Extinction Countdown

by James D. Prescott

  “Kay, surely it can wait until the morning.”

  “I’m sorry, but there isn’t a chance in hell this can wait.”

  Ron undid three locks and opened the door no more than a crack. “I like enthusiasm just as much as the next editor, but showing up at my house in the middle of the night is totally inappropriate.” Balding with tufts of grey hair and a saggy chin, Ron looked about ten years older than he was. The man’s crankiness hung over him like a prickly blanket.

  She swung the laptop bag around and tapped it with the palm of her hand. “You may change your mind once you see this.”

  Ducking his head away for a moment, Ron lit a pipe and pulled open the door. “You’ve got five minutes to impress me before I call Trish and have her fire you.”

  “If you’re not impressed, I’ll be happy to quit.”

  He laughed at that, a raspy and painful-looking endeavor. He paused briefly in the hallway and angled his torso to complete a rather fierce-sounding hacking session. The ferocity of the act forced him to flex his toes against the black and white tiles beneath his feet. Eager to avert her eyes, Kay studied the exquisite wood trimmings around the entryway. The outside was gorgeous, the inside was on another level.

  He brought her to his study. A large desk overflowed with papers, books and magazines. Plush leather chairs stood one on either side of the desk. Hugging the walls were a series of bookshelves, filled to the brim. More books were stacked on the floor. He motioned for her to sit, removing a pile of papers from the seat.

  “Out with it,” he said, drawing on his pipe and releasing a pleasant puff of smoke.

  Kay removed the laptop, turned it on and spun it around. “Double-click the video icon.”

  He did and sat watching it, his eyes narrowed. On several occasions he grunted.

  Then finally he asked her: “Where’d you get this?”

  “A White House contact,” she replied coyly.

  “That sounds vague. What does this source of yours do?”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure.”

  Ron’s considerable brow knit together. “You have a contact and you don’t know who it is?”

  She shook her head. “He only just started reaching out.”

  Ron shook his head with displeasure. He hated anything that could come back and bite the paper in the ass. “Of course, if true, this video is one of the biggest political conspiracies since Watergate. The rules in Lifestyle may be a little different, but in the news division, if the paper hangs its hat on something this big, and the guy turns out to be some nutjob, then the Washington Post pretty much bought the farm. You get me?”

  Kay crossed her arms. “And how much will any of that matter in thirteen days from now? You heard them. Once the president is out of the way and the VP takes over, they plan to declare war on an alien race infinitely more powerful than we are.”

  Ron removed his pipe and rubbed at the side of his face. “Obviously you saw the news tonight.”

  “Who didn’t? It’s everywhere. And here’s the crazy part. I knew about it beforehand.”

  “You what?”

  “My source sent me on a treasure hunt for the very same pictures that are all over the news right now. Told me there was more to come if I kept it to myself and he knew he could trust me.”

  “Yes, and meanwhile every other news outlet in the country is running with it, all except us, and you could have changed that.”

  Kay shook her head in frustration. “I took a chance. He promised me a bigger fish and I think it was worth it. But now you’re saying you don’t wanna run the story in case it isn’t true. But consider this. What if it is true?”

  He stared at her, his eyes burning brightly. “If you’re so sure about this guy, then bring it to the cops. Now get out.”

  “Ron,” Kay pleaded, her hands out before her.

  “Go!” he shouted.

  Dejected, Kay took the laptop and made her way out of Ron’s house and back to the car. She sat for a moment, her finger hovering over the ignition switch. If Ron Lewis was too much of a pussy to run the story, maybe an editor from another paper might be willing to give it a shot. But with time ticking away, her mind kept returning to the last thing he had told her, about bringing it to the cops. She trusted her source, and he had proven himself worthy of that trust. Still, Ron might have had a point. Maybe it was worth hitting this from both ends. She would inform the authorities and publish the story with a different paper.

  Kay scrolled through her phone contacts until she landed on Vincente Ramirez. He had dated her old roommate back in the day while training for the FBI. She clicked on his name and listened as a strange ring began to sound. The kind of ring that signaled he wasn’t in the country.

  “Ramirez,” he answered.

  “Hey, it’s Kay Mahoro.”

  “Kay?”

  “Heather’s roommate.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember. Listen, Kay, I’m out of the country on assignment. Things are pretty crazy here right now. Let me call you when I’m back in the States.”

  She frowned. He probably thought she was angling to ask him out or something. “Don’t hang up. I’ve been working on a story for the Post and a source close to the president just sent me video evidence of a conspiracy to have him assassinated.”

  Ramirez grew quiet. “Assassination? If you’re sure about your source you should call the FBI’s head office.”

  “That’s the thing. The people involved are some of the most powerful figures in the country. I’m worried it might be suppressed. Can I send it to you and have you forward it to someone at the bureau that you trust?”

  Another pause. “Yeah, sure, of course. You just caught me off guard.”

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “Kolkata,” he told her. “On security detail for one of the scientists who went inside that spaceship they found. We got rioters outside and she doesn’t want to leave just yet.”

  “Dr. Mia Ward?” Kay asked, feeling the air escape from her lungs all at once.

  “Yeah, and I’ll tell you, I can’t wait until I’m back in the US.”

  “I’m compressing the files and sending them to you now.” Just then Kay’s phone flashed Ron Lewis’ number. “Listen, I gotta go, but stay in touch and stay safe.” She released Ramirez and switched over to Ron. “Kay here.”

  “I’ve been thinking about what you told me and I’ve decided we should run with the story.”

  A surge of elation ran through her body. “You have?”

  “It’s far too late to make tomorrow’s paper, but we can put it online, make it front-page news. But only if you think you can bang it out before sunrise. Otherwise I can hand it off to Bev Schneider, she’s a…”

  “Forget Bev, I can do it,” Kay practically screamed. “And don’t worry, you’ll have your story. I’ll stay up all night if I have to.”

  “That’s what I like to hear,” Ron said and hung up.

  Kay sat in her silver Corolla, her chest heaving, her armpits drenched. This was the chance she’d been waiting for. A chance to set wheels in motion that might save more than a single life. It could save an entire planet. So why couldn’t she shake the uneasy feeling in the pit of her belly?

  Chapter 19

  Kolkata

  “This is incredible,” Jansson said, leaning over the desk in the cramped confines of the projection room. She leafed through the documents Mia had printed, outlining the connection between GMOs and Salzburg. Mia considered their next steps, fully aware that only meters away all hell was breaking loose in the streets.

  Chalk had come by moments before to inform both women that the situation outside was growing more violent and that the barricades holding back the crowd weren’t going to last much longer. Already, several storefronts along Diamond Harbour Road had been vandalized. It was starting to look as though the authority’s use of tear gas and water hoses was only aggravating the situation.

  Mia had been prepared to leave at a moment’s
notice, although she had no clear idea what kind of escape route her two FBI handlers had in mind. She still held out hope that the masses below would eventually grow tired and disperse all on their own. She understood the very legitimate fear they were feeling. The news that Armageddon might be fast approaching from the dark depths of space was difficult to wrap one’s head around. And to think that it wasn’t an icy rock flung off from the asteroid belt, but rather a death machine sent by an alien species. A week ago, the notion of life existing outside our planet was enough to earn snickers and tinfoil hats. Today, it was propelling people onto the streets, demanding some sort of response from governments impotent to counter the threat.

  In the hours after news of the incoming ship had been announced, India’s stock market, the National Stock Exchange, had suffered a complete meltdown with trading suspended indefinitely. Moments later, banks had banned all withdrawals over six hundred rupees (one hundred U.S. dollars). And Mia was certain it wouldn’t be long before the same thing began to happen back home.

  “Mia?” Jansson said gently, touching the geneticist’s elbow.

  Mia blinked and turned to her. Her colleague was wearing a backpack and sneakers, clearly ready to flee at the first sign of imminent danger. “I’ve gone over the data three times,” Mia said. “If you see a flaw I’m happy to revisit and check again.”

  Jansson shook her head. “I see no flaws. I’m quite shocked, to be honest with you. Genes aren’t supposed to act like carpenters, cobbling together cabins out of driftwood. HISR is acting more like a nanobot dressed up to look like a gene.”

  “You might very well be on to something,” Mia admitted. “Although given the circumstances, I don’t see us getting to the bottom of that particular question here and now.”

  “No,” Jansson said reflectively. “Which of course leads us to the other major mystery.”

  “Why GMOs?” Mia replied, seeing where her Dutch friend was heading.

  “Exactly,” Jansson said, placing her hands on the back of the chair before her. “Why not steam power, nuclear fusion or any other manmade invention?”

  “It’s a benchmark,” Mia said, thinking out loud. “The ability to create genetically modified organisms. To assemble life. To play God.”

  Jansson held up the data Mia had collected. “If this is true—if the HISR gene was planted inside organisms on earth and set on sentry duty while it sat waiting for the age of genetic engineering—well, I’m sorry to say, I find that incredibly creepy.”

  “You think that means they’re actively monitoring us?” Mia asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “My guess is they’ve been watching the planet for millions of years, waiting for those Plesiadapiformes specimens you found on the ship to grow up and become us. And now, seeing that creation is consumed by war and strife, they’ve decided to wipe us out.”

  “The other possibility,” Mia offered, “is that they don’t even know we exist.”

  “I would find that hard to believe,” Jansson said. “Why go to all the trouble of seeding the planet with life only to destroy it? Doesn’t make sense.”

  “Who says any of it has to make sense? Just look what they did to the dinosaurs. Besides, I shouldn’t be mentioning this, but there’s been talk of using nuclear missiles to blow the ship up before it reaches us.”

  Jansson crossed her arms. “Do you think that could work?”

  “Maybe in the movies, it might. Given the object’s speed, I think it’s liable to do more harm than good.”

  “That doesn’t leave us with many options, besides living underground or moving to Mars.”

  Mia shook her head. “Jack’s gonna try to have the people at NASA beam messages at the ship informing them that there are people down here.”

  “Assuming, that is, they give one whit about the indigenous life on earth.”

  “We can only hope they do.”

  “But how will you send a message they’ll understand?” Jansson asked. “And what radio frequency do they communicate on?”

  “That’s the problem,” Mia admitted. “We have a basic sketch of their language. Maybe that’s where SETI comes in. They’ve spent billions of dollars on those telescopes. Maybe it’s time we put them to good use.”

  Both women smiled, forgetting for a moment about the world outside.

  “Or maybe that’s where Salzburg comes in,” Mia proposed halfheartedly.

  Jansson looked genuinely intrigued. “Really? How so?”

  “Well, I have a hunch that frequency you mentioned might be listed somewhere inside Salzburg’s genome. All we need to do is find a patient with all eight Salzburg genes and feed the genomic information into a supercomputer I happen to be friends with.”

  “Wow, aren’t you lucky.” The sound of Jansson’s laughter was cut short by an explosion that rocked the building. This time, the lights did go out and for good. Mia charged out of the projection room and into the sound of screams from the corridor. Hearing it chilled the blood in her veins. In an instant, Mia understood exactly what was happening. The mob had broken in and they were trapped.

  Chapter 20

  Greenland

  The feed from the drone showed it slowly approaching the twenty-foot hole bored through the ice. The winds, which had been fierce when they landed, had died down to around ten miles per hour, making flying the four-rotor device a far more manageable affair.

  Quickly they came upon the lift, which straddled the opening with a triangular formation of metallic struts. A series of thick cables led from an engine room nearby to a series of wheels and pulleys at the top of the metallic support structure. What they had hoped to find at the end of those cables was a large circular cage that would have allowed them to descend the nearly two-mile distance through the ice. But the cage wasn’t there. Whoever had taken out the advanced team must have already used it to make their own descent.

  The team sat huddled around the computer screen, watching the drone draw closer.

  “Signal strength at one hundred percent,” Anna told them, referring to the link she had with the drone. “Dr. Greer, do you wish for me to proceed?”

  He glanced at Gabby, who had her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She caught his eye and nodded. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to see what we’re getting ourselves into.”

  “Proceed,” Jack said.

  Dag leaned in, his beard next to Jack’s shoulder. They were all wearing their biosuits, fully geared up to head down as soon as they got a handle on what, if anything, was down there.

  Without any noticeable movement, Anna expertly maneuvered the drone over the opening, careful to avoid the cable running down the center. In one swift motion, she rotated it into a ninety-degree angle and swung toward the cable until the two touched. An electronically controlled, metallic latch Anna had fitted to the base of the drone then secured the flying device to the cable. Another order from Anna tilted the top two rotors so that they were now horizontal.

  “The hell is she doing?” Dag asked, baffled by the display.

  A wide grin spread across Grant’s ruddy face. “Something quite ingenious, actually.”

  Anna cut power to the rotors and the drone plummeted through the hole, clinging to the cable like a special forces soldier fast-roping from a helicopter. A wall of emerald greens and azure blues whizzed by as the drone descended.

  “Five hundred meters,” Anna told them. None of this information was appearing on the screen, but was being relayed directly to her.

  The colors changed slightly as the drone fell further away from the sun’s rays. Before long the colors dulled.

  “One thousand meters,” Anna said.

  It was darker now and she switched on the drone’s lights.

  When it reached two thousand meters, it exited the bottom of the hole and entered a truly enormous ice cavity. Jack snatched the inconclusive seismic survey they had found in the science lab and studied the vague outline of the chamber. He held the printout up to the light of
the window next to him and tilted the image on its side. “Seems to go on for miles in every direction,” he said, impressed.

  “Could it be that whatever’s down there has been melting the ice around it?” Gabby speculated.

  “If the bottom of this cavern is flooded,” Grant said, twitching one of his bushy eyebrows, “then your hypothesis may be correct. But if it’s still frozen, then perhaps whatever’s down there didn’t melt the ice, but prevented it from forming in the first place.”

  The image on the computer screen began to stutter. “Signal strength is at forty-two percent,” Anna warned them.

  “Detach from the cable,” Jack told her.

  Anna turned to him. “Are you certain, Dr. Greer? The connection is already down to thirty-nine percent. I may lose Aphrodite.”

  “Aphrodite?” Dag repeated in surprise.

  Jack grit his teeth. “You may have fixed that drone up with a few fancy modifications, Anna, but unlike you, it’s only a machine. Now do as I say and disconnect.”

  Anna looked at him a moment longer, blinking. “As you wish, Dr. Greer. Separation engaged.”

  The rear rotors began to spin, slowing the drone’s descent as the metal latch came undone. A second later the rotors transitioned and it flew away from the cable at high speed, righting itself in the process. Captain Mullins stared at the laptop feed, mesmerized. Even from this height, the drone’s lights cast deep shadows against the strange shapes undulating below.

  They could see scattered mounds of ice and what looked like rock. Still, there was something unnatural about what they were seeing.

  “Bring her lower,” Jack said, crossing his arms and bending slightly at the waist.

  “Signal strength at twenty-five percent,” Anna informed him. Although her tone was neutral, Jack could feel the subtle barbs all the same.

  They were about a hundred feet from the surface when Gabby let out a gasp.

  “What’s wrong?” Dag asked, clutching his chest.

  “Those shapes…” she stammered, struggling to get the words out, clearly struggling to process what she was seeing. “I think they’re structures.”