The Extinction Files: The Complete Series, page 66
Chapter 6
In the memory, Desmond sat in his office, staring out the window at Sand Hill Road, watching cyclists pass, dressed in expensive gear, pedaling hard as the drizzling rain began. It was the fall of 2003, and the dot-com crash was still fresh in investors’ minds. Funding was scarce. Venture capitalists asked tougher questions—and more of them. Drive-by investing, as it was called, had gone the way of the dinosaur. Those left were the cautious, methodical investors like Desmond. He did his research. And he never gave up on the causes he believed in.
A knock on the glass door drew his attention.
Yuri Pachenko stood impassively, his expression blank as usual. Without a word, he turned and walked out of the office.
Desmond grabbed his raincoat and followed.
They drove north on Interstate 280, both sitting in silence, watching the green rolling hills turn to strip malls, office buildings, and apartment complexes. The rain picked up as they got closer to San Francisco. The city was like a virus spreading south from the Golden Gate Bridge, transforming any housing that was even remotely dated into something shiny and new. And more expensive. Housing was increasingly out of reach for many who worked in the city.
Yuri took the exit for Highway 1, and they drove past block after block of homes packed into every square inch of space. Garages took up ground floors, with living areas stacked two and three levels above, mini skyscrapers standing shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the street.
Campaign signs for Gavin Newsom hung in more than half the windows, and stickers adorned the bumpers of most cars. There were even more signs for the gubernatorial recall, some in support of Governor Gray Davis, others for one of the replacement candidates, mostly Democratic candidate Cruz Bustamante. A banner hanging from the awning at a Flyers gas station simply read Hasta La Vista Baby—indicating support of Arnold Schwarzenegger. The signs reminded Desmond of their Terminator jokes at SciNet, and his initial encounter with the Citium and their front company, Rapture Therapeutics.
The Golden Gate Bridge spread out in the distance, its two red towers standing proud as the sun set over the Pacific. Fog was drifting in from the sea, creeping toward the bridge like an avalanche in slow motion.
Yuri took the winding road through Golden Gate Park into the Presidio. But instead of continuing toward the bridge, he exited onto 101 South, into the marina district. Alcatraz Island loomed in the bay. A ferry carrying tourists was departing, another arriving.
When he turned onto Lombard Street, Yuri finally spoke.
“The world is not as it seems, Desmond.” He stared through the windshield, and Desmond thought the older man was going to elaborate, but he simply drove on in silence.
At Russian Hill, Yuri turned left toward Fisherman’s Wharf. Ghirardelli Square was packed with tourists out for the night, shopping and heading to dinner, consulting maps, and huddling under umbrellas and racing for cover as the drizzling rain turned into a downpour.
Yuri nodded toward the crowd. “Do you know the difference between us and them?”
The car came to a stop. The pitter-patter of rain grew louder by the second, making Yuri’s soft voice seem almost far away. “We are awake. We sense the truth: that something is deeply wrong with the world.”
Yuri pulled back into the street, driving slowly by the crowds. They passed the Argonaut Hotel, the Cannery Shopping Center, and Anchorage Square. He parked again outside Pier 39, the tourist hot spot where the bars, restaurants, and stores were packed.
“Deep down, they know it too. The feeling ebbs and flows. Some events cover it up for a time: you fall in love, you get a new job, you win the game. You think that’s all you needed, that the feeling will go away, but it doesn’t. It returns, again and again. Our species has become exceedingly adept at covering up the feeling. We work ourselves to death. We buy things. We go to parties and ball games. We laugh, shout, and cheer—and worse, we fight, and argue, and say things we don’t mean. Alcohol and drugs quiet the most acute episodes. But we are constantly keeping the beast at bay. Underneath it all, our subconscious is crying out for help. For a solution—a cure for the root problem. We’re all suffering from the same thing.”
“Which is?”
“We’ve been told that it’s simply the human condition.” Yuri turned to face Desmond. “But that’s not true. Our problem is really very simple: the world is not as it seems.”
“Then what is it?”
“Science gives you one answer. Religious texts offer countless others. But the human population is slowly tiring of those answers. They are starting not to believe. They are awakening—and that awakening will soon tear the world apart. It will be a catastrophe with no equal.” Yuri paused to take a slow, deep breath. “But we can stop it, Desmond. We offer an answer to the question that has haunted us forever. And a solution. Our fix isn’t quick. It won’t be easy to build. Those of us in our… group—”
“The Citium.”
“Yes. We’ve been trying to solve this problem for a long time.”
Desmond’s heart beat faster. “What’s your solution?”
“When you’re ready.”
If Desmond’s life had taught him anything, it was that nothing was truly free. There was always a catch. He was sitting in that car because Yuri wanted him there—because Yuri wanted something from him.
“Why me? What do you want from me?”
A hint of a smile crossed Yuri’s lips. “Two reasons. First, as I said, you’re awake. If one of those people out there were sitting in this car, and I said what I just said, they would have laughed and walked away. But you know what I’m telling you is true. The world is not as it seems.”
“And the second reason?”
“Is one you’ve likely already guessed.”
“You need me.”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“Your skills. I think you are uniquely qualified to construct one of the components of our solution.”
“The Looking Glass.”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“All in good time. There’s still a lot you need to learn.”
“Such as?”
“If you want to join the Citium, you must first see the human race as it truly is. You must confront the truths we bury.” Yuri paused again. “This is not a part-time job or a hobby, Desmond. You must commit fully. And once you do, there’s no turning back. Do you understand?”
Desmond’s mind flashed to the bushfires in Australia, to the day he rushed into the fire that burned his family home and killed his family. And he thought of the day he learned that his uncle was dead, the day Dale Epply came to rob him. On both days, he had decided to act. He had chosen to wade into the fire in Australia. He had turned and fought Dale, killed him to save himself. Both decisions, both actions, marked points of no return.
He knew that this moment was like that, too. And once again, he had no hesitation. He knew what he had to do.
“I’ll give you some time to think about it.”
“I don’t need any time.”
Yuri pulled away from the curb. He took the Embarcadero out of Fisherman’s Wharf. The hotels, restaurants, and shops were replaced by skyscrapers and parking decks as they moved toward the financial district and the Bay Bridge.
Yuri parked the car in a deck under a tall, steel-and-glass building that Desmond found unremarkable. It had a CVS and a Banana Republic clothing store on the ground floor and two empty retail spaces. They got out of the car, and Desmond scanned the directory outside the elevator. Rapture Therapeutics was on the fourteenth floor.
To his surprise, Yuri inserted a key card in the slot and hit the button for the twenty-fifth floor.
The elevator opened onto a marble-floored lobby with wooden double doors. Yuri placed his hand on a palm reader by the doors, and they swung open.
A slender woman in a black business suit sat behind a raised reception desk. There was no logo on the wall or descriptor of any kind. She smiled at Yuri. “Good evening, sir.”
“Good evening, Jennifer. I’d like you to meet Desmond Hughes.”
She rose and shook his hand.
“Desmond will be staying with us for a while.”
“Welcome.”
“Thanks,” Desmond said, looking around, still not sure what this place was.
Yuri led him down a hall that ended in a tiny lobby with four doors. Yuri drew another card from his pocket, swiped it across a pad by one of the doors, and pushed it open.
Inside was an apartment with modern furnishings. The living room had a breathtaking view of the bay. There was a single bedroom, a study, and a well-appointed kitchen.
“This is home now.”
Desmond nodded absently. “Is this…”
“A hotel of sorts. The top three floors are condos. We own them all.”
Desmond tried to put the pieces together. “I’ll be working at Rapture?”
“No.”
Yuri led Desmond out of the apartment, back down the hall, and past the reception desk. With both hands he slid open a set of pocket doors, revealing the most impressive room Desmond had ever seen.
Desmond wandered inside, staring, unable to speak. Behind him, he heard the doors close.
“I thought you’d like this.”
The library was three stories tall, with a spiral staircase in the corner that led to a horseshoe-shaped balcony on two levels. At the opposite end, a three-story wall of glass provided a view of the bay. The last rays of sunlight were clinging to Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge like seaweed being pulled out with the tide. Long reading tables with glowing lamps sat empty.
“It starts here,” Yuri said softly.
“What?”
“Your education.” Yuri walked to the window. “Your real education.”
“How?”
“With a question.” Yuri faced him. “I will ask you three questions. Each will reveal another layer of truth.”
“The truth about what?”
“The human race. You must understand the problem before we solve it. The answers are in this room.”
Desmond scanned the shelves. Science and history books. Biographies. And tomes with no markings at all. In the corner, he spotted a computer on a podium. A digital catalog?
He smirked. “So once I read all these books, I’ll know?”
Ignoring his levity, Yuri replied seriously. “It wouldn’t help.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t know what you’re looking for.”
“What am I looking for?”
“The answer to a very strange mystery.” Yuri walked to a world map and pointed to Africa. “Six million years ago, an ape was born in Africa. We know one thing for certain about her: she had more than one child. Every human is descended from one of those children. And every chimpanzee is descended from another one of her children. Incredible, isn’t it? Our last common ancestor with chimps lived six million years ago, yet our genomes are 98.8 percent the same. After millions of years, only 1.2 percent of the genome has diverged. It tells you what an incredible difference just a small number of genes can make.”
He studied the map. “The story gets stranger from there. Two and a half million years ago, the first humans appeared—the first members of the genus Homo. Also in Africa. They hung around for about half a million years, then began exploring. Eurasia first, then Europe and Asia.
“Neanderthals evolved half a million years ago—in Europe we believe. They eventually migrated to Asia, where they lived beside Homo erectus for hundreds of thousands of years, perhaps even using similar stone tools to hunt the same game.
“Our particular human species evolved two hundred thousand years ago—again in Africa. Think about it: at the time, there are other human species all over Europe and Asia. These other early humans have survived for two million years. We are the upstart. At first, we seem unremarkable. The order of the world continues.
“Where things begin to get interesting is about seventy thousand years ago. We change—we develop some sort of advantage. A small band of humans treks out of Africa—and proceeds to take over this planet like no species ever has before. Every other human species dies out. The megafauna fall. We remake the world. But perhaps the most extraordinary event happens forty-five thousand years ago—in your homeland.”
“Australia.”
“Yes. Before then, no human species had ever set foot on the continent of Australia. And for good reason. It was isolated, separated from all other landmasses by a minimum of sixty miles of open sea—and that’s if you had a map, and knew which islands to hop to and which direction to take.”
Yuri pointed to a small island in the Solomon Sea, on the eastern edge of Papua New Guinea. “Buka Island. Separated by over a hundred and twenty miles of open sea. Human remains have been found there that are thirty thousand years old. Think about that: a group of humans, thirty to forty thousand years ago, with the ability to make boats and navigate over vast distances of open sea. At that time, it would have been the most advanced invention in history; they would have been on the cutting edge. It would have been like a country landing on the moon in the 1700s—while the rest of the world was exploring in wooden boats.”
Desmond studied the map. “So what’s the mystery?”
“The mystery,” Yuri said, “is what happened to them.”
Desmond waited.
“Forty-five thousand years ago, they were on the leading edge of the human species. Light years ahead. Yet when the Dutch arrived in Australia in 1606, their descendants were primitives, hunter-gatherers. They hadn’t even invented agriculture, or writing.
“Your first question, Desmond, is: What happened to them?”
* * *
In the van off Sand Hill Road, Conner sat watching the heart rate monitor. The rhythm had stabilized in the last few minutes.
“What was that?”
Dr. Park looked up from his laptop. “I assume we just saw his physiological reaction to regaining a memory.”
“So he has the memory now?”
Park held up his hands. “I don’t know.”
“Why not?”
“Well, because I’ve never done this, for one. I’m monitoring his brain waves. He’s definitely in REM.”
“REM?”
“Rapid Eye Movement. It’s a sleep stage where we see alpha and beta brain wave patterns and desynchronous waves—”
“I’m not here for a brain wave lecture. Tell me what’s going on with him.”
“REM is a unique sleep stage. The body is effectively paralyzed. It’s the stage where we have vivid, story-like dreams. The only dreams we remember occur during this period.”
“So you think the memory is literally playing out like a dream he’s going to remember?”
“That’s my assumption. It seems logical. The implant could simulate dreaming—it would be a good way for the brain to regain the memory. It already understands that process.”
“So you’ll know when the memory ends?”
“Conceivably. If we see a change in brain waves, I think it’s safe to assume the memory has unspooled.”
“Good. Let me know when the credits roll, Doctor.”
Conner would have to drug his brother and interrogate him later—discover what he learned. Hopefully the key to finding Rendition was in this memory.
Through the window, he watched two armored troop carriers barrel down Sand Hill Road, east toward Stanford and Palo Alto. A minute later, three Humvees led a convoy of medium tactical vehicles loaded with troops, who peered out the back, past the canvas flaps, their automatic rifles in their laps.
The collapse of the internet was doing exactly what Conner needed: causing chaos. That would buy him some time.
Chapter 7
Peyton squinted at the bright helmet light and held up a hand to block the beam.
The SEAL stepped into the cramped office, toward Peyton and her mother. His mouth was moving, but no sound broadcasted over the comm line.
Lin raised a hand to her helmet, changed channels, and began speaking.
Peyton also switched back to channel one.
“… just got through,” the technician said.
“Good.” Lin’s voice was emotionless.
“Should we proceed to the next office?”
“Negative. Seal the office you just opened per SOPs and prepare for departure. We’re done here for now.”
The SEAL stepped out of the office and disappeared back down the passageway.
Lin turned her helmet, stared at Peyton, and held up four gloved fingers. Peyton switched channels again.
“Can we proceed?”
Peyton studied her mother’s slightly lined face. “What does it do? Your Looking Glass. The Rabbit Hole.”
“It’s very hard to describe—”
“Will it hurt anyone?”
Lin looked pained at the question. “No. It’s not like that.”
“What is it like?”
“It will change our theory of everything.”
Like most children, Peyton had grown up taking her mother’s word as fact. Usually, Lin Shaw’s pronouncements were the final word on matters. Peyton hadn’t been a rebellious teenager; she was the quiet one, her nose always in a book or playing alone. She wasn’t used to conflict. That’s one of the things that drew her to epidemiology. Viruses and bacteria hurt people, but they were microscopic. The fight wasn’t large and in your face, but it mattered. A lot.
Yet here and now, she felt that she had to press her mother. She needed to know that what they were doing mattered—and that it would do what her mother promised. “Will it stop Yuri and the Citium?”
“If I’m right, it will neutralize him.”
“And will it help me find Desmond?”
“No. But I will. I promise you that, Peyton. I know what he means to you. I know what it’s like to lose the love of your life to circumstances you can’t control.”
The reference to Peyton’s father brought a pang of sadness. Her mother didn’t waver though.
