Pathogen Protocol (Anghazi Book 2)

by Darren Beyer

  “How old do you think this facility is?” Nassir asked. “More than twenty-five years?”

  “At least,” she said.

  “We discovered this planet twenty years ago. We think this complex was constructed approximately the same time as the American Revolutionary War.”

  Mandi’s head swam.

  “And something happened here—something catastrophic. The Anghazi has been searching for someone like you ever since.”

  Mandi shook her head to try and clear it.

  “Are you all right? Mandi?”

  Her vision faded, and the sensation had nothing to do with the Anghazi.

  She fainted.

  Chapter 45: Eridani

  This is amazing.” Ivey’s jaw hung open. “This data is coming in from everywhere. I’ve got origins in New Reyk, a couple facilities, what looks like a planetside military compound, and, wow, traffic from Coalition naval vessels in orbit.”

  “What is it all? Digital surveillance? Data sniffers?”

  “All of the above. There are recordings of comm traffic, video files, holovids, text data. Each one associated with person ID, position data, and…” Ivey paused. “Blood pressure, pulse, temperature—vital signs. Jesus, could this be from—”

  “People.” Grae growled out the word. “It’s got to be those same little fuckers that were inside me.”

  “Not possible. How would they transmit?”

  “At the m-base, when I sent Danny’s message to—Jesus. Video files. They intercepted my transmission. And afterward, in the medical tent, why did I get attacked then?” Grae closed his eyes and thought back. “I used a holo screen. Both times, I used a holo screen.”

  “I can’t even begin to think how what you’re suggesting would even be possible.”

  “Holo screens interface with us by detecting electrical activity and magnetic fields inside our hands. Those things were in my bloodstream.” Grae shivered as he said the words. “What’s to say they didn’t inject a computer virus of some sort and send and receive signals the same way?”

  “But the data transmission algorithms were manipulated, the logs doctored. That takes something a lot more sophisticated than sending and receiving signals. It had to be some sort of malicious program.”

  “Maybe these things inserted it, or opened a communications conduit so something else could do it. I don’t know. You and Doc said these things were more advanced than anything you’d seen. We need to stop thinking of what is and isn’t possible, and more about what could be.”

  “I don’t know. To put that kind of intelligence, memory, all the subsystems into something so small…”

  “You’re thinking too much like an engineer, Ivey. You were a kid when interstellar travel was discovered. The best scientists on Earth said it was impossible, but then there it was.”

  “Because of the Anghazi.”

  “The impossible was suddenly possible. Just because we think something can’t be done, doesn’t mean it’s so.”

  As Ivey contemplated what Grae had said, data continued to stream by. Grae tried to count the messages going through, but too many passed too quickly, and he couldn’t keep up.

  “Even if I can’t begin to contemplate how they’d do it,” Ivey said, “your theory makes sense. And look at this.”

  Grae looked up from his data. “Find something?”

  “A name for this whole thing. These arrogant assholes aren’t even trying to hide it. They’re calling it Pathogen Protocol.”

  Through Grae’s earpiece, a light, broken hum disturbed the still night air. He removed his helmet to listen with his naked ear. The sound was barely there, but distinctive. An approaching helo. No, not a single helo, but two, maybe three, coming up the valley, flying low to dull the sound of their engines.

  He threw his helmet back on. “Ivey, get your gear off that thing. We’re leaving.”

  “I’ve got my backdoor installed. It’s a great place too, they’ll never—”

  “No time. Pack up and get your ass moving. We’ve got inbounds.”

  In a matter of seconds, Ivey had pulled her equipment and thrown it back inside her suit.

  “No time for stealth. Hightail it down the slope to the tree line, and by hightail it, I mean slide down—fast!” Grae shouldered his rifle and watched as Ivey began sliding down the loose slope. “Faster, Ivey!”

  The proximity alert flashed in Grae’s heads-up display, and he zoomed out and swung his rifle in the indicated direction. A drone flew up and over the ridge, highlighted in Grae’s scope. Flashes erupted from underneath it, and the ground around Ivey was kicked up. The drone’s machine gun had opened up on her.

  Grae turned his rifle’s shell velocity to maximum, aimed at the drone, and pulled the trigger. The drone lurched and wobbled, then began to spin. Grae was forced to duck, as the machine gun, still firing, sprayed rounds in all directions. Finally the drone slammed into an outcropping and broke into pieces.

  Grae grabbed their packs and sprinted toward the hillside. “Ivey, you okay?”

  “I’m hit.” She breathed heavily. “Fuck, it hurts!”

  At the slope, Grae leapt, landed on his hip, and slid. With his rifle held above his head in one hand, he trailed the backpacks behind him with his other, using them to help steer down the hillside. As he neared the tree line, he dug in with both feet to stop himself. With his last bit of momentum, he got to his feet and sprinted to where Ivey lay on the ground.

  He knelt next to her. She was holding the lower right side of her rib cage with both hands, and her eyes were clenched shut in a grimace of pain.

  “Let me see.” Grae peeled back her hands, then leaned over her face. “Ivey, look at me.” He waited until she opened her eyes. “I know it doesn’t feel like it, but it didn’t go through. Your armor stopped it. Though you probably have some cracked ribs.”

  Grae retrieved a syrette from a pouch on his arm. Ivey winced as he injected its contents into her neck.

  “That should help with the pain.”

  Grae looked up as the sound of the approaching helos echoed off canyon walls. He yanked his portable comm from his pack.

  Ivey struggled to a sitting position. “What are you doing?”

  “Giving you some time.”

  “Don’t you mean giving ‘us’ some time?”

  “I’m remotely repositioning the skimmer and dropping its drone to create some misdirection.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “There. You’ve got the skimmer rendezvous coordinates in your nav.”

  “Grae!”

  Grae grabbed her pack and slid over to her.

  “There’s no way we’re getting out of here together. I set the skimmer to loop wide to a point north of us. Its drone will start making noise south. We need enough time for the misdirection to work. I’m going to give you that time. For comms, use codename Freya.”

  “What? No! You’re our leader—I’ll stay. You have to get out.”

  Grae shook his head. “No offense, but you won’t be able to hold them back long enough. Besides—” Grae flashed a smile. “You said yourself that I’m no good with the hacking stuff. What we found here is too important—you need to get out and let people know about it.”

  Ivey struggled to her feet and he handed her the pack.

  “Regardless, I outrank you.” Grae forced a wink and a smile. “I’m not giving you a choice.”

  Chapter 46: Iota Ceti

  Mandi woke with a start. Her hard mattress lay directly on the concrete floor of the darkened room. Nearby, a man sat in a chair, silhouetted against the light that leaked through a tattered curtain covering a doorway—a very short doorway, like the other ones she’d seen here. The man’s head drooped against his chest.

  “Who’s there?” Mandi said.

  The man’s head snapped up “Mandisa?”

  The voice belonged to Nassir. He reached out and turned on the room’s light.

  “You’re awake.” A relie
ved smile came to his lips.

  “What happened?”

  “You fainted. I’m sorry. I should not have subjected you to so much. I didn’t know the Anghazi would reach out, and that you have—well, like mother, like daughter. You have the gift.”

  Mandi scrutinized him. “You said that already—that’s exactly how my mother put it.”

  “Yes. I imagine so.”

  “You mentioned that something happened here, which is why the Anghazi was reaching out for me. What happened?”

  “Where do I start?” Nassir looked to the ceiling. “I guess the beginning is best. Are you familiar with the Denisovans?”

  Mandi shook her head.

  “Denisova hominin, Denisovans, ranged over much of Europe and Asia tens of thousands of years ago. Like their cousins, the Neanderthals, they were eventually either wiped out or assimilated by Homo sapiens—modern-day humans—us. Most of Earth proved to be more suitable for us, so we won the war of natural selection. Denisovans were more at home in the thinner air of higher elevations, while we were better suited for everywhere else. On Earth, what groups of people live at very high altitude?”

  “I don’t know.” Mandi thought. “The Tibetans, and maybe people in the Andes?”

  Nassir extended his index finger and tapped it on his nose.

  “Of those two groups, only one is truly adapted to live at altitude. The people of the Andes live and survive at high altitude, but they also pay a price. They’re more susceptible to physical effects like mountain sickness as they age. The Tibetans, on the other hand, have no such limitations. In the Himalayas, Sherpas routinely live at altitudes that sicken lowland people, and work at heights that can kill. What allows them to do that?”

  Mandi shrugged.

  “They have a certain gene—it’s called EPAS1—that has only been found in Denisovan DNA. Their Homo sapiens ancestors interbred with Denisovans, who imparted this gene. And tens of thousands of years later, it is this Denisovan heritage that allows Tibetans to thrive in the low air pressure of higher altitudes.”

  Mandi held up a hand. “That’s very interesting, but what does it have to do with the Anghazi and Iota?”

  “The Denisovans were shorter than both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. I would say they averaged—” In exaggerated movements, Nassir raised his hand to just below the top of the doorway. “About this tall. Oh, and I neglected to mention that when we tested the remains of people we found here—we call them Iotians—we found the EPAS1 gene. Not a similar one, but an exact match.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that the Denisovans were Iotian?”

  Nassir gave a half nod. “Or that the Iotians were Denisovan. Perhaps it is more correct to say that they were like brothers and sisters.”

  “How is that remotely possible?”

  “We don’t know for sure, but we feel confident that the Anghazi, both here and on Earth, have something to do with it.”

  “A good guess.”

  “My theory is that they seeded both worlds with the DNA of a number of different human subspecies, knowing that natural selection would choose the one most suited to survive and thrive on their respective worlds. Here, with Iota’s lower air pressure, the Denisovans proved the most adaptable.”

  Mandi let it all sink in for a few moments, then looked Nassir in the eye. “What happened to them?”

  Nassir shrugged. “We don’t know for sure. Maybe the Anghazi does. All we know is that something wiped everyone off the face of this planet a couple hundred years ago.”

  “There’s one thing…” Mandi flashed back to the symbol she’d seen in the brief episode with the Iotian Anghazi. “The visions, or almost-dreams, or whatever they are—the one I experienced here nearly matched those I had before.”

  “I would expect so. The visions come from your brain; the Anghazi just opens your mind to allow the connection.”

  “No. I said they nearly match, but this one was subtly different.”

  Nassir leaned forward. “Tell me.”

  “The visions I had before were of something called an ouroboros symbol.”

  Nassir’s eyes went wide.

  “You know what that is?” Mandi asked.

  “Yes, but please go on. The differences…?”

  “The ones from before could have been any of a hundred snakes I’m familiar with. But this one was, I don’t know, more exaggerated. Its body was thick, and its fangs very long. Its head got very thin at its snout.”

  Nassir stood abruptly and held out his hand. “Please, come with me now.”

  Mandi took his hand, and he pulled her through the curtain into the hallway. They practically ran to the research center—the room where she’d fainted—though there was only a lone researcher working there now, at this late hour. She jumped when they entered, but then resumed her business.

  Nassir sat at a workstation and set to work. Within moments, a picture appeared: a thick snake with its thin nose and oversized fangs bared as if to strike.

  Mandi’s face went slack.

  “It’s the same snake as in your vision, isn’t it?” Nassir asked.

  Mandi nodded.

  “We call it an elephant viper. It’s local to this area—very dangerous—and we’ve seen it here in symbols like you described.”

  “First you tell me there were people on this world—”

  “Denisovans.”

  “Denisovans.” Mandi took a deep breath. “Now you’re telling me there were snakes, too?”

  “Not ‘were.’ Are.”

  Nassir turned back to the screen and accessed his data again. Dozens of images appeared, all showing the squat viper depicted in the ring of the ouroboros. Some were modern, digital images of etchings or carvings. Others were captures of black-and-white photos and print material. And each of the pictures made Mandi’s vision flash. She took an involuntary step back and steadied herself against a desk.

  Nassir was immediately at her side.

  “You’ve seen symbols like this somewhere else—besides in your Anghazi visions.”

  Trying to force the flashes to stop, Mandi closed her eyes. “Tattoos. Andrews—his people have them as tattoos.”

  A chair screeched against the floor as the lone late-night worker rose and left the research center. As the door closed behind her, Nassir slouched back down in his chair and steepled his hands in front of his chest.

  “This symbol—the ouroboros… what you experienced with it here flies in the face of what we thought we knew about how the Anghazi work with us.”

  “My mother told me about this. She said they allow us to learn more quickly, but don’t teach.”

  “Yes. Yet you saw the elephant viper in the symbol in your vision—something you had never laid eyes on before. That is not ‘allowing’ you anything—that is telling.” Nassir drummed his fingers together. “A number of people have had an affinity with the Anghazi. That ability is rare, but not unusual. But, other than you, I know of only two people who have had an extraordinary level of ability.”

  “My mother.”

  Nassir nodded. “And—”

  “You?”

  “Yes. Your mother has a particular aptitude with antigravity physics and wormhole formation. My aptitude is with technology surrounding interstellar travel and navigation. Together we created the jump drive. We did this with a base of knowledge that the Anghazi enabled us to use to its fullest, but… I never felt we were being ‘told’ anything. You, however, have an Anghazi pushing thoughts to you.”

  “From millions of kilometers away.”

  “We’ve surmised for quite some time that Anghazi might have reached out to Earth, gently opening minds of receptive individuals to further collective advancement. But this— this is anything but gentle reaching. This must be a warning.”

  Mandi shrugged. “I don’t need the Anghazi beaming thoughts into my brain, telling me Gregory Andrews, Hallerson, TSI—that they’re all threats.”

  “I should think not. But what if there’
s more to this than just Andrews? Here on Iota, the symbol seems to have been part of a number of major religious movements.”

  “I found it in a lot of religious references on Earth too—when I was researching to try and figure out whatever the Anghazi want me to solve. Some were pretty chilling.”

  “I have long suspected it’s related to whatever befell the Iotian people. Could there be something similar underway now on Eridani, with Andrews?”

  Mandi worked her mouth. “I’m not sure.”

  “You disagree?”

  “Not about your assertion as to what happened here—you would know better than any. But I’ve met Andrews…”

  Nassir’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Yes, I actually met him, and it wasn’t a pleasant encounter. But that’s a long story. Gregory Andrews never struck me as particularly dogmatic about anything other than corporate greed. There’s nothing religious about him. But his main operative, Erik Hallerson? That one was scary like the devil. And he was the one who was in my visions from the other Anghazi. At least he’s dead. Grae—one of Danny Dagan’s people—killed him during the invasion.”

  Nassir looked her in the eye. “No, Mandisa. Erik Hallerson is alive.”

  Mandi gasped.

  “I know about him as well,” Nassir continued, “and he’s been busy lately. Our intelligence network intercepted orders to take all the hyperium stockpiled by AIC in the Sol system, and transfer it to Eridani. Erik Hallerson sent those orders.”

  “Why is he doing that?”

  “Think, Mandisa. If all the hyperium is in Eridani, and Hallerson and Andrews control Eridani, then who would take it from them?”

  Mandi’s eyes grew wide.

  “Yes,” Nassir said. “They are finishing what Jans started, but with much more sinister intent.”

  “Pan Asian and Eastern Bloc…” Mandi shook her head. “They won’t stand for it.”

  “What can they do?”

  “They can pressure the Coalition back on Earth and in the Sol system.”

  “What would Andrews care?” Nassir’s face took on a sanguine expression. “If pressure does not deliver desired results, there are only two options: back off or increase the pressure. And with so much at stake, backing off is not an option. Inevitably, this will lead to war.”