The Demon Crown: A Sigma Force Novel

by James Rollins

  Ken shifted one of the pictures closer. It showed a tiny wasp with elongated antenna, its body covered in tiny hairs. “Take for instance these tiny scout drones. Their anatomy seems built solely to gather sensory data and share it with the swarm. I’m guessing they’re the group’s surveyors, evaluating and judging territory.”

  Gray examined the photo. “I think I saw a bunch of these dead in the water when Seichan and I escaped the beach.”

  “Really?” Ken rubbed his chin. “Perhaps they had served their purpose once the swarm made landfall, and died off. That’s interesting.”

  To you maybe.

  Still, the professor’s surprise was a reminder of how little they knew about their enemy. With only two months to study this species, Ken had made significant progress, but much remained unknown, especially as the professor’s research was all conducted in a lab versus in the field. Though considering the gruesome state of that Brazilian island, maybe keeping his investigation confined to a lab was smart.

  Ken tapped another picture. This one showed a larger wasp pinned to a board. For perspective, a small ruler rested beside it. The armored body, striped in black and crimson, measured three inches across.

  “I know you encountered this one,” Ken said.

  Gray winced and nodded.

  “This sterile female’s stinger wields a cornucopia of toxins in its venom. Unfortunately, I’ve not had enough time to fully assess all of its components. But this worker’s purpose is obvious.”

  Gray could guess that answer. “To clear the way for the swarm.”

  “And defend any lek it forms afterward.”

  Gray frowned. “You warned us about that before, about the swarm seeking a mating territory.”

  “Yes. It’s best you understand what’s at stake.” Ken searched through his photos. “Those first two photos illustrate what I had mentioned before, how this species acts like typical social wasps. They demonstrate swarming behavior, with drones serving different functions. Some are built to be searchers; others, defenders. But there are also what I call harvesters and gardeners. All typical of a swarm’s differentiation of duties.”

  Ken finally found what he was looking for and slid two new photos toward Gray. “But this pair is different. They reveal that rather than a single queen ruling this hive, the breeding of this swarm is conducted by a collective of solitary wasps. And once a satisfactory lek is found, breeding will begin.”

  Gray studied the two pictures. One was a blowup of a very tiny wasp, barely larger than a typical ant.

  “That’s a male,” Ken explained. “He’ll mate with the larger female in the other photo.”

  Kowalski whistled between his teeth. “She looks like an aircraft carrier next to that little bugger.”

  It was an apt analogy. This breeding female was even larger than the stinging attackers from last night, well over five inches.

  Luckily, none of us here were stung by that specimen.

  Ken’s next words reinforced this sentiment.

  “She is a veritable egg factory,” he explained. “I’ve never seen anything like her. She’ll mate with hundreds of males at the same time to collect enough spermatheca for her load. Afterward, she consumes the spent males.”

  “She eats them?” Kowalski shook his head with disgust. “Remind me never to complain when Maria wants to cuddle afterward.”

  Palu concurred. “Amen, braddah, amen.”

  Professor Matsui ignored the pair. His expression was one of scientific curiosity rather than revulsion. “This species does not waste resources needlessly.” He pointed to the posterior of the female. “Look at its stinger. Almost a half inch long. In her abdomen, the eggs are on a conveyor-belt-like system. Once she finds a host, she’ll stitch that needle all over the body, injecting thousands of eggs. And note her thick hind legs; they’re extremely powerful. She can crack them together, like you might snap your fingers. When they do that as a group, it creates a weird rattling sound. And it’s loud, about the same decibels reached by cicadas.”

  “Why do they do that?” Seichan asked.

  “I . . . I think it acts as a crude form of sonar.”

  She narrowed her sore eyes. “Sonar?”

  “Even modern wasps deploy such a technique. They use sonar to scan a potential host for the presence of larvae, evaluating whether or not a target has already been parasitized by another female.”

  “So,” Gray said, “she goes knocking to see if anyone’s home.”

  Ken swallowed, his gaze momentarily distant. “It’s a disturbing noise. And heralds the beginning of the end.”

  “Why?” Seichan asked.

  “Because I’ve not told you the worst. You’ve not asked me the most obvious question about this prehistoric organism.”

  Seichan frowned. “What question?”

  Gray could guess and asked it out loud. “If this species is so ancient, where did it come from? How come these wasps are still alive today?”

  Unfortunately, Ken knew the answer. “Because they don’t die.”

  11:58 A.M.

  And I almost missed it . . .

  Ken knew if he hadn’t stumbled upon this final detail concerning this species’ life cycle, they would already be doomed. No one would know the true threat posed by the colonization of these wasps. He had to get authorities here to understand the extent of the danger, which started with this motley group connected to DARPA.

  He paced the length of the table, trying to shed his anxiety. “I warned earlier about how efficiently wasps have evolved since their first appearance during the Jurassic Period, how wasp species have developed clever strategies to survive, carving their own unique niche in an environment. Some pick only one host in which to lay their eggs, while others are generalists, choosing whatever organism is handy. Many modern wasps can even multiply without mating. In fact, there are a few species of wasps that have no known males.”

  “Sounds okay to me,” Seichan mumbled.

  “What about these wasps?” Gray asked.

  “The Odokuro deploy several strategies for propagating their numbers. Like some of our modern wasps, each of their eggs produces multiple larvae. All of them appear pluripotent, meaning they are capable of becoming any of these adults.” He waved a hand across the spread of photos. “I still don’t understand what environmental signals or stressors drive a larva toward one adult version versus another. But this method is very robust at growing a swarm rapidly. From egg to adult takes about two weeks. And the species likely breeds continuously. I estimate the swarm’s size would grow exponentially, limited only by the amount of food and the number of viable hosts for its eggs.”

  Ken tried to emphasize the significance. “Normally a colony’s size is limited by its sole queen. When the environment turns hostile—like during the cold of winter—the colony dies off. Only the queen survives. She digs in and hibernates during the freeze, but come spring, she emerges again, full of eggs, ready to establish a new colony.”

  Gray’s face grew grim. “But that’s not the case here.”

  Ken shook his head. “The Odokuro swarm will simply grow and grow.”

  “But earlier, you mentioned a timeline of three days. Why? If these wasps take two weeks to mature, why is three days a deadline?”

  Kowalski snorted. “And you said before that these buggers don’t die? I squashed a bunch of ’em. Looked pretty dead to me.”

  Ken nodded. “The answer to both of your questions is the same. It’s the other way the swarm ensures its survival. Similar to those all-female wasp species, the Odokuro can multiply asexually. A process they do continuously during the larval stage, specifically when they reach their third instar, the third level of development.”

  “Which I’m guessing must happen around day three,” Gray said.

  “And I came close to missing it. Let me explain. An egg hatches almost immediately upon implantation and releases a load of the first instar larvae. They’re ravenous and will eat nonstop, eventually s
hedding their skin within a day, and becoming the second instar. The process repeats again until another molt produces the third. Then the larvae do something unique. They’re still small enough at that stage to drill into the bones of their hosts and nest in the marrow.”

  Kowalski gave a shudder of revulsion. “I knew I wasn’t going to like this story.”

  “You have to understand that all wasps are very clever at using a host’s own resources to hide their larva, even sometimes allowing a host to crawl around, completely oblivious of its own infestation until it’s too late.”

  “What happens once the larvae are in those bones?” Gray asked.

  “At first, I thought they were just feeding on the rich marrow, but when I examined the tissue microscopically, I found some strange debris left behind. I was ready to dismiss it as frass, or larval excrement, but the particles were too regular and abundant. Here, let me show you.”

  Ken shuffled through the photos until he came upon an electron micrograph of one of these particles and passed it around.

  “It looks like a crazy egg of some sort,” Palu said. “With lots of blisters on it.”

  Gray squinted at the picture. “What is it?”

  “Palu is basically correct. It’s a desiccated cyst, about a tenth of the size of a grain of rice. It’s full of those blisters. Well over a thousand. Each blister holds a miniature genetic clone of the third instar, only with tiny nubby claws.”

  Ken showed them a scanning electron micrograph of it.

  “Remember when I told you how wasps sometimes incorporate the strategies of other insect species?” He tapped the picture. “This is an example.”

  “I don’t understand,” Gray said. “What strategy is it borrowing?”

  “Are you familiar with tardigrades?”

  Heads shook around the table.

  “They look much like what’s shown here. They’re sometimes called ‘water bears’ because of their pudgy appearance, but they’re basically micro-animals, little larger than 0.05 millimeters.”

  “And what do they have to do with these wasps?” Gray asked.

  “Tardigrades are far older than wasps, almost twice as old, rising sometime during the Cambrian period. But today you can find species of tardigrades in every environment because they’re extraordinary survivors. When environmental conditions grow harsh, they can undergo a deathlike hibernation—known as cryptobiosis. They curl up into a dried-out ball, called a tun. In this suspended state, they can withstand temperatures close to absolute zero and as high as 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Not to mention crushing pressures or the vacuum of space. They can even survive massive doses of radiation. They are virtually indestructible.”

  Ken pointed to the cyst in the photo. “Back in 1948, scientists in Japan showed that tuns could come back to life after one hundred and twenty years of cryptobiosis. And newer research suggests they could survive many times that, if not nearly forever.”

  Gray lifted the photo of the cyst. “And you believe these wasps borrowed this survival skill from these tardigrades?”

  “Why not?” Ken shrugged. “Even tardigrades learned this trick from other species. Almost eighteen percent of their genome comes from prehistoric plants and fungi. Including what’s been deemed the dark matter of life.”

  “Dark matter of life?”

  Ken nodded. “The term refers to bacteria that exist in the boundary between life and death. They’ve only recently been identified, described as Lazarus microbes. Like Natronobacterium, which came back to life after being encrusted in crystals for a hundred million years. Or colonies of Virgibacillus, which were revived after lying dormant inside formations for two hundred and fifty million years. And those are only a few. There are likely many more examples yet to be found.”

  “And you believe these wasps incorporated some of these ancient survival strategies.” Gray turned to Ken. “Why? To what end?”

  “I believe it’s an evolutionary safeguard. They leave behind this indestructible genetic trail, hidden and protected in the bones of their dead hosts. Perhaps to wait until those bones turn to dust, allowing the cysts to be blown far and wide, hopefully to be inhaled or ingested by some unsuspecting animal. Once inside a suitable host, they would hatch and continue their life cycle through the fourth and fifth instars, eating their way through that host until they burst forth as adults, allowing the swarm to be reborn again.”

  Aiko Higashi spoke for the first time. “Like a phoenix rising from the ashes.”

  Ken noted the ruminative quality to her statement, as if this detail struck her as significant. Still, she ignored his questioning glance, so he continued.

  “By day three,” he said, “the swarms on these islands will become entrenched into the environment, down to its very bones, rooted so deeply there will be no eradicating it. And that’s not even the end of it.”

  “What do you mean?” Gray asked.

  “Remember that these wasps keep their hosts alive. So, while parasitized with larva, birds will take wing and spread it. Rodents will burrow away. Animals will migrate.”

  “And people will travel,” Gray added dourly.

  “If we don’t create a firebreak here,” Aiko warned, “it will quickly spread worldwide.”

  “Wreaking environmental havoc.” Ken tried to express what was coming. “During my brief time with these wasps, I tested to see if they showed any pickiness in regard to the hosts they’re willing to parasitize.”

  Seichan leaned forward. “Were they?”

  “No.” He pulled forward the photo of the egg-laden female. “This stinger evolved during the Jurassic Period. Besides being a half-inch long, it’s forged of sclerotized tissue, nearly as hard as steel. It was meant to pierce tough hides, even penetrate between the armored plates of dinosaurs. Compared to prehistoric creatures, life here is an easy bounty. And worst of all, we’ve no natural defenses against this ancient species.”

  “Meaning we’re sitting ducks,” Kowalski said.

  Gray slowly nodded, plainly absorbing all this. “There’s certainly plenty of modern examples of the damage done by invasive species. Pythons in the Everglades. European rabbits in Australia. Asian carp in our lakes.”

  “And those were merely species moving from one continent to another. We’re talking about a creature not seen in this world for eons.” Ken grew frustrated at his inability to convey the true extent of this threat. “I saw what was left on Queimada Grande. These wasps will lay waste to anything that crawls, slithers, or flies. It won’t even care if it burns out the local environment.”

  “Because it has a backup plan to survive.” Gray shoved the photo of the cyst away. “So we stop that before it happens.”

  Ken sighed.

  Easier said than done.

  Gray stood up. “Tell us what we should do.”

  He turned toward the window, toward the midday brightness shining across the gardens. “First, we need to find where the swarm settled.”

  Gray stepped over to the credenza and returned with a topographic map of the island. “Do you have any idea where we should begin looking?”

  “From my brief study, the Odokuro don’t appear to be nest builders like social wasps. I suspect they’re more like solitary wasps in this regard, too. If so, they’ll seek burrows to create underground shelters.”

  Palu leaned over the map. “Trade winds blow this way.” He drew a line from Hana into the forests that climbed the slope of Mount Haleakala. He stared for a long breath, then tapped a spot on the map.

  The big Hawaiian turned to the others, grinning broadly. “I think I know where these li‘i buggers could be.”

  13

  May 7, 6:01 P.M. EDT

  Washington, D.C.

  Painter crossed through the octagonal-shaped rotunda on the second floor of the Smithsonian Castle. Doors led to various offices, but he aimed for the set that opened into the illustrious Regents’ Room. Voices echoed out through the half-open door.

  “Let’s see wha
t this summons is all about,” Painter whispered to Kat.

  He kept his voice hushed, not out of secrecy, but out of respect for the history of the old building. The churchlike quality of the place, with its grand spaces, private chapels, and long galleries, weighed upon one’s sense of time. He could picture the first secretary, Joseph Henry—whose bronze statue graced the front of the Castle—walking these halls. There were even rumors the place was haunted. In fact, a séance was once conducted in the Regents’ Room, overseen by Henry himself, done at the bequest of Lincoln to convince his wife, Mary Todd, that spiritual mediums were frauds.

  Painter found himself smiling at such a scene, his love of this place warming through him. He and Kat had ridden up in the hidden elevator from their subterranean headquarters to enter the Castle proper. The museum had closed thirty minutes ago, so the lower halls were only occupied by a handful of docents and a scatter of janitorial staff. He always enjoyed these after-hour moments in the museum, when he had the place mostly to himself. He would sometimes even wander the halls after midnight, using the quiet to help settle his thoughts. It allowed him to see problems more clearly, to unclutter his mind. The place also served as a stony testament to the respect for science, for the lessons taught by history. It reminded him of the important duty of Sigma.

  Kat lowered her phone as they neared the entrance to the Regents’ Room. “Dr. Bennett confirmed he received Professor Matsui’s research notes. He texted that he’ll review them immediately.”

  Painter nodded. He had spoken briefly with Gray before heading up to this meeting and had gotten a sketchy account of what had been released on the Hawaiian Islands. He hoped the entomologist at the National Zoo could shed further light on this threat.

  Especially with the deadline set by Gray.

  Three days.