BENEATH - A Novel

by Jeremy Robinson

  Ridley grinned. "Why don't explain it to me."

  Maddox grew excited. He never expected to be in a position to explain something to the Richard Ridley. "As you know...may know...the Wnt pathway is a network of proteins, which, in essence, tells a growing fetus where, how and when to grow limbs. But it becomes dormant after birth. Mother Nature's kill switch so to speak, preventing uncontrolled additions, like another finger growing on the hand when you get a cut. What we tried to do was reactivate the pathway in adults so that when a finger is cut off, the active Wnt proteins tell the cells to grow new ligaments, bones and muscles, not just layer of new skin."

  Ridley cleared his throat. "But...and correct me if I'm wrong, the Wnt pathway, while a brilliant attempt is a rather embarrassing dead end."

  Maddox hunched as his ego deflated. Ridley knew more than he was letting on.

  "But..." Ridley waggled a finger at him. "...you're already pursuing a different path, aren't you?"

  A lot more than he was letting on.

  Maddox remained silent, knowing that any verification of his current work would be a breach of contract with CreGen and would lead to his firing and probably legal action against him. Just being here, instead of vacationing in the Caribbean where he was supposed to be, would be enough to get him fired.

  "You don't need to say anything. I know it puts you in a...situation. So I'll say it for you. You've managed to regenerate limbs on rats—tails, legs, even ears."

  Maddox's eyes widened. "How do you know that? We haven't published—"

  Ridley held up his hand, silencing him. "Please. Let me finish. You've also partially regenerated limbs on pigs and sheep, though with less success. But the crème de la crème is what you, and you alone, have managed to do with...humans."

  "Now wait a minute," he said, sitting up straight. "The work on sheep and pigs is highly classified. There is no way you could—"

  Ridley raised his hands. "And yet, I do. Corporate espionage is a wonderful thing. Don't think your bosses at CreGen haven't sent spies in our direction. If not for Mr. Reinhart and Gen-Y, you'd probably be privy to Manifold's secrets as well." He leaned forward. "I notice you didn't mention the human experimentation."

  "That's because there isn't any," Maddox said, looking at the floor.

  Ridley smiled, put his glass down and picked up the folder on the table top. He opened it and began reading. "Boy. Fifteen years old. Admitted to MassGeneralHospital because he sliced off the tip of his left index finger while...trying to dissect a frog in his basement. The year was 1986." He looked up. "Sound familiar?"

  "How did you get access to my medical history?"

  "If I can bypass security at CreGen, do you really think HIPAA stands a chance?" He closed the file, returned it to the table top and then, like a striking snake, grabbed hold of Maddox's left hand. He held it up, inspecting the perfect left index finger. "You regenerated your finger tip. Not on the clock, mind you. On your own."

  Maddox yanked his hand away and sat back, crossing his arms.

  "No need to get upset. I admire your tenacity, even if it is inspired by vanity." He removed a folded piece of paper from his pant pocket and slowly unfolded it. "Tell me how and I'll show you what's on this piece of paper."

  "What could be on that piece of paper that would make me tell you something like that?"

  "Your future," he said. "Aren't you interested?"

  Maddox held out for five seconds and then said, "Pig bladder extract. It...helps construct the microscopic scaffolding for incoming human cells and emits chemical signals that stimulate the regrowth process."

  "That's...unusual." Ridley said, then smiled.

  "Pigs extracts are used in diabetes treatments, producing islet cells that help reverse the disease in humans when transplanted."

  "So you figured they could also help regrow limbs."

  Maddox shrugged. "At the time. Beyond that it's another dead end. The process doesn't work."

  Ridley nodded. "Then your research has stagnated?

  He didn't answer the question. He couldn't answer the question. It was too embarrassing to admit failure on something he'd spent his life on. Besides, He could see that Ridley knew the answer.

  "As a young man, before all this," he said, waving his arms at the room around them, "I was obsessed with maps. I would chart land routes from one point to another, say Beijing to Paris, over and over until it appeared I had exhausted all the possibilities. But then I tried something different, like your pig bladder, I turned the map upside down and new possibilities emerged. But this technique ultimately ended in frustration as I once again ran out of possibilities. Using my father's resources I turned to a final resource that is both hard to come by and often quite expensive—the ancient past. I purchased ancient maps from dealers around the world, legal and black market. Trade routes were revealed. Secret passages. Tunnels dug and forgotten. Each map revealed more. In this way I came to learn that the ancient past is one of the best ways to uncovers secrets in the modern world. It is a belief I hold to this day and a lesson you will soon learn...if you're interested."

  "I...don't know if I can."

  Ridley laughed like it was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard. "You regenerated your fingertip. You have ambition beyond the scope of CreGen, who, may I remind you, takes credit for your discoveries. But you're stuck, just like we are. You can regenerate a finger tip. So what? Kids under the age of eleven sometimes regenerate severed finger tips. You merely extended the age limit on fingertip regeneration."

  "By twenty-two years!"

  Ridley smiled. "Impressive, I know. But it's not the golden goose, is it? Full limb regeneration. Organ regeneration. Spine, brain, memory regeneration. Those are the real prizes."

  Excitement overtook Maddox's concerns. He could see that Ridley just might give him the keys to the kingdom, but he had a few requirements. "I want credit."

  "Done," he replied, handing Maddox the slip of paper he'd just finished unfolding. "My offer. Accept it and I will reveal the past that will take us to the future."

  As Maddox read over the few lines of text, his eyes widened with each word. He was offering him more than the key to the kingdom; this was the key to the universe! Unlimited research funding, a salary that would make him a multimillionaire and some of the best names in the business would be at his disposal.

  "Do you accept?"

  Maddox nodded slowly. This was not the kind of proposal to chew on.

  "Very good." He took a sip of tea and got comfortable, his big body stressing the limits of the chair in which he sat. "The problem with the Wnt pathway is that no one has been able to break what I call the 'natural barrier.' Humans can sometimes regenerate fingertips, as you've shown, but no one has been able to figure out what molecular pathway triggers this kind of natural regrowth. Pathways for triggering regrowth in other parts of the human body simply don't exist."

  "You believe I can overcome this?"

  "Not at all," he said with a chuckle. "I would prefer to follow a different path. Something less conventional."

  "How about nAG proteins?" Maddox said. Motivated by the compulsion to impress the man, he continued before Ridley could respond. "When a salamander loses a limb, blastema cells clump around the wound. Blastema cells can form bones, organs, brains—anything. Humans have them as embryos, but stop generating them after birth. The cells grow and divide, eventually becoming the amputated structure. The nAG protein directs the blastema cells, telling them what to become: muscle, veins, skin, etcetera. If we can find the human version of adult blastema cells and trigger the nAG proteins to communicate certain signals, the potential human regeneration is fantastic. But salamanders take more than a month to regrow a limb less than an inch long. The duration would be much longer for humans. Maybe a lifetime. But I'm sure that's a hurdle we can jump when we get to it. With these resources I imagine I should be able to unlock just about any secret."

  Ridley just cocked an eyebrow. "Not bad. Perhaps worth pursu
ing while we hunt down my pet project."

  Maddox did his best to suppress a sigh. Inwardly he shouted for Ridley to get to the point, but all he managed was a timid, "And that is?"

  The big man smiled without a hint of malice for the first time. "The fountain of youth isn't some waterfall out here in the jungle, Maddox," he said, then pointed at his chest. "I want to live forever and the key to that treasure is locked away inside our DNA. In our genetics. And in our past."

  "You want to live forever?"

  "Who doesn't?" he said. "But I really just want to live long enough to take this company as far as it can go. I'm an entrepreneur at heart and my vision for this company has always been beyond its means, even now. You unlock the secret to regeneration and I might just live long enough to see my dreams come to fruition. We'll make a boatload of money too."

  Maddox almost laughed, but then realized the man was completely serious. He'd never considered that regeneration in the extreme could vastly extend lives, never mind immortality.

  "How well do you know Greek mythology?"

  Maddox folded his hands and leaned back. "Better than most I suppose. They fascinated me as a child after watching Clash of the Titans. But my knowledge is based on personal research, not actual academics."

  Ridley nodded. "There was a...creature. Perhaps one of a kind. Perhaps the last of its kind. Who knows. What's important is that this creature had the ability to regenerate limbs, including its neck and head, very quickly."

  "And you think this creature still lives today or its offspring still live today?"

  "No. If it were still alive, we'd know. The myth states that it was killed by...Hercules."

  "I see," wondering if Richard Ridley was losing his mind.

  Ridley saw the doubt in his eyes and became very serious. "Do not mistake me for a crackpot, Maddox. I have uncovered manuscripts beyond the legend of Hercules. Documents that have nothing to do with the legend. Records of ravaged herds. Destroyed villages. Missing hunting parties. For centuries no one knew what caused all the death and destruction. Not until Hercules, that is."

  He stood, walked to a wall safe, punched in a key code and opened the solid metal door. He removed a thick glass case that held a single, aged document. "I bought this document on the black market for one hundred thousand dollars before knowing it was authentic. Knowing what I know now...I would have done anything to obtain it...and on two occasions, a rival group whose identity I have yet to discover, tried to take it from me. It is truly priceless. As some have proven, it's worth dying for." He sat again and held the case out for Maddox to inspect.

  "What language is this?"

  "Greek. It's been dated to 460 B.C., mere years after Hercules fabled encounter with the creature. Far too soon for legend to have set in."

  Maddox stared at the document. Its age and plainness somehow lent credence to Ridley's claim.

  "It makes no mention of Hercules, though it clearly insinuates someone killed the beast. It offers only a description of the creature, so that it might be identified and dealt with properly should one be encountered again."

  "An ancient field guide," Maddox said, beginning to feel the first pangs of excitement.

  "Precisely. And do you know what I found?"

  Maddox waited in silence. He clearly had no idea.

  "The description of the creature in this purely historical text is nearly identical to the mythological description. Perhaps the feats of Hercules have been exaggerated through time and legend, but the details of the beast were so fantastic to begin with that no one in the past 2500 years felt the need to exaggerate its appearance or abilities. Because of this I am compelled to believe that many of the other aspects of the story are also real. Based on the details of the myth, finding the creature's burial place may be possible. If the creature has been well preserved, recovering its DNA would change everything we know about physical regeneration. Mr. Maddox, we must find the Beast of Lerna's final resting place and extract its DNA. The prize is eternal life."

  "Lerna..." Maddox leaned forward his eyes wide with realization. "My God. You're talking about the Hydra."

  Ridley smiled wide and toothy.

  "That's...crazy."

  Ridley chuckled. "And that's exactly what I'd expect a scientist to say." He locked his eyes on Maddox's. "The great scientists of human history all had something in common. Imagination. Einstein. Galileo. Da Vinci. Hawking. They all are brilliant scientists, but they also had the guts to tap what was previously considered fantasy, science fiction, heresy. If the human race didn't pursue the impossible we'd still be starring up at the moon having never set foot on it."

  Maddox knew he was right. He'd gone down that path when he regenerated his own finger. But even if the Hydra existed they would still have to locate its grave and extract viable DNA. I just didn't seem possible.

  "Let me put it to you this way; would you rather take a risk on something, that if successful will propel your name to the top of the list of great scientists, or would you rather it play it safe and return to a company that takes credit for your work? Remembered of forgotten?"

  "You really believe in this?"

  "I'm staking my eternal life on it."

  Maddox smiled. He would have said yes because of the pay alone, but if Ridley turned out to be right he might not only get his name into the history books, but also live long enough to see it. "I'm in."

  2

  Nazca Peru – 2009

  On the previous Monday, George Pierce had begun his workweek as usual. At 8am he lectured to his Ancient History undergrad class at the University of Athens. The subject had been the rise of Athenian influence. Lecturing never thrilled him and the subject was bland, but the real interesting work usually happened post-lunch, when he oversaw the archeological efforts on a recently discovered shipwreck of the island of Antikythera, where a fortress had also been discovered. They had discovered evidence of repeated attacks on the citadel, with perpetrators and defenders being identified as Rhodians, Spartans, Macedonians, and Romans going back to the time period Pierce most loved, 2000 B.C. and earlier—the time of myth and legend—which is why the shipwreck fascinated and excited him.

  He had yet to voice his theory on the ship's identity as it would be extremely controversial. He had evidence that supported his ideas, but nothing concrete. For that he would need the ship's nameplate or even more unlikely, a log book. But after three months of recovering artifacts and cataloging them at the university had yielded little. His single most compelling piece of evidence, an iron medallion, was being kept safe and secret by his colleague Agustina Gallo, one of the few people he trusted in all of Greece.

  As was now usual his Monday came and went with no further discovery of any great importance. Pierce returned home to his university campus apartment, sat down and opened his e-mail. After reading the single e-mail in his inbox, he cancelled the Ancient History class three weeks from the semester's end and put Agustina in charge of the Antikythera excavations.

  Less than a week and more than 8000 miles later, he arrived in Nazca Peru, where he stared at crude Greek letters carved into a stone, stunned and silent. Slowly, he reached out and felt the symbol scratched into the stone above the inscriptions. He'd seen it before, but would keep its meaning to himself, for now. He moved on to the letters tracing them with his fingertips, convincing himself that what he saw really existed. He'd been searching for signs of the great ancient civilizations completing the journey to the Americas long before Columbus—the Vikings and Romans in the northeast United States were nearly common knowledge among his peers—but the Greeks in South America...in Peru, now that would rewrite history.

  The e-mail he received disclosed a report about a new nine headed geoglyph, a massive drawing in the earth created thousands of years ago, from a friend in the U.N. who oversaw world-wide heritage sites. The 175 square mile region in which the famous Nazca lines were found had been declared a world heritage site in 1994. The very first Nazca drawings, di
scovered in 1929, didn't reach true world-wide fame until planes began flying over the desolate region and people began spotting more geoglyphs—a lot more. From the air, massive line drawings in the desert floor emerged that could not be discerned from the ground. Some, reaching lengths of 1000 feet, could not be seen in their entirety below an altitude of 1500 feet. The geoglyphs came in all shapes and sizes, from spiders to monkeys to men and deities. The discovery of any new geoglyph in the region was immediately reported to the U.N., not because important information might have been gleaned, but because even though the region was officially "protected," looters still pillaged most finds in the area long before researchers set foot in the country.

  As a precaution, all archeological finds had to be catalogued, researched and removed to secure locations before news of a new find reached the looters, who would descend like vultures. The geoglyphs rarely held anything more interesting than pot shards and crude digging tools, but surveying and photographing the ancient drawing before the looters tire tracks marred the image was equally important.

  During the initial aerial photography session, a large stone that looked like half an egg rising from the desert at the end of the odd creature's central neck leapt out at the photographer. A geoglyph with a three dimensional feature had never been found before. The following day, a team hurried to the site, inspecting the stone and the area around it. All were amazed when they found an inscription on the stone, but no one could read it, though one young college intern recognized the language—Greek.

  The discovery had been made one day before Pierce received the e-mail. Given his previous work with the U.N. World-Heritage Commission and his expertise on ancient civilizations, Pierce had been called to the scene. After three plane flights and a long, bumpy and dusty jeep ride, he arrived on site, where a small base-camp had been set up on the hill that overlooked the glyph. He'd exited the jeep only ten minutes ago and upon seeing the nine headed glyph had run down the hill to where he now stood. He stared at a Greek inscription on a stone that couldn't possibly have come from Greece, which meant that someone from Greece had been to Peru, to this very spot, more than two thousand years ago.