by John Bolin
Alex pressed her hands against her temples. “Wait!” she shouted. “C minor! Bach. Beethoven. Rachmaninoff. All the music here is in the key of C minor.”
The Peng were almost upon them.
“C minor!” Peter shouted. “Make C minor!”
“How?” Linc wrestled with the chain around his neck and worked to find the right key.
“Come on, blow the stupid thing!” Gator said.
Linc blew, but it came out as air only. He tried again. This time something happened. Instantly, the creatures stopped, seemed to hesitate a moment, and then moved backward a bit.
“I think that did something,” Gator said. “Do it again!”
“Will they adapt?” Alex asked.
“Who cares?” Peter said. “Let’s get out of here. Linc, lead the way!”
Linc played the harmonica again, this time a short bluesy number. As he moved, the Peng parted like the Red Sea.
“I can’t believe it,” Gator said. “That stupid harmonica is good for something, after all.”
Peter smiled. “Everybody move! Let’s hope those Indians are long gone. We need to get as far away from this place as possible now.”
Gator ran back to Anna and searched through her clothes. When he turned back, he held a silver ignition key in his hand.
Peter grinned. “The helicopter.”
“I saw the helicopter right next to the dome,” Alex said. “Straight ahead.”
They left the geodesic aviary and looked around Eden. It was mid-afternoon, but the mist over Eden seemed darker than before. There was no wind, and the air was stifling. Peter was reminded of what it might feel like in the center of a hurricane or just after a nuclear bomb hits. Outside the dome, it was a ghost town. Even the animals seemed to have evacuated, as if sensing the impending explosion.
“Everyone must be holed up waiting for the Peng to be released,” Gator said.
“They’ll be released, all right,” Peter said, leading them at a trot. “We just don’t want to be here when it happens.”
He turned. The Peng had been stopped on the other side of the doors of the geodesic dome. They were flying up and down as if looking for a way out.
Linc stopped playing and snatched the key from Gator. “I’ll take that.”
“Five minutes ’til the charges blow,” Peter said. “Let’s move! Looks like the Peng are stuck in a pattern. It won’t take long ’til they find my hole in the roof. Let’s just hope they don’t find it ’til their dear old mother blows up below us.”
“We’ll need a minute for the helicopter to warm up,” Linc said.
Peter could see the helipad, right where Alex said it would be. They ran for it, helping one another along as they went.
Peter got to the Bell LongRanger and threw the door open. “Everyone in!”
Linc sprang for the controls and had the blades running in a few seconds.
“Four minutes left on the charges! Let’s go!” Peter said.
“Not yet. We won’t get any lift ’til we’re warm,” Linc said, his hands working the controls.
The helicopter started to rock back and forth. Linc pushed the engine, willing it to run hot. The blades thumped and began to scream. “Hang on!” Linc shouted as he pulled back on the control yoke and the helicopter lifted off the pad.
Peter took a deep breath as the helicopter suddenly grabbed the air, and pulsed into the sky.
“Get to the morgue,” Peter said. “We need to pick up Skins. We’ve only got another two minutes until the charges go off!”
Linc yawed the chopper and swung toward the morgue. It was the longest two miles in Peter’s life. Except for two Humvees filled with white-coated scientists, the facility looked abandoned. He scanned the trails in mountains and valley. No Indians. Peter spotted Skins. He had found a way to the roof and stood near one of the rectangular solar panels, waving his hands. He must have heard the helicopter coming.
“One minute!” Gator yelled.
Linc dipped the chopper just enough for Peter to reach Skins’ arm.
An explosion echoed a mile away, the shock nearly knocking Skins out of Peter’s grasp. Peter pulled and heaved Skins into the cab as Linc lifted the helicopter higher in the air.
“I guess I was a bit off,” Gator said with a sheepish smile.
Successive bursts sounded, and then Peter saw a series of blinding white explosions. Great spouts of steaming water burst from the ground. Peter watched below as the entire Eden colony disappeared in hot white light and water.
“Look!” Alex shouted.
Peter leaned over and glanced out the opposite window. Out of the side of the mountain, where the dome had been, a massive spout of water erupted from the rock. It looked as though someone had blasted a crack in the Hoover Dam. Whatever remained of Eden would soon be buried under water. Within a day, it would be a lake.
“Oh, no!” Alex shouted.
Over the mountains came four Peruvian military helicopters moving quickly, noses aimed earthward.
“Hold your course, Linc,” Peter said. “Can you get me on the horn with those guys?”
“Yeah, sure.” Linc fiddled with his radio, said a few things, and then handed the radio to Peter.
The four helicopters surrounded the Bell LongRanger.
“Please stand down!” Peter said. “This is Major Peter Zachary, U.S. Army. We’ve got several wounded and need an escort back to Iquito. I repeat, we are not hostile.”
He waited for a response.
“Hello, Peter Zachary, this is Rachel Butler with the Smithsonian Institute—and the Peruvian Army Anti-Terrorist Task Force.”
Peter and Alex looked at each other in amazement. Rachel?
Rachel’s laugh came over the radio speakers. “Glad you’re alive! The military is going to leave a few helicopters here to check things out, but we’ll lead you back to the base. Come on, follow us home.”
Epilogue
“Says right here it’s called resonance harmonics,” Linc said, looking up from his satellite phone.
Peter breathed in the cool recycled air, snapped on his seatbelt, and adjusted the window shade in the airplane.
After that first night in Lima, the team had spent most of the next day debriefing and answering questions. The day after that, Rachel Butler had made special arrangements for them to fly back to the States in a fancy government jet. Now, the sun was setting over the mountains, and they had the plane to themselves.
“Sure,” Peter said. “It may not seem like it, but music and art are both mathematical at their root. Every key in music has an associated wavelength.”
Gator was sitting in front of them. He tilted his head back. “Khang must have programmed the wavelength into each nanobot; it was how he kept them under control.”
“In almost every part of Eden, he had music playing,” Alex said, scribbling notes.
“So,” Peter said, “C minor was the kill switch.”
“I suppose he figured he’d take the secret to the grave with him,” Linc said. “Not even the scientists we questioned knew anything about it.”
“Unfortunately, it’s not the only secret he brought to the grave with him,” Alex said quietly.
“What do you mean?” Peter asked.
She stuffed a crossword puzzle book into the seat pouch in front of her, then looked at Peter. “It’s too bad that so much of the historical record of the people of Eden has been lost.”
“What people?” Linc said. “The Indians?”
“No, not just them. The people in Khang’s compound,” Alex said. “The Eden people. They created a unique culture there. Of course, I’m not sure everything about their culture was something you’d want to preserve.”
“Like?” Peter said.
“Before this week I’d have told you that all spirituality was the same, essentially neutral. Now, I’m not so sure.”
“You mean just because you saw a donkey fly?” Gator asked, almost innocently.
Peter glanced
out his window. In his mind he saw the glowing presence protecting Gator in the assembly cavern.
“Come on, Peter,” Alex said. “You saw what happened to Tima in the cave. That was creepy and spiritual, no way around it.”
“No,” Gator said, “what there’s no way around is that we’ve seen true evil on this little adventure of ours.” Gator turned around and tilted his head back. “And I’ll tell you what else is evil—me having to wait another ten hours before I get crawfish etouffee.”
Alex leaned forward. “CPK BBQ chicken pizza.”
“Sweet potato casserole.”
“Chili’s Baby Back Ribs.”
“Homemade possum pie.”
“Ew.”
The engines of the jet bloomed to life, drowning out their voices. The jet taxied and then lifted into the air. Peter watched the Amazon jungle disappearing below him. His mind flashed to Tima and Skins and Diego—and Eden itself—all somewhere below him now. And he thought about the help that had come when he’d prayed. Twenty minutes later, the jet banked and Peter watched the sun set over the ocean.
Alex slipped away from her seat and walked into the cabin a few minutes later carrying four champagne glasses in her hands, which she distributed.
“I’d like to propose a toast,” Alex said. “To the greatest anti-terrorist task force team ever to set foot in the Amazon jungle.”
The group laughed and enjoyed their champagne.
Alex settled in next to Peter.
Peter thought about it for the next fifteen minutes. He knew it was only a joke, but it actually had a nice ring to it. After all, their camera was somewhere at the bottom of a sinkhole now anyway. The Discovery Channel would have to wait.
“Hear, hear,” Peter said. He tipped his glass at Linc. A small white mouse ran up his shirt and stood on his shoulder, twitching its nose.
“A souvenir,” Linc said, tipping his glass back symbolically.
Gator held his glass in the air, over his shoulder. “Hey, I’m ready for the next adventure,” he said. “Just as long as it’s not in the jungle.”
Peter turned to toast Alex, but she was sound asleep next to him, her empty glass on the tray between them.
She’d fallen asleep with her notebook open. From where he sat, he could see that she had tried to scribble as much of the compound from memory as she could. He watched her for a full minute. Her breathing slow and easy, the way her hair fell at her shoulders, the way she managed to smile even as she slept. But there was so much more to her; he knew that now. And he decided he wanted to discover what it was.
The pilot turned off the interior lights. They were cruising 30,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean, the moon shining brightly on the water and clouds. Looking out at the sea, Peter remembered the dream he’d had at the fishing village and wondered if he should call his father.
He decided he shouldn’t—not yet anyway. Some things were better left in a safe place. His mind drifted slowly over the events of the past two weeks. The only sound was the light hum from the twin jet engines.
And then, the sound of Linc’s harmonica. It was U2’s “Mysterious Ways.”
Peter looked beyond the clouds. Something was beginning to happen inside of him, something deeper than an emotion. Could it be faith? He realized for the first time in as long as he could remember that he believed there was something beyond what he could see.
He was going to have to think about that.
THE END
* * *
[TS1]Please check the spelling on this. I think it should be folklórico
[TS2]The main language of Peru is Spanish, not Portuguese. Is the ship supposed to be from Brazil?
[TS3]How did Linc get out of the box?
[TS4]Is this supposed to be GPS?
[TS5]These are native to Asia, not South America. But probably OK because Eden is a utopia.
