Natural Selection

by Dave Freedman

  He reminded Darryl and Lisa of the rattail fish a moment ago.

  Darryl flicked a switch. “Everything cool?”

  “Great. Now let’s look around. . . .” He thumped away, noticing a big brown rock the size of a pool table. As he walked closer, he spied a colony of foot-long pogonophora worms, several hundred writhing around on the rock like snakes, apparently feeding on greenish-brown algae. Many weren’t moving. He looked up and realized tiny, guppy-size fish were everywhere, floating belly-up. “GDV-4’s down here, guys.”

  His eyes shifted beyond the light, to the darkness, and he wondered if anything else was hiding. Then he noticed movement near his feet. A kelp strand was just floating there. He picked it up. There were no visible bite marks, but the tips were dried out and brittle. It had been on the seafloor for some time. “We’re in the right neighborhood.”

  He flipped on two tiny flashlights embedded in his hands, and a pair of miniature beams illuminated little circles on the sand. “Let’s see what’s here. . . .” He walked toward the darkness. Then disappeared within it. All that remained was the air tube, slithering on the sand.

  “YOU THINK he’s all right?”

  “I’m sure he’s fine.” Through the viewing glass, Darryl eyed the air tube, taut now and sticking out of the black wall like a knife into cheese. “He’s a little stretched, but I’m sure he’s fine.”

  Lisa checked a digital readout on the instrument panel. “It’s been nineteen minutes, Darryl.”

  Darryl gave her a look and flipped a switch. “Jason, you all right out there?”

  He waited. Two seconds ticked past, and there was no reply.

  “Jason?”

  Another two seconds ticked. Still nothing.

  “Jason. Do you hear me? Is everything all right?”

  “Yeah, guys, fine.”

  Darryl and Lisa shook their heads.

  Surrounded by darkness, Jason looked down at the sand. “Nothing’s here, but what we’re looking for is close.” A massive bird-shaped imprint was at his feet.

  “It’s very, very close.” He scanned the watery blackness. “What do you say we go find it.”

  CHAPTER 28

  “HE’S A goddamn machine.” Two and a half hours had passed, and Darryl was stunned by Jason’s endurance. Sand, sand, and more sand, that was all there was down here. What’s the point? Darryl thought. He steered the tiny yellow sub over yet another stretch when Lisa leaned into the mike.

  “Jason, you think we should come back and try another time?”

  “No, but thanks for the encouragement, Lisa.” Little particles flowing past his helmet, Jason shook his head as the dark sand plain continued. The deep-sea desert indeed appeared to be endless, but what they were looking for was here. He could sense it. It was close. “Veer to the right a little.”

  In the sub, Darryl turned to Lisa. “So . . . read any good books lately?”

  “Your wife’s the reader, Darryl. Hey, you hungry?”

  “Always. What do you got?”

  From a denim pocketbook, she produced a tiny bag of pretzels. Darryl tore them open and ate a few. “Didn’t bring any sleeping pills, did ya?”

  “I wish. We could be down here for days, huh?”

  “Whatever. So what else is—”

  “My God.” Jason’s stunned voice interrupted them. “They’re here. They’re really here.”

  THE SUB hovered to a stop above a deep-sea graveyard of sorts. A fleet of white, winged skeletons, each the size of a small plane, stretched well beyond the range of the lights.

  “Jesus.” In all his years in the ocean, Darryl Hollis had never seen anything like it. “How many do you think there are?”

  Lisa shook her head. “I have no idea. What do you think, Jason?”

  Looking down from a height of two stories, Jason shifted his eyes from one enormous skeleton to the next. “Can we get a closer look?”

  They touched down on one of the few patches of sand not occupied by a skeleton, and Jason walked toward the closest specimen. Getting closer, he was amazed at how horrifying it looked, just a skeleton, the height of a coffee table at its deepest point.

  He turned as a rattail fish swam toward it. Then through it, as if it were an underwater jungle gym, dodging in and out of ribs, eye sockets, then teeth. Jason stared at the teeth. My God, look at those things. They were as wide as champagne bottles at their base and as tall as soda cans, the tips as sharp as knife points. Jason tried picturing them in a living animal. . . . Then the fish swam off, and he remembered why they were here. “I don’t see any bodies, guys.”

  In the sub, Darryl surveyed the darkness. “Let’s find one.”

  “MY GOD, how many of these things are there?”

  Lisa Barton was astounded. They’d been passing over skeletons for forty minutes and still hadn’t seen the end of them. One enormous winged frame after another passed under their cruising machine. She turned. “Any idea, Darryl?”

  “One thousand four hundred and twenty-one so far,” Jason said from the intercom.

  Lisa shook her head. “Big surprise. He’s been counting.”

  Darryl chuckled then pointed at the glass. “Look, Soccer Mom. It’s snowing.”

  “Hey, it really is.”

  Small white flakes were indeed falling everywhere. “Snowstorms” occurred regularly in the depths, when spawning plants above emitted literally billions of seeds into the water.

  Lisa glanced at the monitor. “See the snow, Jason?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  On the platform, he tried to ignore the white stuff flowing past his helmet. He didn’t want to lose count of the skeletons—1,422, 1,423, 1,424 . . . He squinted inside his helmet, the snow thickening—1,425, 1,426, 1,427 . . . It thickened further—1,428, 1,429 . . . The sub turned slightly, and the snow blew right into him—1,430, 1,431 . . . The snow began sticking to his face mask. . . . He tried wiping it away, but his hands couldn’t do it—1,432 . . . or was that 1,431? . . . 1,432, 1,433, 1,434 . . . The snow fell harder, a driving storm, and the skeletons began to merge—1,434, 1,435 . . . The snow fell harder still. . . . And then he lost count. But not because of the snow.

  He’d spotted something lying among a cluster of the skeletons. He squinted as the sub got closer, trying to make it out.

  Inside, Darryl squinted too. “Hey, do you see that, Jason? What is that?”

  Jason’s eyes narrowed. “It’s a body, Darryl. We just found a body.”

  It was much smaller than the skeletons, just five feet across the wings and 250 pounds. A dead juvenile, its body preserved by the same lethal virus that had killed it. With the exception of a few patches of skin chafed away from the wing tips and lower torso, it looked to be in perfect condition. As the sub zoomed closer, Jason focused on its head. A small smile formed on his face. He couldn’t wait to get it to the surface and take a look at its brain.

  CHAPTER 29

  “My God, will you look at that.”

  With bags under his eyes, Jason stood alone in a small marine lab. Surrounded by wood cabinets and cheap framed pictures of dolphins on the walls, he was astonished at what was before him. He’d expected to see a large brain, of course, but this . . . Sid Klepper and Ross Drummond had set him up here the previous night, in one of Marwood Enterprises’ Monterey labs. He hadn’t spoken with anyone since. Klepper and Drummond had gone home to sleep, and Darryl, Lisa, and Phil were also snoozing in a few of the back offices. He didn’t know where Craig and Monique were—perhaps still on the ocean.

  It was nearly 7:15 A.M. Jason had just worked through the night.

  Staring into a three-inch-deep water-filled plastic tray, he wasn’t tired. Below the waterline was a large, strangely shaped brain that he didn’t know what to make of. He’d already packed the body in ice and put it in an industrial freezer in back. The procedure had taken six hours longer than normal because the brain had some unusual spinal-cord connections that had to be carefully severed. He flipped off the tiny
recorder Phil had given to Darryl earlier and vowed to write up notes in the laptop.

  He stared into the tray again. Jason had done more than his share of manta-ray autopsies—north of a hundred and fifty in ten years—and he’d never seen a brain like it. “My God,” he said once more.

  Unlike other brains, this one wasn’t circular, but rectangular and flat. It looked like a badly infected slab of prime rib, the length of a forearm, the width of a hand, and an inch and a half thick. Jason had worked all night to remove it, but now that he had it, he had no idea what to do next.

  “LISA.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Lisa.” This was followed by a mild poke.

  Lisa Barton was asleep in a big leather easy chair she’d snuggled into the previous night.

  “Lisa, wake up.”

  She opened her eyes and smiled. “Hey.”

  Jason smiled too. She looked at home in her sweatshirt and jeans. He suddenly forgot where he was, forgot everything about the brain. He felt like asking her out to breakfast, just the two of them, something casual. “Hey.”

  “You look tired.”

  He nodded, saying nothing.

  “What time is it?”

  “Seven fifteen.”

  “In the morning?” She sat up, readjusting clothes. “You’ve been up all night?”

  “I really wanted to get that brain out.”

  “No one will ever accuse you of not being dedicated, Aldridge. So did you?”

  “You’ve got to see this thing.”

  “Oh my God.”

  They both stood over the tray, marveling.

  “How big is it?”

  “Almost six pounds.”

  “Jesus!” Lisa knew a human brain weighed three pounds on average.

  Jason nodded. “It’s one hundred and ten times the size of a manta’s brain.”

  “They really did outsmart that dolphin. . . .” She eyed the brain, astonished. “So what do you want to do with this?”

  “I guess take it to a neuro expert. I just don’t know who.”

  “Craig might know some people.”

  “Oh, right.” Jason had forgotten that Summers had attended several symposiums on the effects of viruses on animal brains and made his share of contacts in the neurological community. “I’ll try Craig on his cell right now. Why don’t you wake Darryl and Phil.” Lisa walked off, and Jason tried to reach Summers—once, twice, then three times. All were fast busy signals. Then Darryl entered the room and peered into the tray.

  “Holy cow.”

  Phil came in next. “My God. I gotta get some pictures of this. . . . “ Like a kid in a candy store, he ran out for his camera and returned instantly, snapping from every angle.

  Darryl was still flabbergasted. “This is real. You actually cut this brain out of that animal?”

  “That’s ri—”

  “Did you get Craig and Monique, Jason?” Lisa asked, entering.

  “No. I wonder what they’re up to out there.”

  Lisa walked closer. “Maybe they found something useful too.”

  “WHAT THE hell is that?”

  Monique Hollis was asleep, cuddled in a fleece on one of the Expedition’s lounge chairs. As tired as she’d been at 4 A.M. the previous night, she hadn’t bothered going below deck. She’d simply dozed off right there at the back of the boat. It was sunrise now, the sky an ugly slate gray. Monique didn’t notice. She continued to sleep peacefully.

  “What the hell is that?”

  Monique’s eyes reluctantly creaked open. “Come on, Craig, what the hell is what?”

  “That.” Unshaven and unshowered in an old gray T-shirt, Summers pointed at the monitor. “It’s a good problem to have, but now we’ve got two sonar readings.”

  Monique got up and immediately saw two blinking dots on the interactive map. The first one—the one they’d been following—was two miles off the coast; the second one, just half a mile off. She stared at the second dot. “Could this be whales?”

  “No, the magnitudes aren’t nearly big enough.”

  “Dolphins?”

  “Moving much too slowly. It’s gotta be the rays, Monique. They must have split up.”

  She stared at the one closer to shore. “If this one keeps going, it will be out of range soon.”

  “Exactly why I woke you. We have to decide which one to follow.”

  “What are the depths?”

  Craig hit a button and two numbers appeared: 17,308 beneath the first dot, but just 100 beneath the second. Monique’s eyes widened.

  “This one’s just a hundred feet down?”

  Summers nodded. “That’s my point. We have a real shot of seeing them. Do you want to change course and follow them instead?”

  Monique stared at the second dot. “Definitely.”

  Craig went to the controls, and Monique grabbed her phone. “I’ll update Jason.” But there was no signal. She turned back to the monitor curiously. Why was the second group of rays only a hundred feet down? The boat changed direction, and she supposed they’d find out.

  JASON SHOOK his head. Another fast busy. “I need those damn neuro names from Craig.”

  Darryl turned away from the brain. “Why?”

  “To decide who to show this thing to.”

  “Met some of those brain mavens myself, you know.”

  “You did?”

  “Yeah, went to a conference with Craig. Lemme tell you, they’re a hoity-toity group.”

  “We need to get someone’s opinion on this, Darryl.”

  “You know who Bandar Vishakeratne is?”

  “Oh, right.” Jason hadn’t heard the name recently, but Bandar Vishakeratne was the world’s premiere brain expert. A decade earlier he’d been named a runner-up for the Nobel Prize and more recently the chief of Princeton University’s brand-new neurosciences facility. “Sure, everyone knows who he is.”

  Darryl raised an eyebrow. “Don’t be too impressed. All his brilliance aside, he’s a cocky bastard.” Darryl stared into the tray again, newly amazed. “But he’d lick the soles of your shoes to get a look at this.”

  “Should I call him?”

  “He wouldn’t talk to you.”

  “No?”

  “A guy like that? Without a referral, no way. And even if he did, he wouldn’t believe what you have here. Not without seeing it himself. I suppose you could schedule an appointment.”

  “A guy like that must have a busy schedule.”

  “You’d wait months. Seeing him immediately would require being . . . aggressive.”

  “What do you mean? How aggressive?”

  Darryl rubbed his chin, thinking out the nitty-gritty. “I’d say pack-this-brain-up-right-now, buy-a-plane-ticket, and show-up-on-his-doorstep aggressive.”

  “You think that will work?”

  Darryl looked into the tray again. “In a heartbeat.”

  “Then . . . you guys will get back on the trail without me?”

  “I think we can handle it, Jason.”

  Lisa shook her head, annoyed. “Either that, or I’ll take this brain to be analyzed.”

  Jason looked nervous. “I don’t want you doing that.”

  Lisa nodded angrily. “I know you don’t. So you’ll just have to trust us not to screw up without you.”

  “Lisa, it’s not that I don’t trust you.”

  “Do you want us to do it or not?” Lisa didn’t want to hear it now. “Because if I were you, I’d be curious as hell to know what this brain means.”

  Jason turned back to it. “You’re right.” He checked his watch, wondering how quickly he could get a car to San Francisco airport. It turned out to be ten minutes. Monterey had a lot of taxis. He didn’t even pack a toothbrush.

  CHAPTER 30

  “ICAN’T believe it. We lost both of them.” Craig eyed the lifeless interactive map furiously, about to blow a gasket. “Son of a bitch!”

  He and Monique had left the sea for only a moment. Just to pick up Darryl,
Lisa, and Phil at the Half Moon Bay docks, thirty miles south of San Francisco. But when they’d returned, both signals had vanished. There were no blinking dots anywhere.

  At the Expedition’s bow with Lisa, Monique heaved another buoy into the sea, valiantly trying to find the rays again.

  Lisa shook her head. She had her own problems. They’d left the lab so quickly they’d forgotten the body Jason had cut the brain out of, leaving it in the freezer. And since Jason’s friends, Klepper and Drummond, had left town on business, the corpse could only be retrieved in a few days, no doubt rock solid and far less suitable for autopsy.

  Craig calmed down, trying to think out what had happened. They were a mile offshore now, in the exact spot where the signal had been only twenty minutes before. “Where the hell did they go?”

  Darryl scanned the dark water. “Maybe they didn’t go anywhere. Maybe they just stopped.” If anything simply stopped moving, especially on the seafloor, sonar would have great difficulty picking it up.

  Craig shook his head. That didn’t make sense. The rays were in the middle of a migration, so why stop? “Wait a second . . . what if . . .” He tapped a button and the map became three-dimensional, land still in white, water still in blue, but now, within the water, a vast deep-sea mountain range in gray. “Son of a bitch.”

  Darryl raised an eyebrow. “Well, that changes things, doesn’t it?”

  “You think they’re swimming the canyons?”

  “It would explain where they went.”

  If the rays swam the canyons, sonar would struggle to detect them. And these mountains were enormous, half a mile high and buried in three-mile-deep water—basically sonar’s worst nightmare. With this particular topography, the echo-location system’s clicks would simply reflect off the mountains and not detect anything else.

  Craig stared at the gray. “So both groups must be in there. You know, I don’t get why there are two separate groups anyway.”