Impulsively, Carlson removed his lab coat and draped it over a nearby stool. A light tapping pulled him from his thoughts. Opening the door, he was surprised to see Ellen Choy smiling back at him.
"I thought I was the only insomniac around here. Come in."
"Are you sure? You look like you're about to leave."
Carlson smiled. "No, it's okay."
"I don't mean to disturb you."
"Not at all. Please." Carlson led her inside. "So, what's on your mind at this late, or should I say, early hour?"
"I saw something earlier. Something I wasn't supposed to see," her voice trailed off.
"Something you weren't supposed to see?" Carlson asked hesitantly.
"Yes," she answered, barely audible.
Carlson noticed her hands shaking. She followed his gaze and quickly clasped her hands together to stop the trembling. Carlson removed his lab coat from the stool and patted it. "Please. Sit down. It's okay," he said, soothingly.
"Is it?" she asked as she climbed on the stool.
Carlson walked to the water cooler and filled a paper cup. Ellen accepted it gratefully. They sat there in silence, facing each other. Carlson, realizing how shook up Ellen was, displayed a calm demeanor. Inside, however, he was shaking as badly as her hands.
Having allowed her time to compose herself, Carlson restarted the conversation. "You said you saw
something?"
Ellen, looking at the floor, nodded, but said nothing.
Ever the researcher, he decided to take a methodical tack and start at square one. "Where did you see this... this
something?"
Ellen looked up at Carlson. "In a barrel."
The answer surprised Carlson. For the second time, he repeated her words as a question,
"In a barrel?"
Ellen nodded. "I opened it. I opened it and it shook, and it splashed on me. And there... there was..." she closed her eyes.
"What?" Carlson asked. "What was there, Ellen?"
She opened her eyes and looked directly into his. "Babies. Two tiny babies, floating on the top."
Carlson stepped forward. His face was just inches from hers now.
"What do you mean, babies?"
"They were Thylacine pups, but Peter... they were different. Much different."
"Are you sure? They used test animals, Tasmanian Devils to be exact. Could that be what you saw?"
"These were not devils. In fact, they looked almost like... human fetuses. Except--"
Panic began to fill the void. Carlson needed to get a handle on this. "Go on."
"Except...
they had the beginnings of claws and two long front canines. There's no way they were devils."
"You're sure about that? That they were Thylacine anomalies and not devils?"
She stood up. "I'm not sure what they were, but I
am
sure they weren't devils, Dr. Carlson."
With Ellen standing against the lab bench facing Peter, his face drew into a scowl. He began to pace back and forth in the lab.
"I was afraid something like this was going to happen," he said to himself.
"What?" Ellen asked.
"Ellen, how much do you know about what Dr. Whiting did here?"
"You mean the experiments or his
death?"
"The results from his experiments."
"Just that it was the first time anyone had attempted to clone from an extinct animal. And that it was being done from a fetal pup preserved in alcohol. I wasn't part of his team. I heard he'd used a different approach than others that were trying to clone it. Apparently he discovered a way to switch off all active genes in the DNA."
Carlson contemplated this for a moment. If Whiting had indeed found a way to shut down the genes--in effect that would mean he had turned back its clock--allowing it to be born all over again. Restructured into a completely new replica. Carl-son stopped pacing now and turned to Choy.
"I'm afraid, Ellen, that was just the
beginning."
He knew now why Whiting had to die.
And he doubted more than ever that he died by his own hand.
T
HE SUN WAS RISING
. The first thing Jack Baker noticed when he opened his eyes were shafts of light filtering through the slatted roof of the shelter. Though the day had barely begun, it was already humid--that was the next thing he noticed--his shirt was damp, ringed with perspiration. He lifted his head and looked about. Tracy was sleeping near his feet. Beyond her, Hammond lie curled into a tight ball. But Turner was gone.
That's right, he had guard duty,
Jack thought, remembering Turner volunteered to take first watch.
Why didn't he wake me for my watch?
Jack sat up and spent a few moments cataloguing the various aches and pains his body was announcing. His jaw was bruised; it hurt when he opened and closed his mouth. His shoulders were stiff and sore, and the wound on his calf had begun to ooze pus. He knew if he got an infection now, he could end up losing his leg. Or worse. The jungle is not a place you want to have an open or bleeding wound.
Tracy rose up squinting in the light. She propped herself up on one elbow.
"Where's Turner?" she asked after a moment.
"Probably sleeping under a tree somewhere."
Tracy came full awake and stood. "Didn't he wake you for your shift last night?"
"No."
"Well, aren't you concerned?'
"Concerned? I'm not his keeper, Tracy. I'm just trying to stay alive here. We all know the score. He may have taken off on his own, for all we know."
"And if he didn't? What then?" That came off harsher than she had intended. She wished she could take back the tone, soften the question.
Jack raked a hand across his scalp. "Then he didn't. I don't know where he is. He knows where we are."
"What if he can't make it back here? Jesus, Jack, what if it was you out there?" Tracy said, no longer sorry for her tone.
Jack made an ambiguous gesture, half nod, and half shrug. Tracy threw up her arms and grunted in frustration. "Then I will go look for him myself."
Jack did not like being talked to like this. Who did this woman think she was? He had to ask, "And your survival and fighting skills are
what
exactly?"
"I'm tougher than I look. You'd be surprised," She said, trying to convince herself as much as Jack.
They stood there in uncomfortable silence for a minute. Jack did not want to be put in the position of being responsible for others. That had not worked out for him in the past. He looked at Tracy, hating the fact that she was right. Once again, it was not his choice to make.
"We should look for him," Jack finally said. "Go wake the Captain."
So that was what they did.
It didn't take very long. Fifty yards outside their campsite, they found Bob Turner.
Pieces of Bob Turner.
They first discovered the pink stubs of his torn limbs lying by a huge fern. Tracy turned away and vomited. Jack nodded at Captain Hammond, who put his arm around her shoulder and led her about back to camp. When he returned, he found Jack next to a stand of bamboo, looking down. Jack looked stricken. Forcing his legs to carry him to Jack's side, Hammond looked at what he knew he didn't want to see. Bob Turner stared back at them with hollow eye sockets.
At least his head did.
"His torso is back there in the brush," Jack said, weakly waving his arm in the direction of what was left of Turner's trunk.
What Jack would remember most about that day was not the scattered body parts, grisly as that was. No, what Jack would remember most was the condition of the head. It appeared something had literally ripped it from his neck. His jaw, now only a memory, gave his face the appearance of a bowling ball split in half. The missing eyes, along with the bloody hole where a nose once existed, completed the look.
And with that discovery, Jack Baker knew that the suspicions he'd been harboring--the fear he'd lived with for several days now--were absolute child's play compared to the nightmarish reality he'd literally dropped into from out of the sky.
P
RINCE
H
ABIB TOOK THE CALL
, which lasted only a few seconds. With that, he walked over to his son's bed.
"Good afternoon, doctor," he said.
Doctor Kahn Apta was his son's physician since birth. He was not just his pediatrician; over the years, he had become a trusted family friend. He reached over and lifted a chart off the foot of the bed. Temperature 100.5, despite aspirin. Pulse rapid at 115. Respiration at 24 and shallow. The boy's blood pressure was dangerously unstable.
Habib's son Khalid looked through his plastic oxygen mask from the doctor to his father, with eyes that belied something beyond despair, a melancholy that cut into the helpless Prince like a sword in the heart. Habib had seen all manner of deaths, from peacefully slipping away in old age to cancer and AIDS, beheadings and accidents. But this was the most brutally cruel of all. It was slow and insidious, as if he were being eaten from the inside out. Even though the Prince had plenty of time to prepare, he now realized as the time drew nearer, nothing could have prepared him for
this.
"We need to move him to the hospital," the doctor said.
"What will happen?"
"Well, there's no way--"
The Prince interrupted him, "Please, Khan, just tell me."
The doctor nodded. "He will need" he looked at Khalid, who may or may not have been asleep, "... assistance to sustain his breathing until... " He looked expectantly at Habib.
"Until?"
"Well, Your Excellency, the rest is...," the MD struggled for the right words, "out of my hands. You, of course, well, you--" he struggled despite, or maybe because of, his affection for this family, his understanding of the Prince's position, and his fear of the Prince's wrath.
"Yes... yes, of course," The Prince understood, and appreciated his discretion.
"What have
you
heard?" The doctor asked discretely, hoping he hadn't overstepped his bounds.
He hadn't.
The Prince held genuine affection for the physician after all these years. He was silent for a moment. "Jimi is returning today. I will know more this afternoon."
"Time is not his friend, your highness. He grows weaker each day."
"I know," the Prince turned away from the doctor and pinched his eyes. "I know."
* * *
The luxury jet landed at Prince Habib's private airfield and taxied to the hanger. A Mercedes sedan pulled up alongside the jet. Jimi climbed down the stairs of the plane and hurried to the sedan. The chauffeur opened the rear door and Jimi jumped in. Prince Habib sat waiting, unable to hide his anxiety.
"Please tell me you have good news, Jimi."
The messenger looked down at the floorboard. The Prince had his answer.
J
ACK
B
AKER STOOD ON THE
sugar-fine sand, gazing out at the ocean. As he stood there, he suddenly realized what had seemed wrong all morning. Not Turner, but with the island itself. Something was off.
It was the
silence
.
Besides the crash of the waves, there was none of the usual sounds of the jungle island. No bird squawking, no monkeys howling, no chatter of the island rodents rustling in the undergrowth. In fact, apart from the nighttime screams that had pierced the dark the last two evenings, Jack could remember
nothing!
A minute later, Tracy came up. "Jack, you look lost."
"That's funny," he said, less sure than he sounded.
"I mean,
lost in thought."
"I am. I was just thinking, have you noticed how quiet it is here?"
"Well, we are in the middle of nowhere."
Jack shook his head. "No, not that. It's the
island.
There's no life here. Plant life, sure, but we've been here over a week now, and I have yet to see another live animal."
"Except what we hear at night and... " She didn't have to finish.
And whatever killed Turner.
O
UTSIDE THE STEEL AND PLATE
glass laboratory building of the GenSys research complex, the dim security lights fought bravely with the inky black of the jungle as Roger Tibek boarded a secretly chartered helicopter to take him to a port in the northern coast.
The pilot was going through a checklist when Tibek climbed on. The shell of the helicopter was mostly barren, save for a few empty coke cans and a couple of stray candy wrappers. A large open steel case set off to one side.
Tibek's pulse pounded. One by one, he carefully removed the six titanium canisters from the duffle bag he carried. He placed each one inside its own slot in the steel case. GenSys designed the case specifically to transport these canisters.
The pilot leaned back. "Ready to go, mate?"
Tibek nodded.
Tibek could see nothing out the small window of the craft except blackness. When he looked down, he could just make out a black and white haze of churning water. The vastness of the ocean seemed to stretch to infinity. Others viewing the scene might have been humbled or felt small in comparison. It only made Frank Tibek feel more powerful.
An hour later, he could feel the sensation as the chopper descended from the darkness toward the helipad of the trawler. The movement of the ship made a smooth landing difficult. The hard seas tossed the vessel and Tibek felt the jolt as they first attempted to land on the deck of the listing ship. The chopper rose involuntarily and the pilot wrestled with his joystick to get the chopper back down. The impact jarred the wind from the rogue scientist's diaphragm. Worse, the hard landing caused the case to rise in the air, only to bounce hard in the cabin. Tibek lunged toward the canisters and clung tightly to the steel case until at last the chopper came to rest.
He struggled against panic. He snapped open the latch on the case and looked inside.
Thank God, they're okay!
L
EWES
H
ODGKIN SAT HUNCHED IN
a dark corner of the Wahoo Bar and Grill in Cape Talbot, nursing a bottle of Matilda Bay Premium Pilsner Lager. There was no one else in the bar except a couple of mongrels that looked more like a mix of dingo and hyena than dogs. The bartender came from behind the bar and waved some scraps of meat. They immediately got excited, yelping and jumping as they followed the bartender, making his way to the door. He tossed the scraps into the dirt parking lot and the mutts chased after them, fighting each other to get the few meager scraps of fat and gristle. The bartender secured the screen door and, wiping his hands on the bar towel tucked in his belt, returned to his post by the beer taps.