The Aeschylus (26 page)

Whatever.

“You need some help down there?”

Jin poked his head back over the rails to see that Peter and Christian had calmed down.

“Seriously,” Peter said. “The place is secure. You don't want to be taking any chances with the ropes.”

“Thanks, but I don't think so.”

“Suit yourself, China-man.”

Jin hated being called
China-man
, especially since he wasn't Chinese. Not to mention the term was downright racist, and that's not shit you were supposed to say out loud in a professional environment.

“I think I'll be just fine without you two idiots.”

Christian hocked a spit down at him then, the loogie passing considerably closer than Peter's had.

“Piss off!”

The pair of them cackled like old crones and disappeared. He could hear them talking above, but he was too tired to give a shit. “I hope you rot.”

Jin found his backpack and brought out his harness. He would have to do a little rope work to get to the antenna cables, but that was fine. He was a professional goddammit, even if he was surrounded by morons. Peter had saved his bacon earlier,
and Jin didn't forget that. As talented as the man was though, he just wasn't firing on all cylinders.

There were already support systems in place for a rope access technician, so Jin had no problems strapping in. He made sure the rope was well-secured, then stepped over the rails and perched his feet on the ledge. One of the huge, black tendrils
lay just in front of him, the water fifty feet below. He made sure he had his equipment—tool kit, gloves, wiring—then floated out over empty space. The ropes held fast, but he discovered the cable he wanted was just out of reach; the tentacle was in the way.

It was massive. Jin guessed it could be eight feet wide, and the smell was unbelievable.
Mama's fish stew
, he thought, reaching into his shirt and pulling up a painter's mask.
Oh Johnny, you fucking dirt eater
. If this didn't deserve extra hazard pay, he didn't know what did.

The thing in front of him wasn't opaque like the smaller tentacles he'd cut. This one was different, and it looked translucent when he got close. There was a fluid moving inside of it, giving the thing an awful, undulating appearance. There was something else too, some... shape.

He pulled himself closer still, bringing a gloved hand up as if to touch it. There really was something inside, and it was moving. He inched his face closer, wanting to see just what the hell it was.

That's when the thing inside opened its eyes and looked back.

The Island:

February, 1939

Beneath the earth, Dominik sat on a cold gray table in the middle of a cold gray room, surrounded by his colleagues. At least, that's how he had begun to think of them. The others each had a purpose, each had their own expertise. When they were down here, they weren't so different from any other research group in the real world, and each day, he clung to that idea to keep himself sane. Just four scientists doing a job, together at the lab.

Beside him, Ari was sitting on the floor with one hand on his knee. The man called Ettore stood across from them, pensive as always, and next to him, the last prisoner, Thomas Frece. Doctor Kriege was not there. It seemed the
führer
of their little ensemble, like the grand
Führer
himself, was a late sleeper.

“So we abandon the radiation theory,” Dominik said.

Ari shook his head. “We may have to. I've never seen anything like it.”

“I believe Mister Kaminski is correct. It's the melanin,” Ettore offered. “That would explain the color, in any case. Did you take a look at my temperature measurements?”

Frece took an aggressive step forward. “Excuse me, are you a biologist? Because you're starting to sound like one. There's only one biologist here, and he's not doing a damned thing.”

In fact, Dominik had done plenty. He'd even started keeping a journal at Kriege's request, an old red notebook cataloging their theories and experiences. Arguing wouldn't get him anywhere with Frece though, and he kept silent.

“My measurements indicate that the temperature inside the terrarium increased dramatically after exposure, and the increase was proportionate to the amount of radiation we pumped in,” Ettore said placidly. He indicated a series of charts. “See for yourself.”

The proof was there, and like it or not, Frece was going to have to come around to it. Because the fungus—what Gideon Grey called The Carrion and what the current troupe could only think of as
the growths
—wouldn't die. When cut, they healed. When chopped into parts, they grew like earthworms. When starved of food and air, they simply waited. Most recently, Frece had tried hitting it with gamma rays, alpha radiation, and exposed it directly to plutonium 239 bombarded with neutrons. Even that had no effect. The growths burned at high temperatures, but a solution like that wouldn't serve The Reich. They wanted something to control it. That was their goal, the four of them: control that which could not be controlled.

Ari sighed. “It's converting all types of ionizing radiation to heat. That's what you're saying, isn't it?”

“It's doing more than that,” Ettore said. “It's growing. Its mass and girth will increase proportional to the amount of gamma rays we pump in. In fact, there doesn't seem to be an upper limit. It's quite extraordinary.”

“Yeah,” Frece said. “Just great.”

“Again, we're back to the melanin. That was your theory, Dominik, and you believe it's true?”

Dominik looked up and saw that they were all watching him. “We've known about certain types of extremophile fungi for a little while: organisms that thrive in extreme temperatures
or in extremely low PHP values. We've theorized that some could exist under the effects of ionizing radiation. I've never encountered any myself, though,” he added quickly.

“But it's not mysterious. The conversion of gamma rays to heat energy is chemical?” Ettore said, leading him.

“Oh yes. I'm quite certain it's due to the high concentration of melanin. We know that it can buffer some of the effects of ionizing radiation in mammals. In this case, the organism has a more efficient means of not only absorbing it, but converting it directly into energy.”

“And by 'not mysterious,' you mean it's a perfectly ordinary alien species that just happens to eat gamma rays for lunch?” Frece added. “Christ, Ettore, you're just as weird as those things are.”

The man regarded him down the hook of his brown nose. “Well, we don't know its origins, do we? That certainly isn't part of our job. As for my oddities, I think you should know I have more melanin in my skin than you do.”

Dominik and Ari chuckled, though Frece didn't. The man was a nuclear physicist, one of the only published researchers of his kind. The Reich had plucked him all of the way from Sweden. If he proved useless in their little endeavor, however, his blond hair and blue eyes would not save him. The thought was sobering, and as soon as it entered his head, Dominik stopped laughing.

As a collective, they stood up and went to the glass case where their latest specimen was waiting. It was twice the size since Dominik had seen it last, folded around itself within the air-tight cage.

“It looks like it's going to break through if we don't find it a bigger home,” Ari said.

Ettore's look of curiosity returned. “We'll have to do a vacuum transfer to one of the larger cages and release the air through the vents before we burn it. The air inside this one is toxic now.”

“More of the same?” Dominik asked.

The other man nodded. “Spore count is up with the growth, as is the concentration of carbon monoxide. I found something else in my last effusiometer test as well: traces of arsine gas.”

Dominik grunted, running through his mental encyclopedia of knowledge. When everyone looked at him again, he realized he was mumbling to himself. “Sorry. There are certain types of black molds that do that.”

“Black molds?” Ari asked.

“That's right, some species of the Stachybotrys genus. It's why fungi growing in old houses smell particularly bad. It's the arsine. It's poisonous in high concentrations but just unpleasant in trace amounts. Those fungi, though... well, they're not anything like our boy, here.”

“You stick your head in there, I'd say you'd get more than something unpleasant,” Ari murmured.

The lights flickered, and they all looked up. The door to the room opened, and Doctor Kriege stepped through. It had been weeks, and Dominik still didn't know the man's first name. He knew him well enough to ascertain that Kriege wasn't a bad man, his first encounter was enough to show him that. But he followed the rules like everyone above, and that made him untrustworthy. He followed all the rules, that was, save for rules of punctuality. “Damnable electricity. The flickering keeps me awake at night. But yes, I think Mister Quintus is quite right. Our little pets are very dangerous, are they not? The spores are quite infectious. I will not be surprised if Captain Smit is not the last accident to occur during our development.” He said this casually, as if the man's life had meant nothing. “The question is, why?”

“Why what?” Ari asked.

“Why spores, Mister Quintus! They are not used for reproduction. They are instead unleashing a kind of parasite, are they not?”

The remark caused Dominik to look up. A similar thought had crossed his mind in the preceding week, but it had seemed too far-fetched. “It's a defense mechanism,” he said.

Ettore cocked his head. “If so, the particulars seem rather evolved.”

That was perhaps the greatest understatement Dominik had heard since his arrival.

“So what we're looking at,” Kriege said, “is a creature that borrows particulars from others in the same phylum. And all of these things—the ability to spread rapidly, to convert ionizing radiation into energy, the ability to produce harmful spores—all of these things are suited to protecting itself and spreading as quickly as possible. Yes?”

Another silence followed, and Dominik realized the man was right. These things, these
growths
... they were a survival machine, more suited to snub any threat, physical or environmental, than the cockroach.

“So, our solution will likely be chemical and not physical. Isn't that right, Mister Frece?” Kriege asked.

The Swede nodded, and Dominik could read the look in his eyes.
Great. Perfect. Just tell me I'm useless
.

Kriege seemed to sense this as well. “Not to worry. There are plenty of uses for you, still. This will not be the last project we develop here. You needn't worry about that. You are a good man, Doctor Frece, a good man. Very expensive to acquire, I might add.”

“What projects might those be?” Ettore asked with the usual mild curiosity.

“Oh, projects of a more physical nature.” Kriege indicated the cyclotron in the corner. “You do not believe we went to the trouble of constructing a particle accelerator for a one-time use, do you? No, there are many things we can do. Great things. They are things we must do if we are to keep up with the Americans.”

Frece looked pacified, but Dominik could read the subtext.
This will not be the last project
. He felt a knot hit his stomach, the idea of staying, the idea of watching his daughters age over the months (and years?) sickening beyond words. Would it be a surprise if Dietrich had lied about that, too? Even if the lieutenant believed he were telling the truth, it was ultimately
not up to him. It was up to the man's superiors, the ones who would profit from Dominik's results. That, at least, he didn't have to contemplate yet. They had found a thousand things which did not work at controlling their specimens, but nothing yet that did. Nothing that was practical, in any case.

Shortly after, the group broke to conduct further tests. Dominik went to the electron microscope, one of the most powerful in the world, and began looking at new chemical formulae. Ettore and Ari went to measure more of the existing specimens, while Frece, without a single complaint, handled the grunt work of emptying toxins from the central cage and burning the growth inside. Even through the glass of its cage, Dominik could hear the air whistling. Because like any evolved species, he knew it was quite averse to being burned alive.

To Lieutenant Harald Dietrich:

I have just received an inquiry from Private Gantte concerning a prisoner transfer from last year. It is with regret I must inform you that no such transfer ever took place. There is no record of a Magdelena Kaminski reaching our camp before the holidays. Our present structure makes it difficult to track the status of individual inmates, though I believe I would remember an outsider amongst the initial Sachsenhausen group.

As I have informed your man, we will not be ready to receive new inmates until later this year, and any transfer requests would not have been approved. I'm afraid we cannot help you. However, as it is my understanding that you are indisposed in one of our great new colonies, I wish to convey holiday wishes, and I hope you have success finding your missing prisoner.

-M. Erikson

Resting his hands on the railing of the tower, Harald forced himself to look towards the sea to calm himself. He had begun to come up here more and more often, volunteering to serve guard duty in short shifts. It wasn't duty fit for a lieutenant, but no one objected, including Richter. Perhaps the man sensed its purpose. Dietrich liked being alone, he liked looking out over the sea. Usually it soothed him, but not today. This new document was the third ill-fated letter he had read in as many weeks. Three letters in three weeks, three pieces of ill news. It was a bad omen. The first was the note from Mieke who, incidentally, he had not heard from since. The second was a notice from the party informing him his stay was to be extended as long as Richter deemed necessary. And here was the third, telling him Kaminski's wife was now missing.

He read the letter again.

For some reason, he began to dwell on that last turn of phrase:
I hope you have success finding your missing prisoner
. Why had the warden phrased it such?
Your missing prisoner
. Harald had given a direct order that Magdelena be taken to Neuengamme. If Private Gantte had been unable or unwilling to fulfill that order, Harald had no way of knowing and no way of disciplining him. He was quite confident that if he were back on the mainland, it would take no time at all to track her down, but... he wasn't on the mainland.