by Shanon Hunt
She closed her eyes and prayed to God again. She hadn’t been to church in a while, but God wouldn’t abandon her. The lord wouldn’t cast off his people. She believed it. She could feel his presence. She silently recited a Bible passage from memory. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death—
“We have company.” It came from the driver, maybe Luke, but she wasn’t sure. She’d already forgotten which voice was his.
She opened her eyes but didn’t move.
“Private or G-man?”
“Nah. Bloodhound. Probably a freelancer.”
She didn’t understand their jargon, but she gathered that they were being followed. Maybe someone would rescue her. Or maybe not. She didn’t much care.
“Pit stop?”
“Yeah.”
The passenger-side escort picked up his phone. “Vehicle maintenance required.” He disconnected and turned to speak to her, something they only did when delivering instructions. “Ms. Stevens, we’ll be changing vehicles in a few minutes. Until we assist you, please remain in your seat.”
She had no intention of doing otherwise, but she shifted slightly and rubbed her arms and hands until the blood flow returned. Another fifteen or twenty minutes passed before the SUV slowed, presumably exiting the highway. The truck came to a stop, and both men stepped out of the vehicle. From her horizontal position, she saw the driver, Luke, lean back against the door and light a cigarette.
Another minute passed before he called out, “Huh? What’s that?”
Silence. Then: “Nah, brah, never heard of her.”
She couldn’t hear who he was addressing.
“Sure, man, knock yourself out.”
A stocky middle-aged man with a full beard stepped up to the car and peered down at her through the backseat window. He didn’t wear a police uniform, but an ID tag hung from his neck. She couldn’t read it.
“Ma’am?” His eyes widened as he scrutinized her.
She must have looked half dead, her skin dry and her hair tangled and matted. She moved ever so slightly to lift herself up. Her arms felt heavy and weak.
The bearded man didn’t open the door or say another word. His face froze as if he were looking at a ghost.
She made it to one elbow. “Help.” No sound came out, just a raspy exhale.
He moved closer to the window, as though trying to get a better look at her. Then, to her horror, he lurched forward, spewing blood across the windshield before his face smashed into it. She gasped and recoiled. His eyes remained locked on her as his nose and forehead slid down the window and out of sight. She whimpered, but again it came out as barely a whisper.
The opposite rear door opened, and she pulled herself into a ball, her arms wrapped around her knees. She closed her eyes tightly.
“Time to go.”
In one fluid motion, she was lifted out of the car as if she were no bigger than a child. They carried her to another vehicle and set her down in the back seat. She kept her eyes closed through it all, still balled up in fetal position, as three doors closed and the engine started.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare—
“Our apologies for the unpleasant scene.”
—a table before me in the presence of my enemies—
“We’ll divert to back roads for the rest of the trip, to reduce the risk of being discovered.”
She covered her ears with her hands. Now she’d lost her place in the scripture.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want …
Chapter 68
The day had finally arrived, and Austin felt like a kid in a candy store. He looked around the large conference room, trying to add in his head the total net worth of the twenty-five people standing within twenty feet of him, but the excitement of the day, this whole event, was dizzying and he couldn’t figure out how many zeros and commas that would be. Not to mention the political power. He was starstruck to see the legendary General Harding, one of just a handful of five-star generals retired from the US Army, in conversation with Hammond barely ten feet away.
Jonathan Chambers must’ve read his mind as he came up behind Austin. “Sure is a lot of money in this room, Harry.” It was a pet name he’d given Austin their first year at UCLA, when they’d met as lab partners in microbial science.
“I used to think I was in the elite group.” Austin grinned and excused himself to get a glass of champagne. A little social lubrication was definitely necessary.
He glanced up from his glass to see a tall, elegant older woman approaching. The way she held herself brought a single word to mind: well-bred. She looked the way he’d always pictured Jackie would look ten or twenty years from now, someone who’d never had to work for anything her whole life. He wondered whose silver spoon she’d grown up eating from. The Koch family? The Rockefellers?
As she neared him, his eyes practically bugged out of his head. “Maddy?”
“Hello, Austin.” She gave him a warm hug.
He reciprocated, but then held her at arm’s length so that he could look at her.
“Wow.” It was all he could think of to say. He might as well have been looking at a ghost.
She waved her hand dismissively. “Where does the time go, right? We haven’t seen each other in, what, a couple of years?”
“Jesus. You look amazing.”
“It must be this gorgeous desert air.”
He glanced over at Hammond, who excused himself from General Harding and strode toward them.
Austin raised a hand. “Stewart, I’d like you to meet—”
“Madeline Barnett. Hello, sweetheart. You look great! Not a day older than fifty.”
Austin shuffled back a step as Hammond moved in. “You’ve met.”
Hammond laughed and leaned conspiratorially toward her. “He thinks he’s the only one with connections to influential people.”
There it was, that haughtiness Austin had come to despise in their short time together. He felt his expression harden.
Hammond stood back and admired her face and body. “Austin, this was the anti-aging elixir, right?”
“That’s right. Maddy was the first. The gene modifications could theoretically add twenty years to her life.”
“Amazing. Why aren’t we all on this?”
Madeline chimed in. “Well, in my humble nonmedical experience, it’s the Vitality Spa that makes the real difference. Most women will pay almost anything for youthfulness over longevity. I mean, who wants to live forever with wrinkles and arthritis?”
Austin grimaced. He wished she hadn’t mentioned the Vitality Spa. It was a point of contention between Hammond and himself, a conversation they’d never finished due to Hammond’s childishly short fuse. He’d been surprised by Hammond’s revulsion when he’d first shown him the Vitality program. What was the point of developing a purpose-bred, pain-desensitized unit of juveniles if not for this type of experimentation?
Hammond’s smile returned, but he could tell it was forced. “Well, it certainly does produce remarkable results. You’re the youngest seventy-year-old I’ve ever met.”
Madeline chuckled. “Heli-skiing Davos is totally worth every penny. And it’s seventy-six, next month. But don’t tell anyone.” She winked a wrinkle-free eye.
She draped her arm through Hammond’s and they moved off into the room. Austin watched them curiously. The two of them together could charm anyone, and he felt out of his league. He walked over to the refreshment table and poured himself a second glass of champagne. It wasn’t his custom to drink before giving a talk, but he needed something to calm his nerves. This was not a typical presentation.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Hammond said, his voice raised, “shal
l we get started?”
The room hushed as everyone found the seat with their name card. Austin took a long swallow of bubbly and left the glass on the refreshment table. He took his seat at the end of the long cherrywood table, opposite Hammond.
“Good morning and welcome to the Vitapura Wellness Center. If you would kindly power off your phones, I’d be grateful. We have a lot of important stuff to discuss, and we don’t need anyone butt-dialing his kid’s teacher or the pizza delivery guy while we’re planning the next phase of humanity.”
Everyone laughed.
“Okay, okay. I know you’re all just as excited as I am that this day has finally arrived. Our project has been years in the works, and I’d like to thank you all for your support. Not just the financial backing, but your encouragement and ideas, your help discovering and facilitating advancements at various sites around the world, and mostly your dedication to what we’re trying to build.”
Austin looked at the nods around the table. He wondered if they all knew about his Colony. Had they spied on him? How accessible was his Colony to the outside world? Maybe he wasn’t as thorough with security as he thought. No doubt Hammond would have something to say about it.
“With that, let’s get on with it. I’d like to start off today with my highest vision. Many of you have suffered my bloviating about this, probably over cigars and scotch, but it may be new to others of you. Then I’ll hand it over to Austin to discuss his impressive work here in Arizona.”
Hammond picked up his controller and pushed back from the table. As he stood up, the lighting dimmed and a holographic projector hanging from the ceiling above the table whirred softly.
“Our story is one of evolution. It begins here.”
Gasps and cries filled the room as a full-size ancient human dropped from above and landed with a crash on the table in front of them. He stood up from his crouched landing position and looked from one person to the next, like he was studying them. His physique was stocky and muscular, though he must’ve been only about five feet tall. He wore an animal skin draped over his hairy torso but no shoes, revealing callused, hobbit-like feet. His face was covered with a thick black beard that matched his matted hair and extended down his neck and across his chest and back. His beady eyes were wrinkled from sun exposure, and his mouth turned downward in a frown.
He evidently decided he didn’t like what saw and raised his spear like he was warning everyone to back off. Several people responded by pushing their chairs back a few inches. The ancient man strutted to the end of the table, leaped over Hammond with a cry, and disappeared into thin air.
Everyone applauded. Austin read the childish delight on Hammond’s face, even though he himself found 3-D holographic technology to be cheesy—computer graphics straight from Jurassic Park running through a $100,000 projector with surround sound audio. Their vision was far too important to be summarized by a Disney cartoon, yet Hammond had insisted. Austin was embarrassed and annoyed. This was a waste of time.
“That was Winston,” Hammond said above the excited chatter. “He’s a Cro-Magnon from about thirty thousand years ago, the first Homo sapiens sapiens, evolving from Africa and soon spreading to every continent across the planet.”
He splayed his arms dramatically. Austin rolled his eyes.
“When you consider the harsh world Winston and his family had to survive and adapt to over the course of thousands of years, you start to understand our early genetic makeup a little better. It makes sense that we’re genetically programmed toward these ancient phenotypes. I mean, if we weren’t predisposed to not just survive but proliferate, we wouldn’t be here to pat our early ancestors on the back, would we?”
Amid oohs and ahs, Winston returned to the table, walked to the edge, sat down, and crawled off the table, where he appeared to sit right on Hammond’s lap.
Hammond mimed patting the hologram on the back. “Great job, Winston.”
The group laughed as Winston disappeared. The hologram projector turned off, and the room brightened again.
“But look around the room now,” Hammond said. “Not one of us has ever fought a tiger. We’ve learned how to avoid tornadoes and floods. And while there are still starving people in the world, most countries have an abundance of food. Thanks to genetic science, food becomes more plentiful every day.
“But our genetic predispositions haven’t evolved much in those thirty thousand years. We’re still driven by our brainstems, looking for tigers to fight. We still have a tribal mentality—us versus them, however you personally define the other guys. We still rely on aggression when we feel threatened. Our fight-or-flight instinct is as strong as it’s always been, yet our innate intelligence hasn’t evolved one bit. We exist as cavemen in a world so high-tech that artificial intelligence will soon easily surpass us. It’s just a matter of time.”
Austin marveled at the glistening, starry eyes of every tribal human around the table. They would all stand in Hammond’s camp to wage war against anyone who tried to stop them. Religious zealots who preferred to put the future of the human race in the hands of an invisible asshole in the sky. Liberal snowflakes who couldn’t accept the suffering of one person even if it stopped the suffering of millions. And pompous bureaucrats who slowed innovation and progress because they were too lazy and too stupid to keep up with it. Yes, they would be at war—because tribalism was still very real.
“The speed at which we’ll reach our inevitable demise is moving at the speed of technological advances. Here we are, with our Cro-Magnon DNA, now operating in a world where destruction is lightning fast. Imagine Winston with a fully automatic assault rifle. Imagine Winston with his finger on the nuclear button.”
“Some might say we already have a Winston with his finger on the nuclear button,” called out a participant Austin thought of as the Marlboro Man. Jack Downs was a billionaire oil tycoon with significant political influence—probably the reason the president had been elected in the first place.
“Exactly my point, Jack.” Hammond shook his head. “We don’t have to imagine anything at all. Just turn on the TV news. Look at the destruction and the hate, countries fighting for power over each other instead of working together to make the world better.”
More nods from the meeting participants.
Hammond turned to Steve Bridges, CEO of Ageant Technologies. “But don’t worry, Steve, I’m not saying technology is the problem. Technology has significantly improved the lives and longevity of humans.”
“Whew.” Bridges pretended to wipe sweat from his brow, which elicited some chuckles. “Thought I was going to need a career change there for a moment.”
Hammond stood up and pushed his chair under the table.
“And this brings us to the reason we’ve gathered today, to initiate our vision of directed human evolution by means of genetic engineering.”
Austin loved the sound of it. It was such a simple, practical solution to the most important challenge humans faced: the survival of the species.
Hammond paced the room, seemingly too excited to stand still. “Think about it. Over seven billion people occupy this planet. The earth is shrinking under the weight of overpopulation. As its resources are depleted, our survival instincts force us to react, not think. We all lived through the recent financial crisis, right? People fleeing from a threat to their financial security—a reaction that wasn’t in the best interest of individuals or society.”
Hammond shook his head like he really was thinking about it. Austin had to hand it to him. He was a great performer.
“Are we getting smarter? Relative to our advancements, no. Bump stocks have allowed gunfire to become faster than our brains can register what we’re shooting at. Have we become more thoughtful, more action-oriented when it comes to competing for resources? Nope. Look at the oil wars, right, Jack? And the destructive effects of superstition. Holy wars and radical jihadists. Tribalism. Hate crimes and segregation.”
The group murmured in agreement.
“We are fundamentally flawed, and humanity will not achieve evolutionary success if we continue on this path. I’d like to change that.”
“Is this about eugenics?” Jonathan asked with a smirk. “I believe it’s been tried before, with a less than optimal outcome.”
Hammond laughed. “Are you asking if I’m the new Adolf Hitler? Not at all. In fact, I believe all historical efforts at creating a master race have been clumsy and profoundly misdirected. Skin color, facial features, religious beliefs? These are just tribal identities that have absolutely nothing to do with genetic perfection.”
Jonathan actually looked nervous. His eyes darted around the room, trying to gauge everyone’s reaction to what Hammond was saying. Austin wished he’d briefed his friend ahead of the meeting.
“Hitler was an egomaniac. His barbaric plan was ridiculously dumb, and even worse, his approach was shortsighted. Mass extermination of people with his idea of undesirable traits? How would that benefit the human race? How would it improve our chances of surviving as a species?” Hammond spoke without emotion, and Austin wondered if his concerns lay with the ethics of the Holocaust or merely the stupidity of it.
“Negative eugenics is not the answer. I have no interest in mass extermination or forced sterilization. What I’m talking about is a way to fix the genetic flaws that have formed our species into what it is today, and which—if left alone—will be the cause of our demise.”
“So what,” Jonathan asked, “you’re interested in eliminating genes related to tribalism and violence from the gene pool?”
“Ah, no again.” Hammond smiled. “Change the concept of eugenics from negative action to positive action. What do you get?”
“You’re introducing positive genes into the gene pool?”
“Exactly!” Hammond appeared as delighted as if he’d just broken through to Helen Keller.
General Harding threw his hands in the air, completely exasperated, and looked around the room for help.
