Extinction Countdown

by James D. Prescott

  What did this mean? Mia was in the middle of asking herself when Jansson stormed into the room.

  “I heard you found something,” she said, practically panting.

  “HISR isn’t merely a useless remnant from our ancestral past,” Mia started to explain. “It’s an assembler gene, one that’s been waiting for eons to perform its one and only purpose, creating Salzburg.”

  “But from what?” Jansson said, both amazement and skepticism in her voice. “New chromosomes and genes don’t simply pop into existence out of nowhere.”

  Mia met her gaze and held it. “I believe it’s using our non-coding DNA, what some still erroneously refer to as junk DNA, as the building blocks.”

  Jansson held the edge of the table to stabilize herself. “That’s incredible. But why now? What triggered HISR to become active?”

  “I’m not sure,” Mia told her. “But I have an idea how to find out.”

  Chapter 14

  Washington, D.C.

  The GPS coordinates Kay got at the restaurant led her to the Korean War Veterans Memorial in West Potomac Park. Dedicated in 1995, the main feature was a triangular strip of land with a platoon of nineteen stainless-steel soldiers.

  She stood for a moment, biting at her lip, watching the statues silhouetted against the darkened sky. Strolling through the park at night wasn’t exactly the smartest thing for a woman to be doing, but the promise of a big story had overwhelmed the nagging little voice in her head. Thankfully, a handful of couples were milling about, including a family of four. One of the children dragged his feet, whimpering.

  Laydeezman had told her she would know it when she saw it and here she was standing before the memorial without seeing much of anything. She decided to circle around the display, checking the surroundings for anything unusual. Like the grounds themselves, the soldiers were also arranged in a tactical wedge formation. Kay moved clockwise, circling around to the left of the soldier out front and scanning left and right as she went. She looked at her phone and saw less than ten minutes remained before the deadline. She had reached the rear of the formation when something caught her eye. One of the statues was carrying an unusual piece of equipment. In the dark it almost looked natural, but something about the shape of it stuck out. It was a black bag. Kay stepped over the chain fence and drew nearer. She was less than five feet away by the time she realized she was looking at a black laptop bag. Bingo!

  •••

  Not long after, she had returned to Biltmore Street and the one-room apartment in the Adams Morgan part of town she called home. Her cat Goggles—so named after the circular patches of dark fur covering his eyes—greeted her at the door with an onslaught of recriminating meows.

  “I know I’m late,” she told her persnickety roommate, moving into the living room and setting the laptop bag down. “You should have food in your bowl.”

  Goggles stared as she spoke, then meowed.

  Kay sat on the couch next to the laptop and tapped her leg. “Get over here, you stubborn little bugger.”

  After playing hard to get, Goggles leapt up, rubbing the sides of his face against Kay. Soon the little beast was curled next to her and Kay carefully removed the laptop and flipped open the top. There wasn’t a power cord inside the bag. She pressed the power button and to her surprise the machine hummed to life. It had barely gotten started when the computer asked for a password.

  Kay frowned. It was just her luck to get this far only to be stopped dead by something so small. She pulled out her phone and was about to message Laydeezman when she remembered something. Hadn’t he included a string of numbers in his message to her? She had assumed it was some kind of phone number, but maybe she’d been wrong. Scrolling up, she found what she was looking for.

  2028569587

  Kay inputted the numbers and clicked enter. A spinning disc appeared briefly before the desktop appeared.

  So far, so good.

  Not only was she in, but getting in with the password also confirmed she’d left West Potomac Park with the right item.

  The desktop displayed a single icon. It looked like a video file. Kay clicked it.

  A black and white video began to play. Five men sat in what looked like a boardroom. The strange downward angle of the shot gave Kay the distinct impression the group had been filmed secretly. But even without color or close-ups, Kay was able to easily identify who she was seeing. They were among the most powerful men in the country. Vice-President John Millard, Speaker of the House Julia Lopez, President of the Senate William Jackson Jr., Secretary of State Robert Chase and Secretary of the Treasury Ellen Hall.

  There was audio too. She listened with bated breath.

  “He’s already started moving the departments of agriculture and energy underground,” Lopez said, tapping on the table with the pads of her fingers.

  “I heard Treasury’s set to go next,” Hall told them with disgust. “There aren’t enough bunkers in the whole country for more than a few thousand, not to mention our family members. I’m telling you he’s dead wrong on this one.”

  “The prospect of living underground for the next few decades while the earth cools isn’t my idea of fun,” Jackson said, shaking his head and leaning back in his seat. “John, did you try convincing him to hit that thing with every nuke we had?”

  “Till I was blue in the face,” Millard replied. “President Taylor’s already given up. He’s convinced nuking it won’t do any good. And he’s certain a nuclear strike will start an interplanetary war we could never hope to win. Thinks if we go down that road they won’t stop till every last one of us has been exterminated. And that if we go underground and wait out the worst of it, at least some of us might still be around to rebuild and repopulate the planet.”

  After that the room erupted. It was clear to Kay the president was hoping to weather the incoming impact, rather than risk a move that might lead to the eradication of our species. To the men gathered around this table, however, such a move was tantamount to giving up. If the human race was going to die, let them do it fighting, rather than hiding in a hole like rats. Kay found herself ping-ponging back and forth between each of the positions. They both had merit and yet at the same time, both options were terrible.

  As Kay listened to them argue, a single thought kept running through her mind: What about the rest of us? If the president was already sending critical governmental bodies down into bunkers, would the rest of the American people, the rest of the world be left to die? A large-scale effort to save seven billion lives would take years, even decades, assuming it was even possible. A measly two weeks wouldn’t be nearly long enough. Clearly it was a shitty situation with a short list of shitty solutions.

  “Taylor’s a lost cause,” Chase told them. “He’s already made up his mind. Man’s left us no choice. The line of succession is very clear, ladies and gentlemen. Once he’s gone, Millard will slide into the job. Least then we’ll have a fighting chance.”

  After that the video ended.

  Kay’s mouth was dry from the shock of what she had just witnessed. This wasn’t merely a bunch of angry government bureaucrats venting their frustration. This was proof of a massive conspiracy involving the president’s own cabinet. A conspiracy to have him assassinated and replaced by his vice-president.

  The ping from Kay’s phone startled her. She shifted to remove it from her pocket, annoying Goggles, who was busy cleaning his ears. The Laydeezman had sent her a message.

  Have you watched it?

  “Where did you get this?”

  I can’t say. But I hope now you can understand my paranoia.

  “The president’s life is in danger,” she wrote, her fingers feeling numb against her phone’s touch screen.

  Not if you can publish the story first.

  “What do you mean? Shouldn’t you just contact the authorities?

  Don’t be naïve. The highest levels are in on it. However, once the conspiracy is exposed to the public, the authorities will have n
o option but to move in. There’s a folder on the laptop with still images. Close-ups of each of the conspirators. That way they won’t be able to claim it isn’t them. But it needs to get out as soon as possible, otherwise President Taylor, along with the rest of us, will end up dead.

  Chapter 15

  The blast of cold air bit the exposed skin on Jack’s face as he exited the plane, his boots crunching over tightly compacted ice and snow. They were on a wide-open Arctic plain, the wind whipping along at incredible speeds. As if to prove the point, the American flag flying atop Northern Star rippled violently. Fifty yards away lay the four cold-weather modules that made up the base. Three massive blue structures connected to an even larger red one in the center.

  As they pushed through the blinding snow, Captain Mullins pointed to the blue module on the far right. “That’s M2, the engineering module,” he shouted over the wind. “We’ll go in through there.”

  They pressed forward, leaning into the powerful gale. Jack had been part of three Arctic expeditions in the past and each time the habitat was normally a flurry of activity, especially when a transport touched down. Scanning around, Jack still couldn’t see a soul. There might very well be a simple explanation for the eerie silence, but the strange feeling roiling his insides wasn’t going away.

  Soon, they reached the engineering module and climbed the circular set of stairs outside. Mullins peered in through the glass porthole before unlatching and pulling open the heavy door. Jack held it until everyone was inside. When the door was sealed shut behind them, he radioed the C-17.

  “We’re inside.”

  The static-filled reply from Peters, the plane’s pilot, came back a moment later. “Roger that.”

  The interior was spacious and modern, with corrugated steel floors, the walls made from a hardened plastic composite. Running the length of the engineering module was a long corridor with rooms on either side. The only light bled into the hallway from large circular windows in each chamber.

  Mullins, his rifle in the ready position, ducked into a room on the right, while Jack and Gabby went left. Décor-wise, white and varying shades of blue seemed to be the dominant motif, which made the red Jack saw splattered against the wall stand out in stark contrast. He flicked a switch on the wall and nothing happened. The crumpled form of a man in a military uniform lay in the far corner. “Captain,” Jack called out. “We got a body.” Gabby stood frozen, her hand covering her mouth.

  In a beat, Mullins was at the door, leading with the tactical light he’d fixed to the end of his rifle. He centered the beam over the body of a clean-shaven male sentry. The young man couldn’t have been older than nineteen or twenty, but the holes in his chest and head meant none of that mattered anymore. The fingers of his right hand were still curled around the grip of his holstered pistol. Mullins moved forward and took a closer look.

  “This is a tight grouping,” he said, inspecting the wounds. “Poor bastard didn’t have a chance.” He carefully removed the soldier’s hand from the pistol’s grip and handed the weapon to Jack. “I sure hope you know how to use one of these.”

  “I grew up in Houston,” Jack told him, accepting the pistol and pulling back the slide far enough to chamber a round. “Guns are baked into our DNA.” He informed Peters of the situation and told the rest of the crew to hang tight and report any movement they spotted outside.

  Anna stepped into the room, a light glowing from her chest as she stared intently at the body. She had seen death before, although only briefly following the melee with the Sentinel agents on the ship. Surely, Anna would have questions, Jack knew, but those would have to wait. It was starting to look as though Sentinel hadn’t been dismantled nearly as much as they thought it had.

  “What about me?” Dag asked, heavy threads of fear in his voice. “Don’t I get a gun?” His thick red beard looked dark in the low light.

  “Looks like this is all we got,” Jack told him. “Whoever did this may still be here, so let’s stay close.”

  They exited the room with the dead soldier, Mullins in front, Jack close behind, followed by the others.

  One by one they cleared each of the rooms as they made their way down the corridor. When they reached the generator room, it became clear someone had switched off the power. With some effort, they got it going again. At least now, heat would begin flowing back through the old girl’s bones and maybe they could get a distress call out to CENTCOM.

  Jack pushed into the electronics lab. The room was roughly twenty by thirty with tables hugging every wall. Shelves hung above them filled with anything and everything an electronics junkie would kill for. Watching Anna’s face, it was as though she’d come home. She reached down and scooped up what looked like a small pizza box with rotor blades. A broad smile filled her face.

  “This is no time to play,” Jack told her.

  Anna glanced over, frowning. “Of course, Dr. Greer. I believe this is a drone,” she told him.

  “Maybe it is.” He began to wave her out of the room. “Let’s stick together.”

  “I was thinking, Dr. Greer, if this drone is operational, we might be able to explore the other modules without exposing ourselves to danger.”

  Jack paused and considered Anna’s suggestion. “That isn’t a terrible idea,” he told her. They had already cleared this part of the facility. Soon they would be making their way to the central social module and beyond. “How long will it take you to get it working?”

  “I cannot say. I will work as quickly as I can.”

  Jack nodded and was about to step from the room when Anna said: “Please be careful, Dr. Greer.”

  •••

  The others had moved onto the computer lab when Jack pushed ahead into comms. He inched slowly into the room, cutting the angle whenever he could to limit his exposure. “Anyone in here?” he asked, his voice echoing back at him. He turned a corner and saw a figure slumped over a desk wearing a headset. Jack flicked on the light and wished he hadn’t. A gaping hole in the back of his head told him everything he needed to know. Two more bodies wearing military uniforms were sprawled over a couch.

  Whoever had done this had swept through the advance team like a scythe, wiping them out one by one. Given the surprise on the faces of the dead he’d seen so far, it was logical to assume they’d been using silencers and ambushing small groups of scientists and soldiers. He had expected to find a base bustling with activity. Instead they had found a tomb.

  Jack leaned in to check the bodies on the couch when a pair of frantic eyes snapped open. He jumped back in fright. It was a woman and she drew in a deep, ragged breath.

  Chapter 16

  Horrified, Mia and a dozen lab technicians had paused their work to watch the battle raging on the streets below. The throngs of cars, tuk-tuks, motorbikes and shoppers were gone. In their place was a mob of hundreds, if not thousands of protesters, pushing against a wall of Kolkata riot police armed with only long wooden clubs. The crowd was shouting and chanting in anger.

  “Can you make out what they’re saying?” Mia asked Jansson’s assistant Aditi, all the while trying to stamp down the sense of fear growing within her.

  “It sounds as though they’re upset the government has set up curfews,” Aditi said, her large brown eyes betraying her own deep sense of unease. “It must have something to do with news of the alien ship heading to earth. People are afraid and instead of reassuring them, the government has chosen to institute draconian laws. They will never learn.”

  The police were in the process of using water cannons on the protesters when Agents Ramirez and Chalk entered the lab. “It isn’t safe to stay here anymore,” Ramirez told her.

  Suddenly the lights in the hospital flickered, as if to prove the agent’s point.

  Mia motioned outside. “And you think it’s safer out there?”

  “No, but we’re working on an extraction plan,” Chalk informed her. For the first time, she noticed the white earpiece he was wearing.

&nbs
p; The lights flickered once again and the technician next to her crossed her arms. “We shouldn’t lose power. We’re on the hospital grid.”

  That might be, Mia thought, but what about the rest of the city? India didn’t exactly have a temperate climate. If the grid went down, there was no telling how many people would die from heatstroke alone. She turned to the two FBI agents. “I need more time,” she told them.

  Chalk ran a nervous hand over his taut scalp and glared at the mounting chaos outside. “We’re gonna do what we can to keep this mob from smashing its way inside, but if we fail, you’re coming with us whether you like it or not.” He brushed his suit jacket aside, revealing a small twenty-caliber semi-automatic pistol. Chalk removed it, checked that the safety was on and handed it to Mia. “Can you use one of these?”

  She thought of Ollie and nearly let out a sardonic burst of laughter. What felt like a very long time ago, he too had once asked her that same question. She took the pistol and pulled back the slide. “I can take care of myself just fine,” she informed them in as nice a way as she could. She certainly had her own set of scars to prove it, she thought, sliding the pistol into the side pocket of her cargo pants and retreating further to the back of the lab. Or at least as far as she could get from the windows and the sounds of the civil strife below. The truth was, they didn’t have time for all of this, not when so much was counting on her unraveling the mystery behind Salzburg. Taking a deep breath, Mia tried to settle her mind by going back to the summers she’d spent as a young girl camping with her family in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The smell of hot dogs roasting over an open flame. Sitting around the camp fire while her father told ghost stories.