The 6th Extinction (34 page)

With great care, Kendall stepped from the steel stairs to ancient sandstone. He retreated from the edge of the road, away from that yawning precipice. On the far side spread a series of raised beds, about ten yards deep. They rode up against the cliffs, merging with the thick cascade of green growth that draped the walls. Narrow walkways crisscrossed those plantings. It all could be easily mistaken for some organic vegetable garden, but Kendall suspected what grew here was something far more insidious and anything but organic.

He noted a string of long-legged ants, each the size of his thumb, parading along the edge of one box.

“
Paraponera clavata
,” Cutter named them. “Commonly known as bullet ants. Those little buggers got their nickname because their bite is considered one of the worst stings. The very top of the Schmidt sting pain index. Victims compare it to getting shot, and the pain can last for up to twenty-four hours.”

Kendall took a step back.

“I was able to double their venom load.”

Kendall glanced harshly at Cutter.

“A bite from one of these will leave you paralyzed and in excruciating pain. One of my workers accidentally got stung. He broke his back molars from the grinding pain. But that’s not all. Come a little closer.”

No thank you
.

Kendall stayed rooted in place.

Cutter picked up a broken piece of a branch. “Bullet ants—like all ants—are ground-locked members of the Hymenoptera order, which includes bees and wasps.”

He poked a reddish-black straggler, which responded by flaring out small membranous wings, all but invisible before. It flew a few inches away, then landed amid its stinging brethren, stirring them up.

“It was easy to return their wings to them,” Cutter said. “Just a matter of splicing in genes from a tarantula hawk wasp. Especially as the two species share the same genetic heritage.”

“You created a
chimera
,” Kendall finally choked out. “A genetic hybrid.”

“Precisely. I haven’t been able to give them full flight yet, so far just those little buzzing bursts like you saw, but hopefully with time and environmental pressure, nature will do the rest, getting them flying as readily as their waspish cousins.”

“How?” Kendall sputtered for a moment. “How did you accomplish this?”

“It was not all that difficult. You know as well as I that the technology is currently available. It was just a matter of having the will and resources to do it, free of oversight and regulation. You already saw my lab is equipped with multiple stations that use the latest CRISPR-Cas9 technique. A process I’ve refined further, by the way.”

That was chilling news. CRISPR-Cas9 could already engineer any part of a genome with such precision that it had been likened to editing individual letters in an encyclopedia without creating a single spelling error.

“And you’re certainly familiar with the MAGE and CAGE processes developed by George Church.”

Kendall felt the blood drain into his legs. Like CRISPR, those two new techniques—multiplex automated genome engineering and conjugative assembly genome engineering—were sometimes referred to as evolution machines. These two gene-editing technologies were indeed just that, capable of automating thousands of genetic changes at the same time. They could introduce millions of years of evolution within minutes.

MAGE and CAGE held the promise to alter synthetic biology forever, taking it to new heights—
but where would those heights take us?

He stared in horror at the row of large ants.

Cutter twiddled the small twig in his hand, seemingly disappointed by Kendall’s reaction. “I read in a piece you wrote last year that you advocate using MAGE and CAGE as tools for resurrecting lost species.”

He was right. These new gene-editing technologies held great promise. Researchers could take the intact genome of a living animal—then start making edits and alterations to the DNA, slowing converting it to the genome of a related species that had gone extinct.

“Start with an elephant and you might be able to resurrect a woolly mammoth out of its genes,” Kendall mumbled aloud.

Not only was it theoretically possible, a Russian had gone so far as to create an experimental preserve in Siberia—called Pleistocene Park—where he hoped to allow these soon-to-be-created woolly mammoths to roam free.

“
De-extinction
was the word you used in the article,” Cutter said with disdain. “It’s such a sad distraction. To use such promising technology for this narrow preservationist agenda. All you’re doing is choking nature’s ability to respond to the damage wrought by humankind.”

“And this is your answer?” Kendall mocked, waving to the line of marching black ants.

“Only a small part of a larger picture. Where you and your colleagues dwell in the past, looking to de-extinction for salvation, I turn to the future, to prepare for what’s to come with a plan for
rewilding
.”

“Rewilding?”

“To reintroduce keystone species—animals and plants that have the most impact on the environment.”

“Like your ants.”

“I’ve engineered my creations—all my creations—to be stronger, with the necessary tools to survive us. Along with newer innovations.”

Cutter took his twig and encouraged one of the ants to climb atop its tip. Before it could clamber up and bite him, he flicked it into a neighboring planter box. The ant landed on a wide leaf of a bromeliad and scrambled along its length. Thin wings vibrated in irritation.

Then from a pore in the leaf, a glistening bubble erupted, enveloping the ant in a thick gelatinous sap. The squirming insect fought, but in seconds its legs dissolved away, followed shortly thereafter by the rest of its body. After that, the jelly bubble quickly liquefied, trickling down the inside of the leaf to feed the root ball at the base.

“Here I engineered in a sequence of genes from the carnivorous sundew,” Cutter explained. “Including intensifying its digestive enzymes.”

Kendall’s stomach churned as he turned to stare at the dark garden spread below. “How many others?”

“Hundreds of species. But they’re just the first wave. I also took the step to genetically bind each alteration to sequences of DNA retrotransposons.”

Kendall began to fathom what Cutter intended. Retrotransposons were also called jumping genes, named for their ability to leap between species in a process called horizontal gene transfer. Geneticists had come to believe these jumping genes were potent engines of evolution, passing traits across species lines. Recent studies of cattle DNA showed that a full quarter of their genome came from a species of horned viper, proving that Mother Nature had been shuffling genes for millennia, creating hybridized species since the dawn of time.

But it was no longer just nature.

“This is how you plan to speed up evolution,” Kendall realized aloud. “You intend to use these traits tied to jumping genes to spread what you’ve created far and wide.”

“Each species will be like a seed cast to the wind. One hybrid will lead to two, two to four. In all that shuffling, can you imagine what new species will arise? What new combinations will appear? All of them fighting to survive in this damaged world we created.”

Kendall pictured a great conflagration spreading through the rain forest and across the world.

If Cutter could accomplish so much already, why does he need my engineered armor shell? What does he plan to put inside it?

There had to be another step to this madman’s scheme.

“A new Eden beckons,” Cutter continued, his voice exultant. “We are at the threshold of a new world. A genesis so dramatic we could witness it in our lifetime. I want to share that with you. Will you help me achieve it?”

Kendall faced the raw passion standing before him and did the only thing he could. He had to survive long enough to stop the man.

“Yes . . . I’ll help you.”

8:44
A
.
M
.

“We have to go after her,” Drake said, stomping back through the carnage left in the wake of the firefight, followed by his two teammates.

Painter knelt over one of the survivors, a young waitress. He had a towel pressed to her side, stanching the blood from a round through the lower abdomen. His own shoulder burned from the bullet that had torn a chunk from the back of his arm. Earlier, Malcolm had quickly bandaged it from a med-kit in his backpack.

The three Marines had already swept the streets behind the establishment, but there was no sign of Jenna.

Painter understood the frustration he heard in Drake’s voice.

In the distance, sirens descended toward this location. They would lose even more time dealing with local authorities.

A groan sounded from behind the counter.

So somebody finally decided to wake up
.

Painter waved Schmitt to take his place. “Get a pressure wrap on this woman.”

As the Marine obeyed, he crossed to the source of the noise. A figure lifted his head from the floor. His hands were tied behind his back. Blood soaked the mask that hid his features. It was the gunman who Jenna had cold-cocked during the fight. In their hurry, Jenna’s kidnappers must have believed he was dead, especially from all of the blood.

Painter stepped over and ripped away the mask, earning a satisfying cry of pain. More blood poured from his shattered nose. His eyes were already nearly swollen shut.

“Take him,” Painter ordered Drake.

The sirens were louder now.

He saw that Schmitt had finished securing a tight wrap around the waitress’s belly. She should survive.

“Let’s go,” Painter said and waved everyone out.

Drake and Malcolm headed for the back door, the groggy gunman slung between them. Their SUV waited in the rear alley. It had been moved there by the Marines to facilitate a swift evacuation.

Drake manhandled their prisoner into the backseat. “What if this bastard doesn’t talk?”

Painter used a knuckle to wipe up a drop of the man’s blood from the car seat. “Maybe he won’t have to. But we’ll need help.”

21

April 30, 6:02
A
.
M
. PDT
Sierra Nevada Mountains, California

Hang in there, Josh . . .

Lisa sat on an uncomfortable stool in the patient containment unit. She held her brother’s hand, wishing she could shed her gloves and truly touch him. Though he was right here, she felt a gulf between them. And it wasn’t just the barrier of the polyethylene suit that separated them. The medically induced coma had stolen Josh from her: his raspy laugh, his ready joke, his blushing bashfulness in the presence of a pretty girl, his studious frown when hanging on a rope from a cliff face.

All gone.

Josh had been placed on a respirator a few minutes ago as his condition deteriorated. Each inhalation was too sharp, too regular. Off to the side, monitors clicked, hummed, and gently beeped. That was all that was left of her brother’s energetic and full life.

The radio inside her suit buzzed, drawing her back straighter. She girded herself for more bad news. Then a familiar and welcome voice filled her head. She squeezed Josh’s hand harder, as if trying to urge her brother to keep fighting, that Painter would save him.

“Lisa,” Painter said, “how are you holding up?”

How do you think I’m doing?

Tears suddenly sprang to her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She had no way to wipe them away. She swallowed a few times to hide them from her voice.

“It . . . it’s not good out here,” she said, struggling to hold it together. “Every hour things get worse. I don’t know if you heard, but Lindahl has ordered a nuclear device to be shipped to the mountains. It’s en route and should arrive by this afternoon.”

“And there’s no way to deter him?”

“No. At daybreak, a whole team of surveyors mapped the contaminated areas—or at least those areas actively showing die-offs. It’s worse than the overnight reports indicated. The organism is still spreading, approaching what Lindahl calls critical mass, the point where even a nuclear option might not work. Nuclear scientists are still doing calculations of load and the radiation levels necessary to achieve the highest level of lethality.”

Lisa put as much urgency into her voice as she could muster in her exhausted state. “We need answers to stop this nuclear juggernaut. Or at least, some hope of a solution.”

She stared at Josh’s face, at his waxen complexion.

Please
.

“We may have a good lead,” Painter admitted, though he sounded hesitant, plainly worried. He gave her a fast update of his situation in Brazil.

Lisa found herself standing by the end of his story. “Someone kidnapped Jenna . . .”

She let go of Josh’s hand and turned toward the complex of BSL4 labs across the hangar. Nikko was doing no better than Josh. The dog was on a plasma and platelet drip, growing moribund with every passing hour. In fact, the poor husky would already be dead if not for the herculean efforts of Dr. Edmund Dent. The virologist was using every medical tool in his arsenal to support Nikko and Josh. And while Edmund hadn’t been able to reduce the viral load in his patients, his palliative treatments seemed to slow the progression of clinical signs.

Painter offered one glimmer of hope. “We’re on our way to a facility in Boa Vista run by the Federal University of Roraima and tied to the Genographic Project. For years, they’ve been gathering genetic information from all the various indigenous Brazilian tribes, using autosomal markers to calculate migration patterns and subgroups of the various tribes. They’ve put together an extensive database. With a blood sample from the man we apprehended, we might be able to find out what tribe he belongs to.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Remember those photos Jenna took of the assailants who attacked her at the ghost town near Mono Lake?”

“I remember.”