Extinction Series (The Complete Collection)

by James D. Prescott

  Rajesh gasped. “Do you suppose this was what they looked like?”

  The others trailed in, each staring with the same sense of awe. Most eyes were glued to the enormous statue in the center of the chamber.

  “It looks like some kind of animal standing on its hind legs,” Grant observed, his eyes narrowed.

  Gabby frowned. “Or a wolf, although the proportions aren’t in line with anything from the canine family. What do you think, Jack?”

  “To be honest, my first thought is that it looks nothing like the Ateans.”

  “Guess that rules out your colony idea,” Dag said flippantly, searching the statue’s square base for some kind of inscription.

  “Not yet,” Jack replied, “but it certainly doesn’t help.”

  Dag made it all the way around and sighed. “Wouldn’t you expect them to carve a few words into the stone?”

  “You’re assuming that, like us, sight was their dominant sense,” Grant said. “Generally speaking, smell is the strongest sense among canines. For whales and dolphins it’s sound.”

  “What Grant is saying,” Jack said, in way of interpretation, “is stop assuming that humans have a monopoly on doing things the right way.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better,” Grant replied.

  •••

  A few feet away, Jack saw Tamura’s gaze locked on the structure’s high, narrow ceiling.

  “You find something?” Jack asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she replied, counting numbers under her breath. Her eyes slowly dropped to the main level. “I believe this tower is based on an upside-down Fibonacci sequence.”

  “Excuse me?” he asked, as though she’d sworn at him in Latin.

  Tamura blinked, her lips parted in deep thought. “Uh, yeah, it’s an integer sequence where every number is the sum of the two preceding digits. You see it everywhere from architecture and the stock market to the spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy. The progression goes like this: one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one, thirty-four.”

  “Anna, did you catch that?” Jack inquired.

  “I was listening, Dr. Greer, thank you,” Anna replied. “Tamura’s observation has also given me an idea for my work on decoding the genetic data Dr. Ward provided us.”

  Jack grinned. “You mean Salzburg?”

  “Correct. There is a link between the prime numbers we used to decode the binary signal inside the blast wave and a number in the Fibonacci sequence,” she informed him. “But please do not worry, the calculations will run in the background and will not disturb our present work. I will report back if there are any meaningful results, although I would not hold my breath.”

  Jack and the others laughed. “Don’t worry, Anna. I’ll try to keep my expectations in check.”

  “Right about now,” Gabby said, sidling up next to Jack, “I’m more interested in what that thing’s holding in its hand.” She was referring to the statue.

  Jack stepped back to the edge of the room and used his optical head-mounted glasses to zoom in and take a high-resolution photograph. He then sent a copy to the entire team. It was only when the close-up was magnified that Jack noticed certain familiar details. “That what I think it is?”

  A simultaneous thought occurred to all present who had been on board that alien ship in the Gulf, but it was Dag who was first to say it out loud. “Looks to me like he’s holding a pod.”

  Chapter 29

  “Has anyone seen the flight crew?” Eugene asked, his voice strained with fear. He had spun in a slow circle and failed to spot them.

  “They went to scout ahead,” Mullins replied. “They even switched to another channel so they wouldn’t have to listen to all of your scientific gobbledygook. They don’t see the point in studying any of this dead stuff. Frankly, I tend to agree with them.”

  Jack turned from the statue. “Haven’t you noticed the tracks we’re following seem to be going in circles? It’s as though they aren’t sure exactly what they’re looking for or where they need to go to find it.”

  “And you do?” Mullins said, challenging him with outstretched arms, suggesting the current delay only bolstered his argument.

  “I know whatever creature that statue is meant to represent is holding a piece of alien tech, which tells me we’re at least in the right neighborhood.”

  Mullins raised his eyes and his helmet lamp until the stone object was brightly lit. “What kind of tech?”

  Dag stopped what he was doing and piped in. “The kind used to seed a scarred planet with new life.”

  “You read our report,” Jack said, his expression changing when Mullins failed to reply. “Didn’t you?”

  Captain Mullins looked away. “Parts of it.”

  “Well, did you catch the part where we jettisoned from the ship in one of those things?” Jack said, raising his voice in disbelief. “I don’t much like flying, but I can tell you, I was never so happy to be airborne in my life.”

  “Dr. Greer,” Anna said, cutting into their argument from the far end of the chamber. “I believe you should see this.”

  “What have you found?” he asked, heading toward her at a brisk pace.

  “Have you had a moment to study the smaller statuettes?” she asked. Anna was talking about the ones ringing the inside wall of the chamber. As Dag had pointed out, they were arranged in much the same way the figures in Statuary Hall at the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. were set up. Except these weren’t white men in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century garb. They were creatures and only a handful of them were at all recognizable.

  “There must be thirty or forty of these things,” Gabby said, clearly feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of interpreting the secrets of a long-lost civilization while trying to stop a group of modern-day vandals from pillaging anything they deemed valuable.

  “I can already see three sauropods and one theropod,” Dag said, standing ten feet away before a different group of statues. “Given the people who built this place lived in close proximity to a land that was likely packed with dinosaurs, anatomically speaking, their depictions are pretty darn close to how we imagined them. But the raptors are by far the most interesting.”

  “Why’s that?” Grant asked, moving over to him. When he arrived, he let out a quiet little sigh of surprise. “Oh, yes, the feathers.”

  “Feathers?” Mullins said, standing behind them.

  “It was only in the last few years that paleontologists had begun finding evidence that at least some theropods had feathers. First with Sinosauropteryx, discovered in China in the ’90s, and more recently a feathered Coelurosaur tail trapped in amber.”

  “Well, if they’re so accurate with your beloved dinosaurs,” Gabby said, “then please tell me what the hell this thing is?”

  She was looking at a statue of a furless and naked humanoid creature. Its legs were somewhere between the length of a modern human’s and that of a chimpanzee, except they were coiled beneath the creature. The animal’s back was set at a forty-five-degree angle. It appeared to be a quadruped, which was to say it moved around on all fours, with the slightest hint of a tail. Upon closer examination, the facial features also appeared strange. It bore the enormous eyes of a lemur, with large ears and a tiny protruding nose.

  “Whatever that is, it looks oddly human,” Jack said, an unsettling feeling creeping into his bones.

  “Maybe it was a pet,” Eugene said, pointing at the chain. One end was secured around its neck, the other staked into the ground.

  “I’ve just made a complete circuit,” Dag told them. “And I only recognized about twenty percent of the animals depicted here. Here’s the kicker, though. The recognizable ones are bang on.”

  “Therefore the other eighty percent are likely just as anatomically correct,” Jack said, following Dag’s thought. “So the question remains. What were these things?”

  “Genetic experiments gone wrong?” Dag speculated.

  The thought hung in the f
rigid air.

  “This is some kind of museum,” Grant said. “Certainly the answer is in here somewhere.”

  “Not a museum,” Tamura corrected the biologist, spearing the central statue within a cone of light. “This was a shrine. And they weren’t worshiping the giant in the statue. They were worshiping the pod.”

  “On account of its advanced technology?” Grant asked, scraping a sample of stone.

  “No,” she replied. “Because for them, the pods were the source of life on earth. Hence the diversity you see all around you.”

  “Like Mother Nature, except with glowing buttons and exotic metals,” Dag exclaimed

  “To them the pods were like seeds,” Jack said. “Hence the vines crawling up the main figure’s legs. This was their Parthenon. A tribute to the deity of life.”

  “And death,” Gabby added, motioning several feet above the statues where weathered stone engravings appeared to show scenes of fire and destruction. As one made their way across the wide circular room, it was possible to piece together the basic threads of a terrifying story. First an object streaking through the sky, followed by a blinding flash and a torrential downpour of ash and burning embers. Another panel showed the sun being blotted out by thick clouds and the land engulfed in flames. Strange figures cowered. At an assembly, important decisions were made. The following panels showed a tunnel being excavated and masses of their people crowding into them.

  “A meteor hit and they went underground,” Rajesh said after reaching the last panel.

  “Not just any meteor,” Jack said. “They might not have known it at the time, but it was the same impact that killed the dinosaurs. The one, I suspect, that would eventually kill them, too.”

  “Dr. Greer, that would imply this civilization was around sixty-five million years ago?” Anna asked, a note of surprise in her voice.

  “It would, but they were not only around. I think they were thriving, perhaps without a care in the world. I might even go so far as to suggest they lived in something of a utopia. Until that second ship showed up and sealed their fate.”

  “How many times have the Ateans wiped out life on this planet?” Eugene asked, reeling.

  “How many major extinctions have there been?” Grant replied with a rhetorical question of his own.

  “At least five,” Dag said, cupping the sides of his helmet in disbelief. “I was sure the ship we found in the Gulf was a one-off.”

  Jack’s mind went to the craft speeding through space at this very moment, set on a deadly collision course with Earth. Suddenly that dim, rather naïve hope they were coming to say hello crumbled, much like the head of the temple’s main statue.

  Just then the ground began to tremble, shaking the building and everything within it. A low hum, one that was all too familiar, filled Jack’s ears. He found himself dropping to his knees. The others around him did the same and for a brief moment, they looked like acolytes, worshiping the divinity of the figures before them. Seconds later, the torture stopped and a blinding flash filled their eyes. It was only after that they heard the faint sound of cracking as massive chunks of ice came crashing down around them.

  Chapter 30

  Rome, Italy

  Mia, Jansson and Ollie stepped out of a cab and stared up at the curved glass building before them. Situated on the northern outskirts of the city, Saint Andrea Hospital was part of Rome University, and should have been a thirty-minute taxi ride. Instead, with the highways jammed, it had taken close to two hours. A quick search of the hospital’s website had given them both Dr. Antonio Putelli’s email address and office number. He had answered on the first ring and Mia had done her best to cut to the chase without offending a man who seemed quite taken with social graces. She had noticed watching his television interview that ceremony and pomp were important and, as the old saying goes, when in Rome…

  They headed inside, finding a chaotic environment. Doctors, nurses and orderlies rushed by in every direction, shouting, “Scusami, scusami.” The odor of antiseptic and dirty diapers filled the air. Patients packed the hallways, many of them children and the elderly. Like in many parts of the world, the ravages of Salzburg had simply overloaded the existing medical infrastructure. Unlike in Brazil, Mia knew there was nothing they could do for these people. Their only chance lay in figuring out what made Salzburg tick and then finding a safe way to end the havoc it was wreaking in the bodies of so many.

  An elevator brought them to the sixth floor and the research wing. They exited to find Dr. Putelli speaking with a young lab technician.

  When he was done, Mia and the others approached. “Glad to finally meet you,” she said, offering her hand. Instead Dr. Putelli took her by the shoulders and kissed her forcefully on either cheek. He did the same to Jansson.

  When he got to Ollie, the brash Australian whispered, “Kiss me and it’s the last thing you’ll ever do.”

  Dr. Putelli’s eyes went wide before he burst into laughter and slapped Ollie on the shoulder. “This guy, I like. A real man’s man.” Putelli flexed his muscles to demonstrate the point.

  Ollie nodded, as though Putelli’s assessment were bang on. “Flattery will get you everywhere, my friend.”

  Another technician approached and asked the doctor a question in Italian. Dr. Putelli burst into an animated diatribe none of them could understand before bunching his fingers together and pressing them under his chin.

  “Is something wrong?” Jansson asked, her forehead furrowed with concern. Ever since the riot in Kolkata, she’d been acting rather strange.

  “Yes,” Putelli said, annoyed. “Very wrong. The espresso machine stopped working again.” He stared upward as though speaking to God. “I ask for so little, Lord, why do you punish me so?” A second later, he was back. “Okay, look, unless we go somewhere quiet, we will be interrupted every three seconds. Come to my office and I’ll see what I can do to help you.”

  Dr. Putelli’s office was about as slick as the man himself. An expensive antique desk and cabinet sat near a floor-to-ceiling window. The walls were filled with a range of diplomas, certificates and awards. The shelves also bore witness to his excellence with half a dozen gold and silver statuettes. The only thing missing from his collection was an Oscar.

  “It was not easy getting here,” Mia said as they each settled into plush seats, Dr. Putelli behind his polished desk, the others facing him.

  “Lemmings,” Putelli said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “They watch the news and believe everything they hear. I too would be panicking if I thought the world was coming to an end.”

  “I don’t follow,” Ollie said. “You don’t believe we’re in danger?”

  “I know only what I see with my own two eyes,” Putelli explained. “You turn on any television set and all they talk about is that the end is near, the end is near. An Atean space ship—or whatever they’re calling them—will hit the earth in nine days and we’re all gonna die. Maybe it’s true. Maybe it’s not. But you ask me to bet and I’m almost certain the story’s been blown out of proportion by greedy bastardis out to get rich on the fears of peasants and stupid people. Did you know the EU and the United States have begun ushering a select few into Cold War bunkers they have retrofitted to last for years, perhaps even decades? There’s even talk of a lottery for the few remaining spots. But this wouldn’t be the first time fearmongering overcame reason.” He leaned back in his comfy leather chair and tossed them a devilish smile. “Remember Y2K? They said the entire civilized world would soon come crashing down around us. Companies paid millions to fix what ended up being a complete waste of time and money.”

  “The Ateans are real,” Mia told him, hardly a quaver in her voice. “I know because I was part of the team that studied one of their ships.”

  Dr. Putelli’s forehead crinkled with interest. “The one near Mexico?”

  Mia nodded. “It was the most exhilarating and terrifying experience of my life. Salzburg, however, is on an entirely different scale. Which is
why we’re here. We’ve discovered that humans, along with a few dozen other species, now possess an extra fully functioning chromosome. Whenever one of those ships releases a flash of cosmic rays, it somehow adds new genes. When the Atean ship was destroyed, we thought it was over. But as you’ve seen, it’s since started up again and so have the added mutations. So yes, in nine days an impact may devastate the planet. But whatever devastation that unleashes, it will be Salzburg that finishes us off.”

  “I see,” Dr. Putelli said slowly, interlacing his fingers. “Why, then, have you come to my hospital?”

  “We believe a code is locked inside Salzburg, something the Ateans inserted. Each new gene that appears adds a puzzle piece.” She could see she was starting to lose him.

  “What sort of code?”

  “We’re not sure yet,” Mia said thoughtfully. “The most advanced artificial intelligence system in the world has been tasked with figuring that out. Our hope is that once it’s cracked, we may finally understand how to prevent the approaching mass extinction.” Mia paused and interlaced her fingers, mirroring Dr. Putelli. “Now, what can you tell us about the research you’re doing? On the news I heard you talk about catatonic Salzburg patients suddenly awakening and showing extraordinary cognitive abilities.”

  “Yes,” Putelli said with pride. He swung around in his chair. “Come with me and I’ll show you.”

  Dr. Putelli led them from the serenity of his office into the frantic world outside. They moved through a set of wide double doors, entering a long rectangular room that appeared to at one time have been an ICU ward. Now, instead of beds, tables had been set up. Patients ranging in age from seven to seventy sat opposite research assistants working out puzzles and answering questions. A little girl with bright red hair on Mia’s right was flipping through a Rubik’s Cube with a blindfold on. In a matter of seconds, she had solved it and laid it carefully on the table in front of her. Nearby, a middle-aged man with a generous potbelly was reciting the digits of Pi. Dr. Putelli said he was fifty thousand numbers in and could pause and start back up whenever he wanted.