Triorion Omnibus
Page 142
Are those her lymph nodes? Jetta wondered, seeing the bulges along her jawline. Realizing what that could mean, she pushed the thought aside.
“Huh,” Jaeia continued, “it looks like Ramak did visit Josef Stein’s lab—several times... and received some kind of annotated Smart Cell treatments. Some didn’t go very well, but it’s documented here that he made a ‘full recovery’ by 2050. Looks like Josef gave him a whole new set of skin.”
“Can you bring up any pictures?”
“No,” Jaeia said, tapping the keyboard with increasing frustration. “So much of these archives have been destroyed or lost.”
“Oh my Gods!” Jaeia exclaimed.
“What?”
“A letter... from our father.”
Holding on tightly to the armrest, Jetta read the letter.
Dated: July 2, 2047
[Encoded message] KEYSTROKE dakee.1236.2kd.pp.910312
>filter<
To: Dr. Josef Stein, Director of Nanotechnic Research and Engineering
From: K. Kyron, Rep. District 1
Subject: Redemption
Dear Dr. Stein,
My wife, Ariya Ohakn, and I work for a non-profit group called Cause For Earth. Even though the media groups would have you believe that our organization is nothing more than a bunch of hippie, Earth-loving fanatics out to protest the government, we are actually a worldwide collective of concerned citizens who are interested in our planet’s welfare. Our mission is to save and rebuild what we can after the nuclear strikes of ‘45. We have been able to contract several private firms into constructing “lifeboats” in the event that our planet becomes uninhabitable, but ultimately, if a disaster like that struck, it would not be enough for us to survive.
We are aware of the medical work that you and your son, Kurt, are doing for the World Peace Alliance, and are also aware of what the government is asking you to do with your Smart Cells. We know that you are an ethical practitioner, Dr. Stein, and that you would never violate the fundamental laws of nature, even for the sake of the war.
Because of our faith in you, we are interested in providing private funding to help further your research in the Smart Cells’ macrobiological reconstruction, as well as your son’s work in genetic archiving with the “Ark.” We do this not only in hopes of rebuilding this planet if this war destroys her, but in creating new worlds and spreading across the stars.
My wife and I firmly believe that the human race is capable of so much more than what our government dictates. We believe in evolution, and in enlightenment, and that within our world lies the key to unlocking the wealth of possibilities implicit in our existence.
You’ll find a small token of our faith in a bank account in the Upper Caribbean; the number is encrypted in the file tag. Please contact us as soon as possible. We are growing concerned about the “Doomsday” movement calling for human extinction. We cannot allow their hatred to pervade the masses.
Sincerely,
Rep. Kovan Kyron
P.S. My wife has two degrees in computer programming and engineering, as well as a love for genetics and human biology, and has followed your career for the last decade with much enthusiasm. I think meeting you would be the highlight of her career.
“That’s how it all began,” Jetta said, realizing how her parents had connected with the infamous Josef Stein.
“But how did it fall apart?” Jaeia posed. “How did a man like Josef, who had the faith of our parents, and in mankind, come to destroy the Earth?”
Jaeia highlighted the next letter.
Dated:July 13, 2047
To: Dr. K. Stein, World Genetic Archiving Project
From:Dr. J. Stein, Director of Nanotechnic Research and Engineering
Subject:
Kurt—
I must be brief; there is little time. It seems as if I am once again changing employers. My new office will be in New Berlin, somewhere undisclosed. I will have very little access to outside communications as I test run this next series of Smart Cells. If you need to contact me, send communications to Dr. Ramak Yakarvoah; he can be trusted. In fact, I am hoping to collaborate with him on a few projects. I know neither you nor your mother have ever liked him, but have a little faith.
Please send me updates about the Ark. Your work is inspirational.
Love,
Dad
“Here,” Jetta said, pointing to the text. “Look at this article.”
As she read the text, Jetta heard her sister following along in the back of her head. Kurt and Edina Stein, kidnapped and murdered! United Peoples Republic accused of orchestrating the assassination! Dated: September 3, 2051.
Jetta brought up the attached picture.
How do I know her? she thought, trying to place the familiar face of the blonde-haired, Germanic woman. Bending over to get a closer look, she thought she heard a voice whisper in her ear.
“What did you say?”
Jaeia shrugged. “Er, nothing?”
Shaking her head, Jetta went back to the download. “Josef Stein went into hiding after his wife and son were murdered. It says here that he was briefly admitted to a mental hospital in Amsterdam, but was later transferred to a remote location near the old Russian border. The UPR President was killed two weeks later. Ramak was a prime suspect, but it looks as if Josef Stein was eventually accused. Jeez, a ten billion dollar bounty was put on his head.”
Intrigued, she moved on to the letter that was sent right after the article was published.
Dated: September 25, 2051
To: Edina Stein (UNDELIVERABLE_ERROR)
From: Dr. J. Stein
Subject:
My Edina—
I am lost without you.
—Josef
“Oh my Gods,” Jaeia said, highlighting another letter. “Look at this.”
To: Ramak Yakarvoah
From:
Dated: October 31, 2051
Subject: Our Great Debate
You were right.
—J.S.
“Yeah, Stein went crazy,” Jetta said.
“And look at these,” Jaeia said, pulling up old video recordings of Ramak’s underground speeches to his Doomsday followers. “Ramak had already been sowing the seeds of mayhem.”
Covered by a black mask and robe, Ramak held his hands up high as a swaying crowd of semi-naked people chanted his name, their flesh raw and ribbed with the marks of their self-flagellations.
“...without hope, there is total freedom. Open your eyes, let them burn in the dead light of our wickedness, and submit yourself to the wrath of chaos.”
Jetta froze. The speech pattern, the syntax—the inflection.
(No, it couldn’t be...)
She was glad when Jaeia switched the feed.
“Another series of letters between Ramak and Victor,” Jaeia said, pulling up their correspondence during the same time period as the Doomsday leader’s first preachings. “Something changed between them...”
Dated: [ERROR.log.231%d.c]
To: V. Paulstine [msg#“failure to deliver”]
From: R. Yakarvoah
Subject:[file.corruption.^D9211]
Mr. Paulstine—
I have no further business with you. You underestimated what I could do with this new skin. Now I have a following—an army. I have no need for your continued assistance.
—R. Yakarvoah
“This looks like the response,” Jaeia said, biting her lip as she tried to filter the letter. “But the file is heavily corrupted. I can only decode fragments of this message.”
Electronic message: failure
Mr. Yakarvoah—
Clearly you misunderstand the nature of our relationship.
—your new skin does not hide—
—but you are quite the Sportive Lunatic.
I look forwar
d to our final meeting.
—(unreadable)
“Why was ‘Sportive Lunatic’ capitalized?” Jetta wondered aloud. “Hey, call me crazy, but from these letters it doesn’t seem like Victor was a disciple of Ramak. It seems like the other way around.”
“I know,” Jaeia said, staring at the letter. “I didn’t expect that.”
Sensing her sister’s array of emotions, Jetta squirmed in her seat. “Okay, so what happened next?”
“From looking at this timeline,” Jaeia said, studying the Alliance historical database, “it looks like Ramak Yakarvoah went missing for three weeks just after this letter was sent. It caused a panic within the Doomsday group, and some of his most devoted followers started rioting in the Eastern Sector. Ramak resurfaced just a day before Kurt and Edina Stein’s kidnapping. That’s when he delivered his most infamous speech.”
Jaeia turned up the volume of the audio recording.
“We need to rid the world of lesser beings, flawed creations, these wretched, filthy abominations that pollute the soil, foul the air, and destroy everything that is pure. Only by extinction can we hope to mend this spoiled world. Only by sacrifice, by submitting to the blinding truth of what we are and devouring our feeble conscience can we hope to redeem ourselves. Open your eyes to the putrid existence we have created. Open your eyes and let your soul burn.”
“Gods, turn it off!” Jetta said, muffling her ears. She hated his voice, the way he spat every word, the way the sounds cut into her like shards of glass. Even over a taped recording and centuries past, his aggression, his rage, drove into her with unnatural intensity.
“Sorry,” Jaeia said between breaths as she clicked off the sound. She held her sister’s hand for a moment, grounding them both in the present. “That was awful.”
Running a hand through her hair, Jetta collected herself as best she could. “Keep going—we don’t have time.”
“Alright—this letter from Josef came right after Ramak’s speech,” Jaeia said, highlighting the message.
To: R. Yakarvoah
From:
Subject: The New Batch
Dated: December 17, 2051
They will burn.
—J.S.
Jetta gritted her teeth as something bubbled up from the depths of her. Invasive and heavy, the foreign thing crawled through her intestines and pushed its way into her throat. She gagged, clawing at her neck until the words came rushing out in a confusing, strangulated heap:
“He thought... they were dead... no hope. No hope,” she cried.
“Who?” Jaeia said, holding her by the shoulders.
“Kurt... Edina. Ramak... infected Josef... with rage. He thought his employers... had betrayed him. He thought everyone—the world—had turned against him. He couldn’t see anymore...”
“Couldn’t see what?”
“A reason,” Jetta croaked, “to believe. Ramak was there, always there, whispering in his ear, driving him madder and madder, urging him to make a new Smart Cell, a deadly one. One that would end humanity.”
“You mean the Necro plague—?”
“Yes—and then he convinced Josef to sell it to the enemies of the UPR. That’s when the war broke out. Ramak started the Last Great War.”
“Where did that come from?” Jaeia whispered, still holding onto her.
Slicking back her hair with sweaty palms, she tried to catch her breath. “I don’t know. It just hit me.”
A hushed moment passed between.
Even after all this time, I still don’t know how far my talents go, Jetta thought, unsure of how to feel.
Her sister shared her sentiment, but in light of their situation, chose to push them forward. “Let’s keep digging,” she said, pulling up a fragmented video file. “Look at this.”
Although her twin tried to compensate for digital age and data corruption, only a small portion of the video remained. Josef Stein appeared on the holographic projector in two dimensions, his face rendered in jagged blue and black lines.
“I am growing concerned... Ramak has been... plans to... kill me... nanite schematics not safe. It takes... fourteen years to develop... I can’t seem to... nobody can... understand the consequences of prolonged... exposure to the... regeneration cycle...”
The image zig-zagged, his face distorting at odd angles.
“...He knows that, with a little tweaking, my Smart Cells can... ageless regeneration. Others have tried before me, but I feel like I’ve... found the key to... extending life. Whether or not it is ethical... I can no longer answer... I am... lost.”
The video feed cut out.
Jetta snapped her fingers. “Have the techs finally uploaded the video from the recorder module I found on Old Earth?”
“Let’s look,” Jaeia said, crossing over to a new query. “Yes. Processing.”
Josef Stein appeared once again on the display, but this time his image had changed considerably.
Something’s wrong with him, Jetta thought. His olive skin had blanched, with gray and green splotches discoloring his lymphatic lines.
“What is that?” She zoomed in on the picture. “Is something... crawling under his skin?”
Sharing the same fear, they watched Josef Stein scratch away at his skin as little black specks traveled up his bulging vasculature.
“Dearest Kurt,” the video began. “I am ashamed of what I have become. I have let the devil inside me, let him make me believe in the worst mankind has to offer—the worst I have to offer. And now I’ve done something terrible. My employers told me they wanted my nanites to resurrect our fallen soldiers, but what they were secretly seeking was the key to eternal life. I warned them repeatedly of the consequences of messing with God’s work, but they ignored me, and so many suffered as a result.”
Cradling the stasis vial marked “Smart Cell Technology Series #117,” Josef mumbled something to himself and turned away from the camera.
“What’s he saying?”
“That’s as good as the audio gets,” Jaeia said.
“What about Series #117?” Jetta asked, pulling up the datanet link.
Reading into her sister’s thoughts, Jaeia cross-referenced with their classified files. “It looks like it was part of Stein’s experimental series for continuous cellular regeneration. All the records show that the subjects, mostly rich investors, went insane at some point during the trials, or years later.”
“So my revenge for your death, and the death of your mother, is giving them what they wanted,” Josef said, returning to the camera. “Or at least a version of it. I gave them prolonged death. That is what I unleashed upon the world.”
“That explains the Necros,” Jetta commented.
Josef wiped his eyes and ran a shaky hand through his stringy hair. Slowly, methodically, he removed his wedding band and set it in front of the video recorder. “It wasn’t until I held your mother in my arms that I realized I had been deceived, but by then it was too late. I had killed her and all the others with my latest creations, and with that, I lost the last of my hope.”
“What is he doing?” Jetta asked as they watched him fold and press a piece of paper in front of the camera. In a matter of seconds he transformed a square of paper into an origami crane. Jetta remembered finding the flattened bird among the contents of the envelope from the underground vault.
Josef Stein held the white bird up in front of the recorder. “You used to love these, Kurt. I made a new one every day for you when you were little. This one is for you, too. Please forgive me for all that I have done. I wanted to save the world from pain and suffering, and now I have sealed it in eternal decay. If you are out there... if I haven’t killed you, too, in my weakness, then I will find you. Somehow... some way...”
The building shook behind him, debris sifting down from the ceiling. For a few seconds, the picture broke up and the audio frayed.
Jetta reached over her sister, vying for the primary controls. “Get it back—”
“Stop, I’ve got it!”
When the video image returned, Josef’s face distorted. Something black and spiny erupted from his cheek. “I will find you, Kurt. And I will make things right again.”
The recording bleeped out.
“Something was happening to him,” Jetta said, staring at the empty projection field. “He was sick, weakened. Do you think he got infected with his own plague?”
Jaeia blew out her breath. “Yeah. I do. I can’t explain how I know that. I just do.”
Both of them reflexively looked at Jahx. His body lay flaccid on the bed, and yet they shared the same thought.
“But... do you think he died?” Jetta asked, turning back to her sister. She couldn’t believe how absurd her question was, or even that she posed it, but something compelled her to, and she wasn’t sure why.
Jahx?
Jaeia slowly shook her head and gave another long look at their brother. “He would have turned into a Necro.”
The overhead lights dimmed. Jetta instinctively put an arm around her sister as the monitors protested the power surge with a piercing beep.
“Jahx—” Jetta returned to his bedside and grabbed his shoulders. His head bobbed lazily to one side, and his eyelids popped halfway open, revealing pinpoint pupils in blue eyes.
“Jetta, look!” Jaeia said, calling her back to the terminal.
“What’s going on?” Jetta exclaimed as the holographic projector came to life. Several helices appeared on the screen, with lines of genetic code interconnecting the various strands.
“That’s the Necro plague—” Jetta realized, following the analysis.
“And that’s the plague on Tralora—” Jaeia said, pointing to the middle helix.