The Omega Project

by Steve Alten

  “And what about your presence, Dharma? Why are you here?”

  “I am here to guide you when you are led astray by your ego.” Reaching for my hand, she squeezed it. “We’re both tired and hungry. Let’s not think about anything else until we’ve eaten and rested.”

  She led me past the shoreline and into a jungle flourishing with trees bearing fruit the likes of which I had only glimpsed back in the redwood canopy. For twenty minutes we feasted on a pineapple-size seed that tasted like freshly baked wheat bread, then enjoyed dessert — a black sapote fruit with a puddinglike inside that rivaled the richest dark chocolate mousse.

  “Dharma, how safe are the cephalopeds in this valley? What’s to stop the children of GOLEM from entering the doline and hunting them down?”

  “The doline is protected.”

  “How? From what I can see it’s wide open.”

  “I don’t know how, which means Oscar and his people don’t know either. It was conveyed to me that the cephalopeds can leave the valley, but the children of GOLEM cannot enter. The cephalopeds credit the Blessed Heavenly Ones Who Nurture with this miracle.”

  “Is that cephaloped-speak for God?”

  “I’m not sure. It is a subject I intend to pursue in our next sharing. It’s getting dark. We should return to the cave.”

  “Why? You said we were safe.”

  “It is what Oscar wishes.”

  “You go. I need some alone time to think. I also want to see what this jungle has on its dinner menu.”

  “Very well. Let’s meet at the lagoon in two hours for the swim back. The cephalopeds will be there to assist us.”

  “Did they just communicate that to you?”

  She blushed. “It is far more efficient than an h-phone.”

  “While lacking any sense of privacy. Two hours at the lagoon.”

  We exchanged a passionate kiss, then I waited until she disappeared down the path before engaging ABE. Query: Can you block Dharma from reading my thoughts?

  A STATIC BIORHYTHMIC FILTER CAN BE ESTABLISHED THAT WOULD SCRAMBLE ROBERT EISENBRAUN’S THOUGHT ENERGY TO ALL EXTERNAL RECEIVERS.

  Do it. Then use my visual survey of the terrain and plot the best course to reach the nearest exit point to this doline.

  ABE led me through the jungle, the elevation gradually steepening as I approached the growth-lined walls of the doline. The sun had dropped below the edge of the crater, casting shadows across the valley by the time I arrived at the chosen exit point — a fallen juvenile redwood. The tree’s massive trunk leaned against the top of the crater lip 220 feet overhead.

  Experiencing a strange sense of déjà vu, I began the climb.

  I had no doubt that Dharma was telling me the truth — that is to say, I had no doubt that Dharma believed everything that had been communicated to her by the cephalopeds. Did I buy into all her mumbo jumbo about the creature’s being connected to God? I couldn’t deny I had felt something when Oscar had enveloped me in his echolocation, but that could have also been a mind game. What really concerned me was the information the cephalopeds were keeping from Dharma, specifically about these so-called Blessed Heavenly Ones Who Nurture. Maybe I was still angry at God, but no God I ever prayed to or cursed ever used a sonic weapon to implode a seventy-foot crocodile, and I had a gut feeling that—WARNING: SYSTEMS THREAT! WARNING: SYSTEMS THREAT!

  Identify systems threat.

  ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSE GRID HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED OVER THE CRATER OPENING. SHOULD EISENBRAUN GET TOO CLOSE TO THE GRID WHILE THE ABE UNIT IS ACTIVE, THE EMP WOULD DESTROY THE ABE UNIT’S BIO-CIRCUITS.

  Switch to safe mode.

  WARNING: SAFE MODE WILL NOT MINIMIZE THE EMP DAMAGE.

  Guess I’m on my own then. Locate EMP point of origin, then shut down the ABE unit until Eisenbraun has cleared the grid.

  EMP POINT OF ORIGIN: EIGHTEEN JUNCTION BEAMS SET AT TWENTY-DEGREE INTERVALS BEGINNING AT ZERO DEGREES NORTH. ENERGY SOURCES ARE POSITIONED THIRTY-TWO CENTIMETERS BELOW THE CRATER LIP. NEAREST JUNCTION BEAM IS LOCATED TWELVE FEET, EIGHT INCHES CLOCKWISE OF EXIT POINT. ABE UNIT SHUTTING DOWN.

  I continued climbing, moving from the trunk of the redwood tree onto an upper branch that dead-ended at the crater wall a convenient four feet below the doline’s fractured lip. Reaching up, I managed to pull myself out of the massive sinkhole.

  I was back in the redwood forest, the sun setting at my back. Stepping off four paces to my left, I lay prone on the limestone ground and leaned my head out over the crater’s edge, searching for anything that resembled an EMP beam.

  The disruptive power of an electromagnetic pulse was first discovered during field tests for the atomic bomb. The resultant pulse generates a powerful electromagnetic field that can damage or destroy electronic devices, communication systems, and semiconductive computer chips within the blast area. Naturally, the potential damage caused by EMPs motivated world leaders to develop nonnuclear weapons that could blast their enemy’s cities back to the Stone Age, with more than a few nations investigating the means to target communication satellites.

  It wasn’t long after World War III broke out that the first suitcase EMP weapons, or E-bombs, were detonated in Iran. By the time the Great Die-Off ended, upward of 60 percent of the Middle East’s power grids had been fried.

  Thirty minutes passed before I located a six-inch acrylic barrel protruding from the karst wall of the crater, its power source no doubt buried deep within the geology. The junction’s technology seemed far more advanced than my own; whether the beam delivered something far more lethal than an EMP was impossible to tell.

  Sitting by the edge of the crater, gazing down into the darkening valley, my mind attempted to sort out the mysteries at hand without the aid of my biological chip. Having established that a security grid existed, the next immediate question I sought to answer was not who had created the grid or even why, but how—as in how could an EMP keep human clones from entering the doline?

  I was so absorbed in thought that I never noticed how late it was until the crickets began chirping at the night.

  Looking up, I took in the star-filled heavens and wondered if the cephalopeds would one day invent a telescope or comprehend other solar systems or create the means to visit another planet like Mars, or an alien moon, like Europa, or even the damaged remains of our own—

  “Alpha Colony! Holy shit, what happened to all those scientists?” Could they have survived the asteroid impact? If yes, could they still be alive? It hardly seemed possible — then again I was still here. “No, dipshit. You’re just dreaming.”

  “Ike?”

  Startled, I turned. The woods behind me were cloaked in shadows, but the woman’s voice was as clear as day, and it definitely wasn’t Dharma.

  Moving quickly, I retreated feetfirst over the edge of the collapsed doline, the tips of my running shoes searching blindly for the redwood branch below.

  “Ike, wait!”

  Halfway over the edge of the crater lip, I hesitated.

  Andria stepped out of the forest into the clearing, her athletic physique pressing against the torn seams of her soiled orange Omega jumpsuit, her breasts challenging the outfit’s central zipper. Her short-cropped black hair was messed, her American-Indian complexion a bit tanner than when I had last seen her, but otherwise she was the same beauty I had intended to rendezvous with the night the crewmen had turned against me.

  She walked toward me, her expression one of disbelief. “You’re really alive. Oh my God, it’s a miracle.”

  She was unarmed and alone, and every cell in my body yearned to hold her. Still, my feet remained poised on the tree branch.

  “Ike, what’s wrong with you? It’s me. Andie.”

  “Prove it. Where did we meet? What city?”

  “We didn’t meet in the city, we met in the woods in Virginia. You tried to steal my deer.”

  My heart raced. “How did you get off Oceanus?”

  “We used the subs.”

  “Who’s we?”<
br />
  “There were five of us: Bella, me, Lara, Monique, and Amanda Lynn. Something went wrong with Dharma’s pod, we couldn’t open it. The men … your crazy computer butchered them. From the looks of the lab, it entertained itself by making human clones before it accidentally offed itself.”

  “So, you freed yourselves and left me frozen?”

  “We were disoriented, operating in complete darkness. Monique and I attempted to repair the electrical system while Lara checked on you. Bella and Amanda went into the arboretum to locate food and water. They were attacked by a swarm of bees. We barely made it to the escape pods. By the time we surfaced, Amanda was dead.”

  “You left me.”

  “I had no choice. I intended to go back for you, but the sub’s batteries were dead. Ike, please climb out of that crater and hold me.”

  “What happened the night we were supposed to meet?”

  “Ike—”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Kevin ordered me to check on a loose anchor holding down the hydrothermal vent duct plate. By the time I returned, they had already placed you in cryogenic stasis. Ike, how long have you been here? Did you see the moon? It was struck by an asteroid.”

  “What year is it, Andria?”

  “We don’t know. Monique thinks the lunar debris caused massive firestorms that increased global warming and melted the Antarctic ice sheet, but the process still would have taken decades. We’ve been working on building a boat, only these creatures keep attacking us.”

  “What creatures?”

  “We call them ‘octopeds.’ Land octopi, very intelligent. They can manipulate brain waves through physical contact, inducing vivid hallucinations.”

  Adrenaline coursed through my body, my mind racing. The ants, the cave, the encounter with Bat-Andria … the rescue of Dharma in Oceanus — could Oscar have been toying with past memories … manipulating my mind?

  “Andie, how did you find me?”

  “I didn’t. A few hours ago a dozen of the octopeds attacked our habitat, killing our livestock and stealing our supplies. I tracked them down to this crater; I came armed with a bow and a quiver of poison-tipped arrows. One of them grabbed me — they’re experts at camouflage. When I came to my weapons were gone. When I saw you, I thought one of them had me in its suckers and was manipulating my senses like they did with Lara. To be honest, I’m still not sure it’s really you, or if any of this is real. Omega dreams can be quite convincing. Ike, please get out of there before — Oh, God, here they come!”

  I looked down to see Oscar racing up the trunk of the redwood, followed by two more cephalopeds.

  What to do? Dharma had warned me, and yet Andie seemed so real—

  “Ike, give me your hand!”

  Screw it! If all this really was just an Omega dream—

  “Ike!”

  — then I wanted Andria in it!

  Reaching up, I grabbed her wrist and she pulled me up out of the crater. Hand in hand, we sprinted into the forest, leaving the sounds of protesting pan flutes behind.

  26

  Without this kind of preparation, even the most re-skilled person who has made excellent logistical preparation will very likely be overwhelmed in a world of terrified, angry, depressed human beings. A person can have the most awesomely equipped “doomstead” on Earth and yet completely lose their grip emotionally in just a few minutes, without emotional and spiritual resilience.

  — CAROLYN BAKER, therapist and survivalist

  We ran through fern as dense and as tall as a cornfield, past redwoods visible only by the columns of blackness that blotted out the stars. I never questioned how Andria managed her way so easily in the dark, having seen her negotiate the night when we hunted for food during the GDO.

  Oscar and his companions were following us; I could hear them moving desperately through the canopy to close the distance.

  And then I saw why.

  Fifty more yards, and the forest humidity vanished with the trees, transporting us into an open field recently torched by fire. The stench of charred wood wore heavy in my nostrils as we progressed through the deliberately cleared land, my lungs aching, my legs cramping — the strain easing as ABE came back online. Increasing the hemoglobin levels in my blood cells, the bio-chip flushed my muscles with oxygen while raising my pH, accelerating the conversion rate of glucose into mechanical energy.

  At some point the scorched earth became a prairie — miles of knee-high grass undulating beneath a sea of stars as far as the eye could see. Andria slowed to a walk, fishing a compass from a jumpsuit pocket to gauge her bearings.

  “You holding up okay?”

  “No problem,” I lied. “How much farther?”

  “Not far.” Returning the compass, she retrieved a four-inch nightscope from a chain around her neck. Stretching the telescopic viewer to its operational length, she placed the eyepiece to her right eye and scanned the terrain we had just crossed. “They’re still following us. What’s their interest in you?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been awake long enough to figure out much of anything, let alone the interest of a land-dwelling squid.”

  “The savanna should slow them down, they don’t move well through tall grass.” She turned and kissed me, her lips full and soft, her tongue tasting of salted meat.

  I jumped as her hands took inventory of my groin.

  Her lips moved to my ear, her mouth panting heavily as she whispered the words every heterosexual man would have sacrificed his right arm to hear …

  “Ike, can we make a baby?”

  “Wait, what?”

  “I want you to impregnate me.”

  “You mean right now?”

  “No, silly. When we get back to the farm.” Tucking the night scope back inside her jumpsuit, she set off again at a frenetic pace, yours truly in hot pursuit, a renewed bounce in my step — a tiny voice screaming at me from the recesses of my brain.

  Ike, can we make a baby?

  Not … Ike, can we make love? or Ike, I missed you, or heaven forbid the gold standard cherished by every red-blooded American male, Ike, I want you to fuck my brains out. No, Andria had used the B word, following it up with, “I want you to impregnate me,” as in, I’m ovulating, dear. Be a man and stick it in, all of which added up to three potential possibilities: either I was dreaming and my new best friend Jason Sloan had come through like a trooper; Andria, knowing how much I wanted a family, really did miss me—

  — or the woman I was chasing after like a dog in heat wasn’t the real Andria Saxon.

  * * *

  It was well after midnight and raining like a downpour in Manila by the time we arrived at the fence — a simple affair made up of logs placed horizontally between sets of wooden X-supports bound by vines. Andria cautioned me before climbing over; the logs were wrapped in thickets brandished eight-inch needles.

  The five-acre pasture held two different species. ABE identified the larger beasts as long-haired gaur hybrids. These immense wild cattle were as tall as horses and twice as bulky, possessing massive shoulder humps and an imposing set of gray horns, the curved tips of which were black and deadly sharp. The two bulls were black and a third larger than their female counterparts, the cows and juveniles dark brown with white legs, outnumbering the males three to one.

  The second species were an evolutionary offshoot of an alpaca, a llamalike beast once cherished by the Inca civilization for their thick woolly fleece. The alpaca flitted about nervously in packs of two and three, chewing their cud like cows.

  The animals gave us a wide berth as we crossed the muddy field, steam rising off our drenched bodies. I smelled the farmhouse before I saw its silhouette through the curtains of rain, the air heavy with smoke curling up from a fireplace chimney. Moving closer, I could make out stone and mortar walls, a thatched roof covering the windowless single-story affair.

  I followed Andria out of the paddock through a hinged gate. The front door of the farmhouse was a cir
cular hunk of wood no doubt painstakingly cut from a redwood stump. She banged her fists twice, then once, then three times more, the two of us huddling in the rain while a wood brace was removed from inside.

  The door swung open. Andria entered first, stepping into the wrath of her worried comrades.

  I heard Lara Saints ask, “Where the hell have you been?”

  I winced as Monique DeFriend chided, “You disobeyed a direct order by going after those creatures.”

  I stepped through the doorway, interrupting Bella Maharaj as she stripped the wet jumpsuit from Andria’s naked body, wrapping her in a wool shawl.

  “My God … he’s alive.” Monique stared at me like an overbearing sorority housemother. Her red hair was now tangled and gray, and a wicked white scar encircled her throat, the tan, leatherlike flesh sagging noticeably.

  The years had been kinder to Lara, who hugged me tightly around the neck, her breasts peeking out from a fur-lined poncho sewn together from several animal skins. “Ike, thank God! This is a blessing, a true miracle. How long have you been awake?”

  “About three days.”

  “You must be freezing. Take off those wet clothes—”

  Andria pried Lara loose. “I’ll see to my fiancée’s needs, if you don’t mind. He’s not community property.”

  “Actually he is,” stated Bella. “That is, if the human race is to survive.”

  “Not now, Bella,” Monique growled. “There are more immediate concerns to address than your ridiculous extinction theories. Andria, where did you find him?”

  “By the crater.”

  “Were you followed?”

  “Yes. Three males.”

  “Damn it, Andria—”

  “Fuck you, Monique. I’d rather die in battle than be killed in my sleep by those eight-legged vermin.”

  “Where’s your bow?” Lara asked.

  “I lost it in the ambush.”

  “The quiver, too?”

  “Do you see it on me?”