She nodded. “It’s pretty much exactly what we thought. So what do you say, ready to get these samples and finish the tour?”
“Damn right I am,” he replied with a broad smile, rushing away to get ready.
The two went on to gather further samples as requested and then spent the remaining hours of daylight taking in the awe-inspiring vistas that continued endlessly over Arkadia’s rolling horizon.
When night fell once more and the sun quite literally set on their brief expedition, neither felt tired or even sad to leave. Both instead felt energised and excited to return.
“See you again soon, Arkadia,” Rachel said as their Karrier’s outbound countdown to the cloak reached zero.
The manmade world of wonders disappeared as suddenly as it had emerged around thirty-six hours earlier when their Karrier passed in the opposite direction, and just like that it was gone.
“Sooner than you think,” Chase said, counting down in his head. “Keep watching…”
Rachel then gasped in amused amazement as it appeared once more, slowly getting smaller as the Karrier began its long journey back to Terradox.
“They’ll see it on Earth in a few minutes and on Terradox not too long after that,” Chase said. “The invisibility cloak was set to ‘switch off’ as soon as we were clear, once we’d checked everything was okay and made it out safely. Now everyone can see it.”
“Well… we’ll be back soon, Arkadia,” Rachel smiled, modifying her last farewell.
Chase nodded, smiling just as wide. “And next time we’ll have company.”
Part II
One year later
sixteen
Of all the decisions Romesh Kohli had made in his happy and productive life, moving to Terradox had unquestionably proven one of the best. The colony granted him the tools and space needed to take his life’s work to new levels, and his research successes within the so-called Primosphere were as well known as he was greatly respected.
Terradox had also been good for his gifted daughter Nisha, whose prodigious early promise as a then-17-year-old physicist had been a keen factor in the family’s invitation. His wife Farrah, who had been more positive about the move than he was at first, had enjoyed eight fulfilling years in the important role of transport system analyst, and even their youngest child Vijay had grown to love the colony despite some initial misgivings.
With the family’s departure to the new world of Arkadia now less than twenty-four hours away, the roles were somewhat reversed with Romesh being keener than Farrah to uproot. Nisha was once again the primary driver given that her work on large-scale romokinetic propulsion was the foundation upon which the whole Arkadia project was built, and the decision on whether or not to make the one-way trip was ultimately her own.
Nisha knew she would dearly miss Holly and Grav and the rest of her friends on Terradox, and if the only counterpoints to that had been the sense of adventure and limitless potential that awaited on Arkadia as well as a welcome reunion with Viola Ospanov, she would have had a real decision to make. This wasn’t the case, however, as her long-term partner Chase Jackson’s position as Arkadia’s figurehead swung the argument decisively in the direction of adventure.
Although it was going to be difficult to say farewell to Holly in particular, Nisha thought herself lucky that whichever decision she’d made would never have involved a forever goodbye to her family. The same couldn’t be said for Chase, who had been ultimately unsuccessful in his many attempts to talk his own parents into making the trip. She imagined it might have been different if Chase had any younger siblings who his parents wouldn’t have wanted to separate from him, but she also knew that Jillian and Christian Jackson were very committed to their current roles as the colony’s respective Heads of Psychology and Botany.
Very few colonists were leaving Terradox for Arkadia, with the vast majority of the new world’s settlers set to arrive from Earth a week after the initial group’s landing. One reason for this was that although the two key decision-makers in Holly and Dimitar Rusev were firm supporters of the Arkadia project, they were extremely keen to maintain continuity of key personnel on Terradox. Another reason, perhaps even more important, was that few who called Terradox home were eager to leave their comfortable, peaceful and productive lives.
Aside from the Kohlis and Chase, the other colonists set to depart could be counted on one hand. Only two divisional Heads would be on board the Arkadia-bound Ferrier: Rachel Berry of Craft Management, whose desire had held strong despite Holly’s best efforts to talk her into staying, and of course Romesh Kohli of the Primosphere.
Inside the Primosphere, a huge enclosed area with a self-contained atmosphere unlike any other on Terradox, Romesh had spent several years performing experiments and analysis to gain new understandings of the conditions in which life first emerged. The division’s major breakthrough had been the rapid evolution of an organism known to all simply as Nancy.
In a style not a million miles from the kind of atmospheric interventions used by Christian Jackson to intentionally and beneficially mutate plants within the Botanic Gardens, Romesh had overseen the deliberate manipulation of Nancy’s environment in an effort to trigger further cellular evolution. The bulk of Romesh’s giddiness as the hour of departure grew near owed to his suspicion that there would be even less red tape to contend with on Arkadia than there was on Terradox, which was already a researchers’ paradise compared to Earth.
On Arkadia, Romesh Kohli hoped to revel in an absolute autonomy he had lacked on Terradox, where Holly’s cautious approach to delicate research had held him back from attempting some studies and from sharing the results of others. Little did he know that events in his final few hours on Terradox would simultaneously underline this desire and all but eliminate any chance of it coming to pass.
Romesh’s pride in Nancy wasn’t an egotistical pride, but rather the more justifiable kind that came with a major research success. Against his better judgement, this pride drove him to share the full results of recent Nancy-related experiments with Holly, who he had previously taken care to brief no more than necessary.
There was also the point that Romesh had already been told that no active test subjects — even Nancy — were eligible for transfer to Arkadia, meaning that he had nothing to lose by showing Holly that Nancy was more evolved than she realised. The project was set to pass into the hands of Romesh’s assistants, and he was also reluctant to leave them in a position of having to hide anything from Holly or anyone else.
With final departure preparations well underway, his call for Holly to join him in the Primosphere was met with predictable surprise. Several hours passed before Holly was able to make her way over, which she did only because Romesh insisted it would be worth it, and when she arrived she did so with Grav at her side.
“Are you allowed in here?” Romesh asked Grav, well aware that a medical condition he had been dealing with for many years prohibited him from venturing into areas of Terradox with highly modified environments.
Grav nodded. “The new treatments see to that,” he said, a slow grin forming. “And if I forgot to make that clear to everyone, it definitely has nothing to do with their assumptions that I cannot enter the Primosphere or Little Venus meaning that I can relax whenever oversight is needed in those zones! I am here today because you are leaving, Romesh, and the way you phrased your call to Holly made it sound like there is something in here that I really do not want to miss.”
“Well, you won’t be sorry you came,” Romesh laughed. “Follow me.”
He led Holly and Grav down a quiet corridor — a noticeably quiet corridor — before opening a nondescript door and pointing them towards two chairs.
“Romesh, you know how tight my time is today,” Holly said. “Can we save the theatrics and get to the point?”
Unbudging, Romesh kept his hand outstretched. Holly sat down with no little frustration and folded her arms. Grav, meanwhile, sat down quite eagerly and appeared to be
enjoying the mystery.
Wasting no more time, Romesh then navigated through some menu screens on his wristband until he found the option to display a recent recording on the wall in front of his audience of two. The brilliant white of the image’s edges took their eyes by surprise, but within a second or two they realised what they were looking at: a sterile experimentation room containing the most remarkable of all test subjects: Nancy.
The organism was jet black and in shape looked more than a little like a human hand. For lack of anything else to compare it to, Nancy’s appearance struck Holly as something between a mini squid and an unusually flexible starfish. The word ‘gelatinous’ was also running through her head as she gazed at the screen, since Nancy somehow didn’t look solid in the regular sense of the word.
There was gentle but noticeable movement in Nancy’s ‘fingers’, almost wave-like, and when Romesh uncovered the other side of the screen things grew even more interesting.
For on the right side of the screen, an ungloved human hand rested in a fingers-spread position.
“During the test you’re now watching back, Nancy could see this hand,” Romesh explained. “It’s my hand, in case you can’t tell.”
Holly and Grav needed no instruction in that regard — by now, their attention on the screen was absolutely total.
Very suddenly, the recording showed Romesh’s hand clenching tightly into a fist. As soon as it did so, Nancy reacted by doing exactly the same.
Romesh spread his fingers again, prompting Nancy to mimic the movement once more.
“My hand was behind a cloak for obvious safety reasons,” Romesh said. “But as you can see: Nancy has become capable of perfectly mimicking the physical movements of nearby organisms. This is a breakthrough unlike anything we expected, and her ability to do this became reliable just a few days ago.”
Holly’s expression, to Romesh’s mild disappointment, contained none of the excitement of his own. There was no great amount of concern, either, just a tense focus on what she was looking at.
“So exactly how big is Nancy at this point?” she asked after an uncomfortable pause. “What’s the scale I’m looking at here?”
“Uh, what do you mean?”
“Magnification,” Holly said. “How much is Nancy’s side of this picture blown up? Ten times? Twenty?”
Romesh could no longer hide his confusion. “Holly… this was all captured in one shot. The scale is one to one.”
“What?” Holly boomed. “You’re telling me this is life size? You’re telling me that this… this thing you created has grown that big since I last saw it?”
“She certainly has,” Romesh nodded proudly. “Because I’ve known for a long time that I can’t take Nancy with me to Arkadia, we’ve been more aggressive with our atmospheric adaptions over the past few months — to see how much we could achieve. And as you can see, the results have been—”
“Kill it,” Holly interjected, the blunt finality of her tone sucking all of the air from the room.
Grav shifted his weight and turned to face her, ignoring the suddenly animated Romesh.
“You can’t be serious?” Romesh said.
Studying her face, Grav had no doubt that she was.
Holly rose to her feet. “Don’t think I’m happy about having to do this, Romesh, but there’s no discussion to be had. We’ve terminated hugely promising AI projects in the past when things have taken unexpected turns, and other than the fact that I’m infinitely more angry at you for doing this than I ever was at those AI researchers, this is no different.”
“How is this anything like AI?” Romesh retorted. “Holly, Nancy is alive!”
“And so is everyone else on this colony!” Holly yelled, losing her composure for the first time.
“If she was a more familiar-looking organism exhibiting behaviours as unique as these, you wouldn’t do this,” Romesh argued. “You know you wouldn’t.”
Holly shook her head in disbelief. “Romesh, if we had reason to believe it would keep rapidly evolving in a way that could soon take it beyond our control, you’re damn right I would kill it! We don’t know what that thing could become, but today you’ve shown me enough to know that we can’t risk finding out. I thought you would know by now that I will tolerate nothing that puts this colony at risk, but you show me this and expect what… a pat on the back? Accelerating these mutations without any authorisation is the most irresponsible stunt any of our researchers have ever pulled. From you, of all people, I expected a lot more.”
“But—”
“No buts,” Holly said. “This was your project and you’re leaving… there’s no way something as volatile as this is staying behind, just like there’s no way it’s going with you. And before you say anyone else can take over, they’re going to hear about this, too. Your assistant researchers clearly knew about this and chose to keep it from me, and there will be consequences. As for you? On Arkadia you’ll have Peter to answer to, and if you think his reaction to something like this would be as measured as I’m being right now…”
Grav chuckled involuntarily. “Never a truer word spoken, Hollywood.”
Holly didn’t respond. “Chase is going to hear about this, too,” she continued, looking intently into Romesh’s increasingly distressed eyes.
“Chase?” he echoed, as though the mere taste of the word riled him. “What does he have to do with anything?”
“In case you didn’t get the memo, neither of us are moving to Arkadia,” Holly said, moving a finger between herself and Grav. “Peter will be Head of Security and the Harringtons will see that things run smoothly, but Chase is going to be calling a lot of shots, Romesh. If you have some personal hangup about his relationship with your daughter, you can take that up with them.”
Romesh glared at the floor. He didn’t necessarily dislike Chase, but the borderline hero worship everyone else threw at him would have irked Romesh even if Nisha hadn’t sided with Chase in every minor discussion point during the prolonged planning of Arkadia itself. It had been impossible for Romesh not to feel frozen out and as though Chase had turned his daughter against him in some admittedly minor matters, even if Chase had always been direct in his dealings with Romesh and nothing but straight down the line.
“I didn’t mean that last comment to sound overly personal,” Holly went on, regretting her tone if not the words, “but that’s the point: I don’t want any of this to be personal. Chase is going to be in charge of a lot of things on Arkadia — he’s on the Executive Council with Viola and Peter, outranked only by Robert — and if that’s going to be a problem for you, it’s important that you say so now.”
Romesh shook his head. “It’s not.”
“Good,” Holly said. “So we’re on the same page?”
Predictably, Romesh hesitated. “Grav?” he eventually uttered weakly, more in hope than expectation that he might find an ally at the last minute. “Tell me you can see my side here?”
“What the fuck did you think she was going to say about this?” Grav sighed, clearly taking no pleasure in agreeing with Holly’s suggested course of action but understanding that what had to be done had to be done.
“Then I’ll stay!” Romesh said, blurting out the idea as it came to him. “Listen, Holly… if you don’t think it’s safe to have Nancy here without me, I’ll forget all about Arkadia and stay here to see this through. I can oversee everything and keep it all under control, just like I have so far. I can even dial things back. Please, just hear me out. I’ve put too much into this project to let it die. Holly, please… this is eight years of my life! I’ve done far too much—”
“Damn right you’ve done far too much!” Holly interjected. “You’ve never mentioned anything close to this level of development. Keeping something like this, let alone actively trying to engender further mutation, has never been authorised!”
Romesh considered his next remarks carefully, silently acknowledging that Holly had a point.
She continue
d: “And whether you decide to stay here, Nancy is going to be… well, however you want to phrase it, this experiment is over. Grav, make sure he doesn’t leave this room while I find someone to deal with this.”
Romesh took Holly’s now-empty seat and put his head in his hands.
“Unless you want to be the one to do it?” she asked, speaking gently in a genuine attempt to give Romesh the opportunity. She was angrier at him in that moment than she had been at anyone in a very long time, but when all was said and done Romesh Kohli had been a good friend for many years.
His grief over Nancy’s imminent demise was far more understandable to Holly than her emotional detachment was to him, and his lack of a response came as little surprise.
Holly nodded to Grav to reaffirm how important it was for him to keep Romesh in the room — not that it looked like he would be going anywhere anytime soon — and Grav raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement.
The door closed quietly behind Holly, leaving nothing but the low sound of Romesh’s sobbing.
Grav placed a firm hand on Romesh’s shoulder. He felt his own anger at Romesh, if not quite to Holly’s level, and would have been responding very differently had Romesh not broken down like this.
As far as Grav was concerned, he had acted tremendously selfishly — not just in relation to the rest of the colony but also in relation to Nancy, who he proclaimed to care so much about. Romesh’s desire to see just how much Nancy could be stimulated to mutate prior to his departure to Arkadia was understandable in Grav’s mind, but it was also now responsible for the entirety of the remarkable eight-year experiment being consigned to history.
Curiosity kills more than cats, Grav thought to himself as his hand rose and fell with Romesh’s rhythmic sobs.
But there was a time and place for such comments, and in that moment Grav opted to silently support a friend in need.
Neither man said anything until Holly returned a full ten minutes later. They both looked up.
Terradox Beyond Page 12
