Luca (8 page)

“Be patient, ladies.” Fuse wipes the blade on her shirt, making sure Jedd can see it. “The question is, where to start.”

“In the middle!”

With only his eyeballs able to move, Jedd follows Fuse’s gaze down.

“Let’s save the best for last.” Fuse reaches and lifts Jedd’s limp arm high enough for him to see. The tip of the blade drops half a centimeter into the flesh near his wrist and draws a red line to his elbow.

No pain. No sensation at all.

Jedd stares at the knife. All along its cutting surface, the blade is a gray blur.

Catching his glance, Fuse brings the knife close to his eyes. “I can tell you’ve never seen a nano-vibronic edge. Cuts through steel like it’s wax. Meat is a joy to carve. But don’t worry. We’ll keep pumping you full of Numb-All. You won’t feel a thing until there’s nothing left but bone.” She looks over at Joey. “And then we’ll do the kid.”

Jedd’s heard the stories about what the Tribe eats but never believed them. Now he does.

He screams for Ricky, but the only sound that comes out is a dry exhale.

The blade drops down, out of sight.

Jaxes go off everywhere, glowing, ringing, vibrating, shouting in a babel of tones.

A woman in front of Jedd whips her jax out. A green hologram jumps above it. “Kilroy’s Boys on their way. They don’t like us in their territory. We have two minutes to leave before they come take us down.” A tremble runs through the crowd. Eyes focus on jaxes. They all seem to have the same message. “Wait!” the woman says. “Look at this. A new shipment of bioweave fresh from the genlabs in Undertown just hit the Fringe. High quality synthetics. They’re giving away free ab grafts at Sharkies to the first hundred takers!”

All eyes focus on Fuse.

She turns a cold stare on little Joey. “You have two hours to come up with the 2,000 IMUs. Don’t try to run. We’ll find you. And next time we won't use the Numb-All.” She lifts her head and sweeps her gaze around the ring. “To Sharkies!”

The Tribe marches off, leaving Jedd and Joey standing face to face. They stare at each other with open mouths. Jedd teeters, then collapses to the ground.

“How’d that happen?” Joey wipes his eyes. “I thought they were going to kill you. Then me.”

Jedd moves his lips but can’t talk.

There’s a shuffle in the shadow of a half-open door a few meters away. “They were.” Ricky steps out into the dim light holding a glowing jax in his hand. “If I hadn’t gotten here in time to hack their jaxes, you’d both be stains on the pavement right now. Brains win over brawn. Every time.”

Five minutes later, Jedd sits up on the pavement. His whole body itches with burning fire as the Numb-All wears off.

“Nasty cut.” Ricky runs his finger with yellow ointment down the red line on Jedd’s arm. “Figured we might need this for Joey. That she-monster had a nano-knife. Nasty weapon. Could have lopped your arm off with the flick of a wrist. Good thing this wasn’t deep. Should heal in no time.”

Slowly pushing himself up to a standing position, Jedd reaches out to squeeze Joey’s shoulder. “You took it, didn’t you?”

“Took what?” Then he pulls a green vial out of a pocket on the inside of his torn shirt. “This?”

“C’mon kid.” Jedd slips the vial out of Joey’s fingers and ruffles his hair. “Haven’t I taught you better? You got a lot to learn if you want to live to see twenty. Lesson number one: never steal from the Tribe. Lesson number two: if you do steal, don’t lie about it. Lesson number three: if you do lie about it, have an exit strategy that doesn’t require your friends to die. The ladies won’t be so kind next time.”

“Give me back the vial.”

“Not a chance.” Jedd tosses the green tube over Joey’s head to Ricky. “This is going straight back to the Tribe. Through one of our connections. And you’re going straight back to Ms. Murphy’s place. Where you belong.”

“Ah, c’mon, Jedd.” Joey rolls his eyes. “You know I hate Murf. She won’t let me do nothing.”

“Let’s get out of here.” Ricky walks to an open alley. “The ladies won’t be happy when they find out Sharkies is fresh out of bioweave.” He lowers his voice. “Returning the vial might not be enough.”

“I’ll handle it,” Jedd says.

Ricky shakes his head. “What if they know where we live?”

“Like I said.” Jedd drapes his arm around Joey. “Let’s get the kid back to Murphy’s. I’ll handle the rest.”

8

LAST UNIVERSAL COMMON ANCESTOR

I have her now.

Mercer watches as Qaara stares at the black mass resting on his palm, the tiny jewel sitting in the open compartment in its side.

A palpable interest is evident in her beautiful eyes.

“What just happened? How did that little jewel come out of the rock?” Her hands slip out of her pockets. She stares into Mercer’s face.

“Good.” Mercer pinches the green jewel between his thumb and index finger. “Do I have your attention?”

“Full and undivided.”

“I know what you’re thinking. You think this is all a trick. How could this rock and the green jewel—advanced technology—be found imbedded in a layer of 3.5 billion-year-old rock?”

Qaara nods. “It
had
crossed my mind.”

“To answer your question, I’ve upgraded your security clearance.” Mercer tosses Qaara a clear memory cube. “Feel free to access the files under the LUCA Project for some background reading.”

“LUCA?”

“It’s all documented in the files.” Mercer turns his hand and lets the rock slide onto a nearby table. “It describes our efforts to analyze this artifact, discover its composition and open it. For now, you’ll have to take what I’m saying on faith.”

“I’m not used to working on
faith
.” Qaara leans back against the window. "But the story is fascinating. Is there more?”

So much more,
Mercer thinks.

He caresses the green jewel with his fingers. “For now, what I have is bits and pieces of a story that’s difficult to believe, even for me. I need you to fill in the blanks.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“For starters, we’ve analyzed the orbit of the Cloud.”

“The one that’s taken over the Mesh and has the whole world thinking the end times have come?” Qaara pulls out her jax and scans the news headlines. "The president tried a little too hard to sound confident in her public announcement today. That’s enough to worry anyone. But what does the Cloud have to do with this rock of yours?”

“Everything, actually. A select inner circle here at Genesis has known about the Cloud for years. For obvious reasons, we’ve kept it secret. Our internal experts charted its long orbital trajectory through the Milky Way and found something interesting. Any guesses on how much time has elapsed since the last time Earth passed through the Cloud?”

“I’m no astrophysicist. How could I possibly—” Qaara stops and smiles. “You’re kidding. Could it be 3.5 billion years? The same as the age of the rock layer where you found this jewel?”

Mercer nods. “Give or take a couple million years. A rather strange coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”

“OK.” Qaara stands up. “You’ve got my
complete
attention now. For real. What are you trying to tell me?”

“I think you better sit down. What I’m about to say is for your ears only.” Mercer glances over his shoulder. “I can’t emphasize that enough. The men outside the door are here to help me impress upon your mind the importance of keeping this discussion, and that memory cube, absolutely confidential. If you ever—”

“Mr. Mercer.” Qaara pulls up a chair. “I get it. And I am duly impressed with your storm troopers outside the door, so if that was your intent, you've succeeded. All of this will be kept strictly under the radar, as they say. That’s my job. Now please tell me the rest of the story. I’m dying to hear it.”

Mercer’s eyebrows rise. The last time he was spoken to in such an abrupt and direct manner was by his father, just before he died.

He finds it refreshing, especially coming from Qaara.

“OK,” Mercer says. “Where shall I start?”

“You called this the LUCA Project,” Qaara says. “What a strange sounding word. What does it mean?”

“Last Universal Common Ancestor.” Mercer crosses his legs and leans back. “The most recent organism from which all living things are descended. A basic hypothesis in evolutionary biology.”

Qaara nods, letting her eyes wander the room. “And what does that have to do with our 3.5 billion-year-old rock, this green jewel or the Cloud that will soon overtake Earth?”

“It all runs together.” Mercer’s face relaxes into a slight frown. Now is the hard part. Making her believe. “You’re going to find this all exceptionally hard to swallow, so brace yourself.”

“Ready.”

Mercer draws in a deep breath. He brings the green jewel to eye level and examines it like a jeweler assaying a diamond. “This artifact was produced by a civilization as technologically advanced as ours, perhaps more.”

“3.5 billion years ago?”

“Yes.”

“On Earth?”

“Yes.”

Qaara shakes her head. “It’s not possible.”

Her curt answer triggers an internal flash of rage, but Mercer pushes it back. It’s too early to risk losing Qaara. “Allow me to explain.” Mercer fingers the green jewel. "After much trial and error, we finally figured out what this is. Any guesses?”

“An ancient earring?”

“Not even close. It’s an information storage device, much like our memory cubes.”

“So, you’ve been able to read it?”

“In small part, yes.”

“What did you find?” Qaara leans forward in her chair, eyes focused on the green jewel. “If this really is from some past civilization, it's incredible. Utterly astonishing. It would overthrow all our theories about the origin of—”

Mercer holds up his hand. “We found massive amounts of data, written in a language we couldn’t decipher.”

“But why can’t you just—”

“Allow me to finish.” Mercer feels the anger boiling to the surface at Qaara’s verbal impatience but manages to push it back down again. "It isn’t for lack of trying. The data is so massive, so densely packed, we’ve had three Xunil Clusters churning through it for the last two years. Professor Ye from the Beijing Institution, the world's expert on deep encryption, was directing the work.”

“But didn’t he have a falling out with Genesis Corporation? And die on Everest last month? Something about a severed climbing rope.”

Mercer’s eyes narrow. “A tragic accident. But that’s beside the point.”

“What
is
the point?”

He’s tempted to tell her how the otherwise quiet Professor Ye had indeed decrypted most of the data on the little green chip and found it so disturbing that he was about to flout Mercer’s orders and publish his findings on the Mesh, a move that Mercer could not and would not tolerate.

It’s something Mercer noticed years ago. The utter improbability of the little green jewel has a way of driving people to desperate measures. And Mercer is desperate to keep it secret.

And now it’s affecting Qaara.

She’s acting out of character, her quiet and submissive attitude strangely missing, as if her curiosity has taken over and pushed back her fear of Mercer. He isn’t amused, but her intellect, not to mention her genetic inheritance, could be essential to the success of Project LUCA, so he ignores her lack of respect.

“Six months ago,” Mercers says, “we stumbled onto a section of the dataset on the green jewel that stood apart from the rest. It had so many repeating patterns that we were able to decipher it. To our surprise, it turned out to be a DNA sequence. Molecular machinery for producing an enzyme or a protein.”

“The LUCA?”

“You’re getting ahead of me.” Mercer feels the sting of the bright light in his eyes. He moves his jaw, throwing a subtle switch that causes the glacier glasses to turn to dark mirrors again. Running fingers through his hair, he pulls a few stray strands away from his head. He notices he’s sweating. And his hands are trembling.

“Is everything all right, Mr. Mercer? Can I get you something?”

Her show of condescending concern is infuriating. The truth is, for all the bravado, he’s nervous. Revealing the information about the Cloud and the green jewel to Qaara has its risks. If she leaks it to the world, all his work and effort, all his plans, will be for nothing.

He’ll kill her before he allows that to happen. Like the others.

“I’m fine.” He breathes deeply and finds his center. “With the technology we have, we were able to synthesize the DNA strand, at least part of it. And then the strangest thing happened.”

Qaara sits in silence, eyes focused on Mercer, waiting, lips barely parted.

Staring into Qaara’s pupils, Mercer can’t help but be drawn in by her boundless curiosity. Perhaps this is a woman he could accept as an equal, one that would love him back as he deserves. Perhaps he could tell her things he’s never told anyone else. Make a life together.

Create a new world together.

When it’s time to start Project LUCA.

“What happened?” Qaara’s hands rise, palms up. “What did you discover when you synthesized the DNA sequence you got from the data in the green jewel?” She points at Mercer’s hand.

“It broke the machine.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean
it broke the machine
. After hours of doing nothing, the DNA sequence did something totally unexpected. It produced a substance, a molecule, that ate through everything it touched. Dissolved it. Turned it all to soup. Titanium-plated equipment turned to mush. We couldn't stop it. We barely had time to analyze the molecular structure before it ate through our sensors, through the outer wall of the containment vessel, through the floor and through meters of bedrock below. Luckily, it finally stopped.”

“So that’s when you called me?” Qaara nods her head. “To figure out what this killer molecule is? How it works?”

“Exactly.”

“But you also said something about . . . what was it? LUCA? Last Universal Common Ancestor. What’s that got to do with this puzzle?”

“Good. You’re listening. This is where it gets interesting.” Mercer leans forward, elbows on knees. “We analyzed what was left of the molecular substance after it turned everything it touched into soup. It wasn’t just any kind of soup. Call it primordial soup. Something started forming in it after a few hours. Something
alive
. A basic cellular organism."