The enzyme concentrations increased rapidly as they neared the top and the half dome-shaped wall. And once they reached the base of the cliff, the measurements went through the roof.
“Wow!” Borger shouted. He looked up at the sheer rock before him, rising almost eighty feet over his head. There was a thin streak of water running down the face. Clay and Alison watched as Borger stood up and placed the instrument against the trickling stream of water.
The display on the instrument went to zero. Borger tried again in another spot. Still nothing.
“That’s weird. The enzyme count just disappeared.”
Alison peeked over his shoulder. “How could it disappear? It’s the same water.”
Borger traced the stream down to the ground with his finger. “It is the same water.” He raised the sensor up again and placed its metal spike against the water one more time. “What happened to it?”
“Maybe there’s another stream.”
They spread out and looked for more running water.
“Here’s one.”
Borger ran over to Alison and measured it in multiple spots. Nothing. They found two more streams but no enzymes.
“I don’t understand.” Borger stepped back and looked to the top of the rock wall.
Clay moved behind them, studying the rock face. It seemed unusually smooth, as did the rock on which they were standing. He followed the original streak of water all the way down, from the top of the wall to the bottom of the hard, gray speckled stone beneath their feet.
Then it hit him.
Clay moved in closer again and examined the bottom of the cliff. “It’s not coming from the top,” he said, looking at both of them. “It’s coming from inside the rock.”
The two ran over to the base of the rock, where Clay was watching the water trickle down over the tip of his black boot. Borger measured to the right and left, finding strong signals on both sides.
“You’re right. There’s gotta be something inside.”
Clay took a small step back and studied the face again. He repeatedly looked to the right then back to the left. There was something very different about the face directly above them.
“I’m no expert, but does this section look different to you two?”
Alison and Borger stepped back with him and stared at it. “It looks flatter.”
“Yeah, it does.”
“Look at that.” Clay pointed to a tiny indentation in the stone that ran straight up the face. There was another on the other side of the water. He stepped back further and examined the stone beneath their feet. “And does this rock look unusually level to you?”
“It does.”
Clay walked forward again and touched the cliff face with his hand. “There’s something on the other side of this.”
68
The strips of interior lights came on automatically, and everyone in the cabin instinctively looked up. The sun was nearly past the horizon and evening was setting in. With all the windows and vents closed, very little of the smoke got inside the immaculate cabin. The helicopter’s auxiliary system powered everything except the air conditioning, making the inside more than comfortable if only a bit warm.
With his pack on the floor and leaning against the table, Borger focused intently on his laptop screen. From behind him, Clay looked on over his shoulder. In the back of the cabin, Alison and DeeAnn foraged through the small kitchen and found enough food for several meals. Or at least several salads.
“Man, this guy wasn’t a health nut… he was a health freak.”
“You have no idea.” DeeAnn glanced out at Dulce, still lying comfortably on one of the soft leather seats next to a dozing Steve Caesare. The thought that Alves’ body was laying somewhere outside gave her the creeps.
A few minutes later, the two women brought the food out and set it down, just on the other side of Borger’s computer. On the screen, both men studied a still frame satellite image of the mountain. They were zoomed in on the cliff.
Borger tapped one of his keys and the image slowly rotated. “Not much to see from the air.”
“No, there isn’t.” Clay tilted his head at the picture. “We can’t see the cliff face.”
“And there’s nothing noticeable on the back side either.”
Clay straightened back up and folded his arms. It had taken them the remainder of the afternoon to hike around the back slope of the mountain, and they had found nothing. Nor did using Borger’s instrument help them find any trace of the synthetic enzyme. Whatever was coming out of that rock was coming out from within the cliff face.
He sighed and took a break, thanking Alison when she handed him a bowl of salad with a few pieces of salmon on top. He took a bite and leaned back onto the arm of one of the seats behind him, thinking. If this mysterious enzyme was the true source behind the giant plants and their special replicating abilities, then the Chinese had jumped the gun. They had something truly amazing, but it may not be the source they believed it to be. And if the plants were that valuable, he wondered what the enzyme itself was capable of.
Clay’s eyes opened in the darkness to find Borger shaking him by the arm. The lights in the cabin were out, leaving only the glow of Borger’s laptop to illuminate the white seats nearest the table.
“Clay!” Borger whispered. “You awake?”
He blinked his eyes and forced them open. “Yes. What is it?”
“Come here!”
Clay pushed himself quietly out of the chair, careful not to wake Alison who was reclining next to him. He followed Borger back to the computer and squinted at the bright screen. He was still displaying the aerial view of the mountain.
Borger sat down in front of him. “I think I found something. This is the picture we were looking at earlier, right?”
“Right.”
Borger nodded. “Okay, do you see anything different?”
Clay squinted closer at the screen. “No.”
“That’s correct.” Borger looked back over his shoulder amusedly and whispered. “Sorry, that was a trick question. Look at the picture again and tell me if you see any trees or plants around the cliff base.”
“Nope.”
“Exactly. Strange don’t you think?”
“Yes. It is.”
“See, I got to thinking… if whatever is in this water can make those plants grow like that, then why isn’t anything growing closer to the rock face? You’d think everything would be a hundred feet tall, right?”
Clay looked curiously down at Borger. “Right. Maybe the terrain is too rocky.”
“I thought about that.” Borger’s whispering was getting louder. “But how rocky would it need to be for something not to grow with this water?! I mean, geez, it would probably have to be molten lava or something.” Borger turned back around to Clay. “But what if… nothing was supposed to grow there?!”
Clay eyed Borger and looked back to the screen. “You mean, as in, by design.”
“Right. Remember how flat the base is, and those lines you saw going straight up the rock. On top of that, we have something coming out of the rock that we’ve never seen before. Now we have an area in front of it where nothing grows. Not even with this super water. Don’t you think those are a lot of coincidences?”
“It’s artificial.” Clay finished Borger’s thought.
“Exactly! And here’s the biggest clue of all. I kept thinking, ‘why isn’t anything growing there? Why are there only rocks?’”
Clay suddenly grabbed Borger’s shoulder. “The rocks!”