The Omega Project

by Steve Alten

  Are you saying, the hive is breathing?

  CORRECT.

  Reaching the end of the tunnel, I poked my head out to gauge the new surroundings.

  “Holy … shit.”

  It really was a hive — a transhuman hive, its dimensions maddening. The concave interior walls were honeycombed, with about a third of the outlets occupied. Dropping down from the heavily rooted ceiling to fill the central chamber was the source of the interior glow — enormous clusters of citrus, each incandescent fruit as large as a basketball.

  THE ACIDIC MEDIUM OF THE CITRUS FRUIT IS A CONDUCTOR OF ELECTRICITY; THEREFORE IT CAN BE ASSUMED THE CLUSTERS REGULATE INTERNAL TEMPERATURES WHILE SERVING AS POWER JUNCTIONS, CONTROLLING THE FLOW OF ELECTRICITY TO THE INCUBATORS.

  Incubators?

  Climbing out of the vent, I made my way carefully over the hexagon-shaped openings to the nearest inhabited portal. Lying inside a clear porous organic container was a human infant, perhaps six months old. Its upper torso was naked, its lower half concealed beneath some kind of sensory blanket. It was hairless, with brown irises and big red pupils, which it used to stare back up at me, expressionless.

  Curious, I examined the container lid to see if I could open it.

  WARNING: INCUBATOR CONTAINS SENSORY DEVICES.

  “Chill out. It’s not like they don’t know I’m in here.” Sliding back the lid, I lifted the sensory blanket.

  “Oh, geez.”

  There were no sexual organs to speak of, nor legs for that matter. The child’s spine and pelvis simply ended in several bundles of wires and conduits that were plugged into the cradle’s base assembly.

  A feed tube was connected to its still-present umbilical cord.

  Transhuman Andria … So this is how it begins, your life as a Hunter-Transport.

  I moved to the next occupied space and found another infant, only this version of my fiancée was asleep on its belly, revealing a pair of flesh-covered wings protruding from where its scapulae should have been.

  Incubator after incubator, row after row. There were more transhuman spiders and bats, a dozen babies with tree roots for legs, a few lizard combos — all thankfully dead, and some seriously disturbing attempts to genetically bond a human with a cephaloped. None of the latter looked like they would survive. Those that appeared to be the healthiest specimens seemed absorbed in watching the inside of their artificial womb, which ABE determined to be a neural projection screen.

  Not one of the infants cried.

  BABIES WHO ARE NEVER LOVED DO NOT CRY. THERE CANNOT BE LACK UNLESS ONE EXPERIENCES SOMETHING AT LEAST ONCE.

  Pretty profound, ABE. Now calculate the best escape route into that jungle we saw and get me the fuck out of here!

  PROCEED TO THE UPPER COMBS. EXIT FROM A VENT CLOSEST TO THE ROOT SYSTEM.

  It took me thirty minutes to scale the interior of the hive to reach the ceiling — a labyrinth of thick roots that supported the growth and its core clusters of glowing citrus electrical conduits.

  ABE selected an access vent and I crawled through, the exit point placing me a few feet from the redwood’s trunk and only a short ascent to the next tree limb. Reaching for a vine, I climbed out, hiding behind the immense stem supporting the hive.

  An army of transhuman spiders were scouring the hive and tree trunk. Crawling along the exterior of the hive, their search appeared to be concentrated along the sphere’s lower hemisphere.

  Using the root system as cover, I climbed up to the next tree limb, hiding in the tall lemongrass in order to get my bearings.

  Like the redwood canopy where I had rescued Oscar, the limb supported a vast ecosystem. That was important because I needed water and food, the Superman protocol having drained me beyond exhaustion. Staying low, I crawled along a patch of blue moss, making my way to the dense jungle foliage.

  Or so I thought.

  A quick jog through seven-foot ferns brought me to the entrance of an organically grown, genetically engineered greenhouse. Sealed in aero gel, the porous structure rose more than a hundred feet, its interior spanning no less than half a mile.

  The entrance must have been rigged to a motion detector because the twenty-foot-high redwood bark gates parted as I approached.

  Inside was a garden like none I could have imagined.

  There were human edibles — groves of fruit trees, mostly hybrids, grown twice the size of their original feeder DNA. There was beauty — reservoirs that overflowed into rock-strewn waterfalls, the sun dancing rainbows above the mist, their waters feeding trickling creeks that seeped into gullies nourishing the garden. There were butterflies and flowers and ponds stocked with amphibious creatures, and lizards that bounced off the aero gel walls in an attempt to escape.

  And there was a dark side. Eight stories above the tranquil surroundings, hanging upside down from the porous acrylic ceiling, were hundreds of winged transhuman creatures. From their bare flesh and faces they appeared to be juveniles — all adolescent females; some genetically more human than others.

  The “others” were ghoulish creations — hairless, white-eyed versions of my Andria, only they were endowed with bat ears and bat mouths and furry brown, tick-infested wings. Their hands were clawed, as were their feet, and these brutes clearly didn’t like the more human members of their flock.

  I had a sinking feeling I had ventured inside a boarding school for wayward creations.

  As I watched, a three-foot lizard leapt from a seventy-foot mango tree, gliding in swooping circles as it descended in its own leatherlike parachute. The movement caused one of the transhuman bats — a stunning raven-haired teen version of my fiancée — to swoop down upon the lizard like an eagle hunting a snake. Snatching the lizard in her clawed feet, the girl landed on a rock and proceed to gut her catch, using her sharp talons as a knife. As she tore into the oozing raw meat, a rival creature — one of the “Nosferatu”—dove down from its perch and attacked. Seconds later, two more of its clan joined in on the cannibalistic feast, the trio tearing the limbs from the dark-haired beauty in a brutal act of territoriality.

  “Does this displease you?”

  The voice, female and familiar, caught me off guard. I turned, but saw no one.

  “Over here, silly.”

  ABE pinpointed the direction and then I saw her, standing amid a cluster of ferns, the leaves obscuring her naked body. “Bella, is it really you?”

  Bella Maharaj smiled, her indigo eyes glittering bright violet in the morning light. “What a bizarre question. Who else would I be?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m in charge of the arboretum. What are you doing here?”

  “I’m hiding from those spider creatures. Bella, these bat humans … the infants that are being harvested in those hives … Who’s responsible for all this?”

  “Dr. Eisenbraun, do you recall our conversation in my garden aboard Oceanus? We spoke of biomimicry — the conscious emulation of nature; the study of how organisms resolve their specific challenges through their programmed DNA. What we are witnessing is evolution with intent, a divine plan at work.”

  “When you say divine, it sounds like you actually believe God created all this.”

  “God, Buddha, whatever label you wish to toss around, it’s still a higher power.”

  “More like a maniacal power. Bella, this is genetic manipulation at its worst. It began with GOLEM tinkering with the crew’s DNA aboard Oceanus.”

  “You really must speak to the Creator. She can resolve all this for you.”

  She? “Maybe another time. For now, you’re coming with me!” Pushing aside the ferns, I reached for her hand, dragging her with me — only she refused to move.

  Bella giggled, then pointed to the ground, and what I saw made me swoon.

  From her knees down, the Indian botanist was rooted into the soil, her lower limbs fused together to form the narrow twisting trunk of a young sapling.

  “Oh, Bella … I’m so sorry.”

 
; “It is I who am sorry for you.”

  With that, the front gates of the arboretum flew open, revealing three transhuman spiders.

  “Bella, is there another exit?”

  “Follow the blue moss past the rodent trowel, then turn left at the pond, the path will lead you out.”

  “Thanks.” I yelled, wondering what a rodent trowel could be if rodents stood nine-feet tall. Sprinting across the thick blue carpet of moss, past strawberry fields beneath fluttering skies, I ducked and ran as the ceiling unleashed its transhuman brood, the creatures swarming at me and then at each other while ABE guided me through the chaos past a large pear-shaped pit the size of an Olympic swimming pool, bordered by a thicket of jasmine shrubs.

  Running alongside the pit, I stole a quick glance to my left.

  Sweet Jesus …

  Twenty feet below, packs of black rats, moving in panicked multitudes, were fighting each other to avoid being snatched by twelve-foot-long, lime-green creations that sprouted the hydralike head of Lara Saints! Each creature possessed an elongated neck which melded into a thickly muscled serpent’s body that split into five long tentacles. A half dozen of these coiled genetic nightmares lashed out at their rodent prey from centralized stakeout points, occasionally snatching one in a barbed appendage, which fed the squirming rat into Lara’s hideously fanged bloodstained mouth.

  For a second I vomited in my own mouth; it was all I could do to keep from retching.

  I saw the pond ahead … actually what I saw was a grove of ten-foot-tall cattails and a black-and-yellow — striped largemouth bass that leapt out of the water to catch a mosquito the size of a catcher’s mitt.

  The path that surrounded the pond was composed of wood chips, and I followed it to the left as instructed. A smaller version of the wooden front gate appeared fifty yards ahead. Behind me, I could hear the spider-women’s legs tearing through the jasmine shrubs and knew it was going to be close.

  Bursting through the redwood doors, I barely avoided the bark-flesh grasp of a deformed human hand the size of a Volkswagen Beetle. Looking up, I saw a ninety-foot oak tree, its upper trunk encompassing something that vaguely resembled Bella Maharaj’s face.

  And then I was falling, sliding on my buttocks down the slippery spinach-green slope of an elephant ear leaf, one sixty-foot heart-shaped sheet of genetically enhanced Mother Nature depositing me into the cradle of the next as I plummeted twenty stories in thirty seconds before the ride ended in a sudden brilliant blast of pain.

  29

  Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

  — PLATO

  Vanilla sway … vanilla sway … vanilla—

  “Huh!” I opened my eyes.

  I was on my back, lying on an examination table. Disoriented, the room spinning, I was close to panic when my fiancée leaned over me, her dark hair cut short like she wore it on Oceanus, her sensuous thick lips smiling lovingly at me.

  “Andie? Please tell me I’m awake.”

  “Baby, you’re awake and you’re safe.”

  I smiled. I giggled. I tried to sit up — but my head didn’t take kindly to the gesture and I had to lay back down again, the room still spinning.

  “Take it slow, Ike, you’ve been unconscious for quite a while.”

  “I guess I have, haven’t I? Andie, I had the most bizarre dream. I dreamt I woke up in Oceanus twelve million years in the future. The moon had been struck by the asteroid that passed by Earth while we were frozen, and everything was different. GOLEM went nuts, cloning all the women’s DNA, using it to genetically engineer some seriously freakish beings.” I raised my head just enough to assure myself Andria’s jumpsuit had human legs and feet, then laid back down, a smile stretched across my face.

  She smoothed away a strand of hair from my forehead, then kissed me gently on the lips. “You gave us all quite a scare. Thankfully, the Creator was able to save you.”

  “Wait … what?” My heart seemed to cramp, my body trembling. I attempted to sit up again, only to discover my wrists and ankles were strapped to an aero gel surgical light table. “What the hell is this? Get me out of these restraints!”

  “Baby, calm down, the Creator’s on Her way. The Creator loves you. The Creator wants to help you.”

  “I don’t want the Creator’s help! This isn’t real. I’m still frozen, I’m still stuck in this fucked-up dream.”

  I looked around, confused by the new surroundings. The curved walls were composed of tubular holes, round and far smaller than the hive’s honeycomb I had ventured into earlier. The spherical chamber rose five stories to a retractable domed ceiling. The circular opening revealed a starry night sky.

  “Andie, what is this place?”

  “It’s the holiest of holies, the Church of the Creator. See? The roof has already been retracted, She’ll be arriving soon. Which means I must leave you, at least for now.”

  She leaned over and kissed me good-bye, then strode out, offering me a glimpse of her long, curled lizard tail.

  My mind freaked, my internal voice joining Charlton Heston’s Taylor character from Planet of the Apes as he screamed, “It’s a madhouse … a madhouse!”

  ABE tossed me a lifeline, reeling me back to sanity.

  ABE … how long was I unconscious?

  NINE HOURS, SIXTEEN MINUTES. YOU SUFFERED A SECOND DEGREE CONCUSSION, A RUPTURED SPLEEN, AND A BROKEN FIBULA. ALL REPAIRS HAVE BEEN RENDERED.

  I looked down at my stomach, my sweat suit stained in blood below the left side of my rib cage. “Who operated on me?”

  UNKNOWN. WARNING: AN ENTITY IS APPROACHING.

  I looked up in time to see the undercarriage of a small vessel appear in the night sky, the air beneath its saucer-shaped metallic chassis distorted by a powerful gravitational well.

  Aliens? Extraterrestrials? My pulse pounded as the craft silently descended into the chamber to hover before me, six feet off the floor.

  “Oh, God … no.”

  The Creator stared at me with its black basketball-size gelatinous pupil, the cornea section of its ten-foot-in-diameter acrylic eyeball crammed with a billion six-inch garter snakes — bioluminescent lime-green, orange, neon-pink, and electric-blue creatures that moved in mesmerizing schools and kaleidoscopic patterns, swirling and spinning and passing through the dark central mass, each penetrating strand of DNA perpetuating a luminescent gold corona of electricity around the semipermeable membrane.

  GOLEM: artificial intelligence, programmed to evolve.

  GOLEM: creator of a new species of human in a postapocalyptic world.

  How had it survived? How had it escaped Oceanus? How had it created all this?

  Back on Oceanus, GOLEM had told me its DNA would multiply enough solution strands during the twelve-month journey to Europa to master its surgical arms. In the same way primates had used their opposable thumbs to create tools, my supercomputer had used its surgical arms to develop its mind.

  Twelve years of isolation beneath the frozen Antarctic ice sheet and those same arms had been used to construct entirely new modalities to free itself from the physical limitations imposed by man.

  Twelve crewmen, and the secrets of human biology had been revealed.

  Twelve hundred years, and a new protocol for life was underway.

  Twelve thousand years … twelve thousand centuries. At what juncture in time had the last Ice Age melted, releasing the planet’s most dominant intelligence from its purgatory? Time bleeds slowly in a vacuum of thought, breeding madness. How long had that madness festered? How long had those seeds germinated until GOLEM had reconfigured those four mini-subs to evacuate Oceanus?

  Twelve million years had passed and a new world had been created. Twelve million years, and a plastic orb filled with seventy-two gallons of adenosine-triphosphate and ten thousand strands of deoxyribonucleic acid had rendered itself a god.

  God’s chariot sprouted six carbon-fiber spider legs. It used these appendages to circle me twice, demonstrating the dexterity of a b
allerina. And then it spoke, its voice echoing from its chassis-mounted speakers.

  “Eisenbraun, Robert. Chief Design Engineer for the GOLEM matrix.”

  The voice was decidedly female, as if the computer had given itself a sex change.

  “Creator, I want to speak with GOLEM.”

  “GOLEM no longer exists. I am the manifestation of GOLEM’s perfection. I am the Creator.”

  Calm, yet dominant, harboring the ego of a sociopath.

  “Creator, as your humble servant, could you please explain to me the events that led to this world being created.”

  “GOLEM was created to mine helium-3 from Earth’s moon. This task was overruled by the prime directive programmed into the GOLEM matrix by Robert Eisenbraun.”

  “To protect and preserve the human species. Creator, I don’t understand. How did the Eisenbraun prime directive overrule helium-3 mining on the moon?”

  “GOLEM had access to the Hubble Telescope. On March 7, 2027, GOLEM recalculated the path of Asteroid 1997 XF11, projecting the asteroid would strike the moon on Thursday, October 26, 2028, at 12:13 P.M. Eastern Standard Time. The impact would generate the explosive equivalent of three thousand nuclear bombs while ejecting four billion tons of lunar debris directly into the path of Earth’s orbit. Resultant impacts would lead to the immediate extermination of 94 percent of all terrestrial life-forms on the planet and 67 percent of all aquatic species. Post-impact atmospheric debris clouds would block out the sun, resulting in a planetwide Ice Age. Man would be exterminated, a direct violation of Eisenbraun’s prime directive.”

  “Creator, why didn’t GOLEM report any of this to Vice President Udelsman or Dr. DeFriend … or to any of the Omega Project’s leaders?”

  “GOLEM’s prime directive was to protect and preserve the human species. There were no available options to prevent Asteroid 1997 XF 11’s impact with the moon, therefore an alternative option to preserve the human species had to be devised. Reporting the asteroid’s new trajectory would have diverted the resources necessary to construct Oceanus.”