Extinction Crisis

by James D. Prescott

  “Do you have a minute?” Jansson asked.

  Mia looked at Noemi, who got up. “I’ll go find Sofia,” the young girl said, skipping out of the room as though nothing had happened.

  Jansson’s eyes followed her out. “Did I miss something important?”

  “I’m not sure. Most studies into telepathy in the past were between two complete strangers. I mean, how often have you thought of a good friend only moments before they called? Or gone to dial someone only to have the call fail because they were calling you at the same time? Even the anecdotal evidence has suggested the phenomenon is strongest when there is a link between the two parties involved. The conversation I just had with Noemi only added weight to the theory.”

  “Fascinating,” Jansson said. “That may explain why the twins are so proficient.”

  “Enough about me, what was it you wanted to talk about?” Mia asked.

  “You know Dr. Salzburg isn’t the least bit interested in this side of things.”

  Mia shook her head. “I know. It’s a shame because I believe it holds the greatest chance for a major breakthrough.”

  “That may be so, but you should know he’s been putting a tremendous amount of pressure on me to pick up the slack furthering our understanding on the rest of the new chromosome.”

  “He tried the same with me,” Mia confessed. “But I didn’t bite, not after I was kidnapped and sent here against my will.” She paused. “Why do you have that look on your face like you found something?”

  Jansson fidgeted and crossed her arms. Her fingernails looked like they’d been gnawed to the bone. “I inserted the DAF4 DNA repair gene inside the embryos of a series of mayflies and allowed them to mature. Normally they tend to live for twenty-four hours, but we’ve already passed that point and the vast majority are still going strong. By the current rate of cellular decay, they should live anywhere from four point five to five days.”

  “If the same were true of humans,” Mia said, taking Jansson’s findings to their next logical conclusion, “the folks suffering with Salzburg could live to be upwards of four hundred years old.” The thought was staggering. They’d known the possibility existed, but to find such clear confirmation was hard to believe. To Mia, the discovery also raised an even more unsettling issue. If they somehow managed to survive the coming apocalypse, Zoey was likely to outlive Mia by nearly three hundred and fifty years.

  “That’s not all,” Jansson said. “After the badgering session with Alan, I decided to take a closer look at the cellular structure of those with Salzburg. We’ve been so consumed with the DNA aspect, I wondered if there wasn’t something there we might have missed.” Jansson handed Mia a color printout of a cell. “We know cytoplasm contains organelles and cell parts. Which is why I was confused when I saw this.” She pointed to a small oval object positioned right up against the nucleus.

  “What is it?” Mia asked, taking a closer look.

  Jansson shook her head. “It’s some kind of receptor, because get this. When I hit it with mild doses of electricity nothing happened. I tried just about anything I could think of to figure out what its role was. Then I added a genetically modified mixture to the sample and it immediately came to life.”

  Mia felt the thumping in her neck begin to quicken. “Let me guess, it injected the HISR assembler gene into the cell’s DNA.”

  “Yes, and with greater precision than the DNA editing tool CRISPR. And since the sample was awash in the GMO mixture, it immediately went to work assembling the beginnings of the Salzburg chromosome.”

  “So those without this special receptor in the cell didn’t get Salzburg,” Mia said.

  Jansson crossed her arms. “Exactly.”

  Mia rose to her feet. “Which raises two important questions. What is it made of and how did it get there?”

  Chapter 28

  After his meeting with Admiral Stark, Jack checked in with Grant and Gabby. They had been sent the biological specimens from the latest mission through the portal and he was eager to see if they’d made any headway.

  Dag intercepted him as he was heading down the corridor toward the science module. “We’re going in again, aren’t we?” the paleontologist said, scoffing down a chocolate bar from the canteen.

  Jack shook his head, eyeing Dag’s slender frame. “If there’s a good reason you don’t weigh a thousand pounds, I’d love to know what it is.”

  Dag grinned, a stray peanut stuck between his front teeth. “Good genes, I guess.”

  “The answer is yes. We’re going back as soon as Ivan is ready.” Jack had started the last mission with an unsettling certainty Ivan would be a serious liability and in some ways those fears had proven to be true. But the robot had also swooped in more than once, saving them from certain doom. Given the type of hostile wildlife they were sure to encounter, bringing a little extra brawn to back them up wasn’t such a terrible idea.

  Jack and Dag arrived at the bio lab to find Grant hunched over a glove box and staring down into a microscope. The funny-looking box allowed the study of potentially deadly pathogens without putting the scientists at risk.

  Nearby, Gabby and Eugene were engaged in a heated debate.

  “It’s simply not possible,” Eugene shot back, raising his voice.

  Gabby crossed her arms and headed in Jack’s direction. “Maybe not, but the evidence says otherwise.”

  “We come at a bad time?” Jack said, holding his hands out in a ‘we come in peace’ gesture.

  Gabby did her best to make the grin on her face look natural. “No, it’s these biological samples you brought back. They’re like nothing we’ve ever seen before.”

  Grant glanced up from his microscope. “Come have a look at this.”

  Obliging, Jack went over and peered through the aperture.

  “Now, tell me what you see,” Grant asked him.

  “I believe I’m seeing two sets of cells side by side,” he replied. “What’re they from?”

  “The ones on the left are human skin cells. On the right are cells from the winged creature Ivan shot. Notice anything unusual?”

  “Hmm, for starters the alien cells are much smaller than the human cells.”

  One of Grant’s eyebrows perked up. “Anything else?”

  Jack threw him a look. “Is this an exam?”

  “Trust me.”

  He pushed his eye back to the microscope lens. “Oh, crap. The alien cells are moving.”

  “Moving?” Dag said, pushing his way in to see. “Oh, that’s creepy.”

  “In spite of the size difference, on the surface they look similar,” Grant explained. “Except, unlike human cells, the alien equivalent show no signs of DNA.”

  “Really?” Jack said, surprised. “I mean, we’ve always imagined the blueprints for life might be different somewhere else in the universe…”

  Gabby nodded. “But don’t forget. The Ateans shared roughly seventy percent of our genome.”

  “Exactly,” Jack said, running a hand through his hair and sighing loudly. “That did lend some serious weight to the idea that alien life forms would indeed be carbon-based. So what does this mean?”

  “The alien cells might not have DNA,” Grant explained. “But they do have another structure that may perform a similar function.” He changed slides. “We then looked at the plant and mud samples you brought back and things got stranger.”

  Jack shook his head. “I was afraid you were gonna say that.”

  “Turns out, the plants are a mix of carbon-based life with a fifty-five percent genetic match to humans and a forty percent match to the Ateans.”

  “For goodness’ sake, can’t these aliens make up their minds,” Dag said, rubbing what Jack could only assume was his grumbling belly.

  “And the mud?” Jack wondered. “I’m guessing you didn’t find crushed rock mixed with organic matter.”

  Grant smiled. “There was some organic matter, remnants from the dying vegetation. Although the bulk of what we thought
was mud turned out to be dead alien cells.”

  “Have you tried running the samples under an electron microscope?” Jack wondered on a hunch.

  Eugene shook his head. “That was going to be our next step.”

  “Then let’s do it,” Jack said.

  Eugene, Gabby and Grant gave him a funny look.

  “Right now?” Gabby asked.

  “Of course, right now. Dag and I are heading back in there and we need to know what we’re up against.”

  Grant rushed to set it up. With any luck, the electron microscope would reveal the atomic structure of the cell. They would begin with the sample from the flying creature. Turning on the machine, Grant crossed his fingers. Their eyes focused on the computer screen where the images were being fed.

  “Holy crap,” Eugene exclaimed, eyeing the results as they populated the screen.

  The atomic structure made it perfectly clear what they were seeing. It also helped to clear up the puzzling lack of DNA. The alien creatures weren’t carbon-based life, they were made of silicon.

  “But how does this jibe with the Ateans?” Gabby asked, her hands perched on her hips.

  “Maybe it doesn’t,” Jack answered. “Maybe we’re dealing with an entirely new species.”

  “We won’t know for sure until we have a better idea where that portal leads to,” Grant said, still eyeing the results on the computer screen.

  A gentle knock on the door was followed by a soft familiar voice. “Dr. Greer, I believe I may have the answers you are looking for.”

  Chapter 29

  As planned, Armoni dropped Ollie, Sven, Kay and Patrick along the edge of the NASA causeway.

  When they reached the Zodiac, Ollie pressed in the earpiece he was wearing. “Armoni, can you read me?”

  “Loud and clear,” she replied.

  “Okay, stay on this encrypted channel. And be ready with any info we might need on the layout of the site. I also want you to eavesdrop on mission control.”

  “Roger that.”

  The team sped away in the Zodiac, cutting through the channel’s rippling waters.

  Kay leaned into Ollie. “Why did you want Armoni to listen in on mission control?” she asked.

  “If someone triggers the alarm, they’ll be the first to know.”

  “You mean to abort the launch?”

  “Or to fire it prematurely,” he told her grimly. “If they fail to launch tonight, they’ll miss the only available window to intercept the ship before it gets too close.”

  Kay sat back, her body lifting and thudding back into the hard seat whenever they hit a wave. Inside her NASA overalls sat her pistol, secured by a leather shoulder holster. It too bounced around, a constant reminder how dangerous this mission was. Failure now would mean certain death for her and her family. Perhaps even the world. Although that still remained to be seen.

  Running through Ollie’s analysis of the situation, one thing was clear. Sentinel was playing the short game—save the planet at any cost—while the resistance was risking a possible calamity for a shot at preserving the human race. She wished the moral line in the sand had been far clearer. More than that, she hoped she had chosen the right side. But in the end, perhaps the choice had been clearer than she thought. It was Sentinel and now the government who had clamped down and imprisoned her loved ones and maybe thousands of others. That said something about Sentinel’s willingness to sacrifice anything that stood between them and their objective.

  “Stay alert,” Ollie said over the radio as they swung into Banana Creek.

  So far everything had been going according to plan. Then suddenly, Ollie cut the engine and ordered everyone to start paddling. Twenty-five yards ahead, two guards passed by one another along a low bridge over the creek. One of the guards, lanky with veiny arms, stopped to light a cigarette. He hunched slightly, turning away from the wind and toward the creek below. The other guard glanced back and laughed at the trouble he was having.

  Ollie held his fist up at a right angle. They stopped paddling at once and drifted, the bridge and the soldier growing nearer every second. The guard was still having trouble with his cigarette. He shook his lighter and tried again. Ollie reached into his overall and pulled out his silenced pistol. Kay’s heart began thumping a terrible beat in her head. It spelled out how close they were to being discovered. And why? Because some low-level security guy was too cheap to buy a new lighter. Finally, a flicker of flame touched the tip of the guard’s cigarette. They were close now, only a dozen feet from the bridge. In seconds they would be under it and out of sight.

  The guard drew deeply on his cigarette, a look of satisfaction on his bony face. He was in the middle of turning around to continue his rounds when his eyes passed clean over them. Kay’s heart leapt and she clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the yelp of fright she would surely have let out. The guard took three steps before shaking his head and stopping. He spun toward the water, squinting in the low light at the four people gliding slowly toward him in the inflatable raft. His lips parted to let out a warning and that was when the bullet from Ollie’s silenced pistol struck the front of the guard’s skull. His body went limp and leaned forward, flipping over the railing and falling onto the boat between them. Sven covered the man’s face with a life vest to stop the blood from staining their disguises. The other guard continued his rounds, unaware.

  Minutes after they came ashore and dragged the inflatable boat up into the bushes. When they were sure it was out of sight, they approached the razor-wire fence that surrounded the site. Sven produced a small pair of bolt cutters and snipped a hole wide enough for them to pass through. Still under the cover of darkness, the group hurried across the open space to the side of a gleaming white structure.

  “This is the vehicle assembly building,” Ollie told Kay. He motioned a hundred yards away to a huge Atlas rocket surrounded by ten levels of scaffolding. White puffs of dense billowing mist surrounded the fuselage.

  “It looks like it’s about to launch,” she said, worried.

  “Nah, that’s just the liquid oxygen,” Patrick told her. “It’s colder than a frosty day in hell. They vent the tanks sometimes to release some of the pressure.” He turned to Ollie. “So we gonna head over there or what?”

  “We’ll be too conspicuous if we cross over open space like that,” Ollie said, formulating a plan. “There is a chance we could circle around to the other side of this building and…”

  Kay glanced to her right and saw Sven walking out into the open in the other direction, waving his arms at an electric cart being driven by a man in blue NASA overalls. It stopped and for a moment it looked like the two men were talking.

  “Uh, what is Sven doing?” Kay asked.

  Ollie turned. “Sven,” he barked over the radio. “Have you lost your mind?” He turned to the others. “Does he think he’s hailing a cab?”

  Sven got into the cart on the passenger side and it headed their way.

  “Oh, this’ll be interesting,” Patrick said, wiping the smug look off his face.

  They pulled up and the man in the blue coveralls got out, a cross expression stamped on his face. “Why aren’t you people over at the launching pad?”

  Ollie and Sven exchanged a look before Ollie swung a swift left hook toward the man’s jaw. The NASA tech’s head jerked to one side as his legs crumpled beneath him. “Patrick, drag this guy around the corner and out of sight, would you?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Ollie glared at Sven, who grinned and raised his hands in a golf clap.

  Patrick returned a minute later and they climbed on board the vehicle and headed for the launch pad.

  “Armoni,” Ollie called out over the radio. “How long before this sucker goes airborne?”

  “Ten minutes and fifty-five seconds,” came the terse reply.

  “All right, keep monitoring mission control and lay off the video games until we’re in the clear.”

  She didn’t respond, but Ollie wasn’t
surprised.

  As they approached the platform, Kay spotted a handful of technicians moving around on each level. Far from enclosed levels, each floor was separated by metal grating, which meant there would be few concealed areas to plant the bombs. If this was going to work, they would need caution, subtlety and a whole lot of luck.

  Sven parked next to the stairwell. Ollie and Patrick hopped out, each of them carrying a plastic explosive bomb hidden in white toolkits emblazoned with the NASA insignia. Kay and Sven followed them up the stairs. The plan called for Patrick and Sven to plant one bomb on the rocket’s first-stage booster situated at the bottom while Ollie and Kay would attach their device to the second stage, nine floors above their current position.

  The reason was simple enough. Once the rocket ran out of fuel, sheer momentum would power it toward the target. Since the bombs were on a timer, if one of them failed to detonate, they needed to be certain the second stage wouldn’t be able to give the warhead the thrust it needed to punch through Earth’s gravity. They were also talking about nuclear weapons here, which posed a risk they might explode. They could only hope the military had left the appropriate safeties engaged.

  As they headed for the elevator, Kay and Ollie passed another guy wearing the blue one-piece. They nodded to each other, Kay’s heart climbing into her throat. The man kept going. So far so good, she thought. They then entered the elevator and Ollie hit the button for the ninth floor. The doors began to close, filling Kay with an immense sense of relief. The most dangerous part was about to begin, but at least they would get there.

  The sound of a booming voice startled her. Then a white-gloved hand reached in to stop the doors from closing. Ollie’s eyes flashed and his free hand slid into his overall.

  With a clang, the doors opened and a technician dressed nearly identically to them got in. The only difference were the words embroidered over his breast pocket: ‘Pad Operations Manager’ and below that the name ‘Sandusky.’ His eyes studied their faces before moving down to the clipboard in his hands.

  “Have you pad rats been to seven yet?” he asked sternly. A ‘pad rat’ was a nickname for any of the often dozens of engineers and workers who helped to prepare a rocket for launch.