The Darwin Strain

by Bill Schutt

  He peeled off a small piece and brought it close to his face mask. Perhaps this is an even more extreme life form than the stromatolites, he thought, before turning his attention toward the near-boiling-point water pouring from the vents. Microbes from deep in the earth, flourishing in the most difficult of environments.

  His thoughts were interrupted by Laurent, who swept one arm in a wide arc. Cousteau allowed his gaze to follow it. The same material covered the rocks downhill and in every other direction for as far as the eye could see.

  He nodded, the message quite clear. This has been escaping into the sea far longer than a few short weeks—probably at a much-reduced rate—until the earthquake.

  Cousteau gave the thumbs-up sign, gestured for his two friends to collect samples of the material, and then swam off a short distance to examine another formation. The Frenchman noticed more scratches on the rock surfaces, where the velvet-like material had been torn away in long strips.

  Locals, searching for their miracles, he concluded.

  Glancing back, Cousteau could see Vincent and Laurent turning over red-tinted rocks, their wet-suit-clad bodies set against an even darker backdrop as the shallows dropped off into deep black water.

  As spectacular as all of this might have been to his friends, Laurent was quickly growing bored.

  Bringing ancient Roman artifacts into the light for the first time in two thousand years—now that was interesting, he thought. But a smoke-spewing exhaust pipe—not so much. And collecting more samples of algae? Merde alors.

  He checked his dive watch and air supply. Great, we’ll be heading up soon.

  As his hyperactive colleague Vincent continued to examine the scarlet-stained surroundings, Laurent drifted toward a relatively flattened section that fell off into a far steeper incline. He steadied himself against the current and stared down into the abyss.

  There is no red tint there, he thought, noting this with an involuntary shiver. Instead, the water was Bible black and noticeably colder.

  How deep is it really? Laurent wondered. They say four hundred meters but I’m betting more.

  In response to his own question, Laurent pulled loose a bowling-ball-shaped stone, briefly struggled to maneuver the microbe-sheathed boulder into position, then gave a final push. Kicking gently back, he watched as it rolled down the precipitous slope, trailed by an avalanche of dust and red gravel. He followed the path of the rock until it disappeared and until the avalanche he’d created had subsided, leaving only the impenetrable darkness.

  Turning, he could see that Vincent was working his way slowly uphill toward another smoke-spewing vent. The man stopped and gestured for him to follow.

  Excellent suggestion, Laurent thought, before turning to take a final glance over the cliff edge.

  What he saw held him spellbound. A section of the darkness below appeared to be shimmering—a black sheet fluttering in the breeze. No, not black. More like a violet so deep as to only seem black. And so beautiful that no camera I know will ever capture the hue.

  Laurent spun around and began waving his arms wildly, and Vincent, seeing immediately that his friend was either excited or alarmed, swam toward him at full speed. Laurent turned back to face the disturbance from below, barely noticing Vincent’s arrival. Both men stared into the shimmering transparency, unable to shake the feeling that it stared also into them, while one thought from their dive training came immediately to the forefront: La panique et vous êtes mort!

  The shimmer ascended the slope and now seemed to hover, suspended before them like a great dark curtain.

  Jacques Yves Cousteau perceived no indication of violence. It was as if his two friends were simply standing beside the drop-off, in front of a gently shifting and transparent curtain. He would have described the movements as graceful—right up to the moment in which Vincent and Laurent were snatched off the rim. They were not dragged downward, or dragged anywhere for that matter, as they would have been if seized by a shark or another known predator. Instead they seemed to come apart—to peel open before Cousteau’s eyes—leaving behind ribbons of curled flesh and a new hue of red clouding the water.

  Without turning his back on the shimmering transparency—there was no one to be saved—he began backing away from the vent, moving cautiously uphill. He resisted the urge to rise too fast, a move his experience had taught him would cause a crippling or even lethal case of “the bends.”

  Under the direction of his sympathetic nervous system, Cousteau’s body had already initiated a fight-or-flight response—the former action neurochemically circumvented by the latter. He’d decided to escape the immediate area before surfacing, but the shimmering whatever-it-was appeared to have another idea—gliding closer to Cousteau’s position.

  An incredibly cryptic predator, he thought, or predators—since he had no idea if there were more than one of them.

  As if to answer this particular question, the curtain seemed to split in two, each section more or less rectangular. Now they were drifting apart.

  Having paused between two boulders, Cousteau was painfully aware that the breath-generated bubble trail he was producing served to advertise his position as effectively as a neon sign.

  They’re flanking me, he thought. Like lions stalking their prey.

  A disturbance from above froze the shapes in place.

  The boatman’s seen something. And as if to affirm this realization, streaks that Cousteau recognized as bullet trails knifed downward through the water in quick succession.

  The diver’s subconscious steadied him, during that critical moment, by focusing on an irrelevant oddity: Where did the gun come from?

  The response to the gunshots was instantaneous—the sheets of distorted water changed direction and charged up toward the boat.

  To his simultaneous relief and alarm, Cousteau realized that he had just been provided with a distraction. Deciding not to give away his location any more than he’d already done, he took two last deep breaths, shed his scuba tank, then his weight belt, and resumed his swim up the incline, exhaling as he advanced toward shallower water. His subconscious had already performed the vital calculations: You can stay underwater three minutes on one lungful of air—four at the outside, if you remain calm.

  The commotion on the surface had evolved into a confusion of inexplicable movement. After initially shaking itself from side to side, the boat was snatched downward. Through a semitranslucent blur, Cousteau could see the hull disassemble into a chaotic mélange of smashed timber, boat gear, and motor parts. There was also a human figure, its effort to reach the surface overwhelmed by something (or several somethings) that held it in place, as if caught in a bear trap.

  The boatman.

  The Greek was flailing and struggling some twenty feet under the lagoon, and in that moment Cousteau decided to swim toward him. Then, as Antoninus Stavracos reached down toward Cousteau pleadingly, his entire body was engulfed in semitransparent sheets, now taking on the reddish-blue hues of the water’s surface.

  Though his lungs were beginning to ache, Cousteau had a single thought: They camouflage themselves. Continuing to back away from the hellscape, and uphill, he saw the roiling shapes glow blindingly bright for an instant, then wink out.

  Inexplicably, the man had simply disappeared—as had the sheets of distorted water.

  Now the only movement came from the slipstream of the descending boat parts as they rained around the sole human survivor.

  Unable to sustain a calm sufficient to provide the hoped-for maximum of four minutes, Cousteau surfaced far too quickly, barely noting the painful tingling in his fingers.

  He gave a loud, involuntary cough, his imagination anticipating the sudden tug that would come just before his body was dragged downward. Like Vincent. Like Laurent. Like—

  There was a loud squawking sound to his right, but a moment later he realized that it was only seagulls. Fighting over—Cousteau turned away.

  Now, as the Frenchman wondered what had ju
st taken place, while simultaneously preparing himself for an array of rapid ascent symptoms that would never come, he scissor-kicked smoothly, propelling his body toward the rocky shore of Nea Kameni.

  I might just survive the bends, he thought, if I don’t get eaten first.

  Jacque Yves Cousteau had already choked down several mouthfuls of water stained with the red microbes. He would swear until his dying day that it tasted like human blood.

  Chapter 2

  From the Graves of Eden

  Looking back across time, through all those fossils . . . I can equate natural selection with just two members of the Hindu Triad—with Siva the destroyer and Vishnu the preserver, but not with Brahma the creator.

  —Charles Lyell

  Past, present, and future are only an illusion, albeit a stubborn one.

  —Albert Einstein

  Two Days Later

  June 25, 1948

  Metropolitan Museum of Natural History, NYC

  The fifth-floor office door was open, so Major Patrick Hendry decided that clearing his throat would be an effective way to announce his arrival. R. J. MacCready and two familiar “museum types” had their backs turned to him and were examining what appeared to be a pair of football-sized skulls.

  As Hendry’s pharyngeal house cleaning abruptly turned into a prolonged, phlegmy cough, the trio turned toward him, wearing an assortment of disgusted looks.

  “I’ll have some of that on a cracker,” Mac said, eliciting additional groans from the pixyish woman in black sitting to his right.

  “Go ahead, Mac, make fun,” Hendry said, after finally catching his breath. He was carrying a shoe-box-sized package and made an exaggerated showing of gently placing it down on MacCready’s desk.

  “Well, Major, that was a rather unique entrance,” said Patricia Wynters. She had flipped up a pair of jeweler’s loupe-equipped eyeglasses and was now wearing a genuinely concerned expression. “Are you ill?”

  “Sounds like he needs an oil change,” grumbled a white-haired man, who quickly turned his attention back to the skulls.

  “Nice to see you too, Knight,” Major Hendry grumbled back.

  Seventy-three-year-old Charles R. Knight was the world’s foremost artist of prehistoric life. Without turning around, he granted Hendry a wave with his cigarette.

  “Personally, I think both of you should quit smoking,” Patricia said quietly.

  “Second that,” Mac added, now waving his arms in a vain attempt to break up the smoke screen that Hendry and Knight were laying down.

  Ignoring Patricia’s and Mac’s comments, Hendry moved in closer to an enamel tray holding the skulls. “Prehistoric horses again, huh?”

  “Yeah, and no touching,” Mac added. Though the major had certainly improved over the years, Mac remained mindful of past trespasses that included the conversion of a triceratops into a biceratops, and most infamously, tripping over and fracturing three of T. rex’s toes. Some of Knight’s colleagues believed a convergence of disease and an upheaval of the world’s oceans had killed the dinosaurs. “If so,” Knight had assured one of them, “it took Hendry to finish the job.”

  Putting down his cigar and leaning in toward the specimens, the major placed both hands behind his back—assuming the “museum looking” position Mac had demonstrated for him on too many occasions for Hendry’s liking.

  “Mesohippus and Parahippus, huh?” he asked.

  “You got it,” Mac said, with an appreciative nod.

  “Show-off,” Knight muttered under his breath. “Ask him what species they are.”

  Patricia ignored her grumpy friend. “We’re off to central Brazil next month, Major,” she announced, excitedly. “Yanni too.”

  Instead of responding, Hendry flashed her a tight-lipped smile and nodded slightly.

  “What?” Mac asked quickly, his voice carrying a hint of alarm.

  The major gestured toward the specimens. “Those formerly extinct horses you’re looking to study have been around a long time—right, Mac?”

  “About fifteen million years,” MacCready replied. “And yeah, that’s a lot longer than anyone believed possible.”

  Hendry took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “Well, then—”

  “You can’t be serious?” Mac said, interrupting what he knew was bound to be bad news.

  Major Hendry said nothing.

  “Come on, Pat. I mean . . . I’m on quasi-semi-active duty.”

  Hendry cupped a hand behind one ear. “What was that last thing?” The major turned to Knight and Wynters. “He did say ‘active duty.’ Am I right?”

  The researchers stared back at him, blankly, so the major continued. “I’m sure there was an ‘active’ in there somewhere.”

  “But the permits, the equipment, the . . . the—”

  Hendry shook his head, still silent but wearing an expression that said, Save it, Mac. He turned back to the package he’d brought and opened it. “This came for you in the mail today,” he said, gently removing some packing material before spreading out several items on an empty tray. “They’re from Greece. Your pal Tse-lin dug ’em up.”

  “Wang Tse-lin? And what are you doing with it?”

  “Let’s just say, someone in your mailroom gave me a call when it came in. I did them a little favor by making the delivery myself.”

  The three scientists moved in for a closer look. Hendry had laid out a pair of strange-looking hand tools—obviously ancient. “They’re made of volcanic glass,” he said, watching as the trio reacted with something several notches below astonishment.

  Knight was the first to turn away, adjusting the easel that held his latest reconstruction on canvas—a prehistoric horse species with beautiful golden eyes.

  Mac picked up an obsidian blade. “Umm . . . these are nice, Pat. But you can find stone tools all around the Mediterranean.”

  Instead of responding, Major Hendry broke into a smile that Mac had seen only rarely—and he hated it. It said, Gotcha!

  “What?” Mac said.

  Hendry replied by lifting away another layer of cardboard and cotton packing material. Then he carefully withdrew an object and held it out to MacCready and Patricia.

  “Well, here’s your tool maker, smart guy.”

  Reacting to the odd silence that followed, Charles R. Knight turned around, adjusted his glasses, and stood so quickly that he knocked his easel and brushes to the floor.

  “Holy shit!” he cried. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “No kidding, Chuck,” Hendry replied. Then, turning to Mac, he handed him an envelope with two folded pages sticking out and jerked a thumb toward Knight. “Now, before you get excited and start knocking stuff over, I need you to read this.”

  Mac read it quickly and handed the telegram back.

  “What is it?” Patricia asked, concerned.

  R. J. MacCready remained as silent as the Sphinx—his face giving away nothing. Well, Pat, he thought. I wonder what new level of hell you’re dropping me into this time.

  Mac decided even before he repacked the stone tools into Hendry’s box and tucked it under an arm that there was no choice but to cancel his expedition to Brazil. The telegram Hendry had received from Cousteau in the eastern Mediterranean did not leave much time to tear up the equipment checklist for a South American expedition and reprovision for the new island destination. Stepping out onto Eighty-First Street and glancing toward a subway entrance, he found it difficult to plan a way through the train delays that had been plaguing the system lately. Reaching for his wallet, he voted for speed over an inexpensive subway token and hailed a cab heading downtown on Central Park West.

  “Castle Garden, Battery Park,” he told the driver, then sat back and closed his eyes. Mac knew that Yanni had been looking forward to the Brazil expedition. He also knew that she preferred to receive bad news promptly.

  All things considered, she took it better than he anticipated.

  “And no helicopters, right?”


  Mac grimaced. “Yeah, well, Hendry didn’t exactly mention helicopters.”

  As she spoke, Yanni Thorne was simultaneously treading water and adjusting a hydrophone array at one end of a large saltwater pool. Several months after the death of the Central Park Menagerie’s last elephant, Yanni had applied for and been transferred to a Navy-affiliated project at what used to be the New York Aquarium.

  “So where to?” she asked, switching off the underwater microphones. At the deep end of the pool, an enormous shape responded by making a sharp turn. A five-foot-long, gleaming white hump broke the surface and began steaming toward her at high speed.

  Mac took a protectively reflexive step forward, watching as the beluga whale he’d nicknamed “Moby-Dick Jr.” generated a large V-shaped wake. It had taken Mac several visits to get used to the immensity of the creature—which Yanni’s late husband might have referred to as “a Buick with fins.” In truth, Mac knew there was no real cause for concern. The animal’s trainer was, after all, Yanni.

  “An island off the coast of Greece,” Mac responded, as the whale pulled up and raised its domed head out of the water. The humans were suddenly facing a mouthful of peg-like teeth.

  “Which island?” she asked, before turning to address the cetacean. “Hold on a minute there, big guy.”

  Yanni swam to the side of the pool and after gracefully hauling herself out, Mac handed her a towel.

  “Santorini,” he said, before gesturing to a poolside bucket. “So what’s Junior havin’ for treats today?”

  “Coupla bluefish and some mackerel,” she said, reaching into a mélange of sea life, fresh from the Fulton Fish Market. “There’s an active volcano there, right?”

  “Yeah, semiactive I’d call it. Not like—”

  “And a civil war going on, too?”