She had, at long last, arrived at a solution, discovered the common factor that would enable her to simplify the impossibly complex variables of the human equation. She had found the Prime.
She sat cross-legged in front of the stone circle and set her laptop in front of her. As she opened the hinged screen, she realized that the strange vibration wasn’t coming from the Prime, at least not directly. It was coming from her computer, which was still streaming out the tonal frequency that had — in conjunction with the proximity of the Prime — made it possible for her to pass through solid matter. Now, the ground upon which she sat was starting to resonate to the same frequency, growing warm as the molecular bonds holding the stone in a solid state began to loosen.
She quickly closed the sound file, but at that very moment, an explosion ripped through the softened rock.
Fifty meters away and about ten meters above the Prime location, the Chess Team had forced their way into Chauvet Cave and were now fighting for their lives. As the frankensteins poured through the entry, Bishop fired a 40-millimeter high explosive grenade from the XM320 launcher attached to his carbine. It had been an act of pure desperation; Bishop had known that the grenade might trigger a cave-in, collapsing the entrance and sealing them inside, but he had judged that a preferable fate to being overrun by the frankensteins.
What he could not have known was that the floor beneath him had been undergoing a subtle transformation; the stone was softening, and in some places, it had turned completely into a molecular slurry. When the small grenade detonated, its explosive energy ripped into the weakened stone and shattered it.
A section of the ceiling right above Sasha was pulverized, raining a fine powdery grit down onto her. Beyond that impenetrable dust cloud, long black fissures were appearing in the limestone as the cavern started tearing itself apart.
Sasha’s sense of triumph was also on the verge of self-destruction. She huddled over the computer, taking shallow breaths to avoid inhaling too much of the choking dust, and fought back the rising tide of panic.
The solution, literally within her grasp, was about to be stolen away again, this time forever.
No. I won’t let that happen.
She opened her eyes. The air still felt thick, but she could see the computer screen, and that was all she needed. Putting her face close so she could see the keyboard, she began inputting the solution.
She had worked it all out during the days that she and Parker had been on the run. The Voynich manuscript had provided her with all the information she needed about the musical notes that had the greatest effect on the Prime, so it had been a simple thing to isolate the relevant frequencies.
“Sasha!”
Parker’s voice reached out through the gloom, but she ignored it. She didn’t need his help anymore, and she certainly didn’t need an unpredictable variable showing up now, not when she was so close to the solution.
“Sasha, are you there? Can you hear me?”
Go away.
She didn’t say it aloud at first, but when his inquiries became more urgent, she realized that her refusal to acknowledge him was making him more persistent, and might embolden him to interfere with what she was trying to do. “I’m fine, Danny.”
“Thank God.” The walls groaned again, releasing another small shower of dust. “Where are you? Keep talking so I can find you.”
“No. Don’t come any closer.”
“Why not? What’s wrong?”
“I found the Prime. I can fix everything, but you need to just leave me alone for a little while, okay?”
There was a long pause, and Sasha was just starting to believe that maybe he had complied with her request when he spoke again. “Sasha, what are you talking about?”
She sighed. His questions were making it hard for her to concentrate, hampering her efforts to enter the new frequencies. Why couldn’t he just go away?
“Sasha, what is it you are trying to fix?”
Exasperated, she smacked her palms against her thighs. “Everything! I’m trying to fix everything, okay? Does that answer your question?”
“And how are you going to do that?” He was speaking softly, but at the same time his voice was getting louder as he moved closer, trying to pinpoint her location in the near-total darkness. Maybe he couldn’t see the glow of the computer screen in all the dust. She decided not to answer any more of his questions.
“How is the Prime going to help you do that?” he continued. “Are you trying to come up with your own Elixir of Life? Something to heal everyone?”
“Ha!” It was out of her mouth before she could think to suppress it. She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle any further outbursts, then she went back to typing. Almost done…
Parker must have heard her. “Something else then? Not a cure for disease, but maybe a new disease? A new Black Death? Is that what you want Sasha? You can tell me. I can understand why you might feel like you need to do that.”
His declaration surprised her. “Really?”
“Sure. I get it. Life sucks sometimes.”
“It’s the chaos I can’t stand. It was all just a big mistake.”
“What do you mean by ‘a mistake?’”
She realized that he was toying with her, trying to keep her talking so he could find her. She shook her head, trying to shut him out. She went back to work.
“Sasha, tell me more about the chaos? I need to know more if I’m going to help you fix it.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” she said, speaking slowly so as not to enter the wrong data.
“I might. You like things orderly, right? Precise? That’s why you’re a mathematician. You like solving equations. You like things that make sense.”
Maybe he does understand.
“And people… Well, people are unpredictable. And with everything you’ve been through, I think it’s perfectly understandable that you want to…you know, bring some order to the world. Let me help.”
“I don’t need your help,” she declared. She could hear his footsteps crunching through the grit on the floor.
“Of course you don’t. But I want to help. I want to be a part of it.” Sasha felt his presence beside her. He knelt next to her and peered at the screen. “What are you working on there? Are you going to use the Prime to create a new plague? Is that how you’re going to fix things?”
She looked over at him. His face was a mess of dust and blood, and he looked positively ghoulish in the diffuse glow of the computer screen, but there wasn’t even a hint of accusation or condemnation in his eyes.
“No,” she said finally. “The plague isn’t a solution. It’s just another variable; unpredictable like all living systems.”
“Go on.”
“Life was an accident, Danny. It was a mistake. A statistical impossibility that somehow happened anyway.”
“Some people would call that a miracle.”
She shook her head. “Not a miracle. Just something that happened; a random spark that caught fire and is destined to burn itself out.”
“I know it might seem bad sometimes, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She felt no emotion now. No fear at what would happen, and strangely, no satisfaction. “Three and a half billion years, that’s how long the fire has been burning. We think we’re so important — the center of the universe, but the universe doesn’t even know we exist. Life is a plague, an infection that threatens the perfection of the universe. And it all started right here, with the Prime. But I know how to solve the equation.”
“How?”
She looked into his eyes. “Simple math. You subtract known values from the equation until nothing is left.”