The Andromeda Evolution Read online

  Odhiambo smiled at James Stone and finished his thought. “Indicating an alien intelligence. And thus we have come to our conclusion. We have no evidence that Andromeda has proliferated throughout our solar system. No sample-return mission has ever tested positive for the microparticle, correct?”

  In the reconstructed video, acquired from the canary drones as they milled around the small clearing, Nidhi Vedala can be seen watching Peng Wu closely at this moment. Peng’s face is carefully blank, and as Odhiambo finishes his thoughts, she turns to face the jungle.

  “Not that I’ve seen,” said Stone.

  Peng Wu is seen taking a breath as if to speak . . . but the former taikonaut lets it out without saying anything. Her silence in this moment was surely spurred by conflicting desires—her duty to her team on one hand, versus her duty to maintain the secrets of her homeland on the other. With every word tantamount to a chess move, her decision to take no action here would prove a costly blunder.

  And an unnecessary one.

  In the grand scheme of things, all human beings are part of the same family, regardless of origin.* The divisions we have built between ourselves along the lines of race and geography are illusions. If our species is ultimately able to see past these biases, it will be our shared genetic stamp of humanness that will outlive the cultural contrivances that distract us in our day-to-day lives.

  And yet even in the face of a species-wide threat, loyalty to nationality won out in this moment. Peng Wu said nothing.

  “Then I do not see how Kline’s hypothesis could be true,” continued Odhiambo. “If the microparticle exists only in our atmosphere, it must have evolved naturally from a terrestrial source or arrived randomly from the cosmos. If so, the Messenger Theory does not apply, and there can be no malevolent intent. Based on the information we have, we are dealing with a very dangerous specimen, but one that does not have a will of its own.”

  There was no disagreement from the scientists, though Sergeant Brink grumbled unhappily and pushed off his tree.

  “We have a rendezvous to keep,” confirmed Vedala. “Let’s get on with it. Everyone?”

  Standing in the silent jungle, the members of the group regarded one another without speaking—an assured conviction settling over them. It was Brink who broke the silence, the whine of his machete slicing off a branch as he wordlessly turned and forged ahead. The oil-slick gleam of the inhibitor spray lent a surreal shimmer to his brawny arms as he marched away among soaring tree trunks.

  “Come on,” called Brink, the dense jungle muffling his words. “We’ve wasted too much daylight already.”

  Second Camp

  OVER THE REST OF THE SECOND DAY’S MARCH, THE Wildfire field team followed their expert Matis guides past the corpse perimeter and deeper into the thirty-mile circular quarantine zone around the anomaly. They were glad to leave behind the smell of death, and the unsettling remains of the fallen monkeys. Under the canopy of pristine rain forest, the team must have felt vulnerable, effectively invisible to satellite imagery or surveillance aircraft, and cut off from radio contact.

  Rendezvous was at noon the next day—in eighteen hours—and the team was on schedule.

  Their progress had been aided by the canary drones employed by Dr. Stone, which were primarily engaged in topographical exploration and environmental toxin screening in an area a few hundred yards ahead of the group. However, because the canaries were so employed, very little video footage exists of the interpersonal interactions that occurred during this portion of the journey.

  Instead, the events of the afternoon have been reconstructed through postevent interviews with survivors, the logbook of Dr. Stone, and a cache of information inadvertently collected by the sensor array of the PhantomEye drone.

  Approximately twelve miles from destination, the group continued following Sergeant Brink as he cut a brisk, winding path across river tributaries and around rugged hillsides—moving as fast as possible, given the harsh terrain and constant obstacles. As the team marched single file in the footsteps of their advance scouts, the jungle floor was stamped by many feet, deteriorating from a barely cleared trail littered with foliage to a red mud slick that had the scientists occasionally scrambling along on all fours.

  The brutal pace was intentional; Brink could sense that the group (including his team of Matis frontiersmen) had been spooked by the strange events of the day. The sergeant felt that physical exertion would help abate the growing fear and distract the group from ruminating on negative possible outcomes. It was a good instinct, and an approach commonly and successfully employed among soldiers.

  Moving quickly had the added bonus of reducing the number of questions voiced by the breathless scientists. In particular, Brink seemed irritated by the persistent comments of James Stone.

  In a partial video segment captured by a far-off canary, Stone could be seen pulling Brink aside at the top of a small ridge. From a distance, the two had an emphatic exchange, bordering on an argument. It appeared the men nearly came to blows on the ridge, before Stone stomped away angrily.

  As shadows began to grow in the high canopy, the air seemed to shimmer with waves of dusky sunlight, filtering through endless leaves and vines. Reaching an area of high ground, Brink turned to the Matis and declared the day’s march over.

  “Ten-mile perimeter,” he said. “We stay here tonight. Be at the destination by noon tomorrow.”

  The nervous guides immediately set about hacking at the jungle, establishing the night’s camp with quiet urgency. Within minutes, however, they discovered that the clearing was infested with tracuá—a local breed of small, voracious carpenter ants who are known to vigorously defend their territory. A familiar nuisance to the Matis, the ants were pervasive in many parts of the forest. Their bites felt like wasp stings, and they were quite capable of traversing cordage to invade hanging hammocks. The insects began to emerge in the gloom, slowly at first, but in rapidly growing numbers.

  Dr. Vedala exhibited immediate skepticism regarding the camp selection, noting that there was still at least an hour of fading daylight remaining in which to choose another site. Her concerns were summarily ignored by Sergeant Brink, who considered the ants a trifling annoyance. The dismissive interaction further added to the tension and fear enveloping the team.

  As the canary drones returned from scouting and converged on the campsite, their video feeds revealed lines of worry and tension on the faces of every field team member, save one.

  James Stone was working intently.

  The roboticist had unpacked his PhantomEye drone again, extended the four rotors, and switched in a fresh battery. Within minutes he had sent the humming black drone up into the jungle, letting it pick its way forward through stripes of shadow and light. Accelerating through tangled vines and tree limbs, the AI-enabled drone employed a high-fidelity laser rangefinder to avoid obstacles and accelerate to fully autonomous speeds of up to fifty miles per hour.

  At that rate, it should have been able to scout their destination within twelve minutes.

  Swatting at biting ants, trying to ignore the wild hacking of the Matis’s machetes and the grumbling complaints of his fellow scientists, Stone studied the monitor hanging from his neck. The image showed a real-time, gyro-stabilized video feed of the drone’s progress. In the last glow of daylight, Stone was hoping to catch an actual glimpse of the mysterious anomaly.

  Nine minutes into its journey (still two miles from its destination) the PhantomEye reported a gyroscopic exception and dropped out of radio contact. Stone’s frantic efforts to reconnect with his precious robot were unsuccessful, and the entire hundred-thousand-dollar unit was lost.

  It would never be recovered.

  Cursing and typing, Stone found he had been left with only a data log of the drone’s final moments. A quick forensic analysis determined that the PhantomEye had lost stability as it was crossing a stream. It had flipped violently and likely splashed into the water.

  Noticing Stone’s dis
tress, Harold Odhiambo made his way over.

  The Kenyan was worried, having noted that although the Matis guides were finished clearing the camp, they had now moved on to cutting large branches, sharpening them, and placing the jagged stakes along the camp perimeter. Indeed, it appeared to Odhiambo that the Matis were preparing for war.

  “A collision?” asked Odhiambo, squatting beside Stone.

  “Possible, but not likely,” said Stone, his face illuminated by the glow of the monitor. “It was over a river—the only real clear place around. And it was navigating the jungle fine up until then. Look.”

  Stone moved through each frame of the saved video feed. In the final second, the image shuddered violently. After that, the screen devolved into a blur as rotor stabilization failed and the drone began to spin.

  “The failure comes out of nowhere. Like it was hit by something,” mused Stone.

  “A bird strike?” asked Odhiambo.

  “Could be,” said Stone, continuing to advance frame by frame through the swirl of river and jungle. The image on the monitor was nonsensical at this point, just a meaningless smear of color.

  Stone shook his head in disgust.

  “Wait,” urged Odhiambo. “Stop there.”

  Puzzled, Stone stopped the frame.

  “Go backward, please,” asked the Kenyan. “Again.”

  As Stone moved back a single frame, he saw it, too—a reddish oval hidden among the trees. Peng and Vedala had silently joined them. Now the entire field team watched as Stone zoomed in on the red blur.

  “It looks like a face,” he said, confused. “But something is wrong with it. Could it be an optical illusion?”

  Though pixelated in its enlarged form, the face—if that’s truly what it was—seemed distorted. The features were almost demonic, eyes burning black and bright. The skin was reddish, as if coated in blood.

  “This is most certainly what destroyed your drone,” said Odhiambo.

  “What’s out there?” asked Stone, eyes lifting beyond the bright, fresh-cut tips of wooden stakes ringing the perimeter. Peng and Vedala stood a bit closer, the four of them small in the darkening woods.

  “It is not a question of what,” added Odhiambo, lines of worry creasing his forehead as his watery eyes searched the depths of the jungle. “But who.”

  IN CERTAIN DREAMS, we have all experienced an uncanny distortion of the passage of time; experiences in which precious seconds telescope toward infinity, usually in the face of impending catastrophe. Having suffered from such a recurring vision since childhood, James Stone described the next hour as a living version of his worst nightmares. A sense of foreboding had fallen over the jungle and pervaded everything the scientists did with a sense of déjà vu.

  Recovered canary video footage effectively conveys the languid atmosphere that fell over the “golden hour”—a period closer to forty-five minutes and occurring just before dusk—of the second day’s march. As the simmering crest of the sun descended ten degrees past the horizon, a suffusion of indirect light imbued every leaf, vine, and flying insect with a radiance that seemed to come from within.

  In this golden aura of shifting shadows and faint glimmerings, a feeling of helplessness had settled over the field team. As the light began to fade, their eyes grew wider, trained on the shadowed folds of jungle.

  The stillness was shattered by a shrill whistle.

  In the newly created clearing, a Matis stood before a thick round tree trunk, holding an unstrung hammock in his hands. His hat cocked back on his head, the man was thoughtfully chewing a bundle of coca leaves, the small lump bulging from his cheek like a tumor. He stared up into the last light with hollow black eyes. Following his gaze, the scientists saw their first Amazonian rubber tree.

  A long, wet-looking film of white sap, like candle wax, rolled down the rough, spotted bark.

  Colloquially known as “the trees that bleed,” this species had instigated one of the darkest periods of Brazilian history. The Amazon rubber boom, beginning in the late 1800s, brought voracious swarms of prospectors and rubber barons deep into the virgin jungle. Tens of thousands of indigenous people were enslaved, threatened with death, and forced to tap the trees to collect the leaking sap. It was the first, but not the last, systemized plundering of the Amazon by outside colonizers.

  The Matis spit the wad of coca leaves to the ground. He spoke quickly to Brink without looking away from the tree. In the fading light, the bamboo shoots embedded in his nostrils gave him an unearthly presence.

  “What do you mean, the tree is not supposed to look like that?” said Brink quietly, brushing an ant off his forearm as he turned to the group. “It’s just a rubber tree. It’s supposed to bleed.”

  The frontiersman reached out to point and stopped. Vedala had clamped a hand over his wrist. She slowly pulled his arm down, her eyes locked on the surface of the tree.

  “No,” cautioned Vedala. “Don’t touch.”

  Halfway up the trunk, the weeping sap darkened to a metallic gray. The surface was flecked with luminous green spots. Around the edges, the chitinous coating traced its expansion in six-sided ridges.

  As Vedala watched, the scabby layer flattened out, spreading an inch in all directions. A creaking groan came from inside the tree, followed by an ominous splintering sound.

  Vedala immediately moved back. Sergeant Brink stood watching with his mouth partly open, a forgotten toothpick dangling from his lip.

  The lead scientist spoke to the group, her eyes hard and bright. “Everyone,” said Vedala. “This is a live infection site. We can’t stay here tonight. Get ready to move on.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  The group turned to Brink, who stood breathing hard, his sudden anger masking a rising fear. Dusk would soon give way to night. The evening birds had begun their lonely evening calls.

  “I am dead serious,” replied Vedala, scowling at the Matis as they ignored her and watched Brink for orders. Several were looking warily out into the jungle, murmuring to each other in low tones. Brink paused, put a hand to his forehead, and then lowered it.

  “I can’t believe this,” he muttered. Then he nodded to Vedala. “All right. Quickly.”

  The Matis porters began to move, collecting baggage and preparing to leave.

  Stone hastily checked the toxin detectors on his canary drones, finding nothing. Nonetheless, he pulled the respirator from his pocket and slid it over his mouth and nose, feeling the familiar heat of his breath washing over his cheeks.

  “It is a rubber tree,” said Odhiambo. “Latex. It makes perfect sense that Andromeda would settle here. My guess is we are looking at AS-2, or some variant. A cousin of the microparticle that consumed the seals of the original Wildfire laboratory.”

  “If it only eats rubber, then it’s not a threat,” insisted Brink weakly.

  “Ah, but it evolves,” said Odhiambo, his voice almost melancholy. “We are indeed witnessing an Andromeda evolution. And it is impossible to properly gauge the amount of danger we are in.”

  “Harold is right,” said Vedala.

  Brink slid a headlamp across his forehead and illuminated it. Unsheathing his machete, he motioned the lead scouts forward before stomping off after them. He could be heard muttering as he left, “This is without a doubt the stupidest, most foolhardy expedition I have ever been involved with.”

  The hulking soldier disappeared into the foliage, swatting angrily with his machete.

  Peng marched past the others, following close behind Brink. Her black eyes shone over the dark blue mask of a respirator. She barely spared a glance at the infection spreading across the deformed tree trunk. Since the conversation with Kline, she had been even quieter than usual—searching for the right moves in what was becoming an unwinnable game.

  Stone watched her go.

  It struck him that nobody had taken so much as a sample. They were too far in, it was too late in the day, and they had already seen too much. This jungle had been sickened, i
nfected by something, and the disease was clearly coming from the inexplicable anomaly approximately ten miles away.

  Up ahead, Stone could hear Brink speaking quietly to a guide.

  “Dark soon,” said the Matis.

  “I know,” replied Brink. “We cover as much ground as we can. Make camp on the very next ridge. Damn these eggheads.”

  And with that, the team marched onward into the night. They left behind a short-lived camp hacked out of the raw jungle, along with its swarms of biting ants and the long, sharpened poles that surrounded it. This last-minute decision to move on, and the subsequent necessity of setting up camp in the dark, with fewer defenses, would prove to be pivotal.

  It was a choice that meant not all of the team would survive the night.

  Day 3

  Anomaly

  I believe in the future.

  —MICHAEL CRICHTON

  Night Ambush

  A PORTABLE INFRASOUND DETECTOR CARRIED BY HAROLD Odhiambo registered gunfire forty-nine minutes before the dawn of the team’s third day in the Amazon, coinciding with the darkest point of the night. With the already faint light of the stars and moon hidden behind a ceiling of thick jungle canopy, the floor of the Amazon jungle would have been ink black.

  Eduardo Brink and his men had established the new camp hastily and in the dark the night before. They were in an unfamiliar location, exhausted, and they could see next to nothing. In short, the field team was utterly unprepared to defend themselves from a coordinated onslaught.

  The strike came without warning.

  The handful of attackers were experts at navigating the jungle. Forensic evidence later collected from the scene indicated that their eyesight had been enhanced by exposure to the juice of the sananga root.* In this way, the assailants were able to maneuver confidently by the first, almost unnoticeable glimmer of dawn.

  The following events unfolded in just under eleven minutes.