The 6th Extinction (55 page)

Then again, who wouldn’t?

Look at her.

Even in the darkness, she was a sculpture of grace and power, feral and tender, soft curve and hard muscle. Her eyes caught every bit of light. Her lips were as soft as silk. He lifted a hand and ran a finger down along her chin, tracing a trickle of sweat along the pulse of her throat.

God, how he had missed her
.

Her voice dropped a full octave to a sultry darkness. “We should get you home.”

His body ached at that invitation.

“Go on ahead,” he said. “I’ll make sure the night nurse has everything she needs, then I’ll follow.”

Seichan stirred, began to rise, but she must have sensed something and settled back to the slats of the swing. “What’s wrong?”

He turned away, noticing a flicker of fireflies in the bushes beyond the porch rail. They came earlier every year, some said as a harbinger of the changing climate, a reminder of the great forces that truly controlled the world, making everything else seem insignificant and small.

He sighed, hating to admit that sometimes he was too small. “I can save the world countless times. Why can’t I save him?” He shrugged heavily. “There’s nothing I can do.”

She found his hands and held them between her palms. “You’re an ass, Gray.”

“I never denied that,” he said, discovering a small smile.

“There is always something you can do. You’re already doing it. You can love him, remember for him, live for him, care for him, fight for him. You show that love with every hard decision you make . . . that’s what you can do. It’s not
nothing
.”

He remained silent.

There was one other thing he could do—but for that, he needed a moment of privacy.

“I get it, Seichan.” He shifted her hands back to her. “Go on. I’ll be right behind you.”

She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, then more deeply on the lips. “Don’t leave me waiting.”

Never
.

As she headed down the steps toward the driveway, he entered the house and nodded to the night nurse on the sofa. “Going to go check on him before I go.”

“I think he’s already asleep,” she said.

Good
.

He climbed the stairs and crossed down the hall to his father’s bedroom. The door was partly ajar, so he quietly entered and moved to his bedside.

From a pocket, he slipped out a vial and a syringe.

Days ago, he had made an inquiry with Dr. Kendall Hess about the counteragent to Cutter Elwes’s threat. He had heard Hess believed the drug might help improve other neurological impairments. Gray made his case to Hess directly, and a sample was sent overnight to his address.

He filled the syringe now.

Once, what seemed like decades ago, he had been offered a similar choice, something that might help his father’s Alzheimer’s. He ended up pouring it down the drain, believing he had to learn to accept the inevitable, not to fight what couldn’t be fought.

He lifted the syringe, pushing a bead to the tip of the needle.

Screw that
.

Seichan’s words echoed to him.

. . . fight for him . . .

He leaned over his father, jabbed the needle into his arm, and pushed the plunger home. He yanked the syringe back before his father’s lids could flutter open. When he did wake, those eyes got wide upon seeing his son looming over him.

“Gray, what’re you doing?”

Fighting for you . . .

He leaned down and kissed his father on the crown of his head.

“Just came up to say good night.”

EPILOGUE
ARBOREAL

The pack moves slowly through the jungle, lumbering in line, their numbers much smaller since starting this long trek. Echoes of fire, rock, and ruin follow them. They remember digging with their strong claws, discovering older tunnels that led them into this endless forest, freed at last. They remember blood and death. They remember betrayal and pain. They remember the blue spark and the sting of steel.

Their memories are long.

Their hatred even longer.

AUTHOR’S NOTE TO READERS:
TRUTH OR FICTION

Time to take out that scalpel and dissect this novel, separating truth from fiction. We are at the cusp of several critical changes in this world. While few doubt that the planet is undergoing its
sixth
mass extinction, it’s the paths that we take from here—as a species, as a society—that split in many different directions. One of the goals of this book is to walk down several of those paths and see where they might lead. But how far down those paths are we already? Let’s find out.

First, this novel tackles the real schism currently found in the environmental movement: between old-school conservationists and a new breed of ecologist, between preservationists and synthetic biologists, even between those who want to stop this pending extinction and those who welcome it. The following four books were integral to building this story and are a great resource for anyone interested in the subjects raised in this novel.

Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves
by George M. Church and Ed Regis (New York: Basic Books, 2012).

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History
by Elizabeth Kolbert (New York: Henry Holt, 2014).

Apocalyptic Planet: Field Guide to the Future of the Earth
by Craig Childs (New York: Vintage, 2013).

Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?
by Alan Weisman (New York: Back Bay Books, 2014).

But let’s look at some of the specifics, starting with the

Science

Synthetic Biology

When it comes to creating artificial life, milestones are toppling like dominoes, even faster than I could write this novel. Here’s a brief timeline that pertains to topics raised in this book (but one that barely scratches the surface):

2002: The first artificial virus is created in a lab.

2010: Craig Venter’s group builds the first living synthetic cell.

2012: The engineering of XNA (xeno nucleic acid) proves successful.

2013: A fully functional chromosome is reconstructed from scratch.

May 2014: Scripps Institute adds new letters to our genetic alphabet.

XNA

Multiple labs have produced various strains of XNA. It has proven to be hardier, and yes, it can be used to theoretically replace the DNA in all living creatures. It’s also believed to have once been a predominant form of life on this planet. So could a pocket of such life still be out there, hidden in some shadow biosphere? Only time will tell.

Facilitated Adaptations

The goal of Dr. Kendall’s research—to discover ways to enhance species to better suit environmental changes—is actively being pursued in labs from a real-world perspective.

Even Cutter Elwes’s creations were based on a clever installation project called “Designing for the Sixth Extinction” by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg. She proposes that we should seek to release bioengineered creations into the wild (and has even gone so far as to patent some of her imaginative life-forms). Fascinating stuff. Her work is viewable on the Internet.

Evolution Machines

1.   The
CRISPR-Cas9
technique described in this novel is real! It’s already revolutionizing the world of genetic study and manipulation. With a little training, a novice could perform these advanced techniques. The precision of this control has been described as offering researchers the equivalent tool to editing individual letters of an encyclopedia—without making a spelling error.

2.   
MAGE and CAGE
were invented by genetic engineers from Yale University, MIT, and Harvard University. They allow large-scale edits to a genome and hold great promise to revive extinct species.

De-Extinction

I describe in the novel how labs around the world are trying to revive extinct species. These include the woolly mammoth (from elephant DNA), the passenger pigeon (from ordinary pigeon DNA), and an extinct oxen known as an aurochs (from cattle DNA). But there are also many other methods beyond gene editing to restore these species, like somatic cell nuclear transfer.

And, yes, there is indeed a Russian named Sergey Zimov who is building “Pleistocene Park” in Siberia as a home for woolly mammoths.

Extremophiles

The search for new chemicals and compounds has turned the hunt for unusual organisms living in harsh environments into a biological gold rush. In turn, scientists have discovered life growing in many places that were once considered to be inhospitable to life: in boiling sea vents, deep under the ice, in toxic wastelands. Entire ecosystems have been discovered, leading to the term
shadow biospheres
.

Indestructible Viruses

I based the organism that Dr. Hess engineered on a real-world microorganism: a bacterium named
Deinococcus radiodurans
. This stubborn little bug can survive radiation levels fifteen times stronger than the famously resistant cockroach. It’s also renowned for its ability to endure freezing temperatures, dehydration, burning heat, and the strongest acids. Even the vacuum of space won’t kill it.
Guinness Book of World Record
s declared it the toughest form of life. Let’s hope someone out there doesn’t start playing around in that bacterium’s genetic toolbox.

Jumping Genes (Retrotransposons)

Again it’s surprisingly true that geneticists now accept that a potent engine of evolution is “jumping genes.” Not only can these traits be transmitted to offspring but also
between
species, in a process called horizontal gene transfer. Though it’s hard to believe, a full quarter of cattle DNA has been proven to have come from a species of horned viper. So be careful of that next burger.

Biohacking/DIY Biology/Biopunks

No matter what you call it, garages, cellars, and community centers have become hotbeds for genetic experimentation and patenting of new life-forms. I mentioned in this novel about a Kickstarter program that seeks to produce a glowing weed. This technology has even become “plug and play” with the introduction of “biobricks,” a genetic toolbox for playing God in your own backyard.

The three major fears about synthetic biology and biohacking are
bioterrorism
,
lab accidents
, and the
purposeful release of synthetic organisms
. So I decided to go for the Triple Crown and tackle all three in one thriller.

Magnetism and Microbial Life

Can magnetic fields kill bacteria, viruses, and fungi? At the right static or oscillating fields, YES. The FDA has performed an entire study on the subject, even identifying the field strengths necessary to kill specific species.

Panspermia

This is the theory that life on earth might have come from a seed of organic life delivered to the planet via a meteor strike. The meteor mentioned in this book that caused the massive Wilkes Crater in Antarctica is believed to have triggered the Permian mass extinction, which came within a hairsbreadth of ending all life. So I wondered:
If all those environmental niches were emptied out by this extinction, what if that same meteor brought something foreign to fertilize those newly emptied fields?

Antarctic Life

The Russians are currently continuing to drill into Lake Vostok, a lake as big as any of the Great Lakes, yet isolated for millennia miles under the ice. What life might be found there? Early signs: There’s plenty. But that southernmost continent is rife with odd biological details.

—In 1999, a virus was discovered on the ice that no animal or human is immune to.

—In 2014, a 1,500-year-old Antarctic moss was brought back to life. Likewise, in Siberia, a virus that had been frozen for 30,000 years was resurrected.

—The petrified remains of great forests have been found in multiple locations on that continent.

But so far, we’ve been literally barely scratching the surface. What’s truly under that ice is yet to be discovered. It should be interesting because of . . .

Antarctic Geology

Only recently have we begun to understand how weird that continent’s geology truly is. While the continent presents a frozen face, down deep it’s a warm, wet marshland. There are hundreds of subglacial lakes, often with rivers flowing between them, some as large as the Thames. There are waterfalls that flow
up
. There are active volcanoes, some with lava flowing under miles of ice. Just this past year (early 2014) scientists discovered Antarctica has a trench that dwarfs our Grand Canyon. In all of that strange and otherworldly landscape, what might yet be undiscovered?

Hacking the Brain

In my novel, Cutter Elwes has discovered a novel way of altering human intelligence to his own end. Is that possible? If anything, it’s likely conservative. The computer hackers of the eighties and nineties are becoming the biohackers of the new millennia. Even now researchers are studying viruses and bacteria that use chemical signals to control emotions and human thought. With the exponential rate of our ability to manipulate DNA—faster, cheaper, and with more control—anything will soon be possible.

DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office

DARPA has already been working at the cutting edges of robotics, prosthetics, and artificial intelligence. But in 2014, this new office was specifically born to go all in on biotechnology, to “explore the increasingly dynamic intersection of biology and the physical sciences.” Stay tuned!