Extinction Countdown

by James D. Prescott

  Ollie and Dr. Felli returned when Mia saw Noemi had taken a new piece of scrap paper and begun scribbling in earnest.

  hello hallo can you hear me hello mia can you hear us

  “Tell me that wasn’t what you were just shouting from the other room,” Mia begged Ollie. But his sickly pale complexion told her everything she needed to know.

  “Are you certain you couldn’t hear us?” Ollie asked, mystified.

  Mia shook her head. Her eyes fell once again to the paper on the desk. Noemi stared up at her, the child’s eyes like two deep dark pools.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  Chapter 47

  Greenland

  The gunshot erupted less than a foot from Jack’s head. His ears rang as the smell of gunpowder wafted through the crypt. The soldier’s head was bent back at a strange angle, his eyes open and staring. A small red bullet hole bloomed between his eyes.

  “Are you insane?” Mullins yelled. “I specifically told you to stand down. The guy was singing like a caged bird.”

  “We got more than we needed,” Tamura replied, holstering her pistol.

  “Is this about satisfying some personal thirst for revenge?” Jack said, accusingly.

  “I won’t rest until every last one of them is dead,” she told him without a hint of emotion.

  Jack found Grant’s eyes. The botanist nodded, set down his science kits and grabbed Tamura in a bear hug from behind. Jack then relieved her of her weapon and handed it to Mullins. “There’s no place here for a loose cannon. You’ve been biding your time waiting for an opportunity to waste the folks who killed your friends. I get that. But right now that’s putting us and this mission in jeopardy.”

  She scowled at him, her lips drawn thin with tension. “I’m sorry. You’re right, I acted impulsively. It won’t happen again.”

  “Let her go,” he told Grant, who did so and stepped back.

  Without saying a word, Mullins pushed past them until he was swallowed by the blackened tunnel ahead.

  After gathering their gear, they trudged along for thirty more minutes before they came to a massive circular stone slab. This might have signaled the end of their underground travels had it not been for the ten-foot hole blasted into the slab’s bottom-right section. Jack recalled feeling the ground shake during the battle on the surface. He wondered if this had also been when the blast had occurred.

  A carpet of fossilized bones littered the entire area, protruding from the frozen ground like long skeletal fingers.

  “There’s so many of them,” Rajesh said, reciting what sounded like a silent prayer.

  “The city’s survivors flocked here,” Jack said, scanning the floor and feeling sick at the sight. “They came here, hoping to be let inside to safety.”

  He imagined the terrified masses, their fists pounding against the giant stone door as it closed on them. Broken bones jutted out from the groove where the heavy slab had rolled into place.

  “They were crushed trying to get inside,” Gabby said, seeing the same thing. “It was the end and many of them knew it.”

  Anna navigated through the ossuary, bones crunching beneath every one of her heavy steps. Lasers fired from her forehead, measured and cataloged everything they saw here. “I sense an increase in g-forces,” she noted, “although my instruments are not detecting any anomalies.”

  The concern in her voice drew Jack’s attention at once until he realized what might be causing the false alarm. “When did the reading start?” he asked her.

  “Moments ago,” she replied. “My weight has remained constant, I am certain. And yet I have the sensation of a force pushing down on me.”

  “That’s sadness,” Jack told her.

  Rajesh concurred. “Anna’s emotional program is always running in the background, accentuating and solidifying her preexisting reference points.”

  “You mean her tastes?” Dag added.

  “Exactly. Rather than simply smiling when someone she likes enters the room, she now has a corresponding bio-mechanical reaction.”

  “If she’s feeling sadness,” Gabby observed, moving closer, “then that means, at some level, she’s also capable of feeling empathy.”

  “Perhaps the most elusive of all the human emotions,” Grant said.

  “Really?” Tamura said, kneeling down next to Mullins as they studied the hole blown through the stone slab. “More elusive than love?”

  Grant considered this. “Most of us have felt love at one time in our lives, even if only from a family member. But empathy, the act of putting yourself in someone else’s skin and attempting to truly understand what they might be going through, that’s become something of a lost art.”

  “Isn’t this a dangerous path Anna is heading down?” Eugene said, directing the question to Rajesh. “Eventually computers will be running our entire lives. What if one day, Anna or something just like her feels terrible about the hunger and suffering in the world and decides that curing the planet’s ills begins and ends with humanity’s extermination? Haven’t they run simulations, asking computer programs to fix hunger in the most efficient way, and the damn thing suggested offing three-quarters of the population? You’re all so worried about Tamura getting hot under the collar, you’ve failed to consider what might happen if Anna loses it.”

  “She cannot,” Rajesh said calmly. “I have added a series of fail-safes. Should her digital synapses flood her system with purely emotional impulses, she’ll go into a safe mode and be unable to act or make decisions until she’s manually rebooted.”

  Anna stopped scanning the gruesome display around them and then smiled at Eugene. “I hope that makes you feel less frightened, Dr. Jarecki.”

  Eugene’s brow stitched together. “Are you kidding? Frightened is my baseline. The only time I won’t be frightened is when I’m dead. Until then, every moment is little more than an awkward date with my own neuroses.”

  “What’s your take on the blast?” Jack said, eager to change the subject.

  “It’s fresh all right,” Mullins confirmed. The faint smell of detonated C4 was still present, which meant the Israeli team had recently come through here.

  “The guy we found said he didn’t know where his friends had gone,” Gabby said.

  Dag snorted. “He lied, of course. Did you expect him to tell the truth?”

  She shook her head. “Not really, but now there’s no way of knowing what else he might have kept from us.”

  “Maybe Tamura had the right idea shooting him,” Eugene said.

  Mullins rose, rifle in hand. “The only thing we can be sure of is that anyone on the other side of this door means to kill you. We’ve already lost three members of our team, I don’t intend to lose any more.” And with that, he leveled his weapon and stepped through the hole.

  Chapter 48

  Washington, D.C.

  Kay drew her mother into a tight hug, one that she never wanted to end. She’d been with her parents all day, had arrived the night before and decided she would soak up as much time as she could before going to her meeting with Laydeezman. Had even dropped off Goggles, who was adapting to his new environment as fast as any cat could be expected to. Inside, the thought of what might happen in that warehouse, late at night in an already sketchy part of town, left her guts churning.

  “Are you trying to suffocate me?” her mother Therese said with a hearty laugh and the beaming smile Kay had come to know and love.

  Reluctantly, Kay let her go. “I was worried you’d never wake up again.”

  “We were all worried,” her father said, coming into the living room struggling with three glasses of red wine. He was notoriously clumsy and this maneuver had bad news written all over it. Kay swooped in to help.

  “None for me,” she said, checking her phone and seeing it was nearly nine. “I’ve got to leave soon.” Factoring in the checkpoints she would surely encounter along the way, the drive from here to Ivy City would take at least an hour.

  “L
eaving?” her father said, horrified. “At this time of night? I thought you were here with us for good?”

  “I want to be,” she said, telling the truth. “There’s just one last thing I have to do.”

  A knock at the door startled her. Felix caught the reaction and scowled. “Look at you, jumping like a scared kitten. You’re in no shape to go anywhere, young lady.”

  Therese opened the door right as Kay’s hand slipped into her purse, her fingers finding the cool, reassuring metal of the pistol Leslie had given her.

  She nearly gasped when she saw that it was Derek.

  Her father set his wine down and gave him a hearty embrace. Therese followed. The whole time Derek’s eyes were squarely on Kay’s.

  “If I’d known you were coming I’d have prepared something to eat,” Therese said, embarrassed.

  “Wine?” Felix said, offering his own.

  Forcing a grin, Derek waved his hand. “Thanks, I can’t stay long. I came to see how you were feeling.”

  Therese put her hands together as if in prayer. “I’ve never felt better in my whole life. I used to get winded going up the stairs. Now I can take them two at a time. My mind feels sharper, like a dense fog has been lifted. Felix says he sees God’s hand in all of this and I can assure you he’s right.”

  “That’s so great,” Derek said, only the tiniest hint of concern showing on his handsome features. “I also came by to have a word with Kay. Lately, she’s been so hard to get a hold of.”

  “You don’t say,” her father quipped.

  Kay felt the sands of time slipping through her fingers. “That sounds great, honey,” she said. “How about when I get back?”

  “Back? From where?”

  “I’m meeting someone for work.” She wanted to keep her plan as vague as humanly possible.

  “At ten o’clock at night?”

  She knew Derek well enough by now. He wasn’t the jealous type. If anything he was worried about her safety. And he had good reason to be. But if she told him more she might risk making an already terrible situation so much worse.

  “Wait here and catch up with my parents and we’ll talk when I get back.” She moved in, kissed him and then broke for the door. He followed her out and down the driveway, her parents pretending not to watch, but watching all the same.

  “What the hell is going on? You’ve been acting really weird these last few days.”

  When she kept going, Derek grabbed for her arm to slow her down. Instead he caught the strap of her purse, sending it careening to the pavement, its contents spilling out.

  They both stood and stared at the gun before Kay kneeled down and crammed everything back into her purse.

  “Since when do you have a gun?”

  “If you try to stop me you’re only going to make things worse. I need you to trust me. Do you?”

  His mouth had fallen open. “Huh?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Uh, yeah, of course I trust you.”

  “Then let me do this. I’ll keep my phone on if you need me.”

  She kissed him hard, pressing her lips against his and relishing every second of his touch. A moment later, she pulled away, knowing she would either find the missing pieces to this strange and disturbing puzzle or end up dead.

  •••

  The street lights on Kendal were out when she arrived, casting the already dim neighborhood into near-total darkness. A half-moon bathed the area in a ghostly hue of ash dust and dark satin. Kay checked her phone and saw that it was 10:55 P.M. She got out and circled around to the back of the warehouse. With the pistol gripped tightly she crossed uneven ground, past discarded metal drums and piles of wood pallets.

  The door was slightly ajar. She let herself in. Her heart was hammering wildly against the inside of her chest. On the wall, a single emergency light guided her along the corridor. She reached the final door before the warehouse’s open space and slid the gun back into her purse. She pulled open the door and squinted against the bright light shining from the other end of the warehouse. Her arm rose instinctively, shielding her eyes from the glare. In the center of the open space was a single wooden chair. In the office above, a lone, dark figure stood silhouetted against the paneled glass. It disappeared only to reemerge on the metal stairwell. The figure’s hard-soled shoes clicked along every riser. This was followed by a muffled version once they reached the concrete floor below.

  “I was not sure you would come,” the man’s voice said. It was deep, reverberating all around her. “Now, put your phone into your purse and slide it behind you, as far as it’ll go.”

  “My phone?” Kay’s nerves were so shot she wasn’t sure she had heard him properly.

  “You have three seconds.”

  Even as an adult, somehow the counting trick still got people moving. Kay removed her phone, placed it in her purse and slid it a few feet away.

  “Now take a seat.”

  She did so. “What about you?”

  “I prefer to stand,” he replied. His back was to the light, which meant all she could see was little more than an amorphic shape. “Time is ticking, Ms. Mahoro. You wanted to meet. Best get on with it.”

  She squinted against the light. “There are hundreds if not thousands of other reporters in this town you could have reached out to. Why me?”

  Even in the darkness, Kay could hear a smile form on his lips. “We’ve been following your career with interest for quite some time. You might say we’ve been helping you along the way.”

  “Helping me? Bullshit.”

  “Is it, Kay? That generous scholarship you won to Yale. Did you really think your upper-middle SAT scores and the work you did with your father’s ministry put you ahead of so many other worthy applicants? Did you think Trish Han was thrilled adding a green reporter with no experience to the roster? She didn’t want you, Kay. But we have friends in high places.”

  “Who, Ron Lewis?”

  The man laughed. “That’s always been your problem, Kay. You’ve never allowed your imagination to soar.”

  “So you used me?”

  “Yes, but you’ve already figured that out. The difference was, you thought you were the one using me. But I’m sure a smart girl like you has already managed to fit the pieces together, haven’t you?”

  Kay felt the stinging pain in her sides, the one that comes with every realization we try desperately to ignore. “The VP and the other cabinet members. They’re innocent, aren’t they?”

  “Perfectly. And you helped to get them arrested. You see, the rules of presidential succession are so specific. When it became clear President Taylor was not going to fulfill his promises of destroying the threat to Earth, he had to be removed. But our dilemma was clear. How could we get our man sitting in the Oval Office when four others stood in his way?”

  “Frame them for attempted assassination.”

  “Attempted was not part of the plan. Taylor was meant to die in that flaming chopper crash. That he’s still alive is little more than an inconvenience. Of course, once the video got out implicating them, there was no way Millard or any of the others could be sworn in to replace him. Not until an investigation took place. One that would take more time than we had. That left our man Myers.”

  “And when they finally discover the video’s a fake?”

  The shadow man stepped forward, a thin strip of light illuminating his forehead. “By then it won’t matter. The conspirators will face a show trial and then execution. Then missiles will launch from dozens of silos across the country and with any luck, it’ll buy us a little more time until the Ateans send another one. You see, Dr. Greer should never have tinkered with that ship. Can’t anyone else see we were so much better off before any of this happened?”

  “And what if you’re wrong?”

  “About what?”

  “About everything,” Kay said, the fear in her voice turning into anger, rage. “What if the missiles aren’t enough and thousands die who might have lived if
they’d only been allowed to go underground?”

  “Wouldn’t you prefer to die fighting out in the open rather than hiding underground in the dark?”

  “I want to die with my head held high,” she protested. “Not betraying everything I stand for.”

  “And what good are principles if you’re dead?”

  “You used me, the way your people used Lee Harvey Oswald and probably many others.” She felt the tears gathering and forced them back.

  “So many more than you could ever know. Ask yourself this. When we have saved the planet, will anyone worry about the ugly way in which we did it? They’ll only thank God we acted when we did.”

  “Then what do Dr. Greer and Dr. Ward have to do with this? Are you trying to punish them for starting this whole mess?”

  “Punish is a relative term. They’re under the illusion they can end this catastrophe another way, a peaceful way. They don’t yet realize you can’t reason with an alien race that only wants to destroy. We know for a fact they’ve done it before. And we have proof they are attempting to do it again. You see, I have a theory of my own. They’re jealous of us.”

  Kay was confused. “Jealous? Of what?”

  “They wanted to create life on Earth to prove the potency of their own power, while ensuring none of their creations would ever be able to challenge them. They’re the worst kind of jealous, paranoid god who see threats lurking behind every corner.”

  “After all that, you think a fake sex tape is gonna stop me from talking?”

  “No. But another tape might. This one features your father and one of his young, impressionable parishioners.”

  Kay’s eyes grew wide. “No one will believe it.”

  “Our work was good enough to fool you as well as the intrepid FBI. Then again, it’s easy to convince someone when they already think it’s true. You’ve played your role. Just remember, when Oswald found out the truth, he threatened to talk as well and look what happened to him. You may not like me very much—in fact, you probably hate me with every fiber of your being—but I just might be humanity’s last hope.”