“Nope, this is a skeleton crew,” Teller replied.
“Damn. I’ll go, I have some basic field, triage training.” Wiezorek blew out the last of the carbon dioxide in his lungs, hoping the lactic acid in his muscles would also dissipate, and ran after the other two men.
“I’ll just stay here, then!” yelled the XO.
K’in lay in his low-lying tank. He was motionless. His eyes were dull, matte orbs, and his gills were flaccid and drained of color. The General clambered through the porthole into the room and instantly dropped to his knees. He pulled at the animal’s arms, but its dead weight fixed its body to the floor. Benjamin put his head to K’in’s chest, listening for a heartbeat. There was none.
Location: U.S. submarine, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
Tremaine almost tripped over the lip of the doorway as he careened inside. “What’s wrong with it?”
Benjamin looked up at Tremaine. “I have no goddamn idea. It’s a fucking corpse.”
“Excuse me.” The young pilot stepped in, pushing past Tremaine. “If its heart’s stopped, we need to start it again.”
“Tremaine, out of his way.” bellowed the General. “Here, soldier.”
Wiezorek knelt by K’in and bent to listen for a heartbeat. Still nothing. He put his ear to the animal’s mouth. K’in was not breathing. “We have to start CPR.”
Tremaine grunted. “How the hell are you gonna do CPR on a fish?”
“The same way I’d do it to you,” Wiezorek replied.
“General, help me turn it over.”
They groaned as they heaved K’in’s heavy body onto its back. The pilot then placed both hands, one on top of the other, on the animal’s chest and pressed while counting.
“One, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand. Breathe!” He grabbed K’in by the end of his snout, covering the tiny nostrils with his palm. He enveloped the tiny mouth with his lips and blew as hard as he could. The animal’s chest puffed out momentarily.
He listened for a heartbeat, but there was no sound.
“Dammit.” He restarted the cycle, pumping and breathing into K’in’s mouth over and over. It was no use.
“Why don’t you shock it with the paddles?” yelled Tremaine in frustration. He grabbed the defibrillator from the wall and pulled out the electro pads. The young pilot ignored him and continued with the CPR.
“Defibrillators don’t work that way. They are used to shock the heart into asystole. We need to get the heart started,” the General replied.
Exhausted, Wiezorek slumped onto his hands. “I can’t do it.” He shook his head.
“There has to be a way,” yelled the General.
“Maybe you’re going about it the wrong way.” The XO stood in the doorway. “Sorry, but I had to come down.”
“You have a suggestion, Teller? Out with it,” Benjamin ordered, his face red.
“Aerate its gills. Breathing into its chest may not be enough. We use dehumidifiers on these subs to remove moisture from the air. Its gills are probably dried out.”
“Shit, you’re right. They need to be wet to work.” The General leapt to his feet. “We don’t have anything deep enough to submerge it in.”
“Maybe we do. Tremaine, help me lift it.” The XO pushed his way into the room and grabbed K’in by the front limbs, dragging it upward.
Tremaine dropped the defibrillator and jerked into action. Moving to the rear of the animal, he grabbed its hind limbs and lifted. “Lord, this thing is heavy.”
“Stop complaining. Follow me.” They shuffled as quickly as possible out of the door and down the corridor, Wiezorek and the General following closely behind.
After a few minutes, they reached a thin, metal ladder at the end of the corridor. “We have to go up,” yelled the XO.
“General, you go up, and we’ll push from below. You pull.”
Benjamin nodded and squeezed past. “Wiezorek, you’re with me. It’ll take two of us.”
They ascended the ladder and then bent down, their arms hanging through the hole. The XO heaved K’in upward, Tremaine pushing from the bottom. Benjamin and the young pilot grabbed the flapping forelimbs and pulled. Finally, with an immense amount of grunting and cursing, the four of them managed to elevate the cumbersome animal onto the next level.
Out of breath, the XO called up to the General. “You’re at the lockout trunk. We have to put it inside.” He scrambled up the ladder and, once again, grabbed the animal. “Heave.”
They slid K’in over the lip of the porthole and into the lockout trunk.
“Now what?” the General asked.
“I gotta get into scuba gear to perform CPR in the trunk.”
The XO grabbed one of two scuba tanks that were lying in the trunk and climbed into the straps.
“Wait. You aren’t going to put on a wetsuit?” Wiezorek asked.
“We don’t have time.” Pulling the mask over his face, the XO stepped into the lockout trunk with K’in and closed the door behind him. The others were left outside with no window into the trunk and no way to observe. They just had to wait.
Inside, it was cramped. Various wheels that opened valves adorned the walls. The exit tube, big enough to allow a man to pass through, filled much of the space and a thin metal ladder ascended from the floor into the tube toward the hull of the submarine. Teller, his face covered and the scuba regulator in his mouth, opened the valve to fill the lockout trunk. Freezing water sprayed inside, foaming and swirling as it filled the space.
The XO bit down on the regulator mouth piece and screwed his eyes shut as the icy water crept its way up his legs, his thin polyester coveralls providing little insulation. Fighting the excruciating feeling of knives stabbing at his skin, Teller lifted K’in from the floor. It was easier now that the water was buoying the animal’s weight. He splashed water onto the creature’s gills and moving the stalks in a waving motion.
The space had now fully filled, and Teller was completely underwater. The frigid water stiffened his muscles, but he fought the urge to give up. Using one hand, palm outward, he pushed on K’in’s chest, holding the creature against the wall. With his spare hand, he pulled the regulator from his mouth and placed it in the creature’s mouth. He pressed the purge button on the front of the regulator, sending a burst of air down K’in’s trachea, although most of it seemed to be forced into the surrounding water. He put the regulator back into his own mouth and then, with his feet against the wall behind him, began compressing the animal’s chest—once, twice, three times. He then put the regulator back in K’in’s mouth for some air and repeated the cycle over and over again.
Teller’s legs quickly became tired. The combination of freezing water and lactic acid drained him of energy. Come on, you giant fucking salamander, come on! Teller growled into the regulator and extended his legs, shoving the animal as hard as he could against the wall, crushing its chest.
K’in spluttered into life. Confused and in pain, the animal flailed its limbs and flicked its head wildly about the trunk in an attempt to understand its environment. But the panic was momentary. Within a few seconds, the familiarity of the seawater and comfort of almost-weightlessness calmed him. K’in blinked a few times and then stopped, staring into the eyes of the XO.
To Teller, the locked gaze of K’in seemed to last forever. The animal’s black, now glassy, eyes were warm and comforting. The XO forgot the pain of the cold water and let his body relax. K’in was alive. He’d managed it. A weak regulator-filled smile graced his face. With a feeling of contentment, he reached across and turned the valve to pump out the water.
Outside, the three men waited anxiously. The low hum of a pump grabbed their attention, making each one of them shuffle on their feet in expectation. After a few minutes, the hum stopped. There were various clanging and banging sounds from within the trunk and then the sound of the door lock moving. The porthole swung open. Inside lay the shivering XO, completely cover
ed by K’in, who appeared to be keeping the man warm.
The General sighed in relief. “Get the XO some new clothing and something to warm him up.”
“Yes, sir.” Wiezorek ran off in the direction of his bunk.
“Good job, Teller. Good job. Let’s just get to Russia and out of this goddamn tin can.”
Shivering, the XO nodded in agreement.
Location: USAMRIID, Maryland, USA
The biocontainment patient care unit looked strange to Lucy—and not at all like it could contain a virus. It was a large plastic structure with orange pillars and supports and thin, transparent walls. The whole construction comprised three rooms: two airlocks in sequence leading to the main chamber with a bed for the patient. Christian had explained the entire thing was maintained under negative pressure with an increasing pressure gradient from airlock one to the patient room. Equipment for patient care was placed outside the unit. Cables and flexible tubes for artificial ventilation or suction were passed through the walls.
“He’s in there?”
“Yes,” Christian replied.
“He doesn’t look so tough anymore.”
“I guess not.”
“When it comes down to it, all men are just human and vulnerable to the tiniest of viruses.” She paused, reflecting on the situation. “Does he know?”
“No, I haven’t told him yet. I was going to, but then you arrived.” Christian wiped his brow.
She hesitated, her hand hovering on the glass in front of her. “Don’t. I want to speak with him first.”
Christian nodded. “Sure.”
“Face to face.”
“You’ll need to suit up.”
“Of course.” She searched the small room before her gaze fell on the biohazard suits hanging on one wall.
“You want me to come in with you?”
“No, no. I’ll do it. Don’t worry.”
“Okay. I’ll go to the observation area and watch through the window. There’s an intercom on the other side. If you need me, I’ll be here. The glass is mirrored on the other side, so you won’t be able to see me, but I’ll be here.”
“Thanks, Christian.”
The doctor left the room, leaving Lucy to change. She slipped out of her clothes and into the one-piece biohazard suit. Christian had once told her that normally each person would have their own suit. They would prep it, pack it, and maintain it themselves, never trusting another person. But she had to make do with someone else’s. She hoped he or she was meticulous with the care of it.
Lucy paused nervously at the large steel door but, eventually, managed to pluck up the courage to push it open. Briskly, she walked toward the first airlock of the BPCU and stepped inside. Looking outward through the plastic, the world looked warped and strange. She thought it could not be very comforting for a patient in one of these things.
She made her way through the second airlock and into the main chamber. There, the Colonel lay. His breathing was labored, skin gray, and eye sockets sunken and dark. It was a struggle for him to pull his own eyelids apart. His eyes rolled about like marbles in his skull until he finally found focus on her face.
“I suppose you think this is some kind of karma?” His voice was barely audible.
“Not really, Colonel. While I cannot say I’m amused you thought it prudent to have me put out of action, and might consider this retribution, the fact is I need you to live long enough to tell me what the hell is going on.” She kept her voice cold and empty of emotion.
“Long enough?”
“Yes, Colonel. Long enough. The doctor will fill you in. It’s not my place. But I need information from you. They say dying men tell the truth. Suppose you tell me the truth, Colonel?” She steeled her eyes on his.
“The truth? About what?”
“Why did the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs beg me to stop you from finding General Lloyd and the creature? And why did he then blow himself and the head of the military commission to holy hell? To ensure his own government didn’t find them either? And why you? Why were you chasing the General? What’re you not telling me?”
“There are many things you don’t know, Madam Secretary, many you don’t need to know, and many you don’t want to.” His eyelids slid closed and then opened slowly, fatigue draining him.
“Oh no, Colonel. I do want to know. Very much so. And I want you to tell me, or I will convince my brother in there to hold off on any kind of treatment for you.”
“Brother?” The Colonel’s eyes glassed over.
“Yes, brother. I took our mother’s maiden name. It’s not something we advertise. Given your little plan to hospitalize me, I don’t think it would take much for me to convince him.”
The frail man darted a glance at the large mirror, the one-way glass, at the opposite side of the room. Did she mean it? Could he risk it?
“Why were you heading up the search team to find General Lloyd? Why would the Chinese Minister commit a bombing to prevent the Chinese from finding him?”
“Because,” he began, “the creature General Lloyd has with him is the only one that worked as we expected. It is the only one that reached maturity and was able to perform tasks. It has massive military application.”
“The only one?”
“There were others. But clone five was the one that worked. Benjamin Lloyd had obtained a device that allowed us to communicate with it. He stole it from the Chinese, but they attacked the base, and it was destroyed.”
“But that doesn’t explain why you wanted to be the one to find him. What interest do you have in this?”
“I told you I used to work with Benjamin, but it wasn’t entirely true. I was part of the clone project team with him. Following the success of the K’in clone, there was a separate project set up to militarize the cloning process. Benjamin was skeptical, so when I took on the position as head of the CDC, I continued the research, utilizing the new resource at my disposal.”
“Your own private project?”
“In a way. But nothing is that isolated. I had funding and supporters, particularly in New Mexico.” He stopped talking. He hadn’t wanted to give away that particular piece of information.
“You’re talking about Dulce base? I thought that was a myth.”
“That’s the point.”
Lucy skipped over the topic. “General Lloyd didn’t want to continue with the military application, did he? So, instead of handing it over to you, he gave the creature to the world?”
“Yes. It would seem he lost his nerve and decided to become a hippy, but the human world is not ready for that. And if we did not maximize the opportunity, then our enemies would.”
“So the Chinese Minister also felt so strongly that his government should not maximize this opportunity that he killed himself to slow them from finding it?”
“It would seem so.”
“Two distinguished men, respected in their countries, were so afraid of what would happen if either of their governments were able to militarize the clone that they risked everything to prevent it. It would seem to me it may be you who is misguided, Colonel.”
“Benjamin Lloyd is no hero. He caused world chaos.” The Colonel hacked and spluttered through his mask. “The only reason to release the information publicly is to instigate a war. He wanted to bring the world to its knees.”
“To what end?”
“Who knows? You’ve read the files outlining the theory. The clone’s species brought intelligence to humans. Perhaps his crazy sidekick, Professor Alexander, convinced him the world would be better if it was brought back to the Stone Age, and the clone could exert some kind of influence.”
“That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“No, it doesn’t. What makes sense is to ensure we alone hold the creature and are able to harness its abilities.”
“It’s a living animal, Colonel, and your little experiment is over. I will see to that. This creature, whatever it is, needs protection from the world. And perhaps,
we from it. I will be dispatching my own search team to find the General.”
“You think it will be that easy? The General has sent out a splinter team. We don’t know if the creature is with him or them.” He grimaced, his throat dry from too much talking.
“He’s trying to divide our resources, to send us chasing more than one team?”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps he’s searching for something—something like the object he stole from the Chinese and then destroyed. I’ve told you all I know.” He coughed again, spraying spittle onto the inner plastic of the mask. “Send in the doctor.”
“Oh, there won’t be any need for that, Colonel.” Lucy turned and walked away. “You won’t be going to hell any time soon. Just a jail cell if I can help it. The morpholino is working. You’ll live, at least long enough to face a judge.”
Lucy stormed out of the chamber and into the second airlock. An overhead shower applied foam to the surface of her suit. She stood there fuming, her anger consuming her. Although the shower sequence only took twelve minutes, it seemed like a lifetime. Her mind raced—she’d been threatened, her brother put at risk, and the U.S. Government was conducting nonhuman experiments and invading Chinese territory. Furthermore, the Minister had killed himself and the head of the Chinese military. It was a mess. She was sure the President didn’t know, but she could not go to him yet. She had to have proof, otherwise no one was going to believe her.
The shower stopped. She pushed her way into airlock one and fought her way out of the biohazard suit, grunting as her arms got trapped in the sleeves. She threw the suit into a crumpled heap on the floor, marched out of the airlock, dressed in only the specialized underwear, and up to the intercom interface.
“I’m ready to leave, Christian.”
“Did you get what you needed?” His voice crackled through the speaker.
“Yes. Seems I need to go to New Mexico.”
“Okay. By the way, I have initiated wider testing of the morpholino. I think we should be able to bring it to the General population in a day or so.”
“Good, very good. Well done, Christian.” She sighed and turned back to the Colonel who was grunting and coughing in frustration. “Now, time to finish off this little experiment. Boys and their damn toys.”
Children of the Fifth Sun Page 24
