contained air helmet that allowed them to reach higher altitudes without the fear of anoxia.
Their escape from Patmos had gone extremely well. The stealth mode Alex installed on the aero-bike allowed them to fly right out of the monastery without being detected at all. Even the oncoming UAA assault ships flew by without the slightest inkling of their presence.
Marissa only hoped now that Alex and the others made it out of the monastery just as safely. She wanted to call them, but the stealth mode prohibited such communications.
The autopilot on the aero-bike directed her to a small island in the western section of the Aegean Sea. She could only assume that Alex had arranged for a Stratosk
immer to rendezvous with them and fly them back to the States. Hopefully there, Jonathan could receive the proper medical attention needed until they finally unraveled the cure for The Disease.
The answer felt so close. What seemed like an impossibility a few days ago was now becoming a reality. If they could just determine what John’s message meant about the DNA strains, millions—if not billions—of people could be saved.
Marissa turned her head and gave Jonathan a thumbs up gesture to check on his condition. Because his grip around her waist was slowly weakening, she was growing more concerned over his condition.
He did not respond. She gently nudged him with her elbow, but again she received no reaction.
“Jonathan!” Marissa screamed futilely. In stealth even the communication system within their own helmets had been deactivated.
She knew something must have happened to him. They were so close to the cure. She just needed to keep him alive a little longer.
I have to land this thing. Jonathan needs immediate medical attention!
The Aegean contained numerous unmanned, tiny islands. She took the bike down, hoping to find one. Many were even too small to appear on the aero-bike’s satellite map.
Ahead, she could see a small outcropping of such islands. Mostly of rock and sand, one would suffice for a quick landing.
Marissa flew onto a pebbly shore and set down under a small patch of palm trees. The meager shade they provided would certainly be better than full exposure to the mid-day sun. She threw off her helmet and gently lowered Jonathan down from the bike to the edge of a tree. His body felt like Jell-O and went limp in her arms.
“Jonathan,” she said, removing his helmet.
He jerked violently and began foaming at the mouth. He let out a loud groan as his body contorted in a seizure.
The New Reality Page 23