It would be a tough haul.
Stella pointed out into the cavern. “Over there!”
Jason tensed, swinging around, expecting another attack. But she was pointing to a pool of light on the far side of the river. It was the CAAT. As they watched, it began to roll along the waterway, heading off.
Jason held his breath, then a distant triple beep of a horn sounded.
It was the prearranged signal.
Gray and Kowalski were okay. They had successfully commandeered the enemy’s CAAT, ready to pursue Dylan Wright.
Must’ve held off departing until our own lights reached the back wall.
Jason didn’t know if the others could see him, but he lifted his arm.
Good luck.
In retrospect, he should’ve saved some of that luck for himself.
As he lowered his arm, the IR illuminator flickered and died, plunging them into darkness.
27
What have I done?
Kendall sat at a workstation in the main lab. He had no choice but to stare at a large LCD monitor. It displayed live video feed from a tree-mounted camera. From the stark shades of grays, it must be recording through a low-light sensor. The view revealed a thick forest, draped in vines, shaded by a dense canopy. The lens pointed down into a clearing lined by gravel.
A series of three tall cages stood in the middle of the glade. Hazard signs warned the pens were electrified, like the fences between the tiers of Cutter’s macabre garden.
This must be the lowest level.
Kendall remembered catching a glimpse of that isolated piece of rain forest. But what else was down there?
On the screen, he watched Jenna being manhandled into the centermost cage. From the way she hugged her arms around her chest, keeping clear of the bars, she must know about the danger.
Rahei slammed the pen closed.
“Our Ms. Beck should be feeling the first signs of infection,” Cutter said, pacing behind him, shadowed by Mateo in the background. “Headaches, maybe neck pain.”
“Please don’t do this,” Kendall said.
On the screen, Rahei retreated with the two other men. The pair kept a close watch on the jungle, guarding with electrified cattle prods and rifles. They all quickly piled back into the cart, swung the vehicle around the clearing, then headed out the way they’d come in.
“Why did you take her down there?” Kendall asked, glancing back at Cutter. “Why leave her alone?”
“Oh, she’s not alone.”
Proving this, something massive moved past the camera, too fast to catch more than the briefest glimpse of huge hooked claws and a shaggy coat. Still, Kendall recognized the species, falling back into his seat in horror.
“You didn’t…” he moaned.
Cutter shrugged. “It was an early experiment, taking a page from your preservationist playbook. De-extinction was the word you used in that paper, as I recall. It was a simple matter of using the MAGE and CAGE techniques to take a species already found in this rain forest, alter its genetic code, and resurrect its ancient ancestor.”
Kendall knew it was theoretically possible, that labs around the world sought to accomplish this very goal, and would likely succeed in the next few years. Already multiple facilities searched for ways to resurrect the woolly mammoth from elephant DNA, another sought to revive extinct passenger pigeons from its common relative, yet another worked to pull the long-deceased wild aurochs from the genetic heritage of present-day cattle. These ventures went by many names: Revive & Restore, the Uruz Project, even one appropriately called the Lazarus Project, which sought to de-extinct an Australian frog that gave birth through its mouth.
But what Cutter accomplished here…
“You can’t leave her down there,” he insisted.
“She’s safe enough for now, behind those electrified bars. We’ll give her another half hour, when the infection reduces her to something simpler. Then you’ll get a glimpse of what this new world will be like for humankind, when our species is stripped of its cancerous intelligence.”
Kendall felt tears threaten, knowing this monster would force him to watch what happened to Jenna.
“But you can stop all of this,” Cutter insisted. “Just tell me the name of the XNA species that holds the genetic key to unlocking your armored viral shell. One name… and this all ends. I will take matters over from there.”
If Cutter ever got hold of this last critical piece of information, Kendall knew he could figure out the rest of his biological puzzle.
“Do not take long.” Cutter waved to the screen. “There is a counteragent to what plagues Ms. Beck, but it must be administered within the hour or the neurological effects will be permanent.”
“There’s a cure?” Kendall swallowed.
“Indeed.” He glanced toward the large refrigerator at the back of the BSL4 lab. “A protein that’s a mirror image of what I engineered. It’s capable of repairing the neuronal damage wrought by my prion, but like I said, there is a time limit. A point of no return for Ms. Beck.”
Kendall had a larger worry beyond the young park ranger. “And if I give you that name, you’ll tell me how to stop what’s spreading in California.”
Cutter rubbed his chin, plainly feigning concentration. “I am a man of my word. That was my original offer. But that was before Ms. Beck arrived.”
“What do you mean?”
“Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll let you choose. I can either teach you how to eradicate the horror unleashed from your lab… or I can save Ms. Beck. But not both.”
Kendall stared at the screen, knowing he would have to tell Cutter the truth eventually. With time, the bastard would get the information out of him anyway.
He turned to Cutter, his voice low with defeat. “You’ll need the blood from one of the Antarctic species.”
“Which one?”
“Volitox ignis.”
Cutter looked truly thoughtful now. “Those fiery eels. A daunting task indeed. I’ll have to make a call before it’s too late. Seems I might have gotten ahead of myself with my plans. Jumping the gun, as you Americans say.”
The man began to turn away.
“Cutter, you promised.”
He turned back. “Of course, sorry. Which cure do you want? The one for Ms. Beck… or for the world?”
Kendall stared back at the screen, at the small woman huddled in the cage. At the same time, he pictured the wrath of destruction spreading over the mountains of California.
I’m sorry, Jenna.
Kendall turned to Cutter. “How do I kill what I created?”
“It’s the simplest of all solutions. Have you never wondered why that biosphere under Antarctica never spread to the greater world? Surely there have been breaches in the past, small escapes that have leaked out. But it’s never fully broken loose. I suspect it would take great numbers to do that.”
Kendall struggled for an answer. What was so unique about Antarctica? What kept that world trapped below? Was it the salty seas, the ice, the cold? He had already experimented with such variables in the past at his lab.
“We’ve tried subzero temperatures, various salinities, heavy metal toxins, like those found in the surrounding oceans,” Kendall admitted. “Nothing’s killed it.”
“Because you were thinking too small, my friend… that’s always been your problem. You look at the trees and miss the forest. You think locally versus globally.”