Extinction Countdown (Ancient Origins Series Book 2)

by James D. Prescott

  “When the hell were these taken?” she said, out loud, her pulse racing wildly.

  The thought had no sooner taken form than it was followed by another. Could this have been from the day of her attack? The day she had disappeared for several hours, only to reemerge in a nearby park, groggy and confused.

  The sound of barking outside drew her attention to the window.

  Oh, shit!

  Hollerman was there with his dog and thankfully the darn thing was going after a squirrel that had darted up a tree. Pulling on his leash, Hollerman struggled to draw the dog back toward the house.

  Kay’s eyes fell to the laptop. Panic clawing at the back of her throat, she reached under the desk, yanked the plug out of the power bar and scooped the computer up in her hands. In a few strides she was down the hallway. She’d barely reached the bottom stair when she heard the key slide into the lock on the front door. She tore around the corner and headed through the living room back toward the glass door right as he came inside. At once Sprocket, or whatever his name was, tore free, barking madly. Kay reached the glass door and started to close it behind her when the dog appeared. For a moment their eyes met and suddenly he no longer seemed cuddly and cute. Suddenly he seemed far more like a killer who wanted nothing more than to sink a pair of long, sharp teeth into any part of her body he could.

  With a final heave, she closed the door and took off running through the backyard. In her manic state, she felt a few of the photographs slip from the folder and fall to the concrete patio. A voice screamed out for her to stop and grab them, but the back sliding door was opening again and she knew they were gone. With the dog barking after her, Kay bolted along the side of the house and across the street, certain she must have broken the ten-meter record. Once in her car, she started the engine and floored it, right as Sprocket came charging in. Lucky for her, the only thing he got to chew on was the exhaust from Kay’s tailpipe.

  Kay was barely a block from the highway when she opened the window to let the wind cool her face. The underarms of her shirt were soaked with perspiration. Sweat was beaded on her forehead and along her upper lip. She imagined the story in the local paper the next day and couldn’t help but laugh.

  Black woman steals laptop and flees with dog in hot pursuit.

  •••

  One hour and three National Guard checkpoints later, Kay arrived at the Washington Post head office.

  She set the laptop on Lucas’ desk and clasped her hands. “I know you wanna kill me, but I swear, this’ll be the last favor I ever ask of you.”

  He waved his hand in the air dismissively. “You’re dead to me.”

  “Lucas, you don’t understand. What I found is bigger and more personal than you think.”

  The IT director raised his arm as high as it would go and moved it up and down. “Buh-bye.”

  Gritting her teeth, Kay reached into the folder, pulled out pictures and slammed them on his desk. “These are the assholes who kidnapped me six months ago.”

  Lucas tried not to look, but couldn’t help himself. Slowly the indignant expression on his face began to waver.

  She set her index finger on the cover of the laptop and pressed down. “Something’s going on and it’s a hell of a lot bigger than I thought. If figuring it out means busting into this guy’s laptop, then so be it.”

  Lucas threw her a humorless smile. “I’ll have something for you by tomorrow.”

  “That’s fine,” Kay said, glancing down at the picture of investigative reporter Leslie Fisher. “There’s someone I need to talk to first.”

  Chapter 38

  Greenland

  With news that Russians might be descending into the cavern to pursue them, the group left the relative security of the plaza and continued toward the pyramid. Although it was nearly impossible to make out in the relative darkness, still images Anna had sewn together from Aphrodite’s final flight helped point them in the right direction.

  With clear and present dangers coming in from every possible direction, Captain Mullins took charge of their tactical formation. First off, everyone would carry a weapon, including Grant, and they would walk in two lines, each pressed against opposite sides of the street. From here they could monitor anyone in the upper stories attempting to ambush them.

  Hand signals were next. An arm at a right angle with a clenched fist meant stop. A hand patting the air horizontally meant get down. The rest were fairly straightforward. Given everyone’s lack of combat training, Jack was sure Mullins hated that he and Tamura were the only military left. But as the saying went, you don’t always get what you want.

  Jack was lifting his eyes to check passing windows when something thudded into the wall above his helmet, spraying out a puff of stone and ice. He dropped to the ground, ordering the others to do the same. He scanned for threats without finding any. More shots rang out, riddling the ground and the buildings nearby. Mullins tossed up a hand signal and they cut through an alley on their left, intending to move around the nest of snipers firing at them.

  In seconds, they emerged onto a parallel street heading once again toward the pyramid. They got less than fifty feet before a fresh volley of fire peppered their position. A bullet dinged off the top of Dag’s helmet, throwing out a burst of sparks. He reeled back, cursing like a sailor and thanking God somehow all at the same time.

  When they tried to snake around again and encountered the same stubborn resistance, Jack suggested they stop and reevaluate their next move.

  Rajesh and Tamura set up a defensive perimeter while the others conferred with one another.

  “These guys know we’re heading to the same place they are and have probably blocked as many approaches as they can,” Jack told them, kneeling.

  “That’s certainly what I would do,” Mullins admitted. “Problem is we still don’t understand their endgame. Have they come to stop us from getting to the pyramid or are they simply keeping us busy until someone else shows up?”

  “The Russians?” Gabby said.

  “You think the two of them are in cahoots?” Dag asked, rubbing the top of his helmet with his bare hand.

  “Crazier things have happened,” Eugene said, scanning over his shoulder every two seconds, perhaps expecting someone to jump out at him through the gloom.

  “These lights are also giving us away,” Jack told them.

  “You wanna stumble around in the dark?” Eugene said, horrified.

  “No, not in the dark. I suggest we kill the lights and use the infrared built into our glasses.”

  Mullins shook his head. “That’s not a bad idea. I just worry we’ll be at a disadvantage if we get into a real firefight.”

  “Maybe not,” Jack replied. “What are the chances the Israeli forces are using nightvision?”

  “I’d say a hundred percent.”

  “Well, if we move up in the dark and switch our lights on once we’re close, it might blind them.”

  Mullins considered this. “Or it might just get us killed. But fine. Everyone go to infrared and be ready to switch back if we get into trouble.”

  They set off again, this time cutting an even wider circle around their current position. There was no telling how strung out the Israeli perimeter was. Soon enough they would find out. Staring out at the world through the infrared spectrum made everything ahead appear dark blue and without the slightest hint of oranges or reds. Just then, Jack felt a vibration come and go. Seconds passed before he felt it again.

  “Any of you getting this?”

  “I am,” Grant said. “I can feel my insides shaking.”

  This was no blast wave building up. This was different. Sudden and sporadic. A larger vibration struck just then and Jack caught the distant sound of something cracking.

  His eyes panned up to the cavern’s enormous ceiling, looming over them like a closed fist. From that height, a single boulder would signal a veritable death sentence. Then more vibrations came and, of all things, snowflakes. Jack held out his hand,
watching the white specks gather in the palm of his glove.

  “Anna,” Jack asked, “are you intercepting any radio signals topside?”

  “Not at the moment, although I have analyzed the origin of the shockwaves you are sensing and they appear to be coming from the surface.”

  For a moment, Jack was puzzled, until understanding took shape in his mind. “I think the cavalry’s just arrived.”

  Gabby looked at him. “Admiral Stark?”

  “I hope to hell it is,” he replied. “If so I hope America’s teaching those Ruskies a lesson.”

  Then Jack detected another kind of vibration.

  “Dr. Greer,” Anna said, jogging over to him.

  “I know,” he shot back, his eyes closing against the building pressure in his head. This newest blast wave propelled Jack and the others to the ground, some of them crying out in pain. When the flash came a moment later, Jack felt an electric current surge through his body. Inhaling deeply, he was about to tell them to find somewhere safe to hide when his world erupted in an explosion of white before turning inky black.

  Chapter 39

  Rome

  Mia was sequencing the genome of a twenty-year-old woman named Caterina when her vision was filled with a flash of bright and blinding light.

  After awakening from a vegetative state, Caterina had begun demonstrating a range of remarkable mental abilities. When the results finally came through, Mia hoped they would reveal at least three of the four new dominant Salzburg genes.

  But the sudden flash had sent her mind reeling toward the experiment they had set up in the old operating theater on the seventh floor. Had the magnetic field generator been able to block some or all of the genetic instructions sent via the cosmic blast?

  She glanced over at the timer on the sequencer, saw there was still nearly thirty minutes remaining before it was complete and sprang from her stool.

  A few minutes later, Mia was exiting the elevator and striding down the long corridor, the tails of her lab coat fluttering. Ahead, she could see a few of the lab assistants and technicians had arrived. Among them was Dr. Putelli.

  As she drew closer, Mia also caught the strange expressions on their faces. She pushed past a group of lab assistants and technicians gathered by the door and moved inside. The pig was dead, lying inside the cage with its tongue sticking out.

  Mia sank down onto her haunches and buried her head in her hands. Dr. Putelli switched off the magnetic field generator and braced himself over the cage.

  “I didn’t think it would work,” he told her. “But I suppose it was worth a shot. Try not to be discouraged, Mia. This is what science is about. Trial and error.”

  She wanted to cry but swore and slammed her fist against the ground.

  “It’s only a pig,” he said, continuing his not-so-smooth attempt at assuaging her obvious feelings of frustration and guilt. “Be thankful I didn’t let you talk me into using a human subject. Perhaps now we can get back to a more reasonable approach.” He flashed a toothy grin, but she was in no mood.

  “I’m pissed off it didn’t work the way I hoped it would,” she said, rising. “But I don’t consider it a failure.”

  “You don’t?” The inflection of surprise in his voice was unmistakable.

  “Absolutely not. Clearly, the magnetic field failed to shield the pig from all of the incoming cosmic rays. We’ll have to look further at how much it did manage to block, but in the end, the percentage doesn’t really matter. The earth is protected by such a field and it helps by and large to shield us from the deadly cosmic rays that constantly bombard our planet. I postulated that the blast waves were sending genetic instructions via the same biophotonic language our cells utilize. If that hypothesis was wrong, the magnetic field would have had no effect.”

  Dr. Putelli hunched over the dead pig’s cage, blinking stupidly.

  A moment later, Ollie skidded to a stop. “Oh, crap.” He found Mia, who filled him in.

  “I was just speaking with a fifty-seven-year-old pregnant woman,” he told her.

  Mia’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow, fifty-seven.” She turned to Putelli. “Is that normal around here?”

  He shook his head, still in a daze. “No more than anywhere else.”

  “But that wasn’t the really weird part, if you can believe it. She’s a subject in Dr. Putelli’s Salzburg study and says she’s expecting twins.”

  The study in Kolkata had seen a rash of twin pregnancies among women with Salzburg that was way off the chart as well. She asked Dr. Putelli if he’d noticed the same correlation.

  “Oh, yes, there have been many. Some who even had Salzburg and gave birth before we knew what it was. Although I’m afraid there may be dangers we never anticipated among twins born with the disorder.”

  Mia’s head tilted. “I don’t understand.”

  “Psychotic breaks with reality. Schizophrenia. I have seen more than my fair share of cases. We have tried our best to treat them, but often there is little we can do. In fact, the day you arrived, a pair of twin girls, no more than ten years of age, lost touch with reality and had to be sedated. It was quite ugly and frightening for the other patients, I’m afraid.”

  “There’s a fine line between genius and stark raving lunatic,” Ollie said. “Haven’t you lot considered for a moment these changes might be pushing our brains further and harder than they were ever meant to go?”

  Mia was terrified Ollie just might be right. Could the end point for the thirty percent suffering with Salzburg be a slow, painful descent into madness? There was only one way to know for sure. She looked at Dr. Putelli. “Do you still have a sample of the girls’ blood?”

  •••

  Ten minutes later, Dr. Putelli entered the lab, holding the twins’ blood samples. “I hope I’m not disturbing you,” he said with a halfhearted smile.

  “I was going over Caterina’s sequence. When the flash hit I dropped everything and rushed up to check on the pig.”

  “And?” he said, glancing over her shoulder. “Any new findings?”

  “Caterina has seven of the eight Salzburg genes. The three located in the 48th chromatid are LRP5, SOD11A and MRE11. Of course, in the average population one half of each chromosome is donated by the mother and one half by the father. But in Salzburg’s case, there is no contributing parent. We’re seeing empty sections of the chromosome slowly being populated by genes and other genetic material via biophotonics.”

  “Triggered, as you say, by those blinding pulses of light,” Putelli added.

  “Exactly! That’s why I went to India and then came here. I’ve been chasing the emergence of new genes, with the hope that by sequencing them, we might figure how and why this is happening.”

  Dr. Putelli considered this. “If we do nothing, I worry that society will diverge into two genetically-distinct groups. Those with Salzburg and those without.”

  “There are simply too many variables right now to give any real thought to the future. Could it be that the final stage of Salzburg is to drive its host insane? And will any of that really matter if life on earth is threatened by what they’re now calling the doomsday ship?”

  He smiled coyly. “You know how I feel about the chances of that ship being real.” He went to hand her the blood samples and pulled them away at the last second. “Dr. Ward, there is one thing I want to make clear. When all of this is over, I don’t want you getting any ideas.”

  Mia was genuinely confused by his comment. “Ideas about what?”

  “I spoke with the people at the U.S. State Department and they’ve vouched for you,” he said, peering up beneath hooded slits. “In fact, they were happy to hear you were still alive.”

  “There was a riot in Kolkata and people in our party got killed. We had to flee.”

  “Kolkata isn’t the only place in trouble,” he said. “Seems the whole world is in conflict. Your country in particular. First with Cuba over its artificial islands and now with the Russians in Greenland.”
<
br />   Mia went pale. “Greenland?” It was hardly a surprise, but she had been so unilaterally focused on her work here, she had lost touch with the rest of the world.

  “The start of a proxy war, I’m afraid,” Dr. Putelli said. “At least that’s what they were saying on CNN. I try not to put much weight into any one news outlet. But if there is a conflict going on, I only hope it doesn’t escalate into a full-scale nuclear war.”

  That last part made her insides feel like they were being slowly fed into an organ grinder. In the brief time she had spent in the Gulf investigating the Atean ship, Mia had grown close to many of the scientists: Gabby, Dag, Grant, Rajesh, Eugene and Anna. Her heart ached with the idea that any of them might be hurt or worse. It was Jack’s handsome face that kept coming back to her.

  “You have friends up there?”

  She nodded, unable to speak.

  Dr. Putelli set the blood samples down on the table and put a hand over hers. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

  He was about to leave, but Mia called after him. “I still don’t understand what you meant about me getting any ideas.”

  The doctor fished something from between his teeth with the tip of his tongue. “There’s something you must understand, Dr. Ward. Over here, things are different than they are in America. Men know their place and so do women. I simply want you to remember that you and Ollie are here as my guests.”

  “Have we done something wrong?”

  Dr. Putelli drew in a ragged breath. She could tell he had hoped she might get the hint. But Mia wasn’t a hint kinda gal. If someone had something to say, they ought to come right out and say it.

  “Look,” he said. “You’re a very accomplished scientist and in the short time you’ve been here we’ve made some significant leaps in our understanding. It’s just sometimes your brash manner can rub people the wrong way.”