The Eden Project: Humanity's Last Chance Read online

  Nothing at first and then the boy nodded.

  Doctor Quarna looked to Doctor Becker who watched him intently.

  “Is Doctor Hossler still alive?” Doctor Quarna kept his eyes on Doctor Becker while he waited for this answer.

  The boy shook his head slowly. Doctor Quarna closed his eyes saddened. At the viewing window, Doctor Becker’s head dropped, devastated.

  “Did he have a young boy with him?”

  Again, the boy shook his head.

  Doctor Quarna walked away from the boy, trying to control his emotions. He had hoped in secret that Doc Hossler would make it to his grandson. In the lab, Pappas and Naseer joined Doctor Becker at the window. All three with heavy hearts.

  Losing his patience, Doctor Quarna spun back, approached the boy and raised his voice. “Do you know anything about that boat? Did it follow you here?”

  The boy knew nothing. He did not respond this time.

  “Useless,” the doctor grumbled to himself.

  The boy watched Doctor Quarna’s frustration curiously. He began to wiggle until the white sheet slid just off his hand. He lifted a single finger away from his balled-up fist. The doctor noticed the finger.

  “I don’t understand.”

  The boy continued to point. Doctor Quarna peered into his eyes.

  Outside the chamber Doctor Becker left the window to walk back to the intercom. “He’s pointing at his trumpet.” Her voice rang out in the holding chamber and the boy turned his head everywhere at once trying to find the source of the beautiful sound.

  Doctor Quarna walked over and grabbed the trumpet. He showed it across the room to the boy, but the boy shook his head.

  “Okay. Not the trumpet,” Doctor Quarna said, ready to give up. He turned back to set the trumpet down, which he did, right next to the small disc.

  The doctor’s eyes widened. He reached out and picked up the disc.

  * * *

  TUNA FLIPPED THROUGH black screens trying to find one to his liking. His research informed him that the last satellite to go up was almost twenty years ago before the infected ran free in the streets, when civilization seemed yet to have the upper hand.

  He saw a flicker and quickly manipulated the signal. He smiled. Two hours of work and months of hypothesizing had finally paid off. Most of his smile was due to another factor. The image was of a hazy coastline.

  “The sun is to the west, it’s darker to the east. Good.” Night was falling on this coastline. He checked the latitude and longitude and liked what he read. “We can work with this.”

  He continued trying to access the satellite’s control system which was an arduous task unto itself with multiple layers of security prompts between him and the ability to fully utilize the satellite.

  “Tuna, where’s my SAR mapping?” Claudia asked through his scrollpad. “Did you see it? There’s a ship out there. If you can do it, we need it yesterday.”

  How did he not see it? A big ship. Not the DJ’s ship. He had turned all the detection grids off so he could wander through an endless list of ancient satellite locations.

  “Yeah. Got it. Yesterday. Almost there.”

  What else could he say? He had not even started and once again his unsanctioned activities may have put the Project in jeopardy. “It’s night anyway,” he whispered to himself. “Satellite’s no good until morning.”

  “Repeat,” Claudia commanded into his scrollpad. Perfect. He had his finger on the speak button the whole time.

  “Nothing. Ran into some road blocks. I’ll find a way around.”

  “Copy.” Claudia signed off.

  Tuna grunted from frustration and attacked his console with a vengeance. One. Two. Three. Four. The grids were up. He saw the green line sliding over the mark on the western grid, then heard that condemning bleep sound.

  This is how the world ends, he thought. My bad.

  -22-

  All the screens in control had gone black. Night had fallen all around the dome as it sat alone in the great wide sea. Claudia kept a watchful eye on the grids tapping out notes on her console.

  The doctors, all four of them, rushed through her door.

  “Play this. We think it came from Hoss.” Doctor Quarna handed the small disc over to Claudia.

  “Trumpet had it with him,” Doctor Becker said.

  Claudia nodded and examined the disc. “Yeah, I know these discs. They’re from the communications hub within the cabin of all our boats.”

  “Trumpet?” Doctor Quarna asked.

  “We gave the boy that name when you were tranquilized,” Claudia said as she slid the disc into her console.

  The disc began immediately. An arm blocked the view as it adjusted the camera angle. When the arm dropped away you could suddenly see Doctor Hossler’s face. The cabin was dark around him but his face was decently lit by the screen he must have been facing.

  Doctor Becker gasped at the sight of him. Hoss had thinned. He sweated profusely. His lips were dry and cracked. His eyes were the dead giveaway, already sunken, already gone pale. His pupils had already reduced to the size of pinholes.

  “Yes, there you are, my friends,” he began, “This is your old card partner Clive checking in from my trip abroad.” He tried to smile, but instead coughed blood into a towel.

  Doctor Naseer put his hand on Doctor Becker’s shoulder for comfort as they watched their old friend at his withered end.

  “I am sending you a parting gift. A found thing that could change my otherwise fruitless journey into a Promethean triumph.”

  He moved to the side and pulled the boy they called Trumpet into the frame. Trumpet attempted to smile, but managed no more than a furrowing of his brow.

  Doctor Hossler returned to the frame. “A real barrel of laughs, that one.” He grabbed for his towel and coughed again. “My time is at an end. I will relieve myself of this world long before you see this.” He stared deeply into the lens with a haunting intensity. “The boy is special. This has nothing to do with his skills in battle or the fact he does not speak.”

  The infected doctor turned to look off screen. He was most likely considering Trumpet again for a long, contemplative moment. Claudia and the four doctors glanced to each other waiting for old Hoss to speak.

  “I made it to the shelter,” he said, deep in memory. “It had been gutted and nothing but piles of bones remained. Those bones, they were picked clean.” His pale eyes became vacant. “I wandered the ravaged hills and towns, hoping against hope. When I ran out of food, I didn’t eat for days, but then I didn’t care. I ate berries. I ate grass. I even found a can of sardines. Tasted like god’s own feast.”

  He chuckled to himself and blood colored his lower lip. “So one day I walked down through a shopping district and turned a corner and found a whole gaggle of those limpers. There was no outrunning them. Not at my age. Not in that condition. So I gave them a wave and marched on down to give them hell for killing my grandson.”

  He pulled Trumpet back into the frame. “That’s when this one popped out of a shadow with a long knife in one hand and a pipe on a chain in the other.” He let go of Trumpet who shyly pulled back out of the frame. “All those years thinking of the ugliness of death and now I’m watching death as beautiful as a rainbow. The little guy cut through them rabid, full-sized humans in a whirl of flashing metal.”

  He coughed into his towel again and regarded his own blood. “Six dropped and another six ran.” He stared again into the lens. “I tell you all this, because he’s not house broke, but he has a good soul if you’re careful with him. You need to know that about him in case you get off on the wrong foot. Okay, Doc Quarna? Give the boy a chance.”

  Claudia turned around to Doctor Quarna and let him see her smile.

  “That’s all just necessary preamble to the shocker. Sit down, Naseer. You have a history of getting light-headed.” He paused for a moment as if giving Doctor Naseer time to sit down.

  Doctor Quarna pushed Naseer down into the chair next to
Claudia.

  The infected doctor continued, “The boy has been bitten, scratched, stabbed with filthy blades and worse, he eats anything he finds all over the streets and alleyways.” He smiled at the camera waiting for the big finish. “His whole life he has lived like this. This boy here is immune to the C1 virus.”

  He broke out in a sudden fit of coughing. The boy stepped in to try to hold him up. Blood saturated his chin. Bent over, he peered up to the camera with a sinister glare. “Test him, send him up to the stars with the kids or keep him with you after the ships leave. Somewhere in him, could be our second chance.”

  Doctor Hossler’s arm reached up and turned off the camera.

  * * *

  CASSIE HAD CALLED the meeting to clear the air. They had enough going on. The last thing they needed was a teenage love drama. The entirety of the Project protocol was created to eliminate just that.

  “What is she doing here?” Sylvia asked, staring bitterly at Gen.

  Gen sat on one side of Cassie’s room. Sylvia and Maya sat on the other side. Cassie sat between them in the role of mediator.

  “Sylvia, Gen is your friend,” Cassie reminded. “Zeke is just responding to his own worst fears. It’s a stressful time what with the boy outside the dome and Doctor Quarna’s injuries.”

  Sylvia sat brooding. Maya comforted her. For her part, Maya joined Sylvia in eyeing Gen like boyfriend stealing trash. Even worse than that. Adam was Sylvia’s intended. It’s the protocol. It’s the survival of the species and she was supposed to be their friend.

  “Listen, Sylvia. What Zeke implied the other day. That wasn’t true.” Gen said the words, but her phrasing came out awkward, unconvincing.

  Sylvia huffed and folded her arms. Maya scowled at Gen.

  “What’s your problem, Maya?” Gen said, scowling back at Maya.

  “I don’t have a problem,” Maya pronounced. “I know who my man is and I treat him right.”

  “I’m sure you do,” Gen said, pointedly. She folded her arms now and looked to the side.

  Maya’s eyes opened wide and she glanced to Cassie and Sylvia in shock before glaring back at Gen. “You just messed with the wrong girl.”

  A bad feeling arose in Gen’s chest. It was the look on Maya’s face, the confident expression of someone who knew something. “I didn’t mean,” Gen began, but Maya talked right over the rest.

  “Ozzie and I saw them just before last night’s dinner,” Maya said, devastating Sylvia and Gen and shocking Cassie. Maya immediately regretted saying it.

  “Saw them what?” Cassie asked, growing angry.

  Maya had fallen into this one. She would rather have not answered, but the damning eyes of both Cassie and Sylvia gave her no choice. “It was Gen with Adam in the trees.”

  “Doing what?” Cassie demanded.

  “You know,” Maya began, weakly, “they were lip-locked.”

  Horror swept across Sylvia’s face forcing tears to fall from her sad eyes. She could not even look at Gen. She could only bury her head in her hands and sob. Maya and Cassie tried to comfort Sylvia.

  Gen’s body turned suddenly rigid. Her lungs turned to ice. It was as if she had died. She had no choice but to leave Cassie’s room.

  * * *

  THE ORIGINAL EIGHT had been called for the briefing, but only six were seated in the chamber. Tuna and Gen were absent. Adam sat alone in the back row and Lexi had been called to join them and was seated not with the girls but with Zeke and Ozzie.

  On the doctors’ side of the glass all four doctors were seated. The kids saw Doctor Quarna’s facial injuries for the first time. He was seated near the glass. Normally, they thought, he would be standing and walking about, commanding the room. He appeared meek, huddled and bruised in his chair waiting impatiently for the last kid to arrive.

  When Gen stepped into the chamber and sat alone in the back row, Doctor Quarna tried to stand, but a shot of pain sent him right back down into his chair.

  “Thank you all for coming in the middle of the night. Lexi is here representing Eden Sphere 2 engineering and command,” Doctor Quarna started. “Tuna will not be able to attend. He’s working under Claudia’s advisement on a special task vital to the Project.” He stopped to consider the mood of the kids and was confused by the odd seating disbursement. “Gen and Adam, what the hell are you doing back there? Move up to the front.”

  The kids were stunned by Doctor Quarna’s impatience and his choice of words. It was unprecedented and disturbing. Gen and Adam both moved forward to the front row and sat as far as possible from Zeke and Sylvia. No one there was happy to see them.

  Doctor Becker watched the body language of the kids in relation to each other. The rift between them was readily apparent, but right now of minor importance.

  “You are the command officers of your ships,” Doctor Quarna said with his head down, but he said it with urgency. He lifted his head with a soldierly seriousness. “You are in command of 117 live souls. We are going to need you to rise to the challenge. You need to control and calm yourselves and each of your crew members in the days ahead.”

  The kids heard the word crew members and they saw something completely new on the faces of the doctors on the other side of the glass.

  Doctor Quarna waved back to his colleagues behind him. Doctor Naseer stood and walked to the glass. “Thank you, Doctor Quarna,” Naseer said. “We will begin pre-launch protocol immediately.”

  The kids gasped, leaned forward and glanced to each other having been rocked by those words. Pre-launch protocol. They were not scheduled to begin pre-launch protocol for five months and the launch was still nearly six months away. They were not expecting this. It had never crossed their minds. They were not ready. Even with weeks of pre-launch ahead they were not and would not be ready.

  “Twenty days is not enough time,” Zeke pleaded. “Most of the backup flight personnel are still failing their simulations.”

  “We have a filtration system down in nearly a third of ES4,” Ozzie added. “I have a two-week overhaul happening. I can’t pull engineering off that.”

  “The suits,” Sylvia said vacantly. “We have thirty more spacesuits to test, alter and fit down to the size of the little ones.”

  “Enough!” Adam barked. “We have twenty days. We can find workarounds in that time. We’ll make do.” The room silenced. Adam became as harsh and commanding as Doctor Quarna. “Why are we going into pre-launch?”

  Doctor Quarna eyed the strong-willed boy measuring favorably his ability to lead. “It’s a precaution. We need to put it in motion just in case. And we are trimming the protocol to eight days.”

  The kids were thunderstruck by this new number. They could not even rage against it. Adam sat back unable to respond.

  “It may turn out to be nothing,” Doctor Naseer added with an unconvincing smile. “Maybe just a helpful drill.”

  “But we will not treat it like a drill,” Doctor Quarna clarified. “And no matter what scenario unfolds, you must proceed with a level head and breezy confidence.” He rose and limped toward the door. “The doctors will outline the accelerated protocol.”

  He left the room, leaving the other doctors and kids in various states of stunned. They were anything but breezy and confident.

  -23-Doctor Becker found Doctor Quarna standing behind Claudia in the control room. The mark on the western grid had moved closer.

  “It’s moving slowly,” Claudia said glancing back to Doctor Becker. “Only twenty miles since yesterday, but in our direction.”

  Doctor Becker nodded, less concerned than she should have been. She was preoccupied. “Nathan, can I talk with you a moment?”

  They stepped out into the corridor. Doctor Quarna leaned back against the wall for support. Doctor Becker considered many ways to begin. None of them seemed to be the right way.

  “It’s not his fault the place he came from.”

  Doctor Quarna chuckled from sheer frustration. “You’re talking about the boy?” His disappoi
ntment was total. “Of course you are.”

  She felt boxed in by his total dismissal and could not readily respond. He rolled his eyes and pushed himself off the wall to return to control. She watched him go, then changed her mind and chased after him, grabbing his arm roughly. He grimaced as much from frustration as the pain in his ribs.

  She walked around him to face him. “You know it’s true. Hoss came to the same conclusion. The boy’s immune.”

  He exhaled, fought off the desire to scream and tried to step around her. She quickly cut off his path.

  “Why did you talk to the boy without a suit?” She put her hand on his shoulder, tenderly. Every time she touched him lately, it pained him.

  He took her hand in his, held it comfortably for a moment. “Lotte, we are no longer what we could have been. It would be better if you did not touch me.”

  It was clear they would have been more than colleagues and almost were recently, immediately preceding her betrayal with Doctor Hossler and then her forced isolation.

  “He could be put into an air tight chamber on one of the ships. Tuna’s ship like Doc Hossler suggested.”

  “This is really just becoming sad.” He eyed her with a complete lack of trust and respect. “It was not enough you sent out a human boomerang into that world to bring back potential annihilation onto us all, but now you want to take the advice of one of the infected.”

  “Remember what Doctor Wescott observed? It can make you smarter too in certain stages of it.” She was grabbing at straws, which never worked really, especially with a man like Doctor Quarna.

  How had a voice he once found seductive become the last voice in the world he wanted to hear? “Lotte, we are not in the people saving business. We are in the species saving business. We can talk about the boy only after the 117 have safely left our atmosphere.”

  Doctor Becker let him escape past her. She stood there without direction, doubting her own judgment, trusting his, and devastated for the small boy they called Trumpet.

  * * *

  THE CHATTER AND BUZZ that usually accompanied morning in the dome had been reduced to a tomblike attention to pre-launch work tasks. The traffic up and down the starship ramps was heavier than it had ever been.