Z-Volution (2 page)

“What do we know about this GlobalSkyTech? The private company the U.N. contracted to take care of this site?” The question came from a junior analyst next to Veronica.

“Not much,” Veronica responded. “I’ve been trying for weeks to get information on them, but all I’ve come up with is that it’s a private shell company that’s been involved in various international water drilling missions and salvage operations. Connections appear to be strong at the higher levels of the U.N.”

She wanted to add more, wanted to pull up the flow chart that hung on her office wall, the threads tracing all the connections from this shell company to known DeKirk contractors, associates and business partners. Not to mention the one glaring and uncomfortable connection that it all led back to the current General Assembly Speaker of the U.N. However, Nesmith had made it clear:
stick to the facts
. Stick to what we could actually see. Satellite imagery didn’t lie, and this…this unexplained and suspicious amount of activity down at the South Pole, where nothing lived or should be of this much consequence, was certainly unfurling some red flags.

Veronica shut off the projector after the video ran out. “Again,” she said, silencing the muttering and shared whispers around the room, “this was taken yesterday. Since then, we have had no eyes on the situation. No idea if those tankers have been filled and, if so, with what. No idea if they’ve left, and for where, but we need to know. We need that authorization. We need birds in the sky, fish in the sea, we need that surveillance detail, and I would suggest…”

Nesmith cut her off before she could say it by raising his hand.

She couldn’t resist though, and continued anyway. “The Arleigh-Burke class destroyer
USS Montana
is off the coast of Brazil. It’s the nearest presence we have, and I only mention—”

“Thank you, Agent Winters.” Nesmith motioned her to the door, then took her spot at the head of the table. “I’ll call a meeting to review in short order and we’ll discuss next steps. Again, thank you all for your time.”

Veronica glanced around the room, eyes settling on agent Harris, who stared at her cell phone, clearly eager for that meeting to be called. Then, nodding, Veronica headed for the door.

My part’s done. The rest, God help us, is in their hands.

2.

Lake Vostok research site

For Glenn Taggart, who held the inglorious title of Chief Research Consultant for GlobalSkyTech, the past three months had been the longest of his life, and yet when he looked back on that life, he couldn’t recall anything approaching the significance of what he had accomplished here.

He stood on the railing in the cold and bitter winds, braving the sub-zero temps and the icy air for just a few more minutes, watching the operation he had overseen close up shop. He smiled as the last cargo crates were loaded and the ice trucks roared away down straight roads toward the port and the last of the container ships, waiting for its precious cargo.

From the vantage point where his predecessor, Marcus Ramirez, once oversaw the raising of the first perfectly preserved dinosaur in history, Taggart smiled and let the cold do its worst.

This is history, this is evolution.

DeKirk had hand-chosen Taggart for this mission, entrusting him with the most vital of operations, and Taggart had risen to the occasion. He imagined himself no less than a demi-god at this point, a modern Prometheus defying the gods and their plans for humanity, digging up that which most would say should never be unearthed. Preparing to give a gift every bit as powerful as fire to the unsuspecting—but deserving—masses.

He smiled one last time before he worried his lips would lose all feeling. He had to go back inside and give the final status report to DeKirk, but just wanted one last fond gaze. Down in the pit, the excavation leading a mile below the surface, to that gloriously mysterious lake, its waters nurtured by eons of pressure and geological processes. A natural womb for the microscopic prions that drifted mindlessly in its nutrient bath, waiting…waiting for birth into the new world. Waiting for new hosts…

…and keeping a few cherished old hosts for the journey.

Finally giving in to a shiver, Taggart watched the departing trucks and could just make out the glittering lights from the bay, where the largest of the ships undocked and made its way out, carrying something straight out of a nightmare. Something that rivaled anything even Ramirez had found.

Taggart had dug deeper. He had figured, where there was one anomalous find, why not more? He explored the surrounding areas. The cliffs, the caverns and the lake’s deepest fathoms. Taggart had sent out drones and expeditions, and they found all they needed and then some.

This area had been far richer than anyone had expected. In complete defiance of a century of theories from scientists and expert paleontologists— professionals who should have had more faith—Antarctica had proven to hold its own treasure trove of specimens, as if during the last extinction the creatures had come heeding some call, some primordial instinct. Perhaps, as DeKirk had theorized, the microscopic prions that had infected the specimens had driven their instinctual tendencies, urging them south like migrating butterflies until they had converged on this spot, the most likely place to afford protection amidst the drastically changing climate system. The one place they could literally disappear and yet remain frozen, waiting for a future thaw…

Waiting for their reign to come again.

Time for that status call,
Taggart thought, reluctantly.
Can’t keep the boss waiting.

Besides, he was eager to warm up, take a much needed drink, and start the next phase of his mission, where he hoped to be right there by DeKirk’s side, leading the world through the next great extinction and evolution.

It had already begun, and there was no stopping it now.

#

DeKirk’s image filled the entire screen, and as always, Taggart found himself noting the subtle changes from when he had first met the billionaire. Certainly, William DeKirk had always been an imposing figure. Despite his age (late sixties?), the man had that weathered look that inspired followers. A leader who had been battle-hardened. Silver hair that was more lustrous than frail, chiseled features and a jaw line that accentuated his feral countenance. Only now, the skin was tighter, sharpened and with a sheen of almost metallic tint. His eyes—formerly like jade Aztec stones plucked from a lost temple—had crossed the spectrum into a sun-like yellow, with slitted pupils, like a selfsame snake god from those very jungle-enshrouded temples.

“Sir, I’m pleased to say that at this time, all our birds have flown the coop. As of now, Operation Vostok-Z can be officially closed. I await your further instructions on departure, and…”

“You’re going to have company very soon,” DeKirk said. He wasn’t smiling, which unnerved Taggart and brought down his mood.

He was warming up at least. The cognac he had just sipped was doing its part in conjunction with the heat in his office, the office where Dr. Ramirez had made his discoveries and where his son Alex had first brought the astounding news that the
T. rex
(or
Z. rex
as they had taken to calling it now), was more than just a preserved corpse. So much more.

“Sir?” Taggart checked his monitors, the radar and the long-range scanners set to surveil islands miles away, which had served as early warning points that fortunately—due to DeKirk’s connections on the political scene—had been unnecessary. “I don’t see anything yet.”

“In a few minutes you will. There’s also an American naval destroyer breaking formation with intent to head to your location.”

“We’ll be long gone by then,” Taggart said. Although he wondered to himself, did that mean the cover was blown? Were the political roadblocks broken and was their mission more in jeopardy that he thought?

“True,” DeKirk said in almost an offhand, musing fashion. His voice sounded deeper, throaty and rumbling in a way Taggart hadn’t fully noticed before. He shuddered again even as the heat flooded through his veins. Shuddered thinking of what he knew DeKirk had done—the monumental personal risk he had taken. Some thought it arrogance that went far beyond hubris, while others felt it was foolhardy and suicidal, but Taggart knew better. DeKirk never took a risk, in business, pleasure or science, without first being assured that the outcome skewed in his favor. After all, one didn’t become a billionaire by being averse to risk-taking.

By the look of things, he had more than succeeded. Normally, the prions infected the brain foremost, and all the resulting ancillary biological improvements such as speed, longevity, invulnerability and immense strength came at the cost of destruction of various mental functions including memory, decision-making, logic and self-preservation.

DeKirk, however, had found a way to use the prions to get the best of both worlds.

Hopefully
, Taggart thought with a tingling sensation that had nothing to do with the cold,
he’s going to share that with me as a reward for this exemplary service.
I could use an edge like that. Who couldn’t?

Yet, there was that nagging thought: he couldn’t help but feel a little like Renfield, expecting Dracula to keep his promise.

Nothing to fear,
Taggart assured himself. The mission was a success and there was no one else who had proven himself as reliable and downright essential. He tried to smile. “So if the destroyer won’t make it in time, what is this other threat?”

“Not so much a threat,” DeKirk said, “as a…well, before we get to that, what else do you have to report?” DeKirk backed up and folded his arms over his chest.

As always, Taggart tried with some subtlety to look behind DeKirk at his surroundings in an attempt to glean visual clues that would serve as some hint of his whereabouts. It was the biggest secret, and the only one DeKirk truly kept under wraps. Taggart understood: no one could know where he was, and it had always been that way. He was too valuable and had made too many enemies. This communications feed was routed through so many Internet hubs and shielded locations that not even the best hackers could untangle the threads and trace him back to his actual position.

Taggart cleared his throat. “We went over schedule, as you know, by just a few days, but that was due to the problematic extraction of the subject found in cave six-three-one.”

That brought a smile to DeKirk’s lips, and Taggart felt a lump in his throat as he glimpsed those teeth: razor-sharp piercers, row upon row, and a serpentine tongue caressing a double set of incisors.
He did that to himself!

“Ah yes, my
dreadnought
. I’m expecting grand things from that one. You confirmed the state of its preservation?”

“Yes, even better than we hoped.”

Taggart sat and tapped some keys, calling up specs and diagram. Multiple dinosaur species flashed on the screens: pterodactyls with enormous wingspans, smaller crylopholosaurs, several tyrannosaurs, a shark-like creature and a larger marine animal with a face like a trilobite, a triceratops and then…something much larger than the
T.rex
, a little longer in the neck, but its head more gargantuan, its tail wider and legs meatier. Bio-statistics scrolled down the side of the screen: vitals and prion concentrations.

“It’s in great condition,” Taggart reiterated. “Aboard the last cargo ship along with a cache of pteros and…” he read the manifest, “…twenty seven of our human volunteers.”

He smiled at that term, but it was a smile born of months working with the specimens. He recalled the hours upon hours spent in the windowless room they called simply, ‘The Arena.’ A vault-like chamber where the human volunteers were transformed—injected and then set free. Experiments ensued, carefully tracking their stats and their transformation process, studying them with implanted biosensors. Everything from hypothalamus activity and brain waves to endorphin production and stomach acid levels after feeding. Strength, speed, reaction to various stimuli and food sources, and most importantly—how fast they could overcome and transform another host.

The need for food—pure hunger—was the primary driver of their behavior, but at the same time, there was restraint. Consume, yes, but leave enough behind to provide another host for the prions. The ultimate, and fastest, method of reproduction.

Of course, the most interesting tests happened during the last month. The experiments that proved DeKirk’s latest and most advanced theory: that a sufficient instinctual drive influenced the ultimate behavior of the infected. A biological imperative, akin mostly to migration patterns in birds. Not a hive mind, but there was definitely something there, an organizational matrix, that DeKirk realized could be manipulated. Taggart didn’t profess to understand that part, it wasn’t his specialty, but he knew the tests he ran at DeKirk’s behest had to do with magnetism and electrical impulses, and much the same way as birds are influenced by the changing tides and the earth’s magnetic field, so could these prions be manipulated.

Controlled.

It worked, in small groups at first, and then en masse.

The effort initially centered on humans, controlling their behavior at basic levels, alternating between blocking and stimulating hunger. Gradually, the aims of the work grew more sophisticated. Directing multiple subjects to converge on one location, or to work together to achieve an objective such as climbing over an obstacle.

It worked perfectly on the humans.

Then, after significant trial and error, but ultimately in triumph—with the dinosaur zombies as well.

Taggart recalled the taste of the vintage cognac he had opened after the first time they had essentially remote controlled
a pterodactyl to fly a prescribed course as if they were playing with a radio-controlled model airplane. He was now about to finish that same bottle in final celebration.

“We have achieved the impossible, sir.” Taggart raised a glass to DeKirk, hoping he would get acknowledgment back in kind.
And more,
he thought, admiring those teeth again, imagining the power he had been witnessing all this time transferred to him, coursing through his own veins.

DeKirk grinned. “We have indeed. And celebration will come soon enough, but for now, we still have work to do. Everything to date has only been Phase One. We are not at the finish line yet, and we must ensure our secret isn’t revealed before its time.”

Taggart put down his glass, regretfully untouched. “I understand.” He needed to get back into this discussion, eager to join in the next phase and eventually find his place by DeKirk’s side. “So what about Phase Two? Patient Zero?”

DeKirk almost let out a laugh of joy. “Ah, my favorite part! Nothing like mixing a little revenge in with our efforts. Patient Zero is at our offshore location, and she is doing perfectly well. Almost ready for transfer back to where she needs to be to unleash our surprise where it will hit them the hardest.”

Taggart nodded. “And Phase Three? Can I assume I will be there…with you to direct operations and track our precious cargo?”

“Our cargo,” DeKirk said, leaning in again, giving away nothing, “will get to its respective destinations in due time, after events play out on the political and military stages as I’ve foreseen.”

His eyes flashed and lost focus, as if envisioning a far off battlefield, or a war map stacked with friendly and enemy markers, poised for global domination.

“Now, back to that visitor you’re about to have.”

Taggart perked up. He was about to ask if it was his personal escort—a fast transport to get him out of this frozen wasteland and back to the world he would soon inherit, but then his radar systems signaled an event.