by Greg Cox
“Typical,” Seven muttered under his breath. The reactor’s insidious [238] design seemed emblematic of the project’s overall approach: the latest in cutting-edge technology inextricably wed to an overwhelming potential for disaster. The sooner the whole endeavor is obliterated, he resolved, the better.
“Fifteen minutes to atomic sterilization.”
The recorded announcement confirmed the digital readout before him. Seven prayed that Chrysalis’s numerous inhabitants had heeded the previous warnings, and that they were already on their way to safety. He worried less about the fate of the project’s blameless super-children; Roberta and Isis, he knew, could be trusted to carry out that end of the mission. If only the larger problem caused by the children’s very existence could be dealt with so easily ... !
A blinking red annunciator light alerted Seven to a worrisome buildup of hydrogen gas within the reactor core. While insufficient to halt the chain reaction itself, the excess hydrogen could cause preliminary explosions inside the concrete silo, explosions that might pose some danger to Seven himself. Best to keep an eye on that, he determined, at least until it was time for him to transport out of the doomed complex, roughly ten minutes from now.
To his surprise, however, an explosion came not from the enormous cement cylinder beyond the open window, but from the sealed metal door at the far end of the control room. The powerful blast literally blew the heavy metal gate inward and out of the doorframe, while the accompanying shock wave knocked Seven out of his seat and onto the floor. Billowing clouds of black smoke permeated the control room, making his eyes sting, and the acrid scent of crude plastic explosives assailed his nostrils. What in the Aegis’s name. ... ? he thought, his ears ringing from the thundering detonation.
Dazed, he lifted his battered head from the floor just in time to witness Dr. Sarina Kaur come striding through the hazy fumes into the control room. She held a Walther PPK pistol in her hand and a determined expression on her face. Behind her, as the smoke quickly cleared, Seven glimpsed the now-open doorway, through which he spotted the elevator and foyer beyond. Kaur carefully stepped around the scorched and crumpled remains of the fallen gate as she aimed the [239] muzzle of her weapon at the stunned and defenseless man upon the floor. “Please don’t get up, Mr. Seven,” she instructed him, her icy tone belying the blazing hatred in her dark eyes. “And keep your hands where I can see them; we don’t want another demonstration of your singularly efficacious penmanship.”
His servo tucked away in his pocket, Seven avoided any sudden moves, not wanting to provoke Kaur to further violence. “Listen to me,” he beseeched her hoarsely. Lingering traces of smoke irritated his throat as he spoke. “You have to believe me, this is for the best.”
“Silence!” Kaur barked. She was without her ubiquitous Sikh bodyguards, whom Seven assumed she must have given leave to evacuate with the rest of Chrysalis’s personnel. He found it hard to reconcile that concern for her people with the ruthlessness which he knew, from firsthand experience, she was capable of, but then, he recalled acidly, twentieth-century humans, no matter how brilliant, still tended to divide the world into Us and Them, with only the former worthy of concern. I wonder if Kaur’s all-star team of geniuses managed to eliminate that trait from the human genome? he wondered. Somehow I doubt it.
Keeping her gun pointed at Seven, Kaur hurried to the control panel Seven had just vacated. Without bothering to right the toppled chair next to the console, she flicked a switch on the control panel and leaned toward the attached microphone. “Abort Emergency Self-Destruct Sequence,” she commanded emphatically. “Executive Authority Kaur-slash-alpha-alpha.”
Was it still possible to halt the chain reaction? Seven honestly wasn’t sure, and, judging from the worried expression on the director’s face, neither was Sarina Kaur. How could anyone make reliable predictions about such an archaic and unstable piece of atomic engineering?
“Attempting to abort emergency self-destruct sequence,” the computer reported. Easier said than done, apparently, Seven noted, as Kaur stared uneasily at the gauges before her. Seven himself couldn’t see the displays from his position on the floor, but he guessed that the data was not encouraging. “We need to get out of here,” he told Kaur sincerely. “Please believe me, if not for yourself, then for the child you carry. Let me up and I can get us both to safety.”
[240] “Quiet!” Kaur snapped at him, punctuating her command with a gunshot that burrowed a hole in the floor in front of Seven. The gravid geneticist frantically worked the controls of the reactor, trying to undo the irreversible.
“Ten minutes until atomic sterilization.”
All of Kaur’s attention was focused on the reactor controls. Now is my chance, Seven realized. Mobilizing his bruised and aching muscles for one more superhuman feat, the extraterrestrial operative sprang to his feet and hurled himself out the empty windowframe looking out over the turbine chamber. “No!” Kaur shouted angrily, squeezing the trigger of her Walther PPK, but she succeeded only in chipping out more fragments of the control-room floor.
Seven fell fifty feet to the level below. The impact when he hit the ground jarred his bones, but he absorbed the blow as best he could by tucking his limbs against his torso and rolling as he landed, then used his momentum to end up standing upright upon the asphalt floor of the turbine room. He found himself not far from the base of the massive containment silo. Iron scaffolding circled the gigantic concrete cylinder, then stretched out over the nearby turbines, which seemed to roar even more deafeningly as the reactor core overheated, sending a torrent of hot steam through the power-generating turbines. Seven wondered how much longer the immense turbines would be able to withstand the strain.
“Attempting to abort emergency self-destruct sequence,” the loudspeakers announced over the churning din of the turbines. “Ten minutes and holding.”
Damn, Seven thought. Kaur had succeeding in arresting the chain reaction, if not yet reversing it entirely. In his mind, he visualized the carbon-alloy control rods sliding back into place between the partially melted uranium fuel rods, preventing the radioactive ore from attaining critical mass. I can’t let that happen, he vowed, hurriedly climbing the scaffolding between the silo and the turbines. I have to make sure that reactor blows, no matter what happens to Kaur and my self.
Ideally, of course, he would just transport the control rods out of the reactor core, but the intense amount of radiation generated at the core, [241] not to mention the dense, reinforced shielding, made such an operation problematic. Seven’s eyes narrowed shrewdly as he contemplated the massive pipes carrying much-needed coolant into the containment silo. Fortunately, there was more than one way to cook a reactor.
Setting the servo for a wide-angle beam, he targeted a stretch of pipe less than twenty feet away. The dense metal conduit, painted a dull green, dissolved beneath the influence of the disintegration beam, spilling a cascade of radioactive H2O onto the floor of the vast chamber. Even located upon the scaffolding, several feet above the flood, Seven winced at the thought of what the invisible roentgens were surely doing to his own cellular structure. I’ll have to give myself a couple of strong antiradiation pills, he realized, provided I make it back to Manhattan at all.
He watched with grim satisfaction as the reactor’s precious coolant gushed onto the floor. Without freshly chilled water to carry away the awesome heat being produced by the near-meltdown, the temperature of the reactor core would inevitably build toward its ultimate apocalyptic demise, despite Kaur’s futile attempts to bring the feverish reactor back under control. He didn’t need X-ray eyes to picture the coolant draining away from the reactor, exposing ever more of the volatile fuel rods. Defuse that disaster if you can, he silently challenged Kaur, but I don’t envy the odds against you.
“Unable to abort emergency self-destruct sequence,” the robotic voice confirmed. “Nine minutes to atomic sterilization.”
Within seconds, the mighty turbines ground noisily to a halt, l
iterally running out of steam. Seven felt the scaffolding quiver beneath his feet as the powerful engines struggled unsuccessfully to keep running. Grabbing a safety rail to steady himself, he wrapped his fingers tightly around the vibrating metal. “Kaur!” he shouted, his hoarse voice finally audible now that the turbines had quieted. “It’s time to go. Let me help you escape!”
While reluctant to reveal too many of his secrets to Sarina Kaur, Seven realized that the only way left to save the ambitious scientist was to transport her to a less hazardous location. But would the fanatical director cooperate with this last-ditch emergency measure?
[242] A barrage of gunfire suggested otherwise, the harsh report of Kaur’s gun echoing eerily in the suddenly silent turbine room. “Never!” she declared furiously, looking down at Seven from the brink of the control room, her pregnant form framed by the borders of the missing picture window. “I’m not going anywhere—and neither are you!”
Seven ducked behind the curve of the silo, which shielded him from Kaur’s deadly bullets. He didn’t want to think about what the unchecked radiation was doing to the woman’s unborn child. “Don’t be insane, Dr. Kaur,” he called out. Cautiously extending his servo beyond the concrete barrier of the silo, he tried to get a lock on Kaur, but the surging radiation made it impossible to get a reliable reading on the woman from this far away. She would have to let him get closer to her before he could ’port both of them to safety, a scenario that was looking increasingly unlikely. “Chrysalis is doomed,” he yelled, still hoping he could reason with Kaur before it was too late. “There’s nothing else you can do, and we’re running out of time!”
“Reactor core approaching critical mass,” the loudspeaker announced, as though seconding Seven’s impassioned appeal to Kaur’s sanity. “Five minutes to atomic sterilization.”
Seven hoped the computer’s warning would prove more persuasive than his own disregarded words. Would Kaur’s instinct for self-preservation win out over her desire for vengeance? He prayed that her remarkable brain would come to its senses in time. “Listen to me!” he shouted urgently. “You don’t have to die here!”
Kaur laughed bitterly, holding her smoking Walther before her. “Are you familiar with the concept of jauhar, Mr. Seven? It’s a venerable Rajput tradition, practiced for centuries in fortresses such as the one above us. Faced with certain defeat, the women and children would set themselves on fire rather than surrender to the enemy.” She fired the pistol at the concrete silo until she ran of bullets, then carelessly tossed the weapon into the churning radioactive flood below the window ledge. “Perhaps the old ways are best after all. ...”
Seven placed his palm against the wall of the containment silo, feeling a definite tremor in the thick concrete wall. The hydrogen gas, he remembered, building up within the core, ready to ignite. The [243] scaffolding shuddered alarmingly beneath the soles of his shoes, while a spidery network of cracks spread across the face of the silo. “One minute to atomic sterilization.”
No more time, he realized despairingly, even as an early, prenuclear explosion, deep within the reactor’s interior, jolted the scaffolding, throwing Seven roughly against a safety rail. Grunting in pain as his bruised ribs were hammered again, he clicked his servo.
The glowing blue fog preceded the mushroom cloud by seconds.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
811 EAST 68TH STREET
NEW YORK CITY
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
MAY 19, 1974
“THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA,” Walter Cronkite intoned solemnly upon the viewscreen of the Beta 5, “has confirmed that an underground nuclear test, the first in their nation’s history, occurred yesterday beneath the deserts of Rajasthan. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi insists that the test was merely ‘a peaceful nuclear explosion experiment,’ and that her regime has no intention of developing offensive nuclear weapons. Neighboring nations, however, most notably China and Pakistan, have reacted with alarm and suspicion. ...”
“Lower audio transmission,” Gary Seven instructed the computer, having apparently heard enough. He sat behind his marble and mahogany desk, his chin resting pensively upon his cradled fingers. Purple smudges persisted beneath his eyes, and his lean face was even gaunter than usual, yet his gaze was clear and alert. He had not yet fully recovered from his ordeal in India, but Roberta thought he was already looking more like his old self. I guess the Aegis really knew what they were doing she thought, when they bred Seven and his ancestors for endurance.
“So,” she asked from the couch, where she was enjoying the relaxed aftermath of another successful mission, “do you think that people are going to actually buy that cover story?”
[245] “Why shouldn’t they?” Seven replied. “Sadly, rampant nuclear proliferation is a hallmark of this era. More importantly, it is in the best interests of all concerned, including those in the Indian government with connections to the Chrysalis Project, that the truth remains a closely guarded secret.”
“What about Lozinak and the others?” she asked. “Won’t they try to rebuild somewhere else?” She liked to think that Viktor, Walter, and their well-intentioned but misguided colleagues had survived the fiery subterranean cataclysm (except for Sarina Kaur, of course), but she didn’t want to have to shut them down again a few years from now. As far as she was concerned, Dr. Veronica Neary, that celebrated geneticist, had spliced her last piece of DNA.
“That is unlikely to be a problem,” Seven assured her. Isis, looking happy to be home, strolled across the desktop before hopping lightly onto the carpet. “I intend to report the activities and locations of the key conspirators to our contacts in their respective governments, which should be able to keep the guilty scientists under surveillance from now on. That should be enough to keep them from setting up shop again. In addition, I believe I can arrange for the U.S. National Academy of Sciences to call for a moratorium on all genetic engineering, at least temporarily.” A look of profound regret passed over his face. “Without the inspiration and leadership of Sarina Kaur, I suspect that Chrysalis has been extinguished forever.”
His hopeful prediction was tainted by one lingering worry. “I only wish I knew who, if anyone, ended up with the genetic sequence for Kaur’s mutated streptococcus.” His fingers drummed unhappily upon the polished obsidian desktop. “According to Kaur, the most advanced version of the germ was not yet rapidly contagious, but I fear we’ll have to keep our eyes out for outbreaks of flesh-eating bacteria in the decades to come.”
“And the kids?” Roberta asked worriedly. Even though she had successfully transported every one of the super-toddlers away from Chrysalis before it exploded, she couldn’t help fretting about the children’s futures. In a way, I’m responsible for them now.
“That poses a genuine dilemma,” Seven conceded. “We can hardly [246] report their identities to the authorities; despite their ominous potential, they cannot be held accountable for their own creation.” He sighed wearily, and slumped back into his leather chair. “The best we can do is scatter the project’s children via responsible child-placement organizations throughout the world and hope for the best. Perhaps by separating the children, and by removing them from Kaur’s corrupting influence, we can minimize their impact on humanity’s future history.”
“You really think so?” To be honest, she’d been more concerned about the kids themselves than their effect on the world, but she supposed Seven had a point. Even as munchkins, the Chrysalis kids had been pretty darn impressive; heaven only knew what they’d be like once they grew up.
“I wish I could be more certain,” Seven said gravely. The apprehension in his voice caught Roberta’s attention; it wasn’t often that Gary Seven admitted to uncertainty. “The only alternative, however, is unacceptable.”
Roberta knew what he meant. Despite his covert efforts to push humanity in the right direction, Seven drew the line at outright assassination. And thank goodness for that! she thought.
“We should defini
tely keep an eye on the children, of course,” Seven added, clearly thinking ahead. “Particularly that little Indian boy you mentioned, the son of Sarina Kaur. The genetically enhanced offspring of Kaur is not someone we can afford to ignore.” Leaning forward, he scribbled a note to himself on a piece of blank stationery. “What was his name again?”
“Noon,” Roberta answered. The boy’s dark, intelligent eyes gazed up from the depths of her memory, holding the promise—or the threat—of the man he would someday become. A chill ran through her, despite the pleasant springtime weather. “Short for Khan Noonien Singh.”
CHANDIGARH
THE PUNJAB, INDIA
SEVERAL WEEKS LATER ...
Lightning flashed to the south, heralding the coming monsoon. A book upon his lap, Noon sat on the roof terrace of his new home, [247] staring up at the cloudless blue sky above him. Fragrant basil plants and leafy ferns sprouted from polished brass urns placed strategically around the rooftop, transforming the terrace into an open-air garden. A mosaic of white and blue china decorated the floor of the terrace, reflecting the late-afternoon sunshine.
If he was honest with himself, Noon had to admit that, after growing up underground, he still found the wide-open sky rather intimidating. Unlike the comforting security of Chrysalis, the soaring heavens made him feel exposed and all too vulnerable, both to the elements and to the unpredictable whims of fate. The latter, he had learned only too recently, could strike without warning, overturning one’s entire existence. (Sometimes in the evening, right before he fell asleep, he imagined he could still hear the warning sirens blaring, the way they had the night his life changed forever.)
