“They—”
“Weren’t on the brink of extinction,” Kate said. “We think Neanderthals existed in Europe as early as 600,000-350,000 years ago. All the other subspecies are also older than we are; they probably had larger populations. And — they were out of the blast radius of Toba — the Neanderthals were in Europe, the Denisovans were in present-day Russia, and the Hobbits were in Southeast Asia — farther away from Toba and downwind.”
“So they fared better than we did, and we almost die out. Then we hit the genetic jackpot, and they actually go extinct — at our hands.”
“Yes. And they died out quickly; we know Neanderthals were stronger than us, had bigger brains than us, and had lived in Europe for hundreds of thousands of years before we showed up. Then, within 10-20,000 years, they are extinct.”
“Maybe that’s part of the Immari grand plan,” David said. “Maybe Toba Protocol is about more than finding the Atlantis Gene. What if the Immari think these advanced humans, these Atlanteans, are hibernating, but if they do come back, they’ll eliminate any competing humans, anyone who might be a threat — just as we did in the last 50,000 years ago after we received this Atlantis Gene? You read Kane’s speech; they thought a war with the Atlanteans was imminent.”
Kate considered David’s theory, and her mind drifted to her conversation with Martin, his allegations that any advanced race would wipe out any threatening inferior humans. His theory that the human race was like a computer algorithm advancing to one eventuality: a homogeneous human race. That was the last piece of the puzzle. “You’re right. Toba is about more than finding the Atlantis Gene. It’s about creating Atlanteans, transforming the human race by advancing it. They’re trying to synchronize humanity with the Atlanteans — to create one race so that if the Atlanteans do return, they won’t see us as a threat. Martin said Toba Protocol was ‘a contingency.’ They think if the Atlanteans wake up and see seven billion savages, they will slaughter us. But if they emerge and find a small group of humans, very similar genetically to themselves, they will allow them to survive — they will see them as part of their own tribe or race.”
“Yes, but I think that’s only half the plan,” David said. “That’s the scientific basis, the genetic angle, the back-up plan. The Immari think they’re at war. They think like soldiers. I said before I thought they were creating an Army, and I still do. I think they were testing the subjects on the Bell for a specific reason.”
“So they could survive it.”
“Survive it yes, but more specifically — to be able to pass under it. In Gibraltar, they had to excavate around it and remove it. I think there could be a Bell at every Atlantis structure — a sort of sentry device that keeps anyone out, but it malfunctioned on us because we’re actually human-Atlantean hybrids. If the Immari found a way to activate the Atlantis Gene, they could send an army in and kill the Atlanteans. Toba Protocol would be the ultimate contingency — if they were unsuccessful, the Atlanteans wake up and all that’s left are members of their own race.”
Kate nodded. “They would be massacring the same people who saved us from extinction, maybe the only people that could help us reverse the plague from the Bell. But it’s all theory and speculation. We could be wrong.”
“Let’s stick to what we know. We know bodies were taken from China and that bodies from the Bell caused a pandemic before.”
“We alert health agencies?”
David shook his head. “You read the journal, they know how to hide outbreaks. They are probably a lot better at it now — they’ve been preparing for Toba Protocol for a very long time. We need to find out if your theories are correct, and we need some advantage — a way to contact the Atlanteans or stop the Immari.”
“Gibraltar.”
“It’s our best option — the chamber the tunnelmaker found.”
Kate glanced at the balloon. They were already losing altitude and they had only a few sandbags left to jettison. “I don’t think we’ll get that far.”
David smiled and looked around the basket, as if searching for something they could use. There was a bundle in the corner. “Did you bring this?”
Kate noticed it for the first time. “No.”
David slid over to it and unraveled it. Inside the layers of rough woven cloth he found Indian Rupees, a change of clothes for each of them, and a paper fold-out map of Northern India, which they were no doubt flying over now. David unfolded the map, and a small note fell out. He set the map aside, read the note, and handed it to Kate.
—————
Forgive us our inaction.
War is not in our nature.
~ Qian.
—————
Kate set the note down and studied the balloon. “I don’t think we have much longer up here.”
“Agree. I have an idea. It’s risky though.”
CHAPTER 99
1.5 Miles outside Drill Site #6
East Antarctica
Robert Hunt had to drive slower — the giant umbrella had almost pulled him off the snowmobile twice. He had finally found a comfortable speed where he could hold on, but even at that speed, the noise of the machine, combined with the umbrella’s flapping, was almost deafening. Through the din he heard an unusual noise. He looked back. Had the men followed him? He stopped the snowmobile. It wasn’t an engine. It was a voice.
He tore his jacket open and searched for the radio. The signal indicator was lit — they were calling him. He killed the machine, but the signal was gone. He waited. Around him, the rolling hills of East Antarctica were as quiet as the Serengeti at sunset. Far in the distance a wind gust blew snow dust off the top of a rounded peak.
He pressed the radio button and said, “This is Snow King.”
He took a deep breath. The abrupt response and the operator’s sharp tone startled him. “Snow King— why were you radio silent?”
Robert thought, then pressed the button on the radio and spoke as evenly as he could manage. “We are in transit. The radios are hard to hear.”
“Transit? What’s your location?”
Robert swallowed. They’d never asked for his location or contacted him between sites before. What could he say… Could they see him from the air?
“Snow King! Do you copy!?”
He fidgeted in the seat, then lifted the radio back to his face. “Bounty, this is Snow King. Estimate we are 3 klicks from location seven.” He released the button and lowered it to the snowmobile again. He inhaled. “We have encountered… We have problems with one of the snowmobiles. We are repairing.”
“Stand by, Snow King.”
The seconds ticked by. It was cold as hell, but all he could feel was his heart beating in his throat.
“Snow King. Do you require assistance?”
He answered instantly, “Negative, Bounty. We can handle it.” He waited for a second and added, “Should we alter our destination?”
“Negative, Snow King. Carry on at best speed and observe standing local blackout protocol.”
“Copy that, Bounty.”
He dropped the radio to the seat. In that moment, it had felt as heavy as an anvil. His adrenaline slowly receded, and as it did, he realized his right arm was aching. Holding the umbrella had taken its toll. He could barely make a fist, and his shoulder throbbed with every micron he moved. He gritted his teeth and shifted the umbrella to the other side of the snowmobile.
Through his cold and pain, his mind screamed: go back now. He considered why they would have called. There were only two possibilities: a) they were on to him or b) they wanted to make sure he was clear of the site. If they were on to him, his goose was cooked anyway. If they were doing something at the site they didn’t want him to see, that put him in a tough spot.
When he had set out, he had told himself that if they caught him, he’d simply say he left something at the drill site. Nothing wrong with that. The umbrella? “Just observing local blackout protocol.”
But the radio conversation had b
lown that cover story. If they caught him now, he’d be out of a job at best, and maybe, if they were criminals engaged in something illegal… things would get a lot worse for him.
So he made a compromise with himself: he would drive to the top of the closest dune, see what he could see, then head back. He had tried.
Robert had to drive slowly now. He held the umbrella with his left elbow and braced it against his torso. It took him almost an hour to reach the peak of the dune. He took his binoculars out and scanned the distant horizon for the site.
He couldn’t believe his eyes.
The machines towering over the site were of a scale he’d never seen — and he had seen some massive machines. They dwarfed the site, which now looked like a tornado had hit it. The drilling platform lay half-buried in snow like an overturned microscope laying in a children’s sandbox next to construction toys. But this was no sandbox, and the snow tracks on these “toys” must have been at least 50 feet tall. The main vehicle looked like a centipede. It was long, maybe four or five hundred feet, and had a small head, no doubt the “cab” that pulled it. Its body was a series of white, balloon-shaped segments. It curved around the site in a semicircle.
Beside the centipede, a white crane truck, about 10 times the size of your standard industrial construction crane, held its crane arm high in the air. Was it pulling something out? Or, more likely, lowering something.
Robert zoomed in. Before he could focus on the crane’s cable, he caught a glimpse of something, or an outline of something, in front of the centipede. He panned left, but at such high zoom, he lost the site completely. He zoomed out, reacquired the site, and zoomed in again, focusing on the middle of the centipede.
Were they people or robots? Whatever they were, they were wearing what looked like white hazmat suits, except these suits were more bulky. They moved in a labored, slow fashion. They looked almost like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghost Busters or the Michelin Tire Guy. The height was right for people. Robert followed one with the binoculars as the white figure waddled to the drill site. The crane was rotating toward the centipede. It had pulled something from the hole. Another marshmallow man came into view and helped the other man unhook and lower the crane’s bounty to the ground. It looked like a disco ball, but it was black. Behind the men, on the last section of the white centipede, a door opened. It slid from bottom to top, like a space ship in a cheesy 50s TV show, revealing yellow light inside and a bank of computer screens. There was also a large white box, which two suited men inside pushed down a recently-extended ramp. On the ground, the other two men joined them and began taking the white panels off the side. They came away easily — they must have been flex or some sort of cloth.
Robert focused the binoculars. The box was a cage. It held two monkeys, maybe chimps; they were small enough. They hopped around and clung to each other, avoiding the bars. They must be freezing to death. One of the men quickly dropped to his knees and began punching at what must have been a control panel on the bottom of the cage. At the top of the cage, what had been a faint orange glow became a red ember, and the monkeys settled down a bit.
Another man waved an arm at the crane and it swung over. They attached it to the top of the cage, then attached the black ball.
The men stood aside as the crane lifted the cage, swung it over to the hole, and lowered it. Two men walked behind the crane and emerged driving two crab-like machines. They drove to the drill hole and connected the machines. Joined, the two machines covered the entire hole except for a small slot large enough for the cable to pass.
All four men hurried into the centipede and the door slid closed behind them.
Nothing happened for several minutes. Robert’s arm began to tire, and he wondered how much longer he should wait. There was no question now, they weren’t drilling for oil. But what were they doing? And why did they need marshmallow suits to do it? Why didn’t he need one — or the monkeys for that matter?
He might get an answer soon. The marshies were bounding out of the centipede, making for the hole like Umpa-Lumpas running from a T-rex. They backed the cover machines off, and the cage seem to explode out of the hole. It bounced a few times as the cable snapped back and forth. Finally it settled to hover a few feet off the ground, and the men stabilized it, and jerked the door open.
The monkeys were covered in white or gray… snow maybe? Both lay lifeless in the cage. When the men pulled them out, the white stuck to them — it wasn’t snow. They threw each monkey into a separate white body bag and raced them through the entrance of the second centipede section. As the door opened, Robert got a glimpse of two children, sitting on a bench inside a glass cage, waiting, as if they were next.
CHAPTER 100
New Delhi, India
“Wait here. If I don’t come out in 15 minutes, find a police officer, and tell him a robbery is in progress inside the store,” David said.
Kate scanned the street and the exterior of the store — Timepiece Trading Company. The street was busy, filled with older cars and Indians zooming by on bikes. David had told her that the store was one of a series of Clocktower’s covert outposts, a sort of back door communication channel where local sources and agents could send messages to central. His theory was that it may have been activated if Clocktower was still operational. That was a big if. If Clocktower had fallen — fully — then the Immari would be watching, or more likely manning, these outposts, waiting to clean up any rogue agents and loose ends.
Kate nodded, and David was in the street, limping toward the store; in the blink of an eye, he was inside. Kate bit her lip and waited.
The store was crowded. All the clocks seemed to be in glass cases, or at least the ones that weren’t standing on the ground. Every item looked so fragile, so intricately made, so breakable. David felt like the proverbial bull in a china shop as he tried to squeeze between two standing glass cases, forcing his wounded leg to cooperate.
It was dark inside the store and bright outside; he could barely see a thing. He brushed against a case full of antique hand watches, the kind men with monocles and a shiny vest might wear. The case shook, and the time pieces jingled as their edges touched and tiny pieces rattled. David grabbed the case, trying to steady it as he balanced on his good leg. He felt as if one false move could bring the whole place down.
A voice rang out from deep inside the store. “Welcome, sir. How may I be of service today?”
David searched the room once, then again, finally finding the man behind a tall desk toward the rear of the store. He limped over to him while trying to avoid the standing glass mines. “I’m looking for a special piece.”
“You’ve come to the right place, sir. What sort of piece?”
“A Clocktower.”
The clerk studied him. “An unusual request. But you’re in luck. We’ve located several Clocktowers for customers over the years. May I know more about what you’re looking for? Age, shape, size? Any information is helpful.”
David tried to remember the exact words. He never thought he’d have to use them. “A piece that tells more than time. Forged from steel that can’t be broken.”
“I may know of such a piece. I’ll need to make a phone call.” His voice changed. “Stay here,” he said in a flat tone. Before David could answer, the man disappeared behind a cloth that hung over a doorway.
David strained to see and hear, but nothing emanated from beyond the cloth. How long had he been inside? 5 minutes? 10 Minutes? Would Kate keep her promise?
The clerk returned. He wore a blank, unreadable expression. “The seller would like to speak with you.” He waited.
What David wouldn’t have given for a gun at that moment. He simply nodded and stepped behind the desk. The clerk pulled the cloth back and pushed David into the darkness. He could sense the clerk reaching over his back, toward his head, but before David could turn, the clerk’s arm was coming down toward his chest, fast.
CHAPTER 101
David turned just as th
e clerk’s hand came down.
Light flashed all around him. Above, a single light bulb swayed back and forth. The clerk held the string cord in his hand. “The phone is just there,” he said, motioning toward a table in the corner. The phone receiver was made of molded thick plastic, like the ones in phone booths in the 80s. The type that could bludgeon someone to death. The phone was just as old. A rotary dial.
David walked to the table and picked up the handset. He pivoted his body to face the clerk. The man had taken a step toward him.
The line sounded dead. “Central?” David said.
“Identify,” a voice said.
“Vale, David Patrick.”
“Station?”
“Jakarta,” David said. He couldn’t quite remember, but he knew it didn’t go this way.
“Standby.” The line went dead again. “Access code?”
Access code? There was no access code. This wasn’t a boy scout’s secret hideout. They should have voice-print identified him the second he said his name. Unless they were playing for time. Surrounding the building. David tried to get a read on the clerk as he held the phone. How long had he been inside? 10, maybe 15 minutes by now?
“I…don’t have an access code…”
“Hold the line.” The voice returned. More nervous? “Given name?”
David considered the request. What did he have to lose? “Reed. Andrew Michael.”
The response was quick. “Hold for the Director.”
Two seconds passed and then Howard Keegan’s grandfatherly voice was on the line. “David, my God, we’ve been looking everywhere for you. Are you alright? What’s your status?”
“Is the line secure?”
“No. But frankly my boy, we’ve bigger problems at the moment.”
“Clocktower?”