Origin (27 page)

Sun said, “Go on.”

“Bub uses the syringe in his palm to inject organic matter with some kind of serum, something probably containing hormones and enzymes. This serum can restructure DNA; restriction enzymes cut the DNA up, then it’s put back into any order Bub wants it to be in. Maybe he uses a virus, or a retro virus, to take over the cells operating machinery—that’s how we splice genes—and then during mitosis the cells change into whatever Bub preprograms.”

“That’s how Helen changed into that monster.” Sun said, nodding. “And how Rabbi Shotzen became those batlings.”

“Right right right. Remember, humans are 90 percent intron genes—genes that don’t code for protein. But they could be cut up with enzymes and patched back together so they
can
code for protein. There’s a wealth of raw material in DNA, if it could only be activated by enzymes or hormones.”

“That could also explain Bub’s rapid healing abilities, and why he doesn’t age,” Sun agreed.

“He can program his own DNA to heal itself.”

“So why are the batlings so easy to kill?” Andy asked. “Why can’t they heal themselves?”

Belgium shrugged. “Not mature enough yet. Their systems haven’t fully developed. They’re a generation removed from the host. I’m not sure. But there’s a scientific explanation.”

Andy stared at Bub and scowled. “Not a miracle at all.”

Bub growled, his eyes becoming malevolent yellow slits.

“Did you get a work-up of the proteins involved?” Sun asked Belgium.

“Not yet. Didn’t have time.”

“How about the mitochondrial DNA?”

“Hmm? Oh, that. Yes yes yes. The Short Tandem Repeat got a hit on that.”

“And…?” Sun asked.

“His mitochondria encompassed 70 percent of the genome for Methanococcus jannaschii. An archaean.”

Andy blinked. “I speak thirty languages, and I don’t know what the hell you just said.”

“It’s a microscopic life form,” Sun answered. “It isn’t quite a bacteria, isn’t quite a plant or animal, and probably predates both, making it one of the oldest and maybe the first life forms on earth.”

“Archaea is an extremophile,” Dr. Belgium added. “It’s found in some of the harshest areas on the planet. It thrives in boiling water, in geysers, near black smokers at the bottom of the ocean, in extremely salty brines. We’ve also discovered archaea that live in rock, more than a mile deep in the earth’s crust. Think of it, bacteria living in solid stone.”

The scientist began to pace around the room.

“Archaea can also withstand below freezing temperatures. It doesn’t need oxygen. Many archeaens are autotrophic; they get their energy from inorganic sources; iron, sulfur, hydrogen. It’s suspected that there may be archaea on Mars, or on Callisto, a moon of Jupiter. Because it can survive in extreme environments, scientists expect archeae to be the first alien life form found in the universe.”

Belgium stopped pacing, and his eyes got very big.

“What is it, Frank?” Sun asked.

“Panspermia!” the biologist exclaimed. “Francis Crick!”

Belgium began to pace, eyes wide with excitement. “Crick won the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA. He had an idea called
directed panspermia
. What if an alien race shielded a microbe in some kind of spaceship and sent it to all corners of the galaxy, where it was likely to grow? Crick postulated it could be how life on earth began. It was planted here.”

Sun said, “If archaea was the first life form on earth, and it didn’t need oxygen—”

“Which is exactly what earth’s early environment was like, no oxygen,” Belgium interrupted.

“—it could have hitched a ride here in a meteorite made of iron, which would not only be a food source but also protect if from radiation. It could survive the deep cold of space—”

“Archaea has been found in five million year old Siberian permafrost,” Belgium exclaimed.

“—and it could also survive the tremendous heat when it entered the earth’s atmosphere. So if Bub has archaea in his genes…”

They all looked at the demon. Bub grinned wide and giggled.

“I created yoooooooou,”
the demon cooed.
“I’m yoooooour god
.”

Andy was slack-jawed. He noticed similar expressions on his companions.

“This isn’t happening.” Andy shook his head. “Life on earth isn’t some garden planted by this bastard.”

“It’s truuuuuuuuue.”

Sun said, “So where’s your spaceship?”

“Einstein proved interstellar travel was impossible,” Dr. Belgium concurred. “The nearest star is more than twenty four trillion miles away. That’s over four years travel if you were moving at light speed, 186,000 miles a second, and light speed is impossible to attain. The faster an object moves, the heavier it becomes.”

Bub didn’t answer.

“His capsule,” Sun said, snapping her fingers. “It had iridium in it.”

Belgium gasped. “Oh my goodness.”

Andy asked, “Iridium? What’s that?”

“It’s not commonly found on earth. But it’s abundant in meteorites, or other objects that come from space.”

“That gray thing is a spaceship?” Andy said, incredulous.

Sun put a hand on his arm. “Did you figure out the Egyptian glyphs?”

Andy’s shoulders slumped. He rubbed his eyes.

“Yeah. They told the story of a god who fell from the sky and helped them build the pyramids.” The linguist shook his head. “I don’t believe this.”

“So all that talk of God,” Sun said to Bub, “of heaven and Jesus and fallen angels. That was all bullshit?”

“Fraaaaaank gave me Inteeeeernet access.”

Andy shot Belgium a look. The scientist seemed to shrink.

“Not my smartest move, in hindsight,” Belgium said.

The computer beeped several times and the message bar read
INCOMING MESSAGE
. Andy clicked on the video icon and the President’s face came of the monitor.

“Mr. Dennison? I was just informed that none of you made it to the evacuation helicopter.”

“We had to go into Lockdown, Mr. President. We’re trapped in here.”

“Is General Murdoch with you?” the President asked.

“He’s stuck in another part of the compound. Hurt bad. His wife turned into a demon. Bub changed her somehow.”

The Commander-in-Chief raised an eyebrow. “He can change people into demons?”

“You need to find a way to get us out of here, Mr. President. Can you get us any sort of weapons? Gas? Explosives? Something to cut through the bars?”

“Is it possible that I could speak to General Murdoch?”

“Just a second, I’ll see if he’s still alive.”

Andy picked up the phone and dialed Yellow 4.

“Race, how are you doing?”

Race coughed. “Not dead yet.” Though he didn’t sound far from it.

“I’ve got the President on the monitor.”

“Ask him,” Race said, “if we can go ahead with Protocol 9.”

“What’s that?”

“Just ask him, Andy.”

“Mr. President, Race wants to go ahead with Protocol 9. Is that an escape plan?”

“I grant acceptance for Protocol 9. Authorization code…” the President looked at some papers on his desk. “7-6-5-8-9-9-0.”

“He says to do it, Race, code number 7-6-5-8-9-9-0. What’s Protocol 9?”

“God be with you folks,” the President said.

The monitor went blank.

Andy’s stomach did a slow roll. “What the hell just happened?” he demanded.

Sun reached out and gripped his arm. “I don’t like this. Ask Race what’s going on.”

“It’s the last safety measure,” Race said, “in case all others fail. In 1967 I authorized a one kiloton nuclear device to be buried under Samhain.”

“What? A nuke?”

Sun closed her eyes. “A nuke.”

“Race,” Andy gripped the receiver, knuckles white, fighting to remain calm. “You can’t blow us up.”

“I’m sorry, son. If Bub gets out, he could destroy the world. I don’t have a choice here.”

“What about our choice?” Andy pleaded.

“It’s in God’s hands now.”

“God?” Andy laughed. “Didn’t you hear? Bub is God. He came from outer space and created all life on earth.”

Sun wrestled the phone from Andy.

“General, you have to give us a chance. Is the Yellow Arm the only way out?”

There was a pause. Andy put his ear next to the receiver and heard Race say, “Yes.”

“You paused. Why did you pause? Is there another way out?”

“I’m sorry, Sunshine. It has to be this way.”

“Don’t do this, Race. Please.”

“I’m setting the timer for an hour,” Race said. “Give you time to make your peace, have one last fling, whatever you want to do.”

“Race…”

“We’re saving the world, Sun. Take some solace in that.”

The General hung up.

Andy stared at Sun, then at Dr. Belgium. They both looked devastated.

“We have to turn off that nuke,” he said.

Sun met his eyes. “We don’t even know if it can be turned off.”

“We have to try.”

Sun shook her head. “How do we get through the bars? And even if we manage that, how do we get past Helen?”

“We’ll find a way. Race said we have an hour.”

“An hour? We couldn’t even do it with power tools.”

“There’s the central air vent.” Dr. Belgium pointed above to the left of the Blue Door near the ceiling. “It’s big enough to crawl in. Race had to go in there once, around ten years ago, to fix a weld.”

Andy’s heart leapt. “Where does it go?”

“The ducts go through the ceilings all over the compound.”

“We still can’t go into the Yellow Arm,” Sun said. “Not without some kind of weapon.”

“Race had that cattle prod. I’m betting it’s in his room.”

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

They all turned to look at Bub, who’d gripped the titanium bars and shook them with ferocious power.

“Free meeeeeeee!”
Bub hissed.
“I’ll help you turn off the bomb if you free meeeeeee. Fraaaaank…”

The demon focused his attention on the biologist.

“I know things about science that yooooooou couldn’t even comprehend. I could teeeeeach you. You’d surpass Crick. Surpass Einsteeeein.”

Frank looked away.

“Suuuuuuun,”
Bub implored.
“I can take away your paaain, heal the wounds of the paaaaaaaast.”

Sun gave Bub her back and folded her arms.

“Andy…”

Andy gave Bub the finger.

“Fooooools. Then diiiiiiiiie!”

Bub roared, an unholy screech that made Andy’s ears ring, then disappeared down the Red Arm.

“We have to defend ourselves somehow. Bub might making more of those things out of Father Thrist.”

“How many can he make?” Andy asked.

Sun did a quick count. “There are about eighty dead ones here. So we should expect another eighty.”

“Can we barricade the gate?” Belgium asked.

“He can fit his hands through the bars. He’ll just push the barricade down.”

“How about a net?”

“Made of what?”

Belgium scanned a desktop, then held up a pack of yellow Post-It notes.

“I don’t think that will hold, Frank. But it can’t hurt to start piling stuff up against the gate.”

Andy set the timer on his watch for fifty-five minutes.

“Let’s move like our lives depend on it.” he said.

Belgium began to stack chairs against the Red Arm. Andy and Sun pushed a desk over to the air vent. Andy climbed on top. The grating was at waist level, held into place with four screws. Flat heads.

“See if you can find some kind of flat tool. A nail file. A rulers. Something to use as a screwdriver.”

Sun rifled through the drawers, then handed him a staple remover. The metal edge fit into the groove on the screw head. Andy twisted.

The screw didn’t budge.

“Not enough leverage. Try to find something else.”

Sun left to search for a better tool, while Andy struggled with the staple remover. He tried another screw, pushing down on it hard, his fingers turning white from the pressure.

It moved.

Andy leaned into it, his head pounding, the sweat starting to come.

An agonizing two minutes later, and the screw was out. A long son of a bitch too.

One down, three to go.

“Try this,” Sun said. She handed him a piece of metal—one of the drawer tracks from a desk. Andy tried it in the screw.

“Too soft. It just bends.”

“I’ll keep looking.”

Andy went back to work with the staple remover. His fingers were cramped and screaming, and the sweaty tool kept slipping off the screw, making him scrape his knuckles. But he managed to get another one out.

Checking his watch, he saw they’d lost eight minutes.

“They’re coming,” Dr. Belgium said.

Andy looked over his shoulder. Belgium had piled a ceiling-high stack of chairs and desks against the Red Arm gate.

Sun ran up to him.

“Andy! You gotta hurry!”

Andy pried up an edge of the vent, stuck his fingers under it, and yanked. He was able to pull the vent to the side, revealing a very narrow opening.

“It’s dark,” he said, peering in. “And dusty. Does anyone have matches or a lighter?”

“Just get your ass in there.” Sun said. “We should be able to see light through the vents when we’re over them.”

“Bats bats bats!” Belgium said, running up. “I hear them coming down the hall!”

Andy took off his shirt and wound it around his face to keep out the thick dust. Sun and Belgium did the same. Then Andy went in.

There wasn’t much space, and Andy couldn’t get on all fours to crawl. He moved forward by pulling himself with his fingers in a chin-up motion, using his tip toes to assist. It was slow going, exhausting, claustrophobic, and it didn’t help that Andy had wounds all over his body.

Before long his breathing was choked and labored, and his fingers and calves were cramping.

“Keep going,” he heard Sun say behind him.

She touched his foot. It gave him a smidgeon of hope.

Then he heard the squeal of the batlings echo through the vent.