The 6th Extinction (6 page)

He tapped a key. An audio feed immediately began to play. It was a woman’s voice, stiff but plainly winded, struggling to maintain composure.

“
This is sierra, victor, whiskey. There’s been a breach. Fail-safe initiated. No matter the outcome: Kill us . . . kill us all.
”

Kat continued. “We’ve identified the caller as Dr. Irene McIntire, chief systems analyst for the base.”

On the computer screen, an image of a middle-aged woman in a lab coat appeared, smiling for the camera. Her eyes twinkled with excitement. Gray tried to balance this image with the frantic voice he’d just heard.

“What were they working on?” Gray asked.

Jason interrupted, cupping a Bluetooth headphone more firmly to his ear. “They’ve arrived. Coming down now.”

“That’s what I’m hoping to find out,” Kat said, answering Gray’s question. “All I know is the research station must have been dealing with something hazardous, something that required drastic action to stop. Satellite imagery showed an explosion. Lots of smoke.”

Jason brought up those photos, too, flipping through them rapidly. Though the images were gray-scaled and grainy, Gray could easily make out the flash of fire, the billow of an oily black cloud.

“We still can’t see through the smoke to evaluate the current status of the base,” Kat said. “But there’s been no further communication.”

“They must have razed the place.”

“It would seem that way at the moment. Painter is looking into matters out west, tapping into local resources. He’s tasked me with discovering more details about the base’s operations.” Kat turned to Gray, her eyes worried. “I already learned that the site is managed by DARPA.”

He failed to hide his surprise. DARPA was the defense department that oversaw Sigma’s operations—though knowledge of this group’s existence was restricted to only a few key people, those with the highest security clearance. But he shouldn’t have been so shocked to learn this base was tied to DARPA. The military’s research and development agency had hundreds of facilities spread through several divisions and across the breadth of the country. Most of them operated with minimal oversight, running independently, tapping into the most unique minds and talents out there. The details of each operation were on a need-to-know basis.

And apparently we didn’t need to know about this
.

“There were over thirty men and women at that base when things went sour,” Kat said. From the stiffness in her shoulders and hard set to her lips, she was furious.

Gray couldn’t blame her as he stared at the monitor and the billowing black cloud. “Do you know which specific DARPA division was running that place?”

“BTO. The Biological Technologies Office. It’s a relatively new division. Their mission statement is to explore the intersection between biology and the physical sciences.”

Gray frowned. His own expertise for Sigma straddled that same line. It was dangerous territory, encompassing everything from genetic engineering to synthetic biology.

Voices echoed down the hall, coming from the direction of the elevator. Gray glanced over his shoulder.

“After getting Painter’s permission,” Kat explained, “I asked the director of the BTO—Dr. Lucius Raffee—to join us here to help troubleshoot the situation.”

As the new party drew closer, their voices expressed tension at this midnight summons.

Two men appeared at the entrance to the communication hub. The first man was a stranger, a distinguished black man dressed in a knee-length coat over an Armani suit. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a neat goatee.

“Dr. Raffee,” Kat said, stepping forward and shaking his hand. “Thank you for coming.”

“It was not like your man offered me much choice. I was just leaving a performance of
La Bohème
at the Kennedy Center when I was accosted.”

The doctor’s escort, Monk Kokkalis, pushed into the room. He was a bulldog of a man with a shaved head and the muscular build of a linebacker. The man cocked an eyebrow toward Gray as if to say
catch a load of this guy
. He then stepped over and lightly kissed his wife’s cheek.

Monk whispered faintly to Kat. “Honey, I’m home.”

Dr. Raffee glanced between the two, trying to comprehend them as a couple. Gray understood the man’s confusion. They made a striking, if odd, pair.

“I assume my husband filled you in on the situation in California,” Kat said.

“He did.” Dr. Raffee sighed heavily. “But I’m afraid there’s little concrete information I can offer you concerning what went wrong . . . or even the exact nature of the work that might have resulted in such drastic countermeasures at that base. I’ve telephoned several of my key people to follow up. Hopefully, we’ll hear from them shortly. All I know at the moment is that the head researcher was Dr. Kendall Hess, a specialist in astrobiology with an emphasis on investigating shadow biospheres.”

Kat frowned. “Shadow biospheres?”

He waved a hand dismissively. “He was searching for radically different forms of life, specifically those that employed unusual biochemical or molecular processes to function.”

Gray had some familiarity on the subject. “Like organisms that use RNA instead of DNA.”

“Indeed. But shadow biospheres could even be more esoteric than that. Hess proposed that there might be some hidden suite of life that uses an entirely different set of amino acids than what is commonly known. It was why he set up the research station near Mono Lake.”

“Why’s that?” Gray asked.

“Back in 2010, a group of NASA scientists were able to take a microbe native to that highly alkaline lake and force it to switch from using phosphorus in its biochemical processes to arsenic.”

“Why is that significant?” Monk asked.

“As an astrobiologist, Hess was familiar with the NASA team’s work. He believed such a discovery proved that early life on earth was likely arsenic-based. He also hypothesized that a thriving biosphere of arsenic-based organisms might exist somewhere on earth.”

Gray understood Hess’s fervor. Such a discovery would turn biology on its ear and open up an entire new chapter of life on earth.

Raffee frowned. “But he was also investigating many other possible shadow biospheres. Like desert varnish.” From their confused expressions, he explained in more detail. “Desert varnish is that rust to black coating found on exposed rock surfaces. Native people in the past used to scrape it away to create their petroglyphs.”

Gray pictured the ancient stick-figure drawings of people and animals found around the world.

“But the odd thing about desert varnish,” Raffee continued, “is that it still remains unresolved how it forms. Is it a chemical reaction? The by-product of some unknown microbial process? No one knows. In fact, the status of varnish as
living
or
nonliving
has been argued all the way back to the time of Darwin.”

Monk grumbled his irritation. “But how does researching some grime on rocks end up triggering a frantic mayday and an explosion?”

“I don’t know. At least not yet. I do know that Hess’s work had already drawn the attention of the private sector, that a portion of his latest work was a joint corporate venture, a part of the federal Technology Transfer Program.” He shrugged. “That’s what happens when you have so many budget cuts in R&D.”

“What was this venture backing?” Kat asked.

“Over the years, Hess’s investigation into shadow biospheres had uncovered a slew of new extremophiles, organisms that thrive in harsh and unusual environments. Such microbes are great resources for the discovery of unique chemicals and compounds. Couple that with the exploding field of synthetic biology, where labs are testing the extremes of genetic engineering, and you have potentially a very lucrative enterprise.”

Gray knew that billions of dollars of corporate money were already pouring into such ventures, from giants like Monsanto, Exxon, DuPont, and BP. And when it came to such high stakes, corporations often placed profit ahead of safety.

“If you’re right about private sector money funding Dr. Hess’s work,” Gray asked, “could this accident have been some form of corporate sabotage?”

“I can’t say, but I’m doubtful. His corporate-funded research was fairly altruistic. It was called Project Neogenesis.”

“And what was its goal?” Kat asked.

“A lofty one. Dr. Hess believes he can slow down or halt the growing number of extinctions on this planet, specifically those losses due to the actions of man. Namely pollution and the effects of climate change. I heard Dr. Hess once give a TED lecture on the fact that the earth is in the middle of a sixth mass extinction, one great enough to rival the asteroid strike that killed off the dinosaurs. I remember him saying how a mere two-degree increase in global temperature would immediately wipe out millions of species.”

Kat knit her brows together. “And what was Dr. Hess’s plan to stop this from happening?”

Raffee stared around the room as if the answer were obvious. “He believes he has discovered a path to engineer our way out of this doom.”

“With Project Neogenesis?” Kat asked.

Gray now understood the name’s significance.

New genesis
.

He glanced to the smoking image still fixed on the screen. It was indeed a worthy goal, but at the same time, the man’s hubris had possibly cost thirty men and women their lives.

And with a chill, Gray sensed this wasn’t over yet.

How many more would die?

4

April 27, 8:35
P
.
M
. PDT
Mono Lake, California

I can’t hold out much longer
.

Jenna lay flat on her belly beneath the rusted bulk of an old tractor. She had a clear view of the helicopter idling in the meadow beyond the ghost town. She took a flurry of photos with her phone. She dared not use the flash feature for risk of being spotted by the assault team on the ground. It had taken stealth and teeth-clenched patience to creep from the barn to this meager hiding spot.

She craned her neck to track the broad-shouldered man sweeping in a circle around the small cluster of dry structures crowning the hill. His flamethrower roared, shooting out a blazing ten-foot jet. He set fire to the grass, to the bushes, to the closest buildings, turning the hilltop into a hellish landscape. Smoke rolled high, reminding her all too well of the poisonous sea that kept her trapped here.

She might not be able to escape, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t leave something behind, some clue to her fate, to what happened here.

She wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. She had done her best to capture as many pictures of the helicopter and the armed men as possible. Hopefully someone would be able to identify the aircraft or recognize the few faces she had captured digitally. Using the zoom feature, she had gotten a close-up of the giant wielding the flamethrower. His features were burnished, possibly Hispanic, with dark hair under a military-style cap and a prominent purplish scar that split his chin.

As ugly as that guy is, he’s gotta be in some law enforcement database
.

Knowing she’d done all she could, she rolled to her side and found a pair of eyes shining back at her, reflecting the firelight. Nikko panted silently, his tongue lolling. She ran a hand from the crown of his head to his flank. His muscles trembled with adrenaline, ready to run, but she had to ask more of him.

She reached and secured the strap of her cell phone’s case to his leather collar, then cupped his muzzle, meeting that determined gaze.

“Nikko, stay. Hold.”

Reinforcing her command, she held a palm toward him, then clenched a fist.

“Stay and hold,” she repeated.

He stopped panting, and a small whine escaped.

“I know, but you have to stay here.”

She gave him a reassuring rub along both cheeks. He leaned hard into her palm, as if asking her not to go.

Be my big brave boy. One more time, okay?

She let go of his face. His head drooped sullenly, his chin settling between his paws. Still, his eyes never left hers. He had been her companion since she first started out as a ranger. She had been fresh out of school, while he had just finished his own search-and-rescue training. They had grown together, both professionally and personally, becoming partners and friends. He was also there when her mother had died of breast cancer two and a half years ago.

She shied away from the memory of that long, brutal battle. It had devastated her father, leaving him a faded shell of his former self, lost in grief and survivor’s guilt. The death had become a gulf that neither could seem to bridge. Jenna had also secretly had a BCRA gene test performed, an analysis that confirmed she carried one of the two inherited genetic markers that indicate a heightened risk of breast cancer. Even now she hadn’t fully come to terms with that information, nor shared the results with her father.

Instead, she dove headlong into her job, finding solace in the raw beauty of the wilderness, discovering peace in the turning of the seasons, that endless cycle of death and rebirth. But also she found a de facto family in her fellow rangers, in the simple camaraderie of like-minded souls. Most of all, though, she found Nikko.

He whined again softly, as if knowing what she must do.

She leaned close and touched her nose to his.

Love you, too, buddy
.

A part of her desperately wanted to stay with him, but she had watched her mother bravely face the inevitable. Now it was her turn.

With her record of events secure and hidden with Nikko, she knew what she had to do. She gave Nikko a final rub, then rolled out from beneath the tractor. She needed to lead the others as far away from the husky’s hiding place as possible. She doubted whoever hunted her knew about her service dog or would even worry about him if they did. The endgame of the hunters here was to eliminate any witnesses who could talk. Once that was accomplished, the assault team should leave. Hopefully after that, someone would come looking for her—and find Nikko and the evidence she had left behind.