Instinct

by Jeremy Robinson

  “They’re here, with me.”

  “I mean before . . .” She waved her hands around at the city. “. . . all this. Before Vietnam. What were your parents like?”

  Weston glanced at her, suspicion filling his eyes. He forced a grin. “My father was an alcoholic, abusive prick.”

  Strike one, Sara thought.

  At the end of the courtyard, a steep staircase rose fifty feet up to where a massive rectangular entryway beckoned them into the temple’s innards. Above the entryway, the five towers—arranged in a quincunx, like five dots on a die—jutted toward the chamber’s ceiling, now only one hundred feet above. The five layers of each tower curved up and in, coming to a point. They looked more like serrated spear tips now than they had from above. The place screamed of danger. Stunning to look at, but hiding an inner darkness. Perhaps there was a reason humans had turned on their Neanderthal counterparts?

  “Up,” Weston instructed when they reached the stairs. Each step was a foot tall and a half foot deep. She took the stairs slowly, using her hands and feet to keep from falling back.

  “What about a wife? You’re wearing a wedding ring.”

  Weston stopped. She looked back at him. His frown said it all: this topic was off-limits.

  She quickly switched gears. “What about your mother?”

  Weston’s voice sounded lighter when he spoke. “My mother . . . was an angel. And a good cook. Not at all concerned with health, though. Her cure-all for anything from the common cold to the nastiest flu was apple pie, vanilla ice cream, and a chocolate frappe. It’s a wonder all that sugar fueling the virus or killing my immune system didn’t land me in the hospital.”

  “Was she a stay-at-home mom?”

  “At first, until my father left. Then she put her biology degree to good use and became a zoo caretaker. She fostered my love of the natural world.”

  At the top of the stairs Sara looked into the open maw of the temple. The hallway stretched forward for fifty feet, where it stopped under the central tower. Several skylights lit the hall with cubes of light. She turned toward Weston as he finished ascending the stairs. “What species did she care for?”

  “Gorillas, actually. Magnificent creatures.”

  “Huh,” Sara said. “Ironic.”

  As soon as the word hit her own ears she realized the implication and closed her eyes.

  Strike two.

  “What?” Weston blinked like he’d been slapped. His voice rose. “What did you just say?”

  He stepped toward her, his face flushing. “Ironic? Ironic! You take my children for apes? They can speak. They can think. They have a moral code. That’s more than you can say for most of the human race!”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Yes . . .” He took her shoulder in his meaty hand and pushed her around. “You did.”

  With one more shove they entered the hallway. Two doors on either side of the hall led to square rooms arranged in a cruciform. Three steps staggered down the sides of each room’s walls, plummeting into deep fishponds stocked with very large fish of a multitude of species.

  Past the cruciform of rooms, at the end of the hallway, rose another set of stairs, this one leading out of the temple roof, into open air and the central tower itself. Again, Weston’s instructions were simple but now punctuated with a shove. “Up.”

  Each step displayed a line of ancient pictorial text scrolling from one end to the other as though they were meant to be read as the steps were climbed. The Asian-style script was plain but artistic. Sara stopped on the fifth step up and traced the lines of the script with her finger. “Do you know what it means?”

  Weston stopped next to her. “They’re curses.”

  Sara looked up the stairs. The script seemed endless. “Curses on who?”

  “On you. On me. On all of humanity.” Weston waved the gun at her. “Keep moving.”

  A sick feeling burrowed into her stomach and made a home for itself. This whole temple, this whole city, had been founded on a hatred for humanity. And she was being led to its core. She didn’t believe in ghosts, but she’d sensed the spirit of the place since passing through the first gallery gate. It wasn’t just Weston that had her spooked. It was the entire city.

  Homo sapiens were never meant to tread here.

  They were not welcome.

  Sara moved quickly up the stairs, not wanting to look at the script anymore and fearing the city might suddenly come to life and fling her down the steep incline. Reaching the top, she found herself out of breath and facing an average-sized wooden door. A relief had been carved into the wood, similar to the ones worn by many of the city’s buildings and shrines. Yet this one was a recent addition. The wood of the door, like that of the newer roofs, shone brightly against the dull gray stone of the temple. The relief featured a single face—Weston’s.

  He stopped next to her, looking at the relief. “A bit crude, but effective, don’t you think? They’ve only just begun to re-form their culture, yet their artistic skills—” Weston looked her in the eyes. “Their artistic skills seem to be intrinsic.” Weston opened the door, motioned with the gun, and said, “In.”

  Sara complied.

  The circular room she found herself in was one part holy temple and one part caveman bachelor pad—no doubt Weston’s home away from home. Light poured in through circular holes that vented the ceiling. She realized this inner chamber was a miniature-sized version of the mountain above. It even had a crystal chandelier that reflected and amplified the light throughout the room.

  At the center of the room, below the crystal lamp, was a fire pit. The surrounding walls were covered with several ancient carvings depicting scenes of human sacrifice, spirits, and strange rituals. Sara’s eyes froze on a relief of several Neanderthal men holding a human woman down upon an altar. It became clear in that moment what the Neanderthals had done to offend the humans. Thousands of years ago, the Neanderthals would have been much more “human” than the group she’d seen. More hairy, maybe, but not nearly as strong. A hyperevolutionary leap had done that during their time in isolation. But they had been wicked, practicing what appeared to be magic of some kind, sacrificing humans, performing rituals. Perhaps in secret at first, she thought, but they must have been found out. And the Homo sapiens, horrified, did what they did best—exterminated.

  She turned away from the relief and saw a modern-looking bed. Fashioned from wood and covered with a homemade mattress. Weston removed the belt holding his holster and knife and placed it on the bed. The red band of flesh on his waist revealed the belt was a smidge too snug. He sat next to the belt and scanned the walls of the room. “Before I got here, I thought the Neanderthals were victims of human ignorance and violence. But this room opened my eyes. They did awful things to humanity. True crimes. And they paid for it.”

  “Then why are you protecting them?”

  “At the end of World War Two, did we kill all the Nazis? Did we continue dropping nukes on Japan? Of course not. We helped them rebuild. They were wrong and they got trounced. But the Neanderthals have never had a chance to make up for what they did wrong.”

  “And now they do, right? By allowing the human race to go extinct?”

  “That’s not my fault!” Weston was back on his feet, pacing and agitated. “Humanity is doing that to itself.”

  “How convenient for you.” She shook her hands at him. “Just give me the damn cure and let me go!”

  Weston paused his pacing, surprised by the tone and volume of her voice. For a moment he looked at her with different eyes, the same way he looked at King. Like a threat. “I’m afraid you would not enjoy receiving the cure the way I did.”

  Sara thought about the implications. About what she knew of Weston’s time in the jungle. “From the old mothers . . .” Her hand went to her mouth as she realized the truth. “It’s an STD?”

  “A filthy way of saying it is transmitted through the blood, but essentially correct. That is one way it can be transferred.
I have not, clearly, been able to study how it works in detail, but that is my best theory.”

  “Something is transferred,” Sara said, her mind on the hunt for Brugada’s cure and not on the rancid-smelling man beside her. “A virus, most likely, that modifies the DNA and disables whatever gene allows Brugada to become a killer. It’s eloquent, really. An avian flu virus delivers the active gene and a second shuts it off. Viral competition.”

  “Interesting. The male Nguoi Rung population died off quite quickly. But the females survived. At some point, they contracted a virus—your competing virus—and it altered their genes, protecting them and future generations from Brugada. If not, the Neanderthal race would have ended with the deaths of the old mothers.”

  Sara’s face brightened as she understood. “It makes sense. What were your symptoms?”

  He thought for a moment. “Swollen glands. A slight fever. And a rash that eventually blistered, crusted over, scabbed, and healed. Really quite minor.”

  Sarah couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It wasn’t just like an STD, it was an STD. Weston had just described a classic case of herpes; granted, most likely a new strain, but herpes nonetheless. What made this even more believable was that herpes was frequently used in gene therapy, as it readily accessed and altered the genetic code. Several lab-engineered herpes-based cures were already in development for HIV, cancer, liver tumors—the list was extensive. In this case nature had done all the work, shutting down the SCN5A gene activated by the bird flu. “It’s amazing.”

  “I’m tickled you think so, but you can wipe that look of hope from your face.” Weston faced her. “I will not be sharing my blood with you and I am not a philistine, so do not think you can receive the cure from me through . . . other means.”

  Weston squinted suddenly, his eyes no longer meeting hers. She feared he was ogling her, but his expression was all wrong.

  “What is that?” he asked. “On your wrist. It just changed color.”

  “It’s a—” Sara froze as she looked at her outbreak meter. It glowed a deep, bloodlike red. Brugada was out.

  The pandemic had begun.

  She gasped. “No . . .”

  Weston stepped forward, took her wrist, and looked at the rainbow of warm colors. “What kind of watch is this?”

  Sara yanked her arm away. She held her wrist up in front of his face. “This means that the pandemic has begun. People are dying. You need to let me go.”

  Weston stared at her.

  “Please,” she said, her voice wavering with desperation.

  “You know I can’t.”

  Sara’s fear turned to rage. “Not a philistine? You’re allowing the human race to face the possibility of extinction!” She shook her head. It was useless. They’d had that conversation already. She looked at the wedding band on his finger. Time to push his buttons, she thought, before saying, “What about your wife? She’s still out there, right?”

  “I warned you not to talk about her.”

  “Did you love your wife? Did you ever?”

  Veins appeared on Weston’s forehead as he grew angry. “I said don’t!” He raised the gun toward her.

  The gun gave her pause, but Weston hadn’t taken her all this way to shoot her. “What about children?”

  Weston walked toward her, menace in his eyes.

  “A daughter?”

  No reaction. But she could see by the widening of his angry eyes that she was about to stumble on the truth.

  “A son.”

  Weston paused, his eyes tearing.

  “He’ll be one of the first to die. Brugada affects mostly males. Let me go and I—”

  “My son is dead. Drowned. I left him alone for ten minutes. Ten minutes. When I found him it was already too late. I couldn’t save him. My wife came to hate everything about me and divorced me six months later.” He placed the gun’s muzzle beneath her chin and raised her head so they were eye to eye. “But I found a new family. Everything I love is here, and I will be damned before I let another one of my children die when I have a chance to save them.”

  Strike three.

  FIFTY

  PAIN SHOT UP Knight’s leg with every rushed step. He was in no condition to face a pissed-off Neanderthal. At full strength he didn’t stand much of a chance, but in his current state it would be like a wingless fly standing up to a black widow spider. It would simply walk up to him, sink in its fangs, and be done with it. His only real chance at survival was to get lost in the maze before it found him, but that meant getting back to the middle, where all the different paths converged.

  A scream reverberated through the room. As Knight reached a straightaway parallel with the entrance, he risked a quick glance back. What he saw increased his fear tenfold.

  The shape was massive, more than twice his size.

  The eyes blazed with raw hatred.

  Bloody froth sprayed.

  Muscles rippled.

  The massive figure leaped from the entrance, clearing two walls and landing ten feet behind Knight.

  Bishop.

  But he was no longer Bishop. He was a regen.

  And for Knight, unarmed and injured, that was a death sentence.

  Knight didn’t try to reason with Bishop. He didn’t beg for mercy. He did the only thing he could do.

  He ran.

  But his run was closer to an awkward hop. He put more weight down on his injured leg. But as he rounded a corner, the splint struck the floor at an odd angle. The old bones wrapped around his ankle shattered. He went down hard.

  He forced himself back onto his good foot. Just as he was up, Bishop came around the corner and lunged, arms outstretched for Knight’s throat.

  Knight dove to the side, landing with a roll, despite the shooting pains in his leg.

  The speed of Bishop’s charge carried him forward. In his madness he turned his face and arms toward Knight, never giving the approaching wall a second glance. He struck the foot-thick wall head-on. His neck bent at a crooked angle and cracked. He clenched his eyes and howled in pain for a moment. But his wounds healed quickly.

  Wasting no time, Knight bolted around the next corner on his hands and knees, hoping to reach the center of the maze and duck into another channel before Bishop saw him again. If he could wait, silently, Bishop might continue his pursuit of the rat. Then again, he might stay and work the maze, as mindless as a rat. But there was no cheese treat at the end of this maze—only Knight.

  The center of the maze loomed ahead, but before Knight’s hopes could rise, pebbles began to fall all around him. Bishop had once again broken the rules of the maze. Knowing an attack was coming, Knight flipped onto his back.

  Bishop leaped down and landed at Knight’s feet, but the smaller and more skilled fighter was ready. He kicked hard against Bishop’s tree trunk of a leg, and the practiced force of Knight’s kick did the job. Bishop’s knee bent backward with a sickening crack, toppling him forward. As he fell, Knight launched a second kick, this one connecting with Bishop’s windpipe, which collapsed from the impact.

  Bishop might be able to heal, but he still needed to breathe. And the wounds would take time to repair themselves.

  As his regen teammate slumped to the floor, gurgling madly, Knight crawled for the center of the room. But before he got three feet, his bad ankle was snagged. Then squeezed.

  Knight screamed as the pain took hold of his body. Bishop’s hand had him in a vice grip.

  Fighting the pain from his tormented leg, he raised his good leg and crashed his heel down on Bishop’s forearm. The impact caused Bishop’s hand to open for a moment. It was all the time Knight needed. He yanked his leg free and frantically scrambled for the center of the maze.

  As he crawled over Weston’s charcoal rubbings, the pages slipped out from under him, slowing his progress. He wasn’t going to make it.

  Realizing this, Knight turned around and saw Bishop hopping out of the maze, while his twisted knee straightened and then popped into place. K
night held on to the large crystal, then pulled himself to his feet. He would make his last stand here. But there was no question as to the outcome. Knight had seen what regens did to their victims. They ate them. But it was worse than that. They didn’t just kill and then eat. They killed by eating. There would be no suffocation. No killing strike. He would simply start gnawing on whatever piece of Knight’s body reached his mouth first.

  Knight braced himself as Bishop stepped forward on his newly healed knee. He growled and sneered, hunching as he prepared to pounce. He began his approach slowly, building speed as he stayed focused on Knight’s throat.

  Knight braced himself and prepared to throw a thumb into Bishop’s eye, then attack his pressure points.

  But the attack never finished.

  Bishop’s leg wobbled under him.

  He fell to one knee, convulsing.

  Then he retched. What looked like the spine, ribs, and flesh of a rat fell onto one of Weston’s rubbings. A second heave coated everything in bile.

  Bishop coughed, then sobbed, as though in agony. Then he calmed and looked at his hands. They shook. He looked up into Knight’s frightened eyes. “Knight?”

  “Bish?”

  Bishop looked at the floor. The bile-covered rat flesh filled his gaze. “Did I do this?”

  “Bishop, how—how are you okay? You were about to have me for dinner.”

  Bishop stood. “Sorry, I—” He stumbled backward, away from Knight. His face twisted with sudden fury, and he eyed Knight like a fat kid before a Happy Meal and stepped forward. He stopped, gagged, and held his head. “Knight . . .”

  “Come closer!” Knight reached out and took Bishop’s hand, pulling him to the center of the room. “Feel better?”

  “Yeah . . . A lot better.” Bishop shook his head and blinked his eyes. “What’s happening?”

  Knight placed his hand against the large crystal rising from the floor. “It’s the crystal. Has to be. Weston—”

  Bishop’s eyes went wide. “You met Weston?”

  “No . . . Did you? He’s alive?” Knight looked at Bishop’s haunted eyes. “Did he make you . . .”